“It rings, it rings again, I pick up the receiver and put it down straight away.”
“You are perfectly calm, Lydia.”
She looked tired, troubled perhaps.
“The food will get cold,” she said. “I’ve made lentil soup and I’ve baked bread. I was going to eat in front of the TV, but of course that won’t be possible.”
Her chin quivered, then stopped.
“I wait a while, look out into the street through the blinds. There’s no one there. I can’t hear anything. I sit down at the kitchen table and eat a little bit of warm bread with butter, but I have no appetite. I go down to the cellar, it’s cold down there as usual, and I sit on the old leather sofa and close my eyes. I have to compose myself. I have to gather my strength.”
She fell silent. Strips of seaweed drifted past and came between us.
“Why do you have to gather your strength?” I asked.
“So I’ll be able to get up and walk past the red rice-paper lantern with the Chinese symbols and the tray of scented candles and polished stones. The floorboards sag and creak beneath the plastic mat.”
“Is anyone there?” I asked Lydia quietly, but immediately regretted it.
“I pick up the stick and push down the bubble in the mat with my foot so I can open the door and go in and switch on the light,” she said. “Kasper’s blinking in the light, but he doesn’t sit up. He’s peed in the bucket. It smells very strong. He’s wearing his pale blue pyjamas. He’s breathing hard. I poke him with the stick through the bars. He makes pitiful noises, moves away a fraction, and sits up. I ask if he’s changed his mind and he nods, so I push a plate of food into the cage. The cod’s shrivelled up and turned a dark colour. He crawls over and eats it and I’m pleased, and I’m just about to tell him how happy I am that we understand each other when he throws up on the mattress.”
Lydia’s face contorted in a wry grimace. “And there I was”- her lips were taut, the corners of her mouth turning down- “I thought we were done.” She shook her head and licked her lips. “Do you understand how this makes me feel? He says sorry. I repeat that it’s Sunday tomorrow; I slap my face and scream at him to look.”
Charlotte was looking at Lydia through the water with frightened eyes.
“Lydia,” I said, “you are going to leave the basement now, without being frightened or angry; you are going to feel calm and collected. I am going to lift you slowly out of this deep relaxation, up to the surface, up to clarity, and together we are going to talk about what you’ve said, just you and I, before I bring the others out of their hypnosis.”
She snarled quietly, tiredly.
“Lydia, are you listening to me?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to count backwards, and when I reach one you will open your eyes and be fully awake and aware: ten, nine, eight; you are rising gently to the surface, your body feels completely relaxed and comfortable; seven, six, five, four; soon you are going to open your eyes but remain seated on your chair; three, two, one… now open your eyes. You are fully awake.”
Our eyes met. Lydia’s face looked somehow shrivelled, dried up. This was not something I had expected. I still felt cold because of what she had told me. If the rule of confidentiality had to be weighed against the duty of disclosure, this was a case in which it was crystal clear that the obligation to remain silent no longer applied, since a third party was obviously in danger.
“Lydia,” I said quietly, “you understand that I have to contact Social Services?”
“Why?”
“What you told me leaves me no choice.”
“In what way?”
“Don’t you see?”
Lydia drew back her lips. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You described how- ”
“Shut your mouth,” she snapped. “You don’t know me, you have nothing to do with my life, and you have no right to meddle in what I do in my own home.”
“I have reason to suspect that your child- ”
“Shut your mouth!” she screamed, and left the room.
I’d parked next to a high fir hedge three hundred feet from Lydia’s large wooden house in Rotebro. The social worker had agreed to my request to accompany her on the first home visit. My report to the police had been received with a certain amount of scepticism but had, of course, led to a preliminary investigation.
A red Toyota drove past me and stopped outside the house. I got out of the car, walked over, and introduced myself to the short, stocky woman who stood outside the car.
Sodden advertising leaflets were sticking out of the letter box. The low gate stood open. We went up the path to the house. I noticed there were no toys in the neglected garden. No sandbox, no swing in the old apple tree, no bike on the path. It was a sunny day, but all the blinds were closed. The hanging baskets were full of dead plants. A flight of rough stone steps led up to the door. I thought I sensed a movement behind the yellow opaque glass. The social worker rang the bell. We waited, but there was no answer, no sound except birdsong and the intermittent noise of distant traffic. She yawned, looked at her watch, rang the bell again, and tried the handle. The door was not locked. She opened it. We were looking into a small hallway.
“Hello?” she shouted. “Lydia?”
We walked in, took off our shoes, and continued through a door into a passageway with pink wallpaper and pictures of people meditating, with bright light around their heads. There was a pink telephone on the floor next to a hall table.
“Lydia?”
I opened a door and saw a narrow staircase leading to the basement.
“It’s down here,” I said.
The social worker followed me down the stairs and into the rec room, which contained an old leather sofa and a table, the top of which was made up of brown tiles. On a tray stood several scented candles among polished stones and pieces of glass. A deep red rice-paper lantern with Chinese characters on it hung from the ceiling. A plastic mat lay over the floorboards. Against one wall was a door. My heart was pounding as I moved over to it. When I tried to open it, the door got stuck on a large bubble in the plastic mat. I pushed down the bubble with my foot and went inside.
There was no cage. Instead, an upturned bicycle stood in the middle of the floor with the front wheel removed. A repair kit lay beside a blue plastic box: rubber patches, glue, monkey wrenches. One of the shiny hooks had been inserted under the edge of the tyre and braced against the spokes. Suddenly there was a creaking sound from the ceiling, and we realized someone was walking across the floor of the room above. Without exchanging a word we hurried up the stairs. The kitchen door was ajar. I noticed there were slices of bread and crumbs on the yellow linoleum floor.
“Hello?” the social worker called out.
I went in and saw that the fridge door was open. Lydia was standing in the pale glow of the light, her eyes gazing at the floor. Only after a few seconds did I see the knife in her hand. It was a long bread knife with a serrated edge. Her arm was hanging loosely by her side. The knife blade glimmered beside her thigh as her hand shook.
“I don’t want you here,” she hissed, suddenly looking at me.
“All right,” I said, moving backwards toward s the doorway.
“Shall we sit down and have a little chat?” said the social worker, keeping her tone neutral.
I pushed open the door and saw that Lydia was slowly moving closer.
“Erik,” she said. I started to close the door, and Lydia sprang forward. I raced down the hall, but the door at the end was locked. Lydia kept pace, making a strange wailing noise as she ran. I yanked open another door and stumbled into a TV room. Lydia followed me in. I bumped into an armchair as I made for the balcony door, but it was impossible to turn the handle. Lydia flew at me with the knife, and I took cover behind a large oval table.
“It’s your fault,” she said, as she chased me this way, that way, around the table.
The social worker ran into the room. She was completely out of breath. “Lydia,” she said sharply. “Stop this right now.”
