Black clouds have gathered in the night sky, hovering above the hospital and releasing a fine drizzle over the forest. Jan wipes the ice-cold drops of water from his forehead, crouches down in the undergrowth and tries to find some shelter under a birch tree.
He takes out the Angel. The hospital looms up in front of him; Jan has a friend in there, so the rain and cold don’t matter at all.
‘Are you there, squirrel?’ he whispers into the microphone, his gaze fixed on the forbidding façade. Fourth floor, seventh from the right.
The light goes off, then comes back on again.
A clear signal — Rami is back in her room.
Jan slowly exhales, and asks, ‘Do you still want to get out?’
The light flashes off and on. Yes.
‘As soon as possible?’
Yes.
Both responses are instant, with no hesitation. The woman who is answering him is definitely not drugged or confused.
‘I want to see you too, I want to hear what happened after you left the Unit. I waited for an answer from you, but it never came... I just know you fulfilled your part of the pact. You stopped the Gang of Four.’ Jan pauses for a moment, gathers his thoughts, then goes on: ‘But how did you do it? You told me you knew people who could take care of them, and I’ve wondered all these years... Who was it?’
The Secret Avenger, he thinks. But who was the Secret Avenger?
There is no answer, of course. The light stays on.
‘I didn’t feel sorry for Niklas, Peter and Christer. I just couldn’t. And now there’s only one member of the Gang of Four left. His name is Torgny, Torgny Fridman. I told you about him fifteen years ago. He owns an ironmonger’s shop back in Nordbro, where I grew up. And he’s got a wife and a child and a successful life... but I find it difficult to forget what he did.’
The light in the window doesn’t go off, but he believes that Rami is listening.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you... I qualified as a classroom assistant ten years ago. And in one of my first temporary posts I was looking after a little boy called William... When I saw William’s mother, I recognized her. She was the Psychobabbler from the Unit, your psychologist. You remember her, don’t you? You asked me to do something to her. To punish her.’
Silence. Jan has reached the heart of his confession. He had meant to sound triumphant, but his voice lacks strength, as if he were apologizing. ‘So... so one day when we were in the forest, I lured William away from the rest of the group and locked him up in an old bunker. He was fine in there, as far as possible, anyway. It was much worse for his parents... for the Psychobabbler. She was worried for a long time.’
The confession is over, but Jan has one thing left to say: ‘Your escape route, Rami. Listen carefully.’ He keeps his eyes fixed on the window, and goes on: ‘During the fire drill next Friday evening, all the patients will be let out of their rooms. I presume you already know about it?’
The light flashes.
‘You need to move away from the others. There’s a storeroom on your floor, not far from your room. The door won’t be locked — I’ve jammed the catch with a bit of paper. And inside the storeroom, behind a cupboard, there’s an old laundry lift. It goes straight down to the basement.’
The light flashes. Rami understands.
‘I’ll be waiting for you down there,’ Jan says. ‘Then we can make our way out together.’
Can he really make that promise? He doesn’t want to think about the things that could go wrong; he is just waiting for an answer.
And it comes: the light flashes one last time.
‘Good... See you soon, Rami.’
Jan switches off the Angel. He is glad to leave the forest; it is a lonely place. But soon he won’t be lonely any more.
Twenty minutes later he is ringing Lilian’s doorbell. This time there is no sign of her brother. Lilian lets him in, but only as far as the hallway. She is on edge, and not in the mood for small talk.
‘Have you made up your mind?’
Jan nods, with the memory of Rami’s light flashing off and on still in his mind. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘You’re with us?’
He nods again. ‘I can stand guard inside the pre-school,’ he says. ‘When you go up to meet Rössel in the visitors’ room, I’ll wait there.’
‘We need a driver too,’ Lilian says. ‘You’ve got a car, haven’t you?’
‘I have.’
‘In that case we’d really like to use it to get everyone there at the same time, and to get back home afterwards,’ Lilian says.
She is focused now, and sober. Jan hears footsteps upstairs; someone is moving around up there.
‘And you’re going to talk to Rössel about your brother?’ he says. ‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’
Lilian looks him in the eye. Jan suddenly remembers what Dr Högsmed said about how difficult it is to cure psychopaths.
‘Why do you think Rössel has agreed to meet you? Does he want to confess in order to make himself feel better? Because he’s become a good person?’
Lilian lowers her head. ‘I don’t care what Rössel has become. Just as long as he tells the truth.’
At the feelgood meeting Marie-Louise reminds everyone about Friday’s fire drill. ‘It’s going to be quite a big thing, with the police and rescue services involved,’ she says. ‘But it’s in the evening, so it won’t affect us. The pre-school will remain closed, as usual.’
Not completely closed, Jan thinks.
He catches a quick glance from Lilian across the table. She looks tired and tense this Monday morning, and she smells of strong mints.
The working week begins, crawling by one day at a time, and suddenly it is Friday.
The last child Jan collects from the visitors’ room is Leo.
From the lift, Jan catches a glimpse of the father: a short, burly man in a grey hospital sweatshirt who glances over at the lift before he goes back through the door leading to the hospital. The last thing he does is to raise his arm to his son, and Leo waves back.
The boy is calm and quiet on the way back to the Dell.
‘Do you like going to see your daddy?’ Jan asks as they step out of the lift.
Leo nods. Jan places a hand on his shoulder and hopes that St Patricia will watch over him when he grows up. The saint, not the hospital.
Marie-Louise smiles at Jan as he hands Leo over to his foster parents.
‘You do a really good job with the children, Jan,’ she says. ‘You never get nervous, like the girls.’
‘Which girls?’
‘Hanna and Lilian... they’re always on edge when they have to go up to the hospital, but I suppose it’s hardly surprising.’ She smiles at him again. ‘None of us is used to that sort of person.’
‘That sort of person... You mean the patients?’
‘Exactly. The ones who are locked up in there.’
Jan looks at her smile, but can’t bring himself to smile back. ‘I’m used to them,’ he says. ‘I know them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was locked up too, when I was a teenager.’
The smile disappears. Marie-Louise raises her eyebrows, and Jan goes on: ‘I was in the child psych unit. We used to call it the Unit, short for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit. But it was a secure institution, just like St Patricia’s. Those who were dangerous and those who were afraid were all locked up together inside the Unit.’
Marie-Louise manages to close her mouth; she seems to be having difficulty working out what to say. ‘But why?’ she asks eventually. ‘Why were you in there?’
‘I was one of those who was afraid,’ Jan says. ‘I was afraid of the world outside.’