The Circle (5 page)

Linnéa goes into the adjacent cubicle and stands on the toilet seat. She peers over the partition. Minoo waits for a reaction but it doesn’t come. The seconds pass, one by one.

‘What is it?’

Linnéa climbs down from the toilet seat and disappears.

‘What did you see?’

No answer. The open window swings in a sudden gust of wind. Minoo goes over to Linnéa. She is leaning with her back against the wall, staring ahead vacantly.

‘It’s Elias,’ she says finally.

Elias Malmgren? Minoo has seen him in town with Linnéa several times. She must mean him. ‘What’s happened? Is he okay or what?’ Minoo asks even though she knows the answer.

Linnéa drops to her knees and throws up into the toilet bowl. She keeps retching until only thick, clear saliva is left. Minoo stands there, stunned, until Linnéa turns around. Her thick eyeliner has started to run. Their eyes meet and Minoo realises that Linnéa is falling apart. ‘Come on,’ she says, and holds out her hand.

Linnéa grabs it and scrambles to her feet. She looks around wildly.

‘We have to get somebody,’ Minoo says.

Linnéa stares at her. She shakes her head. ‘We can’t leave him.’

‘I’ll stay,’ Minoo says, immediately regretting it.

‘We have to get him out.’

‘We’re going to,’ Minoo says, and wonders how she’s managing to stay so calm.

Linnéa runs out the door and the window slams shut in the cross draught. For a brief moment, Minoo becomes aware of the
smell
before the window blows open again. It’s a smell she’s never come across before, but she instantly realises what it is. It’s the smell of death. But she can’t think about it. Not now.

She looks towards the cubicle. So much blood.

She feels the panic creeping up inside her when she sees the razor-sharp shards in the sink.

Minoo jumps when the door is thrown open. The school caretaker enters, holding a toolbox. He’s in his forties and has a shock of greying hair. His ice-blue eyes are wide open and staring straight at her. He mumbles something unintelligible, sets down his toolbox, and rummages around in it.

Linnéa returns and goes up to Minoo and takes her hand again, gripping it convulsively. A moment later the principal arrives.

Minoo has seen Adriana Lopez only once before, when the new students were welcomed to the school. She looks between thirty and forty, with a short bob and fringe. She is wearing a knee-length black skirt and a white blouse with all of the buttons done up. Attractive but stern. Not a principal to whom you would take your problems, Minoo senses.

‘Girls, you can’t stay here,’ she says.

‘I’m staying,’ Linnéa says.

The principal meets her gaze. ‘Leave, now,’ she says.

‘We’re staying,’ Minoo says.

The caretaker takes out a screwdriver. It’s easy to open these doors from the outside. Presumably they were designed to be so. Linnéa moves closer to Minoo and squeezes her hand even harder. ‘Don’t look,’ she whispers.

And Minoo wants to shut her eyes. She wants to leave. But instead she stands there wide-eyed as the door swings open.

The caretaker turns away and the principal gasps. Minoo can’t move. The shock is like ice surging through her body.

Elias’s head is pitched back and his eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. His arms are hanging limply at his sides. His right hand is still holding a big shard of the shattered mirror. There is a wide gash in his left arm.

Minoo and Linnéa put their arms around each other. It just happens. Minoo isn’t the type to hug people, and senses that Linnéa isn’t either. Right now, all they need is to feel the closeness of somebody else, someone alive.

Far away, in the real world, she hears sirens approaching.

4

NEARLY ALL THE
students are gathered in the playground. They’re crowded together, jostling for space. The conversations are fervent but hushed. No one knows who’s died, but there are rumours floating around that it’s Elias Malmgren. The teachers have sent everyone home, but clearly nobody’s planning to leave until the corpse is carried out.

The corpse. Rebecka shudders. She and Gustaf are standing outside the front entrance. He’s standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her.

‘Promise that nothing will ever happen to you,’ she says, in a low voice.

Gustaf hugs her a little harder and puts his lips to her ear. ‘I promise,’ he says. He kisses her cheek.

