He slid three of them over to Calle.
‘Couldn’t we have started with one each?’ Calle asked.
‘Don’t worry – my treat,’ Jorgen assured him.
‘Great.’
‘Just saves us getting up and down, you know how it is. So, tell me about your progress.’
Calle told him about the telephone call with the managing editor, how he had ducked and held the receiver out from his ear fearing that his eardrum would be damaged by the bollocking she was going to give him. And how it had all turned out so well in the end.
‘So one doesn’t write about suicide, does one not?’ Jorgen mocked.
‘No,’ Calle said. ‘Because there’s always some dimwit who reads it and is inspired:
‘
‘Exactly. Strange that the managing editor felt that she had to point it out. A bit of a let-down, I must say.’
‘And, ta-da, you’ve transformed progress into a setback,’ Jorgen said. ‘You’re about as pessimistic as Krosamaja in the Emil books. We could put you in a room full of stockbrokers and as soon as the stock market rose, you’d put your hands to your head and say: “First they’ll go blue in the face and then they’ll die.”’
‘And it wouldn’t be a moment too soon,’ Calle said.
‘I couldn’t agree with you more. Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’
They finished their first beers, pushed the empty glasses to one side and grabbed another full one. Nursing it like a baby bottle.
‘So suicide is contagious?’ Jorgen said thoughtfully.
‘Just like seasickness,’ said Calle.
‘Do you remember that girl at school who took her own life?’
‘Who?’
‘Annika, the shrink’s daughter.’
‘Oh yes, her.’
‘Lived in the white pile down by the water,’ Jorgen prompted. ‘Right out on the point. Black dog that ran up and down the fence barking whenever you cycled past.’
‘Oh, her. Hanged herself, didn’t she?’
‘Think so. No one really went into any details. Good-looking mum, as far as I can remember.’
‘Not my department,’ Calle sniffed.
‘The dad wasn’t bad, either. Richard Gere type.’
‘Now you’re talking.’
‘The daughter, on the other hand, was rather plain,’ Jorgen added, philosophically.
‘God, listen to yourself.’
‘It’s possible she might’ve grown out of it, who knows? But I don’t think she’d ever be as sexy as her mum. Don’t you remember her? She was the neighbourhood MILF. Used to rake the gravel on the driveway.’
Calle started, diving into his own thoughts: rake the gravel. The elderly woman in Hittarp. The one who looked familiar. Who had pointed out where Michael Zetterberg lived.
‘That dog used to make a racket, with all the boys cycling past for an ogle,’ Jorgen said.
She had been raking the gravel. Just like she always had. It was her, Annika’s mum.
Jorgen snapped his fingers under his friend’s nose.
‘Calle? Hello? Can you hear me?’
The flex was attached to the base of the floor lamp. About two hundred centimetres from the switch, which was one of those you can tap with your foot. But Ylva normally turned off the light with her hand, so she didn’t need to get out of bed. There was about one and a half metres of cord from the switch to the wall, which had been pushed under the bed so it wouldn’t look messy.
When the switch was off, there was no power supply to the lamp.
Gosta and Marianne had overwhelmed her and locked her up with the help of a stun gun. Now it was Ylva’s turn to give them a taste of their own medicine.
She was not a whore, she was the mother who jumped into the water.
Ylva got out of bed and went over to the kitchen area. It was pitch-black, but she knew every centimetre of her limited space. She took the scissors and knife and went back to bed. The light was off, so no electricity could run past the switch.
She crouched down, felt around for the flex and cut it as close to the base as she could. Using the knife, she stripped the ends, bent the wires out so there was a couple of centimetres between them. She stuck the end of the flex back under the base.
From now on, she wouldn’t turn the light on, under any circumstances. Not until the time was right.
She went back to the kitchen area and returned the scissors and knife to their place on the counter, where they were visible, in accordance with the rules. She was punished harshly if she ever broke or forgot the rules.
She opened the drawer and took out the fork, the only piece of metal cutlery she had been given to eat with, went back to the bed and hid it under the mattress.
She was going to give him a new experience, a completely new experience.
‘No,’ Calle Collin said. ‘No, no, don’t.’
They had drunk six beers each and the bill was now standing at four hundred kronor. Plus twenty for a bowl of peanuts. Calle couldn’t imagine that his super wealthy friend would leave anything more than ten as a tip.
‘It can’t just be a coincidence,’ Jorgen said.
‘Pff, well,’ Calle started. ‘What’s the connection, you reckon?’
‘I don’t bloody know. But one thing’s for sure, I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘You don’t need to believe in coincidences,’ Calle said. ‘In our middle-class world – and I hope you don’t mind me including you in it, you just happen to have earned a lot more – but our middle-class world is so laughably small that it doesn’t take much. Do you know what I do when I’m feeling a bit paranoid and want to stoke the flames? I look up old adversaries on Facebook. All the bastards are there. You get a picture of the person in question and can see all the idiot’s friends. Then you look at the updates and discover a whole new raft of friends. And I tell you, you don’t have to do that many times before you come across a name that you know from somewhere else. You press on that and, hey presto, a new person and a new gallery of friends. Updates, and a click on. The whole world is connected. The fact that Annika’s parents live where they live, among other well-to-do folk, is not a coincidence. They always flock together. So they can avoid people with different points of view. So much for coincidence, thank you very much.’
‘God, you’re drunk,’ Jorgen stated.
‘I’m not drunk.’
‘Okay, well, think about this then. Imagine if the shrink and his MILF wife for some reason held the Gang of Four responsible for Annika’s death …’
‘There is no Gang of Four. They were friends for a while in secondary school, and, yes, they were bullies and should have all been locked away, I couldn’t agree more, but, and I mean a big but, they weren’t a gang. After Class Nine you never saw them together at all. One of the guys dropped out of school, if I remember right. Jorgen, you bloody weirdo moneybags, are you listening to me?’
‘I’m listening, I’m listening.’
‘Well, look like it then, don’t just sit there staring at the wall.’
‘I’m not staring at the wall, I’m thinking.’
‘Would it be possible to share some of your great thoughts?’
‘I think I’m right. The group split after Annika’s suicide. I don’t give a damn what you say, I think I’m going to call Ylva’s husband.’
‘Then I won’t have a job to speak of.’
‘I can employ you, you can write my memoirs.’
