The Golden Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

“We were a family, Jack. The problem with you is that once you’ve got a family, you don’t want it anymore. Go home to your pregnant girlfriend.”

  She turned her back on him and heard him gather his things and slink out.

  When Jack had gone she took the computer down, looked through the recording, and picked out a scene in which Jack had his face between her legs. She made sure she was always waxed these days. Her breasts looked magnificent as she lay there groaning with pleasure. She took a few grainy screen-grabs where she couldn’t be identified, set up an anonymous Gmail account, and sent three pictures to Ylva.

  Your man knows how to satisfy a woman was all she wrote.

  Faye was sitting in her office when Jack stormed in. His face was bright red and he was sweating profusely. He was shouting so loudly that he could be heard throughout the office, and curious heads started to peer around screens. Faye was smiling inside. Jack was so predictable.

  “What the hell have you done?”

  Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he yelled. She wasn’t scared. It was a long time since she’d been scared of Jack. Or any man, come to that.

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she said, well aware that Jack wouldn’t believe her.

  But that was part of the game. She wanted him to know. That part of the charade was over now. Faye spun slowly back and forth on her office chair behind her beautiful desk. It was a designer piece by Arne Jacobsen, worth almost a hundred thousand kronor. Ingmar Bergman’s moth-eaten old desk could fuck right off. Ingmar Bergman could fuck off too, for that matter. The male genius who surrounded himself with women to lord it over and put down. Such a fucking cliché.

  Jack leaned over the desk. His palms left sweaty prints on the shiny surface. She didn’t back down but moved her face closer to his. Looked at his puffy, tired face, smelled the stale wine and whiskey on his breath, and wondered what she had ever seen in him. He used to read Ulf Lundell’s books when she first met him. She should have seen the warning signs right from the start.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, Faye. But I’m going to crush you. I’m going to take everything from you. You’re a pathetic, crazy fucking bitch I picked up out of the gutter and turned into someone. Everyone’s going to find out who you are and where you come from. I know more than you think, you fucking bitch!”

  She felt his saliva on her face and slowly lifted her hand. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and from the corner of her eye saw two security guards approaching.

  She jerked back.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Jack, stop it! Help! Please, someone! Help me!”

  When the guards rushed in she let out a loud sob and ran toward them. Jack stared at the men in Securitas uniforms, two guys in their twenties. For a moment it looked like he was going to take a swing at them. Then he took a deep breath, held his hands up disarmingly and fired off a broad smile.

  “Just a bit of a misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about. A difference of opinion, that’s all. I can find my own way out, I’m going now…”

  He backed toward the door. Faye had retreated to her marketing director’s office and was looking anxiously toward Jack as several of her staff gathered around her protectively. It couldn’t have worked out better.

  * * *

  • • •

  Faye was exhausted by the time she got home after Jack’s scene in the office. The apartment was empty. Kerstin had picked Julienne up from school and they had gone on one of their endless museum visits.

  Kerstin had been worried about Julienne recently. She had gone from being open and bubbly to more and more withdrawn. Her teachers had said she tended to spend breaks on her own now. Faye was just as concerned as Kerstin. She recognized herself in Julienne, she had been a lone wolf too.

  The letters from Faye’s father were coming more and more frequently. She still wasn’t opening them. She was only grateful that no one had discovered the connection between them. The case had drawn a lot of attention at the time, mostly because her father had been convicted, even though her mother’s body had never been found. The court had decreed that there was enough evidence anyway. All the hospital records documenting her mother’s injuries. The blood. The fact that all of her mom’s personal belongings were still there. The verdict had been unanimous. A life sentence.

  Faye poured a glass of wine, sat down in front of her computer, and opened her emails. Twenty new emails from Ylva. She deleted them all, she wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. Faye opened the top drawer of her desk and took out the USB stick on which she had saved the key-logger file. It had served her well. She didn’t know if she should save it as a memento or get rid of it.

  As she was turning it around between her fingers it struck her that she had never checked the other folders she had copied on the off-chance there’d be something useful in them, because it had turned out there was more than enough to compromise him. She inserted the stick into the computer and sipped the wine as the files appeared on screen. She clicked through them, but none of them caught her interest. Boring business documents, contracts, PowerPoint presentations. Boring, boring, boring. The last folder was entitled Household, and she clicked on it in spite of the uninteresting name. She realized what it contained with growing alarm, and the glass of Amarone fell from her hand.

  She stared at the pieces on the floor. At the red stain spreading out. She knew she wasn’t just going to have to crush Jack now, but make sure he was neutralized for good.

  Faye let several days pass. Then she called Jack. She had a new plan now. She cried and begged for forgiveness. Even though she really felt like beating him to death, kicking his lifeless body, and spitting on his grave.

  Jack fell for her weakness. He needed her submission, and she gave him what he needed.

