THE GIRL TRIED to swallow but her tongue felt numb. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. As if in a tunnel, she heard a voice talk to her but she couldn’t grasp the words. Somebody touched her and she tried to hit the hand away.
“Calm down,” said the voice.
When she lifted her hand to hit out again she felt an intense pain in her head, which forced her to remain still. In the end she opened her eyes and met with a strong light.
She blinked several times until a stranger appeared in front of her. A white-dressed man was leaning over the bed she lay in.
“What’s your name?” he said.
The girl didn’t answer.
She screwed up her eyes to accustom them to the light. The man had blond hair, spectacles and a beard.
“I’m Doctor Mikael Andersson. You are in hospital. You’ve been in an accident. Do you know your name?”
She swallowed again, searched her memory for an answer.
“Do you remember what happened?”
She turned her head and looked at the doctor. The pain pulsated in her bandaged head. She shut her eyes for a few moments, and then opened them again slowly. She didn’t know how she should answer. Because she couldn’t remember.
She couldn’t remember anything at all.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
PHOBOS FIDGETED WITH his gun. He knew that he had carried out the mission most satisfactorily. And it was a simple task to shoot that man who hadn’t paid in time.
A single shot sufficed. In the back of his head. One hole. Blood on the floor.
It was better to sneak up on the victims and shoot them from behind, then they didn’t have time to react and there was less risk of opposition. They just fell forwards. Most of them died straightaway. Others shook. Made a noise.
The water broke against the boat and it rocked heavily. Even so, he felt relaxed and satisfied. Because he knew he would get his reward.
At last he would get the dose he deserved.
*
The gun was two centimeters from Jana Berzelius’s cheek.
The man in front of her quickly wiped a drop of saliva from the corner of his mouth. He had long dark hair, brown eyes and an angular face.
Who was he? Was it Hades?
“Who the hell are you?” said the man and pushed the gun even closer to her cheek.
“I’m a prosecutor,” she said and wondered quickly about possible escape routes.
They stood in the kitchen; the living room was behind her, the hall in front. Two escape routes, one of which required more time. She could knock him out but he had the advantage with the gun.
She looked across at the kitchen table. No knives.
“Don’t try,” said the man. “Tell me instead what you as a prosecutor are doing in my place.”
“I need your help.”
The man laughed.
“Oh really? You don’t say. How interesting. And what can I help you with?”
“You can help me to find out something.”
“Something? And what is this something about?”
“My background.”
“Your background? How could I help you with that when I don’t even know who you are?”
“But I know who you are.”
“Really? Who am I then?”
“You are Danilo.”
“Brilliant. Did you work that out all by yourself, or did you perhaps read my name on the door?”
“You are someone else too?”
“You mean I’m a schitzo?”
“Show me your neck?”
The man fell completely silent.
“You’ve got another name written there,” said Jana. “I know what it says. If I guess right then you must tell me how you got it. If I guess wrong then you can let me go.”
“We’ll change the agreement a little. If you guess right then I’ll tell you. Sure, that’s no problem. If you guess wrong, or if I don’t have a name on my neck, then I’ll shoot you.”
He cocked the gun, took a couple of steps back from her and stood with his legs apart ready to shoot.
“I can report you for attempted murder,” said Jana.
“And I can report you for breaking in. Now guess!”
Jana swallowed.
She was pretty sure it was him.
But would she dare say the name?
She shut her eyes.
“Hades,” she whispered and heard a shot go off.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
THE GIRL SAT before her on the hard chair with her eyes on the floor. She hunched up and her hands were hidden under her thighs.
She just sat there.
Silent.
Welfare officer Beatrice Alm looked up over her reading glasses and delicately shut the folder lying on the desk.
“Well now,” she said and leaned forward and folded her hands. “You are one lucky girl. You are going to get a mommy and a daddy.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
JANA OPENED HER EYES.
The man was still standing in front of her with the gun lowered. For a brief second she felt her body to see if she had been hit. She hadn’t. The bullet had gone right past her and left a hole in the wall behind.
She fixed her eyes on the man. He was breathing heavily.
“How do you know?” he asked with his jaws tightly pressed together. “How the fuck do you know? Tell me!”
He went up to her and stood with his face against hers.
“How the fuck did you know that? Tell me now!”
He grabbed her hair and forced her head back. Brutally. Then he hit her on her forehead with the gun and pressed it against her temples.
“I’ll shoot again. And this time I promise it’ll go right in here. So tell me. Spit it out!”
Jana made a face.
“I’ve got a name too,” she said roughly.
He immediately thrust her head to one side. Pulled at her hair, scratching the skin. She felt her neck exposed to him and began to panic. She quickly got out of his hard grip. She backed a few steps and looked up at him.
He shook his head.
“It can’t be true, it can’t be true. It can’t be you.”
“Yes, it is me. And now you’ll explain to me who I am.”
*
It took Jana Berzelius ten minutes to tell the brief story of her life. She sat next to Danilo on the thin mattress in the naked living room. Both with their knees drawn up and with their heads bent down.
“So you were adopted?” he said.
“Yes, I was adopted. Jana is my first name now. Berzelius my surname. My father is the Prosecutor General but now he’s retired. What he wanted most of all was a son who would follow in his footsteps. Instead, I got to do that.”
They studied each other. Both uncertain how to react.
“I remember nothing from the accident. I’ve been told that I had fallen down onto a rail track in the underground and hit my head so hard that I lost my memory. Nobody could tell me how I came to be there on the track or who I was. I was alone. There was nobody who asked about me, or who came looking for me after the accident.”
Jana stopped speaking.
“So you can’t remember anything at all?” Danilo said.
“Some fragments or images can come to me in dreams, but I don’t know if they’re real memories or pure fantasies.”
“Do you remember your real parents?”
“Did I have any?”
Danilo didn’t answer.
The wind howled loudly from the crack in the window. The room immediately felt cold. Jana wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Can’t you tell me something about your life?” she said.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I dreamed that you were murdered.”
Danilo squirmed uneasily.
“I escaped. Okay? I got a bullet in my shoulder,” he said, and pulled down his sweater to reveal a large scar on his right shoulder. “When you ran away I just lay there completely still, played dead. When Mama ran after you I got up and ran off too. And here I am now. End of story.”
“But didn’t they find you?”
“No.”
Jana pondered.
“Is that what she was called?”
“Who?”
“Mama, was she called that?”
“Yes.”
“Did I say it too?”
“Yes.”
Danilo’s shoulders sank somewhat.
“Why are you here? Why are you raking up the past?”
“I want to know who I am.” Jana bit her lip. “Can I trust you?”
“How so?”
“Can I tell you secrets without you spreading them?”
“Hang on. Who has sent you?”
“Nobody. I’m here entirely on my own and for purely personal reasons.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I’ve got to a point where I need answers. And I need to find out things without involving the police.”
“But you’re a prosecutor. Surely it’s the police you should talk to?”
“No.”