‘Why?’
‘See if you have something now.’
‘I was just in to check it five minutes ago.’
He was irritated now. Irritated and scared.
This was quite enjoyable.
‘Five minutes ago I was talking on the phone. You couldn’t have checked it then, could you?’
He gave a deep sigh. Showed with all his body language how annoying he found her.
‘OK, maybe it was eight minutes ago. I didn’t look at the clock.’
‘Why don’t you want to check it?’
‘Damn it, I told you I just checked!’
An unpleasant tone of voice. So scared and so easy to upset. Imagine how much better you’d feel if you made an effort and looked at the truth, you fucking coward.
‘Give me the phone.’
‘Who are you going to call?’
‘Annika.’
He gave her the cordless phone and she glanced at the telephone list on the notice-board. Annika answered after the first ring.
‘Hi, it’s Eva.’
‘How’d it go?’
‘No, he didn’t get anything, he says.’
There was silence on the line.
Henrik sat as if paralysed, staring at the writhing snake on the screen.
She was busy thinking of her next move. Then she smiled to herself, looked at the back of his head and began talking. Let each syllable stab into him like a knife.
‘I still think we ought to give Linda a chance to explain herself. I have a hard time believing she meant to send those emails, but the rumour will probably spread like wildfire. I think we should phone everyone and arrange a meeting at the day-care on Sunday evening. I can take care of it if you want.’
She heard Jakob’s mother sigh on the other end.
‘I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes at that meeting.’
If only you knew what she does with them off.
‘No, me neither. Really. But what else can we do? This way at least she’ll have a chance to explain.’
Henrik still sat as if paralysed when she hung up.
The back of his neck was flaming red from all those stabs.
She fell asleep right away that night. The exhaustion took its toll, but at the same time she felt secure again. In complete control. Nothing could touch her. Everything was already destroyed.
Plan A had gone to hell despite all her struggles in recent years. Now it was Plan B that mattered. She only needed to rethink it a bit. It was up to her if he succeeded in crushing her or not, her own choice. Not that she would ever give him the satisfaction. On the contrary, she would see to it that he paid for his betrayal, both financially and emotionally. She would crush
Alone.
She woke up when the phone rang. Automatically her eyes looked at the clock radio. Who the hell called people at 6.07 on Saturday morning? Didn’t she have any manners?
She reached out for the cordless phone and answered before the second ring.
‘Hello.’
Henrik turned over on his side with his back to her and slept on.
Someone was breathing in her ear.
‘Hello?’
No answer.
She threw off the covers, got up and left the bedroom. In the office she closed the door behind her.
‘Did you want something? If so, it’s probably better to say what it is now that you’ve called and woken us up.’
Utter silence. Yet she could hear that she was still on the other end.
There was so much she had wanted to say. So many words screaming inside in the dark that wanted to get out. But she was forced to restrain herself, not reveal that she knew, otherwise she’d lose her advantage. Plan B would be ruined.
‘You can go to hell!’
She hung up.
It was impossible to go back to sleep. She crept in under the covers again and lay for a while staring at the ceiling. Axel cuddled up to her, moving his warm body closer. She turned over on her side and looked at his beautiful, peaceful face. The sudden pressure over her ribcage caught her unaware. She took a few breaths to try and relieve the pain, but the air refused to stay in her lungs. It forced its way out as if unable to stand being inside.
She turned over on her back but the pain increased, radiating out into her left arm and forcing her to grimace. Don’t cry, steel yourself now! Think of something, try to concentrate on something else.
Home. Metre by metre she moved through her childhood home, remembering every step on the stairs, the creak of each floorboard. The way the curved handle on the front door felt in her hand, the sound of Mamma’s and Pappa’s calm voices filtering up through the wooden floor in her room when she went to bed, the way the Bakelite light switch in the old servant’s bedroom always slipped back if you didn’t turn it round twice.
And then the annihilating knowledge that her own son would never be able to quell his anxiety as an adult by remembering his safe childhood home. She had put so much energy into trying to create a home for him.
He would scarcely remember that once they had been a complete family.
Her failure was unforgivable.
The punishment eternal.
But she had no intention of carrying the blame alone.
Eva.
Her name was Eva.
Why had she lied?
Why had she gone home with him, given him access to her body, made him completely and without reservation admit her into his life, allowed him to reveal himself to her?
He lay on his back in bed and stared up at the ceiling, lay in the bed where they had made love. Where he had made love to her and she had used him, consumed him like an object. Utterly without consideration she had forced her way into his world, knocked over everything, stolen all the desire he had managed to preserve so long and with such great effort.
She was one of them.
One of the women who ruined his family and took his mother away from him.
The strength he thought she had given him had in three letters been transformed into a place vulnerable to attack, an undefended hole leading straight into his deepest fear. The fear whose only equal opponent was the control. His own means of defence.
Like a physical attack he felt the compulsion boring into him. There was nothing left that could withstand it.
He had been so strong only a few hours ago.
Who was this woman, who had claimed the right to inflict this on him?
He had already looked up the phone number in the book.
She lived in Nacka.
A ten-minute drive.
But it was impossible for him to leave the flat.
