The Asylum (43 page)

Finally Högsmed explains that the police found Jan Hauger unconscious at the bottom of a sheer drop in the forest, not far from the location where Leo turned up. The patient Jan had helped to escape was lying underneath him, dead. They had left Jan’s car down on the track, together with a written confession.

‘We are assuming this was a kind of suicide note,’ the doctor says. ‘Hauger and the patient had dug up a grave in the forest, but they let the child go … before throwing themselves off the precipice together.’

Silence once more. They probably all knew this already, but they still seem shocked. Andreas looks utterly devastated, and Hanna hopes her own expression is equally sorrowful.

‘How’s Leo?’ Marie-Louise asks.

‘He is unharmed. He doesn’t remember much, and perhaps that’s just as well,’ Högsmed says. ‘He only remembers that someone came up behind him in the garden when he was playing on the swing, and grabbed hold of his arms. The doctor found a needle mark on his arm, so no doubt some kind of sedative was involved, but he’s feeling fine now, under the circumstances.’

Hanna’s fists are tightly clenched under the table. What has Leo told the police? What does he remember about what happened in the darkness above the forest? He was drugged and blindfolded – so surely he won’t remember
her?
And if Jan recovers, will he be able to talk? Will anyone believe him?

She has to say something, and leans forward. ‘I’ve just remembered something.’

Everyone is looking at her, and she goes on: ‘It was just something Jan Hauger told me ages ago, and I don’t know if it means anything … but he said he took a group of children out on an excursion in the forest one day, and he separated one of the boys from the rest and left him out there.’

‘Oh?’ Högsmed says quickly. ‘And when was this?’

‘It was when he was working at some nursery or other … it sounded as if it was years and years ago.’

Marie-Louise stares at her for a long time. ‘You should have spoken to me about this, Hanna.’

‘I know, but I thought … I thought it was some kind of weird joke. I mean, Jan always seemed so reliable, didn’t he? And the children really liked him. Didn’t they?’

Högsmed looks at her and clears his throat. ‘This is highly confidential,’ he says, ‘but the police went to Hauger’s apartment over the weekend. They found a number of suspicious items, including a large number of drawings depicting extremely violent incidents and revenge fantasies. And one of Hauger’s neighbours used to work in the hospital; apparently Hauger had been asking questions about various escape routes.’

Hanna bows her head. ‘Poor Jan,’ she says quietly.

The others are looking at her oddly.

‘I just mean … he should have got some help. We should have been more vigilant.’

‘Disturbed antisocial tendencies are very difficult to spot,’ Högsmed says. ‘Even we professionals sometimes miss the signs.’

A final long silence.

He looks down at his papers. ‘Well … that’s all I wanted to say, really.’

‘Thank you so much, Doctor.’ Marie-Louise clasps her hands together and smiles at Hanna and Andreas. ‘I’m sure you must have questions, but we can deal with those later. Time to look forward. The children will be here soon.’

Hanna quickly gets to her feet. She pretends that this is an ordinary working day.

And it
is
an ordinary working day, an ordinary day at the beginning of the long winter. Apart from the fact that Jan and Ivan are gone, and Lilian is off sick.

As Hanna leaves the room she hears the front door slam shut.

The children
, she thinks, and prepares to continue playing the role of the conscientious pre-school teacher.

Little Josefine has arrived, dressed in a warm dark-green snowsuit and with a foster parent in tow.

Josefine gives Hanna a big smile; she has lost yet another front
tooth
over the weekend. ‘It’s snowing!’ she shouts.

‘Is it?’ Hanna looks out of the window. Josefine is right; big white snowflakes are swirling through the air. Perhaps the snow will lie for a while this time.

‘Good,’ she says, smiling at Josefine. ‘In that case maybe we can go out and play in the snow when the others arrive. We’ll make snow angels! But perhaps you could go into the playroom in the meantime?’

Josefine takes off her outdoor clothes and scampers off.

Hanna begins to relax.

‘Excuse me …’ a voice behind her says. ‘Have you seen any handmade books around here?’

Hanna turns around. ‘Sorry?’

She realizes that it is Josefine’s foster mother who has asked the question. Or her legal guardian, perhaps. The woman seems to be in her thirties; her grey woolly hat is pulled well down over her forehead, and she is wearing narrow, black-framed glasses.

Hanna looks at her with curiosity. She has only seen this woman on the odd occasion in the past; Josefine is usually brought to the Dell and picked up by an older man.

‘I left some books here last summer,’ the woman goes on. ‘Four slim books … I wrote them for my older sister, but she wasn’t allowed to have them.’

Hanna knows exactly what she is talking about – Jan’s picture books. But she shakes her head. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I’ve seen them … but you’re welcome to have a look.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Come on in.’

The woman takes off her shoes and unbuttons her jacket.

Hanna has to ask, ‘Is your name Alice Rami?’

