The Disappeared aka Guardian Angels

64

People didn’t appreciate Kronoberg Park nearly enough. That was Fredrika Bergman’s firm opinion. At first it seemed like a nightmare to anyone pushing a buggy, with its hilly, uneven terrain and its wealth of greenery. However, anyone who made the effort to reach the play area would definitely come back.

Fredrika and Alex each bought a salad for lunch at Café Vurma and wandered along through the trees.

‘Here,’ Alex said.

A park bench in the sunshine. They sat down and began to eat.

‘How are things with Spencer?’

Fredrika didn’t really know what to say.

‘He’s getting there.’

‘He must feel bloody awful. I know I would.’

‘I think it’s the fact that his colleagues let him down that upsets him most,’ Fredrika said, poking at her salad.

Spencer. Her beloved partner. Recent events had taken their toll, far more than last year’s car accident.

‘You have to get over this,’ she had whispered in his ear only last night. ‘For Saga’s sake, and for mine.’

He hadn’t responded, and his silence worried her.

‘It’s just as well he was cleared,’ Alex said dryly. ‘Otherwise, he would have felt even worse.’

That was some consolation, at least. The prosecutor had decided the evidence was too flimsy, and refused to take the case to court. Spencer was still on paternity leave. To Fredrika’s surprise, and despair, he had started talking about taking early retirement.

‘I just can’t let that happen,’ she had said to a friend as they were drinking a glass of wine a few days earlier. ‘If he gives up work, there’ll be nothing left of him.’

Fredrika pushed all thoughts of Spencer aside.

‘When is our friend Håkan Nilsson coming home?’

Håkan Nilsson, who had frustrated them since day one of the investigation, and had then disappeared from his motorboat. In today’s society it was much more difficult to flee the country than it had been thirty years earlier, when Johan Aldrin slipped into the shadows in Norway. Håkan had only got as far as Athens when he was picked up by the Greek authorities in connection with an assault.

‘They’re putting him on a plane at the weekend.’

What did he have to come home to, Fredrika wondered. An officer had travelled over to Athens to question him when he was arrested, mainly to find out once and for all why he had behaved as he had.

And Håkan had finally explained.

The day before Rebecca went missing, Håkan had confronted her with the ultrasound scan of the baby, demanding to know why she hadn’t said anything. That was when she had told him that she wasn’t sure he was the father. By his own admission, Håkan had gone mad when he found out that Rebecca had had a lover. He had gone on and on at her, but she had refused to reveal his identity.

Eventually, the situation had escalated beyond all reason. In his rage, Håkan had lost control of himself and yelled at Rebecca:

‘You’d better be careful, you fucking bitch! I’ll kill you, you filthy whore!’

He had regretted it later that same day, but Rebecca had refused to speak to him. And then she vanished. In order to avoid attracting the attention of the police, Håkan had done everything in his power to find Rebecca. For a while, he had almost been convinced that it was his words that had made her disappear. The fear of being accused of something he hadn’t done was replaced by sheer guilt.

When Rebecca’s body was found, he once again became afraid that he would be a suspect, and decided to say as little as possible. Ironically, this merely served to make him even more interesting to the police.

The officer who had interviewed him concluded that in his opinion, Håkan Nilsson looked like the very epitome of the walking dead, and he had asked the Greek authorities to put him on suicide watch; the risk that he might take his own life was deemed to be significant.

‘He must be dreadfully lonely,’ Fredrika said.

‘Håkan? That’s putting it mildly. I don’t think he had anyone apart from Rebecca,’ Alex said.

‘And she didn’t want him.’

Fredrika changed the subject.

‘What about Peder?’

Alex stiffened.

‘We won’t know anything until June. But things don’t look good, that much I can say.’

‘He insists it was self-defence.’

‘He also says that Thea Aldrin spoke to him, and we know she doesn’t talk. She wouldn’t say a word to the officers who went to see her at the same time as we were heading over to Storholmen. We have to accept that Jimmy’s death left Peder confused. Unwell.’

