Women Without Mercy

by Camilla Lackberg

  By the time they had reached the milk, Malte had begun to sigh and had crossed his arms ostentatiously when Victoria caught sight of Mi – Lars’s Thai wife. The small woman smiled widely. It was as if someone had stabbed her from ear to ear.

  She was always happy. What was her problem? Was she happy in this hellhole with these sluggish, insolent farmers?

  ‘Heeyyy, Victoria, how are you?’

  Victoria smiled stiffly back at her and replied to the cheery greeting. Malte and Lars had also found each other. Their booming laughter echoed throughout the store.

  ‘I’m making noodles tonight. What you making?’ Mi asked cheerfully, peering down into Victoria’s trolley and picking up the items to examine them.

  Cyanide and broken glass pie, Victoria thought to herself.

  ‘Potato hash,’ she replied. She didn’t even have it in her to smile.

  Lars and Malte came walking towards them. Malte had his arm around Lars’s shoulders.

  ‘We have to celebrate, so fuck this,’ he said, gesturing towards the food in the trolley.

  Victoria looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Lars is going to be a dad,’ Malte said, thumping his friend on the back.

  ‘Mi told me this morning,’ Lars explained with pride.

  Victoria sighed silently. Of course it was nice to get away from the house – the outing to Heby was hardly an odyssey of happiness, but it did offer a break in the monotony. But now she would be forced to put up with an afternoon and evening at the pub in Heby.

  ‘So we’re not shopping now?’ she asked.

  ‘Fuck me – is it beyond you to be a little happy and spontaneous?’ Malte bellowed. ‘Didn’t you hear what Lars and Mi said? They’re going to be parents. We’re going to celebrate.’

  ‘I have to go home to change. You too,’ Victoria said, pointing at the stained joggers.

  ‘Pfft. I’ll borrow a shirt off Lars. Right, mate? And you can wear one of Mi’s dresses. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’

  Victoria eyed the small Thai woman, who returned her frozen gaze with a smiling thumbs up.

  12. Ingrid Steen

  Ingrid was sitting at the kitchen table watching the movement wash over Sweden, over the world – starting with the USA. #MeToo was everywhere.

  Ingrid’s Facebook feed was full of women standing up, telling their stories and shouting. Rape, sexual assault, control. Everyone had something to tell. Everyone. It was hypnotising. She couldn’t stop reading the stories. She went over her own life. Her teens in Västerås. Years when she had barely given a thought to being called a ‘whore’ if she turned down an admirer at the pub. Nights when she had got hammered at some party and woken up without her pants and with fragmentary memories of hands on her body. That was assault. And it didn’t stop there. The early years at the paper. Female colleagues who warned against ending up alone with certain reporters and photographers. Their male colleagues who laughed and smoothed things over when someone was too pissed and their wandering hands pinched arses, breasts and waists. The crime correspondent who, when she had proffered a hand to introduce herself at the start of her first week of work, had looked her up and down and instead of saying his name had said what incredible cock-sucking lips.

  The assaults had been part of the game for so long, but now the rules of the game had changed.

  Ingrid put down her mobile phone and got up. She went to Lovisa’s room to check that her daughter was asleep. She adjusted the duvet, pulling it over Lovisa just as she heard the sound of Tommy’s car. He walked up the drive with hurried footsteps. Ingrid closed the door to Lovisa’s bedroom and went downstairs. Tommy took off his shoes, caught sight of her and shook his head.

  ‘Fuck me, what a day … I have to be in the newsroom at seven tomorrow morning. Again.’ When Ingrid didn’t reply, he continued, ‘Sensitive publication. Bloody sensitive. The final version of the article is coming in half an hour.’

  They went into the kitchen. Ingrid brewed them coffee while Tommy sat down at the table.

  ‘Two female employees came to see me today. They want the paper to fire Ola Pettersson and Kristian Lövander. Apparently they’ve been misbehaving.’

  ‘Surely you knew that already?’

