“No, they don’t.”
Yiva laughs. “So Shulman gets what he wants?”
“Yes,” Simone replies. “He gets what he wants.”
“Well, you can tell him yourself.”
“What?”
“He’s in the office.”
“Shulman?”
“He said he needed to make a few calls.”
Simone looks over toward the office, and Yiva clears her throat. “I’m going out to get a sandwich for lunch.”
“What, at this hour?”
“I just thought,” says Yiva, her eyes downcast. “Go on then.”
Simone knocks on the office door and goes in. Shulman is sitting behind the desk sucking a pencil.
“How are you?” he asks, beginning to rise.
“Not so good.”
“That’s what I thought.”
There is silence between them, and he moves closer. She lowers her head. A feeling of exposure, of having been worn down to the most fragile part of herself fills her. Her voice trembles as she blurts out:
“Benjamin is alive. We don’t know where he is or who’s taken him, but he’s alive.”
“That’s good news,” Shulman says quietly.
“Fuck,” she whispers, turning away and wiping the tears from her face with a trembling hand.
Shulman gently touches her hair. She moves away without knowing why. She really doesn’t want him to stop. His hand drops. They look at each other. He’s wearing his soft black suit, with a hood sticking up above the collar of his jacket.
“You’re wearing the ninja suit,” she says, smiling in spite of herself. “Shinobi, the correct word for ninja, has two meanings,” he says. “It means ‘a hidden person,’ but it also means ‘one who endures.’ ”
“Endures?”
“Perhaps the most difficult art of all.”
“It’s impossible alone, at least it is for me.”
“No one is alone.”
“I can’t cope with this,” Simone whispers. “I’m falling apart. I have to stop thinking about it all the time. I have nowhere to go. I walk around thinking I just want something to happen. I could hit myself over the head or jump into bed with you just to stop this panic inside of me— ” She stops abruptly. “What I just said. It sounded completely . . . I’m really sorry, Sim.”
“So which would you choose, in that case?” he asks with a smile. “Would you jump into bed with me or hit yourself over the head?”
“Neither,” she answers quickly. Then she realizes that doesn’t sound right and tries to smooth things over again. “I don’t mean . . . I’d really like— ” She stops again, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.
“What would you like to do?” he asks.
She meets his gaze. “I’m not myself. That’s why I’m behaving like this,” she says simply. “I feel incredibly stupid.” She lowers her eyes; her cheeks are burning, and she clears her throat.
They gaze at each other, no longer focusing on the conversation.
“Simone,” he says; he leans forward and kisses her on the mouth, just briefly.
Her legs feel weak, her knees are trembling. His silky voice, the warmth of his body. The smell from his soft jacket, a mixture of sleep and fine herbs. As his hand moves gently over her cheek and around to the back of her neck, it feels as if she has forgotten the wonderful silkiness of a caress; as his grip tightens slightly to draw her face nearer to his, she realizes how long it has been since she has felt truly desired. Shulman gazes at her intently. She is no longer thinking about running away from the gallery. Maybe this is just a way of escaping for a little while from the terror thudding in her chest, but that’s all right. Let me escape, she thinks. Let me forget all the terrible things.
This time she responds to his kiss. She is breathing rapidly, feeling his hands on her back, at the base of her spine, on her hips. Her emotions overwhelm her; she feels a burning sensation, a sudden blind urge to have him inside her. The force of her desire startles her; she pulls away, hoping he can’t see how excited she is. She wipes her mouth and clears her throat again as she turns away, hastily trying to adjust her clothing.
“Somebody . . . someone . . . might . . .”
“What should we do?” Shulman asks, and she can hear the tremor in his voice.
