by Mikaela Bley
‘You don’t know that,’ he said, stopping. ‘According to the police, it was him. In any event, he threatened you — and that’s serious. You have to be on your guard, Ellen. I talked with the police, and they don’t have the resources for someone to be sitting here outside your door — or in your elevator,’ he corrected himself. ‘But they are going to drive by regularly.’
‘Why? That won’t do anything.’
‘No, but it makes me feel better.’
‘You don’t give a shit about me.’ Ellen hiccupped and pulled her feet up on the couch.
‘I care about you more than you think — and, no, it’s not as your boss. Isn’t that pretty obvious?’
‘Obvious?’
‘You have to be careful.’
She bit her lip.
‘Stop biting your lip. It’s driving me crazy,’ he said, looking away. ‘Ellen, what are you doing to me?’ He shook his head and sat down beside her on the couch. ‘Are you cold?’
‘No.’
‘But you’re shaking.’
And then Ellen noticed that her whole body was trembling.
With his warm hands, he took hold of hers. She thought about pulling back, but then she realised how nice it felt and stopped herself.
Jimmy moved closer to her. It felt as though the closer he came, the more she shook. When their legs touched, her whole body started burning.
Jimmy leaned in toward her, moving slowly and deliberately. His lips brushed against her neck and he whispered her name. Pulling back, he looked at her for a long time before kissing her tenderly on the lips.
She closed her eyes and didn’t resist.
He kissed her lightly and gently. It was just as good as she remembered.
How could she be so stupid to have walked right into the trap again? But he was impossible to resist.
‘Your mouth …’ He drew his finger carefully around the contours of her lips, breathing heavily. His hand sought the back of her neck, then pulled away her hair band, letting her hair fall down her back. The slightest little movement, the slightest touch, made her shiver.
She closed her eyes and felt her body relax. She had leaped. Again. She wanted it to never end. Never. She wanted him to undress her …
The ringtone from Ellen’s phone sliced through the air.
‘You have to answer it,’ Jimmy said, stopping abruptly.
It felt like a cold shower.
She opened her eyes, and immediately felt the room spin.
Jimmy reached for the phone on the table and handed it to Ellen. She answered without protest. ‘Hello.’
No answer.
She looked at the display. It was an unknown number. ‘Hello,’ she repeated. ‘What do you want?’
No answer.
Jimmy squeezed her hand.
Ellen could hear someone breathing, and she thought she could hear sounds in the background. It wasn’t really possible to make out what it was, but it almost sounded like a child. She felt dizzy.
Jimmy took the phone from her.
‘Hello, who the hell is this?’
‘Do you hear anything?’ Ellen asked him.
‘Shh,’ he said, turning his face away.
Then he hung up the phone. He let go of her hand and got up from the couch.
‘What is it? What did you hear?’
He shook his head, his face now completely pale. ‘This won’t work. I have to leave.’
‘What?’ She felt nauseated.
‘Sorry,’ he said, and began pacing back and forth across the floor again.
‘Sorry? Why did you come here, really? What’s happening? You were the one who started all this. Did you come here because you wanted to hurt me?’ He was pulling back. Again. He might as well just have spat on her.
Jimmy stopped and looked at her.
‘What? How can you say that? I don’t want to hurt you. The last thing I want is to hurt you.’
‘So kind of you. Maybe I ought to thank you for pulling back right away this time, before my feelings could get too strong. Is that what you mean? You pulled back before you hurt me too much with your amazing presence.’ She got up from the couch. ‘So fucking pathetic. Thanks, dearest, for breaking it off before we actually slept with each other this time. Or before I had a chance to tell you more about myself that you could hurt me with later. I agree — it’s just as well that you go.’ She strode toward the elevator and pressed the button to call it up. She suddenly felt sober. Much too sober. ‘And I’m resigning. I don’t want to ever see you again. You know all about me now, and I understand that you don’t want me, but damn it, don’t come here and toy with me.’
‘I didn’t think it felt wrong …’ He didn’t move.
‘No, but I do.’ She was furious. She just wanted him to leave, to bring an end to this humiliation. Never again would she fall into his trap.
‘On the contrary. It’s never felt so right. I never intended to do anything to hurt you. What do you mean anyway? What you told me about your sister?’
‘Yes. Exactly. And you forced this thing with Lycke on me.’
‘I know, that was wrong. I’m sorry.’ He looked down at the floor as though ashamed. ‘I thought it would be the right thing to do, and then when you were standing there … I don’t know, I got so nervous and then it just came out completely wrong. I thought maybe you wanted to work on it because —’
‘Stop standing there and apologising and making your shitty excuses. I don’t get why you’re here playing games with me if you don’t think it will work anyway. Is it for the same reason you gave me the Lycke case, that I would get angry if you didn’t come? Is that it? Thanks for coming, but I’d like you to leave now, please.’
He looked at her like he hadn’t really been following what she was saying —and perhaps that was just as well.
