Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

Five minutes later they are staring at their drinks in silence.

‘So you crept up on me this evening,’ Hanna says eventually.

‘Well, I don’t know about that... I thought Lilian seemed a bit tense when she arrived, so I waited in the playground to see if I could find out why.’

Hanna gazes down at the table. ‘Did you know I was up at the hospital?’

‘No, but I know someone has been there and then left via the school, so I’ve been wondering who it might be. Have you been up there often?’

Hanna takes a huge gulp of her drink, as if her vodka and orange juice was a health drink after a sauna. Jan takes a small sip of his.

‘A few times,’ Hanna says. ‘I haven’t kept count.’

‘And how long has this been going on for?’

‘Since May. I’d been working at the Dell for four months by then.’

‘And Lilian knows about this?’

Hanna gazes at him with her blue eyes; she seems to be wondering how much to tell him, and in the end she says, ‘Yes. I mean, we’re friends, so she keeps an eye out for me... I only go up there when she’s on nights.’

‘No,’ says Jan. ‘You were up there one night when I was working. I heard you coming down in the lift. Then you went out through the Dell.’

‘You’re right... I was late that night.’

‘And you were in the visitors’ room at the hospital tonight?’

Hanna nods without speaking.

‘What do you do up there?’

No reply.

‘Are you meeting someone? Is it one of the guards?’

Hanna takes a couple of sips and peers into her half-empty glass. Then she changes the subject. ‘I get so bloody tired of the kids sometimes. I enjoy the job most of the time, but when I’ve been with them for too long I start to get a bit panicky. They just want to do the same things, over and over again. Play the same games...’

Jan has never actually seen Hanna playing with the children; usually she just stands there watching them while they play on their own. But he smiles. ‘Everybody feels like that now and again.’

Hanna sighs. ‘I feel like that nearly all the time. I can’t cope with hordes of kids, somehow.’

Jan sees the children from the Dell in his mind’s eye. Cheery faces. Josefine, Leo and all the others. ‘You should try to see them as individuals,’ he says. ‘They’ve all got their own character.’

‘Oh yes? They sound like a troupe of monkeys to me. They spend all bloody day screaming; I’m practically deaf when I get home after work.’

Hanna empties her glass and an awkward silence falls.

Jan stands up. ‘I’ll get another round in.’

She doesn’t object. When he returns with fresh drinks he wants to get back to the previous topic of conversation, so he looks around before asking, ‘So do you know someone up at the hospital, then?’

Hanna hesitates, but then mumbles that she does.

‘Who is it?’

‘I’m not telling you. Who do you go to see?’

‘Nobody,’ Jan says quickly. ‘Not one of the patients, anyway.’

‘But you want to get to them, don’t you? I mean, you were down in the basement that night when I came back... Why do you go creeping around down there?’

Now it is Jan’s turn to fall silent. ‘Curiosity,’ he says eventually.

‘Yeah, right.’ Hanna smiles wearily at him. ‘But there’s no point in searching for a way in down there.’

‘Oh? But you get through the sally port without any problems?’

She nods quickly. The vodka seems to be making her more relaxed. ‘I’ve got a contact. In the hospital, I mean. Someone I can trust.’

‘A guard?’ Jan immediately thinks of Lars Rettig.

‘Kind of.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I’m not saying.’

This is like a game of chess , Jan thinks. A game of chess in a night club.

The music is louder now, and the place no longer seems quite so big. More people have arrived and begun to fill up the tables and the stools by the bar. It’s only to be expected, of course; the Medina Palace is a night club, with the emphasis on night — people arrive late, and now they’re here to stay. The night people.

But no one comes to join Jan and Hanna; they are sitting very close together now, as if they have been friends since childhood.

‘You and I should trust each other too,’ Jan says.

Hanna’s blue eyes are cool. ‘Why?’

‘Because we can help each other.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, in different ways...’ Jan breaks off. He has grasped that Hanna might be able to help him meet Rami, but he doesn’t know how.

Hanna’s glass is empty. She looks at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She starts to get up, a little unsteadily.

‘Wait,’ Jan says quickly. ‘Stay a bit longer. I’ll get us another drink. Do you like liqueurs?’

Hanna sits down again. ‘Maybe.’

‘Good.’ He dashes over to the bar; he is as fast as Rami’s squirrel, and he comes back with four small glasses on a tray. A double round of coffee liqueurs, to save time. ‘Cheers, Hanna.’

‘Cheers.’

The drink tastes sweet and the world becomes even more noticeably wrapped in cotton wool. The beat of the music grows louder, and he leans closer to her. ‘So what do you think of Marie-Louise?’

Hanna gives a little smile. ‘Miss Control Freak,’ she says with a snigger. ‘She’d have a heart attack if that thing you told me about happened at our place.’

‘What thing?’

‘That business with the boy who disappeared in the forest.’

Jan gives a curt nod, but keeps his eyes fixed on the table. He doesn’t want to talk about William, so he changes the subject. ‘Is Lilian married?’

‘No. She was, but it didn’t work out... Her husband kind of got bored.’

Jan doesn’t ask any more questions, but he wonders about the man who walked Lilian to work this evening. Has she got a new boyfriend?

Jan is quite pleased when there is a brief silence, because it means he can have another drink. He tries to pull himself together, and looks at Hanna over the top of his glass. ‘Shall we play a game?’

Hanna empties her own glass. ‘What kind of game?’

‘A guessing game.’

‘What about?’

‘I’ll try to guess who you meet at St Psycho’s, and you try to guess who I want to meet up there.’

‘St... We’re not supposed to call it that.’

‘I know.’ Jan gives her a conspiratorial smile. ‘OK, I’ll go first... Is it a man?’

Hanna gazes at him tipsily, then nods. ‘And yours? Is it a woman?’

Jan nods in return, and goes on: ‘Is it someone from your past? Someone you knew before he ended up in St Psych— St Patricia’s?’

She shakes her head. ‘Did you know this woman?’

Jan nods and sips his drink. ‘I met her before... years and years ago.’

‘Is she famous?’ Hanna asks with a smile.

‘Famous?’

‘Yes. Did people talk about her, did she have her name and her picture in the papers? Because of some crime?’

Jan shakes his head; he isn’t lying. After all, Rami was never famous — not as a criminal, anyway. She wasn’t very well known at all; as far as he is aware, she never appeared on television. He raises his glass to Hanna. ‘And your friend on the inside,’ he says. ‘Is he famous?’

Hanna stops smiling; her gaze slides sideways. ‘Maybe,’ she says quietly.

Jan carries on looking at her. Suddenly another name comes into his head, a very well-known name, but it’s such a stupid idea that he almost laughs out loud. ‘Is it Rössel? Ivan Rössel?’

Hanna visibly stiffens — and suddenly it isn’t funny any more.

Jan puts down his glass. ‘Surely that’s not who you’re meeting up there, Hanna? Not Ivan Rössel? He’s a murderer!’