Sara emerged from the door of Thörnell’s building and lingered on the pavement, staring into space. She couldn’t understand what had happened.
Thörnell had betrayed her.
He had let someone listen in while Sara told him what she knew and hadn’t been able to deny that it was Rau.
Could Thörnell really be on Rau’s side? Had he been deceiving Sara all along? Although if so, wouldn’t the former terrorist have killed her right away?
Perhaps Rau had tricked Thörnell? Or had it been someone else hiding in the secret room? Sara had regarded Thörnell as an ally, but now it was hard for her to tell what his intentions were. Perhaps he might be able to influence Rau? Perhaps what had happened might be in her interests? She had difficulty believing that could be the case.
Sara shivered despite the late summer heat. Too much death. Too many threats. Too much ancient history overflowing and taking over the present.
Near the church, she saw a mother helping two small children over the wall into the cemetery. The mother continued along the pavement while the children ran across the tombstone-studded grass before they were reunited at the gates. Two happy little girls of perhaps four and five years of age who thought it was fun to take their own path and then meet up with their mother again. They had small backpacks which looked huge on them and were clutching colourful drawings. Sara thought about her own children and her husband. She was once again letting the so-called big world win out over the little one, she realised. And she didn’t want that.
She made up her mind.
It was time to take back her life. Her family. Her husband.
Once that fucker Scam was out of the country, Martin would be hers again.
One more night.
It was time to start preparing for the recapture.
On the way home from Thörnell’s, she stopped in at Wijnjas where she bought a couple of packs of saltines and sea-salted crackers, and some amazing cheeses: Gruyère, Délice de Bourgogne, Baskeriu and Saint Albray. They already had enough wine in to last for centuries.
Despite the recent unpleasant surprise, life felt rather splendid as she crossed the Vasabron bridge, carrying her small bag. The decision to focus on her family told her she was on the right track. To what, she didn’t know, but she had a good gut feeling. Not even the electric scooter riders could rile her up. She was convinced that they were doing the best job they could over at the government offices in Rosenbad, in parliament and in the House of Nobility. It felt good to be positive, and she thought her life might just depend on it. Stora Nygatan was – as usual – full of people just loitering, stopping without warning to take photos or check maps. The kind of things she usually hated. But now that she had decided to recapture her life, it was nothing but pleasant. She reflected that these people had travelled here from other countries and parts of the world just to see her neighbourhood. How nice of them!
She passed the old town bookshop. It really was high time she stopped in. Why not right away? For Sara, reading books was a strong indicator that her life was in balance and that she was feeling good. And they had to be good old proper physical books. The bookshop was shut, but she spotted her next purchase in the window. The final parts of two different trilogies: one by a female author and the other by a male. She had started reading one of the trilogies in her youth, while she had spent her summer on the other.
There were no screaming teenagers, no cops or cordons when she returned home this time. However, there was a long white limousine parked outside the door and a flabby man in uniform pushing the buzzer.
‘Do you live here?’ said the man when Sara slipped past and tapped in the code.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m here to pick up Olle Titus and his guests. For the Friends Arena. Do you know whether that’s the right name? There’s no answer when I buzz.’
‘He might be asleep. I’ll tell him. If he’s home.’
‘Thanks.’
Then it occurred to Sara that she had just told Thörnell that she was going to continue her pursuit of Faust, and someone had heard her say it. Had the person eavesdropping left the apartment in such a hurry because of that? Because stupid, stubborn Sara Nowak refused to give in?
Faust had already shot into the apartment once.
Now that the windows were bulletproof, perhaps he’d made his way into the apartment . . .
‘He might be asleep,’ she had said about her son. But what if that wasn’t true? What if something was wrong?
Surely they hadn’t done anything to Olle?
Why wasn’t he answering when the driver buzzed?
The lift had never been as slow as it was right now.
Sara pressed the button urgently, determined to make the lift go faster. She pulled out her keys and made ready and as soon as it stopped, she ran to the front door, unlocked it and tumbled inside.
‘Olle?’
No reply, but she heard pounding music from his room.
Hadn’t there been music when the priest had been killed too?
She pictured Olle bound in his bedroom, beaten, shot, anything. Or dangling from the ceiling.
Her stomach somersaulted.
But to her great relief, when she yanked open Olle’s door she was met by the sight of Olle and his friend Gabriel staring at a video of Uncle Scam playing at top volume. They were mimicking his moves and sipping fizzy drinks through straws. If Sara knew her son, then it was almost certain that some of Martin’s huge bar stocks had made their way into the cans, but she was far too relieved to start banging on about a bit of covert teenage drinking.
