‘So I’m to walk past you and pretend you aren’t there?’
‘Yes.’
Alena Sljusareva turned her back on the water and walked away. When she reached the road the wind had picked up. It was a wide road that cut through the harbour area, passing the warehouses on its way up towards Gдrdet.
The city centre was full of people, tourists desperately shopping while the rain fell. Alena was grateful for the crowds. The more people there were in the streets, the easier it was for her to hide.
She took the metro to the Central Station, went to find box 21, opened it and put the video in her bag. Then she stood for a while in front of the open locker, staring into the dark interior where their belongings were stacked on two shelves. Their lives. At least, the only parts they accepted. All that mattered after three years.
She had only been there twice before, on the day they acquired it, and then yesterday.
Almost two years ago, Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp had taken them to the Central Station. He had told them that they were to leave the Stockholm flat for a few weeks and work in Copenhagen instead. The flat there had turned out to be in a building just off the Strшget shopping area and close to the harbour. The customers were mostly drunk Swedes fresh off the Malmö ferry, smelling of lager and duty-free chocolate bars. They often paid for two goes, went off after the first time to drink through the night and returned to slap the girls about or wank in front of them or ride them once more before going back home.
While they had waited for the train to Copenhagen, Alena had said she needed to go to the toilet, simply had to go. Dimitri had been alone with them and warned her not to even think of giving him the slip. If she didn’t get back in good time for the train he would kill Lydia. She believed him. She never had the slightest intention of leaving her friend alone with him anyway. Nothing could have made her.
All she wanted was a locker of her own, a kind of home.
One of her regulars was a man with a plumbing business in Strдngnдs, who every week would spend hours on the road to come and see her. He had told her about the safe boxes you could hire for two weeks at a time. They were meant as a convenience for visitors to the city, but were mostly used by the homeless.
Instead of going to the toilet, Alena had used her fifteen minutes away from Dimitri to get one of these lockers. It had been frantic, but she had made it and returned happily with a key hidden in each shoe.
Her helpful regular had cut a copy of the key and agreed to take things to the locker and to keep renewing the agreement before it ran out, his part of the bargain if she allowed him to do extras. She always bled a lot afterwards, but it had been worth it.
Standing in front of the open locker, she knew how true that was.
Having a place that was their own, where Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp couldn’t get his fingers on their things, no matter how much he threatened, that had been worth every blow.
Alena knew she would never come back and she took all that was hers, the necklaces, earrings, dresses. They each had their own key. She left Lydia’s things and her money; when she got out of hospital she would find what was hers waiting for her.
She locked the door and walked away.
The metro again, the green line this time. The train was packed. She got off at St Erik’s Square, climbed the stairs to the wet tarmac outside and started walking, keeping a lookout for that Vietnamese restaurant, one of her route markers. After the restaurant it wasn’t far to another flight of stairs, though this one was beautiful, with great big angels to anchor the handrails. She followed the steps down to Völund Street.
Alena had reached the last of the steps when she saw the police car with two uniformed cops inside. She bent down, pretending to shake a stone out of a shoe, taking her time and trying to think fast.
She couldn’t think.
Her eyes followed two children leading their bicycles. They passed the police car without anyone taking much notice.
Still no thoughts; she seemed unable to think.
This was here and now. It always was here and now.
She put her shoe on, straightened up and walked calmly towards the front door of the building, staring straight ahead, as if untouched by the rain that fell all around her, thinking about what she didn’t remember, the men with forgotten faces who came to lie down on top of her.
The men in the car didn’t stir, just sat and watched her walk past.
Alena opened the door, stepped inside. Waited.
Nothing.
They must still be sitting there. She counted to sixty. One minute. One minute more and then she would make for the stairs to the cellar.
She had prepared herself for the heavy footfalls and a voice ordering her to turn round, get into the back of the police car.
Nothing. Not a sound.
She shook herself free of the command that was never made and started down the two flights of stone stairs at a measured pace. She had to be quiet, mustn’t get out of breath. She thought about the door on the fifth floor, that gaping hole. It had offered a kind of freedom.
She closed her eyes for a second; she could still hear the blows from the fireman’s axe on the door panel, a uniformed policeman outside was hammering the wood to splinters. Then a thud when Dimitri let go of Lydia’s body, and his footsteps as he ran towards the man who was entering the flat.
Alena had to stop to calm her breathing.
She had waited behind that door for almost a year.
It was beyond all comprehension.
Twenty-four hours of freedom to wander round the city was all it took to make a whole year seem strange and distant. If only she could make up her mind that none of it had happened, then she would never have been in that flat with its two large beds, she would never have stood in the hall staring at the electronic locks.
She carried on down to the landing outside the cellar door. Stopping, she turned to face the broken-down door up there and stuck a finger in the air, for the men who would no longer come and ring the doorbell.
The door in front of her was locked and covered in cold, grey, sheet metal. She wasn’t very strong, but could manage to open it with a crowbar. She had done it once in Klaipeda. At the time it had been an awful night, but now she thought of the whole episode as a bit of distant fun and games.
She put her shoulder bag on the floor and unpacked the things from box 21: the dresses, the plastic boxes with necklaces and earrings, the video, the ball of string. She placed them side by side on the floor. The crowbar was buried underneath it all.
The man in the hardware store had laughed. A crowbar and string, well I never. Planning a bit of break-in, eh? You don’t look like a burglar! She had laughed too, and spoken in English.
I live in an old house. What I need is a strong man with some good tools. She had looked at him the way she looked at her clients, the way she knew they liked to be looked at. The hardware store man had given her the ball of string for free and wished her good luck with her large house and strong man.
It was the smallest crowbar in the shop and quite easy to handle. She jammed the teeth into the lock and pushed, putting her whole weight on it once, twice, three times. Nothing budged.
She didn’t dare to try harder in case she made a noise.
But she had no choice.
Once more she inserted the two prongs of the crowbar, jiggled it backwards and forwards against the door frame, tested and then pushed, using all her weight and all her strength.
The lock gave way with a loud crack. The sound travelled up the stairwell. Every tenant who was in could have heard it.