by Viveca Sten
Dino stood up. There was no place for him here. “I’ll go over there again,” he said.
“How hard can it be to find the little whore?” Emir sneered. He used his thumbnail to poke at a bit of pizza that had gotten stuck between his teeth.
Andreis also got to his feet. “Forget it. I’ll take care of it myself.”
CHAPTER 34
Katrin was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV with a blanket over her knees. The nine-o’clock news had just finished, and she was waiting for the late film to start. She had a cup of green tea and a plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of her. Stefan had gone to the bathroom to get ready for bed, but Katrin knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep yet. If she went to bed too early, thoughts of Mina and Lukas just went round and round in her head. Last night she’d lain awake worrying for hours.
She didn’t even know where they were.
The police had explained that it was better that way. They could keep in touch via their cell phones, but they hadn’t been given an address. She had no idea if Mina and Lukas were still in the Stockholm area, or how long they’d have to stay hidden.
Katrin was on the verge of tears. She could never have imagined that a member of her family would be forced to hide from a violent man. Andreis was a monster, and she hoped he would burn in hell for what he’d done to her daughter and grandson. He should have died in the war in Bosnia; she wished with all her heart that he’d never been let into Sweden.
It was terrible to think of another person like that, but she couldn’t help it, even though Stefan objected when she expressed her opinion. His parents had also faced prejudice when they came over from Yugoslavia as guest workers in the 1960s. They still had relatives in Macedonia.
The TV screen was filled with the smiling face of an announcer informing viewers that it was time for the Saturday film, which apparently had been a great success when it was shown in the theaters. It made absolutely no difference; Katrin was prepared to watch anything as long as it took her mind off Mina’s situation.
Anxiety was gnawing away at her, causing her physical pain.
The film began and Katrin tried to follow the action, but with little success.
The doorbell rang. Katrin looked at her watch; it was almost ten o’clock. Who on earth could it be at this hour? She folded back the blanket and smoothed down her hair, then got to her feet and went into the hallway. She didn’t bother switching the light on. She saw a dark silhouette through the frosted glass, but she couldn’t make out who it was. The door handle was pushed down.
Katrin had a bad feeling. She peered through the peephole, one hand on the latch.
Andreis was standing on the porch with a wild look in his eyes. He was holding something.
Katrin snatched her hand away as if she’d burned it.
The doorbell rang again, then he rattled the handle. Oh God.
“It’s me!” Andreis shouted. “Open the door!”
“What’s going on?” Stefan called out from the bedroom.
Katrin was incapable of speaking. She backed away from the door and pressed herself against the wall. Her heart was pounding.
“Can you answer the door, Katrin? I’ve just gotten undressed,” Stefan went on.
Katrin tried to say something, but produced only a hysterical croak that got stuck in her throat. “It’s him!” she managed eventually.
“Who?” Stefan appeared in his bathrobe, but stopped dead when he saw her terrified face.
“It’s Andreis. He’s outside our door. He must have come looking for Mina.”
“I know you’re in there!” Andreis yelled. “I want to see my wife and son!”
Katrin moved toward the living room as Andreis hammered on the door. “What are we going to do?”
She couldn’t hold back the tears. She didn’t want to see that terrible man. He had abused their daughter, and now he was after them.
“Let me in!” Andreis roared, in a completely different tone of voice.
He pressed the bell again and kept his finger there. Katrin had never heard such a dreadful noise.
“Open the fucking door!”
Bosnia, December 1992
The loud voices penetrated through the wall of the bedroom where Andreis and Emir slept. Andreis sat up in the darkness, blinking. Mom and Dad were having a heated discussion in the living room.
“It’s not safe for the children,” Mom yelled. “We can’t stay here, we have to leave.”
Andreis had never heard her speak to Dad that way. Mom was always calm and gentle. She comforted Andreis when he scraped his knee, and hummed lullabies to Emir when he didn’t want to go to sleep.
“We’re all going to die if we stay! Why can’t you see that?”
“Shut up!” Dad shouted.
“It’ll be your fault if we get swept away.” It sounded as if Mom was crying. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? Look what happened to the Begović family. They’re gone, all of them. They didn’t even lock the door behind them. They just disappeared.”
Dad slammed his hand down on the table. “And where the hell do you expect us to go?”
“We can go to my sister in Croatia. She keeps calling and asking us to go there before it’s too late. Think about Aunt Jasmina and Uncle Adnan. Think about Mom and Dad, trapped in Sarajevo.”
“So we leave everything we own to those fucking Serbs? There you go, help yourselves. Take whatever you want—we’ve gone.”
“We can’t just sit here waiting for them to shoot us!” Mom’s voice was thick with tears. “What use are our possessions if we’re all dead?”
“We’re staying. This will pass. People are crazy right now, but it will soon be over.”
Mom was begging now. “At least think about the boys. We have to save the children. Andreis is only six, and Emir is a baby.”
“This is our home.”
