Читать книгу Missing - Karin Alvtegen - Страница 13

When she woke the following morning, her body was telling her that all was not well. The little shed made her feel trapped. The paraffin heater had cut out and the air was cold. Her throat didn’t feel quite as rough as it had, thank God. The night before it felt like a really bad throat infection, the kind you might need to take penicillin for. It’s tricky to persuade a doctor to see you without being a registered patient and now it would be worse still, because she was presumably a wanted person.

She was hungry and ate the last piece of bread. There was nothing to drink because she’d finished the Coke at supper last night. She ate the tomato and the apple as well. Then she started packing her things.

She put away the iron candlestick and the fruit-bowl, stacked the cushions and finally looked around to check she hadn’t forgotten anything. Swinging her rucksack onto her shoulder, with one hand on the door handle, she suddenly hesitated. It was a long time since she’d felt fearful.

Her rucksack was slipping off her shoulders. She shut the door again.

Bloody hell. Stay cool.

But she sank down on one of the kitchen chairs, leaning her head in her hands. As a rule, crying was not something she did because she knew only too well how pointless it was. For as long as she was left in peace to do her own thing, she normally never wanted to cry anyway. There was only one cause of grief that might still surface, although hidden so deep down in her mind that she only rarely became aware of the pain.

Her conscious thought was almost always focused on food for the day and sleeping quarters for the night ahead. Everything else was secondary.

She had her savings, too.

She put her hand to her chest, where the sacred 29,385 kronor were tucked away inside a safe purse, hanging on a strap round her neck underneath her clothes.

Soon she would have enough saved up. With this money she would finally reach the goal she had fought hard to achieve. Her decision to live differently one day had been utterly sincere and thinking about it had buoyed her up during the last five years. She wanted to change. Instead of always moving on, she wanted a country cottage to live in. It would be her home, where she could peacefully lead her life in her own way. Maybe she would grow vegetables, maybe keep some hens. Draw water from her own well. She didn’t dream of comfort, just four walls that were hers alone.

Peace and quiet.

She had investigated and found that about 40,000 kronor would be enough, if you were prepared to live without electricity and running water in unglamorous countryside, somewhere obscure. That was exactly what she wanted. In the far north her kind of place might be even cheaper, but the thought of the long hard winters frightened her. She would keep struggling for a little longer instead.

During the last five years she’d put away as much as she possibly could of the monthly alms from her mother. Once in that purse the money simply didn’t exist any more, no matter how cold or hungry she was.

Just a few more years and then she’d have enough …

She put the notes down on the table in front of her, arranging them in a star pattern. She always went to the bank to exchange the money she received for new crisp notes.

Notes that her mother had never touched.

After a while, looking at her money made her feel better again. It usually cheered her up. The next stage in recovering her fighting spirit would be a visit to an estate agent to keep informed about movements in house prices.

She gathered up her money, put it safely back in the purse, pushed the chair neatly back in place at the table and locked the door behind her. Her steps were lighter now.

She got as far as Ringen. A glance at one of the posters on the newspaper kiosk made her sense of calm evaporate. Now her problems were no longer about surviving for another day.

Now she was on the run.

WOMAN CHARGED WITH BUTCHERY MURDER.

That was the headline. There was a picture of a woman with a caption underneath naming her: Sibylla Forsenström, 32 years old.

‘Dear Sibylla, don’t look so sour. Please try to smile at least.’

Obedient as she was back then, she had tried. The effect was ghastly. Whatever she might have looked like seconds earlier, it couldn’t have been worse than this. Even her mother presumably thought so, because she’d hidden the picture away until now. Curling tongs had been applied to her fringe, symmetrically on either side of the central parting, and the tips of the curls plastered against her temples. Her eyes had that unmistakable cowed look.

She was feeling nauseous now. Nineteen kronor left. The paper cost eight.

There has been a breakthrough in the investigation of the ‘ritual slaughter’ of Jörgen Grundberg (51) in his room at the Grand Hotel last night. A woman suspect, Sibylla Forsenström (32) is wanted by the police and has been formally charged in her absence. As The Express learned yesterday, this is the woman with whom the 51-year-old was seen on Thursday evening. The receptionist on duty that night has now told the police that Mr Grundberg himself booked a room for the woman, who gave what turned out to be a false name. The wanted woman managed to get through the police cordon early on Friday morning, leaving behind several articles including a wig that she allegedly wore the previous evening. The police also found a briefcase which, some sources suggest, may contain the murder weapon. The police are not prepared to reveal any details about the weapon. Fingerprints on the briefcase identified the woman as Sibylla Forsenström. The same prints were found on the key to the victim’s room and in her hotel room, where a glass with the victim’s prints was also found.

The police are baffled as to her whereabouts. In 1985 she escaped from a mental hospital in southern Sweden where she was an in-patient treated for psychological problems. Since then she has not been in contact with any state or local authority agency. No one seems to know anything about her life during the intervening fourteen years. Police records of her fingerprints were kept after an incident involving a car theft and illegal driving in 1984. Sibylla Forsenström grew up in a well-to-do family, based in a small industrial town in east Småland.

As she has been without a fixed address since 1985, the public are asked to let the police have any relevant information. However, the police also warn that she is likely to be confused and violent. Forensic psychologists, currently examining a diary found in her briefcase, claim that several notes are of a disturbed, incoherent character. The photograph, as the police are anxious to point out, is over sixteen years old. The waiter who served the woman and her alleged victim on Thursday evening described her as polite and well groomed. He is assisting a police artist with the creation of a more up-to-date image. Information about the wanted woman should be given to the police, either at the nearest police station or by phoning 08-401 0040.

She could feel the sick taste in her mouth. It came from deep down in her stomach, where some part of her had already taken in what her brain was still refusing to analyse.

They were going to take control over her. Again.

She felt as if she was being suffocated. It was a familiar, frightening sensation that came back from the past to take her over. A hostile spirit was emerging from a hiding-place where it had been waiting and watching. It was ready for her now. In spite of all her efforts, she had failed to exorcise it after all.

Anybody who fancied reading all about her in the paper could go right ahead. What had they all been saying back then? Silly-billy Sibylla. Something odd about that girl. Always reckoned she’d go downhill.

She clenched her fist in her pocket.

Was it her fault that she didn’t fit in? She had never been one of them, but managed all the same. What more could they ask? She was a survivor, a survivor in spite of everything.

Now they would take her apart again, seeing her strength as madness and her unconditional existence as a loner’s misery. They were poised to crush her plans to build a life of her own.

She wasn’t going to let them, no way – not now.