The Dangerous Game (2 page)

Along the other walls stood dozens of clothes rails mounted on wheels, each one labelled with a model’s name and photograph. This was where their outfits for the evening had been hung, in the order in which they would be worn. Jackets, dresses, trousers, scarves, belts, hats and caps, as well as jewellery stowed in plastic bags. Lined up in neat rows on the floor underneath were shoes and boots – different ones for each creation. A stunning mix of bright-blue suede sandals with stiletto heels, coral-coloured platform shoes, grey thigh-high boots, and screaming-pink plastic shoes with blocky heels. The shoes were adorned with rivets, buckles and glittery gemstones. All the heels were at least four inches high, which meant that most of the girls stood close to six foot three when they were dressed and ready to go.

The models moved with accustomed ease from make-up to hairstyling to wardrobe. From time to time, they were forced to take brief breaks while waiting for assistance. During that time one model might pick at a salad, while another talked on her mobile phone, and someone else simply sat idly, looking bored. Others would get deeply immersed in a conversation, as if they were sitting in a café, and totally ignore the commotion going on around them. One dark-eyed beauty was merrily cavorting in front of a mirror, wearing shorts so skimpy that her legs seemed to go on for ever; another, who was critically examining her fringed, pink suede dress, wore neon-coloured nail polish that shone against her dark skin.

Garments and accessories were put on at the last minute. Nobody paid any attention to the fact that so many bodies were constantly being clothed and unclothed. Bare breasts and thongs were revealed without the slightest embarrassment. All the models had boyish figures with straight shoulders, flat stomachs, tiny breasts, and narrow hips. Long arms, long legs, big feet. Hollowed cheeks, protruding collarbones, muscular backs.

Having finished with make-up, Jenny Levin was squatting down in the middle of the room, wearing only a thong as she buckled her elegant snakeskin shoes with the sky-high heels. She stood up and looked around for the woman who was supposed to help her put on the stunning and glittery bandage dress that was to open the show. No bra. The designer wanted the contours of her breasts to be visible under the tight-fitting garment. At that moment, the woman showed up, and together they managed to get Jenny into the glossy sheath without disturbing her hairdo.

Sometimes, Jenny was seized with a feeling of unreality in the midst of everything. She found it hard to comprehend how her life could have changed so completely and so quickly. Only a year ago she had been just an ordinary schoolgirl. Each day was like all the others. She took the school bus to the secondary school in Visby, went to classes, and stopped for coffee with a few of her classmates in the city before heading back home. At the weekend she went riding, and in the evening she went out with friends. Often a bunch of them would hang out together and watch videos. Or if someone’s parents were away, they’d have a party at their house, drinking strong beer and home-distilled alcohol.

With one blow her whole life had changed. Suddenly, she’d become used to the most expensive champagne in the hottest nightclubs – places that she’d previously read about only in magazines. Now, she was frequently seen in photographs mingling with celebrities. She wore the most beautiful clothes and was greeted with admiration wherever she went. It was incomprehensible.

When only ten minutes remained before the start of the show, the tempo behind the scenes escalated. Even in the dressing room everyone was aware that the audience members were beginning to take their seats on the other side of the curtains. Suggestive techno music was pulsing from the loudspeakers, adding to the air of anticipation.

Jenny went over to the wall one last time to check the list showing the order in which the models were to appear. She was first, and of course she knew why. There was no doubt that she was the star of the group. And this was particularly exciting because, tonight, he would be sitting out there. She had decided to pretend not to notice him, as if he had no effect on her.

In her mind she went through the eight different garments she would wear during the course of the show. She cast a quick glance at the rack of outfits assigned to her; everything seemed to be in order.

The stylist gathered all the models, by now giggling and giddy, for one last run-through. Lined up behind the curtains, they looked like women depicted by the nineteenth-century French artist Toulouse-Lautrec. With their elaborate hairdos, extravagant dresses and bright-red lips, they could easily have stepped out of a painting of the red-light district in Paris more than a century earlier.

