The Crow Girl (18 page)

‘Johan’s on his way home, and I’m standing –’

‘Johan’s staying over at David’s,’ she interrupted.

‘Oh, OK then. Where shall we meet?’

‘Medborgarplatsen, outside the market hall. Quarter past six.’

They hung up, and Jeanette dropped her phone in her jacket pocket. She had been hoping he would be pleased, but he had sounded fairly cool. But, on the other hand, it was just a trip to the cinema. Even so, he could have tried to sound enthusiastic, she thought as she switched off her computer.

As Jeanette walked past the steps of Medborgarhuset and the Anna Lindh memorial, she caught sight of Åke. He looked tense, and she stopped to look at him. Twenty years together. Two decades.

She went up to him. ‘Seven thousand, give or take,’ she said with a smile.

‘What?’ Åke looked quizzical.

‘Might be a bit more. I’m not good at maths.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We’ve been together for more than seven thousand days. Get it? Twenty years.’

‘Mmm …’

AN OUTSTANDING STUDY
of human degradation, the first feature-length film made using a mobile phone.
Possibly not the best film Jeanette had ever seen, but definitely not as bad as Åke seemed to think.

‘Are you hungry?’ Jeanette turned towards Åke. ‘Or shall we just go and have a beer somewhere?’

‘A bit peckish, maybe.’ Åke was looking straight ahead. ‘A bit of food wouldn’t hurt.’

Jeanette thought it sounded like a sacrifice. That it was an effort to have to endure a couple of hours in her company.

The Indian restaurant was full, and they had to wait ten minutes for a free table. She wondered how long it had been since they last had an Indian meal. Five years? Or any meal in a restaurant, come to that? Two years, maybe.

Jeanette ordered a simple palak paneer, Åke a strongly spiced chicken dish.

‘Yes, you always have the same thing,’ Åke said.

Always the same thing? Jeanette knew he was just as predictable. He always picked the hottest dish, explained to her why you ought to eat heavily spiced food, and ended the meal feeling unwell and insisting on going home.

What he said next gave her an odd sense of déjà vu.

‘To start with, it’s good for you. The spices kill stomach bacteria and make you sweat. The body’s cooling system kicks in. That’s why people eat strongly spiced food in hot countries. But it’s also a hell of a kick. It sends the endorphins flying around your head, almost like being high.’

Jeanette realised with sadness that he was boring her. She tried to change the subject, but he didn’t seem interested, and she realised that she was probably boring him as well.

Our entire relationship is stagnant, she thought with a sense of defeat, looking at Åke, who was immersed in his mobile phone.

‘Who are you writing to?’

He looked up at her. ‘Oh … it’s a new art project. A new contact.’

Jeanette started to get interested. Had something finally happened?

Åke tried to smile but failed. He stood up and disappeared off to the toilet.

A new art project, she thought. She wondered who this new contact was.

Five minutes later he came back to the table and grabbed his jacket from the chair without sitting down. Outside the restaurant they hailed an empty taxi. Jeanette opened the car door and got in the front passenger seat. She reflected on how much the evening had cost. And for what? she thought as Åke slumped into the back seat.

She turned to the driver. ‘Gamla Enskede.’

Jeanette was good at faces, and it only took her a couple of seconds to place him.

He’d been at the same middle school as she had. The eyes and nose were the same, but his lips were no longer as full. It was like seeing a child’s face hidden under a layer of fat and loose skin, and she couldn’t help laughing.

‘Damn! Is that you?’

He laughed back, and ran his hand over his almost-bald scalp, as if to hide the ravages of age.

‘Jeanette?’

She nodded.

‘So …’ he said as they pulled out onto Ringvägen towards Skanstull. ‘What are you up to these days?’

‘I’m a police officer.’

He turned towards the Skanstull Bridge. ‘I can’t say I’m too surprised to hear you joined the police.’

‘No? Why not?’

‘It’s obvious.’ He looked at her. ‘You were the class police officer back then.’

Was she that predictable?

Probably.

