‘I think…’ Agla said. ‘I think that’s sensible. Like I’ve told you often enough before, it’s ridiculous that you’re working so hard when I’m in … yes, well, what shall I say? The position I’m in.’
Sonja knew that this was what Agla had dreamed of, to keep her, to own her.
‘I might need to accept some help from you,’ Sonja said, ‘if I drop this work.’
‘You know that I’d be delighted to, Sonja. As I’ve told you before.’ It was obvious that Agla was choking back her excitement, while her thoughts were in overdrive. ‘Would you like it if I bought a house?’ She hesitated. ‘For … us?’
‘Maybe,’ Sonja said. ‘Let’s think it over.’
Agla’s smile stretched from ear to ear.
‘But that doesn’t mean you own me,’ Sonja added, and Agla shook her head and raised her hands in front of her. ‘I know. I know.’
‘Can I have more Sprite?’ Tómas asked and before Sonja could reply, Agla had already called the waiter and ordered it.
Sonja smiled to see Tómas looking so happy with his fizzy drink, and no less to see Agla’s look of contentment. She tried to hide it, but could feel her heart soften for a moment, not with the passion of love or with any kind of anticipation, but more with a slow, sweet happiness that seeped through her veins gradually, like the melting ice in spring, searching the land for a channel.
She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. The gentle happiness gave way to a jolt of fear and tension that gripped at her heart like an icecold fist as she looked at the screen and saw the message was from Nati.
London. Saturday. Limpet ready.
‘Can you look after Tómas for me over the weekend?’ Sonja asked.
‘What?’ The question clearly took Agla more by surprise than the answer to the who’s the guy? question.
‘I have to travel for a couple of days. It’s my last trip abroad now that I’m packing it in.’
‘I don’t know how to look after kids,’ Agla said.
‘I’ll show you how to look after me,’ Tómas said, with an expression of expectation on his face. He undoubtedly saw a luxurious weekend ahead with sweets and endless games.
‘All right, then,’ Agla said. ‘We should be fine.’
110
The first time Sonja had stood in front of this dark, heavy wooden door, the house had made her shudder. Once she had become acquainted with the people who lived there and the vicious animal they kept in the cellar, she had been afraid to venture inside, but now terror had rendered her virtually immobile. The things she had done in this house – cleaning up what seemed like an ocean of blood, stuffing a body into a freezer, arranging for it to be sawn into pieces and fed to a tiger – all that now seemed like child’s play compared to what she was here to do. Whatever happened today, this would be the last time she would go through this door. This day would decide her fate.
Amadou opened the door and the hinges squealed piercingly as Sonja wondered once again when Mr José and Nati had deliberately neglected oiling them to make entering this place an even more spooky experience. She said nothing to Amadou, but their eyes met for a second as they shook hands and as she relaxed her grip. The package of Rohypnol remained in Amadou’s grasp.
‘Sonja! Mi amor! Welcome!’ Nati whooped as she entered the living room.
She stood up and embraced Sonja, kissing her on the mouth, her lips wet. Sonja smiled awkwardly and turned her face away, while Nati refused to take no for an answer, taking her face in both hands and holding it while she kissed her several times more. Sonja had discovered the last time, when there had been no choice but to spend the night there, that Nati had no objection to overcoming a little resistance. On the contrary, she found it exciting.
The room had been redecorated yet again; now there was a thick white carpet on the floor, and the room had been scattered with heavy, blocky furniture with a retro seventies feel.
‘Very smart,’ Sonja said, looking around.
Her judgement clearly delighted Nati. ‘I always wanted to be an interior designer,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should take a few courses. It’s never too late to get some education.’
She dropped back into a deep sofa and Sonja took a seat on a chair facing her. It was higher than the sofa and the tension in her was such that she couldn’t let herself sink into such soft comfort.
‘It’s never too late,’ Sonja agreed, squeezing out a smile.
If Sebastian’s plan, which was now also her plan, was to work out, then it was definitely too late. The echo of the tiger’s growls down in the cellar added emphasis to her thoughts.
Amadou brought coffee and placed it on the table between them. Nati poured and Sonja took her cup, lifting it to her lips without drinking.
Nati took a long drink from her cup and cleared her throat. ‘The limpet is here, but the rubber leaks and it’ll take two days to fix,’ she said and laughed out loud. ‘I’d like to see the legs of the guy who made it now!’ Her laughter felt as if it cut through flesh and bone.
Sonja’s body reacted with a flush of heat and she felt the sweat breaking out on her upper lip, as if she sensed that this laughter was the precursor to something much worse to come. Nati had laughed a lot the night that Sonja had stayed with her. ‘And I have a diving teacher for you. You’ll meet him tomorrow at the aquatic centre.’
Sonja looked around the living room as if she was checking out the new decoration, giving Nati an occasional glance. She seemed to have drunk half of her coffee now.
Amadou put his head discreetly around the door, the second time that he had taken a look, and Sonja hoped that Nati hadn’t noticed. As Sebastian had said, he was too nervous to take on anything major by himself, plus he only had one hand.
