Rita put a plate of chicken breast in mushroom sauce on the table. She glanced at the computer screen.
– So proud I know such a famous person, she remarked drily.
Axel managed a brief laugh.
– How about the patients? he wanted to know.
– Not a single one of them believes you’re capable of anything like that. Not one, take my word for it. Quite a few have called in just to say so. A couple have cancelled their appointments, but only for practical reasons. Not more than three or four.
– Have you heard anything from Solveig Lundwall?
– Come and sit down and eat. You look like death warmed up standing there.
He did as he was told.
– Her husband called. Solveig’s been sectioned.
Axel tore off a piece of chicken.
– Good news.
– Apparently it was quite dramatic. She was going to hang herself from a tree. She’s got some idea that somehow she has betrayed you. That it’s because of her you wound up in jail.
– She’s in a terrible state, he said, chewing away. – They must be quite sure they don’t release her until she’s been given the help she needs.
Rita said: – By the way, Seen and Heard called me last night. They want to do a feature on you.
– That rag. He glanced across at her. Nothing surprised him now.
– They said they’d give it a positive spin. Something people would enjoy reading, in spite of all the terrible things.
– What did you tell them?
– I told them to go to hell and take their enjoyment with them to spread it where it’s needed.
He put his hand over hers.
– Without you that’s where I’d be too.
He would have liked to say more, but instead he stood up and turned to the window, looking out at the night sky shaded with hints of orange.
59
RITA HAD TIDIED his office after the search, but it was still chaotic. The computer had not yet been returned. Some of his books and folders were still missing. He let himself into Ola’s room. It didn’t look as though the police had been in there.
The envelope lay in the middle desk drawer, where he had seen it earlier. He opened the flap, pulled out the pile of smaller envelopes. All were stamped and addressed to Miriam. There was also a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it, recognising her handwriting. It looked like the beginning of a letter.
I received your most recent letter today. Yes, I’ve met someone else! It’s horrible of you to spy on me, but I’m not going to let you spoil things. No matter what you do, I’ll never tell him about you. You don’t exist when I’m with him. Not even in my thoughts.
Are you trying to scare me? I thought you’d understood. I don’t wish you any harm. You’ve suffered enough as it is. I wish you well. But I can’t do any more for you. Not after what happened in the cabin that time. You told me about your family; I know I’m the only one you’ve dared to talk to about them. I’ve thought a lot about what you told me. Your grandfather, who helped so many refugees to freedom during the war, how he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. When he got back he was a wreck, but never a word of thanks for all the lives he’d saved. And your father, the best father in the world, you said, but he drank and kept you both locked up in the cellar. I remember as though it were yesterday when you told me about it. We were sitting on the steps outside the cabin, and I didn’t understand how you could think such a thing, that it was all your mother’s fault because she left you, and that your father always meant well by what he did. I was stupid enough to say what I thought of him, and then you seemed to turn into another person completely. I can’t forget it, even though I want to. I’ll always see your eyes the way they were that night in the cellar. You hated me then, you wanted to destroy me. A thousand apologies can’t make up for something that has been crushed. I know you trusted me more than any other girl you’ve ever met. And that was why you told me about your family. I can understand you and forgive you, but I can never trust you again. You must go to a
That was obviously as far as she’d got. He looked through the envelopes. The last one was stamped 27 September this year. It contained a folded sheet of paper.
This is the last letter I’ll write to you. Don’t know if you’ll read it. Makes no difference. I’ve started talking to you instead. Have found a way to get you to listen to what I have to say. Get you to listen to every fucking word. With no chance to get away. I waited for you yesterday. You said back then that you needed time before you were ready. Now that time has passed. I wanted to surprise you. You came out and got into a car with a man. Drove to Aker Brygge. You sat half a bloody hour in that car. Today he drove you home, and as you were about to get out, he took a sniff at you and then I knew what was going on. He’s forty-three. Seventeen years older than you. He earns eight hundred and fifty thousand a year and has seven million in the bank. He’s married and has three kids. I guess that’s all okay by you. And then I think how I should never have let you out of the cellar in the cabin that time, that the one night you spent down there wasn’t enough. That maybe I’ll come and fetch you from your bed one night when you think you’re safe and take you back to that cellar, and who knows whether you’ll ever get out again.
Axel sat there looking at the letter. It had been typed on a computer and wasn’t signed. No sender’s name on the envelope. Posted the day after she started her training with him. Several times Miriam had wanted to tell him about something that had happened to her. Something she was afraid of. Each time she’d got close to it she’d pulled away. That last night he’d spent with her, she had said something about a cellar in a cabin she’d been in. Close to the Swedish border. What were you doing out there? he should have asked her. But he hadn’t. He’d guessed it had to do with a man. He didn’t want to know anything about her past. About the men before him. What the two of them had together existed on a tiny island in the present moment. Both past and future could wipe it out at any time. But he had wanted to talk about himself. Something from his own past. Had he been using her? He saw her in his mind’s eye. The way she looked when she was listening. She took it all in, didn’t try to change anything.
The next letter he opened was more than two years old.
When you left, it was allegedlybecause you needed time to think, but more than a year has passed now and I think you were lying. It’s not a good idea to lie to me. I know you thought it was horrible to be left sitting down there in that cellar, but I didn’t know what I was doing. When you come, you’ll see that I’ve changed. You didn’t believe me when I told you that you were the first girl I’d ever been with properly. There have always been women I could have had; I got plenty of offers but I was never interested. After that first night in Sandane when we walked along by the fjord, I told you it was you I wanted. Nobody else. And you said that made you happy. You said a lot of other things too. That there was nobody else you wanted either. That you would stay with me for ever. That we were twin spirits, and all that kind of girl talk. That you liked having sex with me. That it was the best you’d ever had. Killing someone is no worse than giving them something and then suddenly taking it away again.