And when that day finally arrived, she would be in control of how she would die. That was the third thing. The woman outside had said before that it was Lasse who made the decisions, but if the situation arose, the she-wolf could easily take matters into her own hands. Hatred had seized control of the woman before, and it could happen again. Only a second of insanity was necessary in order for her to open the airlock and equalize the pressure. That moment was very likely to come.
For almost four years Merete had sat in this cage, but the woman had also been marked by the passing of time. Maybe her eyes had sunk deeper, maybe there was something in her voice. In these circumstances it was hard to tell how old the woman was, but she was old enough to fear what life might have in store. And that made her dangerous.
In the meantime, it didn’t seem as if the two people out there knew much about technical matters. They couldn’t even fix a button that was stuck, so they probably couldn’t equalize the pressure by any other method than opening the airlock; at least that was what Merete hoped. So if she made sure that they couldn’t open the hatch door unless she allowed them to, she would have enough time to commit suicide. The tongs would serve as her instrument. She could grip her arteries with the tongs and tear them apart if those two people outside suddenly decided to release the pressure inside the room. She didn’t really know what would happen then, but the woman’s comment that Merete would explode from inside was terrifying. No death could be worse. Which was why she wanted to decide when and how it would happen.
If this Lasse happened to return and had other plans for her, she would not have any naive illusions. Of course the room must have means of equalizing pressure other than through the hatch door. Maybe the ventilation system could also be used. She had no idea why this room had originally been built, but it must have been expensive. So she assumed that whatever it was originally intended to house must have had a certain value or importance. Which meant there had to be some kind of device in case of emergency. She’d caught a glimpse of small metal nozzles up under the light fixture on the ceiling. Not much bigger than her little finger, but surely that would be enough. Maybe that was how fresh air was pumped into the space, or maybe the nozzles could be used to equalize the pressure. But one thing was certain: If this Lasse wanted to harm her, he undoubtedly knew which buttons to push.
Until then, she would just try to concentrate on countering the threats that seemed most imminent. So she unscrewed the cap on the bottom of the flashlight, took out the batteries, and noted with satisfaction how hard and strong and sharp the metal of the flashlight was. The distance from the edge of the hatch door to the floor was only about an inch, so if she dug a hole right below the peg that had been welded on to stop the hatch door when it opened, she’d be able to position the flashlight in the hole to prevent the door from opening.
She hugged the flashlight to her chest. Here was a tool that gave her the feeling she could control something in her life, and that was an indescribably welcome sensation. Like the first time she took birth-control pills. Like the time she defied their foster family and took off, hauling Uffe along with her.
* * *
Digging into the concrete floor was much, much harder than she had imagined. The first couple of days passed quickly, since she still had food and water, but when the bucket with the good food was empty, the strength in her fingers swiftly gave out. She knew that she had very few energy reserves, but the food that had been delivered over the past few days had been completely inedible. They were really taking their revenge. The stench alone kept her from eating anything in the buckets. The food reeked like the rotting carcasses of diseased animals. Every night she spent five or six hours using the edges of the flashlight to scrape at the floor under the door, and that took its toll on her too. At the same time, it would be no use if she made a sloppy job of it; that was the problem. The hole had to be just the right size to hold the flashlight tightly, and since the flashlight itself was her digging tool, she had to keep twisting it into the hole to make sure it had the proper diameter and then carefully scrape off the concrete in paper-thin layers.
By the fifth day she’d dug out less than an inch, and gastric juices were starting to burn her insides.
The witch had repeated her demands every day at exactly the same time. If Merete didn’t wipe off the glass panes, the old woman refused to turn the lights back on, and she would deliver only spoiled food. The man had tried to mediate, but without success. There they were now, making their demands. Merete didn’t give a damn about the light, but her intestines were screaming. If she didn’t eat, she’d get sick, and she didn’t want to be sick.
She looked up at the reddish film on the panes; there was a faint light showing through the clear patch.
“If it’s so important to you, give me something I can use to wipe the panes clean!” she finally yelled.
“Use your sleeve and your piss, then we’ll turn the light on and give you some food!” the woman shouted back.
“All right, but you’ll have to send in a new jacket.”
At that the woman started in with her disgusting stabbing laughter that went straight to the marrow. She didn’t answer, just laughed until her lungs were empty. Then it was silent again.
“I won’t do it,” Merete said. But she did.
It didn’t take long, but it felt like years of defeat.
Even though they still stood out there once in a while, they couldn’t see what she was doing. When she sat over by the door she was in a blind spot, just like when she sat on the floor between the two mirrored panes. If they decided to come unannounced by night, they would immediately hear the scraping sound of the flashlight, but they never came. That was the advantage of the system they had put in place. She knew that she had the night to herself.
