She sat down on the bed with the chair leg and looked at it. The broken end was sharp and jagged.
A weapon.
Mike wanted to ring his mum. He wanted to ring his mum and get her to explain, so he could understand. He had tried to be a good husband, made an effort every day, barely thought of anything else. Was that the problem maybe? The excessive desire to please?
Mike thought he’d managed to tone it down.
Was he annoying? Maybe he was; in fact, he was sure he was. And yet they’d had fun together, found things to do.
Why was she doing this? Why was she treating him like this? But what if something had happened? He could phone the hospital, maybe, just to ask. To be sure. To have something to do.
He went out into the sitting room, looked at his daughter. She was engrossed in what was going on on the screen. Animated, exaggerated and fast, with breathless voices.
He went back to the kitchen, closed the door quietly behind him. He phoned the operator, asked to be put through to the hospital. The woman on the switchboard then put him through to A&E where he rather sheepishly explained why he was calling, and was told that no one called Ylva Zetterberg had been admitted, no women of her age, in fact.
The woman he spoke to could hear how distressed he was.
‘I’m sure she’ll be back soon,’ she said to encourage him. ‘There’ll be a perfectly reasonable explanation. My guess is that she’s sleeping it off at a friend’s.’
‘Probably.’
‘Well, she certainly hasn’t had an accident,’ the nurse repeated, ‘because then we’d know about it.’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.’
‘Not at all. Have a good day.’
He dialled Nour’s number again. She obviously hadn’t had any problems going back to sleep after Mike’s first call.
‘It’s me again. Sorry to disturb you.’
‘No problem,’ Nour said, still half asleep. ‘Has she come back?’
‘I called the hospital. She wasn’t there.’
‘Good.’
‘Yes, but I’m getting quite worried now. You don’t know if she might’ve gone out with some other people?’
The silence was a tenth of a second too long.
‘She said she was going home.’
‘Nour, sorry if I’m being too direct, but you must know that we had some problems a year or so ago.’
‘She said she was going home,’ Nour repeated.
‘But she hasn’t come home, so she obviously didn’t.’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘No, she can’t have gone home,’ Nour said.
‘Do you know where she is?’ Mike asked. ‘You don’t need to say anything to me, all I’m asking you to do is to ring her and get her to contact me. She just needs to let me know she’s okay.’
‘Look, she said she was going home.’
‘Okay, okay.’
‘I promise, I don’t know anything,’ Nour exclaimed. ‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly ten.’
‘It’s early yet. She’ll come home. Maybe she met some friends on the way back and stayed out late with them, then crashed on someone’s sofa, you know how it is. I’m sure there’s a good reason.’
‘Yes,’ Mike muttered.
‘Well, obviously nothing’s happened.’
‘No.’
‘Because then she’d be in hospital,’ Nour assured him.
‘Right.’
‘She’ll be home in an hour, I promise.’
Mike said nothing. Nour wondered if he was crying.
‘Um, Mike …’ she said, as gently as she could.
‘I can’t bear this,’ he burst out. ‘Can’t bear it.’
‘Mike, listen to me. Don’t imagine the worst, there’s no reason to. I’m sure it was just a late night, so she didn’t want to call and wake you, and then she crashed and she’s still asleep … She hasn’t texted you?’
‘No.’
His voice was so thin that Nour could barely hear it.
‘Her phone’s switched off,’ he added with a sob.
‘Maybe the battery’s low,’ Nour tried. ‘I’m sure there’s a thousand explanations. Do you want me to ring round and see what I can find out?’
‘Please.’
‘Okay, I’ll do that. No matter what the explanation is, she should have let you know. And you don’t need to feel stupid. D’you hear me? She’s the one who’s mucked up, not you. Okay?’
14
Starvation
Particularly non-compliant women are often starved. The lack of food dramatically reduces their ability to resist. Eventually, the woman does not have the energy to fight back, no matter what is done to her.
Ylva sat on the bed and stared at the screen. Holst drove past in his beautifully cared for old Volvo estate. There was a certain status in only buying a new car every twenty years, then driving it into the ground. It showed stability, old money and a healthy disregard for keeping up appearances.
Two schoolgirls, a couple of years older than Sanna, cycled past down the middle of the road. They stood up on the pedals, rested a while, then cycled on.
Gunnarsson walked past with a light step and his white dog on a lead.
The small, respectable neighbourhood came to life. Everything was as normal. There was no evident activity inside or outside Ylva’s house.
She stared at the screen, transfixed, the only window she had on the world outside.
The camera was set up on the second floor of the house, pointing down towards Ylva and Mike’s house. The picture showed the street, the grassy area between Grontevagen and Sundsliden where the children didn’t play football and rounders often enough, and the start of Backavagen.
For long periods, nothing happened. The branches on the trees moved in the wind, nothing more. Then a car or a jogger might pass. But mostly cars, probably on their way to the shop to get whatever was needed for a perfect weekend breakfast. Fresh rolls, Tropicana juice, cheese.
Ylva felt dizzy. She hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday and had drunk barely a drop.
She went over to the kitchenette, still holding the jagged chair leg in her hand, and drank some water straight from the tap. She had to stop to breathe between gulps. She took out the crispbread and the Primula, squeezed it on generously, and stood by the sink while she ate.
