Shadow

28

Torgny was sitting at his kitchen table holding Gerda’s obituary. No poem. No grieving relatives. Just as anonymous as his own would be one day, if someone even took the trouble to put one in the paper.

His black suit was hanging in the hall. Nowadays he only wore it to funerals. Newly brushed but as outdated as himself. A disguise he allowed himself now and then.

He would often look in the newspaper to see who had died, and if a name sounded familiar he would go to the funeral. A chance to get out and kill some time, steal a little sympathy. His tie had once been tied by Halina’s fingers. He had never undone it. He simply widened the loop a bit and pulled it over his head, wearing his noose as a symbolic marker.

He struck a match and lit a cigarette, opening the window a crack as he’d promised the landlady when the neighbours complained about the smell of smoke from his flat. For fifty-four years this had been his home, ever since he moved to Stockholm. With youthful enthusiasm he had moved into the city proper, ready for the world to open up to him. A world that had been divided into black and white, where no nuances of grey had yet made themselves felt. The black was everything he had left behind; his childhood and the inherited job as a metalworker. Even as a child he had felt different. Early on he’d learned to hide his pain whenever a schoolmate, one of his brothers, or his father gave vent to their fury because he refused to apologise for his individuality. Short, thin and not very strong, he was easy prey for anyone who felt so inclined. Until he discovered the power of language. With his new-found weapon he fended off every antagonist, and over the years he honed his argumentative technique to perfection. Not that he escaped being bullied; on the contrary, people who are inarticulate are quick to raise their fists, but the beatings were always easier to bear when he knew that he’d already won.

The white part was what awaited him in the future. Stockholm, its cultural offerings, and the writer’s life that had begun. He would certainly show everybody back home just who they had been laughing at.

He would soon turn seventy-eight. Twilight had come early, his life had long been moving towards evening. The days were growing more desolate; everyone he’d known was gone or had been lost somewhere along the way. Few people were left who could share his memories.

He looked at the obituary he’d torn out of the paper.

Kristoffer’s confession had forced Torgny to concede that an aeon of time had passed, to accept all the wasted days and the fact that his waiting had long ago become meaningless. The little boy was transformed into a grown man, but in Torgny’s world he was still a sorely missed four-year-old. What Kristoffer had told him was a final confirmation that Halina was no longer alive.

Torgny hadn’t had time to ask for Kristoffer’s phone number or his last name. The boy he’d once viewed as his own had surfaced only to disappear once more. Above all else he wanted to be able to see him again.

How strange that he’d turned up just now, when the advent of Gerda’s funeral had also speeded up his memories. It was asking too much of him to attend. He couldn’t handle it now that the images of what he had done had surfaced, bursting through the thin membrane in which he’d wrapped his shame.

He no longer even understood why he’d wanted to go to the funeral in the first place. Maybe it was so he could take one last look at the man who had destroyed his life. One last look, to reinforce the hatred that had been his only lifelong companion.

He threw the cigarette butt out of the window and closed it. He no longer wanted to remember anything now, and he buried the obituary under a pile of newspapers. It didn’t help. Gerda and all that was connected to her memory lingered on. They had barely known each other; they’d merely exchanged an occasional word when he was at the house. On the way in or out he might stop for a moment as she worked in the kitchen or knelt by a flower-bed.

The last time he’d seen her was immediately afterwards. On the verge of vomiting he’d rushed out of the house and, leaning on his knees, tried to throw up all his own wickedness.

He shook another cigarette out of the packet but left the window closed. He got up to fetch a beer but slumped back on the chair when he remembered that he’d drunk them all.

If only he’d understood then that he was genuinely happy. Back then, when Halina and Kristoffer had been in his life and he still had the ability to write. When he didn’t have to crouch behind the words after once and for all losing the right to make himself heard. Not until all was lost had he realised what he’d had. His suffering increased by the contrast.

The invisible breaking point.

Not until much later had it become as clear as a beacon.

The moment when Halina had asked him to take her to Västerås.

He should have been suspicious, since she never wanted to come along. Childcare was so expensive, she always said. Wasn’t it when he mentioned that Axel Ragnerfeldt was going to be there that she suddenly changed her mind?

As so many times before, the answer had forgotten its question, when everything in the light of what followed had become apparent.

