She's Never Coming Back (25 page)

‘Hi,’ he said in a soft voice.

‘Er, hello,’ said the surprised voice on the other end. ‘My name is Jörgen Petersson. I’d like to speak to Michael Zetterberg.’

‘Speaking,’ said Mike, with more authority.

‘Am I calling at a bad time?’

‘No, no, not at all, but I don’t buy things over the phone.’

‘That’s not why I’m calling,’ Jörgen said.

Mike felt his stomach knot in an instant.

‘I want you to listen,’ Jörgen told him, ‘and please don’t hang up until you’ve heard what I have to say.’

Mike sank down on a chair.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘I went to Brevik School with your wife,’ Jörgen explained.

‘My wife is missing,’ Mike said in a sharp voice. ‘Why won’t you leave me alone?’

‘Just one question,’ Jörgen continued. ‘What has Ylva said about Gösta and Marianne Lundin?’

Mike didn’t understand.

‘Gösta and Marianne Lundin had a daughter, who also went to school with us,’ Petersson continued. ‘She committed suicide. The guys that Ylva went around with at school are all dead. I think there’s a connection. I think your wife, in some way, had something to do with Annika’s suicide – that is, I think Gösta and Marianne Lundin hold her
responsible for Annika’s death. Michael, are you there? Michael …?’

Gösta let go of her ponytail. Ylva pulled back her head and slipped the flex from behind. She put the stripped wires on his shiny cock and flicked the switch.

A flame flared, there was a muffled pop and everything went dark.

Ylva didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t that the fuse would blow.

‘Jesus fucking damn bugger shit!’

His voice was fraught with pain and Ylva heard him sink to the floor with his back against the wall. He was breathing in great gasps and she could smell burned flesh.

‘I’m going to fucking kill you, you fucking whore.’

She fumbled under the mattress for the fork, grabbed it and started to stab at his face. The first time he managed to stop her, the second time the fork sunk into the cartilage of his cheek.

Ylva leapt up on to the bed, pulled his trousers over and dug into the pockets for the keys.

‘I’m not a whore,’ she screamed, kicking her leg into the black air where she guessed he was slumped. ‘I’m the mother
who jumps into the water. Do you hear me, you perverted bastard? I’m the mother who jumps into the water.’

She found the keys and ran to the door. Her hands were shaking and she couldn’t get the key in the lock. She heard him heave himself to his feet with great effort. She wasn’t going to manage in time.

‘I’m going to wring your neck, d’you hear?’

He struggled slowly towards her. The knife and scissors were on the worktop. She hesitated. Door or knife?

She took two steps over to the kitchenette, grabbed the knife and held it out in front of her in the dark. The keys in her right hand, the knife in the left. It felt wrong. The knife should be in the right hand. She had no strength or coordination in her left hand.

She could hear his breathing, his rattling laugh. There was no chance she’d make it to the door. He was on his feet and he was stronger.

‘Getting closer,’ he said. ‘This will end how it always ends. You can’t hide.’

She stood by the worktop, trying to breathe silently. He was only a couple of metres away. He was standing still, now, listening, just like her.

‘Are you hiding in the kitchen? That’s not a good place
to hide. The kitchen’s narrow and pokey, there’s barely any room there at all.’

He took two steps towards her.

‘Have I fucked you in the kitchen? I think I’ll do that – fuck you in the kitchen. I’m going to fuck you in the kitchen with a broken bottle, d’you hear?’

A couple of metres separated them. She waited, held her breath. She had to change hands, get the knife in her right hand. But it was impossible to do it without making a noise and giving away where she was. She’d only have one chance, and it was important that the knife went in deep so he couldn’t come after her.

She crouched down. Her joints creaked faintly.

‘Well, well, well. Old creaky knees, eh? So you’re in the kitchen, just as I thought. Waiting for me to come and get you. To fuck you just the way you like it.’

He shuffled nearer. She felt his presence up close. Something swept over her head and the champagne bottle smashed against the wall behind her.

She threw the keys over towards the door to make a distracting noise, switched the knife to her right hand and propelled herself up. The knife sunk into his torso. She pulled it out and stabbed again.

