Never to her home, not even within sight of it.
Once during one of these school runs, he turned off the main road and drove along a forest track not far from Vetlanda. She looked at him, but he kept his eyes on the road. Neither of them spoke.
Inside, she knew what would happen. She had been expecting it. He stopped the car, they got out and then stood there facing each other for a moment.
She came towards him full of trust, feeling that she belonged to him. She was his chosen one.
He had spread out the brown checked blanket for them to lie on. Gently, he pushed into her.
She was his alone. And he was hers.
She was watching his face out of the corner of her eye, amazed at the pleasure she was able to give him. He was absorbed in her.
His whole mind was focused on her, his body intent on hers. He gave himself to her.
Two of them, locked together She would do everything for just seconds of such closeness. Anything.
The fried potatoes were expanding into an unmanageable lump in her mouth. Her parents were chewing in silence.
It was pure anguish, waiting for the eruption of anger.
She couldn't swallow.
There were two forks in her hand. No, three. The table was moving up and down. She had to swallow. But the fear in her stomach wanted to come back up.
Swallow. For God's sake, swallow. Don't make it any worse than it is.
Forgive me. Please forgive me. Tell me what I must do to be forgiven. Don't keep me waiting, please. I'll do anything to be forgiven. Anything at all.
Beatrice Forsenström put down her knife and fork. She still avoided looking at Sibylla as she opened the abyss with a simple statement.
'Sibylla, I understand you're riding about in somebody's dreadful old car.'
A woman with a bulldog saved her. Sibylla spotted the woman from a distance, standing on the corner of Gras Street where the path to the Eriksdal allotments began, alone but gesticulating energetically. As she came closer, she spotted the small loudspeaker ear-piece and the flex connecting it to the mobile phone. It was the latest mobile gadget, meant to keep precious parts of the brain from being micro-waved to a frazzle, or so the papers said.
'It makes me so effing furious! If you pardon my French.'
Curiosity made Sibylla slow down almost to a standstill. The bulldog had settled down at the feet of his agitated mistress, looking at her with real interest.
'Christ almighty, is this some police state we're living in or what?! So you're looking for some freak on the run? Frankly, I don't give a monkey's. When I'm out walking in Sweden I don't expect to have a gun shoved into my face all of a sudden. It's bloody well out of order.'
By now Sibylla was rooted to the ground.
'Calm down? Don't hold your breath! I'm not feeling calm at all! I'm going to charge these gun-toting lads of yours, take my word for it. Made me show my ID card before letting me walk my dog… I ask you! Not a word of apology did I get either. I'll get somebody for this!'
The woman fell silent for a while, listening to someone on the other end of line. She glanced at Sibylla, who promptly looked the other way.
'I see… yes. No, I won't. And if you don't accept my complaint I'll take it elsewhere.'
The woman pocketed her mobile. Her dog got up. 'Kajsa, come on!'
The woman and her dog crossed the street. Sibylla still did not move.
'Don't go in there.'
Sibylla smiled at the woman.
'Why not?'
'It's crawling with police in there, but out of sight. You don't know they're there until you get a gun shoved in your face. No idea what they're up to. Made me furious, I can tell you.'
Sibylla nodded.
'Sure, thanks. I think I'd rather avoid all that.'
The woman and her dog wandered off, leaving Sibylla breathing deeply. It must have been Uno Hjelm. The allotments' own little old Judas. Fuck him.
She had to get away. Fast.
How long could she stand living like this? Surviving, that's one thing. She could do that. She had done it. But being on the run…?
She was hurrying now, feeling that they were already at her heels. God, how could Hjelm have spotted her? Surely he couldn't have recognised her from the photo in the newspapers? If so she was lost, unsafe anywhere.
She had to change her hair. She was close to Ringen now. There were plenty of people about and she could just mingle with the crowds. But weren't people staring at her? How odd it was. What about the man walking towards her, why did he look at her like that? Her heart was beating hard. She looked down and the man walked past her.
If she told them the truth, would they believe her? Couldn't they understand that she had simply wanted to sleep in a proper bed, just for once? She would have paid him later. Of course she would have! She had… lost her wallet. Really.
Lots of people were converging on the underground station. She kept walking.
But – where was she going?
Once on Renstierna Street she changed direction and walked up the steps leading to the Vitaberg Park with Sofia Church towering above her like a fortress. She was tired and needed to sit down for a while. Turning, she checked the deserted path sloping down towards the street. No one had followed her.
The silence inside the church seemed solid, tangible. Just inside the door was a glass-fronted cubby-hole. An elderly man peered at her through the glass and nodded. He seemed friendly. She nodded too, before taking her rucksack off and stepping inside.
The church was empty apart from someone sleeping in one of the pews, a man with his hair in a pony-tail. The pony-tail guy was vaguely familiar, she'd seen him a couple of times at the City Mission Centre. Now he was in a deep sleep, his jaw drooping toward his chest. She sat down in a pew at the back with her rucksack at her feet. Closed her eyes.