‘But if it wasn’t Thea Aldrin who told him that Morgan Axberger had taken Jimmy, how did he find out? How did he know that he needed to go to Storholmen?’

They had discussed this over and over again, always with the same outcome.

‘Let’s drop this before we fall out again,’ Alex said. ‘He must have worked out that Jimmy was buried at the grave site. Thought it through, just like you did. And come up with the idea that Morgan Axberger was the guilty party.’

The sun was making Fredrika feel too warm. She shrugged off her spring jacket.

‘So what about that other business? That thing Morgan Axberger is supposed to have said?’

‘The fact that he wasn’t the only one to blame for Rebecca Trolle’s death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let it go, Fredrika. Just drop it.’

‘But seriously – there is nothing in the case notes to explain how Morgan Axberger knew how far Rebecca had got with her research.’

‘For God’s sake!’

Alex put down his salad and wiped his mouth. Glanced at the woman reading a book on the next bench along, and lowered his voice.

‘Morgan Axberger was twisted. Perverted. When the police confiscated the film, Axberger murdered Elias Hjort, who knew the name of the real author behind the books. Who knows, perhaps Axberger was a co-author? The years go by and suddenly a young girl starts poking about into the whole tangled mess. Axberger finds out through Malena Bremberg, his spy at the care home. Believe me, he was keeping a close eye on that place even before he managed to get his claws into Malena. Anyway. Since Rebecca had reached the point of going to visit Thea and even showing interest in Axberger himself, he thought it was time to put the brakes on.’

Alex picked up his salad again.

‘That can’t be right,’ Fredrika objected. ‘He can’t have murdered Rebecca just because she went to visit Thea. He must have had more concrete information about what she’d found out. And how did Morgan know that Rebecca wanted to speak to him, unless someone told him? We’ve gone through her phone records and emails, and we haven’t seen one single word to indicate that she made contact with him herself.’

‘Just forget it, Fredrika. Morgan Axberger is the only killer. Rebecca found out from Janne Bergwall, our own esteemed colleague, that Axberger had been caught at a porn club with a snuff movie in his inside pocket that could be linked to Mercury and Asteroid. From then on, she’d had it.’

Fredrika dropped her salad in the waste bin next to the bench.

‘That’s entirely possible,’ she said. ‘But Axberger couldn’t have worked that out for himself. Someone put him on the right track. Somebody who wanted her dead even before Axberger did.’

Johan Aldrin, who was still calling himself Valter Lund for the time being, and who was tipped to be Axberger’s successor as managing director, had claimed that Morgan Axberger had allowed him into his empire because he owed Thea a favour. That could be true, but given Johan’s immense drive and energy, Fredrika doubted that he was a man who needed his mother in order to get on in life.

That was the first aspect of the case that bothered her. Why hadn’t Johan moved away from a man like Morgan Axberger when he came back to Sweden?

The second aspect was Johan Aldrin’s identity. Why had he continued to pretend he was Valter Lund and not Thea Aldrin’s son? Why hadn’t he stood up for his mother, explained the somewhat extreme circumstances that preceded the murder of his father?

The third aspect was his relationship with Rebecca Trolle. She had been seeing Thea Aldrin’s son over a period of several months, initially as a student and then as his lover, while spending more and more of her time looking into Thea’s past. Not once had Johan Aldrin even considered telling her who he was. He had actually embarked on a relationship with her after he had realised what the subject of her dissertation was. That couldn’t be explained away as ‘curiosity’, as he had claimed.

But what Fredrika found the most difficult to grasp was why Rebecca Trolle had insisted, with the stubbornness of a lunatic, that Thea Aldrin was innocent. Thea had confessed to a murder she hadn’t committed. Why had Rebecca reached that conclusion, after all her research?

Fredrika requested a copy of the case notes relating to the stabbing of Manfred in Thea’s garage. Something had made Rebecca suspect that things weren’t right, and Fredrika wouldn’t rest until she saw what it was.

