by Lars Kepler
He eats some more of the burger, wipes his hands on the paper napkin, and makes another attempt to get hold of Simone. Not only does she need to be told that it wasn’t Josef Ek who took Benjamin, but he also wants to ask what else she can recall from the night Benjamin was abducted. Despite his relief at finding that his son is not in Josef Ek’s hands, he knows they have to start all over again, think the whole thing through from the beginning. He opens a notebook, writes Aida’s name on it, then changes his mind and tears out the sheet. It’s Simone he needs to talk to. She must remember more, he says to himself, she must have seen something. Joona had interviewed her, but she hadn’t remembered anything else. Of course, they’d been concentrating on Josef then.
His mobile phone rings and he puts down the burger, wipes his hands again, and answers without looking at the display.
“Erik Maria Bark.”
There is a dull crackling, roaring noise.
“Hello?” says Erik, more loudly this time.
Suddenly he hears a faint voice. “Dad?”
The hot oil hisses as the basket of potatoes is lowered in.
“Benjamin?” A half-dozen burgers are slapped on the grill. The telephone roars. “Hang on, I can’t hear you.”
Erik pushes his way past the customers queuing up to order and out into the car park.
“Benjamin?”
Snow is whirling around the yellow streetlamps. “Can you hear me now?” asks Benjamin, sounding close.
“Where are you? Tell me where you are!”
“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t get it, I’m lying in the boot of a car and we’ve just been driving forever.”
“Who’s taken you?”
“I woke up here. I can’t see anything, I’m thirsty—”
“Are you hurt?”
“Dad!” He sobs.
“I’m here, Benjamin.”
“What’s going on?” He sounds small and afraid.
“I’ll find you,” says Erik. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“I heard a voice just when I woke up; it was all mushy, like, he was talking through a blanket. What was it again? It was something about … a house …”
“Tell me more! What kind of house?”
“No, not just a house, a haunted house.”
“Where?”
“We’re stopping now, Dad, the car’s stopped, they’re coming,” says Benjamin, sounding terrified. “I can’t talk any more.”
Erik hears strange rummaging noises, followed by a creaking sound and then Benjamin’s sudden scream. His voice is shrill and unsteady; he sounds terribly frightened:
“Leave me alone, I don’t want to, please, I promise—”
Then silence; the connection has been broken.
Erik stares at his phone but does not use it; he doesn’t want to risk blocking another call from his son. He waits by the car, praying Benjamin will call again, tries to go over the conversation but keeps losing the thread. Benjamin’s fear stabs through his head, over and over again. He realises he has to tell Simone.
60
sunday, december 13 (feast of st lucia): afternoon
Erik gets into the car, his hands shaking so fiercely he can’t slide the key into the ignition. He knows he’s left his hat and gloves next to his burger in the diner, but he can’t be bothered to go back inside. The surface of the road shimmers in shades of grey from the wet snow as he reverses into the darkness and drives home. He parks on Döbelnsgatan and strides down to Luntmakargatan, feeling a strange sense of alienation as he walks in the door and hurries up the stairs. He rings the doorbell, waits, hears footsteps, the small click as the metal cover of the peephole is pushed to one side. He hears the door being unlocked from the inside, but it doesn’t open to admit him, so he opens it himself. Simone has moved back down the dark hallway. In her jeans and blue knitted sweater, arms folded over her chest, she looks resolute.
“You’re not answering your phone,” says Erik.
“I saw you’d called,” she says in a subdued voice. “Was it something important?”
“Yes.”
Her face cracks, revealing all the anxiety she’s been struggling to hide. She puts her hand over her mouth and stares at him.
“Benjamin called me half an hour ago.”
“Oh my God!” She moves closer. “Where is he?” she asks, raising her voice.
“I don’t know. He didn’t know himself, he didn’t know anything.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me he was in the boot of a car.”
“Was he hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But what—”
“Hang on,” Erik interrupts. “I need to borrow a phone. It might be possible to trace the call.”
“Who are you going to call?”
“The police. I’ve got a contact who—”
“I’ll talk to Dad—it’ll be quicker.”
Erik briefly considers protesting but thinks better of it. She takes the phone and he sits on the low hall seat in the darkness, feeling his face growing hot in the warmth.
“Were you asleep?” Simone asks. “Dad, I have to … Erik’s here; he’s spoken to Benjamin; you have to trace the call … I don’t know … No, I haven’t … You’d better speak to him.”
Erik takes the phone and holds it to his ear. “Hi.”
“Tell me what happened, Erik,” says Kennet.
“I wanted to call the police, but Simone said you could trace the call more quickly.”
“She could well be right.”
“Benjamin called me half an hour ago. He had no idea where he was or who had taken him; all he really knew was that he was lying in the boot of a car. While we were talking the car stopped, Benjamin said he could hear someone coming, he started shouting, and then everything went quiet.”
Erik can hear the sound of suppressed sobs from Simone.