In the period that followed, everything was Axel this and Axel that. Her constant comments about his brilliance. His books that she kept reading, over and over again. They were spread out all over the flat, a visible confirmation of Axel’s superiority. Torgny tried to swallow the hurt but she noticed straightaway and used it against him during their arguments. When it seemed that nothing could get any worse, the intimations came sneaking in – that they’d spent the night together in Västerås behind his back. The sly passing of little notes and letters that proved the contact had continued. The excruciating jealousy he’d felt.

Axel Ragnerfeldt, always his superior, demonstrably possessed a greater gift than he had. Who had achieved all the respect that Torgny had always coveted.

In the end also superior as a man and lover.

He thought about the day when Halina packed her bags and took Kristoffer with her. He did nothing to stop them. He had believed her when she said that Axel was waiting for them. He hadn’t begun searching until it was too late. When it became obvious that Axel was still living with his family, and Halina and Kristoffer seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth.

He got up and looked at the painting. Her gaze that always followed him. Whenever he looked she was there, her elusive eyes taking in his every meaningless step. Eternally young, constantly present, always within reach. Like a chronic disease she had lodged in his chest and refused to let go. Was it her he still loved, or merely the idea of their love? Had time beautified the colours, toned down her moodiness and unforgivable betrayal? Was she only a stubborn melody playing over and over, bewitching him?

His prison consisted of all that remained unfinished, his longing for an explanation; everything was laid open with no means of closing it up again.

At first he had felt utterly paralysed. When he was forced to give up his search and no longer knew what he should do, the walls of the flat, emphasising her absence, kept creeping closer and drove him outdoors. In the crush of people there was no one like her; each meeting became an insufferable reminder. Then, in his despair, he had begun to write. He shut himself in the flat and tried to recreate her, deep in his heart, hoping that she would return the day she read what he’d written. When she got a chance to see how brilliant he was.

The Wind Whispers Your Name became the best thing he had ever written.

But not even that lured her home.

Once again he was beaten. The glowing reviews had been pushed off the cultural pages. All the news was about Axel Ragnerfeldt and his Nobel Prize; his literary triumph, Shadow, which had finally convinced the Swedish Academy. Praised to the skies, the book had been named the novel of the century. At first Torgny didn’t want to read it, but curiosity won out. He needed to see with his own eyes what it was that made this man so superior. And made Torgny a nobody.

He remembered his reluctance when he bought it at the bookshop.

And his shock when after only the first page he’d understood.

A year after the terrible day when he’d stood in the Ragnerfeldts’ living room and been forced to apologise, he realised the enormity of the lie.

Torgny didn’t even bother to ring the doorbell. He just opened the door and walked right in, feeling fully entitled to do so. No more tiptoeing round a man who was worth more contempt than he could possibly muster. Gerda saw him from the kitchen as he passed by, but she was so surprised she didn’t say a word. She just came dashing after him as he strode towards Axel’s office. Torgny had already opened the door by the time she caught up. Axel jumped out of his chair but managed to control himself. Yet Torgny had time to see the glint of fear in his eyes.

‘It’s all right, Gerda, I’ll handle this.’

He didn’t even look at Torgny as he walked past and closed the door in Gerda’s worried face. Without a word he went back to his desk, sat down in the chair and folded his hands in front of him on the desktop. For a moment they were both silent, then Axel gave an awkward smile as if to test the waters.

‘Torgny, it’s been a long time.’

Wary but not unfriendly.

Torgny was still standing by the door. The sight of Axel’s discomfort made him want to drag things out for a while. His feigned politeness, a red flush at his throat. Torgny felt a strange sense of calm. With truth on his side, for the first time he had the upper hand. The power he felt was intoxicating. He sipped at the situation as if it were expensive champagne.

‘I must congratulate you on being elected to the Swedish Academy.’

‘Thank you.’

Torgny held his gaze slightly too long but then released him and looked around the room. He went over to one wall, peering with interest at the certificates and photographs, well aware of the uneasiness his silence was creating.

‘Was there something particular you wanted?’

Torgny continued studying the wall with his back turned. He ran his finger along the top of a frame and shook off the dust.

‘I think Gerda’s missed a bit.’

He turned round and walked slowly across the room to the bookshelf. With his head cocked to one side he read the spines of the books, and after a while he found The Wind Whispers Your Name.

‘Well, look here. Have you had time to read such trivial literature? And there I was, thinking you were busy writing your own books.’

‘Can I offer you something? Coffee? Whisky?’

‘No thanks.’

Silence again, and he ran his finger along the row of Axel’s books.

‘I assume you’ve come on some business. I didn’t know you were going to drop in, and I do have other plans.’