Olle and Gabriel both turned towards Sara, who had practically fallen into the room. Her face probably looked weird too. Frightened and scarred and relieved and fuck knew what else.
Then Sara saw what was going on onscreen. Uncle Scam and his entourage with a bunch of bare-chested women simulating oral sex while the men waved automatic weapons around and dived into heaps of white powder.
‘What the hell is that?’ Sara was unable to prevent herself from saying. She realised the huge piles of powder weren’t real cocaine, but did the boys?
‘Scam’s VIP section,’ Olle said proudly. ‘Scam gave me the login.’
Sara looked at the screen again. What kind of signal was that piece of trash sending to the millions of young boys who admired him? What impact would it have on Olle?
‘It’s dreadful,’ she said. ‘Turn it off.’
‘What did you want?’ said Olle, closing his laptop without leaving the web page.
‘There’s a limo outside waiting for you. The guy’s been buzzing you for a while now without any answer.’
‘Shit. What time is it?’
‘After that video, I’m not sure whether I’m going to let you go.’
‘Chill out. Not funny. Come on, Gabe, let’s head.’
Gabriel drained the last of his fizzy drink while Olle opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a small brown envelope.
‘What’s that?’ said Sara.
‘It’s Scam’s.’
‘OK, but what is it?’
‘Dunno. But the fuzz are always checking him out. His stuff is never left alone,’ her son said indignantly. ‘The bloody cops just hassle him.’
‘Bloody cops?’
‘All cops are bastards,’ Gabriel interjected, fortified by his secret cocktail.
Sara looked at her son’s friend ironically. Just a few years ago they had spent their days playing cops and robbers. Now they hated the fuzz.
‘Well, yes, technically speaking I am a bastard,’ said Sara. ‘Show me.’
Sara took the envelope from Olle’s hands.
‘No!’
Olle tried to take it back, but Sara turned her back on him.
‘It’s Scam’s!’ her son protested.
‘That’s why I want to take a look,’ said Sara.
She tore off the tape that sealed the brown, well-stuffed envelope. Inside there was a bag filled with white powder. Sara was no drug expert, but under no circumstances could Olle take this with him.
‘Mum!’ Olle yelped.
She really ought to hand this bag to her colleagues on the drug squad but where was she supposed to tell them she’d found it? That Scam had left it in their apartment? That her son had kept it? Maybe she’d be better off flushing the lot? To make sure Olle didn’t end up in trouble, given he’d been in possession. His fingerprints and DNA were probably all over the envelope.
‘It’s Scam’s!’ Gabriel piped up. Both boys seemed completely crestfallen.
‘I promise I won’t keep it for myself,’ said Sara. ‘But I’m not letting two fourteen-year-olds wander off with this.’
‘He’ll be totally fucked off.’
‘That’s nothing compared with what I am. And you’re both staying at home.’
‘No way!’
Olle ran out of the room with Gabriel hot on his heels. Sara didn’t know what to do. She was conscious that Olle would never forgive her if he didn’t get to go to the concert and hang out backstage with his new friend, Scam. And it was bad enough that she had taken Scam’s envelope. She had to get it tested. Perhaps the big star just wanted to mess around with Olle, or impress him – to live up to the myth. But even then it was unacceptable. Or totally not OK, as the kids were saying these days.
Sara knew how busy Martin was ahead of the concert, so to be sure she sent him a text message before calling. ‘Answer when I call!’ And then she called, whereupon Martin actually picked up.
‘Have you been calling?’ he said. ‘It hasn’t got through.’
‘No, I just wanted to make sure you would pick up.’
‘OK. What’s up? I’m with Scam.’
‘Martin, he gave drugs to Olle. Our son – a child – was storing drugs for your awful friend. I have to report him.’
‘No! You mustn’t do that. How can you even be sure it’s drugs? Scam knows Olle’s a minor – it was probably just a joke or something.’
‘Come home,’ said Sara. ‘We have to talk about this.’
‘Can’t. The gig’s starting. And then Scam wants to go out.’
‘It’s your job or your children.’
‘My children. And Olle loves Scam. He’s coming here. I can talk to him then.’
Sara knew how much use that would be.
‘Come home.’
‘Yes. Later.’
And then her husband hung up.
Sara was alone.
No Ebba, no Olle, no Martin.
What was she supposed to do?
Well, if her family weren’t prioritising her, then she didn’t need to prioritise her family.
Not right now, anyway.
She just wanted to forget all the business with Uncle Scam for a while.
