The Key (7 page)

Vanessa shoves the Cossack boys hard enough to make them loose their hold on each other.

‘Hi, Vanessa! Great that you could come!’ the guy with glasses shouts as she pushes past him.

‘Get that, Vanessa Dahl is here! In your place!’ one of the others says excitedly.

At last, she gets into the kitchen. Gustaf Åhlander is there, chatting with some of the other footballers in EFC. Evelina is leaning against the sink. She is talking to someone in a red sweater, a guy with a shaven head and an eagle tattooed on his neck. Must be Leo, who Evelina has been on and on about, ever since meeting him at a party in Örebro. Vanessa can tell from the look on Evelina’s face that she and Leo had sex before going to the party. And that it was good.

‘Nessa! At last!’ Evelina shouts and hugs Vanessa. ‘Babes, you’re so smelly. Like a barbecued sausage!’

Vanessa takes the plastic glass that Evelina hands her, drinks and feels the taste of alcohol through the Coke. Just one drink like this one will definitely be enough. One more would be one too many. She mustn’t be pissed when she sees Linnéa.

‘Great to see you at last,’ Leo says. ‘Evelina talks about you all the time.’

‘She talks a great deal about you, too,’ Vanessa says, and sips her drink.

Evelina looks hopefully at her and she tries to think of something to say to Leo. Her head seems totally empty.

‘So, how are things in Örebro?’ is the best she can do.

‘Right now, I prefer Engelsfors.’ Leo looks at Evelina, who titters.

‘Isn’t he
soo
cute?’ she whispers a little too loudly to Vanessa.

‘Too true,’ Vanessa whispers back. ‘Well done.’

Evelina titters some more and raises her glass in a toast.

Leo begins to talk about going to Rättvik next weekend to buy a secondhand car. Then he talks about cars he has owned, and cars he would have liked to have owned.

Vanessa hasn’t got the strength to fake an interest. All she can think about is what she is going to say to Linnéa. Leo has apparently made a joke and she laughs without getting it. It makes her feel like she isn’t supporting her mate. Not that it seems to matter in the slightest. Evelina is looking at Leo as if he could offer her all the answers to life’s mysteries.

Vanessa drinks a little more, then gets her mobile out and clicks on to the SMS she texted on the way to the party.

AT PARTY. BORING. CAN I COME OVER
?

She presses
SEND
and drinks again, a bigger swallow this time. She wishes she could allow herself to drink some more. To drown her nerves.

Evelina is tugging at her.

‘Hey, what do you think? Like, honestly?’

Vanessa realises that Leo is off to check the fridge.

‘He’s great.’

‘But you hardly glanced at him! Who’s that text for?’ Evelina looks troubled. ‘Is it Wille?’

‘No.’

Vanessa wonders what Evelina would say if she realised that it was sent to Wille’s ex, Linnéa Wallin. Her mobile vibrates and she drains the glass before opening the message.

SURE
.

Just one word. But that’s enough. Suddenly, Vanessa can’t bear to stay for a second longer. She puts the glass down on the sink.

‘I’ve gotta go.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ Evelina asks.

‘Nothing really. But Mum has caught a cold and needs a little help with Melvin, that’s all.’ Vanessa quickly kisses Evelina on the lips. ‘Take care. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She manages to get back into the sitting room. It’s cooler now, because the windows are open. The Cossack dancers have pulled their tops off and are hanging halfway outside to chill out. The potted plant with pointy leaves has met a grim end on the red-wine-spattered wooden floor. Michelle and Mehmet have simply shifted their snogging to another corner of the room.

Some new arrivals are standing in the doorway leading to the hall. Vanessa stiffens the instant she sees who they are.

Erik and Robin. And Julia, jammed in under Erik’s arm. Felicia clings to Robin.

They were all Ida’s best mates, once.

Erik is scanning the room. His gaze stops at Vanessa. She locks eyes with him, wishing that she had Linnéa’s talent of projecting thoughts into other people’s heads.

I know what you’ve done, she thinks. And I’ll make you pay.

A plastic mug hits the doorframe near Erik. Red wine splatters over his face and his white T-shirt. Julia’s scream is so piercing it cuts through the roar of the music.

Vanessa realises what this means. It is going to trigger total loss of control. This will become the story the whole school will be talking about.

‘Who the fuck did that?’ Erik’s voice has risen to a howl. Red flares are spreading up his neck.

Someone switches the music off. Everyone is silent. The guy who passed out on the stairs sits up and looks confused.