It took almost an entire working day, but eventually she found something, an odd detail that hadn’t really attracted much attention in the notes. When the crime scene was examined, three sets of fingerprints had been secured. One set belonged to Thea, one to Manfred, and one to an unknown person. Fredrika called Torbjörn Ross, who was currently under suspension while internal affairs considered his future within the police service. Fredrika was hoping they would kick him out.

‘The fingerprints,’ she said. ‘Who was the third person in the garage when Manfred was murdered?’

‘Some guy who used to mow the lawn for Thea. But we didn’t bother following it up. The prints could have been left there at any time; they didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the murder.’

Fredrika leafed through the case notes.

‘How did you establish that the prints belonged to the guy who mowed the lawn?’

The silence at the other end of the phone told her everything she needed to know.

‘You never checked, did you?’

Ross became defensive.

‘It wasn’t necessary. We had all the proof we needed.’

‘But you found some strands of hair as well,’ Fredrika said. ‘And they didn’t belong to Thea or Manfred either.’

‘Same applies. They came from the guy who cut the grass.’

As if he could read her thoughts, Ross said:

‘She confessed, remember. There was no reason to carry on digging.’

Fredrika ended the call. Thought about the flowers Thea received every Saturday. From her son. Thanking his mother for welcoming her back into his life. After she had stabbed his father to death.

Fredrika made another call, this time to the florist who delivered the flowers.

‘I have a question,’ she said after introducing herself. ‘Has anyone else, apart from me, called to ask who sends flowers to Thea Aldrin?’

‘Not recently.’

‘But in the past? Ever?’

There was a brief silence.

‘Actually, there was a girl who called a couple of years ago. She was desperate to find out who the flowers were from, but I couldn’t tell her.’

The florist began to laugh.

‘Sorry, but what’s so funny?’ Fredrika asked.

‘I was just thinking about how persistent she was. She came here several times, refused to give up. In the end I told her when the sender’s representative usually came in to pay, so she turned up then and stood waiting. But she didn’t speak to the woman after all.’

‘No?’

‘No, but she did follow her after she’d paid and left the shop.’

So Rebecca had played private detective, and followed Johan Aldrin’s secretary, who took care of the regular payment for the flowers. She had probably followed the secretary all the way back to the office, and realised who she worked for. Perhaps she had even recognised her; after all, Rebecca had visited her mentor at work.

How long had Rebecca’s research taken her? Had she realised who her lover was? Had she confronted him, demanded an explanation?

Fredrika searched her memory for details that might help her move forward.

Help me, Rebecca. Help me to see what you saw.

For the hundredth time, Fredrika placed the key events in the case in chronological order. The result was always the same. Rebecca had died because she got too close to the truth about the books and the snuff movie. And Morgan Axberger could not have worked out for himself how close she was. Therefore, he must have been fed the information from someone else, someone who knew more, and who also wanted Rebecca out of the way.

As far as Fredrika could see, that person had to be Johan Aldrin.

‘It’s not enough,’ Alex said when Fredrika went to see him.

‘Sorry?’

Alex looked exhausted.

‘You’ve got nothing. Nothing. Apart from circumstantial evidence. Weak circumstantial evidence. Why would Johan Aldrin tip off Morgan Axberger about Rebecca’s work in the hope that he would kill her? That just sounds completely… sick.’

Fredrika suppressed a sigh.

‘Alex, this is sick. In every respect. We have to dare to challenge our own hypotheses. Rebecca believed Thea was innocent because there were traces of another perpetrator in the place where Manfred was found dead. Traces that Torbjörn Ross admits they never bothered to follow up. I think Rebecca realised who was sending Thea flowers every week, and why that person always writes “Thank you” on the card.’

‘But we know that as well.’

‘No, we know what Johan Aldrin has chosen to tell us. But I think he sends the flowers to thank Thea for confessing to Manfred’s murder, when in fact it was Johan who killed him.’

‘But he was in Norway at the time, wasn’t he?’

