Women Without Mercy

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘Here to visit Tommy?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought I might.’

  ‘Pity. I was hoping you were making a comeback, but then you’d already have a pass. Come with me.’

  Mariana tapped her pass card on the reader twice and let Ingrid in. While they were in the lift together, all Ingrid could think about was whether Mariana knew about Tommy’s affair. They’d arrived at Aftonpressen at the same time, spent time together regularly, including outside of work, and now Mariana was political editor and one of the top bosses at the paper. Ingrid felt inferior, passive and lost while Mariana cheerfully peppered her with questions. Was that an undertone of pity in Mariana’s face?

  The lift doors slid open and they got out.

  ‘No need for me to show you where his office is, right?’ Mariana said with a chuckle.

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  Mariana looked at her seriously.

  ‘It would be … We should meet up some time. If you’d like?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ingrid said, though she knew Mariana was only saying it to be kind.

  ‘Well then, it’s a deal. See you.’

  She leaned in and hugged Ingrid again before disappearing along the corridor. Ingrid began to head towards Tommy’s office. She recognised some of the faces she passed, quickly greeting them but not stopping. She passed the culture desk and went straight past the central desk – the heart of the paper.

  Tommy’s glass-walled office was positioned to afford him a view of the newsroom. He was sitting, deep in concentration, with his feet on the desk as he wrote on the laptop perched on his lap. She knocked and stepped inside. He looked up in surprise – few of his employees came in without waiting for an answer.

  ‘What are you doing here? Is Lovisa okay?’

  ‘Yes, don’t worry.’

  Ingrid closed the door behind her while Tommy sat upright and pushed away the computer.

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  Ingrid settled down in one of the two visitors’ chairs.

  ‘What’s going on with Ola Pettersson and Kristian Lövander?’ she asked.

  Tommy looked at her searchingly.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The accusations made against them are serious.’

  ‘Why the hell are you storming in here to discuss that? I thought I made myself clear at home the other day.’

  Ingrid turned her head and looked out into the newsroom. Then she turned back to Tommy.

  ‘At my first summer party, Ola Pettersson stuck his hand up my skirt and said that one of my duties as a temp was to be “test driven” by him. He was forty. I was twenty-three.’

  Tommy stared absently at her but didn’t react. She wondered how he’d propositioned the young reporter she’d heard sucking him off in the car. Maybe she’d already passed her on her way in.

  ‘He’s an idiot, but—’

  ‘But what, Tommy? He’s an idiot but he’s won Journalist of the Year so it’s okay for him to touch up young girls’ cunts? And did they give Kristian Lövander the Golden Pen so that he could tell female temps that pussy was part of his salary package?’

  ‘Calm down. You know that’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Then what do you mean?’

  Tommy sighed. He ran the palm of his hand over the stubble that had grown on his cheeks in the last few days.

  ‘Fire them,’ she said. ‘How the hell can you report on the misdemeanours of celebrities if you don’t set your own house in order?’ she said, clenching her fist and taking a deep breath. ‘Jesus, you’re such a fucking hypocrite. Nothing but a weak, fucking hypocrite. That’s what you are,’ she shouted.

  Tommy recoiled. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you? Calm down.’

  He threw a worried look over her shoulder and waved at someone walking by with feigned cheeriness.

  ‘If those two bastards haven’t got the sack in the next forty-eight hours, then I’m taking it to Sveriges Nyheter. They’ll probably devote a whole show to it if I share my memories of Ola Pettersson’s exploits – on the record, with my name and face.’

  ‘You’d never do that,’ Tommy said. She could see his face turning red. A second later he exploded. ‘You can’t be that fucking disloyal! You’d be hurting the paper. You’d be hurting me.’

  He got up so quickly that the chair he’d been sitting on fell over with a crash.

  Loyalty? Who was he to talk about loyalty? The hypocrite! Ingrid opened her mouth to yell that she knew all about his infidelity, but changed her mind. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath.