  Slowly she won his trust again. Jack wasn’t a complicated man, and willingly let himself be taken in. She wished she had discovered that sooner.

  Though she hadn’t thought it would ever be necessary again, she allowed herself to be fucked by him. That was the hardest part. Trying to pretend she was enjoying it when her whole body felt sick with revulsion. When all she could see in her head were the pictures of what he had done.

  Sometimes Jack cried in his sleep. His mobile lit up on the bedside table at regular intervals with Ylva’s name on the screen; she hadn’t thrown him out. Now she was the one begging and pleading. She would soon be giving birth to their daughter while Jack was sleeping with another woman. Just as he had done when Julienne was born.

  Faye had managed to get a prescription for some more Ambien. While Jack was fast asleep she took out his laptop and conducted the necessary searches. Sometimes it felt like it was all too easy. But she knew that it would be far from easy. And that there would be a high price. Possibly too high. But she was who she was, and bearing in mind what Jack had done, no act of vengeance could be too brutal.

  As darkness fell outside her bedroom she remembered the snowflakes falling outside the windows of the room in the tower. She remembered the feeling of floating. The feeling of being free and captive at the same time. Sometimes she missed the tower room. But she never missed the golden cage. Sometimes she thought about Alice, who was still trapped in hers. Of her own volition. But there were aspects of Alice’s life that Henrik didn’t know about. Such as the fact that Alice had been one of the investors in Revenge, and was now just as wealthy as he was. Or that Alice had asked for Robin’s number, and met up with him once a week while Henrik thought she was at Pilates.

  Faye didn’t begrudge her that. If you were trapped in a gold cage, you needed the occasional distraction to make it bearable.

  When dawn broke Faye watched as Jack slowly woke up, his head full of sleeping pills and whiskey.

  “I’m going away on business next week,” she said. �
��Could you help take care of Julienne?”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled. Took the way she was looking at him as infatuation. But she was actually saying goodbye.

  FJÄLLBACKA—THEN

  I PUT THE PHONE DOWN. The verdict had been announced and I was free. For the first time. I had never tasted that before, I didn’t know what it felt like. But now it was as if my body was floating above the floor. I had never felt stronger.

  I hadn’t been allowed in court, they thought I was too young. But I could imagine Dad in front of me, sitting in the same suit he wore for Sebastian’s funeral. His sweaty neck, the way he tugged at his shirt, uncomfortable, furious, captive in a way he had never been captive before. His imprisonment was my freedom.

  A small part of me had been worried that they wouldn’t find him guilty. That they wouldn’t see the animal in him, just a pathetic, tragic little man. But the forensic evidence was overwhelming. Even without Mom’s body.

  He had been convicted, and he was going to be given a severe sentence.

  I knew the whole town was delighted. Everyone had been following the trial. Everyone had been horrified, they gossiped and whispered in the aisles of Eva’s Groceries, standing in the square, stopping their cars and winding down the windows, lamenting and talking about the poor girl. I knew them all so well.

  But I was no poor girl. I was stronger than all of them. I would have liked to stay in the house after Dad was arrested, but someone decided I wasn’t allowed to. In their eyes I was still a child. In the absence of any relatives or friends I was placed with an elderly couple who lived nearby. They let me go to the house as much as I liked, as long as I had dinner and slept at theirs.

  The last few months had been nothing but one long wait. Everyone left me alone in school now. When I walked down the corridor they parted as if I were Moses approaching the Red Sea. They were fascinated by me, but avoided me. People only seemed to enjoy being close to sorrow and tragedy up to a certain limit. I had passed that limit a long time ago.

  But now I was free at last. And he was going to rot in hell.

  The rain was pouring down. Her eyes were stinging and her head throbbing. All Faye wanted was to get some sleep. She called Julienne’s number twice, then Jack’s. No answer. The hotel receptionist came over to tell her that the taxi was waiting. She thanked her, grabbed her suitcase, and started to tap in the number for the police.

  “Emergency Operations Center.”

  “I want to report a missing person,” she said.

  “Okay,” the woman at the other end said calmly. “Who’s the missing person?”

  “My seven-year-old daughter,” Faye said with a catch in her voice.

  “When were you last in touch with her?”

  “Yesterday evening. I’m in a hotel in Västerås, I’ve been here on business. My ex-husband’s looking after Julienne. I’ve been calling all morning but there’s no answer.”

  “So you’re not in the city?”

  “No. Dear God, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Is there any reason to think they may have gone off somewhere or otherwise be anywhere where they can’t answer?”

  “No. They’re supposed to be at home. They were talking about maybe going to Skansen today. This really isn’t like Jack.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name’s Faye Adelheim. The apartment where they should be is in Östermalm, it’s my apartment.”

  She gave the woman her address.

  “We usually wait a few hours before filing an official report about a missing person.”

  “Please, I’m so horribly worried.”

  The voice at the other end softened slightly.