The stylist sternly admonished the glittering beauties to stop whispering and urged them to focus on the task at hand. It was almost time. She put on a headset so she could stay in contact with the technicians. A minute to go. On the other side of the curtains they could hear an expectant hum of voices from the six hundred invited guests.

The make-up artists quickly moved among the models, doing some last-minute touch-ups, as the hair stylists sprayed and poked at their hairdos.

Jenny was caught up in the mood; she loved this moment. Seconds before the show started, her mind cleared of all thoughts. She stared attentively at the stylist, waiting for her cue. Then the curtains parted and she stepped out on to the catwalk. A gasp passed through the audience when they caught sight of her. She paused for a moment and couldn’t help smiling. She looked for his face and found it at once.

Then she moved forward.

A PALE NOVEMBER
light strained to make its way through a few gaps in the heavy cloud cover. All the stones worn smooth by the water lay untouched on the shore. No one had walked along that stretch of beach in a long time. The sea was grey, with hardly a ripple. Far off in the distance, leaden waves lapped steadily at the scattered boulders that seemed to have been randomly tossed into the water.

Anders Knutas, who had just stepped out on to the front porch of the summer cottage, shivered and pulled up the collar of his jacket. The air was fresh but raw, and the damp cold seeped through his clothes. There was almost no wind. The bare branches of the birch tree down by the gate didn’t move. They were covered with drops of water that sparkled in the morning light. The ground was spongy with tiny yellow leaves that had fallen when the autumn chill crept in. But a few roses were still blooming in the garden, glinting like red and pink will-o’-the-wisps against all the grey; they were reminders of another season.

He headed out along the muddy gravel track that wound its way parallel to the sea. Their cottage was a couple of kilometres beyond Lickershamn, an old fishing village on Gotland’s north-west coast, also called the Stone Coast. Nowadays, it was a summer paradise with only a few permanent residents. At this time of year it was peaceful, and he enjoyed the quiet.

Knutas, who was a morning person, had slipped out without waking Lina. She was sleeping soundly, as usual. It was no more than eight o’clock on this Saturday morning, and he had the road all to himself. It was uneven and muddy, with countless potholes that had filled with water after a night of rain. Lying upside down on the grass-covered strip of land next to the sea were several flat-bottomed rowboats, one of which belonged to Knutas. He loved to go out fishing, and he was a long-standing member of the Lickershamn fishing association. Brown trout, salmon, flounder, cod and turbot were plentiful in these waters. He usually went out with his neighbour Arne, who was a fisherman and one of the few people who lived here year round.

Along the road grew reeds that had now yellowed and withered, a few bushes with beautiful, gleaming red rose-hips, and a gnarled apple tree with a dozen or so yellow apples still clinging to its branches.

Further away, steep chalk cliffs rose dramatically out of the sea. The big
rauk
called Jungfrun, the Maiden, was sharply outlined against the sky, keeping watch over the small harbour, where only a couple of fishing boats and a few rowboats were now moored. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

On Friday afternoon, Knutas had left police headquarters early and picked up Lina after her shift on the maternity ward of Visby Hospital. Then they had driven out to the cottage. Arne had phoned to tell them that a tree on their property had fallen in the latest autumn storm, which had swept over the island with such violent force a few days earlier. So they had decided to spend the weekend cleaning up. Their marriage had been going through a lengthy rough patch, and they were both making a real effort to find their way back to each other. And, lately, things seemed to be going well.

During the past year, he’d sometimes thought that divorce was inevitable. Lina had become withdrawn and didn’t seem to need him in the same way as she had in the past. She did more things alone, took weekend trips to Stockholm, and spent time with her female friends. She and Maria, who was a photographer, had spent all of October on the West African islands of Cape Verde, documenting the high rate of mothers who died in childbirth. Maria wrote the report and took the photographs, while Lina contributed in her capacity as a midwife and researcher. When Knutas offered some mild objections to Lina taking the trip, she had angrily declared that in the developing countries the death rate among women giving birth was an enormous problem that deserved attention. He shouldn’t even try to stop her going.