  #MeToo. The rules of the game had changed, and she had to play smart. Tommy was still standing there, glowering at her. His face was bright red.

  ‘I want those whoremongers off this paper in forty-eight hours,’ she said calmly, getting up.

  She was shaking with rage as she left the office. She walked through the newsroom, her gaze set dead ahead, without acknowledging anyone.

  16. Victoria Brunberg

  Malte was snoring beside her. Every single pore in his heavy body was secreting a suffocating stench of alcohol. Victoria put her feet on the floor, opened the window even further, then got back under the duvet. Three minutes later she got up again. Malte would sleep late into the next day. If she took the car, drove to Stockholm and then took the ferry to St Petersburg, he wouldn’t be able to find her. All she needed was her passport and a few thousand kronor for petrol and the ferry ticket. She could make it to some small seaside town on the Baltic where no one knew her, get a job in a shop, start over …

  Anything was better than being Malte’s house pet.

  Victoria crept into the hallway and went downstairs. She looked around. Malte kept the valuables in a small safe, which should be where the cash was too. Her heart was pounding hard in her breast. She felt exhilarated, full of energy.

  She was getting out of here. Finally. She began to hum the Russian national anthem as she fished the keys out of the flowerpot and caught sight of the dark fields outside covered in thick fog.

  She went to the safe and unlocked it. Her burgundy passport was at the very back and there was three thousand kronor in an envelope. She took the cash and put the passport in her jeans back pocket. She put on a thick coat and looked around the hallway. There was nothing else she would need – she didn’t want any souvenirs from this house.

  The car keys were usually left on a hook in the hall. Victoria felt for them with one hand – but there was nothing on the hook.

  17. Ingrid Steen

  Ingrid stared at the woman on her laptop.

  She had gone to the Aftonpressen TV website to watch the latest round-up of news on #MeToo and suddenly – that voice. The same voice that had been giggling in the recording from Tommy’s car. No: the same lips that had been sucking his cock. Ingrid froze the image and leaned in. The presenter, Julia Wallberg, was blonde, had large green eyes and lips that were made for advertising ice cream. She was incredibly beautiful. And young. How young? Ingrid headed to Wikipedia. Twenty-five. Her career had been meteoric and she had been named as one of Sweden’s most important decision-makers under thirty. Hadn’t Ingrid glimpsed her earlier in the day at the newsroom? No, she was imagining it. Ingrid found Julia’s Instagram: 22,000 followers. Photos in studios, at the pub, outside cafés during the summer.

  A photo from Palma. Tommy had also been there in July, along with a childhood friend. Ingrid got up and checked the calendar on the computer by the fridge. They had been there at the same time. How long had the affair been going on? She scrolled back up through the Instagram feed. Her eyes widened when she saw that, just a few seconds earlier, Julia Wallberg had posted a new selfie at the Taverna Brillo Italian restaurant.

  Ingrid raced upstairs and checked that Lovisa was asleep, then she went into the bathroom and hurriedly made herself up, changed into a smart top. Sitting downstairs was one of the neighbour’s teenage girls with a bowl of popcorn, her eyes glued to her mobile. She’d babysat Lovisa bef
ore, and it had been easy to tempt her over with the promise she’d pay twice the going rate. Ingrid didn’t want to run the risk of Lovisa waking up and finding herself alone. She had an idea of where Tommy might be. Ingrid waved, grabbed her coat and locked the front door.

  18. Victoria Brunberg

  Twenty minutes later, Victoria still hadn’t found the car keys. They weren’t in any of the coats or in the chest of drawers by the front door. She took a deep breath. Might they be in Malte’s jeans in the bedroom? He was definitely sound asleep, but she didn’t want to tempt fate.

  She pressed down the door handle and squinted into the darkness. The warm stench of beer and sweat hit her. She took off her shoes.

