A persistent buzzing noise roused her from sleep. She slowly opened her eyes to find a fly on the nightstand, cleaning its legs. She must have forgotten to close the blinds properly and the light filtering in under the edges was bright and white. For a moment she found herself suspended between her dream and the cold morning light, but then her eyes focused and she saw bodies in the other dormitory beds. She felt empty down to her marrow and her memory was full of holes. She battled the emptiness for a moment, and then the images returned.
The sea and the wind. Benjamin on the cliff. And how it all went black in the end.
She was overwhelmed by great sorrow. It must have even been with her as she slept, because her heart was heavy and aching and tears burned in her eyes.
But now it took on enormous proportions and nearly threatened to smother her. Benjamin’s scent seemed to waft through the air, the scent of seaweed and salt that often came from his skin when he returned from his morning dip. She could almost feel his warmth under the blanket and regretted every mean thing she had ever said to him. As miserable and useless as she felt, she wished she could just go back to sleep and never wake up. But then she felt a faint flicker of hope. Maybe, against all odds, they had found him.
She moved her body, extending her fingers and stretching her legs. Everything seemed fine, except for her merciless headache.
One of the bodies in the other beds moved, sighing and turning toward her. It was Anna. She opened her eyes and met Sofia’s gaze.
‘Good morning. How are you feeling?’
‘Like shit. Did they find him?’
Anna shook her head slowly.
Sofia gave a sob. She turned her back on Anna and buried her face in her hands as she curled into a ball. She sniffled and cried and pressed her pillow to her face until she was gasping for breath. Eventually her voice went hoarse and her lungs whistled as she drew in air — she must have been lying there for a long time. She felt the mattress shift under her and knew that Anna had come to perch on the edge.
‘You’ve had a shock. Just rest until you’re feeling better.’
Sofia turned over and wiped her tears. To keep from crying, she pressed her lips together.
‘What happened?’
‘The police and the divers said he must have hit his head on a rock, and his body was dragged out by the currents. The water was so rough that at first the divers couldn’t even go in. When they could dive, they searched for hours but didn’t find him.’
‘Oh, Anna. He’s dead!’
The last word caught in her throat and she started crying again. Anna took her hand.
‘Everyone’s so sad, but I know it’s worst for you. Elin and I are going to move in here so you won’t be so alone. Franz is on the mainland, talking to the police and Benjamin’s family. He said you don’t have to work until you feel better.’
‘The guys carried you. You fainted. Franz said it was the cold and the shock, and your wet clothes. It was just too much, he thought.’
‘I faint pretty easily. I think it has to do with the blood flow to my brain.’
Tears continued to flow.
‘Sofia, I’m so sorry.’
It seemed to Sofia that Anna didn’t look particularly sorry. Her eyes were too steady and her face too stiff, aside from a fake sympathetic smile. She could only imagine what Oswald had said to the staff while she was passed out in the grass. Goddamn hypocrisy was what it was, and a wave of rage washed over her.
‘What the hell is going on, Anna? Why do you look like everything’s fine? Why does everything feel just like it always does around here? Is everyone totally nuts? Benjamin is dead, dammit!’
‘Yes, and it’s horrible. But he was the one who wanted to jump. He knew it was a risk. It was an accident . . .’
‘You don’t know one fucking thing about how it happened.’
‘But Oswald said —’
‘Of course he did. What did you tell the police?’
‘What we agreed upon with Oswald, obviously.’
‘Goddammit, you’re all such liars!’
‘You need to sleep, Sofia. You’re not really yourself right now.’
‘I’m done sleeping!’
‘Oswald said Elin has to check your blood pressure before you’re allowed to get out of bed.’
‘Okay. Elin!’ she called loudly.
Elin groaned from her bed.
‘It’s five-thirty in the morning,’ Anna said. ‘Let Elin sleep. We’ll deal with everything later, I promise.’
‘Sure, you two go right ahead and sleep. I’ll just lie here thinking for a while.’
