Read an Excerpt
PROLOGUE
A PLASTIC BAG had got stuck in the wire fence that
surrounded Å kersberga Prison. Twenty-five-year-old Emelie
Rydén turned the key in the ignition of her green Kia and
the engine fell silent. She leaned forward, rested her head
on the wheel.
Two years earlier, she had given birth to their daughter,
Nova. Now she was here to end it with Karim, the man she
had thought was the love of her life.
Emelie was scared. She straightened her back, raised
her top lip and examined herself in the rear-view mirror.
The bottom half of one of her front teeth was yellow. Four
years before, Karim had flung her into a radiator during
an argument. Emelie had fainted. When she came round,
he had gone. Forty-eight hours later, he’d come home,
stinking of bars and sweat, and asked for forgiveness with
bloodshot eyes.
Emelie opened the car door and put her foot down in a
puddle that had formed in a pothole. She had to bring this to
an end. For Nova’s sake. Her daughter didn’t deserve to grow
up with her father behind bars. Even if Karim was going to
be released in three months’ time, Emelie was certain that he
would be back. Sooner or later. Probably sooner.
She walked with long strides towards the visitor entrance,
pressed the bell and was let in. For three years, with only a
few exceptions, she’d been here every week. Nova had been
conceived in one of the visiting rooms. Some of the prison
officers showed empathy, others thinly veiled contempt.
Over the years, she’d done all she could to keep her head
held high, to walk the corridors with her back straight. She
recognised the officer in reception. He was quiet, seemed shy.
Despite them having met on several occasions, he gave no
indication of knowing who she was.
“I’m going to see Karim Laimani,” said Emelie.
The officer nodded.
“Could I borrow a pen?”
He kept his eyes fixed on the screen as he handed over a
biro. Emelie unfolded Nova’s drawing and added the date in
the top right-hand corner.
The procedure after that was the same as always: jacket,
bag, mobile phone and keys were locked in a cabinet. She was
then led over to the metal detector and searched. Emelie held
out her arms and let the officer pat her down.
“Follow me,” he said mechanically as he pushed an access
card against the reader. They walked down the corridor, then
off to the right. The officer first, Emelie behind him with
Nova’s folded drawing in her hand. He stopped in front of
a white door with a round glass window. Emelie peered in.
Karim was sitting there with his hands on the tabletop. The
hood on his grey sweatshirt was up. The door was pushed
open and Emelie stepped into the little room. She took a
deep breath. Her hands and legs were shaking. She rehearsed
everything she was about to say as the door was pulled to
behind her.
Karim stood up. It was as if the words she’d learned by rote
had been blown away. He pulled her towards him, grabbing
hold of her breast.
“Karim, stop...”
He pretended not to hear her, instead pressing his groin
against hers and pushing his tongue into her mouth. She
pushed him away.
“What the fuck is up with you?” he said.
Karim stared at her angrily for a couple of seconds,
turned around and sat down on the chair. Emelie placed
Nova’s drawing on the table in front of him. He glanced at it
impassively.
“You’ve put weight on. You’re not up the duff again, are
you?”
Emelie straightened a lock of hair that had fallen out of
place. She opened her mouth, but her throat was dry. Once she
had said those words, she would no longer be his girlfriend,
but an enemy. In Karim’s world, everything was black and
white. Those words could never be unsaid. She cleared her
throat and tried to keep her voice steady.
“I don’t want us to be together any more.”
Karim raised his eyebrows. His fingers made a scratching
sound as he pushed them through his dark stubble.
“Stop it.”
“It can’t work,” she said. Her voice cracked. She cleared
her throat once more. “I can’t take any more.”
Karim’s eyes narrowed. The chair legs scraped across the
floor as he slowly got to his feet, his jaws grinding as he
moved towards her.
“Do you think that’s up to you?”
He was almost touching her. Emelie braced herself.
“Please...” she whispered as her eyes welled up. She
closed them. Swallowed. “Can’t you just let me go? You can
see Nova when you come out.”
“Are you fucking someone?”
“No.”
Karim’s face stopped ten centimetres or so from hers. He
sniffed the air. “Oh yes, you’ve always been shit at lying.
Have you been running around town opening your legs? You
stupid. Fucking. Whore.”