  ‘The last time,’ she mouthed in Russian, walking as quietly as she could. Malte was snoring. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness – the big pair of jeans was hanging over a chair by the window. She felt the fabric carefully with her hand. The keys fell to the floor with a thud. Victoria jumped, stood stock-still and held her breath. She glanced over at Malte, who had stopped snoring. He murmured something. Was he still asleep or was he awake? The spent, stale air burned in her lungs. Victoria opened her mouth and exhaled it as quietly as she could. She inhaled fresh oxygen and bent down. She touched the wooden floorboards with the palm of her hand, found metal and cupped her hand around the keys.

  She squeezed them hard to ensure they didn’t jangle. Then she sank down almost onto her stomach, grimacing, and crawled along the foot of the bed, heading for the door.

  19. Ingrid Steen

  Ingrid hung her handbag and coat on a hook under the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Taverna Brillo was full of trendy young people in hip clothes. Julia Wallberg was sitting at one of the round tables together with two girlfriends. She was wearing a white blouse and navy skirt. Occasionally, someone would come up to them, exchange a few words and then wrap up by taking a selfie together with Julia. She was laughing – she seemed to be having fun. She was friendly to the people who came up to her – even if Ingrid couldn’t hear what was being said.

  Shielding her phone screen with one hand, she opened the browser and googled Julia’s name. She might as well make use of the time to do some research. The problem, she realised, was that she didn’t actually have a clue what she’d do next. Confront Julia? Ask her how she could have the brass neck to be drawn into an affair with a married man?

  Julia Wallberg, she read, had been born and raised in Borås, but had moved to Stockholm to study at the Kaggeholm Folk High School. Alongside her studies, she’d run a YouTube channel on politics, and that was what had caught Aftonpressen’s attention. She lived on Bergsunds Strand in the Hornstull neighbourhood.

  Her hands were shaking. Ingrid looked up, letting her gaze linger on the young woman while she took a sip of her drink. Did she know what Ingrid looked like? Time to find out. She checked her hairdo in the mirror, grabbed her bag and coat and got up. She passed Julia’s table with her eyes looking dead ahead.

  She was holding her iPhone discreetly pointing towards the group. She ducked to the left and went into one of the toilets. She shut the door. Took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding, her legs shaking. Her hands trembling, she played the video back. She smiled when she saw Julia’s reaction: the young journalist’s eyes had opened wide and she had elbowed the friend next to her and nodded towards Ingrid. Ingrid sat down on the toilet seat and squeezed out a few drops while considering her next move. She had been out of the house for two hours; it was just after eleven and she really ought to go home. But for some strange reason, she wanted to be near Julia. She discreetly exited the toilet, and returned to the bar by another route – just in time to see Julia parting from her friends. Ingrid waited for thirty seconds before following her outside.

  The rain was pouring down.

  Outside the main door, Ingrid began to run towards the car, which was parked by Humlegården. Just as she leapt in behind the wheel, there was a beep on her mobile. She turned the key in the ignition, pulling out onto Birger Jarlsgatan as she read Tommy’s message.

  Are you at home?

  She smiled. Julia had been in touch with Tommy. Told him that she’d seen his wife out on the town.

  As she manoeuvred the car towards Kungsgatan and towards the Centralbron bridge, she composed her reply.

  Where else would I be?

  Ingrid smiled, put the phone on the passenger seat and concentrated on the road. The windscreen wipers were working frenetically to deal with the downpour. With a little luck, she’d make it to Julia’s front door before she did.

  20. Victoria Brunberg

  Victoria took a top and a pair of trousers out of the dirty laundry basket and put them in a plastic bag. The clothing was wrinkled and smelled a little musty but a change of clothes would come in handy. She didn’t dare root through the wardrobe in the bedroom. She took two tins of tuna from the larder, chucked a can opener in the bag and filled a plastic bottle with water. The money she’d taken from the safe was all she had – it had to stretch as far as possible.

