The tunnel closed in around Isabelle, and she was walking through a deafening nightmare. Everything went black before her eyes; something collapsed inside her chest. In a few seconds the madness would take her. She stopped in the middle of the tunnel and let go of the buggy. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
She had gone only a short distance when the screaming behind her stopped. She carried on walking, faster now. With every step her body felt lighter, and by the time she left the tunnel she had regained her normal weight and was able to straighten her back. She drifted out onto Birger Jarlsgatan feeling as if she were drunk on laughing gas and turned right, heading for Stureplan.
Tomas, the doorman at Spy Bar, nodded to her and let her in. The two of them went way back. Isabelle floated into the club. Within a couple of minutes she was sitting at the bar with a treble Scotch. She knocked it back and ordered another.
Someone chatted to her and she chatted to this someone. Then she chatted to someone else. She gazed out across the room, looking for the guy who would have the privilege of taking her home with him tonight. There would probably be a better selection later, in the VIP room, but whether she would be allowed in there depended on who was in charge. Tomas would get her in if the worst came to the worst.
A final wave of euphoria swept over her; she wanted to spread her arms wide, to laugh, to dance. However, the way she was currently expected to behave was embedded in her very bones, so she merely glanced idly around, even though happiness was bubbling away inside her. It was a wonderful evening.
Reality began to catch up with her only when she had finished and paid for the second Scotch. It crept up behind her as she leaned on the bar, ran its cold, damp fingers down her spine, whispered in her ear. Almost an hour had passed since she left her daughter alone in the tunnel.
What have I done?
Isabelle got unsteadily to her feet. Dark shapes were circling in the dim light. She could hear terrible laughter, saw white teeth flashing in distorted smiles. The bodies around her exuded suppressed fear, greed, perversion.
She staggered out of the bar and was nearly hit by a cab; the driver sounded his horn angrily as she ran across the road, heading for the tunnel. Her brain trailed behind her, attached by only a thin thread. Molly would still be sitting where she had been left, Isabelle told herself, refusing to acknowledge how much time had passed. She had let go of the buggy’s handle, but now she would seize it again and go home, forget that this had happened.
The thin thread almost snapped when she reached the tunnel and found it locked and in darkness. She pulled at the door, called out Molly’s name, cupped her hands around her eyes so that she could peer into the impenetrable gloom. The light from the street reached the first ten metres or so, and then there was nothing but a black wall. She banged on the thick glass with her fists, then slid to the ground.
Isabelle? Isabelle? ISABELLE! Think!
They would never turn out the lights and lock up without checking whether there was anyone inside the tunnel. Someone must have spotted Molly, taken her to…the police. Yes, the police. She was with the police.
The police…
What was she going to say? Perhaps what she had done was an actual crime. She could end up in prison. Molly would be taken away from her. That couldn’t happen. The story would leak out, spread everywhere. Her social circle’s capacity for gossip was inexhaustible. Everyone would find out, and they would all turn their backs on her.
She’s the one who left her little girl…as cold as ice…absolutely terrible…always knew there was something wrong…
Isabelle forced herself to stand up and looked at the notice next to the doors. The tunnel was open between seven o’clock in the morning and ten o’clock at night. Therefore it must have been locked just a few minutes after she walked away, and whoever had locked up must have found Molly.
‘Someone has taken her.’
She said it out loud, and it sounded good. She said it again.
‘Someone has taken her. I only…I saw someone I knew just inside the cinema. I left her by the door for no more than ten seconds. When I came out, she’d gone.’
Isabelle went back out onto Birger Jarlsgatan and paced back and forth for five minutes, polishing her story. When she was happy with the details, she called the emergency number. She was shuttled between different units and stations until she had bitten the nail on her left index finger down so far that bare flesh was exposed, and it was bleeding. She was finding it difficult to breathe, and just wanted to lie down in the street and go to sleep.
It was now almost eleven-thirty, and Molly was not at any police station.
