Dark Angel (11 page)

‘I have a breathing space in my studies at the moment, so I can stay at least a week. Mamma needs all the help and support she can get.’

A GLANCE IN
the mirror inside the lift is enough to remind me of my sorry state. I’ve lost weight and look ghastly. But I’m in one piece and clean. That ought to be sufficient. Today I’m going out, which demands a great deal of mental concentration.

Life nowadays is a struggle, periodically marked by a lull and a vacuum. I have to think in small steps. Cleanse away everything else. The dreams I may have had, the goals and ambitions, no longer exist. I can’t even remember what they were. Or whether I ever really had any.

The next test comes when I open the heavy front door to the street. Like a stinging slap in the face, I’m confronted with all the traffic noise of the city, the people and the smells. I hadn’t noticed that it was raining and I’m freezing in my thin jacket. I refuse to meet anyone’s eye as I walk along the pavement. I shut everyone out, pretending that they don’t exist: all those poplin coats, jackets and sweaters, the ribbed umbrellas, the briefcases and the shoulder bags made of brown leather. Rubber galoshes and walking shoes. The blurry faces that I glimpse passing by are nothing but hazy masks.

Finally I arrive. A moment of panic because at first I can’t remember the door code. I rummage around in my pocket for the slip of paper and breathe a sigh of relief when I find it. I can’t handle any setbacks right now.

It’s a square room, with one window facing the street, a bed along one wall, and a small table and two armchairs.

‘I had a bad dream last night.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I dreamed that all of my teeth turned black and became porous bits of coal. One by one they came loose and then fell out into my cupped hands. Soon my gums were bare and my hands were full. I was heartbroken and thought to myself: But I’m so young. I woke up screaming, and after that I couldn’t go back to sleep, as usual.’

‘What did you think about while you were lying there awake?’

‘Those horrible years when I was a teenager. I haven’t had that dream in a long time, but back then I had it all the time, when I was in my early teens.’

‘It sounds like you were suffering from anxiety.’

‘I was. It lasted three years.’

‘Can you tell me about it?’

I shake my head. I don’t really want to. I know that whenever I dredge up memories, I feel as if I’m transported back to that time for a moment. And it’s too painful. I’m overwhelmed by the same abysmal sense of despair. It has taken up residence inside my body, and it will always be there. For as long as I live.

‘Try.’

‘It doesn’t make any sense. For example, I still have a hard time taking a shower.’

‘Taking a shower?’

‘Yes. Ever since my schooldays. I can’t believe I can’t get over it. During my first years I was very popular. In photographs from back then, I often looked happy. My classmates thought I was fun, sort of the class clown. Plus I was a good football player. I liked sports and music. Those were my two main interests. But when I started secondary school, everything changed.’

‘In what way?’

‘I still have no clue what happened, but it had something to do with my father dying in a car accident that summer before secondary school. Mamma and Pappa had already been divorced for a long time, but we lived in a small town and everyone knew everything about everyone else. There was something about that accident … My siblings and I spent
nearly
the whole summer holiday at a camp for kids. When I got back, my old friends’ attitude towards me had changed. They avoided me. No one wanted to be around me any more.

‘I started at a new school, with new classmates, and suddenly it was as if I didn’t exist. The other kids treated me like air. No one said a single word to me; they hardly even gave me a glance. For the rest of my schooldays I never talked to anyone in my classes. I was alone during breaks and at lunchtime in the cafeteria. I was never chosen for any sports teams; I moved like a shadow along the walls. Frozen out.’

‘What about the shower?’

‘The shower?’

‘You said something about having a hard time taking a shower.’

‘Oh, right. PE lessons were the worst. I was the smallest boy in my class, a late bloomer, and I looked like a child. One after the other, they all entered puberty. Lots of the boys were more than a head taller than me. They had broad shoulders, and their voices were changing. They had peach fuzz on their upper lips, hair on their legs and in their armpits. Their Adam’s apples were as big as ripe plums. Before games I used to try to hide in the changing room. It was a torment to have to undress in front of the others. I always claimed the shower in the corner and stood with my back turned, washing as fast as I could.’