‘How do we know that? He’s already told us that he visited Sweden before he moved back on a permanent basis. Why couldn’t he have been here when his father died? I think Rebecca came to the same conclusion, and that was why Johan Aldrin put Morgan Axberger in the picture – a man who had murdered before, and who didn’t seem to have a problem in dealing with that kind of dilemma. Johan Aldrin had just as much to gain from Rebecca’s disappearance as Axberger. But he was too weak to kill her himself, in spite of the fact that he had once killed his own father in a rage.’

Alex looked down at his scarred hands, resting on the desk. He knew what one mistake in an investigation could cost.

‘Prove it,’ he said. ‘The fact that Torbjörn Ross and the others were sloppy is not enough.’

‘If you bring Johan Aldrin in for questioning again and make sure you get his fingerprints and a DNA sample, I’ll go and talk to Thea Aldrin.’

Alex was bewildered.

‘For God’s sake, you’re as crazy as Peder. She doesn’t speak. And when it comes to fingerprints and DNA… I think the prosecutor might take some convincing.’

‘I can convince any prosecutor you like, because I know I’m right,’ Fredrika said. ‘And evidently Thea does speak to those who threaten to expose her son. And that is exactly what I intend to do.’

65

The care home at Mångården was just as quiet as it had been on her last visit. And Thea was just as silent. Fredrika felt sick as she walked into Thea’s room. Her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and the terrible fate that had befallen him. Memories of the funeral whirled through her mind; she would never forget the bottomless grief she had seen on the faces of Jimmy’s parents.

Bloody hell, I can’t think about that right now.

Fredrika felt a lump in her throat. Why were there so few stories with a happy ending in this world?

Thea was sitting in her chair, gazing out of the window. Just like the last time, but with a slight variation; today it was possible to detect a hint of relief on her face

Of course. Now that Morgan Axberger was dead, she no doubt assumed that her problems were over.

Fredrika pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her.

‘I read your stories about angels when I was a little girl,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘So did everybody else.’ She smiled. ‘It must be fantastic to know that you were one of the greatest writers back then.’

Thea didn’t move a muscle, but Fredrika saw her eyes change. The light was tempered with darkness. Once upon a time, Thea had had it all; now she had nothing left. Apart from her son. And he was a man who shunned the daylight at the moment.

‘I know you can talk,’ Fredrika said. ‘You spoke to my colleague Peder a little while ago. I’m sure you remember that?’

When Thea didn’t reply, Fredrika went on:

‘Anyway, I have a few more questions. It seems there are one or two gaps in our investigation.’

Good – that obviously worried Thea.

‘We believe that Morgan Axberger had some help when he murdered Rebecca Trolle. From Valter Lund. Your son, Johan Aldrin.’

The air was knocked out of Thea, who immediately opened her mouth. She sounded as if she was suffocating; the words stuck in her throat.

‘We’ve just brought him in. He’ll go down for a long time for this. I thought you’d want to know.’

It was all lies. Alex refused to pick up Johan Aldrin unless Fredrika presented him with solid evidence to prove that he was involved. He couldn’t be tried for the murder of his father even if Thea was acquitted at a later date. The crime was already beyond the statute of limitations.

Fredrika stood up. Astonishingly, Thea was on her feet in no time.

‘Please, it isn’t what you think.’

The sound of Thea’s voice made Fredrika freeze in mid-movement. Peder had been telling the truth when he said that Thea could speak.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No, no. He would never do such a thing.’

Thea was desperate; she grabbed hold of Fredrika’s arm.

‘You can’t do this.’

‘We can and we must,’ Fredrika replied. ‘Think about Rebecca Trolle’s mother. She has a right to know what happened to her daughter.’

Thea sank back into her chair, mumbling something that Fredrika couldn’t hear.

‘Manfred,’ Thea said. ‘It’s all his fault. If it hadn’t been for him…’

‘… you would never have had Johan. That’s true, isn’t it?’