‘All the way in,’ she screamed. ‘How does that feel? All the way in.’

She pushed the knife in a third time and left it there. He collapsed on the floor.

Ylva was on her feet, staggering to the door, feeling around on the floor, finding the keys. Her hands were steady. She put the key in the lock and turned it.

Mike felt feverish and sick. Too many thoughts that refused to stay still. Too fast for him to grasp, not waiting to be understood – taunting him like a circle of school children. No matter how Mike twisted and turned, the theories and questions were there, ready to push him back into the ring.

Another nutter, had to be. In cahoots with that reporter from the weeklies who had accosted him in his own home the week before. Some sicko who got pleasure from spreading shit, just to be in the momentous presence of death for a short while. Death was attractive, no doubt about it. It drew nutters like honey. Like the ones who phoned people
who’d lost someone in the tsunami and claimed that their loved one was alive and would be home soon.

And yet … Gösta had had a daughter. She had died young. He didn’t want to talk about it. Which was perfectly understandable. Especially given Gösta and Mike’s respective roles.

What has Ylva said about Gösta and Marianne Lundin?

What did he mean? Why link Ylva with Gösta and Marianne? They weren’t even living here when she disappeared, they moved in just afterwards. Or about the same time. At the same time.

But whenever it was, Ylva had never mentioned meeting the new neighbours who’d just moved in.

And why would the crackpot want to drag Gösta and Marianne Lundin into this? How did he even know who they were?

Mike didn’t get it. Then it hit him.

A patient.

Naturally. The guy who’d called him was one of Gösta’s patients. Who’d somehow heard Mike and Gösta talking and in his sick mind had created a parallel world.

That had to be it. There was no other explanation.

Mike let out a deep sigh. He was still upset, almost
shaking. He blinked his hot eyes furiously. But the relief spread through his body like a Friday drink.

Slowly he started to register the world around him, let himself be filled with visual impressions and sounds. Which were coming from a recorder in the sitting room.

Three blind mice, three blind mice … la-la-la … see how they run.

The recorder’s equivalent to ‘Für Elise’ on the piano.

The recorder’s equivalent to ‘Smoke on the Water’ on …

Mike remembered the first time he’d met Gösta, when they realised that they were neighbours. Gösta had moved into the house in Sundsliden, where they had done out the cellar and spent a lot of money on a music studio. Gösta had played on an air guitar while he hummed a riff from Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’.

He was obviously being ironic, but
that
ironic?

Thoughts started to chafe again. Mike found it hard to swallow.

He had told Gösta about the idiot from the magazine who had gone on about the three dead guys. Gösta had said that he didn’t quite follow.
Three dead
, he’d said.
That’s not much to talk about. Three people who’d gone to the same school together who’d died young.

Three …

But there weren’t three: with Ylva there were four. Mike and Gösta always talked about Ylva as if she was dead. Neither of them thought she would come back. But Gösta didn’t say four, he said three.

Probably just a mistake, but still.

Mike shook off the uncomfortable thought, turned on the water, let it run cold, then drank straight from the tap.

Anyway, it would be easy enough to check.

He opened the door to the sitting room.

‘Hey, sweetie, you’re playing really well. Do you know what I think?’

She shook her head.

‘I think we should go over to Gösta and Marianne, you know, the ones who live in the white house on Sundsliden. He’s got a music studio there. Maybe we could record you playing. Then you can listen to it later and see how much you’ve learned. Would you like that?’

Ylva turned the key and opened the first door. It was so easy, she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t done it before. She picked out the next key and felt something cold against her back. She felt it again.

Ylva gasped for breath, but her lungs were only half full. She breathed out and there was blood in her mouth. One of her lungs had been punctured. To her surprise, she thought of it as a burst balloon. She hadn’t thought about her lungs as balloons. Lungs were pieces of meat, squishy and revolting, like most things inside the body, not balloons.

She turned the key and pushed open door number two. A faint light slipped down the stairs and into the cellar. Gösta was lying on the floor behind her, unable to get up again. The fork was still in his cheek, just below the eye. The kitchen knife was in his hand.

