She's Never Coming Back (7 page)

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 Gröntevägen and Sundsliden where the children didn’t play football and rounders often enough, and the start of Bäckavägen.

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.

The food gave her energy that spread through her body. The graininess disappeared from her eyes and she tried to convince herself that it was important to think clearly. Not to feel, but to think.

She didn’t know what they wanted or had planned. Had they thought of keeping her there? Was she going to be kept prisoner in the cellar?

The thought grew and made her head spin with fear. She had to talk to them, find out, make them see sense. Hadn’t they achieved what they wanted by raping her? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Why was she still here in this room?

This cellar … they had bought a house and soundproofed the cellar. They had fitted a kitchenette and bathroom, made a room within a room.

This was no sudden impulse, it was an expensive and well-executed plan.

They intended to keep her locked up.

Nour sighed loudly to herself. What did it have to do with her? Absolutely nothing.

It was Ylva’s own fault. She was so needy, which was why she fucked around, and she should be ashamed.

And that crybaby, who didn’t get anything. Didn’t he realise he was a laughing stock?

Why the hell had Nour offered to ring round? Who was she going to call? And what was the point?

Hi, it’s Nour. Is Ylva there?

No. Why would she be?

Mike phoned. She obviously didn’t come home last night.

Whoops.

So you don’t know anything?

No.

Everyone would hook into it like the busybodies they were and the word would soon spread.

Apparently Ylva didn’t go home last night. Really? Wonder where she’s sleeping then? Hehe.

Nour was trapped. There was nothing she could do. No matter how she looked at it, the result would simply add insult to injury and Mike was the loser.

And in any case, Ylva would be home soon enough, ashamed and pleading.

Never again. I promise
.

Nour sat down on the bed, flopped back and stared up at the ceiling.

‘Ylva Ylva Ylva Ylva …’ she muttered to herself.

Most beautiful women didn’t seek attention, certainly not from men lower down the social, sexual or financial ladder. Ylva, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough. If there was a man there, she had her eye on him. The fact that that made it impossible for women to be friends with her didn’t bother her in the slightest.

As was so often the case with flirts, the attraction was a game, not real. And in most cases, it went no further than flirting and a bit of petting. The only man that Nour knew for certain Ylva had slept with was Bill Åkerman.

Nour didn’t know much about him except that he’d wasted all the money his rich mother had invested in his stupid projects. It was only once his mother died that Bill, against the odds, managed to get a luxury restaurant up and running.

Nour was practically certain that Ylva was with him.

Mike cleared away the breakfast things, then took a shower. He closed his eyes and let the warm water stream over his face. The sound of the shower blocked out the rest of the world and made him realise that he couldn’t carry on living like this.

He contemplated divorce, imagined that he would push it all through with extreme generosity in order to avoid any problems with custody. He thought he could get himself a second-floor flat with a balcony on the northside, with the water stretching out below. An every-second-week agreement? It had its advantages.

He pictured a new and healthier lifestyle. He would be sociable, not just sit there quietly any more, nodding and smiling.

Internet dating? There were plenty more fish in the sea.

A sound outside the shower made him immediately turn off the water. He got out and opened the bathroom door.

‘Hello?’ he shouted.

No reply.

‘Ylva?’

Just the distant sound of Sanna’s cartoon.

‘Sanna!’

‘What?’

‘Did someone come in?’

‘What?’

‘Has Mummy come back?’ Mike shouted at the top of his voice.

‘No.’

‘It just sounded like someone came in.’

‘No.’

‘Okay.’

Mike dried himself and got dressed, went down to Sanna in the sitting room. Watched her as she dragged her eyes reluctantly from the screen and looked at him questioningly.

‘Thought we could go to Väla,’ he said, quickly.

He hated the shopping centre, especially on a Saturday, but he was too restless to potter around at home, waiting for the homecoming queen.

‘Now?’

‘Yes, before there are too many people.’

‘Can’t we wait until Mummy comes home?’

‘No, let’s go now.’

The remote control was lying on the table. He picked it up.

‘Go and put some clothes on.’

‘But stop the film. I want to watch the rest when we get back.’

Sanna jumped down from the sofa and ran to her room. Mike switched to teletext and skimmed over the various listings and headlines. Nothing interesting, he decided, and turned it off.

He went out into the kitchen, took a piece of paper from Sanna’s play box and wrote CALL ME on it. He left the piece of paper in the middle of the table, where it was visible.

Mike and Sanna left the house.

Ylva sat on the bed and stared at the screen. She saw her husband and daughter get into the car and drive away.

Ylva couldn’t see everything in detail, but their movements were familiar and it wasn’t difficult for her mind to fill in what her eyes couldn’t see. The normal movements, seen a thousand times before, nothing dramatic. The front door opened. Sanna ran over to the car. Stood waiting by the passenger door, having obviously been promised she could sit next to Mike. Mike locked the front door, turned off the car alarm from a distance. They got in. Mike helped to belt in his daughter. He shut the car door. The red backlights went on. The car reversed out, stopped a moment before accelerating forward. Left into Bäckavägen, then left again up Sundsliden.