It would be mean to carry on watching a series that she and Martin were following together. She would have liked to listen to some music, but Martin’s latest stereo acquisition had shut her out of the system. She could live with massive speakers and a beefy amplifier, but he had gone and bought a DA converter – a Chord Hugo 2. And while he claimed that it sounded much better, Sara didn’t have the energy to learn how it worked. It was just a bunch of different coloured lights and she had no idea what they meant. She had wanted to listen to Grace Jones at top volume, but it would have to keep.
Instead, she could read up on terrorism. Had there really been that many attacks and threats in the 1980s?
She read online about ETA’s bombs and assassinations of police officers in Spain. About IRA bombs in England that claimed dozens of lives, and how close they had come to killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Photos of hostages Aldo Moro and Hanns Martin Schleyer, who were both later executed. Carlos the Jackal, who kidnapped all the leaders of OPEC in Vienna. Black September, who murdered eleven Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich. The bombings of police stations, shops and cinemas in Paris.
And now she remembered the long queues at the French embassy that the Broman sisters had told her about when they needed visas to go there on their family holidays. The terrorist attacks had increased security and people had had to stand around waiting for hours. Hadn’t it been the same the time that Camilla went to Paris with Stellan and Lotta? The trip that Sara had missed, which had saved her from being sexually exploited by her wretch of a father.
It surprised her that the German terrorists came from such bourgeois and well-established families. Gudrun Ensslin was the daughter of a pastor and a regular churchgoer in her youth, and she had played the violin just like Sara. And Lotta. Ulrike Meinhof’s foster mother had been a professor and Andreas Baader had been raised by a mother, aunt and grandmother who spoiled him. No broken homes, no poverty. But they all took up arms.
The ties between the Red Army Faction and the Stasi were stronger than Sara had previously understood. Not only had East Germany armed and trained the West German terrorists; the ones who had wanted to withdraw from the RAF had been given new identities in the DDR along with regular jobs and a big dowry to help start their new lives.
Sara had completely lost herself in the violence of the eighties when a harsh buzz from the intercom cut through the flat and a voice bellowed:
‘What the hell have you done?! Are you out of your mind?’
Sara got up from the computer and went over to the intercom.
‘Who is it?’
‘Malin! Who the fuck do you think it is? Let me in!’
Sara didn’t think she had heard Malin swear before. Something serious must have happened. She pressed the button to open up, and then she went to the front door and opened it so that Malin could come straight in.
A minute later, her old childhood friend was in the apartment. She came straight up to Sara and gave her a resounding slap.
‘Idiot!’ she shouted.
Sara’s reflex after all her years of Krav Maga training was to strike back without thinking, but she managed to stop her hand mid-movement. Which was lucky for the other woman’s chin. Malin looked at the clenched fist with contempt in her eyes.
‘You going to hit me too?’
‘You hit me,’ said Sara. ‘Why?’
‘What do you think?’ said Malin, thrusting a piece of paper into her face.
Sara took a step back, prised the paper free and looked at it.
An application for a DNA paternity test. Signed by Sara Nowak.
Sara looked dumbly at Malin.
‘What is this?’
‘Your application! To make Dad your dad!’
Sara looked at the signature. It wasn’t at all like hers.
‘He wasn’t your dad!’ Malin roared. ‘He was our dad. Stop fantasising. It was embarrassing enough at school, and it’s a lot more fucking embarrassing now!’
At school? That rang a faint bell in Sara’s head. Fragments of memory about how she had impressed the other pupils by telling them that the famous TV star Stellan Broman was her father. Or had she dreamt it? No, she remembered it. She had even stolen things from him and shown them to her classmates to prove her claim. A pocket diary with his name in gold lettering, a pipe, a pair of reading glasses.
‘It wasn’t me,’ was all Sara could say.
‘No,’ said Malin ironically. ‘No, no, it must be the other Sara Now—’
‘Malin! It’s not me. I promise.’
‘Well, who the fuck is it then?’
‘Don’t know.’
But she knew full well.
‘It’s your name and your signature,’ said Malin, her eyes wild. ‘And it’s so embarrassing that you should kill yourself. My dad has been murdered and now you’re trying to make him your dad – taking your chance now that he’s dead and can’t deny it. Are you just insane, or are you after his money? What do you think Lotta will say?’
‘Malin, I’ll put a stop to this. Because believe me, it wasn’t me who did this, I promise.’ Sara gritted her teeth.
‘You seem to be completely obsessed with him. First you try to portray him as a rapist, then a spy, and when none of that works you try to make him your dad. You’re sick. Truly. A mental case. You need help.’
‘Malin, I’ll fix this.’
Malin gave her a long, burning stare, tore the paper into two pieces with a protracted ripping sound and then turned around and strode out of the apartment.
