The Circle (Hammer)

18



A COLD WIND is blowing across Storvall Square. Minoo is thinking about Rebecka’s words, scribbled on her notebook: Someone was following me yesterday.

She shoves her hands into her pockets and hunches her shoulders. She hurries towards the light yellow house on the other side of the square. Engelsfors Herald shines across the façade in big neon lettering.

Ever since Minoo started school, she has been dropped by her father’s office at least once a week. Usually he barely has time to say hello, but it’s still nice to sit at the table in the coffee room, do her homework, browse through the magazines and feel the energy of the editorial desk.

Minoo turns before she opens the front door. There’s not a single person on the square.

Nope, not a single person.

One of the town’s three banks stands next to the Engelsfors Herald. The building is one of the most impressive in town: a heavy nineteenth-century construction with marble columns at either side of the entrance. A mangy cat is lying on the steps leading up to the entrance. It is staring straight at Minoo with its one green eye. It climbs awkwardly to its feet – not cat-like in the least – and walks up the steps. Then it walks back down, up and then down, before it returns to its original spot and lets out a single miaow.

When Minoo enters the lobby, she is met by the smell of coffee from the news desk. Her father often says that if the Engelsfors Herald were ever to close down, the town’s consumption of coffee would be halved. That’s probably true. Sometimes Minoo wonders if her mother and father could survive on coffee alone, like cars and petrol.

Cissi and her father are standing and gesticulating at each other inside his office. It’s obvious that they’re in the middle of an argument. Cissi’s big blue eyes are wide and her short ash blonde hair is sticking up more than usual, like a hedgehog’s quills. Minoo can’t see her father’s face, but his neck is bright red. He’s furious.

Cissi is a recurring topic of conversation at the dinner table. On the one hand, she’s quick and expresses herself well. On the other, she’s far too prone to sensationalism and lazy fact-checking. Her article about Elias’s suicide wasn’t the first that Minoo’s father had had to pull.

Minoo stands outside the office. She can hear their voices, muffled by the glass, and can just make out what they’re saying.

‘You’re out to sabotage me!’ Cissi says. ‘I have a unique opportunity to be first on the scene. The paramedics called it in just two minutes ago.’

‘You can do whatever you like, but I won’t print a word of it.’

Her father is incensed. Minoo doesn’t think she’s ever heard him so angry before.

‘This concerns the entire community,’ Cissi says.

‘It concerns no one but the girl’s family!’

Minoo sees how Cissi changes her tactic.

‘I can understand how difficult it is for you to look at this objectively,’ she says, in a softer tone. ‘You’ve got a daughter the same age—’

She breaks off when she catches sight of Minoo.

Her father turns. ‘Minoo …’

Something has happened. Something awful. She can see it in their faces. Her father moves to the door and opens it. ‘Come in,’ he says.

Cissi looks at her with an expression that is intended to convey pity and compassion, but her greedy curiosity shines through. Minoo’s father lays a hand on her shoulder. He casts a pointed glance at Cissi, who leaves the office.

‘There’s been an accident …’ he begins, then looks around furtively.

It’s hot in the office, Minoo thinks. Hot and stuffy. Cissi’s perfume hangs in the air.

‘Your friend Rebecka … has died.’

‘What?’

‘She’s dead.’

Instantly Minoo wants to reassure him. It’s just a misunderstanding. Someone has died, and that’s terrible, but it’s not Rebecka. She’d said goodbye to her friend just before she went to her meeting with the principal. ‘It can’t be her,’ she says, and smiles to prove that there’s nothing to worry about, that he’s wrong.

‘I know it’s difficult to take in—’

‘No. It really can’t be her. It’s impossible. We saw each other just a few moments ago.’

‘It’s only just happened,’ her father says.

Minoo’s smile is making her jaw ache.

‘I didn’t want you to find out like this,’ her father says. ‘I thought …’

Minoo shakes her head. ‘It can’t be her.’

