by Lynne Truss
Leon bit his lip. ‘I could carry you,’ he offered.
That the real Stefan Johansson was not dead was something nobody had considered except Ingrid. And Ingrid, of course, was dangerously insane. But now Jago was downstairs in a basement-cum-dungeon, face to face with the real, breathing (wheezing) remains of Stefan Johansson, and for the first time in his illustrious career, the words ‘Listen, did you sell your story?’ somehow refused to form on his lips. Jago was out of his depth. Like everyone, he’d seen Silence of the Lambs, but much as he now racked his brain, he couldn’t remember any practical lessons from it. He recollected something about blood dripping in an elevator, but that was it.
‘Who are you?’ asked Stefan, from the shadows. ‘Why are you here in my house?’ His voice was a low croak. His disfigured, blackened face looming behind Jago was what had frightened Tanner and made him run off – to come back soon, presumably, with the police. Stalling Stefan until help arrived wasn’t going to be easy, however.
‘Hey,’ Jago replied to Stefan’s questions. He held up the palms of his hands, and tried to remember how he’d been taught in New York to defuse scary situations. ‘You’re OK. I’m OK. I’m Jago, you’re Stefan, OK. OK?’
‘Neither of us is OK, I think,’ said Stefan, solemnly. ‘I should be dead in my grave, and you, Yago, should definitely be elsewhere. You trespass, you snoop, you tell the boy outside you will “get something on Stefan”. Not OK.’ He swayed from side to side. ‘Not OK.’
Jago’s right knee was shaking uncontrollably. In the dark, he saw a flash of a scalpel in Stefan’s hand.
‘I was always so unlucky,’ said Stefan. ‘I wanted to die, and look at me. I wanted my wife to be happy. Hah. Are you lucky?’
‘Me?’ Jago thought quickly. ‘No. Never.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, I’m like you, Stefan. Abject son-of-a-bitch. Nothing goes right.’
Stefan set down the scalpel and picked up a large knife, something like a saw. From his faraway expression, as he ran his thumb lightly along its blade, he seemed to be remembering happier times.
‘I yust wanted some of his luck!’
‘Tch!’ agreed Jago, his eyes swivelling. ‘Not much to ask.’
‘And this is what happens! Ingri-i-i-id! Ingri-i-i-id!’
His call was like a reindeer, or possibly a meerkat, howling across icy wastes.
‘Look, can I ask you something, Stefan?’
‘What?’ He seemed suspicious.
‘I’m on your side, Stefan,’ Jago assured him. ‘God, yes. Believe me. I just think you should know there’s someone impersonating you in England. Calls himself Stefan Johansson, married my friend Belinda, talks like a Swede – you know, kind of better than everybody else. Sort of guy that has all the luck. Tall, blond. You know?’
‘Really?’ Stefan’s eyes lit up. ‘I made it!’ he whispered.
‘So. All I want to know is, he’s a clone, right?’
Stefan’s eyes widened. ‘A clone?’
‘See, I have to tell you this, I’d like to write your story, Stefan, I really would. Let me tell you, your fame is going to be phenomenal! What do you say?’
‘A clone of who?’ Stefan asked.
‘Of you.’
‘Does he look like me?’
‘Well, no. But, without being offensive, I mean, nobody looks like you, do they? Except maybe the toast-guy in The English Patient.’
Stefan started to chuckle. ‘A clone?’
Jago was getting fed up with this. ‘It’s not funny,’ he said.
‘But you are funny, Yago,’ Stefan said. ‘A clone of me!’ And he burst out laughing again. ‘You think I am yeenius, yes? I make little Stefans in test tube! All to be unlucky like me! Very, very funny, Yago!’
Jago pursed his lips. Being ridiculed for his ignorance was never his favourite pastime. He wasn’t too keen on being called Yago so much, either. He had enough of that at home. ‘So he’s not a clone? He’s an impostor?’ Stefan’s laughter only increased. He was beside himself, and Jago couldn’t stop him. ‘Look, OK, I made a mistake. I’m only human.’
‘Only juman! Ha ha ha.’ Tears rolled down Stefan’s cracked cheeks. ‘Ha ha ha,’ he continued, mercilessly, while Jago pouted, waiting for his recovery.