Emelie turned around, reaching for the door handle. Karim
got there first and grabbed hold of her.
“You won’t get away with it. If I find out you’ve been
opening your cunt for anyone else, I will kill you.”
14
The prison officer flung open the door. Karim let go and
held up his palms. Emelie pulled her arm in and rubbed her
wrist.
The next second, the visiting room echoed with Karim’s
voice.
“I will kill you. Just you wait. You are going to regret
this,” he roared.
The officer stepped in between them.
“Calm down.”
Karim stared at Emelie over the guard’s shoulder. As he
backed away, he smiled.
PART I
We are people too. We just want to be loved for who we are. Our
hopelessness does not come out of nowhere. I am pleased that
you have never felt this way, but I hope you can sympathise.
You bully us, belittle us. Everywhere. Instead, you ought to ask
yourselves what it is that has made us feel this way. There is
often a story that has brought us here. If you heard our stories,
you might be more sympathetic to our situation, which, after
all, is involuntary.
An anonymous man.
1
A STRING OF PURPLE fairy lights hung from the spruce
tree in Monica Zetterlund Park. Detective Inspector Vanessa
Frank was wearing a dark-blue coat. Underneath, she wore
dark suit trousers and a newly ironed white shirt.
She ran the tip of her tongue across her gums. For the first
time in her life, Vanessa had made a New Year’s resolution:
to stop using snus tobacco. She had put it off all winter. Now
it was April. The snow was gone. Forty-eight hours earlier
she had finished her last tin and the abstinence was causing
her whole body to itch.
In Hassan’s Phone Shop, which, despite the name, sold all
sorts, the lights were still on.
The doorbell rang. Hassan smiled when he saw it was
Vanessa.
“Sheriff Frank,” he greeted her in thickly accented
Swedish and bowed half-heartedly. “I hope you’re not here
to buy snus?”
“Give over, I’m forty-three. Give me a tin.”
“Two days ago, you were standing exactly there when you
forbade me to sell you snus.”
“Either you sell me a tin, or I’ll rob you.”
Hassan moved quickly to shield the tobacco fridge with his
body. “E-cigarettes, less dangerous, keep you busy,” he said,
pointing to a glass display cabinet. “I mean it, Vanessa. You
made me promise. I intend to keep it.”
Vanessa sighed and straightened her shirt collar. She
appreciated people who kept their promises.
“Okay, okay, give me that shit then. But Hassan, careful
you don’t scratch the floor.”
Bemused, he looked at her, then down at his feet.
“Eh?”
“Yeah, with that stick you’ve got shoved up your backside.”
On the corner by Odengatan, Vanessa stopped, got the vape
going, took a drag and then thoughtfully studied the white
steam dissipating into the spring night sky. She walked in
the direction of Sveavägen. The restaurants’ outdoor terraces
had opened. People were drinking beer with blankets draped
across their shoulders, hunched over rickety wooden tables.
Vanessa’s life was being renegotiated. In December,
Natasha – the sixteen-year-old Syrian girl who Vanessa
had had living with her – had received a phone call from
her father. He had survived the war, crippled but alive. On
Christmas Day, as the snow fell heavily, Vanessa had waved
Natasha off and watched the taxi’s rear lights disappear
up Surbrunnsgatan. The brake lights had flickered. Made
Vanessa hope, for a second, that Natasha would tear herself
out, dragging her suitcase with her, and rush over to Vanessa
as she explained it had all been a misunderstanding. Four
months had passed, and still the loneliness felt like a rusty
brown bike chain against her ribcage every single day.
On Sveavägen, the vintage cars cruised back and forth,
carrying enthusiasts in vests and checked shirts singing
along to Eddie Meduza and Bruce Springsteen. Petrol
fumes. Confederate flags. A man pushed his anaemic arse
cheeks against the rear windscreen of a passing white
Chevrolet. Vanessa had planned to turn right, taking the
route home through Vanadis Park – but just ahead, a huge
scaffold towered over the pavement. She hated walking
underneath them; they looked like they might collapse at
any second. Instead, she crossed Odengatan and continued
parallel to the bus stop.