Peace and quiet, simply. It was all she wanted.
The man in the cubby-hole coughed. The sound reverberated between the walls. Then the silence solidified again.
God hears your prayers. It said so on a poster near the door.
She opened her eyes again and spent some time examining the huge altarpiece. Over very many years, very many people had put their lives in His hands. They built enormous edifices for the worship of their God and turned to Him in their prayers. When she was little, she too prayed to Him. ‘If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.' Then: 'Dear God, look after mummy and daddy and make it so they don't die.' He must have heard that bit, since they were apparently getting on very nicely, thank you. 'When I lie down and go to asleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.' Keeping my soul seems to have slipped His mind. Maybe He is wholly on their side?
Well, on all their sides, the sides of those who fit in.
Where did the Stationmaster's prayers end up? He jumped off Vast Bridge last month, after realising that his fourth detox treatment had failed. Was anyone up there listening to Lena? She used to be on the Salvation Army's food vans, but had to stop because she had an inoperable brain tumour. Exactly what had Lena done to deserve that? What about Tova? Or Jonsson? Or Smirre? All dead, after subsisting for years in his or her own special living hell. Presumably none of their prayers were ever heard.
God, this prayer story of Yours simply doesn't wash.
Come to think of it, what about Jorgen Grundberg? Whatever he might have been punished for, why bring me into it? Am I supposed to be punished for something? And if so, WHEN will my punishment be over and done with?
She sighed, rose and heaved the rucksack onto her back. There was no peace to be found here. She left the church without looking at the man in the cubby-hole.
The sun was setting when she came out of the church. She stepped back to see the church clock. Quarter past five.
She would really have liked sleeping in a bed tonight, but hotels were too risky and she didn't even dare try the Klara doss house. They were always short of room, so if she got a bed then someone who hadn't a
nd was in the police's bad books, might well do a little informing to make up for past sins.
She felt for the purse round her neck. She was tempted to draw on her treasure, for the first time since she made up her mind about saving. A real drinking session, so she could forget for just one night.
Shit. What stinking, rotten luck.
She turned into the lane leading to Skane Street. About twenty yards along was a charming small piece of cultural history, a green door set in a wooden fence painted a nice shade of red. To the right of the door the fence joined the gable-end of a humble wooden house. She stopped and examined the wall of the house. The hatch of what might have been the coal-chute was almost level with the ground and had been nailed into place. A second opening about a metre up had a door with only a peg through a hasp to hold it shut.
She looked around. The park was empty.
In a moment she had taken off her rucksack, opened the little door and climbed inside.
Thursdays were our days, the days when he came to me. If I close my eyes, I can see him open the garden gate down by the road and start walking along the gravel path towards me. I remember how I felt warmth from my heart spreading through my whole body. He always took such care wiping his shoes on the doormat. There he was, wrapping me in his strong arms. Dear Lord, this was love and not sin. Love, such as You have taught us it should be. I thank You for letting me experience it.
Every time he came I had prepared the house as nicely as anyone could wish. I wanted him to realise how much I had been looking forward to seeing him. Every time I hoped he would not leave. But staying was impossible and he always left at four o'clock in the afternoon. When that hour struck I knew I had another seven days of waiting ahead and seven endless nights, full of longing to see him again. Now my whole life is such a night.
Yet I thank You, God. I am grateful for your guidance. You have shown me what I can do to help him enter Your realm, so that I can rest assured that he will be there for me when my time comes. Thank You God for letting me be your ally in the sacred work of correcting the errors of the unjust on Earth.
Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
'Death is swallowed up in victory.'
'Oh Death, where is thy victory?'
'Oh Death, where is thy sting?'
The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
God, I too wish to thank You for Your protection. You have not left me alone in my task but sent that woman to shelter me. You are allowing her to atone for her sins by giving her a sacred purpose. For this I thank You, Lord God. Amen.
She had no idea where she was when she woke. It was not an uncommon sensation, but this morning it seemed especially hard to make sense of her whereabouts. The light was seeping through the cracks in the wooden walls, falling on the rubbish that surrounded her. She remembered where she was only when the bells of Sofia Church rang out seven times. She sat up to eat her last banana.
The floor was broken and covered in sawdust. Last night she had put planks across the joists to arrange somewhere to roll out her mat. She ate slowly, watching the dust whirl in the beams of sunlight.
Her sore throat wasn't troubling her any more. She definitely needed a shower after tonight. Central Station was no good, because the police were always about. She didn't dare go to the Klara shelter either.
Keeping track of time had become problematic since she'd left her diary in the Grand Hotel, but she was pretty sure her charity hand-out should be there today. First of all she just must do something about her hair. If she borrowed some money from her savings to buy hair-dye, she could collect the money afterwards.