‘But she must be somewhere!’ Isabelle yelled down the phone. She was now speaking to the duty officer at Norrmalm police HQ, and was asked to stay where she was. A patrol car was on its way, and she would be asked to provide a description and a more detailed account of what had happened. Perhaps she could…
Isabelle ended the call. The noose was tightening; she was sinking deeper and deeper. She felt sick and wanted to throw up. To get away from the crowds on Birger Jarlsgatan, she went back to Tunnelgatan and leaned against a railing as she stared at the bloody tunnel.
Molly was standing inside the doors with her hands pressed against the glass, looking out at her.
Isabelle managed to stop herself from retching and ran to the entrance, dropped to her knees and placed her hands against Molly’s.
‘Molly? Sweetheart? I’m so sorry. They’ll be here soon. Very soon. Mummy will be there soon. I’m so sorry. I’ll stay here until they come…’
Molly looked her in the eye without moving a muscle. There was nothing in her eyes, no joy, no sadness, no anger. Then she took her hands off the glass, turned around and toddled back into the tunnel.
‘Molly! Molly!’
Isabelle banged the palms of her hands against the impenetrable barrier. Molly’s pale jacket was swallowed up by the darkness and she was gone again. Isabelle carried on hammering on the glass and calling out her name until two police officers arrived and helped her to her feet.
Ten minutes later the tunnel was open and Molly, who had settled down in her buggy, was brought out into the light.
It was lucky that Isabelle had caught sight of Molly behind the doors, otherwise her story would have been less than credible. How could she have known that her daughter was in the tunnel?
Someone usually checked the tunnel before locking up, and the lights were normally left on. A series of unfortunate incidents involving a temporary employee and a fuse box had coincided with the even more unfortunate fact that Isabelle’s child had been abducted and left in the tunnel on that particular evening. Taken altogether, this meant that Molly had spent almost two hours alone in the darkness of the tunnel.
How had she felt, what had she thought, what had happened?
Isabelle never found out, but after that night Molly changed. Her temper tantrums stopped, and she no longer cried without reason. When Peter came home he mentioned that Molly’s behaviour had definitely taken a turn for the better.
Isabelle wasn’t so sure. While it was nice to be able to sleep at night, it wasn’t quite so nice to wake up and find Molly standing next to the bed, simply staring at her. It was liberating not to have the child whining around her legs all the time, but that was because Molly preferred to sit inside the wardrobe with the door closed, mumbling to herself.
After a year or so her demeanour and her games slowly came to resemble those of other children. And yet…There was an almost unnatural calmness about her, an air of authority that enabled her to take command of even four- and five-year-olds. Wherever Molly pointed, other children went. If Molly told them to eat dirt, they ate dirt.
*
Only five canes remain in the bundle that Emil is clutching. His father pulls up, but Emil doesn’t want to get out and push another cane into the ground. He hands the bundle to his father without saying anything. His father leans down.
‘
What’s the matter, chicken? You’re so quiet.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to do this one?’
‘Sure.’
Emil has no intention of pushing in any more canes; in fact he has no intention of getting out of the car until they are back at the campsite. Perhaps he isn’t safe in the car either, but it doesn’t feel quite so bad.
And when they get back to the campsite? What is he going to do then?
By this stage Mummy is bound to have found out what he and Molly did to the gas feed. Emil isn’t sure exactly how bad it is, or exactly what it means, but he thinks his mum is going to be cross. That was why he wanted to go with his dad, who is now getting out of the car with a cane in his hand.
Molly cut the hose from her caravan, then told Emil to do the same with his. He had to do as she said, even though he knew it was wrong. He doesn’t understand it, and he doesn’t like thinking about it.
Emil picks up the binoculars from the back seat and carefully loops the strap around his neck before bringing them up to his eyes. This is a very expensive pair of binoculars. Daddy has said that it’s the only really expensive thing he owns, so Emil takes extra care. Breaking the binoculars on top of everything else would be a total disaster.
