The Asylum (38 page)

51

WAITING IN THE
darkness, fifteen years after their flight from the Unit.

Jan is alone, but not for much longer. He is standing down in the hospital basement, waiting for Rami. He has made his way in via the laundry, and is by the old lift in the little storeroom.

It is twenty past ten on Friday night, and Jan is really supposed to be up in the Dell. That is where Lilian thinks he is, but he has left his post and entered the hospital through the safe room. He knows his way around down here now, and the laundry was completely deserted when he arrived, just as Legén had said it would be. The only unusual sign was a series of small yellow lights flashing on a panel on the wall; perhaps they were something to do with the impending fire drill.

Jan listens for the sound of shuffling steps behind him, or voices raised in song from the chapel. But all is silent in the underworld.

He is the only one here – and soon Rami will be here too. At least he hopes so, and if he closes his eyes he can hear her singing:
Me and Jan, Jan and me, every night, every day …

He blinks and gives himself a shake; he must remain alert.

The drums had been pounding inside his head when Jan drove Lilian and three men to the Dell half an hour earlier.

One of the men was Lilian’s taciturn older brother. The others didn’t introduce themselves, but they looked as if they were a few
years
younger than Lilian. Jan assumed they were friends of her missing brother, John Daniel.

Hanna wasn’t around this evening, and without her Lilian seemed even more tense than usual. She had put on some make-up, Jan noticed: red lipstick and dark eyeshadow. It looked ridiculous, and who was it actually for? Was it for Carl, the security guard, or for Ivan Rössel?

Jan parked in the shadows beneath a large oak tree, a short distance away from the pre-school. Well away from the hospital’s CCTV cameras.

No one spoke as they got out of the car.

Lilian quickly smoked one last cigarette in the street, then she unlocked the door and led the way into the darkness of the pre-school. She didn’t switch on the light, but turned to Jan. ‘So you’re staying here, Jan? Is that OK?’

He nodded.

‘Ring me straight away if anyone comes.’

Jan nodded again, and Lilian managed a strained smile. She fetched a key card from the kitchen, opened the door and disappeared down the stairs. The three silent men followed her, and Jan closed the door behind them.

So four people will be meeting Ivan Rössel in the visitors’ room. That means he will be at a disadvantage when Carl smuggles him out of the secure unit. Jan hopes that Lilian and her family will be able to establish some kind of rapport with Rössel, get him to talk – but there’s nothing he can do to help.

He has his own meeting to think about.

Once Lilian and the men had gone, Jan waited for fifteen minutes in the cloakroom by the door leading down to the basement. Nothing whatsoever happened. He went over to the window and gazed up at the hospital. The lights were on, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Eventually he went into the kitchen and picked up the second key card. He opened the door; the light was still on down in the basement.

It was time.

Jan stands motionless in the laundry, thinking about what he will say to Rami when the lift door opens.

Hi Alice. You’ve escaped from the Black Hole – welcome
.

And then what? Should he tell her that he’s been thinking about her all these years? That he fell in love with her during those very first days in the Unit? He was so in love with Rami – but so scared of the outside world that he tried to get the staff to stop them the morning they ran away.

Jan had been caught, but Rami made it. She must have managed to catch the train to Stockholm and her sister, because she didn’t come back to the Unit during the week Jan remained there.

And nobody mentioned her either – she was no longer their problem.

The following week Jan was discharged. He hadn’t spoken to his psychologist after the escape attempt, but abracadabra – Tony must have decided he was fit to leave.

‘You’re going home,’ Jörgen had said when he opened Jan’s door. All Jan could do was pack his clothes, the diary Rami had given him, and the comic strip he had started about the Secret Avenger and the Gang of Four.

He had to put the drum kit back in the storeroom, of course, but he took the sticks with him.

Jan walked out of the Unit with his little bag and was picked up by his father, who wasn’t smiling. ‘So they’ve finished taking you apart, have they?’ was all he said.

Jan didn’t reply, and they drove home in silence.

The next Monday Jan went back to school. He hardly slept the night before; he lay awake thinking about the school corridors and the Gang of Four. He could see himself scuttling along the walls like a little mouse.

