Fire (48 page)

‘I thought you’d died,’ Vanessa whispers.

‘So did I.’

When they see the living room, Vanessa squeezes Linnéa’s hand.

‘How awful. How simply fucking awful,’ she says.

‘Would you like to sleep in my place tonight?’ Minoo asks.

‘That would be great,’ Linnéa replies.

‘I can’t get my head around all this,’ Minoo says as she scans the room.

‘I can,’ Anna-Karin says.

Linnéa turns to her.

‘I feel almost the opposite way,’ Anna-Karin continues. ‘To me, the odd thing is that this kind of thing hasn’t happened before. Erik has always been so close to crossing some boundary … He has always been the one who went the furthest. Don’t you agree?’

Linnéa nods and tries to suppress another welling-up of the dread and anguish that lurks so close under her skin.

They step into the bedroom. Linnéa lets go of Vanessa’s hand and picks up the photo of her mother in the park. It is crumpled but not torn.

All four jump at the hard knock on the front door. A male voice echoes in the stairwell.

‘Police.’

‘Damn, it’s Nicke,’ Vanessa says.

‘Don’t say a thing about the anonymous tip-off,’ Linnéa says quickly. ‘We have no idea. And I haven’t been doing any swimming tonight.’

‘What are you saying?’ Vanessa asks. ‘That they’ll get away with it?’

Linnéa has no time to explain. She can hear the front door open.

‘We’re in here,’ she calls, all the while looking from one to the other.

Let me do the talking. I can read his mind.

Surprised, the others stare at her when they hear her thought.

Yes, I know. Seems to be something you learn to do when you’re just about murdered.

They troop back into the living room. Nicke enters and stares at the room with a look of distaste on his face.

Linnéa remembers when she faced him in the principal’s office. She and Minoo had just found Elias’s dead body. As Nicke went through his routine questions, she heard his thoughts, sensed his contempt.
Like father, like daughter
.
So this is the new yob generation in Engelsfors
.

He turns to Linnéa.

‘Right, now. You seem to be alive and kicking. And you’ve thrown one hell of a party by the looks of it. Obviously following in your daddy’s footsteps.’

He looks the rest of them over. Stops when he sees Vanessa.

‘I should’ve guessed. You would hang out in this place.’

‘There’s been a break-in,’ Linnéa says. ‘I was just about to call the police.’

‘No worries, we’ve been called in already. By your neighbours, for one thing. Even people in the other blocks around here.’

‘I haven’t been here all evening,’ Linnéa says. ‘I was in Minoo’s house.’

Nicke produces a pad and chewed stump of a pencil.

‘And when did you leave?’

‘I couldn’t tell you exactly. A couple of hours ago.’

‘I can confirm that,’ Minoo says and Nicke looks dissatisfied.

So much harder to dismiss statements made by the daughter of the editor of the
Engelsfors Herald
.

‘Then what did you get up to?’ he asks Linnéa.

‘I was with Viktor Ehrenskiöld. He’s a … mate from school. We went for a drive in his car and then he took me home.’

It is very easy to read Nicke’s thoughts. He might as well
have shouted them out loud. He is recalling what was said in the talk he’s just had with Erik’s parents, how they confirmed that their son had slept over in the Positive Engelsfors Centre.

Then his thoughts shift to his visit to the centre. Erik, Robin, Kevin and Rickard were there. Put up a show of innocence. Not that Nicke was looking for any kind of proof against them. On the contrary. All he wanted was to confirm that this was nothing worse than a wild bit of fun and games. And then Helena joined them and she said, sure enough, these guys had been there all night. They had been planning for the spring party and she had been sitting up late, working. If one’s a night person, well, that’s what one does.

‘Half the neighbourhood is complaining about your bingeing,’ Nicke says. ‘And soon after the complaints stop flooding in, we have an anonymous tip-off that you’re being pushed off Canal Bridge by a couple of guys. Guys you dislike heartily, that’s well enough known. You have to agree it’s a pretty peculiar story?’

‘So true,’ Linnéa says. ‘Very peculiar.’

‘This is how my thinking goes. You and your mates threw a party. It runs out of control. At some point, you decide now is the time to make life a misery for a group of poor lads you happen to hate.’

She can hear Erik’s voice like an echo inside Nicke’s head.

