'Listen, Sylla. There wasn't any money.'
She was staring at him while he put the jug back.
'What do you mean?'
He gestured, striking out with one arm.
'Your post box was empty.'
He had to be lying.
For fifteen years now, on the twenty-third of every month, an envelope containing 1500 kronor had arrived in her post box. Every single month. She pulled the paper out the waste-paper basket, spilling coffee grounds all over the floor. The date-line said Monday, 24th March. She looked up, facing him.
'You… Christ. I trusted you, Thomas.'
He met her eyes.
'Is that fucking so?'
His eyes tore into her in a way she remembered from his fits of drunken rage, but she couldn't stop and feel frightened of him now.
'It's mine! I can't live without that money!'
He froze for a moment. Then he threw the mug, still half-full of coffee, into the far wall. Some tools on hooks crashed to the floor. The coffee flowed down the wall, forming a brown pattern. The crash made her stiffen but she didn't take her eyes off him.
He inhaled deeply as if trying to calm down and then went to stand at one of the portholes, staring at the nothingness outside.
'I admit I've done bad stuff. But you mustn't accuse me of nicking your dosh. You're just on the wrong fucking track there.'
He turned towards her.
'Didn't it ever occur to you that it'd turn the old hag off – like, to figure she was putting her hard-earned cash the way of a manic serial-killer?'
His words took some time to sink in, slowly passing via her eardrums into her skull before she realised how right he was. This was the end of charity. Beatrice reckoned she had paid enough, settled her debt.
Sibylla's mind went blank.
She slowly went to the table, pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Then she put her face in her hands and started crying.
Now she was really lost. All her hopes had turned to ashes.
She wasn't meant to get through, to succeed. Once more, Fate had intervened to kick her down. Once a loser, always a loser. She had been challenging the established, set-order of the universe, trying to haul herself up to a place above her station.
Now, now, little Miss Sibylla Wilhelmina Beatrice Forsenström. You had your life nicely staked out for you, but did you appreciate it? You did not. You need never have gone hungry if only you hadn't decided to up and leave your proper place in the system.
Here today, gone tomorrow. For ever.
'Sibylla, don't cry like that.'
She felt his hand on her shoulder.
'Stay cool, Sylla, please. It'll sort itself out, you'll see.'
She thought, sure it'll sort itself out – I'll just have to serve life in prison first and after that I guess nothing matters much.
‘I know what you need. Get pissed.'
Yes, that's right. Be unconscious, just for a while. Sozzled. That's what she wanted. He had already produced a full bottle of Koskenkorva vodka from a cupboard. She looked at the bottle, then at him. His face looked kind. She nodded.
'You're dead right. Let's drink.'
She had almost reached Vetlanda when the police stopped her. A red light was blinking at her from the middle of the road. She pulled over, two policemen materialised outside her window and she opened it. One on them leant inside, stopped the engine and pulled the key out. He got outside again, looking to check her face.
'Now then… what have you been up to?' She didn't feel scared. She felt nothing at all. 'Step outside for moment, please.'
He opened the door and she stepped out. A car was pulling up behind the De Soto and Mick jumped out, running towards her. Maria Johansson stayed where she was, in the passenger seat.
'You fucking slut! I'll kill you if you've buggered up my car.'
One of the policemen put a hand on Mick's shoulder, telling him to calm down. Mick pulled himself free and climbed into the De Soto. The policeman handed him the keys. After checking what he could, Mick got out, turning to look at her with intense disgust.
'You're one insane cunt.'
She noted that the policemen were leading her over to their car, pushing her into the backseat with a hand on her head. One of them sat next to her and the other drove the car. Neither said a word to her from then on.
'Is your name Sibylla Forsenström?' What was the funny smell in the room? 'Why did you take the car?' What if it was gas?
'Have you got a driving licence?'
How come there were cracks in that wall?
'Can't you speak?'
The man on the other side of the desk sighed and began leafing through some papers. Four men dressed in black stepped through the cracked wall. They fixed their eyes on her.
'We can't find you anywhere in our records. Is it the first time you've done this sort of thing?'
The men in black were coming towards her. One of them held out a red-hot socket-spanner. They were going to unscrew her, take her apart.
'We shall have to contact the social services in due course, but first of all we'll call your parents. They can come and take you home now.'
They were going to keep bits of her as spare parts to fix smarter models. The man with the socket-spanner seemed to speak, his lips were moving but she couldn't hear what he said.
She looked at the man behind the desk instead, but his face had kind of disappeared. There was nothing there, just a hole going straight through his head.
Now she couldn't see anything at all. Hey, what was she doing on the floor?
She heard the sound of a chair being pushed back and a voice shouting.
'Lasse, come here! I need a hand!' Steps came hurrying along.
'I've no idea what's wrong with her. Better get the ambulance.'
She came to because someone was kicking her in the ribs, not violently but hard enough to wake her. Thomas was standing next to her, wearing nothing except a pair of underpants. She took in the scene in one second flat. He was drunk and he was holding a wad of notes in his hand, approximately twenty-nine thousand kronor.
Instinctively she put her hand to her neck, but where the money should have been was only her skin. In fact, she was naked. He was grinning menacingly at her, waving the purse in his other hand.
'You'd be looking for this, right?'
Her mouth felt like a sandpit. It was years since she'd drunk hard liquor. She couldn't actually remember drinking a lot, but the bottle on the table was empty.
'You cunt! Sending me off to the post office to get you more dosh! And snivelling because you can't manage, oh dear dear!'
She tried to think. Meanwhile she was too slow reaching out for her bra. A flick with his foot and it flew across the room. She covered herself with the flap of the sleeping-bag.
'Please listen, Thomas…'
He twisted his face into a grimace and spoke in a piping voice.
'Please, Thomas.'
His eyes had narrowed to slits.
'What got into you, fucking around with me like that? I was running a bloody big risk, the police could've got me for aiding-and-abetting or some shit. Meanwhile you've a sodding fortune up your jumper!'
He was scrunching the notes in his hand. 'I've been saving that for years.' 'Oh yeah. And?'
She was almost whispering now. 'For a house.'
At first he just stared at her, then leaned back laughing. The movement almost overbalanced him and he had to reach out for the ladder. This sudden weakness angered him even more.
Before he had time to speak, she folded back the sleeping bag flap. Then she spoke as sweetly as she knew how.
'Thomas. Let's not fight. I was going to show you the money anyway.'
He was still holding onto the ladder. She felt nauseous.
'Thomas, I came here because I've been missing you.'
His eyes were glued to her breasts. She felt his gaze touching her like hands and had to steel herself not to shudder. He dropped her purse on the floor. She tried to keep smiling. Next he scattered her hopes for the future with one careless movement, the notes floating slowly towards the filthy floor.