‘It seems she … was depressed. As if she’d made up her mind that she didn’t want to go on living.’

Minoo remembers what Linnéa said that day in the playground: He didn’t kill himself. She hadn’t believed her. She had thought Linnéa just couldn’t accept the truth. ‘What happened?’

Her father hesitates.

‘I’ll find out anyway,’ Minoo adds.

‘She jumped. From the school roof. I’m so dreadfully sorry.’ Her father grabs hold of her shoulders and looks into her eyes.

And Minoo knows it’s true.

‘Sweet child.’ Her father hugs her hard and long. At first all she can do is stand there motionless, but then she clings to him. She’s suddenly so close to breaking down and telling him everything. About Elias. About Rebecka. About the Chosen Ones. About how they’re all going to die, one by one.

But what could her father do about it? What could anyone do? Nobody can help them. Except, perhaps, one person.

She feels a switch flip inside her, and all her emotions are turned off. She has to act, solve the problem, warn the others. ‘Is there a computer I can use?’

Her father gives her an odd look. ‘This has to be kept secret until her family has been informed,’ he says. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’

She nods and he takes her to a work station. She does a quick search for a home address, memorises it, then erases the history from the browser.

‘I have to go to the Ladies.’ She feels her father’s eyes on her back as she heads for the toilets.

As soon as she’s out of sight, she opens and closes the door without going inside and continues along the corridor towards the emergency exit. She emerges on to the street through a side entrance.

Minoo casts a quick glance towards the windows but can’t see her father. He’ll worry once he realises she’s disappeared, but that can’t be helped.

She starts to run.

She crosses Storvall Square and turns down Gnejsgatan. Her heart is pounding. She runs faster and almost passes number seven, a three-storey building with a green stucco façade. The door swings open at a gentle shove.

It says ‘Elingius’ beside the only door on the ground floor.

She rings the bell and hears shuffling footsteps inside. The security chain is unfastened. The door opens and Nicolaus appears in a black bathrobe. He’s so pale that his skin seems almost transparent and his ice-blue eyes seem to have faded a little. He looks like a nocturnal animal that has never seen daylight.

‘I have to talk to you,’ Minoo says, and walks in without waiting for an answer.

The apartment is simply furnished. It has only been fitted out with the bare essentials. No carpets, no curtains. The living-room walls are light brown; a beautiful silver cross hangs beside an old framed map of Engelsfors, just like the one in Minoo’s bathroom.

‘Minoo?’ Nicolaus says in surprise.

She turns to meet his questioning look. ‘Rebecka is dead,’ she says. She has no time to dress it up.

Nicolaus is rooted to the spot. He blinks once. Minoo is about to explode with impatience. She has to make Nicolaus understand at once so they can decide what has to be done. ‘They’re saying she committed suicide,’ she says, ‘but, of course, we know that wasn’t the case.’

Nicolaus sinks down on to a spindle-back chair. ‘Another one,’ he says.

‘What are we going to do?’ Minoo asks.

‘The fault is mine,’ Nicolaus mumbles. ‘I should have protected her.’

Minoo is about to fall apart. The only way she can hold herself together is to keep moving forward. She can’t think about what has happened to Rebecka, no matter what. ‘You know as little as we do about whatever is hunting us down,’ she says, and forces herself to sound calm. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

‘I’ve failed’

‘Stop it!’ Minoo shouts. ‘I came here because I need your help.’

‘How can I help when I don’t—’

‘I know,’ Minoo cuts in. ‘You don’t know who you are. But who does when it comes down to it?’

Nicolaus stares at her.

‘You can’t run away from this,’ she says. ‘None of us can.’

He blinks again suddenly, as if he has just woken from a deep sleep. ‘You’re right. I’ve allowed myself to be consumed by self-pity. I’ve allowed my heart to become filled with black bile—’

‘Precisely,’ Minoo says quickly, to shut him up. ‘We have to gather the others together and draw up a strategy. But I can’t do it alone. I need you. We need you.’