Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (121 page)

“The nice girls are the ones who end up here,” Elisabet usually says.

Right now, she’s eating the last bite of a dark chocolate bar and can taste its sweetness and its bitter aftertaste on her tongue.

Slowly, her shoulders begin to relax. The evening had been difficult, although the day had begun so well. Instruction during the morning. After lunch the girls had leisure time and spent it swimming in the lake.

After the evening meal, the house mother returned home to leave Elisabet in charge on her own.

The girls were supposed to watch television until ten in the evening, while Elisabet sat in the nurse’s office and tried to catch up with her personal reviews. When Elisabet heard angry yelling, she hurried to the television room and saw Miranda beating up tiny Tuula. Miranda was screaming that Tuula was a slut and a whore as she yanked Tuula off the sofa and began to kick her in the back.

Elisabet had gotten used to Miranda’s violent outbursts. She ran into the room and pulled Miranda away from Tuula and was slapped in the face for her trouble. In a loud voice, she lectured Miranda about unacceptable behaviour and without further discussion led the girl through the hallway past the registration room and into the isolation room.

Elisabet said good night but Miranda did not answer. She just sat on the bed looking down at the floor with a secret smile as Elisabet shut and locked the door.

The new girl, Vicky Bennet, was supposed to have had an evening chat, but the conflict between Miranda and Tuula had prevented that. Vicky timidly mentioned that it was her turn for a private chat, and when it was put off, she felt unhappy, broke a teacup and cut herself on the stomach and wrists with a shard.

When Elisabet returned, she saw Vicky with her hands in front of her face and blood running down her arms.

Elisabet washed the superficial wounds and put a bandage on Vicky’s stomach and gauze on her wrists while she comforted her and called her affectionate names until she saw a tiny smile appear. For the third night in a row, she gave the girl ten milligrams of Sonata so that she could sleep.

ALL THE GIRLS ARE FINALLY ASLEEP and Birgittagården is quiet. There’s one lamp lit in the office window, which makes the world outside seem impenetrably dark.

Elisabet, her brow lined in a deep furrow, is sitting in front of her computer adding the evening’s events into the log.

It’s almost midnight and she sees that she hasn’t even taken her evening pill.
My own little drug
, as she usually calls it. Difficult days and nights where she had to be on call are interfering with her sleep. Taking ten milligrams of Stilnoct at ten p.m. allows her to be asleep by eleven for a few hours of rest.

The September darkness has covered the forest, but she can still see the surface of the lake, Himmelsjö, shining like mother-of-pearl.

Finally, she is able to hit the off-button on her computer and take her pill. She pulls her shawl around her shoulders and thinks that a glass of red wine would hit the spot right now. She longs to go to her own bed where she can sit with a book and her glass of wine and read, or have a little chat with her husband Daniel.

Tonight, however, she’s on-call and has to sleep on the premises.

She jumps when Buster begins to bark in the yard outside. His barking is so strident that goose bumps of alarm rise up on her arms.

It’s very late. She should have been in bed a long time ago.

She’s usually asleep at this time of night.

As the computer screen goes black, the room turns dark. All at once, there is utter silence. Elisabet becomes aware of the sounds she’s making. She hears the hiss of the office chair’s gas lift as she stands up and the creak of the floor tiles beneath her feet as she moves to the window. She tries to look out, but the darkness only shows a reflection of her own face, the office with its computer and telephone, the walls painted in yellow and green patterns.

She sees the reflection of the door gliding open behind her back.

Her heart pounds. The door is now half-open.
It must be the draft
, she tries to convince herself.
The tile oven in the kitchen always draws such a great deal of air.

Elisabet feels an odd disquiet: fear begins to creep through her veins. She does not dare turn around but stares into the dark windowpane with the reflection of the half-open door behind her.

The silence is broken only by the low mechanical sounds of the computer completing its shutdown.

In order to shake off the discomfort she feels, she reaches out and turns off the lamp in the window before she turns around.

