LITMIR.BIZ

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Stenberg breathed out. The match was over, he had won. All of a sudden he felt almost sorry for her.

      ‘Smart decision, Sophie,’ he said. ‘It would have been a shame if you’d had to spend Christmas in the clinic again.’

      He regretted saying it the moment he heard the words leave his mouth. Bloody hell! The glass missed his head by a whisker, hitting the wall behind him and sending a shower of crystal shards across the oak floor.

      ‘You fucking bastard!’ She took a couple of quick strides toward him, her fingernails reaching toward his face. Her knee missed his crotch by a matter of centimetres.

      ‘For God’s sake, Sophie.’ Stenberg twisted aside and grabbed hold of her wrists.

      She went on trying to kick him, wriggling frantically in an effort to break free. He dumped her on the sofa, but Sophie bounced up instantly and attacked him again. She was growling like a dog, and her eyes were black. Her lips were pulled back, as if she were planning to bite him.

      The blow was a purely instinctive reaction. Right-handed, with an open palm, but still hard enough to make her head snap back and her body crumple onto the sofa. Shit, he’d never hit a woman before. Not like that, anyway.

      Sophie lay motionless on the sofa. Her arms and legs were hanging limp. Something wet was running down one of Stenberg’s earlobes and he felt his ear without really thinking about it. Not blood, as he suspected, but a golden-brown drop of whiskey that must have flown out of the glass.

      ‘Sophie,’ he said in a tremulous voice. She still wasn’t moving.

      In the oppressive silence he could hear his own pulse thundering on his eardrums. He glanced quickly toward the elevator, then at the inert body. Sophie’s eyelids fluttered a couple of times and Stenberg breathed out.

      He turned around and was about to go into the kitchen to get some water. But the floor was covered with broken glass. So he went to the bathroom instead and moistened a towel. On the way back he picked up her white toweling dressing gown from the floor.

      She was sitting up when he got back, and he passed her both the towel and the dressing gown.

      ‘Sophie, I’m—’

      ‘Get out!’ She snatched the towel and pressed it to her cheek. He stood motionless for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. ‘Didn’t you hear me, get the fuck out of here!’ Sophie hissed, covering herself with the dressing gown.

      He backed away a couple of steps and tried to think of something to say.

      ‘Sophie, I mean—’

      Sudden pain interrupted him. A sliver of glass had cut into his left heel and he swore as he hopped on the other leg and tried to pull it out.

      Her laughter was shrill and far too loud.

      ‘God, you’re so fucking pathetic, Jesper, can’t you see it? Pathetic …’

      He straightened up, tossing the sliver of glass toward the sink. He gave her one last glance before limping toward the elevator, without saying another word.

      ‘I’ll do it!’ she screamed after him. ‘I’ll kill myself!’

      He pressed the elevator button, resisting the impulse to turn around.

      ‘I’ll go to the media, do you hear me, little Jeppe!’ She carried on yelling as the elevator doors opened. ‘I’ll tell them everything! Everything, yeah? You’re finished, you’re whole fucking family’s finished! I’m going to—’

      Her voice rose to a falsetto as the doors cut her off mid-sentence. He heard running footsteps, then the sound of her fists on the elevator doors. He pressed the button for the garage several times, but it wouldn’t light up. The hammering went on, growing louder and echoing off the metal walls of the elevator.

       Boom, boom, boom, boom …

      He kept jabbing at the button, until eventually the little light behind it came on. Then he covered his ears with his hands and the elevator slowly nudged its way down toward the basement.

      Atif took a deep breath and then looked up. The night sky was so different here compared to Sweden. Higher, clearer somehow. Yet at the same time it also felt strangely closer. But of course that wasn’t true. Obviously the sky and the stars were exactly the same, it was just that he was looking at them from a different place. A distance of three and a half thousand kilometres had simply given him a different perspective on things. And now he was going to have to switch perspective again.

      ‘Something’s happened, Mum,’ he said, without looking away.

      She didn’t answer; she hardly ever did. She just sat still in her wheelchair with a blanket over her thin legs as she looked at the stars. But Atif knew she was listening. She really ought to have gone to bed a long time ago. But on starry nights like this the nurses let her stay up. They knew it made her calmer.

      He took a deep breath. Time to spit it out.

      ‘I have to go back to Sweden. It’s to do with Adnan,’ he went on. He tried to force his mouth to form the words. But to his surprise his mother spoke instead.

      ‘A-Adnan …’ Her voice was weak, thin, almost like a child’s. ‘Adnan isn’t home from school yet.’

      Atif opened his mouth again. Say it, get it over and done with. Tell her what’s happened. But he hesitated a few seconds too long. One of the nurses was heading toward them across the cracked paving.

      ‘Adnan’s a good boy,’ his mother went on. ‘He’s got a good head for learning, he could be anything he likes. An engineer, or a doctor. You must help him, make sure he doesn’t end up like, like …’ She fell silent and looked up at the night sky. Atif bit his lip.

      ‘It’s time for bed now, Mum.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you from Sweden. Khalti will come and see you the day after tomorrow. She says she’ll bring some of those dates you like.’

      His mother nodded distantly. Her gaze was fixed on the stars again. Atif straightened up and began to walk away. He’d tell her when he got back. That would have to do.

      ‘You’ve got a good son, to come and see you so often, Dalia,’ she heard the nurse say. ‘You must be very proud of him.’

      Atif quickened his pace. And tried to convince himself that it was the distance that meant he couldn’t hear her reply.

      Jesper Stenberg limped toward his car, got in, and then sat behind the wheel for a few moments. His hands were shaking, and his left shoe felt warm and wet.

      Fucking psycho bitch. Why the hell hadn’t he stuck to the plan, said what he had to say and then left? Fucking her and then dumping her wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Not to mention that stupid remark about the private clinic in Switzerland, a subject he should have avoided at all costs. But, as usual, Sophie had managed to unsettle him. To get beneath the skin of his bespoke self-confident image.

      Stenberg took a few deep breaths as he tried to pull himself together. It was only just ten o’clock. Karolina wouldn’t be home before two. Plenty of time to go home, patch himself up, then settle back on the sofa with a whiskey and do his best to forget this sordid little episode. He was pretty good at that. Forgetting, leaving things behind, and setting off toward new goals.

      He started the engine and slid the car out of its parking space. The pain in his left foot had turned into a dull throb. At the exit he stopped at the barrier. His pass card was in one of the inside pockets of his wallet, an anonymous white plastic card, obviously not issued in his name. He put the gearshift in neutral and opened the window. The Eco-Drive function instantly shut off the big engine and everything went silent. In the distance he could hear the garage’s ventilation system. A dull, ominous sound that made him feel badly ill at ease. The feeling came out of nowhere, and for a few seconds it took over his whole being and made his hands shake.

      He had to get out of there, right away!

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