Chapter 62
monday, december 14 : morning
Without replying, Simone takes a step toward Shulman and kisses him again. She no longer has any thoughts. She fumbles for his skin beneath his clothes and feels his warm hands on her body. His hands search inside her clothes, and when he makes it down to her panties and feels how wet she is, he groans. She wants them to fuck right here, up against the wall, on the desk, on the floor, as if nothing else matters, just as long as she can divert the panic for a few minutes. Her heart is beating fast, her legs are shaking. She pulls him toward the wall, and as he moves her legs to thrust inside her, she whispers to him, telling him to do it, to hurry up but do it. At that moment they hear the cool tone signalling that someone has entered the gallery. The parquet floor creaks, and they let go of each other.
“We’ll go to my place,” he whispers.
She nods, aware that her cheeks are flushed. He wipes his mouth and leaves the office. She stays behind, waits for a while, leaning on the desk for support, her whole body trembling. She tidies herself up, and when she walks out into the gallery Shulman is already standing by the door.
“Have a nice lunch,” says Yiva.
In the taxi on the way to Sim’s apartment, Simone changes her mind. I’ll call Dad, she thinks; then I’ll explain to Sim that I have to go. The very thought of what she is about to do makes her feel sick with guilt, panic, and agitation.
They walk up the narrow staircase to the fifth floor, and as he is unlocking the door she begins to rummage in her bag for her phone. “I just need to call my father,” she says evasively.
He doesn’t reply, simply walks ahead of her into the terracotta hall and disappears down the passageway.
She stands there with her coat on, looking around. Photographs cover the walls, and a recess containing stuffed birds runs along just below the ceiling. Shulman returns before she has time to dial Kennet’s number.
“Simone,” he whispers. “Don’t you want to come in?”
She shakes her head.
“Just for a little while?”
“OK.” She keeps her coat on as she follows him into the living room.
“We’re adults,” he announces. “We can do what we like.” He pours two glasses of cognac, and they toast each other and drink.
“That was good,” she says quietly.
One wall is made entirely of glass. She moves across and looks out over the copper roofs of Södermalm and the dark reverse side of a neon advertising sign depicting a tube of toothpaste.
Shulman comes over, stands behind her, and puts his arms around her.
“Do you realize I’m crazy about you?” he whispers. “I have been right from the start.”
“Sim, I just don’t know . . . I don’t know what I’m doing,” Simone says.
“Do you always have to know what you’re doing?” asks Shulman, drawing her towards the bedroom.
She goes with him as if she has known all along that this would happen. She has wanted this to happen, and the only thing that held her back was the fact that she didn’t want to be like her mother. No, like Erik: a liar furtively dealing with phone calls and text messages. She has always thought of herself as having a natural barrier against infidelity. But now she has no sense of betrayal whatsoever. Shulman’s bedroom is dark. The walls are covered in something that looks like deep blue silk, the same fabric that has been used for long curtains covering the windows, and the spare, slanting midwinter light penetrates the fibres of the material like a fainter darkness.
With a trembling hand she unbuttons her coat and tosses it on the floor. Shulman removes all his clothes, and Simone’s eyes travel over his muscular shoulders an
d down the line of thick, curly dark hair that runs along his navel.
He studies her calmly. She begins to undress but is overwhelmed by a dizzying feeling of loneliness as she stands there before him. He lowers his eyes, moves closer, and kneels, his hair spreading over his shoulders. He traces a line over her hipbone with his finger.
He gently pushes her down onto the edge of the bed and begins to pull down her panties; she raises herself up, keeping her legs together, and feels them slip down and get stuck for a moment around one ankle. She leans back, closes her eyes, allows him to part her thighs, and feels his warm kisses on her stomach, over her hipbone and groin. She is panting, running her fingers through his long, thick hair. She wants Shulman inside her; the desire roars through her body like a storm, waves of darkness surging through her blood, pools of liquid heat flooding her, sucking and tickling, down towards her sex. He moves on top, and she hears herself sigh as he pushes inside her. He whispers something she cannot hear. When she pulls him toward s her, she does so in a hunger for escape, for just one brief moment of calm.