“Did he call from his own phone?” asks Kennet.
“Yes.”
“Because it’s been switched off. I tried to trace it the day before yesterday; mobile phones send signals to the nearest base station even when they’re not being used.”
Erik listens in silence as Kennet quickly explains that mobile phone operators are obliged to assist the police in accordance with paragraphs 25 to 27 of the law governing telecommunications, if the minimum punishment for the crime under investigation is at least two years’ imprisonment.
“What can they find out?” asks Erik.
“The precision varies—it depends on the station and the exchanges—but with a bit of luck we’ll soon have a location within a radius of a hundred yards.”
“Hurry up, please hurry.”
Erik ends the call, stands with the phone in his hand, and then passes it to Simone. “What happened to your cheek?” he asks.
“What? Oh, it’s nothing.” They look at each other, tired and fragile. “Do you want to come in, Erik?”
He nods, remains where he is for a moment, then kicks off his shoes and moves along the passageway; he sees that the computer is on in Benjamin’s room and goes in. “Found anything?”
Simone stops in the doorway. “Some messages between Benjamin and Aida,” she says. “It seems as if they felt threatened.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know. Dad’s working on it.”
Erik sits down at the computer. “Benjamin’s alive,” he says quietly, giving her a long look.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t look as if Josef Ek was involved.”
“You said that in your message; you said he doesn’t know where we live. But he did call here, didn’t he, so he could have—”
“That’s a different matter.”
“Is it?”
“The switchboard put the call through,” he explains. “I’ve asked them to do that if something sounds important. He hasn’t got our telephone number or our address.”
“But someone’s taken Benjamin and put him in a c
ar.” She falls silent.
Erik reads the message from Aida in which she says she feels sorry for him, living in a house of lies. Then he opens the picture she attached: a colour photo taken with a flash at night, showing an overgrown patch of grass, bleached yellow in the harsh xenon light of the flash, curving outwards towards a low hedge. Behind the dry hedge it is just possible to make out a brown wooden fence. At the edge of the grass, there is a green plastic leaf basket and something that might be a potato patch.
Erik looks closely at the picture, trying to understand what the subject is, whether there might be a hedgehog or a shrew somewhere that he hasn’t spotted yet. He tries to peer into the darkness beyond the camera flash to see if there is a person there, a face, but he finds nothing.
“What a strange photo,” whispers Simone.
“Maybe Aida attached the wrong picture,” says Erik.
“That would explain why Benjamin deleted the message.”
“We need to talk to Aida about this as well.”
Simone suddenly whimpers. “Benjamin’s medication.”
“I know.”
“Did you give him the factor concentrate last Tuesday?”
Before he has time to reply, she leaves the room and heads for the kitchen. He follows her. By the time he gets there she is standing by the window, blowing her nose on a piece of paper towel. Erik reaches out to her, but she pulls away. Without the injection, the drug that helps Benjamin’s blood to coagulate and protects him from spontaneous bleeds, he can haemorrhage to death from something as simple as a rapid movement.
“I gave the injection to him last Tuesday morning, at twenty past eight. He was going to go skating, but he went to Tensta with Aida instead.”
She nods and calculates. “It’s Sunday today. He ought to have another injection soon,” she whispers.
“There’s no real danger for a few more days,” Erik says reassuringly.
He looks at her: tired face, lovely features, freckles. The low-cut jeans, her yellow briefs just visible at the waistband. He’d like to stay here; he would like them to sleep together; actually, he would like to make love to her, but he knows it’s too soon for all that, too soon even to start wanting her.
“I’d better go,” he mumbles. She nods. They look at each other. “Call me when Kennet’s traced the call.”
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“I have to work.”
“Are you sleeping in your office?”
“It’s a practical solution.”
“You can sleep here,” she says.
He’s surprised; suddenly he doesn’t know what to say. But the brief moment of silence is enough for her to misinterpret his reaction as hesitation.
“That wasn’t meant as an invitation,” she says quickly. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Have you moved in with Daniella?”
“No.”
“We’ve already separated,” she says, raising her voice, “so you don’t need to lie to me.”
“OK.”
“What? OK what?”
“I’ve moved in with Daniella,” he lies.
“Good,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to ask if she’s young and pretty and—”
“She is.”
Erik puts on his shoes in the hallway, leaves the apartment, and closes the door. He waits until he hears her lock up and slide the security chain in place before he sets off down the stairs.
61
monday, december 14: morning
Simone is awakened by the ringing of the telephone. The curtains are open and the bedroom is filled with wintry sunlight. Could it be Erik? She wants to cry when she realises he isn’t going to call. He’ll be waking up next to Daniella this morning. She is completely alone now.
She picks up the phone from the bedside table.
“Simone? It’s Yiva. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.”
Yiva sounds stressed out. Simone glances at the clock. It’s already ten. “I’ve had other things on my mind,” she says tersely.
“They haven’t found him?”