Sometimes Rebecka still can’t believe they’re together. Gustaf has always been the most popular boy in school. The one whose name gets scribbled in the margins of girls’ notebooks over and over again in class. Rebecka had been one of those girls, but she’d never thought he’d notice her. She’s never stood out as anything special. It had almost given her a sense of security to be so sure that she would
never
get Gustaf. Local football star. A year older. Handsome as a Hollywood actor and almost as far out of reach.

But then at the year-nine spring ball, everything had changed. They’d kissed. And a week later, the night after term had ended, they’d kissed again. Rebecka had had two bottles of cider and was just drunk enough to have the courage to ask, ‘Are we together now?’

‘Of course we are!’ he’d answered, and flashed his wonderful smile. ‘Of course we are!’

Over the summer, her life had changed completely. Everyone knows who Rebecka is now. But, above all,
she
has changed. It almost scares her, how dependent she’s become on Gustaf. He’s so beautiful. She never tires of looking at or kissing him.

She is more torn over having become ‘someone’. She feels as if the rug could be pulled out from under her at any moment. She can see it so clearly in front of her – how one day everyone will realise that she’s not particularly smart, funny or pretty. More than anything, she’s afraid of the day Gustaf realises that.

A collective gasp runs through the throng of students as the school doors open and the paramedics emerge, carrying a covered stretcher. As they move towards the ambulance, the crowd closes in behind them. Students crane their necks, trying to catch a glimpse of the person lying under the sheet. The paramedics lift the stretcher inside and close the doors. Then they walk calmly to the front of the ambulance and climb in. The sirens whine. Presumably to clear people out
of
the way, Rebecka guesses. There’s no reason to hurry when you’re transporting a body.

‘It’s him,’ says a panting voice.

Ida Holmström is with her constant shadows, Julia and Felicia. Together they form a blonde version of Huey, Dewey and Louie.

‘It’s Elias Malmgren,’ Ida continues.

‘How do you know?’ asks Gustaf.

‘We heard some teachers talking,’ Julia says.

Ida gives her a murderous look, clearly upset at being interrupted. This is her moment. She looks at Gustaf with puppy dog eyes. ‘Sad, isn’t it?’

Before Rebecka and Gustaf got together, Ida treated her like she didn’t exist. The day after term ended she had called and asked Rebecka if she wanted to go swimming in Dammsjön Lake. As if they had been friends for ever. Although Rebecka realised the absurdity of the situation, she didn’t dare refuse – because she’s terrified of Ida.

‘I don’t understand how anyone can just kill themselves,’ Felicia mumbles.

Ida nods. ‘It’s so incredibly selfish. I mean, like, think of his parents.’

‘He must have been depressed,’ Rebecka says, feeling an instant urge to smack herself for sounding so wimpy.

‘Of course he was depressed,’ Ida says. ‘But everyone’s got problems. It doesn’t mean you have to kill yourself. If everyone felt that sorry for themselves, there wouldn’t be anyone left.’

‘I think he was gay,’ Felicia says.

‘Yeah – I read they often commit suicide,’ Julia adds.

‘He was being bullied, for fuck’s sake,’ Gustaf cuts in.

Ida meets his gaze and flashes her most charming smile. ‘I know, G …’

Rebecka struggles to suppress a grimace. ‘G’ is a nickname Ida came up with. No one else uses it.

‘… but seriously,’ she continues, ‘nobody was forcing Elias to dress like that and
wear makeup
to school.’ Julia and Felicia nod as Ida continues, encouraged by their support. ‘I mean, he could have made more of an effort to fit in and act more normally. I’m not saying it was his fault he was bullied, but he didn’t do much to stop it either.’

Rebecka stares at Ida, whose expression seems full of anticipation as she looks at Gustaf.

‘Jesus Christ, Ida,’ he says. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of being a bitch all the time? Take a day off once in a while.’

