Watching You(84)

‘In a way that was even more cowardly.’

‘I know,’ Berger said quietly. ‘But if William has come back to Helenelund, if this is all about taking revenge for the injustices of childhood in a really sick way, would he leave Anton untouched?’

‘Ah,’ Blom said. ‘Can you find him?’

‘I’ll try,’ Berger said, throwing himself at his laptop.

He had a name, he had a year of birth, he even had a vague idea of when his birthday was. It didn’t take long to find Anton Bergmark.

‘Plumber,’ Berger said. ‘Stayed in Sollentuna. Worked in his dad’s business for ten years. Took over from him. Called himself managing director. Then declared unfit for work.’

‘Unfit for work?’ Blom said. ‘When?’

‘Almost three years ago. Took early retirement six months later.’

‘That’s quite a change. From managing director to unfit for work to early retirement in the space of six months. The obvious interpretation is substance abuse of some kind.’

‘Too many business dinners with cocaine dessert?’ Berger said. ‘Not out of the question. The business fell apart, went bankrupt. Divorced from his second wife not long before. She got custody of the three children, one of whom wasn’t even hers but Anton’s from his first marriage.’

‘Restraining order?’

‘Can’t find anything like that. But there’s an address.’

‘Let me guess,’ Blom said. ‘A rehab centre?’

‘The Svalan Care Home,’ Berger said. ‘In the centre of Sollentuna.’

They began to sense that things weren’t quite right when they were on their way in. The Svalan Care Home occupied a couple of floors in one of the huge blocks on Malmv?gen in Sollentuna, and the walls of the long corridor were adorned with rather too many cross-stitched samplers with phrases like My home is my castle and East, west, home is best to signify a rehab centre for addicts. When the first wheelchair rolled out and a woman who had to be in her late nineties greeted them with the words ‘Ah, the Elfenben couple! Is it already time to empty the latrines?’ that sense only grew stronger. A nurse appeared with a quizzical look on her face, and Berger held up his ID.

‘What sort of care home is Svalan?’

The odd thing was that the nurse laughed before replying. ‘It’s what used to be called long-stay.’

‘Senile elderly patients waiting to die?’

‘Not only them. We have a number of younger patients as well.’

‘Including Anton Bergmark?’

The nurse nodded and led them along the corridor until they reached a larger room with a view of the other apartment blocks. There were about a dozen people scattered around the room. A television was on, but no one seemed to be watching it. Everyone Berger and Blom saw looked elderly; they were in wheelchairs and weren’t doing much. The nurse walked past them to the window. There was a man sitting in a wheelchair, looking out through the rain. He had his back to them, but his posture was slumped, his arms were hanging down, and the reflection in the big window was too indistinct to tell them anything.

‘Anton?’ the nurse said.

That didn’t prompt any reaction at all.

The nurse grabbed the handle of the wheelchair and slowly turned it round.

And Berger was suddenly fifteen-year-old Sam, running like he had never run before, through meadow grass which reached up to his chest. The figure in front of him slowed down and slowly turned round.

The face that was turned towards Berger and Blom in Svalan Care Home in the centre of Sollentuna was crooked and misshapen. The bumps seemed to stick out in an almost cubist fashion from his head.

They stared at the deformed face. It stared back, dark, sceptical, dismissive.

Sam would rather have turned on his heel and fled before William saw him, but it’s too late now. All Sam can think as he moves through the curtain of girls is: It’s almost the summer holidays. All this crap will soon be over. But it isn’t over for Anton. Not by a long shot. He passes something to Sam, and it takes a few moments before Sam realises that it’s a towel, a damp towel.

‘Whip him!’

And only then does Sam see how badly William’s been whipped. And he suddenly sees the boathouse before him; he sees the girl’s tongue push at the duct tape, hears her wild screaming that cuts off abruptly after he takes off like a frightened rabbit through the grass that reaches up to his chest. And he whips and lashes out, and he sees William’s body shrink with pain, but not a sound emerges from his lips. He looks up for the first time and meets Sam’s gaze.

Sam goes closer, is standing very close now, and whispers: ‘That was for the boathouse, you fucking lunatic.’

William stares into his eyes. Sam has never seen such a black look in his whole life. Then there’s movement. It’s extremely slow. Sam sees it almost frame by frame. The long, blond hair lifts and is tossed back. The crooked, misshapen features emerge from below the hair, and out of that crookedness two rows of bared teeth emerge. They part. They approach Sam’s upper arm. He never feels the teeth penetrate his skin and then his flesh. He never hears the teeth meet, deep in his arm. He doesn’t hear it and he doesn’t feel it. And the pain radiating from his bicep doesn’t gain momentum before he sees the piece of flesh fall from William’s mouth, followed by a steady stream of blood. With distorted slowness the piece of flesh drifts down towards the dry grit of the football pitch.