Nati finished her cup and put it down. Sonja saw her look at her own cup, notice that it was untouched, and for a moment there was a questioning look in her eyes. Sonja decided to take her attention in another direction.
‘Do you know a guy called Húni Thór?’ she asked, and saw that her aim had been achieved. There was no doubt that Nati knew Húni Thór and she didn’t like the subject.
‘Why do you ask?’ she asked sharply.
Sonja shrugged. ‘I was just wondering what his connection is to all this,’ she said. ‘He was at school with Adam.’
‘Húni Thór is one of those men who finds it difficult to have a woman as his boss,’ Nati said, her lip curling in disgust.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He never had a problem doing what José told him to do, but since I took over, he has been taking too many liberties.’
Sonja smiled. It confirmed what she had suspected: a power struggle.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Sonja said, getting to her feet and going out into the hall, where she locked herself in the guest bathroom.
Her heart was hammering in her chest, so she sat on the toilet and took a series of fast breaths to drive the oxygen up to her brain. Now she would have to wait for a quarter of an hour. In her mind, she counted up the profit side, all the things she would gain by carrying out this assignment: Security, freedom, peace of mind, Tómas. Security, freedom, peace of mind, Tómas.
After flushing the toilet and letting water run into the basin for a good while, she hyperventilated a few more times, and then jumped on the spot, both feet together, as she counted up to a hundred to warm herself up for the coming exertions. Then she opened the door and went out into the hall.
Amadou was nowhere to be seen and there was no sound from the living room. She tiptoed to the door and peered in, ready for action, almost as if she were expecting the tiger to be roaming around. But another growl from down below conformed that the beast was still in its place, locked away in its cage in the cellar. She had nothing but her own weakness to fear.
‘It’s a question of whether you’re a wolf or a rabbit,’ Sebastian had said when he had outlined the plan for her. ‘And rabbits don’t live long in this business.’
Sonja stealth
ily made her way into the living room, every fibre in her taut and her senses more aware than ever before. She was no rabbit. She was a bigger animal, ready to rip its enemies apart to protect its young. She was more powerful than a wolf and more fearsome than the tiger.
She was an ice bear.
111
Nati was still on the sofa, but had slid to one side and a trickle of clear saliva had leaked from the corner of her mouth into her glistening black hair.
Sonja approached her cautiously, and Nati’s eyes followed her. Sonja was surprised at how clear her eyes were, that Nati was obviously wide awake; fully conscious, even though her body had been paralysed.
Sonja took the nylon cord from her pocket, tied it into a loop and placed it around Nati’s neck. Nati’s eyes widened and Sonja felt an urge to say something, to explain to Nati exactly why she was about to take her life, but there were no words that could justify this. This was just what it was: murder.
She sat on the sofa at Nati’s side and tightened the cord around her neck. Nati muttered something unintelligible, but made no movement until Sonja hauled on the cord with all her strength. A series of powerful tremors passed through Nati’s body. Sonja fixed her eyes on the ceiling and pulled as hard as she could.
Security, freedom, peace of mind, Tómas, she thought, avoiding looking at Nati’s eyes or the paralysed hands that occasionally clenched as if they were vainly trying to catch hold of some lifeline, some hope; these hands that had in their own sly and soft way done Sonja more harm than bunched fists ever could.
A wave of hatred snatched at her heart, and it was followed by exhaustion. The power of a polar bear she had felt before had evaporated, her strength was gone and her eyes filled with tears. She let go of the cord and as she did so, Nati coughed and her lungs fought for air. Sonja could not kill another person. The life in this paralysed body was stronger than all her own accumulated fear; stronger than all the hatred.
‘I can’t do it. I can’t make myself finish this,’ she sniffed as Amadou came into the living room and stared at Nati taking eager breaths, and his dark face filled with desperation.
112
No words passed between them. It was as if their eyes spoke. Sonja rolled herself into a ball on the floor, unable to remain close to Nati as she lay, paralysed and coughing, half on and half hanging off the sofa. Somehow she pushed herself backwards with her feet, further and further from Nati and the clear eyes that watched her, neither accusing nor frightened, but beseeching. With her back to the wall at the far end of the living room, she finally lost control and screamed with all the energy left in her. She had no control over her voice, the fear and pain inside bursting out of her. There was a release in her scream, a physical relief, and her screams continued as Amadou crouched over Nati on the sofa, took hold of the cord with his one hand and pulled it tight.
Long after Nati had stopped jerking and her eyes stared lifelessly upwards, they sat in silence in the living room – Sonja still on the floor, while Amadou straddled Nati’s corpse, the cord still looped over his hand. The sweat had dried on his face, rendering his dark skin matt as the yellow street light outside came to life and its brightness illuminated him.
‘I’m free,’ he whispered cautiously, as if he dared not believe it himself. ‘And so are my children.’
‘She had her claws in your children as well?’
‘Her claws were in everyone’s children. I tried to find her children for Sebastian, but she keeps them in a boarding school and moves them regularly to keep them safe. But she always knows where everyone else’s children are, and she always said she could have my children snatched.’