Palak paneer.

Already the classroom cop back in middle school.

SHE’S THE ONLY
girl at the place she’s working that summer. Fifteen teen boys goading each other on, and the shack isn’t very big, especially not when it’s raining all the time and they can’t sit outside. They play rummy to work out who gets to go with Crow Girl into the other room.

The large area of grass in front of the old barracks at Polacksbacken is covered with rides, carnival booths and food stalls. It’s early August, and a travelling fair is in Uppsala for a week.

She’s going to take Martin around while his parents go into the centre for dinner.

Martin is at his most charming, and she can see how much he’s enjoying being there on his own with her. After the summers they have spent together she has become his best friend, and she’s the one he turns to if he wants to talk about something important. If he’s sad or if he wants to do something exciting, something forbidden.

She is assuming that this summer will be the last they spend together, because Martin’s dad has been offered a new job with a better salary down in Skåne. The family will be moving in the middle of August, and Martin’s mum has just said that they’ve already found an au pair for him, a very conscientious, responsible girl.

Victoria has promised to meet his parents at eight o’clock by the big wheel, where Martin will finish his evening by getting to see the immense view across the Uppsala plain. Apparently they’ll be able to see all the way home to Bergsbrunna from up there.

All afternoon Martin has been looking forward to going up in the Ferris wheel. No matter where you are in the fair, you can see the big wheel with its gondolas almost thirty metres above the ground.

As for her, she isn’t looking forward to the ride, because it won’t just mean the end of their evening, but might possibly be the last thing they ever do together.

There won’t be any more after that.

And she doesn’t want the grown-ups to come along. So she suggests that they go on the Ferris wheel now, and then again when his mum and dad come back. Then he can point out different places to them before they work out what they’re looking at.

He thinks that’s a great idea, and before they go and stand in the queue they each buy a drink. When they’re standing immediately beneath the wheel and look up, they feel dizzy. It’s so incredibly high. She puts her arm around him and asks if he’s scared.

‘Just a bit,’ he replies, but she looks at him and can see that that’s not entirely true.

She ruffles his hair and looks him in the eye.

‘It’s nothing to be scared of, Martin,’ she says, trying to sound convincing. ‘I’ll be with you. And that means nothing bad can happen.’

He smiles at her and clutches her hand as they take their seats in one of the gondolas. As new passengers get on and they rotate higher and higher, Martin’s grip on her arm gets progressively tighter. When the gondola sways and stops for a while almost at the very top, while the last gondola is filled down below, he says he doesn’t want to continue.

‘I want to go down.’

‘But, Martin,’ she tries, ‘now that we’ve got to the top we can see all the way to Bergsbrunna – you want to see that, don’t you?’ She points across the countryside, in the way she used to when she was showing him things in the forest. ‘Look over there,’ she says. ‘That’s the jetty where we go swimming, and over there’s the factory.’

But Martin doesn’t want to look.

She is seized by an impulse to give him a good shake, but resists when she sees that he’s started to cry.

When the wheel begins to turn again he looks at her and wipes his eyes on his sleeve. By the third revolution his fears seem to have vanished, and he now seems curious about the views opening up all around them.

‘You’re the best in the world,’ she whispers in his ear, and they giggle and hug each other.

A row of houseboats is visible along the river through the trees. There are children swimming by one of the jetties and their laughter is audible all the way to the gondola they’re sitting in.

‘I want to go swimming too,’ he says.

She knows it can smell down there if the wind is in the wrong direction, bringing with it the cloying, heavy whiff of dirt and excrement from the sewage plant in the distance.

When their ride on the big wheel is over he makes a fuss about wanting to go to the river.

They leave the crowds at the fair, walk round the main barrack building, and follow the path leading down the ravine-like slope towards the Fyris River.

The jetty where the children were swimming a short while ago is empty now, except for a forgotten towel draped on one of the posts. The houseboats are bobbing, dark and empty, on the murky water of the river.

She strides out along the jetty, bends over and feels the water.

