Jan has never actually seen Hanna playing with the children; usually she just stands there watching them while they play on their own. But he smiles. ‘Everybody feels like that now and again.’
Hanna sighs. ‘I feel like that nearly all the time. I can’t cope with hordes of kids, somehow.’
Jan sees the children from the Dell in his mind’s eye. Cheery faces. Josefine, Leo and all the others. ‘You should try to see them as individuals,’ he says. ‘They’ve all got their own character.’
‘Oh yes? They sound like a troupe of monkeys to me. They spend all bloody day screaming; I’m practically deaf when I get home after work.’
Hanna empties her glass and an awkward silence falls.
Jan stands up. ‘I’ll get another round in.’
She doesn’t object. When he returns with fresh drinks he wants to get back to the previous topic of conversation, so he looks around before asking, ‘So do you know someone up at the hospital, then?’
Hanna hesitates, but then mumbles that she does.
‘Who is it?’
‘I’m not telling you. Who do you go to see?’
‘Nobody,’ Jan says quickly. ‘Not one of the patients, anyway.’
‘But you want to get to them, don’t you? I mean, you were down in the basement that night when I came back... Why do you go creeping around down there?’
Now it is Jan’s turn to fall silent. ‘Curiosity,’ he says eventually.
‘Yeah, right.’ Hanna smiles wearily at him. ‘But there’s no point in searching for a way in down there.’
‘Oh? But you get through the sally port without any problems?’
She nods quickly. The vodka seems to be making her more relaxed. ‘I’ve got a contact. In the hospital, I mean. Someone I can trust.’
‘A guard?’ Jan immediately thinks of Lars Rettig.
‘Kind of.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I’m not saying.’
This is like a game of chess, Jan thinks. A game of chess in a night club.
The music is louder now, and the place no longer seems quite so big. More people have arrived and begun to fill up the tables and the stools by the bar. It’s only to be expected, of course; the Medina Palace is a night club, with the emphasis on night — people arrive late, and now they’re here to stay. The night people.
But no one comes to join Jan and Hanna; they are sitting very close together now, as if they have been friends since childhood.
‘You and I should trust each other too,’ Jan says.
Hanna’s blue eyes are cool. ‘Why?’
‘Because we can help each other.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, in different ways...’ Jan breaks off. He has grasped that Hanna might be able to help him meet Rami, but he doesn’t know how.
Hanna’s glass is empty. She looks at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She starts to get up, a little unsteadily.
‘Wait,’ Jan says quickly. ‘Stay a bit longer. I’ll get us another drink. Do you like liqueurs?’
Hanna sits down again. ‘Maybe.’
‘Good.’ He dashes over to the bar; he is as fast as Rami’s squirrel, and he comes back with four small glasses on a tray. A double round of coffee liqueurs, to save time. ‘Cheers, Hanna.’
‘Cheers.’
The drink tastes sweet and the world becomes even more noticeably wrapped in cotton wool. The beat of the music grows louder, and he leans closer to her. ‘So what do you think of Marie-Louise?’
Hanna gives a little smile. ‘Miss Control Freak,’ she says with a snigger. ‘She’d have a heart attack if that thing you told me about happened at our place.’
‘What thing?’
‘That business with the boy who disappeared in the forest.’
Jan gives a curt nod, but keeps his eyes fixed on the table. He doesn’t want to talk about William, so he changes the subject. ‘Is Lilian married?’
‘No. She was, but it didn’t work out... Her husband kind of got bored.’
Jan doesn’t ask any more questions, but he wonders about the man who walked Lilian to work this evening. Has she got a new boyfriend?
Jan is quite pleased when there is a brief silence, because it means he can have another drink. He tries to pull himself together, and looks at Hanna over the top of his glass. ‘Shall we play a game?’
Hanna empties her own glass. ‘What kind of game?’
‘A guessing game.’
‘What about?’
‘I’ll try to guess who you meet at St Psycho’s, and you try to guess who I want to meet up there.’
‘St... We’re not supposed to call it that.’
‘I know.’ Jan gives her a conspiratorial smile. ‘OK, I’ll go first... Is it a man?’
Hanna gazes at him tipsily, then nods. ‘And yours? Is it a woman?’
Jan nods in return, and goes on: ‘Is it someone from your past? Someone you knew before he ended up in St Psych— St Patricia’s?’
She shakes her head. ‘Did you know this woman?’
Jan nods and sips his drink. ‘I met her before... years and years ago.’
‘Is she famous?’ Hanna asks with a smile.
‘Famous?’
‘Yes. Did people talk about her, did she have her name and her picture in the papers? Because of some crime?’
Jan shakes his head; he isn’t lying. After all, Rami was never famous — not as a criminal, anyway. She wasn’t very well known at all; as far as he is aware, she never appeared on television. He raises his glass to Hanna. ‘And your friend on the inside,’ he says. ‘Is he famous?’
Hanna stops smiling; her gaze slides sideways. ‘Maybe,’ she says quietly.
Jan carries on looking at her. Suddenly another name comes into his head, a very well-known name, but it’s such a stupid idea that he almost laughs out loud. ‘Is it Rössel? Ivan Rössel?’
Hanna visibly stiffens — and suddenly it isn’t funny any more.
Jan puts down his glass. ‘Surely that’s not who you’re meeting up there, Hanna? Not Ivan Rössel? He’s a murderer!’
She opens her mouth and hesitates briefly, then gets to her feet. ‘I have to go.’
And that’s exactly what she does, without another word. Jan watches her go, a straight-backed pre-school teacher with blonde hair, making a beeline for the exit.
He stays where he is, holding on to his glass. It’s empty, but Hanna’s second coffee liqueur is still standing there untouched, so he reaches out and knocks that back as well. It tastes horrible, but he drinks it anyway.
Then he gazes blankly into space, suddenly remembering what Lilian said about Hanna Aronsson: She’s young and a bit crazy, but she has a very exciting private life.
A bit crazy? She must be, if she’s sneaking into St Psycho’s and hanging out with Ivan Rössel.
The child-killer.
That’s what one of the newspapers called him, and another referred to him as Ivan the Terrible.
What is Hanna doing with Rössel?
29
Ivan Rössel is smiling at Jan as if they are good friends. He has broad shoulders and black, curly hair that flops down over his forehead; he looks like a middle-aged rock star. He wears the satisfied expression of a man who seems to enjoy being photographed. Or a man who thinks he is smarter than the photographer.
The photograph was taken by the police, and it is on Jan’s computer screen.
Rössel was not a rock musician when the police arrested him, nor a celebrity of any kind; he was a high-school teacher of chemistry and physics at a school here on the west coast. Unmarried and with no close friends. Rössel was popular with the pupils, but some of his colleagues found him arrogant and boastful at times.