Sonja closed her eyes. Now she was also free. She had finally been let go. The moment she walked out of this house, the last two years would be behind her and she could go back to being an ordinary person leading an ordinary life, with Tómas and maybe with Agla. And now she could even give Agla a proper chance.
‘The freezer and the tiger?’ Amadou asked.
‘Yes,’ Sonja said. ‘And don’t be tempted to keep the head.’
Amadou giggled, and glanced at Sonja, and their laughter overflowed. They looked into each other’s eyes and roared with laughter. There was madness in their mirth, and Sonja still felt that there was a cloud hanging over her that prevented her from putting her thoughts in order. She looked from Amadou to Nati’s corpse and back, laughing as the tears rolled down her cheeks. It wasn’t exactly Nati or her fate that she cried for, but regret for a part of herself that had been lost forever.
113
‘Parmesan or ordinary cheese?’ Agla asked.
‘Ordinary. Kids like ordinary cheese,’ Tómas replied in the mature, pedagogic tone he had used all weekend whenever she had found herself at a loss.
She had never babysat as a teenager, as her friends had done, but instead had spent her hours outside school over the photocopier of a large accountancy firm. That was where she had learned a great deal – from reading the annual reports of a variety of large companies. But she had never picked up any of the finer points of handling small children that many people imagined were something that women were born knowing.
She put Parmesan on her own slice of bread and ordinary cheese on Tómas’s.
The weekend had worked out well. She knew all about boys and easily worked out what he enjoyed doing, so they had watched football on TV, taken the dog out for a walk a couple of times, and played first snap, then rummy and snap again. He had spent hours on end on the floor with his Lego bricks, so she had peace and quiet to deal with the overseas accounts and check out property websites. She had found a few houses that she thought Sonja ought to take a look at.
Now they were sitting opposite each other at the little table under the kitchen window when the doorbell rang and the dog set off barking for the door.
Tómas stopped chewing and a look of fear appeared on his face. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, staring at Agla, his mouth open and still full of sandwich.
‘I don’t know,’ Agla replied, getting up to answer the door.
An older woman wearing a beige coat and a silk scarf over her hairdo, as if she had been sent from the seventies, stood in the hallway. Teddy ran in circles around her and sniffed urgently at her shoes.
‘I’m Sonja’s mother,’ the woman said. ‘I’m here to collect Tómas.’
Agla stood for a moment and stared at the woman, who glared back at her. There was a clear likeness to Sonja: she was a handsome woman, but her lips were tightly pursed and deeply lined, which her lipstick served only to highlight.
‘Can I offer you some coffee?’ Agla said. ‘I’ve just made some.’
The woman hesitated, clearly unsure of what to do next, but finally shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just here to collect the boy.’
Agla looked her up and down. There was no way she was going to hand the child over to this woman. Sonja would never forgive her that. But neither could she slam the door in her face, as she had no wish to make relations even worse between mother and daughter. The last thing she wanted to do was to make darker the painful shadow that passed across Sonja’s face when she mentioned her mother. So Agla decided to fall back on the negotiation tactics that had always served her so well at the bank: a mixture of firmness and flexibility that would give her the final victory in the matter without the other party realising quite what had happened.
‘Sonja hasn’t said anything to me about anyone taking over, so I’ll have to call her. But come in and say hello to Tómas.’
‘Hi, Granny,’ Tómas said from behind Agla so that the woman’s face softened and the pursed lips curled into a smile. ‘There’s coffee here,’ he said taking his grandmother’s hand and pulling her inside.
Agla poured a cup for her and placed it on the kitchen table alongside the carton of milk. ‘Please help yourself,’ she said, gesturing for the woman to take a seat.
She seemed to hesitate, glancing suspiciously around. Agla sat down with a feigne
d calmness, and picked up her phone to select Sonja’s number, knowing that it would go straight to voicemail.
‘Sonja’s not answering,’ she said. ‘She’s flying home. Tómas and I are going to the airport later to pick her up.’
‘It’s best if I don’t stop,’ the woman said, without sitting down. ’Tómas, you’re to come with your grandmother.’
Tómas looked at the two of them in confusion and unconsciously sidled behind Agla, where she could feel that he took a handful of her blouse and held on tight. Her heart swelled for a second. That tiny movement on his part was so important – that he should seek safety behind her lit a fire in her heart.
‘Tómas, won’t you go to your room and get the Lego monster you made, so you can show it to your grandmother?’ Agla said, and he raced out of the room to escape the situation. Agla got to her feet and took one step closer to the woman, who instinctively stepped back. ’Tómas isn’t going anywhere without Sonja’s permission,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Now that she has custody, you need to negotiate with her if you want to see Tómas.’
‘You can’t negotiate with someone who leaves their child with a person of your type,’ the woman snarled.
It would pay to accept the other party’s point of view as valid, for the moment. ‘I can understand that you might have concerns,’ Agla said. ‘Of course, my face has been all over the newspapers, and the coverage has been less than pleasant. In fact, the same applies to your son-in-law, Tómas’s father. I take it you’ve heard all about that?’
‘That’s why I’m here!’ the woman spat. ‘Tómas needs a capable person to bring him up, considering his father has given him up because of his problems.’
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