Karin Alvtegen - Missing

'I've no idea what's wrong with her. Better get the ambulance.'

She came to because someone was kicking her in the ribs, not violently but hard enough to wake her. Thomas was standing next to her, wearing nothing except a pair of underpants. She took in the scene in one second flat. He was drunk and he was holding a wad of notes in his hand, approximately twenty-nine thousand kronor.

Instinctively she put her hand to her neck, but where the money should have been was only her skin. In fact, she was naked. He was grinning menacingly at her, waving the purse in his other hand.

'You'd be looking for this, right?'

Her mouth felt like a sandpit. It was years since she'd drunk hard liquor. She couldn't actually remember drinking a lot, but the bottle on the table was empty.

'You cunt! Sending me off to the post office to get you more dosh! And snivelling because you can't manage, oh dear dear!'

She tried to think. Meanwhile she was too slow reaching out for her bra. A flick with his foot and it flew across the room. She covered herself with the flap of the sleeping-bag.

'Please listen, Thomas…'

He twisted his face into a grimace and spoke in a piping voice.

'Please, Thomas.'

His eyes had narrowed to slits.

'What got into you, fucking around with me like that? I was running a bloody big risk, the police could've got me for aiding-and-abetting or some shit. Meanwhile you've a sodding fortune up your jumper!'

He was scrunching the notes in his hand. 'I've been saving that for years.' 'Oh yeah. And?'

She was almost whispering now. 'For a house.'

At first he just stared at her, then leaned back laughing. The movement almost overbalanced him and he had to reach out for the ladder. This sudden weakness angered him even more.

Before he had time to speak, she folded back the sleeping bag flap. Then she spoke as sweetly as she knew how.

'Thomas. Let's not fight. I was going to show you the money anyway.'

He was still holding onto the ladder. She felt nauseous.

'Thomas, I came here because I've been missing you.'

His eyes were glued to her breasts. She felt his gaze touching her like hands and had to steel herself not to shudder. He dropped her purse on the floor. She tried to keep smiling. Next he scattered her hopes for the future with one careless movement, the notes floating slowly towards the filthy floor.

The next second he had come down on her. She prayed that he would be quick.

Lord, give me strength to survive from hour to hour, from one day to the next. Help me face these empty days, the remainder of the vacant time left to me here.

He will be waiting for me somewhere in the great beyond. I shall go to him, find my treasure again. My heart will always be with him.

Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who has sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life.

Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement.

I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgement is just, because I seek not my will, but only the will of He who has sent me.

God failed to hear her yet again. Thomas was taking his time. Finally he had had enough and fell asleep on top of her like a suffocatingly heavy bolster. With infinite care, she managed to ease herself out from under him and stand up.

Still naked, she picked up her scrunched-up notes from the floor. She tried to flatten them against her thigh before putting them back into the purse again.

Thomas was sleeping on his side with his mouth open. A string of saliva was dribbling from his mouth into his bushy beard and soaking into the mattress. She was grateful that she hadn't used her own roll-up mat, because she would have had to leave it. Her sleeping bag had slipped off them and she retrieved it easily after lifting one of his legs.

She dressed quickly, longing for a shower to wash off the trail left by his eyes crawling over her body. It was unbearable – she must find a tap with running water to wash under. Packing her things, she noticed that her towel and panties smelled sour after being packed too damp. They needed another wash.

Where? Where could she go?

She wanted to get out and away as soon as possible, but was thirsty enough to risk staying a little longer. She drank from the plastic bottle and then let the water run over her face and hands to wash them. The sawdust on the floor was turning into a sodden, slurry, brown with coffee-grounds.

Thomas shifted the leg she had been pulling at and she stood stock-still until she was certain he was deeply sleep. She must hurry up the ladder and out into… into what, exactly? Not 'freedom', that was not an option any more.

Fuck them all.

It was dark outside. Old reflexes made her look at her unhelpful watch.

All the lanes of the South Malarstrand carriageway were empty and the windows in the big blocks of flats almost all dark. Maybe it was still too early for people to be up and about.

Good. The less she was seen, the better.

She tiptoed across the deck and climbed onto the Navy vessel. Once back on the quay, she started walking towards the bridge. Her legs seemed to have a will of their own. Her head was empty. She had no idea where she should be going.

Still, that was quite normal.

In her world, not knowing where you were heading was the rule, not the exception. She sometimes asked herself if her block against planning ahead was connected to the illness of her youth. Perhaps it had damaged some part of her nervous system meant to deal with foresight. In her new life, finding something to eat every day and a sheltered place for her sleeping bag every night were the only things that demanded any thought at all.

Fair enough, you could live without any expectations higher than holding onto the freedom to move. This freedom was the basis for the way she lived. No one could tell her what to do. Her will was her only directive and she went only where she wanted to go.

Now all that had changed. She no longer knew where she wanted to go, not even where she could safely go.

She was walking along Heleneborg Street and then, where the rows of houses ended, turned into Skinnarvik Park. The sky was growing lighter. A man seemed to combine admiring the view with watching his dog defecate. Man and dog both looked up when they heard her steps on the gravel path. Then the man dutifully bent down to pick up the turd in a plastic bag, peering over his shoulder at her, as if she might object.

She walked on. There was a newly delivered box of bread outside a restaurant at the corner of Horns Street. They surely wouldn't miss one of the loaves.

What she needed now was somewhere safe to shelter for a couple of days. A place where she would be left in peace, where no one would think of looking for her. Fear of pursuit had become her constant companion and it was exhausting. She needed rest. From experience she knew that without proper sleep her brain functioned less and less well. She would become an easy prey if she lost her sense of judgement.

In her mind she was going over all the places she had ever slept in. Few had been as safe and quiet as the hide-out she had to find now.

By now there were more cars around. To avoid meeting the morning rush-hour traffic she decided to walk up Horn Street Rise. Passing St Mary's Church, she looked at the clock.

At exactly that moment she realised where she could hide.

Days and nights, flowing into each other. The same faceless people speaking to her in alien tongues, oblivious of the dangers threatening her.