‘Not always, not always,’ Hans replies, in a voice that sounds heavy and sad.
Malin nods to him, to indicate that she knows that he means. But do I? she wonders.
Who is she? Malin thinks, opening the door to the hospital room. Zeke is waiting outside.
A single bed against a wall, thin strips of light filtering through Venetian blinds and spreading across the grey- brown floor. A monitor is bleeping quietly, and two little red points of light on its screen shine like a pair of badger’s eyes in the gloom. Drip-stands with blood-bags and fluids, a catheter-bag, and then the figure on the bed under thin yellow blankets, her head reclining on a pillow.
Who is it?
The cheek facing Malin is covered with a bandage.
But who is it?
Malin approaches cautiously and the figure on the bed groans, turns her head towards her, and isn’t that something like a smile between the gaps in the bandages?
Hands wrapped in gauze.
The eyes.
I recognise them.
But who is it?
The smile is gone and the nose and eyes and hair become a memory.
Rebecka Stenlundh.
Bengt Andersson’s sister.
She raises her bandaged hand towards Malin, beckoning her to the bed.
Then a huge effort, all the words to get out at once, a whole sentence to finish, as if it were her last.
‘You have to take care of my boy if I don’t make it. See that he ends up somewhere good.’
‘You’re going to make it.’
‘I’m trying, believe me.’
‘What happened? Can you bear to tell me what happened?’
‘The car.’
‘The car?’
‘That’s where I was taken.’
Rebecka Stenlundh turns her head, laying her bandaged cheek on the pillow.
‘Then a hole. In the forest, and a post.’
‘A hole, where?’
‘In the dark.’
‘Where in the dark?’
Rebecka shuts her eyes in a negative, in a: ‘I have no idea.’
‘And then?’
‘Sledge, and car again.’
‘Who?’
Rebecka Stenlundh shakes her head slowly.
‘You didn’t see?’
She shakes her head again. ‘I was going to be hanged, like Bengt.’
‘Was there more than one?’
Rebecka shakes her head once more. ‘Don’t know, couldn’t see properly.’
‘And the man who brought you in?’
‘He helped me.’
‘So you didn’t see…’
‘I struck the blackness, I struck the blackness, I…’
Rebecka drifts off, shuts her eyes, mumbles, ‘Mum, Mum. Can we go and play under the apple trees?’
Malin puts her ear close to Rebecka’s mouth. ‘What did you say?’
‘Stay, Mum, stay, you’re not ill…’
‘Can you hear me?’
‘My boy, take…’
Rebecka falls silent, but she’s breathing, her chest is moving; she’s sleeping, or is unconscious, and Malin wonders if she’s dreaming, hopes that Rebecka can escape dreaming for many nights to come, but knows that she’s going to dream.
The machine beside her bleeps.
Glowing eyes.
Malin stands up.
Stands beside the bed for a while before leaving the room.
70
Zeke on his way to Ikea, Malin on her way up the stairs of number 3, Drottninggatan, million-year-old fossils embedded in the stone of the steps. Viveka Crafoord’s clinic is on the third floor of four.
No lift in the building.
Crafoord Psychotherapy: a brass sign with curling letters, in the middle of a brown-lacquered door. Malin tries the handle. The door is locked.
She rings the bell.
Once, then twice, then a third time.
The door opens and a woman in her forties looks out. Frizzy black hair and a face that is round and sharp at the same time. Her brown eyes sparkle with intelligence even though they are half covered by a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
‘Viveka Crafoord?’
‘You’re an hour late.’
She opens the door a little more and Malin can see how she is dressed. A suede waistcoat over a puffy lilac- blue blouse, which in turn hangs over an ankle-length, green-checked, velvet skirt.
‘Can I come in?’
‘No.’
‘You said-’
‘I’m seeing a client at the moment. Go down to McDonald’s and I’ll call you in half an hour.’
‘Can’t I wait here?’
‘I don’t want anyone to see you.’
‘Have you got…’
The door to the clinic closes.
‘… my mobile number?’
Malin lets the question hang in the air, thinks that it’s about time for lunch, and she now has the perfect excuse to partake of the American fast-food Satan.
She really doesn’t like McDonald’s. Has stuck absolutely to her decision never to take Tove there.
Baby carrots and juice.
We’re taking our responsibility seriously and helping to combat childhood obesity.
So stop selling fries, then. Fizzy drinks. Half a responsibility: how much is that worth?
Sugar and fat.
Malin opens the door reluctantly.
Behind her a bus drives into Tradgardstorget.
One Big Mac and one cheeseburger later she feels ready to throw up. The restaurant’s garish colours and almost tangible smell of frying make her feel even worse.
Call now.
Twenty minutes. Thirty. Forty.
