Women Without Mercy
CAMILLA LACKBERG
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2021
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden
Translation copyright © Ian Giles 2021
Originally published in 2021 by Bokförlaget Forum, Sweden, as Kvinnor utan nåd
Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover photographs: Lyn Randle / Trevillion
Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © June 2021 ISBN: 9780008354435
Version: 2021-05-04
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART I
1. Ingrid Steen
2. Victoria Brunberg
3. Ingrid Steen
4. Victoria Brunberg
5. Birgitta Nilsson
6. Ingrid Steen
7. Victoria Brunberg
8. Ingrid Steen
9. Birgitta Nilsson
10. Ingrid Steen
11. Victoria Brunberg
12. Ingrid Steen
13. Birgitta Nilsson
14. Victoria Brunberg
15. Ingrid Steen
16. Victoria Brunberg
17. Ingrid Steen
18. Victoria Brunberg
19. Ingrid Steen
20. Victoria Brunberg
21. Ingrid Steen
22. Victoria Brunberg
23. Ingrid Steen
24. Birgitta Nilsson
25. Victoria Brunberg
26. Ingrid Steen
PART II
27. Ingrid Steen
28. Birgitta Nilsson
29. Victoria Brunberg
30. Birgitta Nilsson
31. Victoria Brunberg
32. Birgitta Nilsson
33. Victoria Brunberg
34. Birgitta Nilsson
35. Victoria Brunberg
36. Ingrid Steen
37. Victoria Brunberg
38. Ingrid Steen
39. Victoria Brunberg
40. Ingrid Steen
41. Victoria Brunberg
42. Birgitta Nilsson
43. Victoria Brunberg
44. Ingrid Steen
45. Victoria Brunberg
46. Ingrid Steen
47. Victoria Brunberg
48. Ingrid Steen
PART III
49. Ingrid Steen
50. Birgitta Nilsson
51. Ingrid Steen
52. Birgitta Nilsson
53. Ingrid Steen
54. Birgitta Nilsson
55. Ingrid Steen
Epilogue
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Camilla Lackberg
About the Publisher
Dedication
For Meja and Polly
PART I
1. Ingrid Steen
When her husband Tommy came into the living room, Ingrid Steen cupped her hand around the object she was holding, placing it in the crack between the sofa cushions.
He walked past her.
He flashed her a quick, mechanical smile before continuing into the kitchen. She could hear him as he opened the fridge and rifled inside it, humming Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The River’ to himself.
Ingrid left the object where it was and got up from the sofa. She drifted over to the window. The street lighting was struggling against the Scandinavian darkness. The bushes and trees were bare and contorted. There was a TV flickering in the house opposite.
Behind her, Tommy cleared his throat and Ingrid spun around.
‘How was your day?’
She contemplated him without answering. He was holding a half-eaten, cold meatball in one hand. In the other he had a glass of milk. His hair was thinning on the top – it always had been, but in his thirties he’d had the good taste to shave his head. The bottom of his shirt was wrinkled after being tucked into his trousers all day.
‘Good.’
Tommy smiled.
‘Great.’
She watched as he left. Tommy. A working-class name. Bruce Springsteen. A working-class hero. Nevertheless, as soon as he’d been made editor-in-chief of Sweden’s biggest tabloid, Aftonpressen, they’d moved out to Bromma – a neighbourhood for the upper middle classes in general, and the Swedish media elite in particular.
The sound of fingers pattering away on a keyboard resumed in the study. Ingrid returned to the sofa, groping about between the cushions. She found one of her daughter Lovisa’s old toys. She pulled it out, taking in the little green dinosaur with its oversized, staring eyes before placing it on the coffee table. She bent over the sofa again, found the small device and took it with her into the hallway.
The sound of fingers writing, issuing orders, amending headlines increased in intensity. She took Tommy’s coat off the hanger. The rectangular sewing kit in her back jeans pocket pressed into her buttock. Upstairs, she opened the door to the bathroom. After placing the sewing kit on the side of the basin, she locked the door and shut the toilet lid. She quickly picked open part of the inner lining of the coat, inserted the small device and checked that it worked. Using her index finger, she switched it on, and then sewed the shiny fabric together again with a couple of stitches.
2. Victoria Brunberg
Three years ago, Victoria’s last name had been Volkova, she had lived in the modern Russian city of Ekaterinburg and she had vaguely remembered something about the country of Sweden from her history classes. Now her name was Victoria Brunberg, and she lived in the village of Sillbo a few miles outside of Heby, somewhere in the middle of the country. She spoke Swedish with a thick accent, and had no job or friends. She sighed as she poured the steaming hot tea into a mug emblazoned with the words Sweden Rock.
