swimming dock at Hamnplan, dripping with water, smiling happily at the camera with the Danish coastline in the background.
11
Ylva heaved and gasped, tried to think straight. They had driven into the garage, carried her down some steps that swung ninety degrees to the right, west towards the water. They had walked along a corridor, two to three metres long and opened double doors into the room she was in now.
She compared this with her mental image of the house. She’d never been inside before, just seen it from the outside, but she knew that the ground plan was basically square.
Ylva realised that they’d built the room she was in more or less in the middle of the cellar, as far from the outer walls as possible. The breeze blocks that separated her from the rest of the cellar were more than a hundred centimetres thick. They may have insulated the walls even more behind the blocks.
They had built a music studio, a soundproof room where you could make as much noise as you liked without anything being heard outside. So basically, no matter how much she screamed, no one would hear her.
But the room couldn’t be completely sealed. There had to be an opening, some kind of ventilation. Oxygen could of course get in through the cracks and joins in the doors and walls, but an extractor would be bigger.
She quickly crossed the room again, opened the cupboard doors, inspected the walls and ceiling, got down on her knees and looked under the bed.
There was a vent in the bathroom and in one of the corners of the room. Ylva took the chair from beside the bed and pulled it into position. She got up on it and put her mouth to the vent and shouted for help. Stretching at such an awkward angle gave her cramp in the neck and she found it hard to keep her balance. She almost fell off the chair a couple of times, but managed to stay upright by bending her knees. She screamed for help, desperate and scared.
She had no idea how much time had passed when she finally gave up in tears, climbed down from the chair and collapsed on the bed. She looked at the TV screen. The white halos around the street lamps were bigger and the lights in her own house had been turned off. It was night.
Ylva wondered whether Mike had tried to call her. She couldn’t be sure. Maybe he’d wanted to, but hadn’t dared. Mike was scared that she’d get irritated, that she’d think he was keeping an eye on her, clipping her wings. How many times had she not checked her breath when she felt that he was following her around? Ingratiating and happy to help, but also anxious and on guard.
And even though she’d never said it aloud, the sentence hung in the air and spoke volumes.
Mike dropped off to sleep quickly but woke up again just after two. He saw that Ylva wasn’t home yet, went to the loo and then came back to bed. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the light in the bathroom and sat down on the toilet for a piss, everything to increase his chances of going back to sleep, but as soon as he was under the covers again, he was wide awake. Red wine usually had that effect. It made him dozy and sleepy at first, but then he woke up with his heart going like the clappers. His brain immediately engaged and proceeded to take him on a twisting and shuddering big dipper ride. The associations were inevitably negative and dark.
Wherever Ylva was now. He could picture it. Her falling back on to a bed, quickly followed by an intent lover who kissed her passionately on the mouth and then on down her neck. The shirt being ripped off, wild, almost like a parody of a film, but to them, natural and real.
Ylva’s lover’s eager hands drawn to her cunt, her gasps and half-strangled cry as he penetrated.
Mike opened his eyes to clear the images in his head, replace them with what his eyes could see: the window, the clock-radio, his clothes on the chair, the wardrobe and the mirror. Everything was real and existed in the real world.
He turned on the bedside lamp, let his eyes adjust to the light. Time, 02.31. It wasn’t that late. Not really.
Ylva had gone out with her colleagues. They were drinking wine and talking loudly about work, male colleagues who for some reason were senior to them and smug with it, about promotions and being overlooked. Or they were telling stories about their husbands. What was good and bad about them. Those who had problems were offered comfort and advice and, when they’d analysed it thoroughly, they raised their glasses and came out with over-confident claims.
And whatever might follow a lead-in like that.
No, it was men who were absolutely certain. Men without voices. Men in old men’s bars, with a cheap pint in front of them. The female equivalent was probably:
Ylva and her female colleagues would soon return to their lives with a lighter heart, having offloaded their problems through the course of the evening.
Mike wondered if he was ever discussed in his role as manager. And if so, what his staff actually said. That he was weak? Probably not, not at work. Vague? No. What negative opinions would they have? Mike reckoned cold, that he was like a robot. They might even call him a psychopath and say that he showed absolutely no empathy. Which was presumably wrong, Mike guessed, because a psychopath was in fact sensitive to signals around him or her and careful to exploit them. Even if he or she decided in the end to ignore them and do whatever was necessary to get their own way.
Mike pushed the thought from his mind, felt almost hot and bothered by the interest he imagined his employees had in his life.
He fell asleep again, secure in the knowledge that he earned nearly four times as much as Ylva and the life they lived would not be possible without his income.
12
The Gang of Four, Calle Collin thought to himself, and sighed loudly.
Jorgen Petersson had too much money, that was obvious. Too much money, too much time and too little to do. Was Ylva the equivalent of Mao’s old widow, was that what he imagined?
Calle almost got annoyed. Why did all the nutters come to him? He was like a magnet for idiots. Did he have a neon sign saying ‘tolerant’ above his head? Was he too nice? Did they think that because he was a homosexual he understood the pain of being an outsider and so welcomed every man and his dog with open arms?
Probably the latter. Positive prejudice could be just as hard to deal with as negative. Jorgen had called him a good-natured poof. And Calle had asked what that made him, a fag hag?
The Gang of Four. How stupid was that?
What was Jorgen thinking, anyway?
Calle was still lying in bed. He had a headache and was too tired to masturbate. But he could feel the restlessness of the alcohol that was in the process of leaving his body. He had a wank all the same. To blanket his hangover and anxiety and change his frame of mind. He came on his stomach and got out of bed with his hand over the sperm, so it wouldn’t drip on the floor. He hurried out into the bathroom, wiped his belly clean, had a piss and went back to bed.