When she had scraped out almost an inch and a half of concrete, her existence, which had always been so predictable, changed. She had been sitting under the flickering fluorescent lights waiting for food as she figured out that it would soon be Uffe’s birthday. It was already the month of May, at any rate. May for the fifth time since she’d been imprisoned. May 2006. She had been sitting next to the toilet bucket, cleaning her teeth and thinking about Uffe, clearly picturing the sun dancing in a blue sky. “Happy birthday to you,” she sang in a hoarse voice, picturing Uffe’s happy face. Somewhere out there he was doing fine — she was sure of it. Of course he was doing fine. That was what she’d told herself so often.
“It’s that button, Lasse,” said the woman’s voice suddenly. “We can’t get it to come back out again, so she’s been able to hear everything we say.”
The image of sun and blue sky disappeared instantly, and her heart began to hammer. It was the first time she had heard the woman address the man they called Lasse.
“For how long?” replied a muted voice that made Merete hold her breath.
“Since the last time you were here. Five or six months.”
“Have you said anything she shouldn’t hear?”
“Of course not.”
For a moment there was silence. “Soon it won’t matter anyway. Go ahead and let her hear what we say. At least until I decide something else.”
That remark felt like the blow of an ax to Merete.
“Soon it won’t matter anyway.” What wouldn’t matter? What did he mean? What was going to happen?
“She’s been a real bitch while you were gone. She tried to starve herself to death, and once she blocked the hatch door. Then she smeared her own blood on the panes so we couldn’t see through them.”
“Our chum told me she had a toothache for a while. I wish I could have seen that,” said Lasse.
The woman outside laughed dryly. They knew that Merete was sitting inside, listening to everything they said. What made them act like that? What had she ever done to them?
“You monsters — what did I ever do to you?” she shouted at the top of her lungs as she stood up. “Turn off the light in here so I can see you! Turn off the light so I can look into your eyes while you talk!”
Again she heard the woman laugh. “Dream on, girl!” she shouted back.
“You want us to turn off the lights?” Lasse chuckled. “Sure, why not?” he said. “This could be the moment when the whole thing really starts. Then we’ll have some interesting days ahead of us until it’s over.”
Those were terrible words. The woman tried to object, but the man silenced her with a few harsh remarks. Then the lights above her in the ceiling suddenly went out.
Merete stood still for a moment, her pulse racing as she tried to get used to the faint light streaming into the room from outside. At first she saw the beasts out there merely as shadows, but slowly they became more distinct. The woman reached only to the bottom edge of one of the portholes; the man was much taller. Merete assumed he was Lasse.
Slowly he stepped closer. His blurry figure took form. Broad shoulders, well-proportioned figure. Not like the other tall, thin man.
She felt simultaneously an urge to curse them and to beg them to take pity on her. Anything that might make them tell her why they had done this to her. Here he was, the man who made the decisions. This was the first time she was seeing him, and there was something disturbingly exciting about the moment. She sensed that he alone would decide whether she should be allowed to know more, and now she was going to demand her rights. But when he took a step closer and she saw his face, the words refused to come out.
She looked with shock at his mouth. Saw the crooked smile freeze. Saw his white teeth slowly appear. Saw everything gather itself into a whole and shoot electrical charges through her body.
Now she knew who Lasse was.
Out on the lawn at Egely, Carl apologized to the nurse for the episode with Uffe. Then he threw the photographs and Playmobil figures into the plastic bag and strode toward the parking lot, while Uffe kept on screaming in the background. It was only when Carl started up the engine that he noticed the chaotic scene as staff members tore down the slope. That was the end of his investigative efforts on the grounds of Egely. Fair enough.
Uffe’s reaction had been very strong. So now Carl knew that in some way or another Uffe was present in the same world as everyone else. Uffe had looked into the eyes of the boy named Atomos in the photo, and it had shaken him badly. There was no doubt about that. This signified an unusually big step forward.
Carl pulled over next to a field and tapped in the name of the Godhavn children’s home on the car’s Internet system. The phone number appeared at once.
He didn’t have to offer much in the way of explanation. Apparently the staff were used to having the police call them, so there was no need to beat about the bush.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “None of your residents has done anything wrong. I’m calling about a boy who lived at the home in the late eighties. I don’t know his real name, but he was called Atomos. Does that name ring a bell?”
“In the late eighties?” said the staff member on duty. “No, I haven’t been here that long. We have case files on all the children, but they’re probably not listed under nicknames like that. Are you sure you don’t have some other name we could look up?”
“No, sorry.” Carl glanced over at the fields that reeked of manure. “Do you know of any staff member who worked there back then?”
“Hmm. Not among the full-time employees. I’m pretty sure of that,” she said. “But, let me see. . oh, that’s right, we do have a retired colleague, John, who comes in a couple of times a week. He just can’t bear to stay away, and the boys would miss him if he didn’t come in. I’m sure he worked here back then.”
“He wouldn’t happen to be there today, would he?”