FJÄLLBACKA—THEN
I PRETENDED TO BE ASLEEP when Sebastian got out of my bed. He moved away cautiously and swung his feet onto the floor. He picked up his socks from the floor and put them on while I kept my eyes closed.
I heard Sebastian open the fridge and cupboards, then pull out a kitchen chair, which scraped gently on the wooden floor. A sudden crash made me start and open my eyes. He must have dropped a china dish; in my mind’s eye I could see the fragments and yogurt spread across the kitchen floor. And imagined Sebastian’s panic.
I sat up in bed, aware of what was coming. Dad was a light sleeper. It was a Saturday, and he didn’t want to be woken early. Mom and Dad’s room was on the ground floor, next to Sebastian’s. They had been fighting late into the night and Dad was bound to be exhausted now. I had lain awake listening to the screams and thuds while Sebastian slept soundly with his arm over my chest.
Dad rushed into the kitchen with a roar. I pulled my knees up, wrapped my arms around them, and the darkness began to move inside me. Sebastian’s shrill screams came through the floor, then Mom’s pleading voice. But I knew Mom wouldn’t be able to stop Dad. He needed to vent his anger, needed to hit something, needed the satisfaction of something breaking.
When the screams fell silent I lay down again and pulled the covers over me. The side where Sebastian had been sleeping was still warm.
Faye tucked Chris into bed and settled down on her sofa for a while. She didn’t want to leave yet. She got her laptop out and checked her latest work emails. Chris’s labored breathing in the next room made it hard to concentrate, it hurt so much to hear how her friend was suffering. When she was halfway through her inbox her mobile buzzed. A newsflash from Dagens Industri. It read: “Jack Adelheim speaks out!”
Her pulse was thudding in her temples as Faye clicked to open the interview. It was longer than she had feared, ingratiating and in fact might as well have been labeled as an advertisement. Jack was allowed to direct the conversation, and was described exclusively in superlatives. The journalist laid out the questions for him like teed balls on a golf course.
Faye scrolled down to find the journalist’s name. Maria Westerberg. In the photo byline she was standing close to Jack at the entrance to one of the city’s smartest hotels. They were both smiling broadly at the camera. Faye looked closer at the picture. Jack and Maria were standing in front of a shiny mirrored wall and the picture editor had evidently missed one particular detail when the image was selected: Jack’s hand was on Maria’s backside.
Faye snorted. She wasn’t about to let Jack regain the advantage just because he’d seduced a journalist. She reached for her mobile and called his number. He answered with renewed vigor and enthusiasm in his voice.
“Things have started to turn around. People are buying shares in Compare,” he crowed. “I knew it would come to rights!”
His tone was triumphant. Some of his old self-assurance had snuck back in.
“That’s great, Jack. Not that I was ever really worried,” she whispered. “I’m proud of you.”
She looked up at the ceiling as she crept out of Chris’s living room. Johan would be back soon.
“I was wondering if you’d like to meet to celebrate?” she said, enjoying her own acting skills. She needed more ammunition to neutralize what he’d managed to achieve by having sex with Maria Westerberg.
“Sure,” Jack said. “I’m at the office. But I can sneak out if you’ve got time?”
Faye went into Chris’s bathroom, opened the cabinet where she knew she kept her sleeping pills, and took out a blister pack of Ambien. Chris would never notice or mind that a few pills had gone missing.
“Are you still there?” Jack said. “Hello? Did the line cut out?”
“Yes, I’m here. That sounds good. Shall we meet at the Grand?”
“In the bar?”
“No. The suite.”
* * *
• • •
Faye had texted Kerstin, and she had promised to look after Julienne. They were going to play Minecraft, like they did every evening these days. Kerstin had started to become something of a virtuoso at it, and Faye had even caught her playing it at work.
No price was too high when it came to getting revenge on Jack, Faye had reminded herself on the way to the hotel. And now she was lying in the big double bed looking at her ex-husband, who was high on newfound self-confidence.
“Christ, I can’t get enough of you,” Jack panted, looking down at Faye. He was on the edge of the bed licking her breasts, nibbling them, nipping them. And she was enjoying it—not the sex, but the fact that he thought he was the one exploiting her.
She didn’t feel the same weakness for Jack, the same desire as when they fucked in his study, on Ingmar Bergman’s desk. That had been a dream, a fantasy of something that had probably never been real in the first place.
When he kissed her she felt sick from his bad breath. He’d started to dye his hair to cover up the gray, but that only made it look more and more like a knitted hat. She also suspected he was using Botox.
The thought made her as dry as tinder between her legs. Jack merely grunted, wet his hand with his tongue, and lubricated her enough for him to go on thrusting until he came. Faye faked a few half-hearted groans and he was happy to let himself be fooled by them. He wasn’t the sort of man who was all that bothered if a woman orgasmed or not. Other than for the sake of his own ego. She lay there after he got off and started strutting around the suite naked.
She found herself comparing his body with the men she had slept with since he left her. He might train at the gym five times a week, but not even Jack Adelheim could stop the passage of time. His buttocks were no longer as pert, and weren’t those the beginnings of man boobs? It was as if she’d gotten a new pair of glasses after living with impaired vision for far too many years.