He walked to school alone, just like before. He still had no friends. It didn’t matter.

His classmates stared at him, but nobody asked how he was feeling or where he had been for the last few weeks.

Perhaps they all knew. That didn’t matter either.

Sooner or later Jan would run into the Gang of Four in the corridor, he knew that. But somehow the fear had gone. It was spring, late April, and the end of the school year was in sight. Jan took one day at a time. In the evenings he got out his drumsticks and played quietly on a telephone directory, or carried on with his drawing.

There was no sign of life from Rami – no phone calls or postcards from Stockholm.

The last week in May was traditionally given over to a range of activities, and the older students went out on trips and excursions.

On the Thursday morning when Jan got to school he saw groups of pupils standing around in the corridors. He heard whispered conversations about something terrible,
a crazed attack
.

‘Is it true?’ people were asking. ‘Is it really true?’

Nobody spoke directly to Jan, but eventually he picked up the fact that something had happened in the forest outside the town. Someone had died. Had been
killed
.

Then a teacher told the class that two students had been murdered, and after that there were even more rumours flying around, and several newspaper articles about the
crazed attack
. The buzz continued until the summer holidays.

Jan took in everything that had happened with a kind of bleak astonishment. He couldn’t quite believe that the Gang of Four had been virtually obliterated, that Torgny Fridman was the only one left.

It was their pact. Somehow Rami had managed to fulfil her side of the bargain.

But Jan never heard from her again, and it was over five years before he saw the name RAMI in the window of Nordbro’s only music shop. Her debut album had just been released, and when he went in to buy a copy he saw that one of the songs was entitled ‘Jan and Me’.

It was a sign from her – it had to be.

He had started working at the Lynx nursery by then, and that August when he saw the psychologist Emma Halevi and her son
William
walking across the playground, the Unit and the Psychobabbler were the first things he thought about.

And the next thing was the pact.

Memories of his teenage years make Jan realize something down in the laundry room: not once during the autumn has he wondered
why
Rami is locked up in St Psycho’s.

What has she done to end up here, on a secure ward?

He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really want to think about it now. All he can do is wait for her.

A noise breaks the silence – a wailing sound. Sirens approaching the hospital. The sound is coming from the road and is getting louder and louder through the thick walls.

Fire engines?

Jan notices that a different light has started to flash over on the panel: a red dot below the yellow ones. Some kind of alarm?

He looks at his watch. The fire drill seems to have started early.

Suddenly his mobile starts to buzz in his pocket. Jan gives a start, but quickly takes it out.

‘Hello?’ he says quietly, expecting to hear Lilian’s voice. What is he going to say to her?

But it is a different voice, and it sounds worried: ‘Jan … it’s Marie-Louise.’

‘Hi,’ Jan says, clutching his phone tightly. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Not really … something’s happened. I’m trying to ring everyone, but hardly anyone is answering … I was just wondering, have you seen Leo? Leo Lundberg?’

‘No … why?’

‘Leo has run away from his new family,’ Marie-Louise explains. ‘He was playing out in the garden before dark, but when his foster parents went out to call him in, he wasn’t there.’

Jan listens, but he doesn’t know what to say. He finds it difficult to think about the children right now, but he has to say something. ‘Leo is my favourite.’

Marie-Louise doesn’t say anything at first; it’s as if she doesn’t
understand.
‘The most important thing is to find him,’ she says after a moment. ‘Where are you, Jan? Are you at home?’

Jan feels as if he has been somehow caught out, and lowers his voice even more. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘OK, well at least you know what’s happened. The police are looking for Leo too; get in touch with them or with me if … if you see anything.’

‘Of course I will. Speak to you soon.’

Jan ends the call and is able to relax a little. He thinks about Leo, about the boy’s anxiety and restlessness. It’s unfortunate that he’s run away, but the police are involved and there is nothing Jan can do. All he can do is wait here, for Rami’s sake.

And just a few minutes later he hears a different noise: a dull clanking in the underworld, a noise that gets louder and louder.