He looks through the windscreen, adjusting the focus the way Daddy has taught him. It’s difficult, because there’s nothing to focus on.
Or is there?
Emil turns the wheel one millimetre at a time until the figure far away in the distance becomes clear.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’
His daddy looks in through the open side window. ‘What?’
Emil points towards the field, pulling off the binoculars. ‘Over there! Look!’ He passes the binoculars out with both hands; Daddy looks rather sceptical. ‘There’s an old man!’
Daddy gives a thin smile and raises the binoculars to his eyes as Emil keeps on staring in the direction of what he saw. He can’t make out anything with the naked eye, except perhaps a dot on the horizon. But he did see it. He’s absolutely certain of that.
Daddy is standing perfectly still. He has not moved his head at all, which must mean that he can see it too. Emil grips the window frame, resting his chin on his hands and waiting for an explanation.
Daddy lowers the binoculars, then does completely the wrong thing. He opens the back door and throws them onto the back seat, slams the door, gets into the driver’s seat and spins the wheel to turn the car around.
‘Did you see it?’ Emil asks. ‘What was it?’
‘I didn’t see anything. We’re going home.’
Emil’s eyes prickle with tears and he can hardly get the words out: ‘But there was someone there! You saw him too!’
Emil turns around to grab the binoculars, but Daddy grips his arm so tightly that Emil is paralysed. Daddy never usually hits him or hurts him in any way. Never.
‘Leave that,’ Daddy says. He is driving alongside the row of canes.
Emil slumps back in his seat, rubbing his arm. Daddy doesn’t even look at him, and the lump in his throat is so big that he can’t even cry. He knows that Daddy is lying. That Daddy saw the old man too.
An old man who was completely white.
Emil knows that there are dangerous things here. The white man didn’t feel dangerous, yet Daddy is behaving like this.
It is a terrible day.
*
Isabelle watches as Molly frenetically moves the felt-tip across the paper. She thinks about the sensation in her body the day she let go of the buggy. All those coincidences.
There are nights when Isabelle lies awake and thinks that they were not coincidences at all. That it was somehow preordained. She doesn’t really understand what she means by that, nor does she want to know.
Someone knocks on the door.
Isabelle is not normally keen on unexpected visitors, but this time she gets up from the table, grateful for the distraction so that she can stop thinking about things she just wants to forget.
The wife of the man with the ugly glasses is standing outside.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Oh…hi,’ Isabelle replies; her enthusiasm for the diversion has already ebbed away.
The woman peers into the caravan and nods in Molly’s direction, then lowers her voice: ‘Can you come outside for a minute?’
Isabelle steps down and closes the door behind her. The woman holds out her hand.
‘We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Carina.’
Isabelle shakes her hand. Short nails and dry, callused skin. ‘Isabelle.’
‘I was just wondering, is your gas supply working?’
‘No—why do you ask?’
‘Ours isn’t either. Have you checked to see why?’
‘My husband takes care of all that stuff.’
Carina looks at her for a fraction too long before she speaks again. Of course. This is an independent woman who does things for herself.
‘Do you mind if we check your cylinder?’
Isabelle shrugs. It’s not that she despises Carina in the way that Carina clearly despises her, it’s just that she finds the other woman beyond dull. If Carina were a film, Isabelle would already have fallen asleep.
Carina walks purposefully towards the back of the caravan, and Isabelle saunters after her, contemplating the other woman’s substantial backside and thighs. Why the hell is she wearing shorts?
The door of the gas cylinder housing is already open when Isabelle rounds the corner, and Carina gestures inside. ‘Look.’ She points to the top of the cylinder. ‘There’s supposed to be a hose here, connecting the supply to the caravan.’
‘Right. And?’
‘It’s not there.’
‘I can see that.’