All at once, Fredrika felt like bursting into tears. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand Thea, because she did. Was there anything she wouldn’t do for Saga? No. Nothing was more important than the wellbeing of her child.

Fredrika tensed, preparing to fire the final salvo.

‘We know that Johan was there the night Manfred died,’ she said. ‘Technology has moved on since then. We have evidence of both his fingerprints and his DNA at the scene of the crime.’

Another lie. They hadn’t yet managed to match either prints or DNA, but Fredrika knew what they would show when the tests were done.

So did Thea.

‘I was the one who murdered him.’

‘No, Thea,’ Fredrika said. ‘It wasn’t you. You took the knife from Johan, wiped off your son’s fingerprints, then grasped it yourself. So that we would think it was you and not Johan.’

‘You can’t prove that.’

‘Believe me, we can. We already have sufficient evidence.’

More lies.

‘You weren’t there,’ Thea whispered. ‘If he’d been your father… you would have done the same thing.’

Would she? Fredrika thought about a case the team had handled the previous year. Children did murder their parents, but it was rare.

‘What happened?’

Thea slumped in her chair.

‘He came back. My lovely Johan. I had known all along that he was alive, but I thought I would never see him again. Manfred turned up that same evening. He had no intention of staying away, even though I had had those disgusting books published and threatened to reveal the fact that he was the author. He swore he would say the opposite – that I had written the books. And that I had been involved in the making of the film, since it was shot in my parents’ summerhouse. The situation got out of control. Johan and I ran to the garage, intending to get in the car and drive away. But Manfred followed us. He was armed with a knife. Before I knew what had happened, he was lying on the floor. And Johan… Johan was just sitting there, staring into space. So I did what had to be done.’

‘And confessed to a crime you hadn’t committed?’

Thea nodded.

A clock on the wall struck four, and Fredrika Bergman felt a bitter satisfaction. Johan Aldrin had murdered his father. The situation had changed, this time to Fredrika’s advantage.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ she said. ‘She was here just before she died.’

Thea nodded again.

‘How much did she know?’

Thea sighed deeply. ‘She had seen some of the old case notes, and was chattering on about the fact that the police seemed to have ignored evidence that might lead to a different perpetrator. She knew about the film too.’

Fredrika was lost for words as Thea went on:

‘If only she’d left it there, then perhaps everything might have ended differently. But then she spotted the flowers.’

She fell silent.

‘And the flowers led to an even more important secret, didn’t they?’ Fredrika said.

‘I saw her expression change when she read the card,’ Thea said. ‘She asked me straight out, wanted to know who was thanking me and for what. I didn’t reply, of course, but it didn’t matter. She was already lost in her own thoughts, and I knew she wouldn’t give up until she worked out who had sent the flowers. But that couldn’t be allowed to happen, so I contacted Morgan and…’

Silence settled over the room. Fredrika grew impatient. Thea couldn’t stop speaking now they were so close to the end.

‘And?’ she prompted.

Thea was whispering now.

‘And I told him that the girl knew too much. I made him believe he would be found out if he didn’t act.’

‘How did you contact him?’

Thea was annoyed, in spite of her weariness.

‘I am fully mobile, actually, and as you are aware there is nothing wrong with my ability to speak. I called him one night when everyone was asleep.’

It was only then that Fredrika noticed the telephone on the wall of Thea’s room.

‘Ridiculous, isn’t it?’ Thea said, nodding at the phone. ‘But apparently there has to be a phone in every room, and since I am on the waiting list for one of the larger rooms at the other end of the building, they didn’t bother taking it out. I imagine they thought the odds on the next occupant of this room being unable to speak as well were pretty long.’

Fredrika thought things over. Would the information Thea had given be enough to get her convicted of incitement to murder?

‘Although if we have understood the situation correctly, Morgan had already been warned of the approaching danger,’ she said after a moment.

‘I don’t think so. Who would have warned him?’

‘Your son. Johan.’

Thea shook her head.

‘That’s not what happened.’