I close my eyes. These memories are painful. My eyes are stinging. I don’t want to cry right now. I’m feeling a little sick, but I go on: ‘Even today I can still hear the sound of the spraying shower water, the rough voices, the joking and teasing. The snap of towels slapping bare skin. Water fights, towel fights. And the whole time I’m standing in the corner with my back turned to all the other boys. It was pure hell. PE lessons were too. I was always the last one to be picked. Everyone sighed if they were forced to have me on their team. They never passed the ball to me. When I lie awake at night, I can still see their faces and hear their comments.’

‘How did you get through it?’

‘I didn’t. Finally I asked the teacher if I could practise discus throwing instead. Can you imagine that? The discus, of all ridiculous ideas. And the teacher went for it. So instead of playing basketball and football with
the
others, which was actually what I loved most, I would stand all alone on the grass behind the sports hall and throw the discus. Lesson after lesson. The teacher didn’t care. He just let me keep practising. That was probably a lot easier for him.’

Silence settles over the room. I down the rest of the water in the glass on the table in order to stave off the feeling of nausea. I’m about to fall into the darkness, and I don’t want to go there. I clutch the glass tight, holding it with both hands. I need to concentrate. How am I going to make it home? I’m on the verge of collapsing. I open my mouth again and the words automatically spill out. I listen to the voice, which sounds unfamiliar, as if it doesn’t belong to me.

‘If only I’d known what was ahead of me when I entered that classroom. A darkness that would last three years. And that’s an endless number of dark days. A feeling of dread would fill me each morning when I forced myself to get out of bed. Three years of humiliation and annihilation. Do you know what that does to a person? I’ve never understood why they hated me so much. I was completely alone.’

The memories are still buried in my body. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to put down the glass.

‘But what about at home? During all those years when you were having such a bad time, didn’t your mother notice anything? What did she do?’

I can hear the bitterness in my voice as I say: ‘Nothing. She never did anything.’

‘Nothing?’

‘It must have been obvious that I was having a bloody awful time of it. I never wanted to get out of bed in the morning. After school and all evening I would lie on my bed, alone in my room, and listen to music on my headset. Do you understand? Every night! Weekdays and weekends. Year after year. For three years not a single friend ever came home with me. No one ever phoned. And what did my mother do? Nothing.’

‘And you never talked about this with her? Didn’t she ever ask you what was wrong?’

* * *

I can’t bring myself to answer. Nausea has taken hold of me full force, and I feel as if I’m going to throw up at any second. My vision blurs. I see that the person across from me is leaning forward and saying something, but I no longer hear the voice.

I can’t stay here. I pick up my jacket and rush out of the door, then set off running for home. Along the way I bump into a pram, almost toppling it over. A woman screams abuse after me. Outside of the Konsum supermarket I knock over a bucket of tulips.

I manage to stay in control as I ride up in the lift. As soon as I get my door open, I dash for the toilet.

I lift the lid just in time.

JOHAN HAD NEVER
received so much criticism for a story as he did after his report on the murder at the conference centre, which was broadcast on Monday evening. Regional News was the only programme to reveal Viktor Algård’s identity and the first to mention his pending divorce, as well as the possibility that he was having a love affair. All of this provoked a heated discussion about journalistic ethics.

After every broadcast Johan and Pia had a teleconference with the head office back in Stockholm. This time both were harshly reprimanded, primarily for choosing to publicize the information about Viktor’s mistress. It didn’t help that the neighbour’s speculation about Algård’s dalliances had been confirmed by his employees.

Several managing editors also found it appalling that Regional News had revealed the victim’s identity only twenty-four hours after he was found murdered. Johan defended his decision by saying that there was enormous interest in the case on Gotland, since Algård was so well known on the island. Besides, they had checked with the police to make sure that all family members had been informed about the death.