Carina purses her lips, and Isabelle waits. Is there going to be a sudden outburst? Is the woman going to snap at Isabelle in an attempt to rouse her from her lethargy? It looks that way. Or will she manage to control herself? Hard to say.
Isabelle knows perfectly well how the gas works; it was one of the first things she investigated when she was left alone in the caravan for the first time. She could see that the hose was missing before Carina pointed it out, and she is now wondering whether the valve is open or not.
It seems as if Carina has decided not to say anything. Instead she turns the knob until she hears a hissing sound, then turns it off again. ‘You’ve got gas, but without the hose it’s useless.’
‘Oh,’ Isabelle says.
A light dies in Carina’s eyes. She takes a couple of steps and stands right in front of Isabelle, who is considerably taller, which means that Carina has to look up at her as she speaks. ‘You know what? I can’t cope with you right now, but I think your daughter has something to do with this. And I want my hose back.’
‘She’s been here all the time.’
‘No, she hasn’t. She was out a little while ago. With my son.’
‘In that case perhaps he was responsible for this.’
The woman’s hands are opening and closing. Is she going to slap Isabelle? That would be unexpected, and moderately interesting. Then again, perhaps not. If it does happen, should Isabelle fall to the ground, or grab the back of the woman’s head and smash her face into the wall of the caravan? Probably the former. Almost certainly.
‘My son…’ the woman says through stiff lips ‘…is not that kind of child.’
‘And you’re saying my daughter is?’
Carina shakes her head wearily. ‘Surely you could at least speak to her. Ask her.’ She catches Isabelle’s eye and her tone darkens: ‘Otherwise I’ll be back later.’
Isabelle holds her gaze calmly. Carina’s nose is so short and flat that it wouldn’t make much noise if she smashed it against the wall. On the other hand her front teeth do stick out, so they would probably provide a satisfying crunch. Isabelle tilts her head to one side and smiles.
Carina stomps off angrily towards her own caravan, but something in
the line of her back and shoulders tells Isabelle that there is a hint of fear there too.
In her peripheral vision Isabelle sees a blond head disappear from the window. Molly has been listening. Of course.
*
Benny is on full alert in his basket, watching Cat’s silhouette against the awning. Cat’s long tail sways as she casually rubs against the canvas, moving closer to the opening.
Benny’s muscles are trembling, shudders of displeasure chasing across his skin. Cat moves like water, like Snake. The shadow on the awning suggests that Cat has grown even bigger than before. Bigger than any Cat Benny has ever seen. A very dangerous Cat.
The shadow reaches the opening and Cat’s head appears. It is no bigger than before, and some of the tension leaves Benny’s body.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Cat slinks into the awning. Benny’s mistress doesn’t notice her; she is still listening to the sounds from her box. Cat’s ears are pointing straight up and her tail swishes from side to side as she takes possession of the awning, a little bit at a time.
Suddenly that’s it. Something snaps inside Benny and a reflex over which he has no control takes over. He leaps out of his basket and hurtles towards Cat as the corners of his mouth are drawn up, exposing his teeth, and a series of short, sharp barks comes from somewhere deep in his throat.
Cat jumps and almost falls over, but before Benny can get to her she has turned and shot out of the tent. She races across the campsite with Benny after her.
‘Benny! Benny!’ his mistress shouts, but Benny has eyes and ears only for Cat, who is running towards her own caravan. Benny’s nose is still sore, and he is itching to get his teeth around Cat’s neck.
Shortly before she reaches her own caravan, Cat stops dead, spins around, makes herself huge and growls, almost like Dog. Benny stops too, and barks. Cat moves towards him, and Benny backs away. Cat keeps on coming. Benny stops. Cat stops too.
They stand five metres away from one another, each equidistant from their own caravan. They threaten, Cat hisses, Benny barks. They both know the battle is over for the time being. The five metres between them constitutes a no-man’s-land, a possible target for future skirmishes. But not right now.
I Am Behind You Page 10