He popped back in again half an hour later and handed her an A4-size package. She left it lying on the kitchen worktop, drifted out on to the steps and lit a cigarette. Consumed it slowly as she watched the darkness settle over the rooftops. Wondered whether to throw the package away unopened. I’ll never go back there again, she thought. Must send Rikke a message, tell her to stop forwarding mail. Ask her to give my clothes away to the Salvation Army. The DVDs and the armchair she can keep.
The package contained two letters from the school, a late payment reminder and a couple of other bills. And a reply from a modelling agency. Wim had promised to try to get something organised with them. For once he might not have been bluffing. She tore the letter to pieces without reading it and dug down to a package at the bottom of the pile. On the outside of it her name had been written with a blue magic marker. She recognised Mailin’s small, sloping handwriting. The padded envelope was postmarked 10 December, the day before she went missing. Liss struggled to open it, her hand was shaking and she couldn’t get her fingers under the flap, had to fetch a knife from the drawer.
There was a CD case inside. A small note was attached to it: I said on the phone that everything was all right, but it isn’t. Look after this CD carefully for me. Will explain later. Trust you, Liss. Big hug. Mailin.
By the time she got up from the kitchen table, it was dark. She hurried up the stairs and into Viljam and Mailin’s room. She switched on the computer on the table by the window, stood there pinching her lower lip hard as she waited for it to boot up.
There were two documents on the CD: Liss opened the first, entitled Patient Example 8: Jo and Jacket. It ran to several pages and was in the form of an interview.
Therapist: Last time you were talking about a holiday trip to Crete. You were twelve years old. Something happened there, something that made an impression on you.
Patient: It was that girl. Her and her family were in the apartment next door. She liked me. Wanted us to get together. She wanted me to do all sorts of things.
T: What things?
(Long pause)
P: For example that about the cat. Wanted me to torture a cat. It only had one eye, and I felt sorry for it, but Ylva wanted us to catch it and torture it.
T: She made you do things you didn’t really want to do?
P: (nods) And when I said stop, we mustn’t do this, she got the others to gang up on me.
T: What about the grown-ups, didn’t they notice what was going on?
P: They were only interested in themselves. Apart from one.
T: The one you mentioned last time, the one you called Jacket?
P: He was the one who wanted me to call him Jacket. That’s what they called him when he was my age. His father ran a clothes shop. Gents’ outfitters was what he called it. He didn’t want me to call him anything else. Later on, of course, I found out what his real name was. Maybe I already knew it that first time. I mean, I’d seen his picture in the papers.
T: He was well known?
(Pause)
P: Jacket read something to me. A poem in English. Which he translated. About a Phoenician lying drowned at the bottom of the sea. Handsome young man, strong and muscular. Now all that was left was a few bones. ‘Death by Water’ it was called. Later on we read it together.
T: You had many conversations with him?
P: He kept showing up. Seemed to be there when I needed him. Don’t you believe me? Think I’m making this up?
T: I believe you.
P: I was very low. Had made up my mind to disappear. Walked out on to the beach in the dark. Took off my clothes and was on my way out to the water. Was going to swim far out until I couldn’t swim any more… Then he appeared out of the shadows. Been sitting in a chair, looking out. It was as if he’d been waiting for me. ‘Hey, Joe,’ he said, like in that Jimi Hendrix record, that was what he used to say when he saw me. Without me having told anyone, he knew what I was going to do. He made me think about other things. Took me up to his room. We sat there talking most of the night.
(Pause)
T: Did anything else happen?
P: Such as?
T: Last time you hinted that something had happened between you and this man, something…
P (angry): It’s not like you think. Jacket saved me. I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair now if it hadn’t been for him. You’re trying to get me to say that he abused me.
T: I want you to say what happened in your own words, not mine.
(Pause)
P: It was cold. He let me shower in his room. Afterwards he towelled me dry. Put me in the bed… Lay beside me. Kept me warm.
T: You felt that he was looking after you.
P: More than that. When I got back to Norway…
(Pause)
T: You met him again in Norway.
P: He showed up one day, that same autumn. Outside school. We went for a long drive. Stopped and walked along the beach. He liked me. Everything I said and did was okay.
T: And after that?
P: I met him again. Went to his house, spent a whole weekend there. Several times, as it happens.
T: And your parents, did they know about this?
P: This was between Jacket and me. We made a pact. It was holy. What we did together was nobody’s business but ours. He helped me in all sorts of ways.
T: What did he help you with?
(Pause)
P: For example he showed me what to do with Ylva next time I met her.
T: Ylva? The girl you met in Crete?
P: I don’t want to talk about that any more.
Liss read the rest of what was presumably the transcript from a therapy session. It was so detailed it might have been recorded on tape and then transcribed. She opened the second document. It was called En route and consisted of commentaries on a whole series of conversations. She scrolled down through it. Beneath a heading Patient Example 8 Mailin had added:
Therapy concluded after fourth session. Obviously cannot be used in the study. Delete interview or keep it anyway?
Her phone rang. Liss saw that it was Jomar. She’d promised to get in touch before six, she recalled, and now it was half past.
– I’ve booked a table, he said secretively, – and I’m not telling you where.
She was still deep in Mailin’s world of thought. Reading through the document, she had heard her sister’s voice asking the patient questions. Mailin cared about him and wanted to help, but she hadn’t pressured him.
– We have to be there by eight.
– Okay, Liss answered, pulling herself together. – Do I have to wear an evening gown?
She heard him laugh at the other end. – Well they do have one star in the Michelin catalogue, but they’re not that fussy about attire. He added: – As you know, I have a jacket you can borrow. It’s so big you don’t need to have anything on underneath it.
Liss ejected the CD from the computer, put it back in its case, and opened her notebook.
The name of the eighth patient is Jo.
She thought for a few moments before continuing: