Читать книгу Missing - Karin Alvtegen - Страница 7

She woke when someone knocked hard on the door. Instantly awake, she got up and started to look for her clothes.

Shit, how could she have slept in? The clock radio showed quarter to nine. The burning question was: had Grundberg figured out by now that he had been tricked or had he just woken up with a particularly urgent hard-on?

‘One moment!’

She hurried into the toilet and grabbed her clothes.

‘Hallo there. Open the door, please. We’ve got some questions to ask you.’

Damnation. It wasn’t Grundberg, but some woman. Had one of the hotel staff recognised her, in spite of the wig?

Oh, fucking hell.

‘I’m not dressed yet.’

Silence in the corridor. She hurried over to the window and looked out. No get-away route there.

‘This is the police. Please hurry up.’

Police! Now what the fuck?

‘Ready as soon as I can. Just give me a couple of minutes.’

She put her ear to the door and heard steps walking away. There was a laminated chart showing emergency exits right in front of her nose and she studied the options while she fumbled with the safety-pin in the waistband. Checking the number of her room, she found that it was just two doors away from the emergency stairs. She rushed to get her jacket and handbag, and then listened again at the chink in the door. Cautiously, she opened the door a fraction and peeped into the corridor. It was empty.

She stepped briskly into the corridor, shutting the door behind her quietly. Seconds later, she was running down the back stairs. They had to lead to a door opening into the street.

Then she remembered. The briefcase! She had left it behind. It pulled her up short, but it took only a moment of hesitation to realise her briefcase was lost. And so was the wig in the bathroom. Shit, almost 740 kronor down the toilet and such a brilliant investment too, which should have given her many nights of undisturbed sleep. Even the complimentary soaps and the little shampoo bottles had been forgotten.

At the bottom of the stairs she stopped in front of a metal door with a lit green Emergency Exit sign. Pushing on the locking bar, she opened the door enough to put her head outside. A police car was parked just twenty-odd yards away, but it was empty and this gave her enough courage to step out into the street. She looked around, realising that she was at the back of the Grand Hotel.

The morning traffic in Stall Street had come to a standstill. She squeezed between the cars without looking too obviously stressed and crossed Blasieholm Square. At the Arsenal Street corner, she turned right, walked past Bern’s Café and down Hamn Street. No one seemed to have followed her, but to make sure she continued across Normalm Square, along Bibliotek Street and began slowing down only when she was outside the Wiener Café.

The café seemed a good place to sit down and think. She chose a table as far away from the window as possible and tried to calm down.

This had been a far closer shave than at any other time since she’d started to spoil herself with nights in hotels. She had better forget about the Grand for quite a while. What she didn’t understand was how Grundberg could have got wise to her. Had any of the staff recognised her and phoned his room? Why in that case leave her in peace all night? Well, she’d never know. Perhaps just as well.

She looked around the café. Everywhere, people were having breakfast.

She wished she had some money. A drink would have been nice, her throat felt sore. She wondered if she was running a temperature as well and put her hand to her forehead. Hard to tell.

She looked at her watch to check the date. It had stopped again. She’d worn it on her arm ever since receiving it as a Confirmation gift seventeen years ago. A present from mummy and daddy. With best wishes for a happy, prosperous life.

Imagine that.

It was true that she was happier nowadays, relatively speaking. She had decided to make something of her miserable life and had come to believe she actually could do it. This was important, but anyway she was much happier in her present life than as the well-behaved daughter from a solid, middle-class home. ‘Good’ behaviour had been the first thing to go and, come to think of it, it was hard to say why they tolerated it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, many other character flaws were discovered and finally all family patience with her ran out. That was the end of her life in the executive villa.

The one reminder of her past came in the form of a white envelope without a return address that turned up in her box at the Drottning Street post office every month, year in and year out. It always contained exactly one thousand five hundred kronor.

Never a word in writing, never any questions about how she was getting on. Her mother paid to clear her conscience, just as she’d paid to stop herself worrying about the little children in Biafra. As likely as not, her father knew nothing about it.

Renting the post office box cost sixty-two kronor a month.

A young waitress with a ring in her nose came to her table and asked what she’d like to order. Quite a few things actually, if only she’d had the money. She shook her head, got up and started walking down Bibliotek Street towards the Central Station. She had to change her clothes.

Halfway across Normalm Square she saw it. A bright yellow poster on the newspaper kiosk screamed the big news in bold capitals. She had to read it three times before she finally realised the implications for her.

NEWSFLASH! BESTIAL MURDER LAST NIGHT AT GRAND HOTEL

TT News Agency, Stockholm

Late last night a man was murdered in his bedroom at Stockholm’s Grand Hotel. He was travelling on business, away from his home in central Sweden and had been staying at the Grand for the last two nights. According to statements by staff, the man had intended to leave on Friday.