Ylva knew there was no point, but still screamed in loud desperation when she saw the top of the car pass by outside.

They’d gone out. What did that mean? Who had Mike contacted? What did he think?

It was quite easy to imagine what he was thinking. Maybe he couldn’t stand waiting. Or he was driving Sanna over to his mother’s as a precautionary measure. So that she wasn’t there for the fight that Mike thought was in the offing.

Why didn’t he ring the police? Or had he phoned them and been told to wait?

She will come home, just wait and see
.

The officer on duty that he’d spoken to would then put down the phone and roll his eyes at a colleague and pour another cup of coffee.

Sanna had skipped down to the car as usual. She had no idea.

It was harder to guess what Mike was feeling. One of his most distinguishing traits was the fear of losing control, even though at heart he was a crybaby. Mike was far more a victim of his gender than Ylva had ever been.

He must at least have phoned the hospital. She would have done that. If nothing else, for tactical reasons, a means of reproach.

I even phoned the hospital.

A double martyr. Considerate and betrayed.

‘Why do you keep looking at your mobile?’

Sanna sent her dad an accusing look.

‘I don’t.’ He smiled sheepishly.

‘You do, all the time.’

‘I’m just checking to see if Mummy’s called.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Don’t you know where she is?’

Sanna found that hard to understand and Mike felt the tears well up in his eyes.

‘All I know is that she’s out with her friends. That is to say, she was. They went out together yesterday. They were probably out late, so she stayed over with one of them.’

‘But she hasn’t phoned?’

‘Look!’ Mike said, and pointed out to the right.

Sanna turned around and Mike swiftly wiped the corners of his eyes.

‘What?’ Sanna asked.

‘The bird, the big bird over there.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, it’s flown away.’

‘I didn’t see a bird.’

‘Didn’t you? It was a big one, maybe an eagle. Have you ever seen an eagle? They look like a flying door. Mummy will be home soon. I’m sure she’ll be there waiting for us, when we get back from Väla.’

‘I still think she could phone,’ Sanna said.

I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Jörgen’s words had engraved themselves in Calle Collin’s mind. The worst thing was that they were spontaneous. Jörgen hadn’t said it to be mean, it was an instinctive reaction to the news that Anders Egerbladh had been murdered.

Calle looked up the hammer murder on the Internet. After surfing for half an hour, he had the basic facts. Anders Egerbladh, who all the articles stated was thirty-six, had been beaten to death on Sista Styverns Trapp, a flight of wooden steps that went from Fjällgatan up to
Stigbergsgatan. The murder weapon, a hammer, had been left at the scene of the crime, but had no fingerprints on it.

The murder was described as bestial. The level of violence indicated an intense hate for the victim, and the police were working on the hypothesis that the victim and the killer knew each other. A bunch of flowers had been found at the scene, which was assumed to indicate that the thirty-six-year-old had been on his way to visit a woman. And reading between the lines, a married woman.

The best articles were written by a crime reporter from an evening paper where Calle Collin had once wasted six months of his professional life. He got the feeling that the reporter knew more than he was sharing with his readers. Calle didn’t know the journalist personally, but he did know one of the editors. If she put a word in for him, he might be able to talk to the reporter.

Calle had worked as a temp on the paper’s women’s page, where all the articles were based on the first commandment of McCarthy feminism: that there was no difference between men and women, except that men are by nature evil and women are by nature good.

Headlines and angles were pre-set and the editorial work
consisted simply of putting together arguments that backed the claim and eliminating anything that might oppose it. Without so much as batting an eye, journalists on the page took to task anyone who dared to question their machinations in the name of the cause.

The fact that many of those who were hounded, and whose lives and actions were scorned, were in fact good role models for equality was neither here nor there if they so much as hinted, in even a subclause, that they may have a different opinion.

All in all, this meant that what were essentially important questions were often ridiculed, and those six months working at the supplement had instilled in Calle Collin a permanent distrust of public debate. The only positive thing about his time there was that he had got to know one of the editors, a wise woman with a big heart. When Calle had had enough after six months, she asked whether he would perhaps prefer to go down to the news desk.

‘If I was interested in news, I would’ve gone to a newspaper,’ Calle had replied.

For a long time after, he was frequently quoted by the editorial team. Most people laughed, even agreed with him, but the arts editor was furious and had sworn that, as
far as he could, he would make sure that Calle never set foot in the place again.

Calle picked up the receiver and dialled the wise woman with the big heart.

The uglier a place was, the more people thronged there. The national parks were almost deserted, but every revolting shopping centre in the country was full to bursting with people with no taste, empty eyes and a fat wallet.

And nowhere was worse or more repulsive than Väla shopping centre. And yet Mike went there at least once a week. Because you could get everything there, even free parking. Just load the car and drive home.

Ylva was happy to wander round the same shops, weekend in and weekend out, and with a keen eye pick out the new things from the vast range of what was on offer. Mike,
on the other hand, hurried through the indoor streets that had sprung up, terrified that the rubbish would stick to him.