Neighbours and friends had arrived in a steady stream, bringing food and awkwardly offering well-intentioned words. But they never stayed long. Ricky’s parents couldn’t bear all the questions or the kindness, concern, and sympathy in everyone’s eyes. Or the relief, always the same hint of relief that they were not the ones in this situation. Their children were all at home, safe and sound.
‘We’ll leave right now.’
His mother ended the conversation and slowly placed her mobile on the worktop, which was the old-fashioned kind, made of steel. For years she had nagged his father to replace it with something more modern, but he had grumbled that there was no need to replace anything that was clean and in one piece and still fully functional. And his mother had never insisted. She simply brought up the topic on occasion, in the hope that her husband would suddenly change his mind.
Ricky didn’t think his mother cared any longer about what sort of kitchen worktop they had. It was strange how things like that quickly lost all importance. All that mattered was finding Victoria.
‘What did they say?’ asked Ricky’s father. He had stood up, but Ricky was still sitting at the table, staring down at his clenched fists. His mother’s expression told them they wouldn’t want to hear what she had to say.
‘They’ve found her. But she’s seriously injured and in hospital in Uddevalla. Gösta said we need to get there fast. That’s all I know.’
She burst into tears and then sank down as if her legs could no longer support her. Her husband just managed to catch her. He stroked her hair and hushed her, but tears were running down his face too.
‘We need to get going, sweetheart. Put on your jacket, and we’ll leave right away. Ricky, help your mother. I’ll go out and start the car.’
Ricky nodded and went over to his mother. Gently he put his arm around her shoulders and got her to move towards the front hall. There he grabbed her red down coat and helped her to put it on, the way a parent would help a child. One arm in, then the other, and he carefully zipped up the coat.
‘All right,’ he said, placing her boots in front of her. He squatted down and helped her to put them on too. Then he quickly put on his own jacket and opened the door. He could hear that his father had the car running. He was scraping off the windows so frantically that he’d created a cloud of frost, mixed with the vapour from his breath.
‘Bloody winter!’ he cried, scraping so hard that he was probably scratching the windscreen. ‘What a damn, sodding, bloody winter!’
‘Get in the car, Pappa,’ said Ricky. ‘I’ll do that.’ He took the scraper away from his father, after first settling his mother in the back seat. His father complied, offering no resistance. They had always let him believe that he was the one in charge in the family. The three of them – Ricky, his mother, and Victoria – had a secret agreement to allow Markus Hallberg to think that he ruled with an iron fist, even though they knew he was too nice to rule even with one finger. It had always been Helena Hallberg who had ensured that everything was done as it should be done – until Victoria disappeared. She had deflated so swiftly that Ricky sometimes wondered whether his mother had always been this shrivelled and dispirited person who was now sitting on the back seat, staring blankly into space, whether she had ever possessed a sense of purpose. Yet for the first time in months he saw something else in her eyes, a mixture of eagerness and panic prompted by the phone conversation with the police.
Ricky got in behind the wheel. It was strange how a gap in the family was filled, how instinctively he had stepped up to take his mother’s place. As if he possessed a strength he’d never known he had.
Victoria used to tell him that he was like Ferdinand the bull. Lazy and foolishly nice on the outside, but in moments of crisis he would always come through. He’d give her a playful nudge and pretend to be offended, but secretly he was happy to be compared to Ferdinand the bull. Although lately he no longer had time to sit and smell the flowers. He wouldn’t be able to do that again until Victoria came back.
Tears began running down his cheeks and he wiped them off on the sleeve of his jacket. He hadn’t allowed himself to think that she might never come home. If he’d done that, he would have fallen apart.
And now Victoria had been found. Though they didn’t yet know what awaited them at the hospital. He had a feeling they might not want to know.
Helga Persson peered out of the kitchen window. A short while ago she’d seen Marta come riding into the yard at full gallop, but now everything was quiet. She had lived here a long time, and the view was very familiar, even though it had changed a bit over the years. The old barn was still there, but the cowshed, where they’d kept the cows she’d taken care of, had been torn down. In its place was the stable Jonas and Marta had built for their riding school.
She had been happy that her son had decided to settle so close by, that they were neighbours. Their houses stood only a hundred metres apart, and since he ran his veterinary clinic at home, he frequently stopped in to see her. Every visit made her day a little brighter, which was what she needed.
‘Helga! Helgaaaa!’
She closed her eyes as she stood next to the worktop. Einar’s voice filled every nook and cranny of the house, enveloping her and making her clench her fists. But she no longer had the will to flee. He had beat it out of her years ago. Even though he was now helpless and completely dependent on her, she was incapable of leaving him. That wasn’t something she considered any more. Because where would she go?
‘HELGAAAA!’
His voice was the only thing left that still retained its former strength. The illnesses and then the amputation of both legs as a result of neglecting his diabetes had robbed him of his physical strength. But his voice was as commanding as ever. It continued to force her into submission just as effectively as his fists used to do. The memories of all those blows, the cracked ribs and throbbing bruises, were still so vivid that the mere sound of his voice could provoke terror and the fear that this time she might not survive.
She straightened up, took a deep breath, and called out:
‘I’m coming!’
Briskly she climbed the stairs. Einar didn’t like to be kept waiting, he never had, but she didn’t understand why there was always such a hurry. He had nothing else to do but sit and grumble, his complaints ranging from the weather to the government.
‘It’s leaking,’ he said when she came into the room.
She didn’t reply. Simply rolled up her sleeves and went over to him to find out how great the damage might be. She knew he enjoyed this sort of situation. He could no longer use force to hold her captive. Instead he relied on his need for care and attention, which she should have bestowed on the children she’d never had, the ones he had beaten out of her body. Only one had lived, and there were times when she thought it might have been best if that child had also been expelled in a rush of blood between her legs. Yet she didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t had him. Jonas was her life, her everything.
Einar was right. The colostomy bag was leaking. And not just a little bit. Half his shirt was soaked through.
‘Why didn’t you get here faster?’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling? I suppose you had something more important to do.’ He glared at her with his watery eyes.
‘I was in the bathroom. I came as quick as I could,’ she said, unbuttoning his shirt. Carefully she pulled his arms out of the sleeves, not wanting to get even more of his body wet.
‘I’m freezing.’
‘I’ll get you a clean shirt. I just need to wash you off first,’ she said with all the patience she could muster.
‘I’m going to catch pneumonia.’
‘I’ll be fast. I don’t think you’ll catch cold.’
‘Oh, so now you’re a nurse too, huh? I suppose you even know better than the doctors.’