ELLEN

10.30 A.M.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there. The conference room felt smaller and smaller with every breath she took. Finally, the surge of adrenaline couldn’t be stopped. Without thinking, she rushed out of ‘Värmland’ and over to Jimmy’s office, but it was empty.

‘Where’s Jimmy?’

‘He just left,’ said Agatha.

‘Where to?’ She looked at her colleague, who shrugged.

Ellen ran out of the office and down the stairs. The guy in reception told her that Jimmy had just left and asked to have all his calls transferred to Agatha.

She rushed out to the parking lot outside the TV4 building, looked around, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Ellen continued towards the subway; it felt most likely that that was where he’d headed. She ran into some colleagues from Programming who had seen him walking down towards the park at Gärdet. Far out on the grass she caught sight of him.

‘Jimmy,’ she called, but he didn’t react. Either he didn’t hear her, or he was ignoring her. ‘Jimmy!’ she shouted even louder.

After a while, he slowed down, and at last he stopped. But he didn’t turn around. When Ellen caught up with him, she was so out of breath she could barely talk. Her skin was flushed, and she clutched her chest.

Jimmy stared at her with what she perceived as loathing. Or else it was her own image of herself that she saw in the dark look he gave her, and she didn’t know which was worse.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen the video?’ She could barely talk, and the more she exerted herself to breathe normally, the harder it was to get air.

‘What?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I needed to get away.’ He started walking again and Ellen tried to keep up with his pace. Suddenly, he stopped. ‘What do you want, Ellen?’

‘What do I want? My God, you’ve seen a video where it looks like I’m in a fistfight, and I thought maybe we should talk about it.’

Then he turned around and grinned scornfully. ‘No, it doesn’t look like a fight, it looks like you’re having sex with a man in the water in a way that’s totally sick. It’s violent. It’s disgusting.’ He walked towards her, raising an admonishing finger. ‘And do you know what the sickest part of all is? Do you know that?’ Ellen shook her head. ‘That it happened the same day, Ellen, that I slept over with you. Same fucking day!’ He turned his back to her and walked in the opposite direction.

She stood there a few seconds before she followed him. Took hold of his arm to get him to stop.

Jimmy tore himself loose. ‘What are you doing? Don’t touch me. Is that the way you want it? Violent, do you like that? I don’t get it, I thought I knew you.’

‘Hold on, is that what the problem is? How I had sex with another person, not that I did?’

He snorted. ‘The same day, need I say more? It hurt to see it. I’ve been so wrong about everything and betrayed …’ He touched his forehead.

‘Can you listen to what I have to say about it all?’

‘To be honest, Ellen, I’m not interested. I think the pictures speak for themselves. It’s over. I can’t take any more.’

‘Over?’ She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. ‘There’s never been anything to be over. What did you do after you slept with me? Went home to your little family and acted as if I didn’t exist. How do you think that makes me feel? You lied to me for months and didn’t even tell me you were living with another woman, that you had a child with her.’

He looked distant, as if he was totally unreachable and several miles away. Lost.

‘Sorry,’ she said quietly in a final attempt to save herself. ‘I don’t know what happened.’ Even if she had no obligations to him.

Jimmy stopped. ‘That morning, Ellen. I don’t know if you understand what you do to me. You make my whole existence wobble. I was prepared to leave everything. I was so happy when I left you at Örelo. I can’t understand that I’m saying this now. It felt as if I would do anything at all for you. And then that night I saw this. I know I don’t have the right to say anything, and that’s why I haven’t. You were the one who sought me out. I have a daughter, that’s all. You know exactly how things are. You know that I want nothing more than to be with you, but then you have some fucking …’

‘It was sex. Just sex.’

‘That’s enough for me.’

‘So fucking unfair. But what does that matter, really.’

‘It doesn’t.’

He left, and Ellen stood there a little while, before she turned back to the office, alone.