The Sandman. Ларс Кеплер

       8

      Reidar Frost drains his wine glass, puts it down on the dining table and closes his eyes for a while to calm himself. One of the guests is clapping. Veronica is standing in her blue dress, facing the corner with her hands over her face, and she starts to count.

      The guests vanish in different directions, and footsteps and laughter spread through the many rooms of the manor house.

      The rule is that they have to stick to the ground floor, but Reidar gets slowly to his feet, goes over to the hidden door and creeps into the service passageway. Carefully he climbs the narrow backstairs, opens the secret door in the wall and emerges into the private part of the house.

      He knows he shouldn’t be alone there, but carries on through the sequence of rooms.

      At every stage he closes the doors behind him, until he reaches the gallery at the far end.

      Along one wall stand the boxes containing the children’s clothes and toys. One box is open, revealing a pale-green space gun.

      He hears Veronica call out, muffled by the floor and walls:

      ‘One hundred! Coming, ready or not!’

      Through the windows he looks out over the fields and paddocks. In the distance he can see the birch avenue that leads to Råcksta Manor.

      Reidar pulls an armchair across the floor and hangs his jacket on it. He can feel how drunk he is as he climbs up onto the seat. The back of his white shirt is wet with sweat. With a forceful gesture he tosses the rope over the beam in the roof. The chair beneath him creaks from the movement. The heavy rope falls across the beam and the end is left swinging.

      Dust drifts through the air.

      The padded seat feels oddly soft beneath the thin soles of his shoes.

      Muted laughter and cries can be heard from the party below and for a few moments Reidar closes his eyes and thinks of the children, their little faces, wonderful faces, their shoulders and thin arms.

      He can hear their high-pitched voices and quick feet running across the floor whenever he listens – the memory is like a summer breeze in his soul, leaving him cold and desolate again.

      Happy birthday, Mikael, he thinks.

      His hands are shaking so much that he can’t tie a noose. He stands still, tries to breathe more calmly, then starts again, just as he hears a knock on one of the doors.

      He waits a few seconds, then lets go of the rope, climbs down onto the floor and picks up his jacket.

      ‘Reidar?’ a woman’s voice calls softly.

      It’s Veronica, she must have been peeking while she was counting and saw him disappear into the passageway. She’s opening the doors to the various rooms and her voice gets clearer the closer she comes.

      Reidar turns the lights off and leaves the nursery, opening the door to the next room and stopping there.

      Veronica comes towards him with a glass of champagne in her hand. There is a warm glow in her dark, intoxicated eyes.

      She’s tall and thin, and has had her black hair cut in a boyish style that suits her.

      ‘Did I say I wanted to sleep with you?’ he asks.

      She spins round slightly unsteadily.

      ‘Funny,’ she says with a sad look in her eyes.

      Veronica Klimt is Reidar’s literary agent. He may not have written a word in the past thirteen years, but the three books he wrote before that are still generating an income.

      Now they can hear music from the dining room below, the rapid bass-line transmitting itself through the fabric of the building. Reidar stops at the sofa and runs his hand through his silvery hair.

      ‘You’re saving some champagne for me, I hope?’ he asks, sitting down on the sofa.

      ‘No,’ Veronica says, passing him her half-full glass.

      ‘Your husband called me,’ Reidar says. ‘He thinks it’s time for you to go home.’

      ‘I don’t want to, I want to get divorced and—’

      ‘You mustn’t,’ he interrupts.

      ‘Why do you say things like that?’

      ‘Because I don’t want you to think I care about you,’ he replies.

      ‘I don’t.’

      He empties the glass, then puts it down on the sofa, closes his eyes and feels the giddiness of being drunk.

      ‘You looked sad, and I got a bit worried.’

      ‘I’ve never felt better.’

      There’s laughter now, and the club music is turned up until the vibrations can be felt through the floor.

      ‘Your guests are probably starting to wonder where you are.’

      ‘Then let’s go and turn the place upside down,’ he says with a smile.

      For the past seven years Reidar has made sure he has people around him almost twenty-four hours a day. He has a vast circle of acquaintances. Sometimes he holds big parties out at the house, sometimes more intimate dinners. On certain days, like the children’s birthdays, it’s very hard indeed to go on living. He knows that without people around him he would soon succumb to the loneliness and silence.