Ylva was surprised that his hate was so intense that he had managed to pull the knife out of his own body, stand up and stab her in the back twice. It didn’t worry her, she was neither frightened nor angry, but it did fill her with surprise.

‘We were children,’ she said, her mouth full of blood. ‘Children.’

She staggered towards the stairs. The blood ran from her mouth, down her chin, past the black bra, down her stomach, knickers and thighs. She grabbed hold of the banister, used all her strength to haul herself up the stairs, step by step.

She heard voices, felt the cool air full of fantastic smells.
She wanted to fill her lungs, both lungs, but immediately started to cough. The light got brighter. Real daylight, blinding light from the sun.

Only a few steps more.

Mike held his daughter’s hand.

‘Are we in a hurry?’ Sanna asked.

‘No, no. We’re not in a hurry. Just thought we’d do it before we eat. Nour will be back soon. Would be a nice surprise for her, wouldn’t it? Her own disc.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A sound recording. And you can play it again and again. Whenever you want.’

‘Like on the computer.’

‘Exactly.’

They cut across the grass, which was wet. Mike held the gate open for Sanna, saw Marianne in the kitchen window and raised his hand in greeting. She opened the door before they’d even got there.

‘Gösta’s not at home,’ she said.

‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ Mike said, and placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. ‘Sanna’s just started to play the recorder. I thought I’d ask if we could borrow the studio to record her first attempts.’

‘The studio?’ Marianne didn’t understand.

‘The music studio,’ Mike said. ‘In the cellar.’

‘Oh, right. No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

Mike smiled, taken aback. Marianne shifted her weight.

‘Gösta’s very particular about his studio. He doesn’t like to let anyone in. It’s his space for him.’

‘I understand, I understand.’

Mike started to feel uncertain, didn’t know how to approach it.

‘Okay,’ he said, and smiled because he couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Thanks anyway.’

He hoped that it didn’t sound ironic.

‘It’s not that he means any harm,’ Marianne said.

‘No, no, I understand. Tell him I was asking for him.’

‘I will do.’

Mike turned around as if to go, then changed his mind at the last moment.

‘Your daughter,’ he said.

The reaction was immediate. Mike could see it in her eyes. But it was so unthinkable that he carried on talking, even though in that instant he had understood.

‘She went to school with Ylva,’ he said, and felt all the pieces falling into place.

Everything the nutter had ranted about was right, every single word was true.

Marianne said nothing. The woman’s face was cold and guarded, revealing no emotion.

There was a noise from the cellar.

‘I’m going down into the cellar,’ Mike said, and stepped past Marianne.

At that moment Sanna screamed when she saw a bloody, deathly white and nearly naked person appear at the top of the stairs.

Mike stopped in his tracks. The woman’s skin looked plastic, almost see-through. The only thing that looked real was the blood that was running from her mouth
down her body. She raised her arm, stretched it out. Mike knew the whole time who she was, but it was only in the way that she lifted her arm that he recognised his wife.

Mike rushed to Ylva, put her arm round his shoulder and supported her out of the house. They stopped at the gate. She couldn’t go any further. Mike sat down on the gravel, rested Ylva’s head in his lap, rocked her. Sanna stood at a distance, not daring to go forward.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ylva said.

Mike shook his head.

‘Forgive me,’ he said.

Ylva looked around for her daughter.

‘Sanna,’ Mike called. ‘It’s Mummy.’

He held out his hand, urged her to come over. She
hesitated. The bloody woman frightened her. The red teeth, the grey hair, the porcelain-white skin. She wanted to run away, not to see.

Ylva lifted her hand slightly.

Sanna went over, hunkered down.

‘I can play,’ she said. ‘Do you want to hear?’

There was blood everywhere and, to begin with, the ambulance crew couldn’t work out who was actually injured. When Mike told them that the blood on his clothes was from Ylva, they quickly examined her, lifted her on to a stretcher and carried her towards the ambulance. A group of hypnotised, staring neighbours moved out of the way so they could pass.