Having extracted a twenty-kronor note from her savings, she caught the 76 bus to Ropsten. Normally she avoided buses, because it was easier to get through the underground check-ins without paying. This was the first time in six years that she had used saved money. Fourteen kronor for just one journey, what a waste!
Fucking bastards, all of them.
In the beginning she had been alone at the Renstierna Street bus stop. When people started turning up, she looked away. It was the morning rush-hour, but luckily she found two seats right at the back, one for her and one for her rucksack. When they reached Slussen all the seats had been taken and a woman standing close by her was eyeing the rucksack. Usually it wouldn't have bothered her, but just now she didn't want anyone watching at her. She hauled the rucksack into her lap and the woman sat down, taking a morning paper out of her briefcase.
Sibylla was looking steadfastly through the window as the bus was crossing Skepp Bridge and pulled up at the traffic-lights. It was next to a newsagent and the shopkeeper was putting up fresh news posters. When the bus started, he had moved enough for her to see the text. Unasked, her eyes recorded it and sent it straight to her brain.
It couldn't be true!
She sat staring blankly ahead for what seemed like an age, confusion and fear pumping through her body. A noose was tightening round her neck.
A passenger's face turned her way. Instinctively she pulled at the rucksack to make it into a bigger barrier and by shifting her position saw what her neighbour was reading. She didn't want to, but once more her eyes were recording things against her will.
The headline alone made her feel sick.
She didn't want to know any more and forced her eyes to focus on the rucksack for the rest of the journey, not daring to move until the woman got off at her stop.
The paper was left on the seat. She didn't want to. Knew she had to. Fuck them.
She grabbed the paper before getting off the bus.
On her way to Nimrod Street, she popped into the Co-op and bought a packet Rich Black dye, raiding her savings for the second time that morning. She would pay every single kronor back the moment she got her hand-out envelope from the post office box.
The Nimrod Street block of flats was an invaluable asset to her and a few others in the same predicament. Everyone in the know was exceptionally tight-lipped about it. It was information she had paid dearly for. Not in money, though.
The main door was always open and because the flats lacked showers, a couple of well-equipped shower-rooms had been built in the basement. The rooms were spacious and smartly tiled, had a lavatory with plenty of toilet paper and unlimited quantities of hot water.
They were locked, of course. Only the initiated knew where to find the spare key, fastened to a large piece of wood, in its hiding-place inside an old iron wall-cupboard just next to the doors leading to the wondrous washing facilities. Even better, you could lock the shower-rooms from the inside.
That key was worth more than its weight in gold.
As soon as she got in, she put her panties to soak in the basin, using a few drops of shampoo instead of washing liquid. Next, the hot shower. She was in luck, someone had left a bottle of conditioner. She closed her eyes, but the headline seemed fixed in her mind's eye.
Was there no end to this? Would she ever wake from this nightmare?
THE GRAND HOTEL MURDERESS STRIKES AGAIN
New ritual murder in Vastervik
For how long have you been carrying on like this?' It was her father speaking, for once. Sibylla swallowed again. The tabletop still seemed to rise and fall in front of her. 'Like what, Daddy?' Her mother snorted angrily.
'Sibylla, don't pretend. You're not such a fool you don't understand what upsets us.'
True, she did know. Obviously she had been seen in Mick's car. 'We met in the spring.'
Her parents looked at each other across the table, beha
ving as if they were joined by elastic bands. 'What is the man called?' 'Mikael. Mikael Persson.' 'And do we know his parents?' 'I don't think so, they live in Varnamo.'
No one spoke for a while and Sibylla found some respite in the silence.
'How does he earn his living in Hultaryd? I assume he's in employment.'
'He's an engineer. Car mechanic. He knows everything about cars.'
'Is that so.'
They looked at each other again, more closely bound to each other now. The rubber-band ties that connected them were tightening and loosening, but their faces were blank, empty. Sibylla looked away.
'We do not approve of our daughter being seen in one of those disreputable cars.'
She thought, it's not disreputable, it's a '59 De Soto Firedome. 'In fact, you must not socialise with that kind of person, none of these boys.'
Her head felt like a lump of lead. It tipped over towards one side, too heavy to be straightened up again. 'They're my mates.'
'Sit up straight when we're talking to you!'
Her head shot upwards automatically but her neck could not keep it upright. Instead it tipped backwards, hitting the top of her high-backed chair.
'Now, what's the matter? Sibylla, what's wrong with you?'
Her mother had got up and was advancing. Sibylla's head was stuck to the chair at first, but then it slid sideways and followed her body to the floor.
'Sibylla, how are you?' It was her mother's voice.
She was lying somewhere soft and there was a cold, damp thing on her forehead. She opened her eyes and realised she was in her own bed, with her mother perched on its edge and her father standing in the middle of the room.
'Dear child, you really scared us.'
'I'm sorry. Forgive me.'
'Now, now. We'll talk about it later.'
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