Knutas had never imagined how lonely it would be without Lina. Their twins, Petra and Nils, were seventeen and seldom at home. Petra had always been sports-minded and loved outdoors activities. She’d been playing floorball for years, but her biggest passion was orienteering, to which she devoted almost all her free time. Several evenings a week she went to track practice, and when she had no floorball matches at the weekend, she went with her friends to Svaidestugan, outside Visby. That was where the local orienteering community had a clubhouse, and there were also a number of different types of training trails. Healthy hobbies, of course, but recently Knutas had hardly seen her at all.

Nils was the exact opposite of his sister. He was totally uninterested in anything having to do with sports or exercise. He belonged to a theatre group and played drums in a band that practised every evening. Knutas was glad that his children had so many interests. And both of them did well in school, so there was no real reason to complain. They were in the process of separating from him and Lina, which also meant that they, in their role as parents, had to do the same. Lina didn’t seem to think this was a problem. She had adapted to the situation and at the same time had found new activities to keep herself busy.

Like that trip to Cape Verde, which, for Knutas, had been sheer torture. On that first evening when he came home from work, he’d felt as if the walls were echoing with emptiness all around him. Outside the windows the autumn darkness had settled in even though it was only four thirty. He’d switched on all the lights in the house and turned on the TV, but he’d been unable to fend off the feeling of being abandoned. And it got worse each day. If the children were spending the night somewhere else or didn’t come home for dinner, he lost any desire to cook or even make a cup of coffee for himself.

He had suffered through the silence of that month, without fully working out whether the empty feeling was because he was missing Lina in particular, or because he missed having someone else’s company in general.

The day before she was due back home he was suddenly seized with a great surge of energy. He cleaned the whole house, filled the refrigerator and pantry with food, and bought fresh flowers, which he put in a vase on the kitchen table. He was determined to do his utmost to be loving and considerate.

And it had worked. They’d started talking more to each other. Their relationship seemed deeper, more intense, and they’d drawn closer.

On Friday afternoon they had cleared the toppled tree from their property, then raked up leaves and burnt them on a bonfire. They ended the day by cooking a good meal together, and then sat in front of the fireplace, drinking wine and talking. Before going to sleep, they had made love. It almost felt like old times.

Knutas drew the fresh sea air deep into his lungs and continued walking. He passed the home of one of the permanent residents and saw smoke coming from the chimney. Off in the distance, he noticed light in a window. A flock of black jackdaws was perched in the treetops. With a loud shriek they all took off at once when he approached. The sea birds, clustered on rocks out in the water, reacted the same way. As they rose up into the sky, he realized how many there were.

The fishermen’s huts that were lined up down by the harbour were all empty. Some of the larger ones had been turned into summer homes with kitchenettes and bunk beds.

Knutas sat down on a bench and gazed out at the sea. One evening in September, they’d gone swimming here on their last visit to the cottage. He thought about Lina’s voluptuous body and soft white skin. Her long, curly red hair, her smile and warm eyes. He was still very much in love with her.

When he got back, he saw her sitting on the porch wearing a long grey cardigan and thick socks, with her pale, freckled hands wrapped around a coffee mug. She waved and smiled at him as he came walking along the road. He waved back.

WHEN THEY REACHED
the road that connected the peninsula of Furillen to Gotland’s north-east coast, Jenny rolled the car window down halfway and breathed in the sea air. She hadn’t been here in a long time, and she’d forgotten how beautiful it was. Solitary, barren, and nothing but sea, sea, and more sea. In the distance she saw several wind turbines reaching towards the sky, their blades turning slowly in the light breeze. The beach was deserted, the road bumpy and dusty, the landscape bare and rocky; the higher up they drove, the more stripped everything looked. Like a moonscape, devoid of all traces of civilization.