He considered buying in bulk over the internet, but gave up on that idea. His name had been mentioned all over the place, and a hundred jars of baby food on his account, a box with his name on the address label might also raise eyebrows somewhere.
He tried to get Theres to eat something different, he tried to explain the problem to her, but that did no good. When he stopped buying baby food to see what would happen, she stopped eating. He thought hunger would eventually make her see sense, but after four days she hadn’t eaten anything, and it was starting to show in her face. He was forced to capitulate and set off on a long expedition to stock up on pureed chicken casserole and meatballs.
At some point in the middle of all this, Jerry began to seriously despair. The locked doors, the difficult shopping expeditions, the constant fear. The way Theres had come to dominate his existence without saying or doing anything. Why the hell had he got into all this?
He realised he was going to have to hand her over sooner or later. A great big anonymous basket on the steps of the youth psychiatric service. Then he would be free to live his own life again. Without fear or anxiety.
But for the time being, the food problem had to be solved. Jerry took the only course of action he could think of and rang Ingemar. They hadn’t been in touch since Jerry had explained that he was finished with the cigarette business after the incident with Bröderna Djup. When Jerry asked if he was still in a position to get hold of just about anything, Ingemar was up for it straight away.
‘As long as we’re not talking about drugs…shoot. What do you need?’
‘Baby food. Can you get hold of baby food?’
It was a point of honour to Ingemar that he never asked about the goods he supplied, but from the silence that followed Jerry’s question, it was clear that his principles were being severely tested. However, the only thing he eventually said was: ‘You mean that stuff in jars? Stewed meat, that kind of crap?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how many do you want?’
‘A hundred, maybe.’
‘Jars? I’m not exactly going to make a fortune on this, you know.’
‘I’m offering you the retail price. Eleven kronor a jar.’
‘Twelve?’
And so it was agreed. When Jerry hung up, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had made a decision. When the hundred jars were gone, he would hand over Theres. It was a nice even number and it felt right. Another two weeks, approximately.
Ingemar turned up with the jars and Jerry paid him. When Ingemar asked if he would be needing any more, Jerry said no. Then he carried in the two boxes himself. The labels on the jars were in some kind of East European language, and each one contained something that was presumably meat stew. Theres didn’t seem to care, she shovelled down the contents with the same joyless single-mindedness she always displayed when she was eating.
Since the keyboard was one of the few things that seemed to interest her, Jerry had started teaching her to use the internet, and that evening they had something resembling a pleasant interlude together as they sat side by side at the computer, and Jerry demonstrated how to get onto different sites and forums, how to set up an email account and so on. Perhaps it was because he had set a definite end date for their relationship that he felt more relaxed.
During the night Theres became ill. As Jerry lay there trying to get to sleep, he heard a long drawn-out whimpering from the living room. He hesitated before getting up and unlocking the bedroom door, as always alert to any changes in Theres that might suggest a shift in her mood.
He didn’t need to worry. Theres was hardly in a state to harm anyone. The room stank, and when Jerry switched on the light he saw Theres flat out on the sofa, her face greenish-white. She had thrown up all over the floor, and one hand was waving feebly.
‘What the fuck, sis…’
Jerry fetched cloths and a mop, cleaned the floor and gave Theres a bucket to throw up in. As he headed back to his room, Theres whimpered behind his back. He stopped, sighed, and sat down in the armchair. When he had been sitting there for a while, something struck him.
He picked up one of the jars of baby food, unscrewed the lid and sniffed at the contents. He wrinkled his nose. Not that baby food normally smelled good, but surely it shouldn’t smell like this, for fuck’s sake? Behind the smell of stale meat there was an undertone of…acetone. Something suffocating, fermented. He turned the jar around to look for the sell-by date, but it had been rubbed out until it was illegible.
Theres was writhing as her stomach contracted with cramp, emitting a damp croaking noise. Sweat poured down her face and a trickle of dark green bile seeped out between her lips and stuck to her chin. Her head drooped helplessly over the edge of the sofa.
Jerry ran into the kitchen and fetched a towel and a bowl of water. He wiped Theres’ face, dabbing her forehead with the cool water. Her skin was hot and her eyes shone like marbles. She was shivering, and a new kind of fear nudged its way into Jerry’s body.
‘Listen, sis, you can’t be this sick. You just can’t, you hear me?’
He couldn’t take her to hospital. She had no patient number or ID card or anything, and he might as well go straight to the police station and turn himself in. Of course he could just dump her there, but then again someone might see him, and in any case he couldn’t put her on the back of his motorbike in this fucking state and how was he supposed to…
Theres’ transparent gaze fixed on his and she whispered, ‘Jerry…’ before her body contracted in a series of fresh cramps, twisting the damp sheets around her thin legs. Jerry stroked her head and said, ‘It’ll be OK, sis, it’ll be OK. You’ve just got a bit of a bad stomach, nothing serious.’ Presumably he was trying to convince himself.
He fetched her a drink of water. Five minutes later she brought it back up. He changed her bedclothes, which were soaked through and stinking. Two hours later they were just as wet. He got her to swallow an Ibuprofen tablet, which came straight back up. He chewed his nails until his fingertips hurt, and didn’t know what to do.
Towards six o’clock the dawn began to breathe on the windows and found an exhausted Jerry slumped in the armchair next to Theres, staring blankly at her skinny body as it lay on the sofa curled up into a question mark. Her breathing was jerky and shallow and her voice was so weak Jerry could barely hear her when she said, ‘Little One bad. Made them dead. Mum and Dad. Little One soon dead now. That’s good.’
Jerry sat up and rubbed his eyes with the damp hand towel he had changed several times during the night. He leaned closer to Theres. ‘Don’t talk like that. You didn’t kill them because you’re bad. I don’t know why you did it, but it’s nothing to do with being bad, I do know that. Why do you say you’re bad?’
‘You’re sad. Because Mum and Dad got dead. Little One bad.’
Jerry cleared his throat and adopted a firmer tone of voice: ‘Right. Stop calling yourself Little One, stop saying you’re bad, and stop calling them Mum and Dad. Pack it in.’
Theres was once more gazing into emptiness. When she said, ‘Little One soon be dead’, Jerry’s anger flared up. He placed his hand over her head and squeezed her temples between his thumb and middle finger.
‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘It’s I will soon be dead. I! And you’re not going to die. You can fucking forget that. I’m looking after you. If you die I’ll kill you.’
Theres frowned and did something he had never seen before. She smiled. ‘You can’t do that. When you’re dead you’re dead.’
Jerry rolled his eyes. ‘It was a joke, stupid.’
The subtle lightening of the atmosphere in the room came to a sudden stop: ‘Mum and Dad got dead. Then. Little One got them.’
Despite the fact that Theres was obviously no threat, Jerry backed away from her slightly. ‘What the hell are you talking about, and stop saying Little One, what do you mean you got them?’