You're Mine Now (14 page)

‘I’ll have to go over with a bottle of wine.’

Hedda was sitting in front of her computer in her room and Anna had just told Magnus about the imaginary intruder.

‘I still don’t understand,’ Magnus said. ‘It smelt odd?’

‘But it was like, like someone had just walked through the room.’

Magnus gave her a sceptical look.

‘The white lady sort of thing?’

‘Okay, okay, has your imagination never run away with you? I did in fact want to lock the door. It was you who said I didn’t need to. But don’t say anything to Hedda. It’ll only make her nervous.’

Magnus smiled at her, held his hands up in the air and wiggled his fingers.

‘Whoooohoooo.’

Anna let out an unimpressed sigh.

‘I’m sorry,’ Magnus said. ‘You did the right thing. You never know. Always best to be on the safe side.’

He opened the fridge, grabbed a beer and looked out at their newly purchased car. Anna went into the sitting room and switched on the TV. The phone rang and Magnus answered it. Anna saw him put it down again.

‘Who was it?’

‘No one.’

The phone rang again. Magnus answered it again.

‘Yes? Hello? Hello?’

He hung up.

‘Probably some salesperson who got an answer elsewhere.’

It was generally only salespeople who called on the landline. With the exception of Kathrine and a few parents from school who didn’t have their mobile numbers. The phone rang for a third time. Magnus looked at the display before he barked: ‘Yes?’

He stood silently for quite a while.

‘Hello?’ he said, finally, before putting the phone down in irritation.

‘Someone messing around?’ Anna suggested.

The phone rang for a fourth time and Magnus shouted up to Hedda.

‘There’s someone who keeps calling but doesn’t say anything, maybe it’s for you.’

Hedda answered.

‘Oh, hi, Granny. Fine, thank you. Yes. No. Not today. Of course.’

She came into the sitting room with the phone.

‘It’s Granny.’

Anna took it.

‘Hi, Mum. Did you just call?’

‘Wasn’t me.’

‘Okay.’

Anna was worried that her mother might ask whether it could have been Erik and quickly changed the conversation.

‘We’ve bought a new car.’

‘Have you? Why?’

‘The other one was getting a bit old.’

‘But it was such a nice car.’

‘A BMW,’ Anna said, and noticed Magnus grow a few inches in the background.

‘Is it difficult for you to speak?’ her mother whispered.

‘Second-hand,’ Anna said.

‘So you haven’t told him. Good. I think it might be wisest to wait. I called the national registry a few days ago, checked up on Erik Månsson. I didn’t tell you earlier because I felt so ashamed.’

Anna didn’t know what to say. Her mother had phoned the authorities? Why on earth had she done that?

‘His mother is dead,’ Kathrine continued. ‘I don’t know how, but she died a couple of years ago now. And his dad disappeared out of the picture early on, moved to Finland when Erik was just a baby.’

‘Okay.’

‘I don’t think he’s had an easy life.’

‘Mmm.’

‘I can tell that it’s not easy for you to talk. Can we maybe speak tomorrow?’

‘Of course.’

‘Take care then, dear. Bye.’

‘You too, lots of love.’

Anna put down the phone and saw Magnus was looking at her, full of anticipation.

‘She wondered how we could afford it,’ Anna said, and saw her husband grow even more

As if the borrowed money bought status and increased his value as a person. The telephone rang again.

‘Hello?’

‘Can you tell Mr Wimpy to stop answering the phone?’

Anna felt her cheeks burning.

‘You must have got the wrong number.’

‘I have to meet you. We need to talk.’

‘Not a problem.’

She cut off the conversation and struggled to swallow.

‘Wrong number.’

She put the telephone down on the table in front of her. Stared at the TV, but saw only the phone in the foreground. Her ears shut down and a shrill sound filled her head, a sound that she couldn’t block out. She barely heard the phone when it started to ring again. She grabbed it, quick as a flash.

‘Anna.’

‘If you answered your mobile phone I wouldn’t need to call the landline.’

‘Hello?’

‘You’re such a bad liar.’

‘Hello?’

‘And yet you’re living a lie.’

‘Hello?’

Anna looked at Magnus, who had left the kitchen and was walking towards her.

‘Come here and I’ll fuck you like I fucked you on the video. I’m watching you right now.’

Anna heard herself moaning in the background and hung up. She held the red button in until the phone was completely dead.

‘No one there?’

Anna nodded.

‘Just as well to keep it off then.’

She glanced at her husband and then turned to the TV again. She could feel him looking at her, and reached out for the remote control. She couldn’t even change channels naturally.

Magnus turned and left the room.