Only a noise from upstairs made Stefan stop. A creaking on the floorboards.
‘Stefan?’ whispered Belinda’s husband. As Jago and Stefan listened, the voice was familiar to both of them. ‘Stefan, it’s me.’
There was a pause, and Jago closed his eyes.
‘I mean, it’s you,’ he said, as his legs came into view on the stairs. And finally, as Belinda’s husband reached the basement, ‘I mean, Stefan, it’s us.’
Ten
Surprisingly enough, Belinda’s husband had quite positive feelings at finding Stefan Johansson alive in the Möllevången. In fact, since he had come hotfoot from the hospital expecting only to confront the escaped Ingrid, he was quite delirious with relief and joy to discover his old friend. This profound attachment between a victim and a tormentor has few parallels in common experience, so may perhaps seem odd. But somehow, when you not only adopt someone’s identity but also feel responsible for hurling flammable liquid on them when their hair was on fire, it turns out that the feeling you have for them is – love. Especially if you used to listen to Abba with them as well.
True, Stefan had sawn pieces off his body and held him captive for eighteen months of his life, probing his DNA and feeding him those damn joke-resistant reindeer sandwiches, yet this couldn’t stop Belinda’s husband from believing that, together, the Stefans were a team. The Stefans. The Incredible Stefans. The Incredible Genetically Modified Stefans. Thus it was that, aware Stefan was holding a serrated knife, Belinda’s husband still hugged him. Aware that Stefan’s facial skin was dangerously unstable, he still kissed him. And sadly unaware there was anyone else in the room, he rolled up his sleeve and said, ‘Look at my buggered elbow, you old bastard, did you think it would grow back?’ and burst out laughing. It was strange but true. Only in the company of Stefan Johansson of Malmö, Sweden, did he really feel free to be himself.
‘You are Stefan, too, now? It worked?’ said Stefan, in the darkened basement, the light just perceptible in his eyes. ‘You are Stefan Johansson, in London? Rich, lucky, handsome, famous, Swedish?’
‘Hej!’ said Belinda’s husband, raising his hand.
‘Hej!’ said Stefan, striking it.
‘Oh my God,’ said Jago, unseen, under his breath. He backed into the deepest shadows.
‘So. Big-shot Stefan. You make how many Stefan babies?’
‘Ah. None yet.’
Stefan was disappointed. ‘You must. It was our agreement. Your luck gene!’
‘I know. I will. But my wife is not entirely herself at the moment. It’s complicated.’
‘Oh. Not entirely herself. Like Ingrid. Ja.’ Stefan seemed to understand.
‘Well, not exactly like Ingrid.’
Belinda’s husband smiled and tried to broach the subject of Ingrid’s escape. He couldn’t. ‘I’m so relieved and happy to see you, Stefan. This is the first time I’ve relaxed in years.’
‘I am pleased to see you also. I can hardly believe it. This knife in my hand. You there. Me here. Yust like old times. Remember how we talk for two months about the rat poison? And then we do not do it! I’m so unlucky, I tell you. Always.’
Belinda’s husband looked around. ‘Any of me still here anywhere?’ From the faint light reaching the room down the stairwell, he could make out a surface, the sink, his old bed, the shackles in the wall.
‘They took it all,’ said Stefan. ‘Blackened my name. Burned my notes. I was denounced as a mad scientist, George! Me, mad! It was a bad time. Typical bad luck that I should live through it regardless. But you know what kept me going? Knowing I was you. Knowing Stefan Johansson was free. How you get free that day, by the way?’
‘Ingrid untied me.’
‘
Ah.’
‘She fancied me, Stefan. I’m sorry.’
‘Ah. I knew it.’ Stefan was being brave. ‘Did you like the briefcase?’
‘I’m still using it.’
‘Good, good.’
Belinda’s husband coughed and fidgeted. Upstairs, the last candle flickered and died, leaving them completely in the dark. Somehow the blackness gave him courage. ‘Look. You do understood why I had to leave in a hurry that night when your head caught fire?’
‘Sure,’ shrugged Stefan. ‘No skin off my nose, ja?’ And both the Stefans laughed like drains, while Jago, incredulous in the blackness, moaned, ‘Oh God,’ and vowed never to leave the office for a story again.
