Life was so peculiarly unpredictable. Who could possibly have foreseen that this somewhat rigid and self-controlled man, who always chose his words carefully and always seemed so strong, could break down in such an unconstrained way? Since Ellen had no words for occasions like this, she remained mute. She could hear her son talking on the phone through his closed bedroom door, and her daughter getting out her guitar.
‘I’m married.’
Ellen jumped as Carl broke the silence.
‘I’m married,’ he said again.
‘But…,’ began Ellen.
‘I told you I was single, but I lied. I’ve been married to the same woman for over fifteen years, and we’ve got two children. We’ve a house in Borås.’
Ellen slowly shook her head.
A knock on the open front door interrupted them.
A uniformed police officer came into the living room.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.
Ellen nodded.
‘Because if it is, we’ll be moving on,’ the policeman said hesitantly.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she said in a monotone. ‘Everything’s absolutely fine.’
The policeman left, the front door closed behind him. Her daughter played the opening chords of ‘Layla’; her son gave a loud, shrill laugh into his phone.
How remarkable that everything just carried on as if nothing had happened.
‘That was why I didn’t want to meet your family, Ellen,’ Carl said in a softer voice.
He blew his nose on a handkerchief with his initials embroidered on it. Was it his wife who was so handy with the needle?
‘I was desperately unsure about this,’ he sighed. ‘About us. What it was. What we had. What it could turn into. And whether I was brave enough.’
Ellen’s chest rose and fell as she tried to breathe without the air getting stuck anywhere on the way.
‘Brave enough to do what?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Brave enough to do what?’
‘To do what I’ve just done. Leave my family.’
Ellen remembered afterwards that she had never lost eye contact with him in the course of the conversation.
Carl began to speak faster.
‘I know I’ve done everything wrong; I know I’ve behaved badly. And I realize you must have wondered where I’d got to when I didn’t answer your calls. But I’ve still got to ask…’
Silence again. Silence beyond Eric Clapton on guitar and hoots of laughter into a telephone.
‘I’ve still got to ask, whether you think… Whether you think it could be the two of us.’
Ellen met his dark eyes. For a brief moment she saw him the way she had seen him when they first met. Life-affirming and whole.
But that had been then. What could become of what she saw ahead of her now?
‘I don’t know, Carl,’ she whispered. I just don’t know.’
The emergency response squad found the door of the flat ajar when they got to Aron Steen’s flat. Alex and Peder held back, firearms at the ready. They had made Fredrika stay at HQ. Alex had no intention of being responsible for unarmed, civilian personnel in a critical situation like this.
‘Aron Steen,’ Alex shouted in a commanding voice.
No answer.
The officers kicked the door back on its hinges.
No one to the right, no one to the left.
The squad advanced into the flat.
A dark hall. Dark, undecorated walls.
Alex was aware of a pungent smell assaulting his nostrils.
Petrol. The flat stank of petrol.
They found him in the kitchen. He was sitting on a kitchen chair with the drugged and unconscious child in his arms, soaked in petrol, with a lighter in his hand.
Subdued voices among the officers. ‘Take it easy’ and ‘Hold it right there’ and ‘Keep back; there’s petrol all over the floor.’
They did not enter the kitchen.
Nor did Alex.
But he put away his gun and stood there, balancing on the threshold that marked the end of the hall and the start of the kitchen. Where Alex’s field of play ended and Aron Steen’s began.
They regarded each other. Aron Steen smiled a placid smile.
‘So we meet at last, Alexander,’ he said, breaking the tense silence.
‘Yes, we do,’ Alex said quietly.
Aron shifted the child slightly on his knee. The squad monitored his every movement. Aron smiled again.
‘I really think we ought to be able to sort this out without a lot of unnecessary violence,’ he said, his head on one side. ‘Can you ask your companions to wait in the hall, Alex? So we can talk in peace.’
It was the voice of a teacher. He was talking to Alex as if he were a child, a pupil. Alex felt a surge of anger. Aron Steen had nothing to teach him. That would have to be made very clear to him.
Peder was suddenly at Alex’s shoulder. He had his gun in his hand. Alex waved him away and signalled to the men behind him to fall back into the corridor and hall. They would still have a line of sight from there, but be less obtrusive.
Aron watched them. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were ablaze.
‘There’s something special about fire, isn’t there?’ he whispered, fingering the lighter. ‘I learnt that at a very young age.’
Alex held off. Later, he would wonder why.
Aron looked at Alex and the men behind him.
‘I’ll exchange the boy for free passage out of the country.’
Alex gave a slow nod.
‘Okay.’
‘This is how it’s going to work,’ Aron Steen went on in a smooth voice. ‘The boy and I are going to leave the flat and get into a car and drive away. You are not going to follow us. Once I’ve gone far enough, I’ll ring and tell you where to find the boy.’
Sunbeams were dancing on the window ledge behind Aron and the boy. Alex let his eyes follow them and then looked back at Aron.
‘No,’ he said.
Aron looked startled.
‘No?’ he repeated.
‘No,’ said Alex. ‘The boy’s not leaving the flat.’
‘Then he’s going to die,’ Aron said calmly.
‘He’ll do that if he goes with you, too,’ countered Alex in the same calm tone as Alex. ‘That’s why we can’t let you take him with you.’
Aron seemed exasperated.
‘But why should I kill him? I told you, I want to exchange him for free passage.’
‘And I said okay,’ replied Alex. ‘But the exchange happens here. You give me the boy and then we leave the flat.’
Aron laughed out loud and then got up so abruptly from the kitchen chair that Alex took an involuntary step backwards. The squad members moved forward from the hall, then stopped and waited. An utterly absurd sense of security beamed through Alex’s body as he felt the kinetic energy behind him. As if their presence made any difference to the situation.
‘I’ve shown you how I work, haven’t I?’ asked Aron, raising his voice. ‘I’ve shown you the precision I apply to my mission?’
Alex heard the raised voice and felt very concerned. It was crucial for everyone’s safety that things did not escalate.
‘We’ve noted your way of working,’ he said softly. ‘And we’re very impressed, of course.’
‘Don’t try to flatter me,’ Aron hissed.
But it worked.
Aron sat down again. The child was limp and heavy, and the petrol had made him quite slippery. Alex could see a little trickle under the boy’s nose. Aron shifted to get a better grip.
Alex could feel the smell of the petrol making his own head heavy.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Aron got there first.
‘The child and I leave the flat together, otherwise there’s no deal,’ he said in a low voice.
‘We can negotiate,’ said Alex, squatting down on his heels. ‘We’re both completely clear what we want to achieve; I want the boy and you want your freedom.’
Alex threw his arms wide in a gesture of appeal.
‘We should be able to come to some agreement, shouldn’t we?’
‘We certainly should,’ Aron said placidly.