‘Hedda? Someone keeps calling our landline. Do you have any idea who it might be?’

Kathrine barely recognised her daughter’s voice. She sounded frightened and stressed. Erik Månsson really had knocked her off kilter and it couldn’t continue.

Who might know more about this motherless, misguided young man? Kathrine logged on to ratsit.se and typed in the address in Huddinge where he and his mother had been registered. A list of all the other people living in the block came up. Plus their ages. She chose a man of thirty-five and searched for his phone number.

‘Lars Johansson in the middle of eating,’ he answered, humorously.

Kathrine could hear children’s voices and a woman scolding in the background.

‘Oh, so sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,’ she said. ‘Can I call you back later?’

‘What’s it about?’

Kathrine guessed insurance broker, but she wasn’t sure why.

‘Well, my name is Kathrine Hansson and I’m trying to get in touch with an old friend who used to live at this address. Anneli Månsson. I’m coming up to Stockholm and thought it would be nice to meet her again, but the number that I’ve got doesn’t seem to work any longer.’

‘Oh,’ said Lars Johansson in the middle of eating.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Just a moment, I’ll just go into the next room, so the kids don’t hear.’

‘Sorry, would you like me to call back later?’

‘There,’ the man said, when, by the sound of it, he had locked himself in the family bathroom. ‘You’re an old friend of Anneli Månsson, did you say?’

‘Yes. We met on a holiday a few years ago, and had a lovely time together. And as I’m coming to Stockholm, I thought I’d surprise her.’

‘Well, I’m very sorry to say I’ve got bad news for you then,’ Lars Johansson, the insurance broker, said. ‘Sadly, Anneli Månsson has passed away.’

‘Passed away? But she wasn’t that old.’

‘She took her own life.’

‘T-t-took her own life?’ Kathrine stammered. ‘Why on earth would she do that?’

She tried to sound shocked and suitably upset.

‘I guess you never really know with that kind of thing,’ Lars in the middle of eating replied.

‘But she was so full of life,’ Kathrine said, and really felt very sorry for herself.

‘Yes,’ Lars Johansson agreed, stoically. ‘You just never know.’

Kathrine changed tack.

‘Did you know her well?’ she asked.

‘Not at all.’

‘Did you know her son?’

‘No. But from what I understand, he was the one who found her.’

‘Oh, the poor boy,’ Kathrine said, and finished the conversation.

She rang the next person on the list of Erik Månsson’s former neighbours, a woman her own age, a few years older in fact.

‘Barbro Wellin.’

‘Hello, my name is Kathrine Hansson and I’m calling from Helsingborg.’

‘I see.’

Kathrine explained the situation to her, without leaving anything out. She found it hard to make up a story and lie to a peer.

‘Your daughter had a fling with Erik Månsson and now he won’t leave her alone?’ Barbro Wellin summarised.

‘Yes. And that’s why I’m calling. Is he… dangerous?’

‘I don’t know,’ Barbro said. ‘He lived with his mother, who committed suicide. But you knew that. To tell you the truth, I never really knew them. There was a wall of silence around them. And then there was all the gossip.’

‘What gossip?’

‘That he and his mother… Well, I don’t know how seriously to take rumours like that, but well, there was something going on.’

‘You mean that there was something going on between them?’ Kathrine guessed.

‘Yes, at least, that’s what was hinted at between the lines,’ Barbro Wellin replied.

Anna was in the bathroom brushing her teeth.

‘Oh, how sweet,’ Magnus shouted from the bedroom.

Anna had her mouth full of toothpaste and couldn’t say anything. Their curious daughter asked instead.

‘What?’

‘Your mother,’ Magnus said. ‘She’s left a racing car sweet on my pillow.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s the kind of thing you do in posh hotels, leave sweets on the pillow. And Mummy’s put a racing car on mine because we’ve just bought a new car.’

‘I want one too.’

Anna listened to it all and blinked furiously at her own reflection. She hadn’t put a racing car sweet on her husband’s pillow. And Hedda obviously hadn’t done it either.

Anna had finished brushing her teeth, but continued so she had time to think. There was only one answer. Someone had been in the house. Wrong, Erik had been in the house.

Erik had been in her house, walked in like it was the most natural thing in the world and left a sweet on Magnus’ pillow. But why? Why on earth would he do anything as bizarre as that?

‘You can have mine,’ Magnus said to Hedda, ‘but you can’t eat it until tomorrow, because you’ve just brushed your teeth.’

There were no limits to what Erik could do, he really was sick. The best thing would be to admit everything, tell Magnus about their encounter at Mölle and her subsequent visits to his flat, the video. No, not the video. Magnus must not find out about that, under any circumstances. If he ever saw the recording, it would be over. He would never recover.

