control was his own home. He quickly realized that he could actually live his life without ever having to set foot outside his door again.
The last time Axel went outside was eight years ago. He had so effectively repressed all possible desire to venture out that he no longer knew whether the rest of the world was there or not. He was content with his life and saw no reason to change a thing.
Axel Wennerstrom spent his days following a routine that was well practised by now. Each day followed the same schedule, and today was no different. He got up at seven o’clock and ate breakfast. Then he cleaned the whole kitchen with strong cleaning solutions in order to eradicate any possible bacteria that the food he’d eaten for breakfast might have spread after it was taken out of the refrigerator. He spent the next few hours dusting, wiping off and putting in order the rest of the house. Not until one o’clock could he grant himself a break and sit down with his newspaper on the veranda. According to a special arrangement with Signe, the letter-carrier, he got his newspaper in a plastic bag each morning. That allowed him to repress at least partially the image of all the filthy human hands that had handled the paper before it landed in his letter-box.
A knock on the door made his adrenaline skyrocket. Nobody was supposed to come at this time of day. The person who delivered his food normally came early on Friday mornings. That was the only visitor he usually had. Laboriously, Axel made his way inch by inch towards the door. The knocks came again, insistently. He reached out a shaky hand towards the top lock and unfastened it. He wished he had a peephole, the kind usually found in the doors of more modern flats, but in his old building there wasn’t even a window in the door through which he could view the intruder. He also unlocked the bottom bolt and with a pounding heart he opened the door. He had to check a desire to close his eyes to shut out whatever appalling, nameless creature awaited him out there.
‘Axel? Axel Wennerstrom?’
He relaxed. Women were less threatening than men. For safety’s sake he kept the security chain on.
‘Yes, what is it?’
He tried to sound as discouraging as possible. He just wanted this person, whoever she was, to go away and leave him in peace.
‘Hello, Axel. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was in your class at school. Erica Falck?’
He searched his memory. That was so many years ago, and there had been so many pupils. Faintly, the image of a little blonde girl began to appear. That was it, Tore’s girl.
‘I wonder whether I could have a word with you.’
She gave him an urgent look through the crack in the door. Axel sighed deeply, unhooked the door chain and let her in. He tried not to think of how many unknown organisms she was bringing with her into his clean home. He pointed to a shoe rack to indicate that she should take off her shoes. She obeyed politely and also hung up her coat and scarf. To avoid getting her dirt in the rest of the house he showed her to the wicker furniture on the veranda. She sat down on the sofa, and he made a mental note to wash the cushions as soon as she left.
‘It’s certainly been a long time.’
‘Yes, it must be twenty-five years since you were in my class, if I’m figuring correctly.’
‘Yes, that’s right. The years go by so fast.’
Axel found small talk frustrating, but reluctantly resigned himself to it. He wished that she would get to the point and tell him why she came here. Then she would leave and he could have his home to himself again. For the life of him he couldn’t comprehend what she wanted from him. Old pupils had come and gone by the hundreds over the years; until now, he had been spared actually seeing any of them in person. But now Erica Falck was sitting here before him. He felt on pins and needles as he sat on the wicker armchair facing her. He was so eager to get rid of her. His eyes kept looking at the cushion underneath her, and he could literally see all the bacteria she had brought in creeping and crawling and spreading down from the sofa across the floor. It probably wouldn’t be enough to wash the cushion; he would have to clean and disinfect the entire house after she left.
‘You’re probably wondering why I’m here.’
He merely nodded in reply.
‘You must have heard that Alexandra Wijkner was murdered.’
He had heard about it, and it had stirred up things that he had spent a good part of his life trying to repress. Now he wished even more that Erica Falck would get up and walk out the door. But she was still sitting there, and he had to fight a childish impulse to put his hands over his ears and hum loudly to shut out all the words he knew were going to come.
‘I have my own reasons for investigating a number of things associated with Alex and her death, and I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.’
Axel closed his eyes. He had known that this day would come eventually.
‘All right. That will be fine.’
He didn’t want to ask what her reasons were for asking about Alex. She could keep them to herself, if she wanted to; he wasn’t interested. She could ask her questions, but there was nothing forcing him to answer them. At the same time he felt to his astonishment a strong urge to tell everything to the blonde woman sitting across from him. To unload onto someone, anyone, everything he had been holding on to for twenty-five years. It had poisoned his life. It had grown like seeds deep inside his conscience and then slowly spread like a poison through his body and his mind. In his more lucid moments, he knew that this was at the root of his mania for cleanliness and his increasing terror of anything that might endanger the control he had over his surroundings. Erica Falck could ask what she liked, but he would do his utmost to check every impulse to answer. He knew that if he started to lose his grip, dams would burst and threaten to eradicate the shield he had so carefully constructed. That must not happen.
‘Do you remember Alexandra from school?’
He smiled bitterly to himself. Most of the children he’d had in school had only left behind faint, shadowy memories, but Alexandra was just as distinct to him today as she was twenty-five years ago. Although he could hardly say that out loud.
‘Yes, I remember Alexandra. Although as Alexandra Carlgren, not Wijkner, of course.’
‘Yes, that’s obvious. What do you remember of her in school?’
‘She was quiet, a little withdrawn, acted much older than her age.’
He saw that Erica was frustrated at his curt reply, but he was making a conscious attempt to say as little as possible, as if the words might take over and begin to flow on their own if he let out too many of them.
‘Was she good in school?’
‘Well, not especially. She wasn’t one of the most ambitious pupils I can recall, but she was intelligent in a quiet way. She was probably about in the middle of the class.’
Erica hesitated a moment and Axel realized that now they were approaching the questions that she really wanted to ask. The questions up till now had just been warm-ups for her.
‘But her family moved away in the middle of the term. Do you recall what reasons Alex’s parents gave for moving?’
He pretended to ponder the question, putting his fingertips together and resting his chin on them in a feigned gesture of trying to remember. He saw that Erica moved forward a little on the sofa, showing her eagerness to hear the answer to her question. He was going to have to disappoint her. The only thing he could tell her was the truth.
‘Yes, I think her father got a job in another town. To be honest I don’t remember exactly, but I vaguely recall it was something like that.’
Erica couldn’t hide her disappointment. Once again, Axel felt the urge to rip open his chest and reveal what had been hiding there for all these years. To clear his conscience by pouring out the entire naked truth. But he took a deep breath and pushed back what was threatening to spill out.
Erica continued stubbornly. ‘But the decision came a bit suddenly, from what I understood. Had you heard anything about it earlier, had Alex made any mention that they were going to move?’
‘Well, I don’t think it was so strange. Of course it did come up rather suddenly, as you say, if I remember correctly. But these things can happen quickly. Perhaps her father received an offer with short notice, how do I know?’
He threw out his arms in a gesture that said Erica’s guess was as good as his, and the frown between her eyebrows deepened. This wasn’t the answer she wanted. But she would have to make do with it.
‘Yes, but later there was something else,’ Erica went on. ‘I recall vaguely from those days that people were