Johan, together with Pia and their boss Max Grenfors, had thought the information sufficiently relevant to make it public, given that this was a high-profile homicide. It might also provide an important clue to the motive.

Even though Johan defended himself fiercely and certainly presented a convincing argument, doubt was gnawing at him as he drove home to Roma in the dark.

He hoped to find Emma still awake. What he needed right now was a glass of wine and a chance to talk.

And Emma. He was longing for her. He was always longing for her. Finally they were able to be together, all the time. They could fall asleep together every night, and wake up together every morning.

Their relationship had definitely had its ups and downs since they’d met five years ago. Back then, Emma was married to Olle, she had two children in primary school, and she was living a quiet life with her family in Roma.

Then she met Johan. He happened to interview her in connection with a murder case, and they instantly fell in love. Eventually she divorced Olle and gave birth to Johan’s child. Their relationship had been stormy ever since. Against all odds, they had decided to get married during the previous summer. Johan had begun to doubt that they’d ever become husband and wife, when Emma had suddenly accepted his marriage proposal. On the day of the wedding, she kept him nervously waiting outside the church. Fårö Church was filled with guests, the time for the wedding came and went, and the pastor was wringing her hands. Johan’s best man, Andreas, started looking worried, while all the groom wanted to do was run away. Half an hour late, Emma and her maid of honour had finally appeared, both of them out of breath. They’d had a flat tyre and had left their mobiles at home.

For the past six months they’d led a normal family life with their three-year-old daughter Elin. Every other week the family expanded when Sara and Filip, Emma’s children from her first marriage, now eleven and ten, came to stay. Johan had moved into Emma’s house in Roma and sublet his flat in the Södermalm district of Stockholm.

His routine of buying fast food at the local 7-Eleven had now been replaced by major shopping expeditions at Willy’s supermarket. Takeaway pizza had been replaced by home-cooked meals served at specific times of the day. He’d become an expert at making sausage stroganoff, mincemeat sauce and pancakes. Instead of sleeping late on the weekend, he now got up to fix porridge for the kids in the kitchen. The days were filled with playing with the doll’s house and plastic
cars
, watching children’s programmes on TV, Parcheesi, football and sledding.

Instead of spending late nights at the pub, Johan would fall asleep by ten o’clock in front of the TV, with Emma leaning on his shoulder and sometimes one or two of the kids on his lap. His job didn’t claim all his attention the way it used to do. Sometimes in the middle of editing a story he’d find himself suddenly wondering what Elin was doing at the day-care centre. And an interview that unexpectedly ran late could make him start to fret because he’d promised to take the children swimming or to football practice, or he was supposed to attend a parents’ meeting at school. Previously he’d been the type of person who more or less lived for his job, endlessly on his computer or discussing work with colleagues. But now he was always in a rush to get home. His family was waiting for him. They needed him. And he loved that.

It was dark by the time he parked outside the house, but there were lights on in all the windows. Emma was awake.

‘Hello,’ he called as he went in, pushing aside ten pairs of shoes and some little rubber boots decorated with flowers.

‘Hi,’ he heard her reply from the kitchen. She was sitting there, clad in her usual grey jogging suit, with her long, sandy-coloured hair hanging loose down her back. Her eyes looked tired.

He gave her a hug.

‘Hi, sweetheart. How are things?’

‘OK. Elin’s cough is better. She’s asleep now, thank God.’

Johan went upstairs and opened the door to Sara’s room. Her breathing was slow and regular; she always slept so soundly. He gently touched her cheek, and then turned off the light next to her bed, which was shining right in her face.

In the next bedroom Filip was asleep with his arms stretched over his head and his mouth wide open. He had kicked off the covers. Johan stood there looking at the boy for a moment. He almost thought of Filip as his own son. Lately they’d had such good times together. They shared a passion for football and a week ago Johan had gone to watch Filip play in a
match
. The boy had scored his first goal and they’d celebrated afterwards with hamburgers for dinner.