standing in the corner with my back turned to all the other boys. It was pure hell. PE lessons were too. I was always the last one to be picked. Everyone sighed if they were forced to have me on their team. They never passed the ball to me. When I lie awake at night, I can still see their faces and hear their comments.’
‘How did you get through it?’
‘I didn’t. Finally I asked the teacher if I could practise discus throwing instead. Can you imagine that? The discus, of all ridiculous ideas. And the teacher went for it. So instead of playing basketball and football with the others, which was actually what I loved most, I would stand all alone on the grass behind the sports hall and throw the discus. Lesson after lesson. The teacher didn’t care. He just let me keep practising. That was probably a lot easier for him.’
Silence settles over the room. I down the rest of the water in the glass on the table in order to stave off the feeling of nausea. I’m about to fall into the darkness, and I don’t want to go there. I clutch the glass tight, holding it with both hands. I need to concentrate. How am I going to make it home? I’m on the verge of collapsing. I open my mouth again and the words automatically spill out. I listen to the voice, which sounds unfamiliar, as if it doesn’t belong to me.
‘If only I’d known what was ahead of me when I entered that classroom. A darkness that would last three years. And that’s an endless number of dark days. A feeling of dread would fill me each morning when I forced myself to get out of bed. Three years of humiliation and annihilation. Do you know what that does to a person? I’ve never understood why they hated me so much. I was completely alone.’
The memories are still buried in my body. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to put down the glass.
‘But what about at home? During all those years when you were having such a bad time, didn’t your mother notice anything? What did she do?’
I can hear the bitterness in my voice as I say: ‘Nothing. She never did anything.’
‘Nothing?’
‘It must have been obvious that I was having a bloody awful time of it. I never wanted to get out of bed in the morning. After school and all evening I would lie on my bed, alone in my room, and listen to music on my headset. Do you understand? Every night! Weekdays and weekends. Year after year. For three years not a single friend ever came home with me. No one ever phoned. And what did my mother do? Nothing.’
‘And you never talked about this with her? Didn’t she ever ask you what was wrong?’
I can’t bring myself to answer. Nausea has taken hold of me full force, and I feel as if I’m going to throw up at any second. My vision blurs. I see that the person across from me is leaning forward and saying something, but I no longer hear the voice.
I can’t stay here. I pick up my jacket and rush out of the door, then set off running for home. Along the way I bump into a pram, almost toppling it over. A woman screams abuse after me. Outside of the Konsum supermarket I knock over a bucket of tulips.
I manage to stay in control as I ride up in the lift. As soon as I get my door open, I dash for the toilet.
I lift the lid just in time.
JOHAN HAD NEVER received so much criticism for a story as he did after his report on the murder at the conference centre, which was broadcast on Monday evening. Regional News was the only programme to reveal Viktor Algard’s identity and the first to mention his pending divorce, as well as the possibility that he was having a love affair. All of this provoked a heated discussion about journalistic ethics.
After every broadcast Johan and Pia had a teleconference with the head office back in Stockholm. This time both were harshly reprimanded, primarily for choosing to publicize the information about Viktor’s mistress. It didn’t help that the neighbour’s speculation about Algard’s dalliances had been confirmed by his employees.
Several managing editors also found it appalling that Regional News had revealed the victim’s identity only twenty-four hours after he was found murdered. Johan defended his decision by saying that there was enormous interest in the case on Gotland, since Algard was so well known on the island. Besides, they had checked with the police to make sure that all family members had been informed about the death.
Johan, together with Pia and their boss Max Grenfors, had thought the information sufficiently relevant to make it public, given that this was a high-profile homicide. It might also provide an important clue to the motive.
Even though Johan defended himself fiercely and certainly presented a convincing argument, doubt was gnawing at him as he drove home to Roma in the dark.
He hoped to find Emma still awake. What he needed right now was a glass of wine and a chance to talk.
And Emma. He was longing for her. He was always longing for her. Finally they were able to be together, all the time. They could fall asleep together every night, and wake up together every morning.
Their relationship had definitely had its ups and downs since they’d met five years ago. Back then, Emma was married to Olle, she had two children in primary school, and she was living a quiet life with her family in Roma.
Then she met Johan. He happened to interview her in connection with a murder case, and they instantly fell in love. Eventually she divorced Olle and gave birth to Johan’s child. Their relationship had been stormy ever since. Against all odds, they had decided to get married during the previous summer. Johan had begun to doubt that they’d ever become husband and wife, when Emma had suddenly accepted his marriage proposal. On the day of the wedding, she kept him nervously waiting outside the church. Faro Church was filled with guests, the time for the wedding came and went, and the pastor was wringing her hands. Johan’s best man, Andreas, started looking worried, while all the groom wanted to do was run away. Half an hour late, Emma and her maid of honour had finally appeared, both of them out of breath. They’d had a flat tyre and had left their mobiles at home.
For the past six months they’d led a normal family life with their three-year-old daughter Elin. Every other week the family expanded when Sara and Filip, Emma’s children from her first marriage, now eleven and ten, came to stay. Johan had moved into Emma’s house in Roma and sublet his flat in the Sodermalm district of Stockholm.
His routine of buying fast food at the local 7-Eleven had now been replaced by major shopping expeditions at Willy’s supermarket. Takeaway pizza had been replaced by home-cooked meals served at specific times of the day. He’d become an expert at making sausage stroganoff, mincemeat sauce and pancakes. Instead of sleeping late on the weekend, he now got up to fix porridge for the kids in the kitchen. The days were filled with playing with the doll’s house and plastic cars, watching children’s programmes on TV, Parcheesi, football and sledding.
Instead of spending late nights at the pub, Johan would fall asleep by ten o’clock in front of the TV, with Emma leaning on his shoulder and sometimes one or two of the kids on his lap. His job didn’t claim all his attention the way it used to do. Sometimes in the middle of editing a story he’d find himself suddenly wondering what Elin was doing at the day-care centre. And an interview that unexpectedly ran late could make him start to fret because he’d promised to take the children swimming or to football practice, or he was supposed to attend a parents’ meeting at school. Previously he’d been the type of person who more or less lived for his job, endlessly on his computer or discussing work with colleagues. But now he was always in a rush to get home. His family was waiting for him. They needed him. And he loved that.
It was dark by the time he parked outside the house, but there were lights on in all the windows. Emma was awake.
‘Hello,’ he called as he went in, pushing aside ten pairs of shoes and some little rubber boots decorated with flowers.
‘Hi,’ he heard her reply from the kitchen. She was sitting there, clad in her usual grey jogging suit, with her long, sandy-coloured hair hanging loose down her back. Her eyes looked tired.
He gave her a hug.
‘Hi, sweetheart. How are things?’
‘OK. Elin’s cough is better. She’s asleep now, thank God.’
Johan went upstairs and opened the door to Sara’s room. Her breathing was slow and regular; she always slept so soundly. He gently touched her cheek, and then turned off the light next to her bed, which was shining right in her face.
In the next bedroom Filip was asleep with his arms stretched over his head and his mouth wide open. He had kicked off the covers. Johan stood there looking at the boy for a moment. He almost thought of Filip as his own son. Lately they’d had such good times together. They shared a passion for football and a week ago Johan had gone to