She turned to look at the window and listened to the others breathe as they fell back to sleep. She squinted at the pale light filtering in under the blinds. So many feelings were battling inside her. Grief was just waiting to swallow her up again. All she had to do was throw herself down into it, let a mute depression take over, and close herself off from the world outside. But then there was her rage at the hypocritical playacting that had taken place out there at Devil’s Rock. A piece of theatre with blind marionettes who had followed Oswald’s script to the letter. And most of all, she was disgusted with herself for playing her supporting role without speaking up, for just waiting obediently for the cops to arrive and take care of everything.
This isn’t working anymore, she thought. Cry when no one’s looking. Silently, in the dark, at night. But now that pig is going to pay for what he does to the staff.
The last thing she wanted to do was go work in that loathsome office. But Oswald wasn’t home. There was a computer there, and she could lock the door and be left alone. She got another whiff of saltwater from under the blanket and realized that she was the smelly one. They had put her to bed fully dressed in her wet uniform.
When she got to her feet, the room began to sway. She grabbed hold of the bureau and stood still for a moment, but she couldn’t free herself from the dizziness — it fell over her again as she walked across the room. She realized it was somehow linked to the unpleasant, seaweed smell emanating from her body.
The dizziness faded after some time in the shower. A tiny bit of seaweed that had been nestled in her armpit slid down her body and vanished down the drain. She rubbed and scraped at her dirty hands and scrubbed her knees, which were green from the grassy slope. There was no clean uniform in the wardrobe, so she put on jeans and a hoodie. She searched for her phone and its charger among her underwear, found them, and stuffed them into her pocket.
There’s still a camera here, she thought. She looked for the vent and found it in a corner near the ceiling.
She cautiously pulled over the chair next to her bed, climbed onto it, and stared into the vent. There it was — a tiny eye, not much bigger than a marble, staring at her. She jumped down to get her pocketknife from the top drawer of her bureau, then climbed back up and stuck the blade through the grating. The glass shattered with a crunching sound and a few shards fell onto her head.
‘What are you doing?’
It was Anna.
‘It’s so cold in here. I was just aiming the vent away from my bed.’
‘Get back in bed, Sofia.’
She didn’t know where it was coming from, this new courage. But it was comforting. She dug through her handbag for something to handle her headache — and there it was, in one of the inside pockets, a paracetamol left over from before she had come to the island.
The light seemed garish when she walked into the yard, despite the thick fog that blanketed the property. There was no wind, and the world was silent. She didn’t want to go to the kitchen, but the greenhouse lights were on. Simon was watering tomato plants when she came in.
He noticed her right away, and put down the hose to walk over to her.
‘Oh my god, Sofia. It’s horrible.’
She nodded.
‘We can talk about it later, when you feel up to it.’
She started crying again. He pulled her close and held her for a while, stroking her back with his dirt-covered garden glove.
‘I actually came by to look for some food,’ she said.
‘Food?’
‘I didn’t want to show my face in the kitchen. You don’t have anything I could eat in here, do you?’
‘No, nothing has grown enough yet except for some herbs and lettuce, but I have this.’
He pulled a flattened sandwich from his back pocket.
‘My breakfast. We can share it.’
He also had a thermos of coffee. They sat and ate the sandwich in complete silence. It tasted good, and it felt calming to sit quietly next to Simon.
‘But didn’t Benjamin want to jump?’ he broke the silence at last.
‘No, he didn’t. He had to choose between jumping and licking the floor at Oswald’s feet. Terrible, right?’
‘That’s so disgusting it’s crazy.’
‘It’s weird, though. We weren’t a couple anymore, but that almost makes it worse. I feel mean — there was something he wanted to tell me. “It’s not like you think,” he kept saying. But I wouldn’t listen to his excuses. And now I’ll never know what he meant.’
She started crying again; this time it was just quiet tears running down her cheeks.
‘Someone really should put that bastard behind bars,’ said Simon.
‘Oswald?’
‘Right. Lock him up.’
‘How do we do that?’
He thought for a moment.
‘By snooping. Find out what he’s really up to.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, the way he acts, there’s something he’s hiding. If we could find out what it was . . .’
