The big apartment was empty when Sara got home. At any rate, it felt that way. She heard music coming from Olle’s room, but his door was shut and compared with just a few years ago, when both Olle and Ebba had spread their possessions throughout the flat and had loads of friends round constantly – a daughter who had moved out and a son who constantly shut himself away in his bedroom made for a rather desolate existence.
She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, then thought for a moment before taking her water into the living room. The parquet creaked as she crossed the expansive floor. Unlike Martin, she didn’t usually turn the lights and TV on the second she got in, she liked to sit in peace and quiet for a while after she returned home. To listen to the silence.
Sara knew that Martin was out preparing for Uncle Scam’s visit. The megastar had been booked into the Grand Hôtel, but would actually be staying in another hotel amidst the greatest secrecy. According to Martin it was for security reasons, but Sara suspected it was more about self-assertion. Martin was the only one who knew where Scam was staying since he was the boss, and he had to go there to check in person that the secret accommodation lived up to the fussy rapper’s standards. Sara had asked to see Scam’s list of demands – his contractual riders – but Martin had refused. He probably realised that Sara would call him and his company morons if she saw what they had agreed to in order to bring the star to Sweden. He knew exactly how annoyed she got about the police having to provide so many officers for events like gigs and football matches. It was money that could be better spent elsewhere. Sara thought that Go Live ought to pay for all security around its events itself and she let Martin know she thought that every time major concerts requiring a police presence took place.
In the solemn silence that reigned within the huge living room, Nadia’s battered face appeared in her mind’s eye. Jenna had seemed oblivious, despite the fact that Nadia had assumed she would understand the warning.
What peepshow was it Nadia had been involved in?
The word moved her thoughts on to old men in small dark booths with glass partitions looking towards a stage where a girl was undressing. Old, stale and degrading for all involved. Nadia must have been part of a peepshow that had gone off the rails. Perhaps she didn’t want to go as far as the clients did, and they had assaulted her? Or the organiser had beaten her instead of paying her? No, she’d had loads of cash in her handbag. Whoever had hurt Nadia, Sara wanted to catch them.
She picked up her laptop from the coffee table and searched online. The word ‘peepshow’ mostly turned up hits for some British sitcom. She tried ‘peepshow Stockholm’ which gave her hits relating to Reeperbahn’s old record and a couple of doll’s houses up for auction. Not much to go on.
As the different cases merged into one in her head, it occurred to Sara that the whole of East Germany had, in one way or another, been one big peepshow in which tens of thousands of Stasi employees had monitored and bugged their fellow Germans. And it was really the same today, with the NSA and GCHQ, FRA and especially China’s i surveillance apparatus. They could find out everything, about everyone. Everywhere. Who you mixed with, what you said, what you read. Millions of people all over the world busy watching other people. It was a peculiar thought.
But right now it was Nadia and the peepshow that mattered.
Sara decided to get in touch with David again, apply some pressure. Coming from Olle’s room, she heard the pounding bass of some Uncle Scam song but she didn’t want to fall out with the only child she still had living at home with her, so she went up to the top of the tower to make her call. Above Slussen, a late summer evening was sinking into the warm darkness that characterised a good August.
David didn’t pick up, so Sara left him a message and called her other old colleagues. Neither Pål nor Jenny had heard anything about a peepshow going on, but they promised to ask around.
Why didn’t anyone know anything? It was usually impossible to do anything without tongues wagging all over town. New prostitutes, new sex clubs, new sex drugs. Police operations. Everyone knew everything about everything. But no one knew anything about the peepshow.
Since it was Nadia who had mentioned it, Sara reflected that other sex workers might also be aware of the peepshow. Would any of them talk to a cop? The girls were generally way too scared of being punished by their traffickers or pimps.
But there was one.
Eva, the woman who had told her about Stellan’s abuse of young girls. She had been on the streets for many years and ought to know. She was her own woman and didn’t seem afraid of anyone. Mostly because she no longer had anything to lose. Sara called her.
‘Peepshow?!’ said Eva, with a hoarse, cigarette-inflected chuckle. ‘You kidding or what? That was the seventies! Blokes in hats trying to hide their stiffies. Not even I have worked a peepshow.’
‘There’s nothing like that now?’
‘Absolutely not. Who the hell would cough up to watch a girl stripping when there’s unlimited free porn online? Although it’s a pity. Peepshows aren’t that bad. You don’t have to get too close to the johns. Hi there, you looking for some fun?’
The last bit wasn’t for her benefit but for someone she had just seen, Sara assumed. And given that Eva abruptly cut the call, it suggested someone had been looking for some fun. But how ‘fun’ it would be for Eva was uncertain for Sara.
She remained sitting there for a while, letting the darkness grow beyond the windows before she finally went back downstairs.
Just as Sara switched on the TV for some braindead entertainment, her phone rang.
‘Hi, it’s Christian here. Lotta’s husband. Lotta Broman.’
‘Hi,’ said Sara, trying to make these pieces of information fit together in her head. Christian. Lotta’s husband. He was calling . . . OK. ‘How are you doing?’ she added, remembering that the mother and wife was supposedly on a sabbatical.
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘How’s Lotta?’
‘Good, I think. We get the occasional email with some photos. It’s beautiful there.’
‘Where was it she went?’
‘Mauritius.’
‘Why didn’t you go too?’
‘She needed peace and quiet. You know how much rest you get with two hyperactive kids around.’
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘Er, look. I’m calling about something else,’ Christian continued. ‘Well, actually, I suppose it’s connected. Your mother left her umbrella behind.’
‘My mother?’
‘Yes. She stopped in to see how we were doing, but when she went she left her umbrella behind.’
Sara couldn’t make it add up. Firstly, Jane would never accidentally leave anything anywhere. No chance. And secondly, why on earth had she gone round to Lotta’s family home?
‘My mother? You’re absolutely certain?’
‘Completely. I can’t get hold of her, so I thought you might be able to let her know. Or if you’re passing you could pick it up. You’re in town, aren’t you? And she’s still out in the sticks, isn’t she?’
‘Vällingby.’
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Christian said with a nod. Well, it felt as if he were nodding.
‘I’ll pop by first thing tomorrow.’
Sara ended the call and rang her mother, but the call went straight to voicemail.
‘Lotta’s husband Christian called. You left your umbrella at theirs. Why? I know you didn’t forget it. What exactly were you doing there?’
Sara hung up and stopped by one of the windows looking over Kornhamnstorg and the water. Right now, there was no one working on the building site at Slussen – they had all gone home. Or perhaps to the barracks that the construction workers from Poland and elsewhere lived in when they were here working. Darkness had descended on Stockholm but the lights of the city were doing what they could to extend the day for its inhabitants. Lifting her gaze, she tracked a metro train crossing the bridge from the old town towards Slussen. The rush hour had ended long ago and the carriages were almost empty – just a few individuals, a handful of couples and the odd group. Who were the people on that train? Where were they going? What was waiting for them when they arrived? She would never find out.
She stared beyond the Hilton and up towards the heights of Södermalm. Bastugatan, Laurinska huset, Monteliusvägen. There were lights shining from many windows, some of them safe and cosy homes, others sad and depressing flats, and some probably dangerous and frightening accommodation. The view ought to have been soothing, but Sara couldn’t escape an aching sense of worry in her body.
Jane didn’t usually turn off her mobile. Had something happened? Why had she been round to Lotta’s?
Her mother was up to something. The only question was what.