  Tommy smiled faintly.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not like they mean any harm. They’re old guys from another era. This equality thing is new to them. Neither of them can pass up an opportunity for a few drinks. They don’t behave like that because they’re bad. Anyway, we need them on the paper – they’re respected journalists with resumés no one else can match. Readers trust them. Bloody hell, Lövander looked after me when I joined the paper. I can’t fire him.’

  ‘What did you say to the women then?’

  ‘I said I’d look into the matter and asked them to keep it in the family, so to speak.’

  Ingrid felt uneasiness spreading through her body. Two young women had come to Tommy and asked for his help, but he had turned them away and gagged them.

  ‘Tommy, you’ve got to—’

  He fixed her with a glare.

  ‘I don’t have to do shit. You don’t understand what’s best for the newspaper. For us.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Shut your trap. Jesus! I’m not in the mood. You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  Ingrid fell silent. They drank the remainder of the coffee in silence and then Tommy got up and headed for the stairs. Ingrid cleared away the empty cups and washed them by hand.

  13. Birgitta Nilsson

  There was a cold wind but the sun was shining and the water was glittering at Vinterviken. Birgitta Nilsson lit a cigarette and carefully sucked in the smoke, stifling a cough and then exhaling. She took a long swig from the Coca-Cola bottle. Fizzy drinks and nicotine were the tastes she associated with the Aspudden neighbourhood she’d grown up in. This was the place that had shaped her identity.

  Once a year she would come back, stroll between the apartment blocks and round off her tour by sitting down by the rocks at the shore with her Coke and ciggies.

  She had never said anything to either Jacob or the boys, and no one had asked either. She shifted position and felt her ribs aching.

  Why didn’t you come for your mammograms? the doctor had asked. Birgitta smiled and let out a laugh. She took another drag on the cigarette and checked that she had gum with her to conceal the smell.

  How surprised he would have been if she’d straight up told him why.

  Because my husband beats me to a pulp whenever he’s in the mood. He hits me in places where you can’t see it. And I usually think that if it’s not visible then it doesn’t exist.

  She had been twenty-seven when she had met Jacob at the pub in the Klara neighbourhood, still referred to by that name despite having been demolished long ago. She couldn’t remember the name of the bar and it didn’t matter, come to that. Jacob had come in with a few friends. A recently graduated accountant in a brown suit, with slicked-back hair and a slim necktie. A snob, she had thought to herself. One of his friends had come over to Birgitta and her friend and invited them to join the finance bunch. They’d said they’d think about it, and a while later they’d stumbled over. Jacob had been taciturn even then. Introverted. While his friends had kept the conversation going, he had calmly sipped a glass of wine, interjecting with the occasional comment. Later on, the same evening, the party had moved on to a nightclub. Birgitta hadn’t enjoyed the loud volume. Jacob had tugged her arm and asked her whether she wanted to go on somewhere else where it would actually be possible to hear themselves thinking.

  ‘Are the others coming?’ she’d asked.

  Jacob had shaken his head.

  ‘No, just you and me.’

  She had felt chosen. Special. She had realised that Jacob was a man who didn’t waste unnecessary words. There and then, she had become his. There and then, her life had changed. If Birgitta hadn’t gone with him it might all have been different.

  Two children in colourf
ul snowsuits with big hats jammed down over their brows were skimming stones at the water’s edge. Birgitta looked around to see whether there was anyone keeping an eye on them. There could so easily be an accident. There was a young woman sitting on a bench watching them play. Birgitta nodded. At the same time, part of her was disappointed. What if the children had gone into the water and she had had to rescue them? She couldn’t think of a more beautiful ending than sacrificing her life for two children. Maybe even the twins and Jacob would be proud of her then and say lovely things about her in the newspaper.

  ‘You’re losing your marbles,’ she muttered to herself.

  14. Victoria Brunberg

  The pink dress she had borrowed from Mi was far too small and slipped up her behind whenever she made the slightest move. Victoria was constantly on her guard to avoid showing her most intimate parts to the rest of the patrons at the pub in Heby.