Andreis didn’t want to hear any more. He pulled the covers over his head, muting the sound of their voices. He couldn’t make out the words, just the angry tone as the argument raged.
Suddenly the front door slammed so hard that the little house seemed to shake.
“Zlatko!” Mom yelled.
Andreis closed his eyes and pulled the covers even more tightly around him, but he couldn’t shut out the sound of his mother sobbing.
CHAPTER 35
The doorbell was still ringing. Katrin put her hands over her ears, but it was impossible to shut out the terrible noise.
Her body was screaming at her to flee, but where could she go? There was no help to be had. The neighbors probably had no idea what was going on, and no one was safe when that man was around.
It was too late to pretend they weren’t home. The lights were on in the living room and the bedroom, and their car was parked in the driveway.
Thank God the door was locked—at least he hadn’t been able to walk straight in.
Stefan moved forward, but Katrin held out her hand to stop him. “Mina isn’t here,” he said. “Go away! We don’t want anything to do with you!”
“Open the fucking door!”
Katrin tried to swallow, but her mouth was bone dry. “He’s dangerous,” she gasped.
“I’m calling the police if you don’t leave,” Stefan shouted.
Katrin stared at the door as if she were hypnotized. It seemed to be vibrating because of the constant ringing. Stefan took another step forward and put his face close to the glass. “We don’t know where she is! Why can’t you understand that?”
The ringing stopped.
Please, please go away, Katrin thought. Go away and leave our family in peace. We haven’t done you any harm.
Was this how Mina had felt, all those times when Andreis had beaten her? Had she experienced the same terror that Katrin was feeling now? Had she also been convinced that Andreis was actually going to kill her?
My little girl.
She almost jumped out of her skin as Andreis started hammering on the door with both fists.
He’s going to smash the glass, she thought. Or kick the door down.
“Where are Mina and Lukas? Give me the address!”
Stefan’s face was as white as a sheet. “You’re the one who’s chased her away! We don’t know where she’s gone. She’s in hiding, and it’s your fault!”
Tears were pouring down Katrin’s cheeks. She had a pain in her left arm, and she felt as if someone were squeezing her chest. She suddenly felt sick, and coughed.
“If you don’t open this door, I’ll kick the fucker down!”
Katrin looked at Stefan, eyes wide with panic. “What are we going to do?”
“Let me in!”
Andreis’s voice was so distorted by rage and hatred that it was almost unrecognizable. He barely sounded human.
Katrin looked over at the floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors, installed a few years ago to let in the light on summer evenings. She’d always liked sitting on the sofa after dinner, gazing out at the garden.
Now those doors posed a serious threat. It would take seconds to smash the glass with a stone. Or a gun.
Would he kill them both if he didn’t find out where Mina was? There was nowhere to hide, but they had to try to get away if Andreis got into the house.
She just didn’t know how.
Stefan was still staring at the front door, then he glanced toward the cellar steps next to the kitchen. Katrin could almost read his mind. Down there was the gun cupboard containing his hunting rifle and ammunition. A chance to defend themselves against the madman outside.
But everything was meticulously locked away. Stefan wouldn’t have time to go down there and fetch the rifle before Andreis broke into the house.
It was hopeless.
The frosted glass in the door shattered into a thousand pieces as a large stone came flying through and landed on the hall floor.
“Listen to me!” Stefan tried again. “We don’t know where she is! I’m calling the police.”
His voice came from somewhere far, far away. Katrin couldn’t breathe. She felt as if an iron fist had seized her chest, crushing her ribs and muscles. Everything hurt. The feeling of nausea was growing.
I can’t breathe.
The room began to fade away.
“Blame yourselves if you don’t do as I say!” Andreis roared.
Katrin’s field of vision was shrinking.
She tried to stay upright, but her legs refused to obey her.
“Stefan . . .” What was wrong with her voice?
Everything disappeared.
Sunday
CHAPTER 36
Mina was woken by the sound of her cell phone. At first she couldn’t figure out where she was, then she recognized the wallpaper in her room at Freya’s Haven. Reality came rushing back.
Was Lukas all right?
She was overwhelmed by panic before she managed to sit up and check that he was lying in the crib beside her bed. At that moment he opened his eyes and let out a yell. He was hungry, of course. They’d both slept much later than usual; it was almost eight o’clock. She needed to go into the kitchen to heat up a bottle for him.
Her phone rang again, but she ignored it and picked up her son. With one hand she tried to pull on the borrowed bathrobe, but it was impossible while she was holding Lukas. It was slightly too small, and in the end she had to put him down, even though he immediately started crying again.
Her head throbbed as she tugged at the terry cloth. She had virtually nothing of her own here—everything was at home. With Andreis.
Her phone rang yet again. She decided she’d better answer, so she popped a pacifier in Lukas’s mouth.
Dad, the display said. Mina quickly took the call.
“Mina?”
He sounded different, weak and unfamiliar. Mina tightened the belt around her waist. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Mom.” His voice broke. “We’re at the hospital, sweetheart. Mom’s had a major heart attack.”