Sara bent down to pick up the pieces of paper.
DNA testing.
Now she had gone too far.
Sara was on the verge of running to the car and heading out to Vällingby, but she settled for picking up the phone.
‘Are you insane? Forging my signature?!’
‘Did you get an answer?’
‘No, but Malin just came round. She was off the scale angry and I can understand why. She hit me.’
‘Yes, they’re mad. The lot of them.’
‘Mum, this is the most stupid thing you’ve ever done.’
‘Not at all. I’ve got DNA from every member of the family and I’ve sent it in to an independent lab for testing.’
‘How did you get their DNA? Lotta’s I can understand – you went round to their house. But the others?’
‘I went to Bromma. Strands of hair.’
‘You broke in?’
‘I unlocked the door. Like you.’
Sara sighed. Her mother had a point.
‘But burglary and forgery! It’s madness.’
‘Where do you think you got your stubbornness from? Life is a war – everything’s allowed.’
Jane was apparently tougher than Sara had thought. But still.
‘Why did you do it? I don’t want anyone to know that I’m his daughter! I don’t want to inherit anything from him either.’
‘And I want everyone to know what he did. What’s more, it’s your money. It’s only right.’
‘Mum, do you need money?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think I need money?’ Sara gestured at the gigantic apartment she lived in, despite the fact that her mother couldn’t see the flat or her hand. But it didn’t matter in relation to this argument.
‘Money schmoney,’ said Jane. ‘Things should be made right.’
‘I’m going to withdraw the application.’
‘Then I’ll say it was me who forged your signature. Do you want to see your mother go to prison?’
‘You won’t go to prison,’ Sara sighed.
‘You’ve no idea what else I’ll confess to.’
‘Confess all you like.’
‘I’ll send in a new application!’ Jane threatened.
‘Stay the hell out of my life!’
‘It’s my life too!’
And that floored Sara.
Jane’s life too?
Well, she supposed it was. Just like Ebba’s life was also Sara’s. But Ebba would never have agreed with that. She would have been just as angry with her mother as Sara was with Jane.
All the anger drained out of Sara.
‘Please, Mum, let me withdraw the application.’
‘No.’
Whether it was because she had survived the trauma of the Bromans or that she had just got a little older and wiser, she didn’t know. But for what she believed to be the first time, Sara felt she should do as Jane told her, even though she completely disagreed. If she was to succeed in having a good relationship with her family, she had to give them some space and let go of her own need for control. Compromise or live alone. Perhaps that attitude could help her with Olle and Ebba too, she thought to herself when they had both been silent for a while.
‘How did you feel when I moved out?’ Sara said at last.
‘That it was good for you.’
‘But how did it feel for you?’
‘The child is the important thing. All mothers get upset, but that’s part of the package. You can’t lock up your children in a box their whole lives.’
What was more, Jane had been completely alone when Sara had left. Sara had Martin, and would get to keep Olle for another few years in a soft transition to the role of distant observer of her children’s lives.
The only question was what she should say to Malin if she didn’t withdraw the application. That she had lied when she said she hadn’t been the one who had submitted it? That she really wanted to be acknowledged as Stellan’s daughter? And that she was looking forward to cosy dinners with her new sisters’ families?
Sara pushed that decision into the future, bade her mother goodnight and began to turn off the lights in the apartment. She left a lamp on in the hall for Martin – who knew when he’d get in? Personally, she really needed to get some sleep.
She brushed her teeth, removed her makeup and inspected her face in the bathroom mirror. Beauty that she hadn’t asked for, which she had hated in her youth, but which she had already started to miss now that it seemed to be leaving her. Why couldn’t you be allowed to wander around being beautiful without everyone thinking they were entitled to you?
Just as she had crawled into bed and was about to turn off the lights, the doorbell rang.
Had Martin sent Olle home early again? No, Olle had keys. Maybe it was poor Tindra, sent to fetch something for her boss?
Sara wrapped her lime-blossom green silk dressing gown around her body and went to open the door.
There was something blocking the front door outside.
Sara had to really push.
The heavy object on the other side moved very reluctantly, sliding slowly across the stone floor.
When the door was a quarter open, the obstacle fell to the side and a pair of feet appeared in Sara’s line of vision.
There was a body in the way.
Sara pressed herself through the crack to see who it was. A drunkard? A neighbour who’d had a heart attack?
Neither.
It wasn’t easy to tell, since the body was covered in dried blood from the many holes in the body and head.
But after a short time, she recognised Bo Enberg.
The former terrorist who had once been known as Hans Gerlach.
And the man who had known the most about Faust.