PROLOGUE A PLASTIC BAG had got stuck in the wire fence that surrounded Å kersberga Prison. Twenty-five-year-old Emelie Rydén turned the key in the ignition of her green Kia and the engine fell silent. She leaned forward, rested her head on the wheel. Two years earlier, she had given birth to their daughter, Nova. Now she was here to end it with Karim, the man she had thought was the love of her life. Emelie was scared. She straightened her back, raised her top lip and examined herself in the rear-view mirror. The bottom half of one of her front teeth was yellow. Four years before, Karim had flung her into a radiator during an argument. Emelie had fainted. When she came round, he had gone. Forty-eight hours later, he'd come home, stinking of bars and sweat, and asked for forgiveness with bloodshot eyes. Emelie opened the car door and put her foot down in a puddle that had formed in a pothole. She had to bring this to an end. For Nova's sake. Her daughter didn't deserve to grow up with her father behind bars. Even if Karim was going to be released in three months' time, Emelie was certain that he would be back. Sooner or later. Probably sooner. She walked with long strides towards the visitor entrance, pressed the bell and was let in. For three years, with only a few exceptions, she'd been here every week. Nova had been conceived in one of the visiting rooms. Some of the prison officers showed empathy, others thinly veiled contempt. Over the years, she'd done all she could to keep her head held high, to walk the corridors with her back straight. She recognised the officer in reception. He was quiet, seemed shy. Despite them having met on several occasions, he gave no indication of knowing who she was. "I'm going to see Karim Laimani," said Emelie. The officer nodded. "Could I borrow a pen?" He kept his eyes fixed on the screen as he handed over a biro. Emelie unfolded Nova's drawing and added the date in the top right-hand corner. The procedure after that was the same as always: jacket, bag, mobile phone and keys were locked in a cabinet. She was then led over to the metal detector and searched. Emelie held out her arms and let the officer pat her down. "Follow me," he said mechanically as he pushed an access card against the reader. They walked down the corridor, then off to the right. The officer first, Emelie behind him with Nova's folded drawing in her hand. He stopped in front of a white door with a round glass window. Emelie peered in. Karim was sitting there with his hands on the tabletop. The hood on his grey sweatshirt was up. The door was pushed open and Emelie stepped into the little room. She took a deep breath. Her hands and legs were shaking. She rehearsed everything she was about to say as the door was pulled to behind her. Karim stood up. It was as if the words she'd learned by rote had been blown away. He pulled her towards him, grabbing hold of her breast. "Karim, stop..." He pretended not to hear her, instead pressing his groin against hers and pushing his tongue into her mouth. She pushed him away. "What the fuck is up with you?" he said. Karim stared at her angrily for a couple of seconds, turned around and sat down on the chair. Emelie placed Nova's drawing on the table in front of him. He glanced at it impassively. "You've put weight on. You're not up the duff again, are you?" Emelie straightened a lock of hair that had fallen out of place. She opened her mouth, but her throat was dry. Once she had said those words, she would no longer be his girlfriend, but an enemy. In Karim's world, everything was black and white. Those words could never be unsaid. She cleared her throat and tried to keep her voice steady. "I don't want us to be together any more." Karim raised his eyebrows. His fingers made a scratching sound as he pushed them through his dark stubble. "Stop it." "It can't work," she said. Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat once more. "I can't take any more." Karim's eyes narrowed. The chair legs scraped across the floor as he slowly got to his feet, his jaws grinding as he moved towards her. "Do you think that's up to you?" He was almost touching her. Emelie braced herself. "Please..." she whispered as her eyes welled up. She closed them. Swallowed. "Can't you just let me go? You can see Nova when you come out." "Are you fucking someone?" "No." Karim's face stopped ten centimetres or so from hers. He sniffed the air. "Oh yes, you've always been shit at lying. Have you been running around town opening your legs? You stupid. Fucking. Whore." Emelie turned around, reaching for the door handle. Karim got there first and grabbed hold of her. "You won't get away with it. If I find out you've been opening your cunt for anyone else, I will kill you." 14 The prison officer flung open the door. Karim let go and held up his palms. Emelie pulled her arm in and rubbed her wrist. The next second, the visiting room echoed with Karim's voice. "I will kill you. Just you wait. You are going to regret this," he roared. The officer stepped in between them. "Calm down." Karim stared at Emelie over the guard's shoulder. As he backed away, he smiled. PART I We are people too. We just want to be loved for who we are. Our hopelessness does not come out of nowhere. I am pleased that you have never felt this way, but I hope you can sympathise. You bully us, belittle us. Everywhere. Instead, you ought to ask yourselves what it is that has made us feel this way. There is often a story that has brought us here. If you heard our stories, you might be more sympathetic to our situation, which, after all, is involuntary. An anonymous man. 1 A STRING OF PURPLE fairy lights hung from the spruce tree in Monica Zetterlund Park. Detective Inspector Vanessa Frank was wearing a dark-blue coat. Underneath, she wore dark suit trousers and a newly ironed white shirt. She ran the tip of her tongue across her gums. For the first time in her life, Vanessa had made a New Year's resolution: to stop using snus tobacco. She had put it off all winter. Now it was April. The snow was gone. Forty-eight hours earlier she had finished her last tin and the abstinence was causing her whole body to itch. In Hassan's Phone Shop, which, despite the name, sold all sorts, the lights were still on. The doorbell rang. Hassan smiled when he saw it was Vanessa. "Sheriff Frank," he greeted her in thickly accented Swedish and bowed half-heartedly. "I hope you're not here to buy snus?" "Give over, I'm forty-three. Give me a tin." "Two days ago, you were standing exactly there when you forbade me to sell you snus." "Either you sell me a tin, or I'll rob you." Hassan moved quickly to shield the tobacco fridge with his body. "E-cigarettes, less dangerous, keep you busy," he said, pointing to a glass display cabinet. "I mean it, Vanessa. You made me promise. I intend to keep it." Vanessa sighed and straightened her shirt collar. She appreciated people who kept their promises. "Okay, okay, give me that shit then. But Hassan, careful you don't scratch the floor." Bemused, he looked at her, then down at his feet. "Eh?" "Yeah, with that stick you've got shoved up your backside." On the corner by Odengatan, Vanessa stopped, got the vape going, took a drag and then thoughtfully studied the white steam dissipating into the spring night sky. She walked in the direction of Sveavägen. The restaurants' outdoor terraces had opened. People were drinking beer with blankets draped across their shoulders, hunched over rickety wooden tables. Vanessa's life was being renegotiated. In December, Natasha - the sixteen-year-old Syrian girl who Vanessa had had living with her - had received a phone call from her father. He had survived the war, crippled but alive. On Christmas Day, as the snow fell heavily, Vanessa had waved Natasha off and watched the taxi's rear lights disappear up Surbrunnsgatan. The brake lights had flickered. Made Vanessa hope, for a second, that Natasha would tear herself out, dragging her suitcase with her, and rush over to Vanessa as she explained it had all been a misunderstanding. Four months had passed, and still the loneliness felt like a rusty brown bike chain against her ribcage every single day. On Sveavägen, the vintage cars cruised back and forth, carrying enthusiasts in vests and checked shirts singing along to Eddie Meduza and Bruce Springsteen. Petrol fumes. Confederate flags. A man pushed his anaemic arse cheeks against the rear windscreen of a passing white Chevrolet. Vanessa had planned to turn right, taking the route home through Vanadis Park - but just ahead, a huge scaffold towered over the pavement. She hated walking underneath them; they looked like they might collapse at any second. Instead, she crossed Odengatan and continued parallel to the bus stop. As she passed Storstadbar, she caught a glimpse of a face she recognised - theatre director Svante Lidén's. They had been married for twelve years, until she found out that he'd got a young actress pregnant. Vanessa didn't flinch, just kept walking. She hadn't got more than a couple of metres when she heard her