Had he been projecting his own image of himself onto her? She found herself missing Robin’s firm body. Or Mike’s. Or Vincent’s. Or the guy with the Nirvana T-shirt she’d gone home with from the Spy Bar last weekend. Any of the men who had replaced Jack in her bed.
Jack went into the bathroom, whistling. Faye quickly got up and pulled on her bra and panties. She reached for her black Chanel Boy Bag. Inside was the powder she had made from crushing three Ambien tablets in Chris’s kitchen. While Jack showered she poured him a shot of whiskey and opened a half-bottle of cava for herself. In the bathroom he was singing “Love Me Tender.” She tipped the powder into his glass. When he had finished showering she drew herself a bath.
“God, I’m exhausted,” he said, stretching out on the bed like a contented cat.
“It’s just the tension easing after everything you’ve been through. Have a whiskey and relax for a while,” she said, then closed the bathroom door.
She sank into the warm water and waited. Drank two glasses of cava. Then she called out, “Jack?”
No answer. She got out and cautiously opened the bathroom door. Jack was lying asleep with his mouth open, completely naked. His penis looked almost ridiculous in its limp state. It lay nestled against his thigh like a white grub. Faye giggled. Jack snored loudly and she flinched. But he merely rolled onto his side and sank deeper into the pillow.
She put on a dressing gown, took out his laptop, sat down at the desk, logged in, and connected to the Wi-Fi. How many hours did she have? She had been waiting for an opportunity like this, having laid the foundations by gradually letting Jack get closer, turning herself into someone he desired again. She had wanted to make him lower his guard, let her in, trust her. And now, this evening, she had finally gotten the chance. And she was going to make the most of it.
She read his most recent emails but found nothing of interest, except that he seemed to be having an affair with a young student at the School of Economics.
Faye looked her up on Facebook and discovered
that she was twenty years old. Faye looked at her pictures. She was pretty. Blonde, but she looked dull. Would the press be interested in something like that? No, they’d never publish it. A mobile buzzed in the bedroom. She jumped to her feet, padded in, and looked at the mobile lying by Jack’s side. It wasn’t that one that had received a text. Jack must have two mobiles. Of course he did. Presumably he used the secret one for his affairs. She felt the pockets of his coat and found a white iPhone.
It needed a password to unlock it. Or a fingerprint. Faye carefully lifted Jack’s index finger and pressed the button with it. A moment later she was in. She checked that she hadn’t turned the sound on by mistake.
The message was from Henrik.
Where are you?
She didn’t bother to reply and looked through his messages instead. Jack was evidently completely mad, and in all likelihood a sex addict. She was astonished. Some days he appeared to have two or three sexual encounters booked in. She couldn’t understand how he had any time to run his business. Women sent him naked pictures and videos of themselves showering and masturbating. Jack replied with pictures of his penis. She felt oddly indifferent, even though some of the messages and pictures were over three years old and had obviously been sent while they were married. She couldn’t hate him more than she already did. But she was disappointed. Nothing she’d found on his phone could help her. Swedish newspapers didn’t publish infidelity scandals unless they were a matter of national security. In Britain, on the other hand, news of Jack’s penis pictures would have made it onto every front cover. Just to be on the safe side, she got her own phone out and filmed as she scrolled though the pictures. She even captured the text exchanges, making sure it was clear whose phone it was. There were also a few selfies among the dick pics.
There was nothing in the notes section but short, cryptic reminders. Times and locations of meetings. She checked a few of them with the texts and discovered that they didn’t match. What sort of meetings were they? Probably business meetings. So why weren’t they noted in the diary?
She was about to put the mobile down when she spotted the voice memo icon. Without any great expectations, she opened it and discovered that there were around thirty-five saved sound recordings in there. She clicked on one, assuming that it was going to be something to do with sex, but to her surprise heard two men talking. One of them was Jack, but she couldn’t identify the other man. They seemed to be sitting in a parked car. The sound quality was excellent. They sounded relaxed, as if they were good friends.
Was Jack having sex with men too? Nothing would surprise her anymore.
No, this was something different. Something worse than the video clip of Jack that had done such damage to Compare’s share price. She felt like bursting into laughter but stopped herself. She mustn’t wake Jack until she’d copied everything.
To make sure she didn’t leave any electronic evidence she played the clips through the speaker and recorded them on her own phone. When she checked the sound quality she could hear Jack’s snoring faintly in the background. She spent the next hour checking through his laptop, without finding anything else. But she was happy.
It had been a surprisingly lousy fuck. She pondered whether he had always been a useless lover. If that was yet another thing she had been deceiving herself about. Unless perhaps she simply hadn’t had enough to compare him to. She thought about the guy in the Nirvana T-shirt and felt herself getting wet. He had given her three orgasms. In a row.
Faye tapped in the code to get into Chris’s building without having to think about it. Chris had been so insistent on her coming that Faye was feeling nervous.
She got into the elevator and tried to think about anything but Chris.
