The Circle (54 page)

‘Rules?’ she repeats, and raises an eyebrow.

Her mother spins her teaspoon in her hand. She’s hardly touched her coffee or the petit beurre on her plate.

‘Well, we can hardly go back to how it was before.’

‘I agree,’ Vanessa says, sure they’re talking about two different things.

‘I haven’t been strict enough. You’ve been allowed to go out partying and meeting boys since you were far too young.’

‘Like mother, like daughter?’

The teaspoon stops spinning. Her mother meets her gaze. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I suppose so.’

‘But that’s all over now? It’s time to be a real mother?’ Why do I do that? she wonders. Why do I ruin everything from the word ‘go’?

‘If you’re going to take that attitude …’ Her mother starts to stand up.

‘I’m sorry,’ Vanessa says. The word leaves a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. But her mother sits down again. That’s the important thing.

‘You have to see it from my perspective, too,’ Vanessa continues.

‘Don’t you think I’m trying to?’

Vanessa sips her coffee to stop herself from screaming, ‘No!’ to that question. ‘I really don’t know,’ she says. ‘You don’t seem to care. You haven’t tried to get in touch. Not even at Christmas.’ She speaks quickly, so her voice doesn’t shake.

‘Of course I care!’ her mother says.

Vanessa still doesn’t trust her voice so she shrugs.

‘I’ve asked Sirpa not to say anything, but we’ve talked to each other at least once a week,’ her mother says. ‘I thought it best that you came to me when you were ready.’

She reaches across the table to Vanessa, but Vanessa leans back in her chair.

‘Why do you want to come home anyway?’ her mother asks. ‘Aren’t things working out between you and Wille?’

‘Everything’s great,’ Vanessa says, and hears how defiant she sounds, how obvious it is that she’s lying. She looks out of the window. ‘It isn’t fair to Sirpa,’ she says.

‘Is that the only reason?’ her mother asks.

Vanessa looks at her hands. Only now does she become aware that she’s also spinning her teaspoon. She knows what she wants to say. Why is it so difficult? ‘I miss you –Melvin and you.’

‘And we’ve missed you. A lot.’

Her mother’s voice sounds thick and Vanessa doesn’t dare look at her. She’s afraid she’s going to start crying.

‘I want it to work,’ her mother says, sighing heavily. ‘I want us to be a family.’

‘So do I,’ Vanessa says. ‘But there’s one thing I have to know: don’t you think on some level – just a tiny bit – that Nicke’s behaviour might be out of line sometimes, too? That maybe it isn’t always my fault that things aren’t working.’

‘I’ve never said it was only your fault,’ her mother says, in the martyr voice that Vanessa hates.

She clenches her fist, lets her nails dig little red half-moons into her palm. ‘You said something about rules.’

‘You can be out late only at weekends,’ her mother says.

Vanessa doesn’t object. She’s an expert at slipping out and in without her mother noticing.

‘I’m not going to try to stop you seeing Wille,’ her mother says. ‘I just have one request. Please, Vanessa, be careful. Don’t let yourself be dragged into anything. Promise me that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay.’

‘And maybe it’s not such a good idea for Wille to come over to our house.’

Her mother looks away, and Vanessa knows instantly that that’s Nicke’s condition. ‘I don’t think he’ll want to,’ she says. ‘Not after how he was treated last time.’

‘I can understand that.’

It may not sound like much, but that’s the closest her mother has ever come to admitting that Nicke was wrong.

‘We’ve fixed the pipes in the shower, by the way,’ her mother continues, with a hint of a smile, ‘so now you won’t get scalded every morning.’

‘Did Nicke manage to …?’

‘No,’ her mother says. ‘We had to call in a contractor. They tore out everything Nicke had done and started again. It ended up being twice as expensive as it would have been if we’d brought them in from the beginning.’

Now Vanessa sees an unmistakable smile at the corners of her mother’s mouth. Maybe there is hope, after all.

The last lesson is physics and they’re working in pairs. Minoo lets her partner Levan build the ramp that they’ll let
a
little car roll down to show … something or other. She can’t concentrate on the problem. She can’t think. She avoids looking at Max. Avoids looking at Anna-Karin. She has to concentrate on not hyperventilating. Levan is building and measuring. Minoo’s hand takes notes automatically.

She sticks the other into her pocket and fingers the little glass bottle. Glances at Max’s coffee cup that is on his desk. There’s five minutes to go before the end of the lesson. Max is at the back of the lab, turned away from her, helping Kevin Månsson.

‘I’m just going to blow my nose,’ she tells Levan.

She walks to the front of the class. The paper-towel dispenser is mounted on the wall behind the teacher’s desk.

She glances in Max’s direction. He’s still bent over Kevin, explaining something. She wishes she could hear what they’re saying so that she knows whether they’re in the middle of a discussion or about to end it. Ironically, the survival of the Chosen Ones and the future of the world may depend on Kevin – on whether he’s dim-witted enough to need Max’s help long enough to allow Minoo the time she needs.

She pulls out the truth serum bottle from her cardigan pocket. Her fingers are slippery and it slides in her grasp, but she doesn’t drop it.

She unscrews the top. The mug is on the desk, with some black coffee left in the bottom. He always finishes it when the lesson is over.

Minoo casts a nervous glance over her shoulder. Everyone is staring at their ramps. Max is still with Kevin. It’s now or never.

Just do it, she thinks.

She holds out her hand, squeezes the little rubber top of the eye dropper and pulls it back, unsure whether anything came out. There are just a few drops left in the bottle. Her heart is pounding.

Max has left Kevin and is now wandering about the room with his hands clasped behind his back.

Did he see her? She has no idea.

His face is expressionless. Normal.