“No.”
Silence. A few shadows drift past outside the window. Simone can see flakes of paint falling from the metal roof opposite; men in bright yellow overalls are scraping it.
“Sorry,” Yiva says. “I won’t disturb you.”
“What’s happened?”
“The auditor is coming tomorrow.”
Simone stands up and glances at the tinted mirror on the wardrobe. She looks thin and tired. It feels as if her face has been smashed into tiny pieces and then put back together again.
“What about Sim Shulman?” she asks. “How’s his exhibition coming along?”
Yiva sounds excited. “He says he needs to speak to you.”
“I’ll give him a call.”
“He wants to show you something to do with the light.” She lowers her voice. “I have no idea how things are between you and Erik, but—”
“We’ve separated,” Simone replies tersely.
“Well, I really think—”
“What do you think?” Simone asks patiently.
“I think Shulman has a serious thing for you.”
Simone meets her own eyes in the mirror and feels a sudden tingle in her stomach. “I’d better come in,” she says.
“Could you?”
“I just need to make a call first.”
Simone hangs up but remains sitting on the edge of the bed for a little while. Benjamin is alive, that’s the most important thing. The person who took him doesn’t seem interested in killing him; he has something else in mind. Ransom? She runs quickly through her assets. What does she actually own? The apartment, the car, a few works of art. The gallery, of course. She could borrow money. Everything will work out. She isn’t rich, but her father could sell the summer cottage and his apartment. They could move in, everyone in a rented apartment, anywhere. Just so long as she gets Benjamin back; as long as she can have her boy again.
Simone calls her father, but he doesn’t answer. She leaves a short message telling him she’s going to the gallery, then takes a quick shower, brushes her teeth, puts on clean clothes, and leaves the apartment without bothering to switch off the lights.
It’s cold and windy outside, a few degrees below freezing. The gloom of the mid-December morning is filled with oppressive quietness, somnolence, a graveyard atmosphere. A dog runs past with its leash trailing in the puddles. No sign of the owner.
As soon as she arrives at the gallery, she meets Yiva’s gaze through the glass door. She walks in and Yiva rushes over and gives her a hug. Simone notices that Yiva has forgotten to touch up her roots; the grey forms a straight line down the centre of her black hair. But her face is smooth and perfectly made-up, her mouth dark red as always. She is wearing grey culottes over black-and-white striped tights and clumpy brown shoes.
Simone looks around. A greenish light shimmers from a series of paintings by Sim Shulman, glowing, aquarium-green oils.
“Fantastic,” says Simone. “You’ve done a brilliant job.”
“Thank you,” says Yiva.
Simone goes over to the paintings. “I hadn’t seen them like this, grouped together, the way they were intended. I’d only seen them individually.” She takes a step closer. “It’s as if they’re flowing sideways.”
She moves into the second room. The block of stone with Shulman’s cave paintings is on a wooden stand.
“Sim Shulman wants oil lamps in here,” says Yiva. “I’ve told him it’s impossible; people want to see what they’re buying.”
“No, they don’t.”
Yiva laughs. “So Shulman gets what he wants?”
“Yes,” Simone replies. “He gets what he wants.”
“Well, you can tell him yourself.”
“What?”
“He’s in the office.”
“Shulman?”
“He said he needed to make a few calls.”
Simone looks over toward the office, and Yiva clears her throat. “I’m going out to get a sandwich for lunch.”
“What, at this hour?”
“I just thought,” says Yiva, her eyes downcast.
“Go on then.”
Simone knocks on the office door and goes in. Shulman is sitting behind the desk sucking a pencil.
“How are you?” he asks, beginning to rise.
“Not so good.”
“That’s what I thought.”
There is silence between them, and he moves closer. She lowers her head. A feeling of exposure, of having been worn down to the most fragile part of herself fills her. Her voice trembles as she blurts out:
“Benjamin is alive. We don’t know where he is or who’s taken him, but he’s alive.”
“That’s good news,” Shulman says quietly.
“Fuck,” she whispers, turning away and wiping the tears from her face with a trembling hand.
Shulman gently touches her hair. She moves away without knowing why. She really doesn’t want him to stop. His hand drops. They look at each other. He’s wearing his soft black suit, with a hood sticking up above the collar of his jacket.
“You’re wearing the ninja suit,” she says, smiling in spite of herself.
“Shinobi, the correct word for ninja, has two meanings,” he says. “It means ‘a hidden person,’ but it also means ‘one who endures.’”
“Endures?”
“Perhaps the most difficult art of all.”
“It’s impossible alone, at least it is for me.”
“No one is alone.”
“I can’t cope with this,” Simone whispers. “I’m falling apart. I have to stop thinking about it all the time. I have nowhere to go. I walk around thinking I just want something to happen. I could hit myself over the head or jump into bed with you just to stop this panic inside me—” She stops abruptly. “What I just said. It sounded completely … I’m really sorry, Sim.”
