the hall table. Something. They had left the door unlocked, and anyone could have got in.
Something that would have felt horrible just a couple of days ago now happened quite naturally. Teresa went into the kitchen and fetched the biggest carving knife, then marched through the apartment with the knife held in front of her, ready to attack. She opened every wardrobe, looked under the beds.
Theres sat on the sofa with her hands on her knees, following Teresa’s movements as she secured the area. Only when Teresa was convinced no one was hiding anywhere and came back to the living room did she ask a question: ‘What are you doing?’
‘Someone’s been here,’ said Teresa, putting the knife down on the coffee table. ‘And I don’t understand why. It bothers me.’
Her train was leaving in twenty-five minutes, and she would need to be lucky with the subway if she was going to catch it. But still she stood absolutely motionless for ten seconds, breathing in through her nose. Sniffing the air. There was something there. A scent. Something she couldn’t place.
She grabbed her bag and told Theres to lock the door behind her. Then she raced down the stairs and ran all the way to the subway station. She saw a train coming in, and just managed to slip through the doors before they closed.
The train to Osteryd was full, and she got on two minutes before it was due to leave. Since she didn’t have a seat reservation, she pushed her way through to find an empty space. As she moved into the next carriage, she became aware of the same scent again. She stopped and sniffed, looked around.
A group of men in their forties and fifties were sitting on one side of her. There were a few beer cans on the table, and they were talking loudly about someone called Birgitta on reception, and whether she had fake tits or not. The scent of aftershave was coming from the men, and suddenly she knew.
There was an empty seat in the buffet car, and the counter hadn’t opened yet. As soon as she sat down she heaved her bag up onto the table so that she could get out her mobile and ring Theres. She found her phone, and at the same time discovered that something else was missing. With gritted teeth she hit speed dial, and when Theres answered she said, ‘It was Max Hansen who was in your apartment. And he’s pinched my MP3 player.’
Max Hansen was on a steep incline. He had lost his grip, and he was sliding. Downwards. It didn’t matter to him, because there was a conscious decision behind it. He was being carried to the bottom of his own free will; he was completing his downhill race in slow motion, as if he were enjoying a skiing holiday. There was pleasure along the way, and he hoped he would be able to brake before the crash came.
The catalyst, the first shove in the back had happened on Christmas Day.
He had dedicated Christmas Eve to drinking and grinding his teeth at Tora Larsson’s stupidity. The record company lost interest in his master tape once they found out about the video clip on MySpace. His cash cow had escaped from her stall, and was offering her udders to anyone who wanted a drink. Free to everyone, come along and have a taste.
There was absolutely nothing he could do. The fact that there was no contract, the gamble that was going to make his fortune, had instead become his misfortune. It had been a calculated risk, but he couldn’t have imagined that it would go down the pan in this particular way, and that bothered him. In his drunken misery he had taken out Robbie and was on the point of hurling him from the balcony, but managed to stop himself.
Before he passed out on the sofa he spent a long time weeping and patting Robbie’s shiny nose, begging for forgiveness for what he had almost done.
On Christmas Day he rang Clara. She was a Danish woman he thought he had pulled at Cafe Opera a year or so ago. He had hauled out what Danish he could still remember, talked jokingly about their homeland, then taken her back to his place. It had all been just a bit too easy, and when it was all over, it turned out she expected payment. She got her money and Max got her phone number.
In spite of the fact that Clara, at around thirty, was a bit old for him he had used her services a couple of times. Since he wasn’t particularly attracted to her, it had to be a hand job or a blow job, which was cheaper anyway.
This time she made it clear that she would be charging holiday rates, in other words a supplementary fee of five hundred kronor as it was Christmas Day, but there was nothing Max could do. He needed her.
When she arrived at his apartment he had already sunk a couple of whiskies and was feeling sentimental. He tried speaking Danish to her, the childish expressions he remembered, but Clara made it very clear that she just wanted to get this over with. She wanted to get home to her daughter.
So Max took off his clothes and sat down in the armchair. Clara started working on him with her hand. Her practice was not to work with her mouth unless he was wearing a condom. But of course the first task was to get it up so that she had something to put the condom
Not a twitch. Not a tingle. Nothing.
He had never had problems with Clara before. On the contrary. The fact that everything was clearly agreed from the start and that there was no uncertainty about it usually relaxed him; usually, he would get a hard-on as soon as she touched him. Not this time. It was just like when he watched his films. He had lost something after the experience with Tora Larsson. At that moment, as he sat staring at his dormant cock, he realised it would never come back. He was impotent.
Clara sighed and scrabbled at his pubic hair with her fingers. ‘Come on, there’s a good boy, up you get for Clara.’ Max pushed her hand away and threw his head back. There was a faint cracking noise and suddenly he knew what he wanted.
‘Bite me,’ he said. When Clara didn’t react, he pointed to his shoulder. ‘Bite me hard. Here.’
Clara, who presumably wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the scenario, shrugged her shoulders, leaned over him and nipped his shoulder. Max whispered, ‘Harder.’ She bit harder, almost drawing blood, and something soft and pleasant flooded through Max’s body. He told her to bite him in a couple of other places. When she didn’t want to do that any more, he told her to slap him across the face. And again, harder.
His ears were ringing and his penis was still lying there like a trampled snake, but he had the same sense of satisfaction, of peacefulness, as after intercourse. When he paid Clara she said she wasn’t all that keen on this kind of thing, but she had a colleague called Disa who was more of a specialist. She gave Max Disa’s number. Merry Christmas.
After she left, he sat in the armchair and examined his feelings. So this was what it had come to. This was the way of things now. Max closed his eyes and let go of what he had been, or what he thought he had been. Began to slide. There was no point in keeping up a respectable facade or chasing after the status that might lead him to his sexual pleasures. Let go.
The following day he went to the address-he had only sent letters there to that point-and had the conversation with Jerry. He was going to salvage what could be salvaged by whatever means were available. As if on cue, Ronny from Zapp Records rang the day before New Year’s Eve; they were still kind of interested, in spite of everything. The huge popularity of the song couldn’t be ignored. A professional recording had its value. Was it Max who owned the rights?
He played the tape. They could draw their own conclusions.
Then things began to happen. The song became a big hit, and the interest in Tesla was huge. Unfortunately Max hadn’t been paid any big advance. The royalties would trickle in, but that was a long way off and Max was in a hurry. He was on thin ice; he had to grab as much as possible before it gave under him.
The record company wanted a whole album, and they were prepared to cough up a decent amount of money in advance. Other companies got in touch, and after several conversations back and forth with Ronny, Zapp were ready to cough up so much they were on the point of haemorrhage. Everything was going Max’s way, and he slithered along on the treacherous ice and threw himself down the ski run and any other metaphor he could think of to describe the basic problem: he didn’t have the songs.
He hadn’t even managed to establish contact with Tora Larsson. He had phoned, he had written, he had