Now the door is wide open.

She shudders.

The hallway lights are on between the dining room and the girls’ bedrooms.

Elisabet leaves the office, deciding to double-check that the lids to the tile oven are closed, when she is surprised by whispering from the bedrooms.

ELISABET STANDS MOTIONLESS and stares down the hallway, straining to hear. At first she can hear nothing but then there’s a whisper so delicate that it's hardly perceptible.

“It’s your turn to close your eyes,” someone whispers.

Elisabet keeps still, staring into the darkness so hard she’s blinking, but can’t see anyone...

She barely has time to think that it must be one of the girls talking in her sleep when she hears an odd noise as if someone has dropped an over-ripened peach onto the floor. Then another one, heavy and wet. A table leg scrapes the floor, followed by the same sound.

Elisabet sees movement out of the corner of her eye, a shadow gliding past. She turns around and sees that the door to the dining room is slowly closing.

“Wait!” she calls out even though she still suspects it might be the draft.

She runs over and grabs the door handle but there’s unusual resistance and she has to fight the door before it finally gives way and opens.

Elisabet enters the dining room. She moves cautiously and tries to take in the entire room at once. The scratched dining room table gives a dull reflection. She slowly walks to the tile oven and sees her own movements reflected in its polished brass fire doors. Warmth emanates from the heated pipes.

There’s a rustle and a knock inside the oven. Elisabet takes a quick step backwards and bumps into a chair.

Nothing more than a log falling and hitting the inside of the fire door. The room is empty.

She takes a deep breath and turns to leave the dining room, closing the door behind her. She walks back to the hallway, to her room. She stops again and listens.

She can’t hear a thing from the girls’ bedrooms. A sour, somewhat metallic aroma is floating through the air and she searches for movement, but everything is quiet. Still, she’s drawn towards the long row of unlocked doors. Some are slightly open, while others are completely closed.

On the right side of the hallway there are bathrooms and an alcove where the door to the isolation room is located. Miranda should be fast asleep in there.

The peephole glitters slightly.

Elisabet catches her breath as she hears a light voice whispering in one of the rooms, but it cuts off as soon as Elisabet starts walking again.

“It’s time to be quiet,” Elisabet calls out.

Her heart jumps when she hears a series of quick thuds. It’s hard to locate the sound, but it seems as if Miranda is lying in bed and kicking her naked feet against the wall. Elisabet decides to check on Miranda through the peephole but then she sees someone standing in the alcove.

She gasps and begins to back away. Her body feels as if it’s moving in the heavy water of a dream.

She’s immediately aware of how dangerous her situation is, but fear overwhelms her so she almost feels paralyzed.

Only the creaking of the floor startles her into running for her life.

The figure in the dark is heading for her.

She whirls around and runs as fast as she can with the sound of footfalls behind her. She slips on the rag rug and hits her shoulder against the wall, but she keeps running.

A soft voice urges her to stop, but she doesn’t. She runs faster and practically throws herself though the passageway.

Doors open and shut behind her.

She’s panicking as she races past the registration room and throws her hand against the wall to steady herself. The framed picture of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child falls from its hook and crashes onto the floor.

Elisabet has made it to the door to the outside and she grabs the handle, throws it open and runs out into the cool night air. She slips on the outside stairs and falls down onto her hip with one leg beneath her. Her ankle hurts so much she has to scream. She slides down to the ground, listening to the heavy steps in the hall behind her. She crawls for a stretch, losing her slippers. She gets up, moaning.

THE DOG IS BARKING AT HER. He’s running in circles around her, panting and whimpering. Elisabet limps away from the house and across the gravel driveway. The dog keeps barking, obviously upset. Elisabet knows there is no escape in the forest. It takes at least half an hour to drive to the next farm. There’s nowhere she can go. She swivels her head around, searching, and then limps behind the drying shed towards the old former brewery. She opens the door, hands shaking, goes inside, and pulls the door shut behind her.