Torgny stopped.

‘So you think I’m here on some business?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at Axel. ‘And what sort of business do you think that might be?’

Axel didn’t answer.

Torgny went back to The Wind Whispers Your Name and plucked it from the shelf. For a moment he stood weighing it in his hand.

‘Do you know who this book is about?’

‘I’m sorry to admit that I actually haven’t had a chance to read it yet.’

‘No, I can understand that, you’ve been busy. I’ll tell you, so you don’t have to waste your precious time. It’s about Halina. Perhaps you remember her? The woman we had such a pleasant conversation about out in your woodshed a year ago. Does that ring a bell?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

Torgny put on a thoughtful expression.

‘Now, let’s see. I believe I can recall that conversation pretty much word for word. One usually does when an experience is so unpleasant. I remember one detail in particular, since it made me feel so relieved at the time. It was when you said that nothing had happened between you and Halina. Isn’t that what you said?’

‘And nothing did, either.’

‘You said that you hadn’t had anything to do with each other.’

‘What are you getting at?’

The flush on Axel’s throat had spread to his face.

Torgny shook his head.

‘You know, Axel, there have been times when I’ve been jealous of you, when I’ve been forced to admit that you actually had something special, not only because of your books but because of what I thought you stood for.’

He looked at Axel’s clasped hands. The knuckles had turned white. With clenched teeth he let Torgny’s words pass without countering them.

Torgny could no longer maintain his poise.

‘How the hell can you sit there and keep pretending when you know you’ve been exposed, that I know what a fucking charlatan you really are?’

Axel’s arms began to shake and he thrust his hands into his lap. Torgny put his book back on the shelf and took down a copy of Shadow. Axel saw what he was doing but quickly looked away, as if he couldn’t bear to see what was happening. Torgny watched him, careful not to miss a drop of his evaporating dignity.

‘How does it feel to win the Nobel Prize after having been praised to the heavens for this book?’

Axel didn’t move. Then he took in a deep breath, the kind you take before a dive. For several seconds he held it, then let it go; his body fell forward and he leaned his forehead against his typewriter. Torgny stood quite still and watched the facade crumble.

‘Where is she?’

Minutes passed. Long minutes. Axel looked as if it was taking all his concentration to stay in his chair. Then he began to gasp for words, but stopped as soon as anything was about to cross his lips.

‘You have to help me, Torgny.’

‘Tell me where she is.’

With difficulty Axel managed to straighten up, and the face Torgny saw was that of a stranger.

‘I don’t know, I swear. She said something about going back to Poland. Torgny, please, you have to understand, I was completely desperate.’

He was begging, with despair in his eyes. Torgny was shocked at what he saw. Axel Ragnerfeldt, obsequiously asking for his sympathy. He couldn’t say a word. What he saw made him sick. He looked at the book in his hands, let the pages riffle through his fingers. All those letters, all those words, that taken together described the worst hell a human being can endure. The conditions in a concentration camp described in a way that no one but the person who had endured them could describe. Written down in anguish in order to silence the demons. Axel Ragnerfeldt had plundered and robbed everything from her. He had stolen her thoughts, raped her soul.

‘She sent the manuscript to me and said I could do whatever I liked with it.’

Torgny erupted.

‘She was ill, damn it! You knew that! Do you know how long she struggled over this novel?’

‘She didn’t want to have anything to do with it, she said. She was going back to Poland to start a new life. She wanted to forget everything that had happened, she said, and…’

Axel’s shoulders drooped and he looked down at his lap. With the fingers of his right hand he began twisting his wedding ring.

‘I hadn’t been able to write anything for several years, not a thing, and I was completely desperate. My publisher was hassling me, the bank was putting on the pressure, I had no money to pay the mortgage, I scarcely had enough left to put food on the table. I couldn’t wring a single line out of myself, I simply couldn’t write at all any more, it was all gone. I had just decided to tell Alice that we would have to sell the house. I was going round here preparing myself, and just then my parents rang and told me that my sister had died, that she’d had a heart attack. I hadn’t seen her in almost thirty years. I could hear what a hard time they were having trying to ask me, but at last they managed to get it out. They wondered whether I could take care of the funeral expenses, and I… I couldn’t tell them the truth, admit that I was broke. Admit that I had failed.’

He hid his face in his hands and for a moment Torgny thought he was crying.

‘I began searching through the cupboard to see whether I could find some old pieces I’d written, and that’s when I found it. It was just lying there and I… She’d told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. I know it was wrong, but just then I couldn’t see any other way out.’