  “It’s really a bit too soon, but I’ll ask a patrol to go over and check.”

  “Thanks, that would be great. Give them my mobile number so they can call me when they get there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  An hour and a half later the taxi turned off Odengatan and drove up Birger Jarlsgatan before turning onto Karlavägen.

  There were two police cars parked in front of the door. A police officer was standing outside. She paid the driver, leaped out, and ran over to the policeman.

  “I’m Faye,” she said breathlessly. He looked at her seriously. “I don’t understand, you said you’d found Jack. Why are you still here? And where’s my daughter?”

  “Can we go inside and talk?” he said, his eyes darting about.

  “What do you mean? If you’ve spoken to Jack, then you must know where Julienne is?”

  He tapped in the code and held the door open.

  “Like I said, it’s probably best if you come upstairs with me.”

  Faye followed him.

  “Please, can you just tell me what’s happened? Is Jack up there?”

  The policeman held the elevator door open.

  “Your ex-husband’s up there,” he said. “But your daughter’s missing.”

  “But Jack must know where she is, surely? She’s seven years old, she can hardly have vanished on her own. He was responsible for her. She was with him. What does Jack say?”

  “He says he can’t remember anything.”

  “Can’t remember anything?”

  Her words bounced around the elevator.

  The elevator stopped and they got out. The apartment door was open. Faye ran her hand over her face.

  “We’ve found something that…there’s blood in the hall.”

  “Blood. Oh, dear God…”

  Faye stumbled and the policeman caught her and led her through the door. A white-clad forensics officer was crouched in the hall running some sort of instrument over the floor, where there was a patch of dark, congealed blood.

  “Julienne?” she called out shrilly. “Julienne!”

  Jack was sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Two police officers were speaking to him calmly. When Jack caught sight of Faye he started to get up but the officers stopped him. He sank back onto the chair.

  “What’s happened?” she cried. “Where is she, Jack? Where’s Julienne?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, sounding bewildered. “I woke up when the doorbell rang.”

  The policeman led her away.

  “We’re going to need something that belonged to your daughter.”

  Faye stared at him in confusion.

  “What do you mean? What for?”

  He led her gently but firmly away. She could hear footsteps and voices in the hall. More police officers had arrived.

  “For identification purposes,” he said. “Just in case.”

  She let out a gasp, then nodded.

  “Such as?”

  “Her toothbrush. Or a hairbrush?”

  Faye nodded. Pointed toward the bathroom. The policeman took out a bag, pulled on a pair of thin disposable gloves, and led the way.

  “That’s hers.”

  He picked up the pink toothbrush with Elsa from Frozen on it and carefully put it in the bag. They got Julienne’s hairbrush from her room. That too was pink, with Elsa on the back.

  It had started to get dark outside the windows. Faye stood up when a policewoman came into the small room where she had been told to wait. She was tall and blond. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she had a friendly but focused look on her face.

  “Is there any news?”

  The policewoman shook her head.

  “Please, sit down,” she said, nodding toward the sofa. “My name is Yvonne Ingvarsson, I’m a police inspector.”

  Faye sat down and crossed her legs.

  “I’m going to have to ask you a few questions, and I’d like you to answer them as carefully as you can.”

  “Of course.”

  “We still haven’t found Julienne, but
there are a number of things that we’re concerned about. Extremely concerned.”

  Faye closed her eyes and swallowed.

  “Is she…do you think something’s happened to her?”

  “We honestly don’t know. But the blood in the hall is definitely human. Forensics are comparing it to the DNA on her toothbrush and hairbrush.”

  “Oh, God…I…”

  “Your former husband, Jack, is unable to explain anything. His story doesn’t make sense, to put it bluntly. He claims he can’t remember what he was doing yesterday.”

  “But he couldn’t possibly have harmed Julienne. You’re wrong. Someone must have taken her, somehow. He loves her, there’s no reason why he’d…”

  “Who else could it be?”

  She fell silent. The policewoman leaned forward and put her hand on her knee.

  “According to his mobile phone and the satnav in his car, he went for a drive. At night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He drove to Jönköping. And we’ve found traces of blood in the trunk of his car. We’ll be comparing that with the blood found in the hall.”

  “Stop it…please, stop…I don’t want to know.” Faye shook her head.

  “You need to be strong now, Faye. I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to help us if we’re to find Julienne.”

  She nodded slowly, and eventually looked up and met the policewoman’s gaze.

  “Our colleagues in Jönköping are examining the places Jack went last night. We’ve looked through both your computers, and I was wondering if you could explain what this is?”

  Yvonne leafed through the file she had been holding on her lap and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was the email Faye had sent to Ylva. Faye opened her mouth to speak but Yvonne got there first.

  “Is that you in the picture?”

  She put the sheet of paper in Faye’s hands. She cast a quick glance at it. Nodded.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “And you sent this to Jack’s partner, Ylva Lehndorf?”