‘Surely her parents must have known who she was sharing her home with?’ he said.
‘You’d think so, but then I don’t know how much they saw of her,’ the headteacher said.
Alex immediately decided that he needed to speak to the parents.
‘Where can I get hold of Josephine’s mother and father?’
‘They have an apartment on Sibyllegatan, but I know they were keen to get to the hospital as soon as she’s taken there; they want to see her. Or whatever the procedure is.’
You saw. You felt. You understood.
You went under and fell apart.
‘Any brothers or sisters?’
‘She has a brother in New York.’
So at least the parents still had one child left. That always gave him some small consolation – not that he thought it was possible to replace one child with another. He had almost lost his son just a few months ago, and nothing could have compensated for such a loss.
Nothing.
Alex hated remembering those hours when everything had been so uncertain and no one knew how it would end. And it was almost more painful to remember the aftermath of the hijacking, which had cost him so much. All those weeks of frustration, all the footslog that had been necessary to bring his son home; exhausting marathon trips to the USA; endless meetings with government officials who were unwilling to let him out of the country.
He shook his head. That was all behind him now.
‘I’m assuming that you will treat the information I have given you with the greatest discretion,’ he said, getting to his feet to indicate that the meeting was over.
‘Of course. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help in any way,’ the general secretary said, holding out his hand.
Alex shook it.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.
‘So will we, actually,’ the general secretary said. ‘As I said, we’re in the process of recruiting a new head of security, and one of the applicants has given your name as a referee.’
‘Really?’ Alex was slightly taken aback.
The general secretary nodded.
‘Peder Rydh. But as I said, we’ll be in touch.’
Peder Rydh.
It still hurt to hear that name.
He still missed his former colleague.
A little while later Alex was standing on Nybrogatan, wondering why he felt so uneasy. It was as if the snowflakes were whispering to him.
This has only just begun. You have no idea of what is to come.
The falling snow was like confetti made of glass. Simon suppressed an urge to stick out his tongue to let some of the crystals land on it. The cold made him stamp his feet up and down on the spot. Why was Abraham always late? He was the kind of person who thought punctuality just didn’t matter. How many hours had Simon stood waiting for him in bus shelters, outside the school, outside the tennis centre, and in a million other places? If he added it all up, and he was good at that kind of thing, he had probably spent days and days being annoyed with his friend who was incapable of turning up on time.
Who never apologised.
Just smiled when he eventually showed up.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ he would say.
As if he hadn’t a clue about when they were due to meet, or the fact that they had agreed on a specific time.
The humiliation bothered Simon more often than he was prepared to admit. He no longer knew why it was simply taken for granted that he and Abraham should be friends. Their parents no longer saw as much of each other as they had in the past, and in school they belonged to different groups. When he thought about it, tennis was really the only thing they had in common, although that had changed too in recent weeks. They still went along together, but ever since the coach had taken Simon to one side and said that he thought it would be worth putting in a few extra hours of training to help him move forward, Abraham had begun to withdraw. They no longer played against each other, but against other boys.
Simon was careful to avoid a direct conflict with Abraham, mainly because his friend couldn’t deal with losing in any way. It didn’t matter whether it was in a tennis match or in school; Abraham always had to be right.
At any price.
And now Simon was standing here with his tennis racquet on his back in the bus shelter on Karlavägen, waiting for his friend yet again.
Five minutes, he thought. If he’s not here in five minutes, I’m going.
To his surprise he realised that he meant it.
He had had enough. He had already waited for Abraham approximately a hundred times too often. Even his own father had told him he ought to draw the line.
The minutes crawled by as the snow came down, heavier and heavier. It was windy too. And cold. Really cold.
‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’
The voice came from the side, and belonged to an elderly lady wearing a big purple woolly hat. She looked nice.
Simon found his watch in the gap between his sleeve and his glove.
‘Five past four.’
‘Thank you. I’m sure the bus will be here in a minute,’ the woman said.
She was probably right, and Simon would be getting on it. He straightened his back and his breathing slowed down. He was going to do it this time. Just get on the bus and go. He would look at Abraham with the same nonchalant expression he had encountered so often, and he would say something along the lines of:
‘Oh, did you think we were supposed to be going together?’
A few minutes later he saw the bus approaching. The woman in the hat looked relieved, and stepped forward. But Simon didn’t.
His determination ebbed away, seeping into the snow beneath his boots. Was it worth arguing about a few minutes here or there?
His cheeks burned with embarrassment and self-loathing as the bus pulled up and the doors opened. He didn’t move; he just stood there as if he was frozen to the pavement.
He was so weak.
No wonder Abraham despised him.
He kicked angrily at the ground as the bus disappeared in a cloud of snow, leaving Simon feeling tired and furious.
Then he saw the car. It was moving so slowly that it almost seemed to be floating towards him. Someone was waving from the front seat. Hesitantly, almost cautiously.
He looked around in surprise, but there was no one else nearby. The hand must be waving to him.
It was only when the car pulled up in front of him that he saw who was in the passenger seat.
Abraham.
The window slid down and Abraham looked out.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lift – hop in.’
Simon was lost for words. He couldn’t see who was driving.
‘Hop in,’ Abraham said again.
Or was he pleading with Simon?
Simon wasn’t sure. His friend’s voice was so shrill, his face so stiff.
‘Come on, Si!’
The window began to slide up. Another bus appeared a few hundred metres behind the car.
Simon felt the weight of his sports bag on his shoulder, and thought that it would be nice to have a lift. But most of all he thought that Abraham didn’t seem to want to be alone in the car, so he opened the door and slid into the back seat.
It was only when the car began to move that he realised what had just happened.
Abraham had said ‘Sorry I’m late’.
Sorry.
A word Simon had never heard him use before.
He was overwhelmed by a feeling so strong he could almost touch it.
Out of the car. They had to get out of the car.
Nybrogatan, just after six o’clock in the evening. Dark and almost deserted. The call had come less than an hour ago. A man who spoke English had introduced himself as the person responsible for human resources at the Solomon Community in Östermalm; it was about the post of head of security. Was Peder able to attend an interview that same evening?
Absolutely. Peder Rydh had become the man who never said no.