  She looked around in the darkness. Had she forgotten anything? She carried her boots in her hand to avoid making any unnecessary noise and headed for the door that led into the garage. She carefully opened the door, bent down and laced up her boots. She didn’t have a licence, but Yuri had taught her to drive. A BMW rather than a shitty old van – but still. It would probably be fine. Once she was behind the wheel, she squeezed the button on the garage door remote. The strip of light from the courtyard widened in front of the bonnet. Victoria was about to start the engine when she saw a movement diagonally behind her. The door from the house had opened. Malte. It had to be Malte.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he yelled.

  She fumbled the key, got it into the ignition and turned it.

  The engine spluttered into life just as Malte wrenched open the driver-side door.

  21. Ingrid Steen

  The rain continued to pour down. Bergsunds Strand was practically deserted. Ingrid had double-parked twenty-five metres from the door to Julia Wallberg’s building, but the young journalist still hadn’t turned up.

  Maybe she’d been wrong? Maybe Julia wasn’t done for the night. Maybe she was going on somewhere else? Ingrid remembered how on certain occasions in the past she herself had showed up in the newsroom straight from the pub.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a man turning onto the street carrying a large red umbrella that concealed his face. For a moment, Ingrid was convinced that it was Tommy, but the man passed the door and her car and carried on towards Långholmen.

  Ingrid switched on the engine, kept the headlights off to avoid drawing attention to herself and raised the temperature inside the car. She blew warm air onto her frozen hands. What was she going to do when Julia showed up? And what if she wasn’t alone – what if she was with Tommy? Would she get out and confront them? Scream, cry? Curse their betrayal, Tommy’s lies …

  Two people were walking along the street from Hornstull, entwined beneath a large umbrella. Tommy and Julia. Ingrid stared. Her grip on the wheel tightened. Ingrid was hyperventilating. She released the handbrake, put the car into first gear and accelerated towards them.

  Around her, the building facades were shooting past.

  Tommy and Julia crossed the street at the crossing – they hadn’t yet spotted the car racing towards them with its headlights off.

  22. Victoria Brunberg

  Malte threw his enormously fat body over hers and tried to reach the key in the ignition. Victoria floored the accelerator, but the vehicle didn’t budge an inch. The handbrake was still engaged.

  Malte got there first. He shouted and pounded his fist against Victoria’s breast. She roared, trying to bite his back. Eventually, he managed to get hold of the key and wrenched it out. The engine fell silent.

  He withdrew from the car. He rested his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Victoria rested her head against the steering wheel. She had been so close. So terribly close. A
fter a minute or so, she could feel him spitefully contemplating her.

  ‘I thought you were a thief who had got in,’ he said, still trying to catch his breath. Victoria didn’t answer. ‘Were you just going to leave?’

  Victoria glowered angrily at him.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want a divorce. I miss home.’

  For a second, Malte looked surprised – as if he were going to suddenly take her hand, pat it and say ‘I understand’. But the quizzical expression was quickly replaced by one of anger.

  He straightened his back, took a step forward and grabbed Victoria’s arm. He wrenched her out of the cab.

  ‘You spoilt fucking whore,’ he bellowed, throwing her towards the back door. ‘You were going to bail? Leave me after everything I’ve done for you?’

  His eyes glaring, he came up to her and pressed her neck against the van with his forearm. Victoria gasped for air.

  ‘Please, please let go,’ she hissed.

  She felt the world spinning, red dots dancing inside her retinas. Victoria realised she was going to die.

  ‘I’ve been too kind to you,’ said Malte, looking her right in the eye.

  Victoria tried to reply, to apologise, but she couldn’t manage to summon the words. All that came out of her mouth was a gurgle. The next second, she lost consciousness.

  23. Ingrid Steen

  They were going to be thrown up onto the bonnet and they were going to die. And she was going to drive away from there, turn right onto the bridge heading towards Liljeholmen, and disappear. It would look like a hit-and-run. A random drink driver who had ended the lives of Aftonpressen’s editor-in-chief and a rising television presenter. As the car rushed towards Tommy and Julia, Ingrid could picture herself in the church, wearing black and a veil, receiving condolences with dignity.