‘Nobel fucking Prize winner Axel Ragnerfeldt! Jesus Christ! How the hell can you live with yourself?’

Torgny spat out the words, the contempt searing his tongue.

Axel sat huddled on the chair staring into space. The man Torgny saw was someone he had never met before.

‘You must have known that you’d be exposed, that I would read it eventually.’

‘She said you hadn’t read it. That nobody had read it.’

Torgny was speechless. For years he had sat at her side and encouraged her, persuading her to fight on when she wanted to give up. He had commented on every sentence; with eyes wide he had been amazed at her talent and tried to convince her of the greatness of what she’d written.

Hadn’t read it!

‘I took a chance. Just then I thought that nothing could get any worse. If I’d known that there would be such a fuss about it… Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be like this. I just wanted to buy a little time so I could finish writing what I was working on.’

He looked at Torgny but turned away when he didn’t find the sympathy he sought.

‘Don’t you think that I’ve regretted it? How do you think it feels to me? You know me that well at least. The whole thing has been like one long nightmare.’

Axel got up and walked over to the window.

‘I wish I could undo it, Torgny. More than anything I wish that I could, but I can’t.’

There was silence in the room. A sound from the hall outside made Axel turn round. He went to the door and opened it, but no one was there. When he assured himself that nobody was listening he went back and sat down.

‘I know that I don’t have the right to ask you to keep quiet about this, Torgny, but I’d do anything.’

Torgny snorted.

‘I’ll give you half the prize money.’

The proposal amazed Torgny. A little boy who was caught cheating on a test. With a little more skulduggery he thought he would be released. Torgny’s temples were throbbing. The blood wanted to burst out of his veins. The man he had reluctantly admired, whom he had always looked up to, despite his antipathy, was now grovelling before him like the little worm he was. His moral integrity, his strength of character. The whole time the opposite had been kept hidden underneath, eclipsed by his exceptional achievements.

‘She told me I could use it.’

Quietly, a final attempt to persuade him.

Torgny looked at Axel. The person he saw was the man who had won Halina’s love, who with his dazzling reputation had driven a wedge between Torgny and Halina.

‘When did she say that?’

Axel gave him a furtive glance.

‘It was in the letter she sent with the manuscript.’

‘Come on, Axel. You said you never saw her.’

‘She sent it in the mail.’

‘So where’s the letter now? Can I see it?’

‘I threw it away.’

‘Right. Why the hell would you think that I’d ever believe a word you say? What happened in Västerås, anyway? Suddenly Halina’s version sounds a lot more believable than yours.’

Axel didn’t answer.

Torgny closed his eyes.

Axel and Halina. Fucking in secret behind his back. His hands lying there on the desk, hands that had greedily explored her body. And Halina had willingly let it happen.

Axel had cheated him out of everything that had been his. Everything that had belonged to him and Halina, that had taken them years to nurture and polish, that they had learnt from each other’s pleasure. The man who now sat there behind the desk, lying, had stripped them of their most intimate secrets.

He saw Halina’s face, her lips parted, the tip of her tongue, her mouth closing around Axel’s swollen cock; the glint in her eyes, the way she moved her hips, the sound she made when he thrust inside her.

If that had happened he would have to kill him.

‘Take off your trousers.’

Axel stared at him.

‘What?’

‘Take off your trousers, I said!’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘You have a birthmark there somewhere, don’t you?’

Axel closed his eyes.

‘Halina described it to me to make me believe her. She even drew it on a piece of paper to convince me.’

During those last days. When all that remained was to hurt him.

‘Do you remember what I said there in the woodshed? That I would kill you if I found out you had lied?’

Nothing more needed to be said. He could read the truth in Axel’s face.

‘You fucking pig!’

‘It was only that one time in Västerås. I beg you to forgive me, Torgny. She said that you weren’t a couple, that you were just friends. If I’d known she was lying I would never have touched her.’

Axel stood up.

‘It didn’t mean a thing, Torgny. We drank too much, it just happened.’

It was after Västerås that everything had started going wrong. After Västerås that Halina’s illness returned. It had been the beginning of the end.

It didn’t mean a thing, Torgny.

He was breathing hard.

Afterwards, during all the years he was forced to relive over and over again what followed, he often thought that it was at this moment he had gone off the rails. When the truth about the betrayal punched a hole in his innermost being and evil was released.

‘It was only once, that was the only time, I swear.’

Just one wish.