Ida flutters her eyelashes. Then she lets out a forced laugh. ‘God, you’re so funny, G.’ She says and turns to Julia and Felicia, who look at each other uncertainly. ‘Men have such a raw sense of humour.’

Rebecka grabs Gustaf’s hand. She’s proud of him, but it’s gnawing at her that she didn’t say anything.

Minoo and Linnéa are sitting in the principal’s office on the threadbare dark-green sofa. The principal is in the next room, where the assistant principal usually sits, and is speaking to a uniformed police officer.

Linnéa flips her phone in her hand as if she’s waiting for
a
call. Minoo tries not to stare at her. Linnéa’s body language is screaming that she doesn’t want to be bothered.

The room is surprisingly small. A shelf is packed with different-coloured binders. A few tired-looking potted plants stand in the window. The white and green checked curtains are stained and the windows need washing. Papers are stacked in neat piles on the desk next to an ageing computer. The chair is ugly but, no doubt, ergonomic. The only thing that stands out is a lamp with a dragonfly-patterned glass mosaic shade.

It’s the first time Minoo has ever been to the principal’s office. You’re only ever called there if you’re in trouble or if something terrible has happened.

When Minoo was at primary school, she used to day-dream about something dramatic happening – that the school would catch fire, or that everyone would be taken hostage by a bank robber on the run. The older she got, the more she saw how childish that was. But it is only now that she knows how far from reality her fantasies were.

The things that are awful in reality are nothing like the things that are awful in movies. It’s not exciting. It’s just scary, horrible and dirty. Above all, you can’t turn it off. Minoo already knows that the image of Elias will haunt her for the rest of her life.

If only I’d shut my eyes, she thinks.

‘I’ve seen a dead person before,’ Linnéa says suddenly. Her eyes are fixed on her phone, which she’s still flipping between her ink-smudged fingers. Each nail is neatly painted neon pink.

‘Who?’ Minoo asks.

‘I don’t know what her name was. It was an old lady. A drunk. She had a heart attack and died. Just like that. I was, like, five.’

Minoo doesn’t know what to say. It’s so far removed from her own life.

‘You never forget something like that,’ Linnéa mumbles.

Her eye makeup is a mess. It strikes Minoo that she herself hasn’t cried. Linnéa must think she’s the most insensitive person in the world. But Linnéa just looks at her. ‘We were in the same class in year seven, weren’t we?’

Minoo nods.

‘What’s your name again? Minna?’

‘Minoo.’

Linnéa doesn’t say her name. Either she can’t be bothered or she takes it for granted that Minoo knows it. And why wouldn’t she? Everyone was always talking about Linnéa Wallin.

‘Girls,’ they hear the principal say, and Minoo looks up. Adriana Lopez’s clean features show no sign of emotion. ‘The police want to speak to you,’ she continues.

Minoo glances up and is shocked when she sees the hatred with which Linnéa looks at Miss Lopez.

The principal seems to have noticed it, too, because she stops short. ‘You were Elias’s friend, weren’t you?’ she asks.

Linnéa stares at her in silence until the principal turns away and mutters something to the police officer now entering the room.

‘You can stay,’ he answers, and they sit down.

The police officer, whom Minoo recognises as Vanessa Dahl’s stepfather, struggles to find a comfortable position on the folding plastic chair. Eventually, he swings one leg on to the other with his foot perched on his knee. It doesn’t look especially dignified.

‘I’m Niklas Karlsson. I’ll start by taking your names.’

He pulls out a little notepad and pencil – Minoo notices that the end is chewed. A police officer who chews pencils. A rodent in uniform.

‘Minoo Falk Karimi.’

‘I see. You, of course, I recognise,’ he says to Linnéa.

It may have been meant in a friendly way, but it didn’t sound like it. Minoo’s whole body tenses when she sees Linnéa squeeze her phone until the plastic cracks.

Don’t say anything, she thinks. Please, Linnéa, don’t do anything stupid. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.

‘I realise this must be terrible for you,’ Niklas says, and goes back to playing the sympathetic police officer, ‘and crisis counselling is available.’