‘How would you go about that?’
‘Not me. I’m just a dumb farmer. But you could do it. You work in his office.’
She considered what he’d said.
‘I think I’ll head for the office now. Thanks for the sandwich,’ she said as she stood up.
‘Don’t even mention it. Be careful, Sofia.’
*
The paracetamol had kicked in and her headache was gone by the time she reached the office. It was dark and cold inside, but her papers were still on the desk just as she’d left them. The chairs weren’t pushed in; it seemed that Oswald hadn’t been back.
She turned on the lights and the heat. The wave of energy she’d recovered suddenly vanished and she felt like she sinking to the marble floor. Images from the scene between Benjamin and Oswald moved through her mind unbidden. Last time I stood in this room, Benjamin was alive, she thought, as a suffocating sense of hopelessness filled her. Regret closed in on her again. Why hadn’t she convinced Benjamin to lick the stupid floor? She even could have gotten down on her knees to do it herself, just to shut Oswald up. Or she could have started screaming out on the cliff, made a scene, anything to put a stop to Benjamin’s idiotic recklessness.
Tears sprang to her eyes again, but she forced them back down.
One step at a time, that’s the only way to get through this.
She cleaned up a little as the phone charged, then locked the door from the inside. She sat down in front of Oswald’s computer. She had never used it before — that was a line she hadn’t dared to cross — but now she didn’t care. How could things get any worse than they already were?
Oswald’s big tub of muscle-building vitamin powder, the stuff he mixed into his drinks, was on the edge of the desk. Suddenly she found herself very irritated by it. Who on staff had time to think of building muscle? She picked up the tub, went to the bathroom, poured the entire contents into the toilet, and flushed. All at once her mood improved a bit. She laughed so loudly it echoed off the bathroom walls. Back at the desk, she set down the empty tub, logged into the computer, and checked her email and Facebook.
There were several emails from her parents and Wilma, and a few from friends she hadn’t heard from in a long time. The level of anxiety in their messages rose the closer to the present day she got, and concluded with a deafening crescendo, a heart-rending plea from the mainland.
Where are you, Sofia? Answer, answer!
She answered every one. Wilma had written one email about Ellis. He had received a conditional sentence and had to pay a fine; he even owed Sofia some money. All this, and she hadn’t even been present. She thought about Oswald’s network of contacts and shuddered. Ellis suddenly seemed as insignificant as the buzzing little fly that had woken Sofia that morning. She even felt glad that Ellis hadn’t ended up in jail. Her hatred for him had cooled.
She surfed the net for a while, trying to figure out what had been going on in the world. She Googled the name ‘Vanja Frisk’ and found the woman’s address, cell phone number, and everything; she wrote it all down on a Post-it. Then she deleted the browser history before turning off the computer. The phone was fully charged, so she checked her texts and responded to them. Then she dialled her parents’ number. Her mother picked up.
‘Sofia, honey! We’ve been so worried. Where are you?’ Right away, her mom started crying.
‘I’m here on the island, Mom. Everything’s fine. I’m so, so sorry that I haven’t called. I miss you so much.’
Her throat was thick with grief; she tried to swallow and sound cheerful, but her voice still sounded choked.
‘Sofia, are you crying?’
‘No, no, I just have a cold.’
‘Darling girl. Come home!’
‘I’ll be home soon, Mom, I promise. There’s just something I have to finish up here. I’ll be home before summer.’
‘We can come visit you.’
‘No! Don’t do that! I mean, it would be too tricky. I promise I’ll come home soon.’
They spoke for a while, but she never did get the lump out of her throat.
‘Can I ask you a few favours?’ Sofia asked before they ended the call.
‘Anything.’
‘I have a friend who lost someone. I mean, we have an acquaintance in common and he died. I wonder if you could send her a card and flowers from me. It’s a little complicated from here on the island. But send them in a few days, if you don’t mind, once she’s had time to recover a little.’
And when Oswald isn’t at her house to see them.
‘Of course I will, darling.’