Once again, she was protecting her son, taking responsibility for his actions. Thea was starting to look very tired. Fredrika didn’t have much time to ask more questions.

‘You knew that Morgan Axberger was involved in the film that was shot in your parents’ summerhouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Manfred told me when he came back the first time. He laughed at me because I’d rejected him, but thought Morgan was a friend.’

Of course, Fredrika thought. Why didn’t I realise that before?

‘Was that when The Guardian Angels broke up?’

‘Yes.’

Fredrika was struck by another thought.

‘Why did you have Manfred’s manuscripts published?’

‘He took the film with him the night he left. When he came back the first time, all I had to threaten him with were the manuscripts I’d found. Manfred had his own ambitions when it came to writing, you see. But if people found out that he’d written such disgusting books, he would never have any kind of career to speak of.’

‘And the next time he came to see you – that was when he died in your garage?’

‘Yes.’

Fredrika considered what Thea had said. She had certainly stopped her ex from enjoying any success in the literary world, but at a price; she herself was suspected of being behind the books. Who had actually started that rumour? Morgan Axberger? Or Elias Hjort, perhaps?

One last question:

‘Did Johan know about Morgan’s involvement in the film?’

‘All I said to Johan was that Morgan owed me a favour, so he might give Johan a job,’ Thea whispered. ‘He didn’t know anything else.’

Fredrika knew she had reached the limit. She wasn’t going to get any further with Thea.

‘We’ll be back,’ she said as she moved towards the door. ‘We’ll need to speak to you again.’

The author who had remained silent for almost thirty years followed her with her eyes as Fredrika left the room. Perhaps it was time to leave the silence behind at long last.

Fredrika’s thoughts were with Rebecca. In a way, she had succeeded in achieving her aim: she had shown that Thea Aldrin was innocent of the crime of which she had been convicted. However, there could be no talk of redress for a person like Thea, who, in spite of the fact that she had never murdered anyone, had so much blood on her hands.

When Fredrika reached the car park a little while later, she called Alex to report back on her conversation with Thea. He promised to bring in Johan Aldrin for questioning again, but made it clear that he didn’t expect it to lead anywhere.

‘He’ll say exactly what he said last time,’ Alex said, his voice heavy with resignation. ‘That Rebecca never asked him for help in contacting Axberger. That he was unaware that Rebecca knew about his past. That he therefore did not supply Axberger with the information that subsequently led to Rebecca’s death. And with regard to the murder of his father… Unfortunately, even if we managed to tie him to the scene of the crime, we don’t have a scrap of evidence to prove that he was in fact the killer. The fact that Thea, who has already been convicted of the murder, says that he was the perpetrator is not enough. And as we’ve already said, the crime is beyond the statute of limitations.’

‘I couldn’t give a toss,’ Fredrika said. ‘I just want to see Johan’s name dragged through the dirt. It doesn’t matter whether his mother is taking the blame or not; we know that it was Johan who tipped off Axberger.’

Or do we?

Fredrika was sure of her ground. Thea had saved her son for the second time. As far as Fredrika was concerned, she didn’t care how long it took. One day she would put a stop to Johan Aldrin’s success story, and make him answer for what he had done.

She ended the conversation with Alex, then made another call. Margareta Berlin, Head of Human Resources, picked up right away.

‘Fredrika Bergman. I thought I’d give you my final report. You asked me to keep an eye on Alex Recht when I came back from maternity leave.’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s absolutely fine. You don’t need to give it another thought; he’s perfectly capable of doing his job.’

She was about to ring off, but Margareta Berlin slipped in a comment.

‘I’ve received some rather worrying information that suggests otherwise.’

‘Oh?’

‘He’s embarked on a relationship with Rebecca Trolle’s mother Diana. During an ongoing investigation. That’s hardly a sign of sound judgement.’

Fredrika didn’t know what to say.

‘Alex is with Diana Trolle?’

‘So it seems, even if he probably wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

Margareta Berlin laughed drily.