  They had secured a table for four. The men had positioned themselves opposite each other. Victoria was curled up on an uncomfortable chair with the incessantly nodding and laughing Mi across the table from her.

  The leathery meat and soggy fries had been eaten. Malte ran a finger over the plate to mop up the last traces of bearnaise sauce.

  ‘Right, let’s drink! Well, not you, Mi. That’d make the kid deformed and slow,’ Malte exclaimed, raising his beer glass and revealing his yellow teeth. The corner of his mouth and his cheeks were glistening with shiny fat. Mi’s hysterical laughter cut through Victoria like a knife.

  ‘Bloody hell, cheers!’ Lars added, before downing the contents of his beer glass and calling over the server to get more.

  During the first months, Victoria had been the one who had kept conversation going with Malte, the one who had tried to get them to find points in common. She’d kept him happy and satisfied. That time was over. She was increasingly struggling to disguise her contempt. She couldn’t understand how Mi managed to keep her spirits up. The little Thai woman laughed and nodded at every single idiotic comment to emerge from the mouths of Lars and Malte. She seemed satisfied with life in Heby, satisfied with having an obese husband who never washed and spoke about her as if she were some kind of pet. Was there nothing else behind the laughter and those empty eyes?

  ‘Want to come to the ladies with me?’ Victoria asked.

  Mi nodded.

  They got up. Victoria quickly pulled down the dress so that it at least covered the top half of her buttocks. The men in the pub leered without any embarrassment and licked their lips. While they were standing in line for the toilets, two older Swedish women glowered at Victoria.

  ‘Imported whores,’ one whispered to her friend, nodding towards them. Victoria threw an angry look at them and then glanced at Mi, who seemed altogether unmoved.

  The women disappeared.

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you that they talk about you like that?’ Victoria asked Mi as she settled onto the toilet seat.

  Mi seemed surprised.

  ‘No?’

  Victoria sighed and pointed at her belly.

  ‘Are you happy?’

  ‘Very. Lars also happy. I want to make him happy.’

  ‘Don’t you hate this fucking place?’

  ‘Heby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Heby’s nice.’

  ‘But don’t you miss your home country, your family, your friends?’

  ‘I didn’t have a family. I had nothing. Here, I have everything.’

  Victoria sighed and pulled down her dress. Mi opened the door and contemptuous eyes focused on them as they made their way into the corridor. In Ekaterinburg she would have clawed out the eyes of women who looked at her like that, and no one had ever dared to. Not after she’d met Yuri.

  Victoria had been working in a lingerie store in an exclusive shopping mall in the city centre. One afternoon, Yuri had come in accompanied by a beautiful woman and two bodyguards. The platinum blonde had been all dolled up and had wrinkled her nose and waved Victoria away when she offered to assist.

  She had taken lots of exclusive lingerie sets into the fitting room, and Yuri had winked at Victoria. A little later, the woman had emerged from the fitting room and nonchalantly slung the lingerie onto the counter. Yuri had got up from the armchair and handed over an American Express card. In his hand there had also been a small note with a smiley and a phone number on it.

  Once they had gone, Victoria had looked over the digits and realised they were her big chance in life. Although she was glad she had a job, it was boring serving dull millionairesses in return for wages that barely covered her rent and groceries for the month. She had seen men like Yuri in the nightclubs of Ekaterinburg, spending more in a night than she made in a year. Their women could barely walk for all the diamonds and gold jewellery weighing down their slender bodies. Somewhere inside herself she had always known she would become one of them, and since Yuri could hardly take his eyes off her she realised this was her chance. But her visit to Ekaterinburg’s gangster society couldn’t be a brief excursion – men like Yuri changed women on a monthly basis. No, she had to play her hand right. It took four days before he came back. Since his first visit, she had spent ever more time in front of the mirror in the morning. This time he came without Ivana and with just one bodyguard in tow. He had a carrier bag with him. His eyes fixed on Victoria, he came over to the till and held up the bag.

