‘You haven’t got any friends?’ Tony said. ‘Why not?’
‘Dunno... They think I’m stupid.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I sit and draw stuff.’
‘You draw?’ Tony said. ‘And what else do you do in your spare time?’
‘I read... and I play the drums a bit.’
‘In a band?’
‘In the school orchestra.’
‘So haven’t you got any friends in the orchestra?’
Jan shook his head.
‘So you feel very lonely, Jan... as if you’re the loneliest person in the world?’
Jan nodded.
‘And do you think this loneliness is your own fault?’
Jan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Suppose so.’
‘Why?’
Jan thought about it. ‘Because everybody else has got friends.’
‘Have they?’
Jan nodded again. ‘And if they can do it, then I should be able to do it.’
‘Have you never had friends?’
Jan gazed out of the window. ‘I used to have one friend, in my class. But he moved away.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Hans.’
‘And how long were you two friends?’
‘As long as I can remember... Since nursery, I think.’
‘So that means you can make friends,’ said Tony. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’
Jan stared down at the desk, and considered saying, I wet myself at night, that’s what’s wrong with me. But he kept quiet.
‘There is nothing wrong with you, Jan,’ Tony said again. He leaned back. ‘And we’re going to have lots of chats about how we can help you to feel better. OK?’
‘OK.’
Jan was allowed to leave. On his way back to the stairs he passed other doors and read the names and long titles: Gunnar Toll, Clinical Psychologist; Ludmila Nilsson, Medical Practitioner; Emma Halevi, Clinical Psychologist; Peter Brink, Counsellor. None of the names meant anything to him.
Jan woke up on his back on a hard floor, and wondered for a moment where he was. Not at home. He had lain down somewhere fully dressed in his thick jacket, hat and scarf. Then he had fallen asleep. But where?
There was a low ceiling above his head — a ceiling made of reinforced concrete.
Then he remembered: he was inside the bunker in the forest. He had intended to have a little rest, that was all, but he was still here.
Stupid. Dangerous.
He looked down his legs and saw that the steel door was ajar, with his boots almost sticking out through the opening. Outside he could see the greyness of the forest, beneath an equally grey sky. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was on its way.
Jan was suddenly afraid that William had crept out into the darkness, but when he turned his head he saw a thick bundle of blankets half a metre away. He could hear the sound of soft, regular breathing: William was still fast asleep.
The air inside the bunker was cold, and there was no warmth in Jan’s body either. His legs felt numb; he lifted them one by one, moving them slowly to try to get the muscles going. He sat up slowly. He didn’t feel rested, just stiff and dirty.
Last night he had experienced a heady sensation of victory, when the plan worked and his fantasy became a reality. This morning everything felt completely wrong. He was lying in a bunker next to a child he had locked up the previous day — what the hell was he doing?
William shifted under his blankets, and Jan went rigid. Was he waking up? No, not yet.
Jan took Roboman outside and recorded three new messages, telling William that everything was fine. He set the toy to standby so that William’s own voice would activate it. Then he crept back inside and placed it on the floor.
He heard a faint cough, then a little hand emerged from the blankets and groped around on the floor. Jan quickly backed away, slipped outside and bolted the steel door shut.
Forty-six hours, he thought, looking at his watch.
It was only ten to seven — which meant there were some thirty hours left before he would let William go. A long time.
Jan arrived at Lynx fifteen minutes later. No one else was there yet, but he had his own key and could let himself in.
The whole place was silent, with no children’s laughter echoing through the rooms.
He switched on the coffee machine, flopped down in an armchair and closed his eyes. The image of William’s hand groping around for someone to hold on to was still fixed in his mind.
Just before half past seven the main door opened and Nina walked in. They looked at each other wearily; Nina’s eyes were shadowed with anxiety. ‘The children aren’t coming in today,’ she said. ‘We’ve placed them with other nurseries temporarily.’
‘OK.’
‘Have you heard anything? Any news?’
Jan looked at her and opened his mouth. He felt a sudden desire to tell her everything. He would tell her that William was locked inside a camouflaged bunker deep in the forest, that he was bound to be a little bit scared but that he was completely unharmed, because Jan had planned the whole thing meticulously.
And the most important part: he would tell her why all this had happened. It wasn’t about William — not really.
It was about Alice Rami.
‘There’s something I need to tell you—’ he began, but he was interrupted by a sudden rattling noise out in the hallway as the front door opened. A police officer walked in, a uniformed constable. He was the same man who had told Jan the previous evening about a horrible discovery on a forest track some years ago.
Jan closed his mouth and straightened up. He was a reliable classroom assistant once more. It was a difficult role, but it still worked.
The police officer’s mobile started to ring. He moved into a side room to take the call.
Jan looked Nina in the eye. ‘I’m going to volunteer... to join the search party, I mean.’
Nina simply nodded — and she never asked what he had been going to tell her.
The sun slowly rose above the roof of Lynx. A blue and white police van arrived and began to function as some kind of liaison unit out in the car park. More and more police officers, military personnel and civilians began arriving at the nursery; they would have a cup of coffee, then head out into the forest. Jan went along too.
The search party got under way at quarter past nine. Police, members of the local army defence unit and volunteers in a long line. Two dogs would be brought in after lunch.
Jan stood somewhere in the middle listening to a police officer outlining how the search for William would be conducted: ‘Our approach is calm and methodical.’ Crevices in the rocks, dense fir trees, areas where water had collected — everything was to be searched.
The chain of people was going to begin with a broad sweep along the lake, Jan realized. When would they start searching on the other side of the ridge, where the bunker was?
The mood was subdued as they slowly moved forward through the forest.
At half past eleven a whistle suddenly blew. Evidently the search had been called off, and immediately there was a buzz among the participants. Had the boy been found? Dead or alive?
Nobody knew, but the orderly line began to break up as people gathered in smaller groups. Jan stood alone among the trees until he heard a woman shouting: ‘Hauger! Is there a Jan Hauger here?’
‘Yes?’ he shouted back.
It was a police officer; she came striding up to Jan through the undergrowth. ‘There’s a meeting down at the nursery,’ she said. ‘They want you there.’
It was an order, and Jan’s blood ran cold. They’ve found him, he thought. ‘Why?’ he asked.