‘Whoever did it is totally sick in the head!’ Julia shrieks, and gets closer to Erik.

Emerging from upstairs, a few curious people edge a bit further downstairs. Gustaf comes out from the kitchen, closely followed by some of his FC boys. Vanessa spots Leo, who is rubbernecking to see better. She wonders how long he’ll enjoy being in Engelsfors.

‘I did.’ Kevin steps up on a table.

By now, Erik looks more irritated than angry.

‘Kevin, for fuck’s sake …’

Kevin staggers and drinks from his bottle of red wine.

‘He’s pissed shitless.’ Robin grins at his own wit.

Felicia giggles nervously.

‘Now, listen,’ Kevin says. ‘You’re all to … listen to me. Can’t anyone remember what happened? No one?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Julia tells him. ‘You’re off your face.’

‘No, I’m not!’ Kevin shouts. ‘Drunk, yeah, sure. But I know that something happened at the Positive Engelsfors party. Look, it can’t have been some fucking accident like they said! Why can’t anyone remember anything? Someone must. You were there, all of you!’

Vanessa sneaks a glance around the room. Some faces have worried expressions.

Do they remember? Do they know somewhere inside what Kevin is talking about?

‘Look, I know Ida … Ida did something,’ Kevin says. ‘But what, I can’t remember—’

‘Stop it, Kevin,’ Erik interrupts. ‘What happened to Ida was sad enough without—’

‘Shut it!’ Kevin is shouting so loudly his voice cracks. ‘You fucking bastard! You pretend to miss Ida, but you’re lying!’

He gestures with his arm to include Robin, Julia and Felicia.

‘You’re all lying!’

‘Watch it,’ Erik says.

He walks towards the table Kevin is standing on and people move away nervously.

‘It’s you who should watch it,’ Kevin replies. ‘I know all about you. About you and Robin. I haven’t forgotten.’

Vanessa’s heart is racing. Is Kevin going to say what Erik and Robin did to Linnéa, right here, in front of everyone?

‘Shut it. Now!’ Erik’s voice is icy cold.

‘You can’t tell me what to do!’

Julia and Felicia shriek as Kevin leaps at Erik, who crumples onto the floor with Kevin sitting astride him. Kevin lifts his arm to hit but Erik gets in first and drives his right fist into Kevin’s face so hard the blood spurts. Julia and Felicia scream in unison. Others join in.

‘Go, Erik, go!’ Robin shouts.

Erik shoves Kevin so he ends up on his side with his hand clamped over his nose. Blood is streaming between his fingers. Erik gets on his feet, then kicks Kevin in the stomach. Kevin moans.

‘Stop!’ Vanessa screams.

Erik aims a new kick, but someone jumps at him and drags him away from Kevin.

It’s Gustaf, of course.

‘That’s enough!’ he says to Erik.

Erik hits him in the face.

Chaos erupts. Some people try to get out, others to force their way in. People stumble, fall over, scream. Mobile phone cameras are flashing. More potted plants crash to the floor and little clay balls are spilling out everywhere. A shelf is ripped away from the wall. Suddenly, the stench of vomit fills the room.

Vanessa catches a glimpse of a group of football boys as they haul Kevin away and protect Gustaf whose lower lip is bleeding. Other than that he seems OK.

Vanessa is pushed this way and that by bodies on the move in different directions, but she manages to get to one of the open windows. The guy with glasses has got his mobile out and demands to speak to the police in a shrill, panicky voice. Vanessa jumps out, holding her high-heeled shoes in her hand. She lands softly on the lawn.

The tarmac feels cold under her feet as she runs through the nice residential area. When she hears police sirens she hides in the shrubbery and slips into invisibility. If Nicke, her ex-stepfather, is in the police car, he mustn’t see her.

Once the patrol car has zoomed past, she returns to visibility and gets out her mobile.

ON MY WAY

Minoo glances over her shoulder before opening the door to the block of flats where Anna-Karin lives. On the opposite side of the street is the building that used to house Positive Engelsfors. Sheets of brown cardboard cover the windows. A poster saying
FOR SALE
is taped on one of them. The poster gives the number to Bertil Gunnarsson, the estate agent, but nobody is likely to ask for details of that property any time soon.

She takes the stairs almost at a run. The stench of stale cigarette smoke pours out when Anna-Karin opens the door with
NIEMINEN
on the letterbox. As Minoo says hello and hangs up her jacket, she knows she’ll be smelling it for days afterwards.