She could hear the wind through the cracks at the bottom of the window. Outside the window there were fields, forests and grey sky. She shaped her hand into a screen so that she wouldn’t have to look at that when she took the tea over to the kitchen table. Victoria sighed and put her feet up on the table. Everything about this place – this country – was detestable. She cupped the mug of tea in her hands and closed her eyes.
‘Yuri,’ she whispered.
The gangster princess, that was what her friends in Ekaterinburg had jokingly called her. She had liked it. She had loved the diamonds, the drugs, the dinners, the clothes and the apartment they had lived in.
On the day of her twentieth birthday, it had all disappeared. Yuri had been murdered. By now, his b
ody had probably decayed beyond recognition. The hairy back, the big hands, the heavy cheeks – they were all gone.
Bang, bang, bang.
Yuri had been gunned down on her birthday. The blood had spattered onto her white fur coat, which had been lying on the nightclub sofa. They had wanted to kill her too, but the murderer’s third shot had missed and then he had been shot dead by Yuri’s bodyguards.
She had fled to her mother’s, about an hour’s drive outside of town.
It had been her mother who had told her about the site where Swedish men went looking for Russian women.
‘Swedish men are kind and also soft,’ she’d said.
Victoria did as she was told by her mother, just as she always had done. She posted a couple of photos, received hundreds of replies in the space of a few days and picked Malte. He’d looked good in his photos – like a big baby with kind eyes. He was her age, overweight, seemed shy. He’d sent her money to buy the plane ticket and two weeks later she’d stepped across the threshold of the yellow house in Sillbo for the first time.
Outside in the courtyard, she could hear the sound of Malte’s motorbike. Victoria took her feet off the table and looked out through the window. His body made the motorcycle seem small, like Godzilla on a pony. Coming along the road behind Malte was a white van. It swung in through the gate and pulled up beside the motorbike. The driver, Malte’s friend Lars, opened the passenger-side door, heaved out a crate of beer and lugged it towards the front door. Malte grabbed a can, popped it open and drank from it greedily. The layers of fat on his neck undulated. Both men disappeared out of Victoria’s sight and a second later she heard the key slide into the lock and turn.
They clomped in wearing their shoes. Lars hesitated when he saw the dark, mucky footprints being left by the mud on the parquet.
‘Fuck it. The bitch’ll be glad to have something to do. She just spends her days sitting at home,’ Malte said, without looking at her.
Lars smiled sheepishly, meeting her gaze for half a second. He mumbled hello and set the crate of beer down on the table. Malte went over to the cooker.
‘Let’s see what sludge you’ve cooked up today,’ he said, raising the lid. The steam made him recoil and blink his eyes. He fanned with his hand a few times and squinted into the pot. Standing beside Victoria, Lars cracked open a beer.
‘Potatoes. Good. Very good.’ Malte looked around the kitchen and spread out his hands.
‘Is that it?’
‘I didn’t know when you were coming. I’ll fry the sausages now,’ Victoria said. Malte tittered, looking past her at his friend. He repeated her words in an exaggerated falsetto with a Russian accent. Lars snorted, beer running down his chin. ‘She’s a looker, but fuck me, she’s not the sharpest tool in the box,’ Malte said. More beer ran down Lars’s chin.
Her clothes smelled of cooking. Malte had promised to fix the extractor, but he hadn’t got round to it. She put the dirty plates in the dishwasher. The men were ensconced on the sofa. The coffee table was littered with empty beer cans. Before long, they would fall asleep, which was when her day began. Properly. She glanced at the sofa to see where Malte’s mobile was. She was reassured when she spotted it between two beer cans.
‘Should have got myself a Thai like you did. Better food. Better head,’ Malte said with a burp.
‘Well, send her back then?’ suggested Lars with a guffaw.
‘Why not? Wonder what the return policy is on mail-order bitches,’ Malte said between gasps of laughter.
‘No refunds. Maybe a credit note?’ Lars managed to cough out.
‘Yes, the product’s been used. Second hand.’
Another explosion of laughter at the same moment as the water began to flow inside the dishwasher.
3. Ingrid Steen
Ingrid parked up outside Höglandsskolan Primary School, switched off the engine and sat there with her hands on the wheel. She was an hour early.
Fourteen years as a journalist, including two as an American correspondent, and more prizes than she could count. Before, the newspaper cuttings, certificates and some of the photos had been on the walls of their home. When Tommy had been made editor-in-chief, the couple had mutually agreed that it would be for the best if Ingrid stayed at home with their daughter. Being editor-in-chief for Aftonpressen was more than a job, it was a lifestyle. Well, that was how Tommy put it. He assured her that had it been the other way round – her being asked – then he would have made the same sacrifice.
Ingrid had made do. She had packed her career highlights into an IKEA cardboard box and put it in the furthermost corner of the attic, assuming the role of a supportive wife. Lately, her thoughts kept returning to those years she’d spent as a journalist. Sometimes, when the house was empty, she would retrieve the box and bring it into the living room and pore over her mementoes. Today had been one of those days; she had put the box back in its place just before it was time to pick up Lovisa and Tommy was due home.