Fredrika leaned against the car, staring up at the deep blue sky. Why must certain people make something bad out of something that was actually really good?

‘Alex has been to hell and back,’ she heard herself say. ‘If you and your colleagues stand in the way of his happiness, I will resign with immediate effect.’

Without waiting for a response, she ended the call.

Then she rang Spencer, who seemed to have been the least well-informed member of The Guardian Angels. The very thought of the club and the snuff movie frightened the life out of her. The fact that several versions of the film existed indicated that Manfred and Morgan had intended to show it, perhaps even distribute it widely, but without any risk of exposing their own involvement. Was there really a demand for that kind of thing? Fredrika shook off the unpleasant feeling. She didn’t believe it. Who would want to see a film that was over forty years old, showing a young woman dying in the most brutal way?

Spencer’s voice was weary, and Fredrika could hear her daughter babbling away in the background. She pressed the phone close to her ear and whispered the three words she needed to say, the words she thought he wanted to hear:

‘I miss you.’

66

The feeling of deep dissatisfaction usually came when darkness fell. It was at its strongest on those evenings when he was alone. He couldn’t honestly say that he loved his wife any longer, but she was adept at balancing his good and bad sides. Therefore, he wasn’t lying when he sometimes whispered in her ear that he would never be able to manage without her, because it was perfectly true. Without her he would be lost, in spite of the fact that her main function was to act as a kind of backdrop for his life.

He knew that he was a successful man. The newspapers mentioned him from time to time, quoting his comments as if they came from some higher power. He enjoyed the role that he had been given, half concealed behind the company’s annual reports and achievements, half in plain sight for anyone who wanted to seek him out.

A normal man. He believed that was how people thought of him, and that gave him a certain peace of mind on those evenings when the desire became too strong. The first time he felt it, he hadn’t been able to work out what was wrong. It spread like an itch throughout his entire body, allowing him no respite.

In that respect, he was eternally grateful to modern technology. Over the past ten years, it had become significantly easier to make contact with like-minded individuals. He was careful, of course. It was essential to leave no traces behind, otherwise there was always the risk of humiliation, of being remembered only for one’s sins.

He shuddered.

The weather had turned chilly. The last cold snap before the summer, the forecasters promised. As usual.

The desire increased as he stood up, pulsing through his body in time with the throbbing of his heartbeat. So it was to be one of those evenings. He sighed wearily as he moved through the house. The scent of her perfume was everywhere. Sometimes he wondered if she went around secretly spraying each room, so that he would sense her presence wherever he was. Even when she wasn’t there.

He unlocked the door of his study and went inside. The smell of her perfume disappeared as soon as he closed the door behind him. At least she couldn’t get in here. She had stopped asking long ago why she wasn’t allowed in his study. Perhaps she had accepted his assertion that he wanted one room in the house that was his and his alone. Perhaps she realised that she didn’t want to know why she wasn’t welcome.

He switched on the desk lamp, knelt down in front of the bookcase and removed several volumes from the bottom shelf. With practised hands he stacked the books on the floor and pulled out the object that had been concealed behind them. A projector. Modern technology was for the purpose of communication, not for experiences. There were times when he preferred to watch films with sound, but this evening he wanted a classic. And the classic was silent.

He placed the projector on the desk, facing the white wall at the other end of the room. He settled down in the armchair beside it and fed the strip of film into the machine. Then he turned the switch to start it, and the first images flickered into life on the wall. The distinctive summerhouse where all the windows were covered with sheets appeared, then the young woman walked in.

He had to smile when he saw the anxious expression on her face. It was so perfect that it was painful to behold. The film had cost him a small fortune, and he had been assured that it had an extremely limited distribution. He had always known that his particular desire was very rare, that there were very few people like him. The awareness that he was special, chosen, brought tears to his eyes.

It didn’t get any better than this.

Without taking his eyes off the woman’s face, he reached out and switched off the desk lamp.

Then there was only the film, and the silent scream of the woman in the summerhouse.