Police sources are refusing to disclose any detailed information about the murder at this stage, but have revealed that the body was found by hotel staff around midnight, after a guest had alerted them to the presence of bloody marks in the corridor outside the murdered man’s room. The police also confirmed that the body had been subjected to some kind of mutilation. The police have no evidence pointing to the identity of the murderer at this stage, but expect that interviews with hotel staff and guests will help to clarify the events of the fatal evening. At the time of going to press, the police investigation at the site of the crime was not yet completed, and the Grand Hotel will stay closed to the public until further notice. This morning, the body will be subjected to a forensic examination at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Solna. It is expected that interrogation of staff and guests should be completed at the end of today and access will then return to normal.

That was all, apart from a photo of the Grand covering a whole page.

The rest of the article listed other murders involving mutilation carried out in Sweden over the last ten years. It was lovingly illustrated with pictures of the victims, complete with their names and ages.

So that’s why they had knocked on her door. Thank God she’d got away. How could she have explained her presence in one of Stockholm’s most expensive hotels? She couldn’t afford to pay for a coffee in its Wiener Café. What hope had she of persuading them that she deserved a night in a proper bed now and then – even if always paid for by someone who could easily spare the cash? Nil, that’s what. She wouldn’t have stood a chance. No one would have understood, for none of them had ever led her kind of life.

‘This is no fucking library, love. Do you want a paper or not?’ The man in the kiosk was getting fed up. She didn’t answer, just meekly put the paper back in the rack.

It was cold and she really did have a sore throat. She started walking towards Central Station again. She needed money and there were three days left until the next giro was due to arrive in her post box. In other words, she couldn’t get at it until Monday.

There was a machine dispensing change in the Left Luggage facility at Central Station. She went there and stood in front of it pushing the note-feed button several times.

‘What’s wrong with this thing?’

She spoke loudly and distinctly so that no one in the vicinity would fail to realise how irritated she was. She pushed the button again a couple of times, then sighed heavily and looked about. A man behind the deposit counter had noticed her and she walked over to him.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘The machine doesn’t work. It swallowed my hundred-kronor note without producing any change at all and my train’s leaving in exactly eight minutes.’

The man opened his till. ‘It’s been playing up recently.’

That’s a lucky break.

He counted out ten ten-kronor coins and put them in her hand. ‘There, now. If you hurry you’ll still catch your train.’

She smiled and put the money away in her handbag. ‘Thanks ever so much.’

Luckily she had the key to the luggage locker in her jacket pocket, not in the briefcase she had forgotten at the Grand Hotel.

She collected her rucksack and, after a few minutes in the ladies’ toilet, emerged wearing jeans and a padded anorak. She had decided what to do next.

It had to be a night with the Johanssons.

On her way to the allotments in Eriksdal she bought one tin of baked beans, a loaf of bread, a bottle of Coke, two apples and one tomato. She felt the first drops of rain just as she was crossing Eriksdal Street. For days now the sky had been covered by low cloud as grey as pewter.

All the allotment sheds seemed abandoned and she was grateful for the dull March day that did not tempt gardeners outdoors to their plots. Maybe it was just too early in the season anyway. The snow seemed to have gone for good this year, but the ground might still be hard with frost.

This was the first time she had gone there during the day, which was taking a risk, but she was tired and weary. She was running a temperature and needed peace and quiet.

As usual, the key was tucked away in the hanging basket. They had removed the geraniums that were flourishing in the basket every summer, but the key had remained in its old hiding place. It had been the obvious place to check when she turned up at the little cottage for the first time, almost five years ago.

Kurt and Birgit Johansson, the actual owners, had no idea they were sharing their cottage with Sibylla. She was always careful to leave it as she found it and never damage any of their things. She had picked their cottage partly because of finding the key so easily, but also because the cushions on their garden seats were unusually thick. Pushed together on the floor, they made a decent mattress. Besides, the Johanssons had the excellent sense to equip their small leisure hide-away with a paraffin heater and hotplate. With any luck, she would be left alone for a good while since they restricted their visiting to the summer months.

The cottage, really little more than a shed, was damp and cold. Still, the single room with a floor area of about ten square metres made it one of the biggest allotment buildings around. Along one of the walls stood a couple of kitchen cupboards, next to a small sink. She checked the cupboard under the sink for the bucket that should be in place under the cut-off drainpipe.

There was a small table with flaking paint near the window, which was partly covered by flyblown flowered curtains. Two odd wooden chairs were placed on either side of the table. She drew the curtains, took a wrought-iron candlestick down from a shelf and lit the candle. By now she was shivering.

She pulled up the zip on her anorak. The paraffin can was almost empty, so she’d have to walk to the garage and fill it up later in the afternoon. Once the heater was lit, she took a china bowl from a cupboard, placed her apples and tomato in it and put it on the table. She had learned to appreciate the small, good things in life, like making your surroundings look as nice as possible. She pulled her sleeping bag from the rucksack and lined up the seat-cushions on the floor. They were damp, so she put her mat down first. Then she crawled into the bag.

Resting her head on her arms, she studied the ceiling panels and decided to forget all about the Grand Hotel. Nobody knew about her and even if someone had noticed her, they’d never be able to work out who she was. Feeling better now that she’d convinced herself she was safe, she began to descend deeply into sleep, untroubled by any dark premonitions.