The woman nods and straightens her back, but her expression is wary. Her gaze is very direct. ‘How do you know that?’ she asks.

‘Because … I’ve heard of you.’ ‘Oh?’

The woman is not smiling, but Hanna goes on anyway: ‘You were a musician, weren’t you?’

Alice Rami grimaces. ‘For a little while, many years ago.’

‘What happened?’

Rami sighs. ‘A lot of things happened. My sister was ill; she just kept on getting worse and worse, and I wasn’t feeling too good either. So I stopped playing.’

She is talking about her older sister, Hanna realizes. Maria Blanker.

‘But she’s getting the care she needs now?’ Hanna asks.

Alice Rami nods, and Hanna wants to ask why her sister is locked up inside St Patricia’s. But that would probably be too intrusive. Instead she asks, ‘Do you think she’ll be out soon?’

‘We’re hoping so,’ Rami says quietly. ‘For Josefine’s sake.’

‘Good.’ She nods to Rami with a sympathetic look on her face. ‘I know what it’s like to wait for someone.’

‘Are you waiting too?’

‘I was. I was waiting for a man … a very special man.’

There is a brief silence, then suddenly Hanna hears voices behind her. Marie-Louise and Dr Högsmed have emerged from the kitchen. Högsmed is asking something about a staff locker, and Marie-Louise replies, ‘Yes, he did have one … But we keep a set of spare keys.’

Hanna looks at Rami again. Here she is – the woman Jan Hauger has been waiting for all through the autumn. But in the wrong place, which is slightly ironic.

Jan was never in contact with Alice Rami. He never got the answers to his questions, but perhaps Hanna can try? If she and Lilian aren’t friends any more, perhaps Rami could be her friend? She feels lonely now. Abandoned.

‘We can look for the books together, if you like.’

Hanna hears a rattling sound behind her and looks around. Marie-Louise has opened Jan’s locker; it was stuffed full, and several things have fallen out on to the floor: a raincoat, a small bicycle pump and a number of books.

Hanna doesn’t want to look at Jan’s possessions. She turns back to Alice Rami, and goes on: ‘We can check in the book boxes in the playroom.’

But Rami is no longer listening to her. Her gaze is fixed on a point to Hanna’s right. ‘There they are,’ she says.

Hanna looks around. Rami is looking at the picture books – they are lying on the floor in front of Jan’s locker. And when Hanna looks more closely she recognizes them, of course:
The Animal Lady, The Witch Who Was Poorly, Viveca’s House of Stone
and
The Princess with a Hundred Hands
.

Four stories about loneliness.

Hanna is still standing in the hallway, and before she can stop her Rami goes into the staffroom and over to the locker. She bends down between Marie-Louise and Dr Högsmed and picks up the books, one by one.

She leafs through them. ‘Someone has been drawing in these,’ she says quietly. ‘Do you know who’s done these drawings?’

Rami looks up, but Hanna cannot say anything. She can only shake her head, even though she can clearly see Jan Hauger’s face in front of her.

There is a fifth book on the floor; it was lying underneath the others, and Hanna hasn’t seen it before.

An old, black notebook with a picture on the cover: a faded Polaroid that has been stuck on. The photograph shows a boy with blond hair, staring into the camera from a hospital bed.

Rami picks up the notebook. She straightens up and looks at it for a long time. ‘I recognize this too,’ she says eventually. ‘I was the one who took this picture … a long, long time ago.’

She opens the book and reads a name:
Jan Hauger
. She looks up. ‘Does he work here?’

Marie-Louise looks troubled. ‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘Unfortunately he isn’t with us any more … Did you know him?’

Rami nods, without saying anything further.

Hanna can feel the panic welling up in her stomach. She wants to say something, but Rami just keeps looking through Jan’s diary, staring at the drawings and densely written pages with a look of incredulity on her face.

She keeps hold of the book, and smiles affectionately.

‘Oh yes, I knew him. We were friends, Jan and me.’

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Kajsa Asklöf, Roger Barrett, Katarina Ehnmark Lundquist, Ann Heberlein, Rikard Hedlund, Kari Jacobsen, Cherstin Juhlin, Anders Parsmo, Ann Rule, Åsa Selling and Bengt Witte, who directly or indirectly helped with this novel.

About the Author

Johan Theorin
’s first novel,
Echoes from the Dead
, won The Swedish Crime Academy’s Best First Novel award in 2007, and went on to win the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in 2009. His second novel,
The Darkest Room
, won the Best Swedish Novel 2008, and the CWA International Dagger in 2010.

Also by Johan Theorin

Echoes from the Dead

The Darkest Room

The Quarry

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THE ASYLUM
A DOUBLEDAY BOOK: 9780857521408
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448127825

First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Johan Theorin 2011
English translation copyright © Marlaine Delargy 2012

Johan Theorin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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