  ‘Wasn’t it to your satisfaction?’ Victoria asked with a teasing smile. She pulled out one of the thongs and held them up. ‘It takes a real woman to wear these. I’m afraid underwear is non-returnable. You’ll have to ask your wife to be more careful when trying them on.’

  ‘You didn’t call?’ Yuri said.

  ‘Call?’ Victoria looked surprised. ‘Who are you saying I should have called?’

  Yuri grinned.

  ‘Have dinner with me. Tonight?’

  ‘Dinner or not, you still can’t return the lingerie. Sorry. Store policy.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about the underwear. I want to see you.’

  ‘I’m working. As you can see.’

  Victoria felt her heart pounding. Was she playing too hard to get? She was about to say she accepted when Yuri reached for his mobile.

  ‘What’s your boss’s number?’

  Victoria gave him the number. She heard him introduce himself using his full name. She heard her boss’s surprised voice and then Yuri turned around and walked away a few steps with the phone glued to his ear. After a minute or so he came back towards her.

  ‘Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll ask my lawyer to send over the contract. Goodbye.’

  Yuri hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘I’ve just bought the shop. New opening hours now apply. You get off in five minutes.’

  Victoria was drawn out of her memories by Malte abruptly elbowing her.

  ‘They’re not doing table service any longer. Get two beers,’ he said, pointing towards the bar.

  15. Ingrid Steen

  Tommy hadn’t turned up for the parents’ meeting like he had promised he would. Instead, Ingrid was seated awkwardly on one of the small school benches while Miss Birgitta, as she was referred to, sat opposite her.

  Ingrid could barely think straight after the conversation with Tommy. How could he display such a lack of empathy? Women on his own paper had been terrorised by those two hacks since time immemorial. And no one did a thing about it. Instead, Tommy sat on the sofa on TV breakfast shows going on about equality, patting himself on the back for bringing a woman onto the editorial team. He was a hypocrite. Ingrid was an even bigger hypocrite for backing him up.

  ‘Should we wait for the editor-in-chief?’ Birgitta asked, glancing towards the door.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. I’m afraid duty called and he couldn’t get away from the paper today,’ Ingrid said mechanically. How many times had she heard herself say the same thing over the past year? Why did she continue to protect the cheating bastard? Maybe the old biddy wanted
to join Tommy’s harem?

  ‘What a pity,’ Birgitta said. ‘But of course I understand. He’s doing an important job, what with all the terrible things going on in the world at the moment.’ Ingrid didn’t reply. Birgitta hadn’t finished putting Tommy’s excellence into words. ‘I read his column on Sunday. He writes with such dignity. Passion.’

  Ingrid had to make an effort not to roll her eyes. Instead she squirmed, making the chair legs scrape the floor.

  ‘Shall we get started?’

  ‘Of course, dear,’ Birgitta said, clapping her hands together. She quickly scrutinised the paper in front of her. ‘Little Lovisa takes after her wise father and her beautiful mother. She is superb in all subjects and …’

  Ingrid got into the car. She couldn’t let this carry on. She had to do something. The anger was bubbling inside her. She got out her phone and sent a text message to the babysitter, asking her to stay another two hours. Without waiting for an answer, she headed for the Aftonpressen newsroom in the city centre.

  After doing laps for a few minutes hunting for a parking spot, she got bored, pulled into a loading bay and switched off the engine. She walked straight through the swing doors and was heading for the revolving door when she realised she didn’t have a pass. She turned around and approached the solitary receptionist.

  ‘I’m here to see the editor-in-chief of Aftonpressen. Tommy Steen.’

  The receptionist nodded.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘I’m his wife.’

  The girl behind the desk smiled apologetically.

  ‘I’m sorry, everyone needs to have a pass or an appointment. Those are the rules. Maybe you could call him and ask him to come down and fetch you?’

  Ingrid leaned forward and fixed her gaze on her.

  ‘You’re going to open the door now. Get it?’

  The woman opened her mouth but at that moment Ingrid heard her name being called out. She spun around. One of her former colleagues, Mariana Babic, pulled her into a warm embrace.