‘Can I ask you something, Ingrid?’ Leon puffed. He was now carrying her piggy-back fashion, which was awkward because she kept rocking back and forth and moaning, while clasping her gloved hands in front of his eyes.
‘You are big man,’ she remarked.
‘Thanks,’ he puffed. ‘Where are we? I mean, where do we go next?’
She looked around vaguely, and told him to head right. Were they travelling in circles? Big though he was, Leon was no human carthorse, and carrying Ingrid was hard work. He was sure they had passed this statue several times already. Added to which, his phone kept ringing and cutting off before he could put Ingrid down and answer it.
‘You have a question, big boy?’ she reminded him.
‘Oh yes. You see, there’s a man called Stefan Johansson who’s living in London. I know there must be thousands of Swedish men with that name—’ He stopped, panted, and set off again at a slow walk. It was odd talking to somebody who was on top of you like this: you couldn’t see if they were listening. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing the back of your own head.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘Anyway, the point is, it’s not your Stefan, obviously, because your Stefan is dead. That’s right, isn’t it?’
There was no response from above. Leon decided to carry on.
‘So this Stefan is married to a woman called Belinda. And he’s very, very happy and has a nice car and a good job and lots of money. But the thing is, he’s got other women in love with him as well.’
Leon stopped again, for a breather. ‘I’m sorry. Is this boring?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Anyway, that’s why I’m here, you see. I came to see you. I don’t think he should do that. It’s not fair. There’s a woman called Maggie who loves Stefan, too. Are you listening?’
Above his head, Ingrid was looking very strange. Her English wasn’t quite up to this level. However, she had just heard the shattering news that her husband was not only alive but involved with foreign women – moreover, English women, who were notoriously loose. Just as she had always suspected, Stefan had survived that terrible night, after all. And then he had made a new life abroad, leaving her to rot in Malmö.
‘Ingrid?’ He wriggled his shoulders, to make contact. She clamped her knees to his ears. It hurt.
‘What car does he have?’ she asked.
‘Can’t hear!’ he yelped.
She loosened her knees.
‘You said a car. What car?’
‘Are you interested in cars?’ Leon was pleased.
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, it’s a Ferrari. An old one. He loves it.’
She let out an involuntary cry, and tried to turn it into a cough. ‘Ja,’ she said. ‘So what is question?’
‘Well. Did Stefan do any work with cloning? You know, making clones? Because all we know is, he dies in the middle of a lot of genetic experiments, and then turns up in London. The man in London could be a clone.’
‘Clones? What is clones?’
‘Like Dolly the sheep,’ Leon explained.
‘Stefan made sheep? No.’
‘No, not sheep. I mean, did he make any little Stefans? Baby Stefans?’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. But he could feel something different about her. She was like a dead weight now, as if slumped. He hoped it wasn’t his fault. He always hated to make women unhappy, because he didn’t want to be like his dad.
But Leon had made Ingrid very unhappy, despite his best intentions. In fact, Ingrid was so wounded by the news that she could hardly breathe. Stefan! Having never known of the novel agreement between Stefan and Lucky George to transfer all George’s genetic material by the simplest of methods, it would never cross her mind that the Englishman had taken Stefan’s identity. All she could think of were the little Stefans that had been made without her, and the little Stefans she never made. Like Banquo in the Scottish play, she saw them stretched out in a line – a dozen little unborn Stefans, all with curved backs and long grey pony-tails with penknives in their hands, all so sweet. Rearranging herself on Leon’s shoulders, she managed to kick him in the face.
He recoiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK,’ she replied, in a dream.
They trotted along in silence for a bit, while Leon tried to think of something cheerful to say. ‘The hospital people never caught us anyway,’ he said. ‘You could have jumped out of that window any time, Ingrid.’
‘I wish I yump out the window the day I arrive,’ she said. ‘Over there!’ And she pointed to the door across the deserted street with ‘8B’ written above it.