She feels the weight of Sim’s toned body on top of her, she feels the physical pleasure, but the possibility of escape is gone, and she knows it. It is not attainable. She cannot stop thinking. She has to get home. She has to keep looking for Benjamin. She has to find him.
Chapter 63
monday, december 14 : afternoon
The day is bitterly cold, the sky open and blue. People are moving silently, lost in their own worlds. Tired children are on their way home from school. Kennet stops outside the 7-Eleven on the corner. There’s a special offer on coffee and a saffron Lucia bun. He goes inside, and as he joins the queue his cell phone rings. It’s Simone.
“Have you been out, Sixan?”
“I had to go to the gallery. Then I had a job to do.” She stops abruptly. “I just got your message, Dad.”
“Have you been asleep? You sound— ”
“Yes. Yes, I slept for a little while.”
“Good,” says Kennet.
He meets the assistant’s tired eyes and points to the sign advertising the special offer.
“Have they traced Benjamin’s call?” asks Simone.
“I haven’t had a reply yet. This evening at the earliest, they said. I was just going to give them a ring now.”
The assistant is waiting for Kennet to choose which Lucia bun he would like, and he quickly points to the biggest one. She puts it in a bag, takes his crumpled twenty-kronor note, and waves in the direction of the coffee machine and cups. He nods, walks past the grill where the sausages are turning, and manages to extricate a cup from the dispenser while continuing his conversation with Simone.
“You spoke to Nicky yesterday?” she says.
“He’s a very nice kid,” he says.
“Did you find out anything about Wailord?”
“Quite a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Hang on a minute.”
Kennet removes the steaming coffee cup from the machine, snaps on a lid, and takes it and the bag containing the bun over to one of the small round plastic tables.
“Are you still there?” he asks, sitting down on a wobbly chair.
“Yes.”
“I think this is about a group of kids who are shaking Nicky down for his money and telling him they’re Pokémon characters.”
Kennet notices a man with tousled hair pushing an oversize buggy. A big girl in a pink snowsuit— too old to be pushed, Kennet thinks— reclines inside, sucking on a dummy with a tired smile on her face.
“Does this have anything to do with Benjamin?”
“The Pokémon boys? I don’t know. Maybe he tried to stop them,” says Kennet.
“We need to talk to Aida,” Simone says resolutely.
“After school, I thought.”
“What do we do now?”
“I’ve actually got an address,” says Kennet.
“For what?”
“The sea.”
“The sea?”
“That’s all I know.” He takes a sip of the coffee, breaks off a piece of the Lucia bun, and pops it in his mouth.
“Where is the sea?”
“Close to the Frihamnen,” says Kennet as he chews, “out on Loudden.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Are you ready?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
Gathering up his coffee and the rest of his bun, Kennet heads out into the very cold afternoon to pick up his car by the hospital. A cyclist darts through traffic, slaloming in between the cars. As he stops at the crossing, Kennet feels as if he has overlooked something important, as if he has seen something crucial but failed to interpret it. The traffic thunders past. He can hear a rescue vehicle somewhere in the distance. He takes a sip of coffee and watches a woman waiting on the other side of the road, her dog trembling on the end of a short leash. A truck passes just in front of him, and the ground shakes with its considerable weight. He hears someone giggling and has just registered that it doesn’t sound genuine when he feels a hard shove in his back. He takes several steps out into the road to avoid losing his balance, turns, and sees a ten-year-old girl looking at him, her eyes open wide. She must be the one who pushed me, he just has time to think. There’s no one else there. At the same moment, he hears the screech of brakes and feels an incomprehensible force hurl itself at him. Something like a gigantic hammer knocks his legs out from under him. There is a cracking sound at the back of his neck. All at once his body is soft and faraway, in free fall, and then there is darkness.
Chapter 64
monday, december 14 : afternoon
Erik Maria Bark is sitting at the desk in his office. A pale light finds its way in through the window that faces the empty inner courtyard. A take-away container holds the remains of a salad, and a warm two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola sits next to the desk lamp with its pink shade. Erik is studying a printout of the photo Aida sent to Benjamin. Despite having looked at it dozens of times, he cannot grasp what the subject of the picture really is.