As she passed Storstadbar, she caught a glimpse of a face
she recognised – theatre director Svante Lidén’s. They had
been married for twelve years, until she found out that he’d
got a young actress pregnant. Vanessa didn’t flinch, just kept
walking. She hadn’t got more than a couple of metres when
she heard her name being called.
“You can at least say hello?”
“Hi.”
She turned on her heels. Svante rushed over and placed a
gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Can’t you come in for a little bit?”
He gave her a pleading look. The alternative was going
home, flopping onto the sofa and watching Animal Planet.
“Okay.”
Svante held the door and asked what she would like to
drink. Vanessa asked for a gin and tonic and took a seat by
the window. She glanced towards the space between the bar
and the tables, where inebriated people were trying it on
with one another.
Us humans are just wild mammals in colourful clothes, she
thought to herself. In a hundred years from now, everyone in
this room will be dead. White bones and dust, buried six feet
under. No one will know that they shared these hours together.
The realisation made her feel bleak.
“You look fantastic,” Svante said, putting the drink down
on the table between them.
Vanessa raised her glass towards him.
“You look like you died in 2003.”
“Cheers!” Svante responded, untroubled. “How are things?”
Vanessa took a gulp. Now she was here, she might as well
be nice. For old times’ sake. In spite of everything, she was
pleased to see Svante.
Those years she had lived with him had been good ones.
The fact that he would shag anything with a pulse, she had
learned to live with. What had wounded her was that he
denied her a child. When Vanessa had become pregnant, a
while before the divorce, he had persuaded her to have an
abortion. And now it was too late.
“I’ve got a new job.”
“Have you left the police?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“New division. I left NOVA and I’m an investigator for
the National Homicide Unit now.”
He put an ice cube in his mouth and crushed it between
his teeth.
“Riksmord?”
‘Piano Man’streamed from the speakers. Vanessa leaned
in to be heard above Billy Joel.
“I travel around the country, helping colleagues in murder
investigations.”
“A business traveller for murders, then. That would make
a good film title. And plenty of work at the moment, if the
papers are anything to go by?”
An hour and three G&Ts later, Vanessa felt intoxicated.
She didn’t want to go home. In many ways, Svante was a
boil, a poor excuse for a man, but she liked him. They still
hadn’t touched upon the subject of Johanna Ek, the actress
who Svante now lived with. Nor had they raised the subject of
the couple’s child. Vanessa was afraid of ruining the moment,
but in the end, she could not hold back any longer.
In the middle of a question, she raised her palm towards
Svante.
“How’s the kid then? The one-year-old, I mean, not the
one you left me for.”
Svante opened his mouth to respond, but Vanessa cut in
again. “What did you christen her? Yasuragi Lidén?”
“Yasuragi? That spa? Why would we...”
“I found a hotel bill in one of your jackets, paid nine
months before she was born. You celebs usually name your
kids after where they were conceived, don’t you?”
Svante scratched his cheek.
“Granted, I didn’t handle that very well,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a couple of seconds
until Vanessa waved her hand.
“Don’t be.”
She looked at his brown eyes, continued upwards to his
spiky fringe. He was greyer than last time she saw him, almost
completely, in fact.
Vanessa let her eyes wander to his big hands, his chewed nails.
She missed his humour. The security. That way he bit
his bottom lip if he was reading something he didn’t agree
with in the paper. How he grabbed hold of her. Decisively.
Proprietorially. His poorly disguised jealousy when he noticed
she was attracted to someone else.
“Are you happy with her?”
His chin was resting in his cupped hand.
“It’s different. Easier, somehow.”
“Do you have to be so bloody honest?”
A man bumped into Vanessa’s back. She moved her chair
closer to Svante’s. “Do you know what gets to me most?”
she asked.
“No?”
“That you turned me into a cliché.”
Svante raised his eyebrows. Vanessa grabbed hold of his
hand and moved it inside her unbuttoned jacket, to her breast.
She had had surgery six months before. “A walking fucking
cliché of the ageing, jilted woman.”
He laughed and withdrew his hand. A bit too slowly for
Vanessa not to notice. Why did she want Svante to want her?
Why did he have that effect on her? She was fine. She didn’t
need him. He had made his choice.
Did she want revenge on Johanna? Was it that simple?
“Say it.”
“Say what, Vanessa?”
She leaned in, could smell his aftershave.
“That you still want me.”