Stefan had not come unaccompanied to the Möllevången, of course. He had entered the apartment alone, that’s all. Security men, Birgit, and a variety of people in white coats had charged into a nearby sauna to await his signal. ‘Wait for my signal!’ he told them – though unfortunately without mentioning what the signal might be. And so they huddled inside, sweating, while Birgit stood at the door. A sauna was hardly the ideal place to wait on a night so cold: clad in sensible coats, they were now succumbing to the heat. In fact, while Birgit stood sentry and attracted a fair amount of passing trade with her nurse’s uniform, she twice heard behind her the wheeze and thud of hospital security men sliding down the walls and fainting.
‘Here is Ingrid now,’ she reported in a whisper (in Swedish). ‘She is riding a man like a gorilla.’
‘I saw that man in the hospital,’ replied one of the doctors (also in Swedish). ‘I assumed he had legitimate business, but I realize now I was fooled by the confident manner with which he carried his hot beverage.’
‘Mm,’ agreed Birgit.
Outside, down the street, Ingrid was dismounting from Leon. He helped her to the door. ‘That’s far enough,’ she told him. ‘I want to go in alone. I have things to say to Lucky George. I have things to say to Stefan, too. I will come to London.’ As she passed his coat to him, she took a note from the pocket and studied it. Then she put it in her pyjama pocket.
‘Stefan’s dead,’ said Leon, gently. ‘You know that. The man in London isn’t your Stefan.’
‘Thank you for ride,’ she said, and stamped on his foot.
‘Ow!’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
She hobbled to the door, and turned. ‘You can go now,’ she said.
‘I’ll wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘Ingrid! My chicken! Can it be you?’
As Ingrid hobbled and groped her way in the dark down the stairs to the old lab, she let out an involuntary sob of unhappiness, which her husband recognized straight away.
‘Ingrid!’
‘Stefan!’
A clonk, clonk on the stairs.
‘Ingrid! I thought I’d never see you again!’
‘Stefan! They told me’ – clonk, clonk – ‘you were dead!’
As Stefan signalled to him to hide, Belinda’s husband automatically backed into the shadows and crouched beside his old bed. He was happy to oblige. Having come between these people once before, he didn’t fancy doing it again. He felt guilty at spying on their reunion, but on the other hand, he could scarcely make an excuse and leave. The only trouble was, as he leant back into a more comfortable position, breathing softly in the consuming blackness, he realised, with a plummeting heart, that he was leaning
against something that was not only warm and soft, but alive – which enveloped and clutched him. The surprise produced an interesting sensation. All the hair on his body stood up and subsided again, like a follicular version of a Mexican wave.
‘Hi!’ whispered the body, in a kind of squeak. It had covered itself in a camouflaging blanket. ‘We’ll all laugh about this one day, right?’
‘Jago?’
‘Hi, Stefan,’ said Jago, muffled. ‘I can explain.’
‘Jago, you shouldn’t be here! It’s very dangerous.’
‘Jesus, you’re telling me.’
Belinda’s husband peered across the room, and saw Ingrid groping her way to the bottom of the stairs. Evidently, she was unable to see anything yet. She stumbled, and her husband caught her, but then instantly let her go again. Stefan was in agony. He loved his wife, and had missed her painfully. But he couldn’t bear for her to see his disfigured face, or touch his scaly body.
‘Ingrid! I thought I’d never see you again,’ Stefan repeated.
‘Stefan, let me hold you! I thought Lucky George would be here, not you! Birgit saw Lucky George! I will kill him if I see him, for what he did to you!’
Stefan gulped audibly.
‘Are you all right?’ said Ingrid. ‘Can’t we put a light on?’
She reached for the switch, while across the room, Jago and Belinda’s husband both spasmed with alarm, clutching each other.
‘No current,’ Stefan said. ‘Not for years.’
The pair in the corner slumped with relief.
‘We must get out of here. We will be found,’ said Ingrid.
‘I’m tired, Ingrid. I have been living like a dead person. Since they took you, my life has been so terrible, so empty!’
‘Really? No little Stefans, then? No Belinda?’
‘What?’
Ingrid’s tone had changed. They all noticed it.
‘It’s just that I heard some things. I heard you made little Stefans without me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Belinda’s husband watched with horror as Ingrid started to survey the room. Her eyes must be getting accustomed to the dark. She wasn’t picking out details, but she was seeing shapes. On all fours, she had edged her way to a table with old, rusty instruments on it.