He considers calling Simone and having her read out Aida’s message and Benjamin’s reply word for word, but then tells himself that Simone doesn’t need to hear from him at this point. He can’t understand why he was so nasty, why he told her he was having an affair with Daniella. Perhaps it was only because he longed to be forgiven by Simone while she found it so easy to distrust him.
Suddenly he hears Benjamin’s voice in his mind once again, calling from the boot of the car. Erik takes a pink capsule out of the wooden box and washes it down with the Coke. His hand has started to shake so much that he has difficulty replacing the bottle on the desk.
Benjamin was trying so hard to be grown up, not to sound afraid. But the boy must be terrified, thinks Erik, shut in the boot of a car in the dark.
How long can it take for Kennet to trace the call? Erik is irritated with himself for handing the job over to the old man, but if his father-in-law can find Benjamin, nothing else is of any importance.
He picks up the phone. He needs to call the police and get them to hurry it up. He must find out if they’ve traced the call, if they have any suspects yet. When he calls and explains why he’s calling, he’s put through to the wrong extension. He has to call again. He’s hoping to speak to Joona Linna but is put through to a detective named Fredrik Stensund, who confirms that he is involved in the preliminary investigation into the disappearance of Benjamin Bark. He is very understanding and says he has teenage children himself.
“You worry all night when they’re out, you know you have to let go, but— ”
“Benjamin is not out partying,” Erik says firmly.
“No, we have had certain information which contradicts— ”
“He’s been kidnapped.”
“I understand how you must be feeling— ”
“But the search for my son is obviously not a priority,” Erik retorts.
There is a silence; Stensund takes several deep br
eaths before continuing. “I am taking what you say very seriously, and I can promise you that we are doing our best.”
“Make sure you trace the call, then,” says Erik.
“We’re working on that right now,” replies Stensund, sounding less amenable.
“Please,” Erik begs, a weak conclusion.
He sits there with the phone in his hand. They have to trace the call, he thinks. We have to have a location, a circle on a map, a direction; that’s all we have to go on. The only thing Benjamin could say was that he heard a voice.
As if it were coming from under a blanket, thinks Erik, but he isn’t sure if he’s remembering correctly. Did Benjamin really say he’d heard a voice, a mushy voice? Perhaps it was just a murmur, a sound that reminded him of a voice, without words, without meaning. Erik rubs a hand over his mouth, looks at the photograph, his eyes sweeping across the overgrown grass, the hedge, the back of the fence, the plastic basket, all enhanced, distorted by the photographer’s powerful flash. He can’t see anything new. What’s in that basket? When he leans back and closes his eyes, the image remains: the hedge and the brown fence flash in shades of pink and the yellowish-green hillock is dark blue, slowly drifting. Like a piece of fabric against a night sky, Erik thinks, and at the same moment he realizes that Benjamin told him that the mushy voice had said something about a house, a haunted house.
He opens his eyes and gets to his feet. How could he have forgotten? That was what Benjamin said before the car stopped.
As he pulls on his coat he tries to remember where he has seen haunted houses, the kind you see in horror films. There aren’t that many. He recalls one north of Stockholm, over the ridge, past the collective, down to Lake Mälaren. Before you reach the ship mound at Runsa stronghold, the building is on the left-hand side, facing the water. A kind of miniature castle built of wood, with towers, verandas, and over-the-top ornamentation.
Erik leaves his office and walks quickly along the corridor, trying to remember the trip. Benjamin had been in the car with them. They had looked at the ship barrow, one of the largest Viking burial sites in Sweden. They stood in the middle of the ellipse, large grey stones in green grass. It was late summer and very hot. Erik remembers the stillness of the air and the butterflies fluttering over the gravel in the parking lot as they got into the hot car and set off for home with the windows down.