‘We treat our children so badly that, in the end, they have no means of expression except through violence. That used to apply to boys only. Now we have incredibly tough girl gangs who don’t think twice about inflicting harm on others. We really have reached rock bottom when girls are so desperate that they think their only choice is to behave like the very worst of the gangsters among their boyfriends.’
‘Sima called me a paedophile.’
‘She calls me a whore when the mood takes her. But the worst thing is what she calls herself.’
‘What does she say?’
‘That she’s dead. Her heart can’t cope. She writes strange poems, and then leaves them on my desk or in my pockets without saying a word. It could well be that ten years from now, she’ll be dead. Either by her own hand or somebody else’s. Or she’ll have an accident, full of drugs or other shit. That’s a highly probable end to the wretched saga of her life. But I can’t give up on her. I know she has an inner strength. If only she can overcome that feeling of uselessness that pursues her everywhere. I have no alternative but to succeed with her. She’s riddled with decay and disillusionment: I have to revitalise her.’
She stood up.
‘I must get on to the police and nag them to put more effort into looking for Miranda. Why don’t you take a walk to the barn, and then we can continue our conversation later?’
I left the room. Sima was peering out from behind the curtains, following my every move. Several kittens were clambering over the bales of hay in the barn. Horses and cows were in boxes and pens. I recognised vaguely the smell from my very earliest childhood when my grandparents used to keep animals on the island. I stroked the horses’ muzzles, and caressed the cows. Agnes Klarström seemed to have her life under control. What would I have done if a surgeon had done the same to me? Would I have become a bitter wino and rapidly drunk myself to death on a park bench? Or would I have won through? I don’t know.
Mats Karlsson came into the barn and started feeding the animals with hay. He worked slowly, as if he were being forced to do something he hated doing.
‘Agnes asked me to tell you to go back to the house,’ he said suddenly. ‘I forgot to say.’
I went back inside. Sima was no longer at the window. There was a light breeze, and it had started snowing again. I felt cold and tired. Agnes was standing in the hall, waiting for me.
‘Sima’s run away,’ she said.
‘But I saw her only a few minutes ago.’
‘That was then. She’s disappeared now. In your car.’
I felt for the car key in my pocket. I knew I had locked the car. As you grow older, you find you have more and more keys in your pocket. Even if you live alone on a remote island in the archipelago.
‘I can see that you don’t believe me,’ she said. ‘But I saw the car leaving. And Sima’s jacket is nowhere to be seen. She has a special getaway jacket she always wears when she does a runner. Maybe she believes it has the power to make her invulnerable, invisible. She’s taken that sword with her as well. The stupid girl!’
‘But I have the car keys in my pocket.’
‘Sima used to have a boyfriend — his name was Filippo — a nice guy from Italy, who taught her all there is to know about opening locked cars and starting engines. He would always steal cars from outside swimming pools or buildings containing illegal casinos. He knew that the car owners would be preoccupied for quite a long time. Only hopeless amateurs steal cars from ordinary car parks.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Sima told me. She trusts me.’
‘But nevertheless she steals my car and vanishes.’
‘You could interpret that as a sign of trust. She expects us to understand what she’s done.’
‘But I want my car back!’
‘Sima usually burns out engines. You took a risk in coming here. But you couldn’t know that, of course.’
‘I met a man with a dog. He used expressions like “bloody kids”.’
‘So do I. What sort of a dog was it?’
‘I don’t know. It was brown and shaggy.’
‘Then the man you met was Alexander Bruun. A former swindler who worked in a bank and cheated customers out of their money. He was arrested for fraud, but wasn’t even sent to prison. Now he’s living the life of Riley on all the money he embezzled and the police never found. He hates me, and he hates my girls.’
She rang the police from her office and explained what had happened. I grew increasingly worried as I listened to what sounded like a cosy chat with a police constable who didn’t seem to think there was anything urgent about catching the runaway who was evidently intent on smashing up my already ailing car.
She hung up.
‘What are they going to do?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘But they have to do something, surely?’
‘They haven’t the resources available to start looking for Sima and your car. It will eventually run out of petrol. And so Sima will abandon it and take a train or a bus. Or steal another car. She once came back on a milk float. She always comes back eventually. Most people who run away don’t have any specific destination in mind. Have you never run away?’
It seemed to me that the only honest answer to that was that I’d been running away for the last twelve years. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything at all.
We had dinner at six o’clock. Agnes, Aida, Mats Karlsson and me. Aida had laid places for the two girls who had run away.
We ate a tasteless fish au gratin. I ate far too quickly, as I was worried about my car. Aida seemed to be inspired by the fact that Sima had run away, and spoke non-stop. Karlsson listened attentively and kept encouraging her, while Agnes ate in silence.
When we’d finished eating, Aida and Mats cleared away and took care of the washing-up. Agnes and I went out to the barn.
I apologised to her. I explained as clearly as I could what had gone wrong that fateful day. I spoke slowly and at length, so as not to omit any details. But the fact was that I could have explained what had happened in just a few words. Something had taken place that should never have been possible. Just as an airline pilot has ultimate responsibility and has to ensure that a thorough test of his aeroplane has been done before he takes off, I had a responsibility to ensure that it was the correct arm that had been washed and exposed for amputation: and I had failed in that responsibility.
We each sat on our bale of hay. She looked hard at me all the time as I talked. When I finished, she stood up and fed the horses with carrots from a sack. Then she came to sit beside me on the bale of hay.
‘My God, but how I’ve cursed you!’ she said. ‘You will never be able to understand just how much it means to somebody who loves swimming to be forced to give it up. I used to imagine how I would track you down, and cut off your arm with a very blunt knife. I would wrap you up in barbed wire and dump you in the sea. There’s a limit to how long you can keep hatred going. It can give you a sort of illusory strength, but the fact is that it’s nothing more than an all-consuming parasite. The girls are all that matter now.’
She squeezed my hand.
‘Anyway, that’s enough of that,’ she said. ‘If we go on we’ll only get sentimental. I don’t want that. A person with only one arm can easily get emotional.’
We went back into the house. Very loud music was coming from Aida’s room. Screeching guitars, thumping bass drums. The walls were vibrating. The mobile phone Agnes had in her pocket rang. She answered, listened, said a few words.
‘That was Sima,’ she said. ‘She sends you her greetings.’
‘Sends me her greetings? Where is she?’
‘She didn’t say. She just wanted Aida to phone her.’