She’s mentally unstable. In first year in senior school, she attacked me and Robin, totally unprovoked. She is deranged and trying to pin something on us
.

‘It doesn’t make sense, surely?’ Linnéa says. ‘Why should I spread the rumour that someone pushed me into the canal? It’s dead easy to check, after all. What would be in it for me? And there’s been no party here. I’m completely sober. Why don’t you check that?’

‘Which is what I’ll do next. There’s a breathalyser in the car,’ Nicke says.

Linnéa doesn’t need mind-reading powers to notice his growing frustration.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Minoo says. ‘Is Linnéa being charged for something?’

Nicke makes an annoyed face.

‘How come you lot are here anyway?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘So I went out for a walk. When I was near the canal I heard someone say that Linnéa Wallin had been pushed in. I called Vanessa and Minoo. They came along straight away. We all wanted to help with the search.’

‘Obviously, we tried to call Linnéa but we got no answer,’ Minoo says.

‘I’d left my mobile at home and now it’s lost,’ Linnéa adds.

It’s almost true. Her bag wasn’t in the stairwell when she and Viktor arrived.

‘Then Linnéa phoned us, using Viktor’s mobile,’ Vanessa says. ‘They’d just discovered the break-in.’

‘So why didn’t you inform the police immediately, if you were still hanging around near the canal?’ Nicke asks.

He is looking at Vanessa, who meets his eyes unblinkingly.

I know you’re lying
, he thinks.
And I’ll do all I can to show you up.

‘You must realise that Linnéa was, like, in shock. Everything in her flat has been bashed to pieces,’ Vanessa says. ‘We just wanted to make sure she was all right before we called.’

‘Neither here nor there. You should have contacted the police before we wasted any more resources on—’

‘We were just about to call you,’ Minoo says.

‘Despite Linnéa’s past experience of the local force, which hasn’t been too great,’ Vanessa says.

Nicke’s eyes slide from one of them to the next. He’s in a dead end.

They’ve caught him. It couldn’t have worked out more neatly if they had spent their entire lives practising to lie in harmony.

Linnéa smiles at him, a completely genuine smile that she can’t hold back, because it feels so good to win, just for once.

‘I’d like to report a break-in. Would that be in order, officer?’

Ida wakes when her mother pulls the door to her room open.

‘Ida! I’m off on the school run with the kids now! Hurry up or you’ll be late!’ she shouts, already on her way somewhere else.

Ida reaches for her mobile and switches it on. It starts pinging incessantly. Ida can’t be bothered to open all these texts, even less to listen to the voicemail messages.

She staggers out of bed. Meets her gaze in the bathroom mirror, notes how her face is still swollen with sleep. Disgusted, she looks away.

Because you’re you.

The force of Gustaf’s remembered words almost makes her sway and fall. They hurt as badly today as they did yesterday.

After the shower, she rubs in lotion, puts on make-up and does her hair. Back in her room, she puts on the clothes she laid out yesterday night. She decides to skip breakfast and sets out for school.

The sky over Engelsfors is high and clear. She has almost forgotten that mornings can be like this. Even so, she can’t enjoy it. Can’t let go of the thoughts that revolve around what happened yesterday. The magic flowing towards her in the centre. Erik’s eyes. And G.

Because you’re you.

When Ida turns into the schoolyard, she instantly senses the subdued excitement in the air that is always generated
when everyone is talking about the same thing. In the usual run of things, it would have made her curious. Exalted, even. Now, she feels the exact opposite of that.

She sees Julia who is running to meet her.

‘Shit, Ida, I just heard,’ she says as soon as she is close enough.

‘What’s up? Has something happened?’

Julia’s large eyes manage to grow even larger.

‘But Erik must have got in touch …?’

Ida regrets not checking her messages. What actually went on while she slept?

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh, my God. Poor love, so you really haven’t heard?’

Julia puts her head at a sympathetic angle. But Ida sees straight through her. Julia is loving being the one to tell her about whatever has happened. She’s loving it so much she’s fit to spontaneously combust any second now.

‘Linnéa Wallin is spreading a rumour about Erik and Robin. She says they pushed her into the canal,’ Julia carries on. ‘Like, an attempted murder! I mean, how sick is
that
?’

‘I don’t get it,’ Ida says.