She had sent the audio files to the same journalist who published the first leak. The new revelations that the CEO of Compare had known about and tried to hush up two deaths in their care homes that were the result of negligence had sent shock waves through Sweden, far beyond the confines of the business community.
Compare’s share price sank like a stone. The business press and evening tabloids found plenty of politicians and business leaders ready to say that Jack had to resign, along with a number of anonymous sources on the board of Compare.
Today the share price had sunk to sixty-three kronor.
The elevator stopped and Faye had to make herself open the door. Johan had taken a leave of absence from work to be able to care for Chris full-time, so Faye’s visits had become more sporadic. She was worried about intruding, worried about disturbing what she had started to realize was the last time Chris and Johan would have together. And sometimes it felt like she simply couldn’t deal with it. Every time she saw Chris so sick it was as if a part of her died. When it came to Chris she wasn’t the least bit brave. Just a cowardly shit who wanted to run away from the truth, from reality.
Johan opened the door.
“How are things?” Faye said.
Johan shrugged.
“It’s…what can I say?”
“Do you want to pop out for a bit, get some fresh air?”
“Maybe. Chris wanted to talk to you on your own anyway.”
Faye’s stomach clenched.
When she walked into Chris’s bedroom she had to stop herself from crying out. Chris was just skin and bones now, her ribs were sticking out, the skin of her shoulders stretched tight over her collarbones. Her eyes had sunk into their sockets, her cheeks were puffy, dry, and gray.
Outside life was carrying on as usual, buses driving this way and that, people arguing, loving, driving, getting married and divorced, but up in this loft apartment on Nybrogatan Chris was lying in bed, slowly fading away.
Faye sat down on the chair beside the bed and gently took Chris’s hand.
“It’s all over for me,” Chris said.
“Don’t say that.”
“Someone has to. And you and Johan ought to be doing something more useful with your time than looking after me. I’m dying.”
Faye squeezed her hand.
“But your doctors…?”
“Oh, they can’t do anything. They’ve stopped my treatment.”
They had told her the cancer had spread. Chris’s body was riddled with tumors and the treatment wasn’t having any effect on them, they just kept spreading.
There was nothing more they could do except ease her pain. They had suggested an end-of-life plan, including moving into a hospice. But Chris had refused, as she explained to Faye in a hoarse voice.
“Does Johan know?” she asked tentatively.
“Not yet. I can’t…that’s why I asked you to come. I was wondering if you could tell him. I couldn’t bear to see his face. I know I’m being a coward, but…”
“I’ll do it,” Faye said quickly. She couldn’t handle another second of this discussion.
She patted Chris’s hand softly, then rushed into the bathroom. Unable to hold back her feelings any longer, she wept quietly, curled up on the bathroom floor with her forehead pressed against the cold tiles.
She had no idea how long she lay there. She didn’t get up until she heard Johan open the front door.
* * *
• • •
Faye and Johan were walking in silence along Nybrogatan. Faye had wanted some air, needed space to be able to talk to Johan. The walls in Chris’s apartment felt like they were about to crush her.
They turned onto Karlavägen. She pointed at The Londoner.
“I think we’re both going to need a drink.”
She asked for two shots of vodka, and took a sip of hers as she headed toward the table where Johan was waiting. He was drumming his fingers on the table. His face looked taut.
She had to hold it together now, be the strong one.
“This…I don’t know how to say this, Johan. The chemo’s stopped working, the cancer’s spread. Th
ey’ve stopped the treatment.”
He nodded slowly.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“My youngest brother’s a doctor. An oncologist in Gothenburg. Chris had a copy of her notes in her bag. I copied them with my mobile and sent them to him. He helped me to understand what they said. I know it sounds terrible that I’ve been snooping like that, and I know it’s her right to tell me as much as she wants, when she wants. But I…I couldn’t bear not knowing…I can’t help it, not when it comes to Chris. She’s shutting me out when she doesn’t need to.”
Faye nodded. Put her hand on his. She understood exactly.
He looked up at her.
“I still want to marry her. I’ve booked a time in a church in two weeks. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
Faye leaned back. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable. She thought she’d gotten to know Johan well by now, she liked him, and he didn’t seem the sort, but she couldn’t help herself, her own bitterness bled into her grief about Chris.
“If you’re marrying her for her money,” she said, leaning closer to him, “I’ll kill you.”
He flinched. Looked like he wasn’t sure if she was joking.
“Understand? I’ll kill you, with my bare hands.”
She let him see a glimpse of the darkness she was constantly hiding, let it step forward for a moment.
“Why would I…?” Johan was staring at her in shock.
“Because Chris is good for more than a hundred million, and I know what the scent of money can do to people. I’ve seen it. And I’ve seen what men can do. How ruthless they can be. I like you, Johan, I really do, you seem like a good man. But my best friend is going to die. The only person I’ve ever let get this close to me apart from Kerstin. And I’m not going to let anyone deceive or exploit her on her deathbed. So if there’s any financial motive behind this decision to marry her before…before she dies…I suggest that you give up the whole idea of getting married and carry on playing the faithful fiancé with absolute conviction until…”
The Golden Cage Page 26