Anna-Karin goes to her room, but Minoo stops on the threshold of the darkened sitting room. Mia Nieminen half lies on the sofa, propped up by a mountain of cushions, watching television. She is adding to the smoky atmosphere with a new fag. Its tip is a glowing point in the murk.

‘Hello, Mia,’ Minoo says. ‘How are you?’

Mia’s eyes stay glued to the TV. On the screen, a woman with very white teeth pipes icing roses on top of a cake.

‘No worse than usual,’ Mia replies. ‘My back is so bad it hurts to breathe, you know.’

She sucks energetically at her cigarette.

But smoking is no problem, obviously, Minoo thinks.

‘If I had been a dog they would’ve put me down long ago,’ Mia adds before stubbing her fag out.

Minoo can’t think what to say to that. It probably doesn’t matter, because Mia doesn’t ever seem to expect or even want a reply.

Minoo has tried to feel compassion for Anna-Karin’s mother but, if truth be told, her strongest feeling is anger. Anna-Karin shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of thing day in, day out.

‘Hey, Minoo, are you coming?’ Anna-Karin calls from her room.

Instantly, Minoo’s conscience points out that this is actually Anna-Karin’s mum and that depression is an illness, not the person’s fault.

The air in Anna-Karin’s room is breathable and Minoo closes the door behind her.

Peppar greets her by rubbing himself against her legs. He usually hides under the bed when she is visiting.

‘He seems to have got used to me,’ Minoo says.

‘Try to lift him,’ Anna-Karin says with a smile.

Minoo gingerly takes hold of the cat, wondering if she’s doing it the right way. Her cousin’s hamsters are the only animals she has held. Shirin was for ever setting up hamster circuses and making Minoo be the animal minder, while Shirin herself was the boss.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ Anna-Karin asks as she sits back on the chair at the desk. ‘Like tea, or water? There’s cranberry juice too.’

‘No thank you, I’m fine.’ Minoo sits down on the neatly made bed with Peppar on her knee.

Neither speaks for a while. Minoo has discovered that when she is with Anna-Karin, silences are neither scary nor embarrassing. This is one of the things she likes best about her.

‘Your vision, what do you think it was really about?’ Anna-Karin asks in the end. ‘Do you think it was … the apocalypse?’

‘Honestly, I can’t work it out,’ Minoo told her. ‘I tried to check in the
Book of Patterns
but it stayed totally silent.’

Anna-Karin scratches the moon-shaped scar on her hand, a mark of where her fox bit her once.

‘If it was a vision of the apocalypse, what might it signify?’ she asks. ‘What I mean is … is the message that we’re bound to lose? And why should the guardians want to show you that?’

‘No idea. It might mean something utterly different,’ Minoo says. ‘All I know is that it scared me.’

Well, afterwards, she thinks. Not at the time. But that’s too weird to tell Anna-Karin.

Minoo starts stroking Peppar. Beneath his silky fur, his bones seem so fragile that she shudders. What if she cracked one of his ribs by mistake? She rubs him gently behind the ears instead and he purrs.

‘I found another dead place in the forest today,’ Anna-Karin tells her. ‘And there were so many dead birds—’

Suddenly Peppar leaps down onto the floor.

Minoo hears a scream from the sitting room; just for a moment, she assumes it must be some TV programme. Then there’s a heavy crash.

‘Anna-Karin! Anna-Karin, help! Help me! Anna-Karin!’

Mia sounds in despair, almost insane.

Anna-Karin rushes to the door and pulls it open. Minoo follows her and they run to the sitting room.

Mia is lying on her back in front of the TV. Her wordless moans express only pain. Anna-Karin kneels by her side.

‘Mummy, Mummy! I’m here!’

Mia starts to scream. She screams and screams. Minoo goes rigid, paralysed.

‘Mum!’ Anna-Karin calls out. ‘What has happened? Did you fall? You must tell us!’

Suddenly, Mia is silent.

Drunken voices shout in the street outside, somewhere in the world beyond this claustrophobic, airless flat.

‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,’ Anna-Karin wails.

Minoo kneels at her side.

Mia’s breathing is harsh and fast, her face is grey. Her lips are moving quickly, as if trying to form words. Her eyes roll back inside their sockets.

‘She must’ve fallen,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘She must …’

Mia stops breathing.

‘Call the ambulance,’ Minoo says, surprising herself by how calm and assured she sounds.