Anna stopped brushing, spat and rinsed. She went into the bedroom.

‘You’re so sweet,’ Magnus beamed.

Anna gave a quick smile, got undressed and crept into bed. She reached over for her book and opened it. A piece of paper fell out. It wasn’t her usual bookmark. Anna looked at the piece of paper and read the handwritten message.

A currently contented husband, an unhappy daughter and her own emotional life in disarray – all because of some idiotic fling at a hotel in Mölle.

The first and the last didn’t matter so much. His pleasure in the car would gradually be replaced by complaints about the costs. She had sold her own peace of mind for a few incredible orgasms. Which might seem like an unreasonably high price, but it was nothing compared to what Hedda was suffering. Magnus’ insinuation that someone was making prank calls to her could not be magicked away.

When they dropped her off at school, she looked so unsure as she walked towards the entrance.

‘Maybe it’s someone who’s in love with you,’ Anna tried.

Hedda glared at her.

‘Yuck,’ Magnus said. ‘That must be it.’

He turned and Anna noticed how happy he was with his hands on the steering wheel.

‘It might be someone who’s wanting to annoy us too,’ she said.

Magnus smiled as if to say it was a nice thought, but not plausible.

‘You don’t need to drive me,’ Anna said. ‘I can take the bus.’

‘Of course I’ll drive you,’ Magnus objected. ‘You can’t take that pleasure from me.’

‘What do you mean by pleasure?’

‘I would love to give you a lift.’

‘Have I taken any other pleasure from you?’

Magnus didn’t understand.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘When you said
that
pleasure it sounded like you thought I’d clipped your wings in other areas.’

Magnus shook his head.

‘What’s up with you?’

Anna didn’t answer. She just stared ahead, but could feel his gaze switching between her and the road.

‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.

Anna put her elbow up by the window and rested her head in her hand.

‘Just a bit stressed at work.’

‘Do you need to work overtime?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t worry if you do. I’ll look after supper.’

He dropped her off outside the publishing house. Sissela was walking round from the parking place.

‘New car?’ she said, and waved blithely at Magnus.

‘Newish, second-hand,’ Anna said.

‘Nice.’

They went up in the lift together, observed each other in the mirror.

‘You look tired,’ Sissela said.

‘Thanks,’ Anna said. ‘That’s just what I needed to hear.’

‘I’m sorry, it was well meant.’

Anna backed down.

‘Barely slept last night,’ she explained.

‘What? Again?’ Sissela said. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

They got to their floor. Anna went into the toilets and took out her mobile. She’d had it turned off all night. She tapped in the pin code, sat down on the toilet seat and waited while the phone connected to the server. A text message from the server told her that she had seven new voicemails. She called.

Received yesterday at seventeen fifteen.

Anna heard him put down the phone.

Received yesterday at seventeen twenty-seven.

Another click.

Received yesterday at nineteen o-five.

‘Hi, it’s me. How did it end up like this? I just want to see you. Don’t you realise how much you hurt me? Okay, so you were led astray once, I can understand that. But four times? I believed in you, you fooled me.’

Received yesterday at nineteen twenty-one.

‘What’s my crime? Explain. What did I do wrong? The difference between you and me
is that I don’t jump into bed with just anybody. It really means something to me. I lost my job because of you. What did you lose? Nothing. You can carry on living the high life in the suburbs as if nothing has happened
.’

Received yesterday at nineteen fifty.

‘I think it’s ironic, I really do. You disassociating yourself from me. You! What
happened to self-insight?’

Received yesterday at twenty-two o-nine.

‘Oh, how clever. To turn off your phone. You think you can get rid of me by not
answering, do you really believe that? So you think
I’m
a problem? Don’t you realise how crazy that is? How back to front?
You
think
I’m
a problem? You’re about a hundred years old and not particularly attractive anyway.’

Received yesterday at twenty-three forty-five.

‘Sitting here reliving old memories. Listen. Jeez, you’d think you’d got a jellyfish up
your cunt, you’re so wet. Listen. That’s all.’

Anna turned off her mobile. She didn’t want to have it on while she was at work. She went into the editorial office. Sissela was standing by her desk.

‘Your phone rang,’ she said. ‘I tried to answer, but whoever it was just hung up.’

‘Thank you.’

Sissela went over to layout and Anna immediately phoned down to reception.

‘Hi, Renée, it’s Anna. Can you hold all my calls. I’m going to be in a meeting and busy all day.’

‘Of course.’

‘Thank you.’

She hung up and then tried to call her mother.