name being called. "You can at least say hello?" "Hi." She turned on her heels. Svante rushed over and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Can't you come in for a little bit?" He gave her a pleading look. The alternative was going home, flopping onto the sofa and watching Animal Planet. "Okay." Svante held the door and asked what she would like to drink. Vanessa asked for a gin and tonic and took a seat by the window. She glanced towards the space between the bar and the tables, where inebriated people were trying it on with one another. Us humans are just wild mammals in colourful clothes, she thought to herself. In a hundred years from now, everyone in this room will be dead. White bones and dust, buried six feet under. No one will know that they shared these hours together. The realisation made her feel bleak. "You look fantastic," Svante said, putting the drink down on the table between them. Vanessa raised her glass towards him. "You look like you died in 2003." "Cheers!" Svante responded, untroubled. "How are things?" Vanessa took a gulp. Now she was here, she might as well be nice. For old times' sake. In spite of everything, she was pleased to see Svante. Those years she had lived with him had been good ones. The fact that he would shag anything with a pulse, she had learned to live with. What had wounded her was that he denied her a child. When Vanessa had become pregnant, a while before the divorce, he had persuaded her to have an abortion. And now it was too late. "I've got a new job." "Have you left the police?" Vanessa shook her head. "New division. I left NOVA and I'm an investigator for the National Homicide Unit now." He put an ice cube in his mouth and crushed it between his teeth. "Riksmord?" 'Piano Man'streamed from the speakers. Vanessa leaned in to be heard above Billy Joel. "I travel around the country, helping colleagues in murder investigations." "A business traveller for murders, then. That would make a good film title. And plenty of work at the moment, if the papers are anything to go by?" An hour and three G&Ts later, Vanessa felt intoxicated. She didn't want to go home. In many ways, Svante was a boil, a poor excuse for a man, but she liked him. They still hadn't touched upon the subject of Johanna Ek, the actress who Svante now lived with. Nor had they raised the subject of the couple's child. Vanessa was afraid of ruining the moment, but in the end, she could not hold back any longer. In the middle of a question, she raised her palm towards Svante. "How's the kid then? The one-year-old, I mean, not the one you left me for." Svante opened his mouth to respond, but Vanessa cut in again. "What did you christen her? Yasuragi Lidén?" "Yasuragi? That spa? Why would we..." "I found a hotel bill in one of your jackets, paid nine months before she was born. You celebs usually name your kids after where they were conceived, don't you?" Svante scratched his cheek. "Granted, I didn't handle that very well," he said. "I'm sorry." They stared into each other's eyes for a couple of seconds until Vanessa waved her hand. "Don't be." She looked at his brown eyes, continued upwards to his spiky fringe. He was greyer than last time she saw him, almost completely, in fact. Vanessa let her eyes wander to his big hands, his chewed nails. She missed his humour. The security. That way he bit his bottom lip if he was reading something he didn't agree with in the paper. How he grabbed hold of her. Decisively. Proprietorially. His poorly disguised jealousy when he noticed she was attracted to someone else. "Are you happy with her?" His chin was resting in his cupped hand. "It's different. Easier, somehow." "Do you have to be so bloody honest?" A man bumped into Vanessa's back. She moved her chair closer to Svante's. "Do you know what gets to me most?" she asked. "No?" "That you turned me into a cliché." Svante raised his eyebrows. Vanessa grabbed hold of his hand and moved it inside her unbuttoned jacket, to her breast. She had had surgery six months before. "A walking fucking cliché of the ageing, jilted woman." He laughed and withdrew his hand. A bit too slowly for Vanessa not to notice. Why did she want Svante to want her? Why did he have that effect on her? She was fine. She didn't need him. He had made his choice. Did she want revenge on Johanna? Was it that simple? "Say it." "Say what, Vanessa?" She leaned in, could smell his aftershave. "That you still want me." Excerpted from Femicide by Pascal Engman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