‘It wouldn’t work between us. It’s not possible.’
‘No, you already said that. Please spare me your bullshit. Are you now going to say that I’m too good for you, or that you’re the one who’s at fault? Save that for someone else. Do I look like someone who’s interested in your clichés?’
The elevator arrived, and the doors opened. She kept pressing on the button to keep them open, so that the elevator wouldn’t go back down without him. ‘Go, now.’
He came toward her, slowly.
‘No, I don’t think you’re interested in hearing those tired expressions. I don’t think you’re interested in me, either.’ He entered the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.
‘What? What do you mean by that?’ she asked, placing herself in the door to prevent them from closing.
‘It’s complicated, Ellen. We wouldn’t get along. There’s too much shit between us. You’ll soon realise that.’ He ran his hands down his face. ‘We come from separate worlds. It doesn’t matter what I feel about you.’
‘What? Didn’t you hear what I’ve been saying? Save that bullshit for someone else.’ She stepped back and pressed the button to close the doors.
But now it was Jimmy who stopped them from closing, placing his foot in between.
‘Maybe it sounds hackneyed, but it’s true. We would never get along. I wouldn’t fit into your life, and you wouldn’t fit into mine.’
‘I thought you knew me better than that. Say it the way it is — you’re a pig who’s playing with me.’
He marched back into the apartment.
She tried to hold him back, but it was impossible.
‘I am many things and, sure, maybe I am a pig, but not about this. It’s for both our sakes I’m leaving now, and I’m sorry I didn’t end it sooner the last time, that I let it go so far that —’
‘Stop!’
‘It was amazing, and that made it harder for me, too, you should know. You don’t think this is easy
, do you? Do you think I want to hear stories about your dates? Do you?’
Now he sounded angry.
‘How do you think it feels when you go off with Andreas every day? Knowing you’ve been together. I’m scared to death every time I call you, scared to death of where you’ll be, where you’ve slept. If you’ve met someone. Fallen in love. Damn it, I think about you all the time.’ He pulled his hands through his hair. ‘When I came here last Sunday and the fire and the candles were lit, I was about to lose it when I thought that maybe you had someone here. Same thing when I came here today. I can’t stand the thought of you being with someone else, at the same time knowing that I can’t be with you.’
She stood silently, stunned.
‘Knock it off, as if you didn’t already know that,’ Jimmy said, dismissing the surprised look on her face.
He went back into the elevator and then turned to face her. ‘It’s not as simple as you think. It’s just so complicated. I knew it would be when I took the job at Channel Four. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry if I messed it up. But, somehow, I thought it would work out. That we’d gotten over each other. But —’
Ellen pressed the button to make the doors close, wishing she had a door she could slam in his face.
The elevator started its descent.
He was gone.
FRIDAY, 30 MAY
ELLEN
10.00 A.M.
As soon as she retrieved her computer, she would go straight home and lock herself in; not bring the elevator up for anyone, not answer the phone. She’d pulled her cap down over her forehead and kept her eyes on the floor to avoid speaking to anyone.
Tomorrow, she would get a hold of herself. Then she would look for a new job. She couldn’t stay here. Besides, she had a vague memory of having already resigned. The pounding in her head seemed in rhythm with her anxiety.
‘I thought you were going on leave for a while,’ Leif said, when she stepped into the office.
‘I’m just here to pick up my computer. Has anything happened?’
‘Anything new?’ he asked, as if she’d asked a strange question. ‘Things are happening all the time, I’d say.’
‘I mean with Lycke, of course,’ she replied, tired of playing his games.
‘She’s dead.’
Idiot.
‘The police tracked down the tennis coach yesterday. He was hiding at a friend’s house. Suspected on probable cause …’
Yesterday? thought Ellen. ‘What time?’
‘Around eleven, I think.’
So he wasn’t the one who called.
‘It’s not him.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘The police are wrong,’ said Ellen. She crumpled up a to-do list on her desk and threw it in the bin.
‘What do you mean?’ Leif asked.
‘Suspected on probable cause. That’s a judgement call. Just like judging diving,’ she said. ‘But you know that. The tennis coach is a creep and an idiot, but that doesn’t mean he murdered Lycke. Just because they found some pictures on his computer, and it later turned out he’d been threatening everything and everyone on the internet, including me — those are empty threats. And he’s never been convicted of anything before. We checked up on that early on, didn’t we, Ann?’
Agatha looked up from behind her screen and nodded. Today, her glasses were neon yellow with small flowers on them. Cute.
‘Just because you’re a disgusting troll doesn’t mean you’re a murderer,’ Ellen continued. ‘You know what a troll is, right?’ She couldn’t stop herself.
Leif snorted. ‘There are other things that implicate him. How, for example, do you explain that the backpack was found in Rålambshovsparken? That’s en route to his job at Salk hall, that private tennis club.’
‘Yes, but there are lots of people who live and work on that side of the city.’ She realised there was no point in trying to get him to change his mind. He was just as hard-headed as the police.