‘Her name is Vanja Frisk.’ She gave her mother the address. ‘Just write “I’m sorry for your loss, Sofia” on the card, and include my mobile number.’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Thank, Mom, just one other thing.’
‘Anything.’
‘I need to borrow some money. I promise to pay you back once I get home.’
‘How much?’
‘Ten thousand kronor or so. It’s for something I need to do. I promise I’ll pay you back.’
‘Don’t they pay you there?’
‘Sure, this is just for something extra.’
‘Of course you can have the money. I’ll deposit it in your account. Will that work?’
‘Yes, thanks, Mom.’
‘Can’t you take the weekend off to come and visit?’
‘Soon, I promise. But not yet.’
After their conversation, she sat down and gazed out the window for a while. Tiny leaves had sprouted on the birches, creating a green veil that swept over the landscape. It reminded her of that first spring with Benjamin. She wondered how she could shut out such painful memories, and remembered what Simon had said, that Oswald must be hiding something. She mentally wandered around the manor and found her mind settling on the attic. She rose and walked to the key cabinet on the wall. It was open, but the keys to the attic padlocks weren’t there. He must have taken them with him, which only made her more curious.
Whatever it is he’s got up there, it’s something of value to him, she thought. So there had to be cameras up there. Another screen. A keypad he didn’t want anyone to find. She thought of how eagerly he had sent her away while the system was installed; he’d wanted to take care of everything himself. Her thoughts were drawn to his room. She didn’t visit it often, but she had fetched items from it now and then, or straightened it up when he complained that the household unit had slacked off.
It was only six-thirty; she had half an hour before the staff would start coming down to breakfast.
The door to his room was ajar. It was actually a suite of three rooms, like the guest suites in the annexes. A bedroom, a large living room, and a private gym. He had all the latest workout gadgets, and staff were forbidden entry, but the celebrities exercised there with him. There was even a tanning bed in the gym.
When she opened the door she heard faint voices and was afraid someone was there, but it was just the TV. The room looked neat; it had recently been cleaned. She spent a long time searching for a screen but didn’t find one; it wasn’t in one of the wardrobes or cabinets.
The TV, she thought. The cameras could be linked up to it. There were two remotes on the coffee table; she picked one up and turned the TV on and off with it, then selected the DVD input. The other remote had several numbered buttons and a few larger buttons in various colours. She pressed the red one and the TV screen turned blue. When she pressed the button labelled with the number one, a room appeared, viewed from the ceiling.
It was the room she had shared with Benjamin. Someone else lived there now, but she recognized the wall mirror — Benjamin had had quite a time dragging it over from the mainland for her. So much for that goddamn birthday present, she thought, because she remembered the day Oswald had told her that as a special birthday treat, there wouldn’t be a camera in their room.
Then a thought sneaked up on her.
Maybe it really hadn’t been like she thought, that night when they were planning their escape.
Maybe she had misjudged Benjamin.
She was sitting there on Oswald’s couch and pondering this when she heard a quiet knock at the door.
I let her take the first step.
I wait. Certain it’s coming.
It’s night-time, and we’re sitting up on the rise and gazing at the sea. The night is clear, full of glittering stars. I’ve brought her here intentionally, knowing that she likes to sit here with me.
At first she doesn’t say a word, but then she breaks the ice.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’
‘What?’
‘About Mom and Dad. How it would be better without them.’
‘Oh.’
I pretend to be surprised; I want it to seem like her own idea.
‘So what do you think we should do?’
‘Get rid of them. For real, I mean,’ she says. Her voice quavers.
We’re into dangerous territory here. She’s afraid I’ll protest. And I do, but only a little.
‘But it’s not that bad, is it? I mean, it’s not like they beat you.’
‘No, but what they do is even worse. They freeze me out. Stare at me like I’m a monster.’
Silence again, a lengthy one.
Then I turn to look at her. So sincere.
‘I’ll help you in any way you want,’ I say. ‘You know that.’
‘But if they disappear,’ she says hesitantly. ‘If they disappear, it will just be you and me?’
‘Just you and me,’ I say with great emphasis.