‘What are you going to do now, Axel, with the truth about Shadow splashed across the arts pages all over the world? What hole are you going to crawl into then?’

He could hear his own voice, muffled and toneless, as if it were someone else’s. Something had taken possession of him. Something that had knotted his fists and fixed his gaze on the man who had ruined his life. The man who had taken Halina and the boy away from him.

Axel must have noticed the change. With a calmer expression he sat down and assumed the same pose as before the revelation. Hands clasped on the desktop, he stared at Torgny, with a new feeling of determination. His excuses had been in vain, and it was clear that he was now thinking of trying a new tactic.

‘I’m sorry to have to say this, but you give me no choice.’

He paused for a second before he went on.

‘You can’t prove a thing.’

‘What do I have to prove?’

‘What you claim about Shadow.’

Torgny snorted.

‘So it’s not enough for you that I know? You can live with this as long as nobody else knows?’

‘What choice do you think I have?’

‘You fucking hypocrite.’

‘I’ve admitted that I made a mistake. What more do you want?’

‘I take it you’re going to persist in taking all the praise for her masterpiece?’

‘I was on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize long before Shadow. You know as well as I do that it wasn’t the only book that won me the prize, the award was based just as much on my other books.’

‘Your own books, you mean?’

‘As I said, you can’t prove a thing.’

Torgny didn’t move a muscle. He was thinking of Halina’s sense of inferiority after the degradation in Treblinka, which made her incapable of allowing herself to be loved. For the rest of his life he would be forced to watch Axel in the spotlight, cloaked in honour and fame, and know that the one who should have stood there was Halina. He would have to witness the obsequious flattery of the cultural establishment and watch Axel bow and scrape over the suffering that she had managed to transform into magnificent art.

The lie came as a matter of course, and he hadn’t even planned it. The same toneless voice came out of his mouth.

‘I have her notes at home. All the letters she received during her research. The rough draft, the whole outline. In her handwriting.’

That did the trick. But Torgny knew that Axel was right. There was no way to get to him. Nobody would believe Torgny without proof. Even if they did manage to find Halina. If what Axel said was true, perhaps she would even deny the truth and choose Axel once again. Like water off the back of a well-fattened goose the scandal would slide off him, and Torgny would be left to bear the shame of his tawdry accusation.

Torgny felt it glowing white-hot inside him. The desire to destroy Axel. To make him suffer the same pain he had caused. Nothing else was important. He was prepared to do anything to achieve it. If he couldn’t get at Axel’s body of work, then he’d have to destroy his life. The blackness was so powerful it scared him. He fumbled for something that might stop him, but everything had vanished in the darkness. And from a distant place he heard the voice which would set the diabolical plan in motion.

Where did it come from? He didn’t know.

‘If it’s my silence you want to buy, there is one way. It depends on what you’re willing to sacrifice.’

Axel sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.

‘There’s a saying: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘You took my woman away from me.’

‘Torgny, it was one time, and I didn’t even know she was yours. Is that what this is all about? A single transgression?’

Tonelessly the voice droned on.

‘Once doesn’t matter, twice is a habit. Isn’t that what they say?’

Uncomprehending, Axel threw out his arms, and Torgny went on.

‘One time is enough for me too.’

‘I don’t understand. What is it you want?’

‘To be paid in kind.’

Axel’s frown testified to his confusion, until it was slowly erased.

‘Is it Alice you’re talking about?’ Axel snorted. ‘I don’t think she’s particularly interested, but be my guest and give it a try.’

‘I’m not talking about Alice.’

Axel’s smile disappeared.

Torgny’s body felt heavy, positioned between reason and will. He stood perfectly still and allowed the darkness to engulf him. The instant before taking the step towards his own ruin.

‘I’m talking about your daughter.’

Axel leapt up from his chair.

‘Have you lost your mind?’

To have the power to destroy. To have the power to ruin Axel’s life by whatever means he could.

‘It’s up to you. How much is your reputation worth?’

‘Annika has absolutely nothing to do with this, absolutely nothing. How can you even suggest something so…’ He was momentarily speechless. ‘What do you think of me anyway? Do you understand what you’re saying? It was Halina who seduced me, if that makes it any better. Why should my daughter be punished for something I did? She’s only fifteen years old! Fifteen! I believed a lot about you, Torgny, but this! How low are you prepared to sink?’

Torgny smiled.

‘That’s exactly what you have to ask yourself, Axel. How low are you prepared to sink? You’ve already gone pretty deep.’