‘How are you doing?’ Agatha asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
‘I’m doing okay, thanks.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy. She fought not to look in his direction.
She was on the verge of tears. She was feeling overly sensitive. Hangover-sensitive. No doubt she would have started crying at an episode of Baywatch, if she were watching it right now.
She finished packing up her computer, but just as she was about to leave, Leif started up again.
‘Don’t think I’m happy about having to take over your shit. Do you know what he’s forcing me to do?’ said Leif, nodding his bald head toward Jimmy. ‘First he assigns me to do a report from the memorial service for the girl tomorrow, and then, as the icing on the cake, I get to do a story on the decisive tip that led the police to the tennis coach. It was better before, damn it. Don’t say it’s otherwise.’
Agatha nodded eagerly.
‘It was through Lycke’s computer that they got at the tennis coach, right?’ Ellen asked.
‘No. Listen, as I said, before you start talking about “judging diving”, you should have the whole picture in front of you. It was a tip that apparently came to us and the police about a flasher in the forest preserve. The person who made the tip then called the police. She could clearly identify the tennis coach. So what was that you said about probable cause again?’
‘Knock it off. What do you mean, “identify him”?’
‘I’m not sure yet, but that’s what I’m going to find out. Two million in reward money right down into the pocket. Nice,’ he said, sneering. ‘It’s bad enough that we show Lotto results on News Morning — that I should have to deal with such shit is beneath my dignity.’
Ellen felt sick.
It couldn’t be true.
Before leaving the office, she went into the editing room. Sitting by one of the computers was a bundle of papers. She quickly leafed through it until she found the email of the tip, the one Web had printed out and given to her earlier. The email about the flasher.
Just as she’d suspected.
It was sent from a Gmail address beginning with ‘codfish’. Of course. She hadn’t made the connection before. But could it really be true? What an idiot he was — didn’t he think she would find out about it?
Then her phone rang.
It was reception. She had a visitor.
***
As she descended the stairs, she caught sight of her mother through the glass wall in reception. What was she doing here?
She looked just as chic as Ellen felt shabby. Beige coat and the rest in grey. Those were her colours; Ellen couldn’t recall ever having seen her wearing any other colour combination.
Ellen slowed her pace, unsure of whether she could handle her mother today.
‘Ellen. Wait!’
She was halfway down the stairs. She stopped and looked up toward the third floor, and saw that Jimmy was coming after her.
‘Please, wait!’ He caught up with her and touched her lightly on the shoulder.
She felt a burning sensation at his touch, and shook his hand away.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘For what?’ She looked reluctantly up at him from under her cap.
‘Because …’ He pulled his hands through his hair. ‘Because I’m an idiot. You’re right. I want you to know that the last thing I want is to hurt you, but, damn it, I didn’t think you felt that way anymore and … I’m in a bad way.’
Some co-workers walked past, looking curiously at them.
He reached forward and clasped her little finger. ‘Ellen, listen to me —’
‘My mother is waiting in reception,’ she said, pulling her hand away.
‘Can’t I explain —’
Ellen walked down the last steps and out through the two aggressive blades that
were the security doors. If you didn’t hurry through they could cut you right in half. On this particular day, Ellen felt they might as well have done just that.
She could feel him still standing there on the stairs, watching her. Should she have said something to him about the tip-off email? She really had to start looking for a new job.
Her mother came up to greet her.
‘But, Ellen, the way you look … I said you shouldn’t work on this. Look at you, you’re completely pale.’
‘You don’t need to worry — I’m not working on it any more,’ she replied, refraining from going into detail. She pushed Margareta’s hand away.
‘Ellen …’
Ellen shrugged and sneaked a glance back toward the stairway. Jimmy was gone.
Her mother straightened the handbag on her shoulder. ‘It’s so nice here,’ she said. Her voice sounded slightly forced, as she looked around the reception area. ‘I’ve never been here. Should we have coffee?’ She pointed toward the restaurant, which was next to reception.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Or maybe you’re hungry? It’s almost lunchtime. It smells like lunch,’ she said, failing to conceal her displeasure.
‘There’s pea soup and pancakes. Are you in the mood?’ Ellen asked acidly. ‘Unfortunately, there isn’t any of the usual punch to go with it.’
‘A cup of coffee is fine for me.’
Ellen nodded. They went into the dining room, ordered, and sat down on one of the soft, red seats in the middle of the restaurant.
Almost all the other tables were empty. For now. Pea soup and pancakes were usually a real hit, everyone who worked in Frihamnen would line up.
The concept department was having a meeting beside them, and the TV presenter Agneta Sjödin was sitting a few tables away, discussing something with the program manager.
Ellen’s mother couldn’t stop looking over in her direction. She would never admit it, but she seemed almost impressed by seeing a celebrity.
Ellen sipped her coffee and tore off a piece of the fresh-baked cinnamon roll.