She’s panting for breath and collapses to the ground. She searches her pockets for her mobile phone.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Her hands are shaking too much and she drops the phone. The back flap opens and the battery falls out. She scrambles to pick up the pieces when she hears footsteps crunching on the gravel.

She holds her breath.

Her pulse pounds and throbs in her ears as she peers out of the low window.

The dog is barking right outside. Buster has followed her and now scratches frantically on the door, whimpering.

Elisabet creeps into the corner beside the masonry fireplace and tries to silence her breaths. She crouches down behind the woodpile and tries to force the battery back into her phone.

When the door to the brewery is flung open, Elisabet screams. She slides along the wall in panic but there’s nowhere for her to go.

She can see the boots, the shadowy figure, the twisted face and the raised hammer with its heft and dark shine.

She listens to the voice, nods and then covers her face with her hands.

The shadow pauses another moment and then rushes across the floor to knock her to the ground, holding her down and hitting her hard. Her forehead burns with the blow. Her sight is gone, and it hurts, but at the same time she can feel her own warm blood running over her ears and down the sides of her throat as if it were a caress.

The next blow targets the same spot. Her head is knocked askew and now the only thing she knows is how to draw oxygen into her lungs.

Confused, she thinks how wonderfully sweet oxygen is. Then she loses consciousness.

She cannot feel the further blows and how her body spasms. She cannot feel when her keys to the office and the isolation room are taken from her pocket. She cannot look down at her body lying on the floor and how the dog sneaks into the brewery tentatively lapping at the blood from her crushed head as her life slowly ebbs away.

SOMEONE LEFT A LARGE RED APPLE on the table. It gleams and looks wonderfully tasty. Perhaps she’ll just eat the whole thing and then pretend she knows nothing about it. She’ll sit there, looking glum, and ignore the harangues while refusing to answer their questions.

She reaches for the apple, but when she finally has it in her hand, it’s completely rotten. Her fingers sink into its cold, soggy flesh.

Nina Molander wakes up as she pulls her hand away. It’s the middle of the night. She’s lying in her bed. The only thing she hears is the dog barking in the yard. This new medicine makes her wake up at night. She has to get up and go to the bathroom. She needs to take this medicine, even though it makes her feet and calves swell up. Without it, dark thoughts consume her to the point where she no longer cares about anything and can only lie in bed with her eyes closed.

She thinks she needs something to look forward to instead of thoughts about death.

Nina throws off her blanket, sets her feet on the warm wooden floor and gets out of bed. She’s fifteen years old. She has straight, blonde hair. She is hefty and has wide hips and large breasts. Her white flannel nightgown is tight around her belly.

The home for troubled girls is quiet. The hallway is illuminated by the green light of the emergency exit sign. There are strange whispers behind one of the doors. Nina thinks that the other girls are having a party but no one decided to invite her.

As if I’d ever want to go,
she thinks.

Hanging in the air is the scent of an old fire, which has gone out. The dog starts barking again. Nina finds the floor is cooler out in the hallway. She doesn’t worry about whether she’s quiet or not. She feels like slamming the bathroom doors over and over. She doesn’t give a damn that Almira will get angry and throw things back at her.

The old tiles creak slightly. Nina keeps heading towards the bathroom, but stops when she feels a wet patch beneath her right foot. A dark pool is spreading from beneath the door of the isolation room where Miranda is sleeping. Nina is confused and doesn’t know what to do at first, but then she sees that the key to the isolation room has been left in the lock.

That’s weird.

She opens the door, walks inside and flicks on the light.

There’s blood everywhere – it shines as it drips and runs down the walls.

Miranda is sprawled on the bed.

Nina takes a few steps backwards and doesn’t notice that she’s wet herself. She looks at the bloody shoe prints on the floor and thinks that she’s going to faint.

She turns and finds herself in the hallway. She opens the door to the next room, turns on the ceiling light and walks right over to shake Caroline’s shoulder.

“Miranda’s hurt,” she whispers. “I think Miranda’s hurt.”