Axel’s eyes narrowed to slits.

‘I can assure you that I wish I’d never used that manuscript, but I can’t undo what is done, no matter how much I may want to. Isn’t it revenge enough for you to know what an advantage you have over me, to live knowing that you might some day expose me? You know very well what would happen if… I can’t imagine that even you, Torgny, would wish such misfortune on me.’

If what was raging inside Torgny were visible on his face, it would have made Axel take back those final words.

‘Halina said that I could do whatever I liked with the manuscript, so by what right do you come here with this vile ultimatum? Besides, I rewrote a lot of it. You would have done exactly the same thing in my situation.’

‘Would I?’

‘It’s easy for you to stand there now, all righteous and sincere, but I know you, Torgny. You would have done exactly the same thing.’

‘But I didn’t. That’s the difference.’

Axel sank into his chair again, opening his palms as if that might make Torgny listen to reason.

‘Torgny, let’s discuss this like two reasonable men. I deserve your contempt, I accept that. I’ve also offered you half the prize money. Go home and think about it. You’re much too worked up now to think rationally. I intend to forget what you proposed just now and forgive you. Go home and think about whether the money is enough to make you want to keep quiet.’

‘I don’t want Halina’s money.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve already told you.’

‘For Christ’s sake, man!’

Axel pounded his hand on the desk. Torgny smiled. Swearing didn’t sit well with Axel’s urbane manner.

‘You decide. It’s up to you. This time as well.’

Axel shook his head in disgust.

‘You can’t mean what you’re saying!’

‘Choose now, Mr Nobel Prize winner. My offer expires in one minute.’ Torgny raised his arm and looked at his watch.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not thinking clearly.’

‘Forty-five seconds.’

Axel got up. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Thirty seconds.’

Axel closed his eyes.

Torgny felt empty inside. The enjoyable malicious pleasure had dissolved in the dense darkness.

‘You’re going to regret this, Torgny, when you come to your senses.’

‘Ten seconds.’

Axel sank back in his chair.

The second hand completed its fateful circle and Torgny lowered his arm.

“Well now, Axel, it pleases me that you managed to scrape together a tiny ounce of honour from some forgotten corner.’

Axel leant forward with his head in his hands. Torgny moved towards the door. He had just put his hand on the doorknob when he was stopped by Axel’s voice.

‘Wait.’

Something in the dark sneered. Torgny turned round. Axel had got up from his chair, and what was burning in his eyes was a worthy rival to what was ravaging Torgny.

‘You leave me no choice. I hope you realise that.’

‘One always has a choice, Axel. After that it’s a whole other matter as to what takes priority.’

Axel looked away. He was breathing heavily.

‘How do you intend to proceed?’ His whispered tones were scarcely audible.

‘Let me worry about that. Just see to it that she’s alone here tonight.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Take your wife to the cinema or something, and make sure that Gerda stays away. I’ll wait here in your office until you all leave. And don’t forget to bring me that whisky you offered me.’

‘You bastard.’

Torgny smiled.

‘How does it feel, Axel? Be sure to remember how it feels.’

Axel stood leaning forward with his hands flat on the desk, a shadow of his former self. Torgny’s revenge was complete. All that remained was to carry it out.

With a voice that had lost all its resonance, Axel ended the conversation, slowly emphasising each and every syllable.

‘If so much as a rumour ever comes out that anyone but myself was involved with Shadow, I will hold you personally responsible and make public what you did here today. If I go down, you will go down with me. I also want your promise that you will for ever stay out of my sight. And my last hope is that you will end up in hell, where you have always belonged.’

Torgny sank down onto on his unmade bed. For thirty years he had endured in the darkness which after that day had never left him.

How could he have done it? He didn’t know. Only that the darkness had blinded him. For thirty years he had searched, but he had never succeeded in finding any excuse. For a while he had pretended. Kept the outer surface polished and denied any blame.

But even a bell’s invisible crack is revealed by a dull peal.

Had the evil always been inside him, as a natural com ponent of his being? Or was it an intruder that had taken over when everything was stolen from him? When all that remained to him was the ability to shatter in order to retaliate.

Too late he realised that he had directed his revenge at himself. That what he had shown himself to be capable of had chained him to a shame too heavy to bear.

Axel’s last hope had been granted.

The rest of Torgny’s life had become an effort to live as the brute he had proven himself to be. All intentions produce results in the end, if only one makes a real effort. And that he had done.

And he had succeeded beyond all expectations.