Something is stirring deep inside her. A sense of an approaching, unstoppable catastrophe.

‘Exactly. Wild, isn’t it?’ Julia says.

She pulls Ida along with her through the front doors and into the entrance hall. Ida immediately spots Erik and Robin in the middle of a large group of pupils, mostly PE supporters. Kevin and Rickard are there. And Felicia, who is clinging to Robin with both arms around his waist, as if she thinks he might float off into the air if she let him go.

Rickard is holding forth.

‘Everyone knows that Linnéa hates PE. Remember the assembly last autumn?’

‘I mean, she’s ever so matey with Minoo Falk Karimi. And Minoo’s old man is spreading lies about PE, like, non-stop,’ Hanna A says.

‘It isn’t just about getting at Erik and Robin, it’s an attack against the entire movement,’ Rickard continues, just as Ida pushes her way through the crowd to Erik.

As soon as he sees her, he reaches out, grabs her jacket and pulls her close.

‘Where have you been?’ he hisses under his breath. ‘I’ve been trying to phone you all morning.’

‘I’d switched the phone off. What’s happening?’

‘It’s a fucking mess,’ Robin says and Ida turns around. He is stroking Felicia’s head. ‘We were in the centre and the police turned up. Apparently someone had called the emergency services and said that we’d pushed Linnéa Wallin into the canal.’

‘She made the call, obviously,’ Erik says.

‘Yeah, she’s fucking mental,’ Kevin says.

Ida looks at him. Then at Robin. And finally, at Erik.

She knows them so well, has known them all her life.

She knows them so well, and now she knows that they are all lying.

‘But why should Linnéa invent something like that?’ she asks.

‘What, don’t you believe us?’ Erik says.

‘Of course I do. All I meant was … she could’ve thought up a better lie than that. This one makes no sense. If you’d pushed her into the canal she would’ve died.’

‘Who knows what goes on in her sodding mind, she’s that deranged,’ Robin says and begins to twist Felicia’s blonde hair between his fingers, until it becomes more and more entangled.

‘Look who’s there!’ Felicia whispers.

The whole group turns around when Linnéa steps inside. The talk dies down. Silence falls in the hall. People glance covertly in Linnéa’s direction. A first-year girl titters nervously.

‘How dare she show her face round here?’ Julia says.

‘You lay off telling lies about my boyfriend, you mad slut!’ Felicia shouts.

Ida senses that Erik is looking at her, that several others are turning her way, and realises they are expecting her to say something.

But not a word reaches her lips. Linnéa wanders off down the stairs, without a single sign of having heard what Felicia shouted, or having noticed that everyone is staring at her.

Ida!

Ida is startled when she hears Linnéa call her name. No one else seems to have heard, though.

‘She’ll be fucking sorry,’ Robin says.

Meet me in the toilets by the dining area. It’s important.

And then Ida realises that Linnéa’s voice is only audible inside her own head.

Erik is still watching her. She gently prises herself free from his grip.

‘Back soon,’ she says and makes herself kiss him lightly on the cheek.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘The loo, that’s all.’

She tries to smile before walking away.

Linnéa is waiting in the toilets. She is wearing more makeup than ever. As if she’s painted a warrior’s mask on her face.

The cubicle doors are wide open. They are alone.

‘What really happened?’ Ida asks. ‘What’s all this about?’

Linnéa’s lips tremble and, for a moment, Ida thinks that Linnéa is going to burst into tears.

‘I can’t …’

She leans against the wall, shuts her eyes.

I thought I’d faint when I saw them.
‘Saw who?’

‘Erik and Robin …’

‘What’s with them? Christ, what have you been saying about them?’

Linnéa opens her eyes and looks straight at Ida.

‘They tried to kill me.’

Ida shakes her head.

‘Of course they didn’t! I don’t want to listen to you!’

She walks towards the door, but Linnéa grabs her wrist, holds her there.

‘Let me go, you freak!’ Ida squeals and tries to pull free.

‘Listen to me!’

‘Leave me alone!’

Ida tries to tug herself free, but now all the strength is draining from her body. Her field of vision narrows, then goes dark.

Ida watches Erik as he pulls the balaclava over his face and starts walking towards her.

And she runs, runs for her life.

They are on the bridge now and she can see in Erik’s eyes that he is prepared to kill her, that he
wants
to kill her.