It’s coming from the mechanism of the laundry lift.

Jan’s pulse rate increases and he takes a couple of steps towards the hatch in the wall. It doesn’t move, but the clanking keeps on getting louder. The lift is on its way down.

It stops behind the hatch with a thud, then everything goes quiet. Slowly the hatch begins to move. There is someone inside the lift, someone who wants to get out.

Jan’s heart is pounding; he steps forward. ‘You’ve made it,’ he says. ‘Welcome.’

He sees an arm appear, then a denim-clad leg. But they don’t move. The arm and the leg simply dangle there, apparently lifeless.

‘Rami?’

Jan takes a final step towards the lift and reaches out his hand – but suddenly everything is moving too fast for him. The hatch flies open with a crash, and Jan doesn’t have time to get out of the way. It hits him in the chest; the pain is instant and crippling.

Something hisses, the air is suddenly full of white mist. And Jan can’t breathe.

He closes his eyes and coughs and jerks back, but his legs give way and he falls backwards on to the floor.

Tear gas, someone has sprayed tear gas in his face.

A body is shoved out of the lift, heavy and inert, and lands next to him like a sack of potatoes.

Jan’s eyes are streaming but he blinks and tries to look up. He sees the body beside him, the staring eyes.

A man. A security guard. There is a wide gap in his throat; it has been cut. Jan touches him, and his hand is covered in warm blood.

He recognizes the guard: it’s Carl. The drummer from the Bohemos and Ivan Rössel’s escort – but he’s dying.

‘Carl?’

Or perhaps he’s already dead. Carl isn’t moving, and he’s bleeding heavily from the wound in his throat. The blood looks black; it has poured down over his T-shirt.

Jan blinks again, trying to see clearly in spite of the tear gas. In the laundry lift something is moving. A shadow.

There is another person inside the lift, he realizes; someone who has managed to squeeze in and travel down to the cellar along with the dying guard.

The shadow slithers out into the storeroom and straightens up: a tall figure dressed in hospital clothes – a grey sweatshirt, grey cotton trousers and white trainers.

A patient.

But this is not Alice Rami. The body is too tall and broad, the hair is too dark.

This is a man.

He leans over Jan in a miasma of smoke, tear gas and something else – lighter fluid, or petrol.

He makes a sudden movement towards Jan, twists his hands and pulls. ‘Relax,’ the man says quietly.

Jan is unable to move his arms. There is a plastic loop around his wrists, some kind of handcuff.

The man slips a canister into his pocket and hauls Jan to his feet. His face is in shadow, but Jan can see that he is armed with something more than tear gas. In his right hand he is holding a short knife.

No, not a knife. It’s a razor, with a jagged edge.

‘I know who you are,’ the man says. ‘I’ve heard you talking to me.’

His voice is hoarse, but calm and clear. It is only his movements that are rapid and jerky as he tugs at Jan.

‘You’re going to help me get out of here.’

Jan blinks at him. ‘Who are you?’

The man quickly brings his left hand up beneath his chin, and there is a click. ‘Look.’

A white beam flashes on in the darkness, lighting up his face – and Jan recognizes him.

It is Ivan Rössel, with the other Angel in his hand. He is several years older than he was in the newspaper pictures, with dark furrows lining his long, narrow face. The curly hair is halfway to his shoulders, and is dark grey now.

Jan coughs. ‘Rami,’ he whispers, looking at the Angel. ‘I gave that to Alice Rami.’

‘You gave it to me,’ Rössel says.

‘Rami was supposed to come down in the lift and—’

‘Nobody else is coming down,’ Rössel interrupts him. ‘There’s just you and me.’

Then he gives Jan a shove and holds the razor blade against his throat. ‘Come along, my friend,’ he says. ‘We’re going to get out of here … and we’re going to hide that in the lift.’

Rössel points to Carl’s body. ‘Grab hold of his arms.’

Another shove, and Jan begins to move, as if he were in a trance. He reaches out with his bound hands and manages to get a grip on the dead guard’s upper body. He bundles it back into the laundry lift.