Ingrid jumped when there was a knock on the window, deploying her parents’ association smile before she had even turned her head and seen that it was Birgitta Nilsson, Lovisa’s teacher. She checked the time involuntarily before rolling down the window.
‘Doctor’s appointment,’ Birgitta said with a smile. ‘Nothing serious, just a routine check-up.’
Ingrid liked her. She was approaching retirement age – Lovisa’s class was going to be her last one.
‘Good luck,’ Ingrid managed to say.
‘I saw Tommy on the box in last night’s episode of Agenda – wasn’t he good?’ Birgitta clapped her hands together. ‘So wise, so eloquent. You must be proud.’
‘Very.’
‘Not to mention that last autumn he took the time to come here and tell the class about his work, in spite of everything he has on his plate. When the other teachers heard he was coming, they were so beside themselves that we booked the main hall. Lovisa was so happy. Me too.’
‘That’s great. Yes, Tommy makes the time.’
The teacher reached in with her hand, patting Ingrid’s shoulder before turning on her heel and disappearing towards the metro station.
Ingrid turned up the music.
She didn’t really need confirmation of Tommy’s infidelity. She already knew. He had been different since last summer. Placing greater emphasis on his appearance, suddenly hiring a personal trainer. Before, he’d felt able to discuss every single editorial decision with Ingrid in the room – he knew she’d never pass anything on and that she knew the rules. Now he was always making excuses and vanishing into the study or out into the garden.
‘New policy from the owners,’ he’d said by way of explanation when she had asked. ‘And surely you’re not interested in that stuff any longer anyway?’
But Ingrid wanted to know who the woman fucking her husband was. Probably someone on the paper – that was how they had met themselves. It was how journalists usually met.
Every day she would buy a copy of Aftonpressen and leaf through it at home. She barely recognised the byline photos any longer. Lots of her former colleagues had left the paper since her day, while others had left behind the toil of life as a reporter for management roles.
Did her old colleagues know that Tommy was betraying her? Did they feel sorry for her? Did they have his back – were they helping him conceal the affair? Ingrid had a plan for how to find out who he was cheating with, but she had no idea what she was going to do about it.
4. Victoria Brunberg
Malte and Lars were snoring. Their obese bodies secreted the smell of sweat and alcohol. Victoria took her husband’s mobile phone down to the basement. She went into the box room where he kept his home still, grabbed a bottle of the transparent liquid and settled down on the plush couch in front of the switched-off TV. On the stand underneath it was his pornography collection, all lined up and in plain sight. She had watched every single one of them multiple times – that was how she had learnt Swedish. Malte was keeping her in isolati
on. The house had no internet.
Victoria had her own phone with a pay-as-you-go SIM. The hundred kronor that Malte topped it up with every month wasn’t enough to call Russia. Victoria’s only way to stay in touch with her mother was to hotspot the internet on Malte’s phone to her own.
In the first few months, she had still imagined that life in Sweden might become passable. Not like the years with Yuri, but tolerable. Malte had been kind. Dull but kind. He’d brought home semi-wilted flowers, praised her for the food she had cooked, called her ‘my little wife’. While it had been unappealing to sleep with him, have him close and feel his fumbling hands on her body, he had at least treated her like a human being.
She felt gratitude towards him for bringing her here from Russia. But after six months, he had begun to change. He’d become evil. He’d stopped showering. He smelled even worse. Instead of sleeping with her, he would yell ‘blow job’, pull his trousers down around his knees and sit on the sofa. And she obeyed and sucked his tiny penis. She was scared of him. While he might never have touched her physically, she was completely vulnerable to him. Malte could make her life even worse than it already was.
She had nowhere to go. The farm was a prison. If only she had a friend, someone who was actually kind to her and treated her like a person rather than a sex doll with added cleaning and cooking features …
She took a swig of the moonshine and grimaced. Her mother hadn’t replied to her last email. Victoria was hiding her present situation from her. Lying and saying that she was fine, had loads of girlfriends and was happy. She said that Malte was spoiling her rotten; just like her mother had said Swedish men were, he was mild-mannered and kind and was a manager at a large IT company. She wrote evocatively about the splendid dinners, the trips to the Mediterranean, their powerful friends and the happy couple’s plans to have children.
She thanked her mother for being so wise and considerate in suggesting a marriage in Sweden.
5. Birgitta Nilsson
In the waiting room at the small GP’s surgery in the city centre, Birgitta Nilsson was still thinking about Tommy and Ingrid Steen. Wonderful people – both of them. Intellectual and full of humour. Their daughter, Lovisa, was so beautiful, the very image of her mother, while she had inherited her father’s sparkling eloquence.
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