Afterwards she couldn’t understand how she had managed to lose him.

All of a sudden he’s just gone.

She calls for him. She hunts desperately among the bushes and reeds along the shore. She falls and cuts herself on a sharp stone, but Martin is nowhere to be found.

She runs back out onto the jetty but sees that the water is completely still. Nothing. Not a single movement.

It feels like she’s inside a watery bubble that shuts out all sound, all sensory impressions.

When she realises she can’t find him she runs back to the fairground on weak legs, and wanders helplessly around the stalls and carousels until she finally sits down in the middle of one of the busiest paths.

Legs and feet, and a suffocating smell of popcorn. Flashing lights, all different colours.

She gets the feeling that someone has hurt Martin. And that’s when the tears come.

When Martin’s parents find her she’s beyond reach. Her sobbing is bottomless, and she’s wet herself.

‘Martin’s gone,’ she keeps repeating. In the background she hears Martin’s dad call for first aid, and feels someone wrap a blanket around her. Someone takes her by the shoulders and puts her in the recovery position.

To begin with they aren’t particularly worried about Martin, seeing as the fairground covers a large area and there are plenty of people who could look after a child on his own.

But after half an hour or so of looking their anxiety starts to grow. Martin isn’t in the fairground, and after another thirty minutes his dad calls the police. Then they start searching the area closest to the fair more systematically.

But Martin isn’t found that evening. It’s only when they start to drag the river the following day that they find his body.

To judge by his injuries, he seems to have drowned, possibly after hitting his head against a rock. What is most remarkable is that the body has been very badly damaged, presumably during the evening or night. The conclusion is that the injuries were caused by boat propellers.

Victoria is admitted to University Hospital for observation for a few days. During the first twenty-four hours she doesn’t say a word, and the doctors declare that she is in a state of severe shock.

It isn’t until the second day that she can be questioned by the police, but she suffers an attack of hysterics lasting over twenty minutes.

She tells the police interviewing her that Martin disappeared after they had been on the big wheel, and that she panicked when she couldn’t find him.

During her third day in the hospital Victoria wakes up in the middle of the night. She feels like she’s being watched, and the room stinks. When her eyes get used to the darkness she can see there’s no one there, but can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching her. And there’s still that nauseating smell, like excrement.

She creeps carefully out of bed, leaves her room and goes out into the corridor. It’s lit up, but silent.

She looks around to find the source of her anxiety. Then she sees it. A flashing red light. The realisation is brutal and hits her like a punch in the stomach.

‘Shut it off!’ she screams. ‘You’ve got no damn right to film me!’

Three of the night staff appear simultaneously.

‘What’s the matter?’ one of them asks as the other two take hold of her arms.

‘Fuck off!’ she yells. ‘Let go of me, and stop filming! I haven’t done anything!’

The care workers don’t let go, and when she struggles they take a firmer grip.

‘OK now, time to calm down,’ one of them tries.

She hears them talking behind her back, ganging up on her. Their scheming is so obvious that it’s laughable.

‘Stop talking in damn code and stop whispering!’ she says firmly. ‘Tell me what’s going on. And don’t try lying, I haven’t done anything, it wasn’t me who smeared shit on the window.’

‘No, we know it wasn’t,’ one of them says.

They try to calm her down. They lie to her face, and she’s got no one she can call out to, no one who can help her. She’s at their mercy.

‘Stop it!’ she cries when she sees one of them preparing a syringe. ‘Let go of my arms!’

Then she falls into a deep sleep.

Rest.

In the morning the psychiatrist comes to see her. He asks how she is.

‘What do you mean?’ she says. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

The psychiatrist explains to Victoria that she’s been having hallucinations because she feels responsible for what happened to Martin. Psychosis, paranoia, post-traumatic stress.

Victoria listens to him in silence, but inside her a mute, solid resistance is rising up, like a coming storm.

WAS SET UP
like a basic autopsy room. The shelves in the pantry no longer contained jars and tins of food, but bottles of glycerine and potassium acetate and a whole load of other chemicals.