Mina couldn’t get those words to make any sense. Her brain was a blank space. “What are you talking about? Is Mom sick?”
“She’s pretty bad.”
“What do you mean?” Mina knew she sounded hysterical, but she couldn’t help herself.
Not Mom. Not now.
“She’s in intensive care, under sedation.” There was a long pause. “They don’t know if she’s going to regain consciousness.”
Mina dug her nails into the palm of her hand, fighting to remain in control. At least for a few minutes, she couldn’t lose it now. “She was supposed to be seeing a cardiologist,” she said. “She’d already made the appointment. You told me.”
“That man came to our house late last night.” Her father didn’t need to say the name. Andreis. Once upon a time it had meant the promise of love.
“He came to your house?”
“He banged on the door, yelling and swearing and demanding to know where you were.”
Mina pressed her hand to her stomach.
“Then he threatened us, he smashed the glass in the door. If a neighbor hadn’t come out and shouted that the police were on their way, I’m sure he’d have managed to break in. But your mom . . .”
His voice died away.
“Her heart couldn’t cope with the strain.”
The guilt Mina felt was unbearable. This was all her fault. She should have warned them after she received the text message with a picture of their house. What had she done?
She undid her belt, started looking for the top she’d worn the previous day, her jeans.
“We’ll leave right away,” she said. “Which hospital is she in?”
“No!” The word emerged like a scream. “You can’t come here.”
Lukas spat out his pacifier and started crying again. Mina tried to get dressed, but he bawled even louder. In the end she had to pick him up. She tried to soothe him, but he threw himself back and forth out of hunger, grabbing angrily at her hair with his little hands. “I can’t stay here,” she said loudly so that her father would be able to hear her over the noise Lukas was making.
“For God’s sake!” Stefan was breathing hard. “If you come here, he’ll find you. He’s counting on it—don’t you see?”
“Please, I have to see Mom. What if she . . .” Completing the sentence was too painful.
“Mina, I can’t lose you as well.”
Lukas’s face was bright red now, his mouth sticky with saliva. Mina was crying, too, but silently, so as not to worry her father even more.
“He’s dangerous, Mina.” She’d never heard him sound so helpless. “He’ll kill you if he catches up with you.”
“Have you been in touch with the police? You need protection, just like me.”
“I haven’t told them anything.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t. That’ll just make things worse.”
“What do you mean?” Mina dropped to her knees. Lukas was wailing so loudly that she had difficulty hearing her own voice. Someone banged on the wall of the room next door. “Dad?”
“That was the last thing Andreis yelled before he disappeared,” her father whispered. “He said he’d kill us if we spoke to the police.”
CHAPTER 37
Anna-Maria had only intended to spend a couple of hours at Freya’s Haven on Sunday afternoon to clear up some paperwork, but as usual she’d stayed longer. If there was going to be anything left of the evening, it was high time she went home.
She shut down the computer and switched off the desk lamp, ignoring the piles of paper that remained. She never caught up, however hard she tried; she always had a guilty conscience.
She picked up her jacket. Siri, her colleague who worked weekends, came down the corridor just as Anna-Maria was about to close the door. Siri’s beautifully styled hair reminded Anna-Maria that it was months since she’d managed to get to the salon.
“How’s the new girl getting along?” Siri asked. “Mina—the one who arrived on Thursday with her baby.” Siri was ca
rrying a bowl of fruit destined for the coffee table in the TV room.
“I’ve hardly seen her,” she replied. “She seems to keep herself to herself.”
Anna-Maria had seen many different kinds of behavior during her years at the shelter: semihysterical women who couldn’t stop talking about what had happened and pale, terrified shadows who crept around and didn’t say a word. Most apologized for their very existence, as if it were their fault that any vestige of self-esteem had been beaten out of them. Few believed they would one day be able to cope on their own.
Anyone could end up in a destructive relationship—there was no specific personality type—and yet they all took the blame.
Her gaze fell on the photograph of Malin on the desk. She’d always been so like her father, Petter. He had been considerably older than Anna-Maria, and had died of cancer after a long and painful illness. It was as if his death opened the floodgates, and the darkness took over.
Gustav, Malin’s partner, had had a certain amount of respect for Petter, and without Petter’s calming influence, the situation escalated. Gustav had never been able to handle booze, and he’d started drinking every day.
When he lost his job because of it, things got really bad. Malin became more and more cowed; she lost weight and slept badly. Nervous tics lived a life of their own around her mouth. She knew she was going under, but every time she tried to get out of the relationship, the threats and violence increased. And yet she still couldn’t escape.
“He’ll kill himself if I leave him,” she said.
Anna-Maria was in despair.
Malin defended her abuser, and nothing Anna-Maria said could make her change her view. Anna-Maria begged and prayed, swore and argued. Eventually she came up with a last-ditch plan. She would resign from her job and sell the house. Together they would flee the country. They’d have enough money to hide somewhere overseas, where Gustav would never find them. She had to give Malin the chance to start a new life without fear.
