bits of paper from the metal cash box to Theres.
She lay down on her bed and read some Ekelof. The rapport she had felt when she came out of hospital was no longer there, and she caught herself thinking Ekelof was
The silence of the deep night is great
It is not disturbed by the rustle of the people
eating one another here on the shore
It was the word ‘rustle’ she liked. That was all. A rustling sound as flesh is consumed.
She put down the book and lay with her hands behind her head, missing her MP3 player. She didn’t like the idea that Max Hansen might be sitting wearing her earphones at this very minute, listening to the songs she and Teresa had made together. She didn’t like it at all. It was like knowing there was a pig in the wardrobe, a snout snuffling around among your clean clothes.
Her mobile rang, and when Teresa answered she expected to hear that slimy voice from the depths of the sty, but it was Johannes. After a few introductory phrases he asked how she was, and she said she was absolutely fine.
‘It’s just that I’ve got a feeling you’re…I don’t know, that you’re
‘I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m here.’
‘So why are you avoiding me, then?’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, you are. Do you think I haven’t noticed?’
‘What does it matter? You don’t want anything to do with me.’
There was a long sigh at the other end of the phone. Then Johannes said, ‘Teresa, just stop that. You’re my oldest friend. Don’t you remember what we said? That we’d be friends. No matter what.’
Teresa had a strange, rough feeling in her throat, but her voice sounded perfectly normal when she replied, ‘We said a lot of things. When we were little.’
‘Are you thinking about anything in particular?’
‘No.’
Johannes gave a snort, as if he were smiling at some memory. ‘I just thought about that time…when we were lying in the cave, do you remember? When we said we were going to be dead?’
The rough feeling in her throat had begun to take on the form of a lump, and Teresa said, ‘Listen, I’ve got things to do.’
‘OK. But can’t you come over one day, Teresa? It’s such a long time since we had a proper chat. And listen, we can play Tekken! I’ve got a…’
‘Bye Johannes. Bye.’
She ended the call. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach and leaned forward, then down as far as she could until there was a rushing noise in her head and it started to hurt. She straightened up and it flowed away. Her skull emptied as the blood poured back down her body and her anxiety abated.
She tore a sheet of paper into tiny, tiny pieces which she pushed in her mouth and chewed. When the paper had turned into a soggy ball, she spat it out into the waste paper basket. She was grateful that she was alone. Her defences were weak; if anyone had wanted to harm her, this would have been the perfect opportunity.
It was quarter past eleven, and the auction was over. She checked her messages and found an email from the website telling her she had won. No one else had put in a bid, and the wolf skin was hers for six hundred kronor.
She knew exactly what she was going to do with it, and where she was going to suggest for Sunday’s meeting.
‘He wrote. Max Hansen.’
‘What did he write?’
‘That he knows. About Lennart and Laila. And the room. When I was little. How they ended up dead.’
‘So what’s he going to do, then?’
‘An album. With our songs.’
‘No, I mean what’s he going to do with what he’s found out. About you.’
‘Nothing.’
‘What? Is that what he wrote, that he’s not going to do anything at all?’
‘If I don’t do anything, he won’t do anything. That’s what it said.’
They were sitting right at the back of the number 47 bus from Sergels Torg. A few families with children were sitting towards the front, but the seats closest to them were empty. It was the middle of April, and the streams of tourists heading for Djurgarden had not yet got under way. Teresa leaned forward, resting her elbows on the full rucksack at her feet as she tried to think.
It was hardly likely to be in Max Hansen’s interests to reveal what he knew about Theres; it was just an empty threat.
The girl who grew up in a cellar and turned into a cold-blooded murderer. It was just the kind of story people loved. Teresa had never thought about Theres’ story in that way before, but she could see it now. The newspaper screamers. Day after day. A story that would run and run, and plenty of free advertising for the album. Could Max Hansen be such an evil bastard? Could he?
As the bus crossed the bridge Teresa straightened up and took a deep breath, drumming the heels of her boots on the floor. It was pointless to speculate. She would concentrate on what was happening now.
Twelve girls had said they were coming. The youngest was fourteen, the oldest nineteen. Theres had told her a little bit about each of them, but Teresa found it difficult to separate the monosyllabic accounts and link them to the names. Miranda and Beata and Cecilia and two Annas and so on.
She remembered Miranda from that time in the apartment, and Ronja was the name of a girl Theres said had tried to kill herself three times, once by eating glass. That had stuck in Teresa’s mind, because it was so extreme. Ronja. No doubt her parents had had something else in mind when they chose the name.
They got off outside Skansen. Teresa heaved the rucksack onto her back and headed for the Solliden entrance. Theres didn’t follow her. She was stuck outside the main entrance, gazing up at the sign. When Teresa turned back, Theres asked, ‘Is this Skansen?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘A zoo. And some old buildings, that kind of thing. Why do you ask?’
Theres frowned. ‘I’m going to sing here.’
‘What? Or rather…when? How come?’
‘I don’t understand. Am I going to sing to the animals?’
Teresa looked at the big, ornate letters above the entrance. She knew there were concerts here sometimes, and so of course…
‘Just hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘When are you going to sing here?’
‘In the summer. Max Hansen wrote. Sing Along at Skansen. Good publicity.’
‘Yes. Otherwise he’ll tell about Lennart and Laila.’ Theres’ tone of voice altered slightly, and Teresa sensed that she was just regurgitating something Max Hansen had written when she went on, ‘Then Jerry will go to prison. I’ll end up in the loony bin with all the other nutters. Why am I going to sing to the animals?’
Teresa took off her rucksack and put it on the ground. Then she sat down on it and asked Theres to sit next to her. She took her hand.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘First of all. You’re not going to sing to the animals. There’ll be people there. Thousands of people. Adults and kids and teenagers. It’s shown on TV. Millions of people watch it. That’s what it’s about, OK? Sing Along at Skansen.’