She pretends to blow her nose and returns to her desk. Step one is accomplished.

The bell rings. Levan has already put away their equipment and gives her a sour look. He’s had to do all the work. ‘Sorry I’m tired today,’ she says apologetically.

‘It’s okay,’ he says curtly, and packs his bag.

She puts her books into her backpack as slowly as she can, while the last of the other students shuffle out. Why are they so slow? She wants to yell at them to hurry up.

Eventually she and Max are the only ones left. He’s holding his coffee cup. Has he drunk it? She tries to read his face. ‘Everything all right?’ he asks.

She forces a smile that causes her mouth to tremble.

‘Of course. Why do you ask?’

‘I can see something’s wrong,’ he says.

She walks up to his desk, meets his gaze. His beautiful greenish-brown eyes. A murderer’s eyes.

He looks at her as he empties his coffee cup. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Max clears his throat. Swallows again. ‘Isn’t it very … stuffy in here?’ he says.

And she knows it’s working.

‘Was it you?’ she whispers. ‘Was it you who killed Elias and Rebecka?’

Waiting for the answer feels like falling through space, faster and faster with each passing millisecond.

‘Yes,’ Max says.

And there’s the answer. The one that changes everything.

The love she’s felt for him, which seemed so huge and eternal, evaporates. She never thought you could stop loving someone so suddenly. But the Max she loved doesn’t exist. He never did.

‘Did you disguise yourself as Gustaf by the viaduct?’ she asks.

‘Yes. I wanted to be close to you.’

‘Why Gustaf?’

‘You seem to like him. Everyone likes Gustaf. Rebecka trusted him.’

‘Do you know who the other Chosen Ones are?’

‘Just you and Anna-Karin. There are three more.’

So Vanessa, Linnéa and Ida aren’t in immediate danger. That’s a relief. Then a terrible thought takes hold of her. Something Anna-Karin had suggested yesterday and that she hasn’t really considered.
The killer could make himself look like anyone
…

‘Have you ever taken on the form of anyone else? Me or Anna-Karin?’

‘I’ve tried,’ he says, ‘but for some reason I can only look like other men. They told me that some are limited in that way.’

‘“They”?’

‘The ones who blessed me,’ Max answers, without batting an eyelid. ‘They told me about you. About what I have to do.’

‘Have you seen them? Met them?’

‘No. At first they were just voices in my dreams. But now they’re there when I’m awake. They’re always with me. At this very moment they’re telling me to be silent, but I can’t.’

‘Why?’ she asks. ‘Why are you killing us?’

‘I made a pact with them. But that’s changed now.’ He looks at Minoo with a glazed expression and smiles. ‘You needn’t worry, Minoo. They have a new plan for you.’

The hair on the back of her neck stands up. ‘A plan?’ she asks.

‘They haven’t told me the details yet. The important thing is that they’ve agreed to let you live. That’s all that matters to me.’

‘But you have no problem with killing those you don’t care about?’

‘I don’t like to do it, but it’s necessary.’

‘Necessary?’

Max shuts his eyes. The serum has stopped working. He refocuses on her as if he has only just become aware that she’s standing there. ‘What were we talking about?’ he asks.

Minoo opens her mouth but is unable to speak. It’s as if she’s run out of lies.

And Max sees it.

Or are the demons telling him what happened? They aren’t affected by the serum. Max’s eyes harden.

She tries to head for the door, but he grabs her wrist tightly and pulls her to him. ‘Let go!’ Her voice is so weak, like in one of those dreams where you can’t scream, only whisper.

‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What have you done?’ he repeats.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she whispers. ‘I have to go.’

Max lets go of her. ‘I won’t harm you, Minoo,’ he says pleadingly.

She wants to throw up when she remembers how she kissed him.

How could she have kissed him twice without realising he was the murderer? And how can she tell the others?

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says again, and runs out of the classroom.

54

THEY’VE CRAMMED THEMSELVES
around Nicolaus’s kitchen table. Nicolaus is standing beside the counter, petting Cat distractedly.

Minoo’s tense shoulders are pulled up so high that they’re almost earrings. She leans forward with her hands on the tabletop. She’s going to be strong now. She’s going to tell them. Across the table she meets Anna-Karin’s eyes. Anna-Karin has also been forced to reveal her secrets to the others.

Minoo has rehearsed what she’s going to say, over and over again, in her head. She tries to gather her courage, to suppress the shame that, on some level, she knows she doesn’t have to feel – but what good is that when she feels it so intensely?

Now everyone’s looking at her.

‘It’s Max,’ she says. ‘Max is the killer.’

That wasn’t how she had intended to start.

‘Max?’ Anna-Karin asks.

‘Max who?’ Vanessa asks.

‘He’s our mentor,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘The maths and physics teacher.’

‘The good-looking one?’ Ida asks.

‘What makes you think it’s him?’ Anna-Karin asks.

And Minoo explains, without looking at them: about Max and Alice and the woman in the painting, about the evening she was at his house, about the kiss by the viaduct, about Gustav’s doppelganger, who was Max, about every thing Max had confessed to her in the classroom.

The only thing she doesn’t tell them is the plan that Max was talking about, the one that the demons have devised for her. It’s too frightening.

‘How could you be so fucking stupid?’ Vanessa says.

‘I didn’t know until yesterday,’ Minoo stammers.

‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ Vanessa says. ‘I’m talking about the truth serum! Anything could have happened! How could you use it on him while you were alone with him?’

‘I had to.’

Linnéa has sat there silently, watching Minoo. But now she leans forward and smiles coldly. ‘So what would have happened if Max had killed you? Then we would never have found out he was the murderer.’

‘I wanted to be sure it was him,’ Minoo says.