Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

The mattress and the pillows are still there, just as he remembered them. And the steel door at the far end of the room is still closed.

Hanna walks over to the door. ‘Here it is.’

‘That door is locked,’ Jan says. ‘I’ve already tried it.’

‘I mean the floor.’ She is pointing downwards.

‘The floor?’

Jan walks forward — and feels something uneven beneath his feet. He looks down at the blue fitted carpet, but he is standing on something underneath it, something small and narrow.

The carpet covers the entire floor, but it isn’t stuck down. Hanna goes over to one corner and lifts it up. Together they pull the carpet back towards the middle of the room. It comes away easily, and Jan can see grey concrete.

‘A bit further,’ Hanna says. ‘Nearly there.’

She seems eager now, urging him on. They carry on pulling at the carpet, and suddenly Jan sees a hatch in the floor, half a metre wide and made of corrugated metal.

‘That’s the way in,’ Hanna says.

Jan looks at the hatch, then at her. ‘The way into the hospital?’

Hanna nods. ‘It goes right under the wall.’

‘Where does it come out?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

Jan pulls the carpet back so that the whole of the hatch is exposed, and notices that there is an iron handle. ‘How did you find it?’

‘I did the same as you down here, looking around, checking things out... and I’ve had more time than you.’

‘Has Rössel been helping you?’ asks Jan.

She shakes her head.

Jan bends down, grabs hold of the iron handle and lifts off the hatch cover. He puts it to one side and gazes down into a big, square hole. But this isn’t a drain; it’s some kind of electrical conduit with thick cables running beneath the basement floor. It isn’t very deep, perhaps a metre, but it seems to be the beginning of a narrow passage under the concrete, leading towards the locked door. Everything is pitch black down there.

‘Are you going down?’ Hanna asks.

‘Maybe.’

Jan hesitates. He kneels and peers into the passageway. The hole is so dark that he can’t see how far it goes. There are some old water pipes next to the cables, and swirling balls of dust. There is a faint smell of mould, or perhaps mud, but the concrete in the tunnel looks dry.

Dry, and wide enough for him. There should be room to climb in and crawl under the floor.

Are there rats’ nests down there? Maybe. He listens, his ear cocked towards the underworld, but all is silent. ‘Hello?’ he whispers.

There is no reply, not even an echo.

Jan gets to his feet. He carefully replaces the cover, but leaves the carpet as it is, and looks at Hanna. ‘I’m just going back upstairs... I need more light.’

‘From what?’ she asks.

‘From an Angel.’

Hanna stares at the equipment Jan has just taken out of his locker.

‘What’s that?’ she asks.

‘An electronic baby monitor. Have you never seen one before?’

‘No.’ She shakes her head as she contemplates the two plastic boxes. ‘What are they for?’

Jan looks at her. ‘It’s obvious you haven’t got kids... They enable you to keep a check on the children while they’re asleep.’

‘But why can’t you just go and see if they’re OK?’

‘Not everybody has time... or it’s a question of security, I suppose. If the children are safe, the parents feel secure.’ He thinks about William Halevi, and adds, ‘If the parents don’t feel secure, they’re unhappy.’

Hanna takes one Angel, but doesn’t look convinced. ‘So what are you going to do with them now?’

‘I’m going to use one as a torch,’ he says. ‘And if I leave the other one with you, you’ll be able to hear me.’

‘And that will somehow make you feel more secure?’

‘A bit.’

Hanna weighs the Angel in her hand and says, ‘I can listen, but I can’t do any more. I mean, if you need any help down there, I can’t—’

‘It’s enough if you can hear me,’ Jan interrupts her.

It would be a lifeline. A bit like going into a cave with a rope around your ankle.

‘Are you afraid?’ she asks.

‘No. I left the fear in the pocket of my other trousers,’ he says. He smiles, but doesn’t relax. He doesn’t know what is going to happen, he doesn’t know if the guards patrol regularly, but if he meets anyone down there he had better hope it is Lars Rettig, or some friend of his. If they are to be trusted.

Five minutes later he is standing beside the hole in the basement floor. It is almost half past ten now, but down here there is a feeling of timelessness. In the underworld it is always night.

He holds up the Angel and switches on the lamp. ‘OK,’ he says into the microphone. ‘I’m going in.’ His voice echoes in the safe room, but he doesn’t know whether Hanna can hear him or not.

Supporting himself with his hands, he lowers his legs to the bottom of the electrical conduit, just about a metre below the floor of the basement. Once he is in, it is easier to bend down and point the lamp into the passageway; he can see that it carries on straight ahead, into the darkness.

He kneels down, breathing in the dry, dusty air. ‘I’m going in.’

He makes his upper body as flat and narrow as possible, bends his head and creeps along on his hands and knees. He manages it without banging his head. It’s like crawling into a crypt, with immovable blocks of stone on all sides, and the thick ceiling pressing against his back.

Claustrophobia? He has to keep the fear away, not think about coffins and locked sauna doors. He can breathe, he can move. The passageway is wide enough for him to move forward without too much difficulty — he just can’t turn around. All he can do if anything happens is to shuffle backwards.

But what could possibly happen?

Jan coughs, feeling a sudden desire for water. It’s dusty, but he keeps on going. His shadow dances jerkily over the concrete in the glow of the lamp.

When he shines the light ahead of him, he can see that the passageway ends in a grey concrete wall some ten metres away — or perhaps it just bends to one side.

He speaks into the Angel again: ‘I think... I think I’m underneath the door of the safe room now.’

He feels slightly ridiculous, talking to himself. And how certain is he that the security guards up at the hospital don’t have the right sort of technical equipment to pick up every word he is saying? Not certain at all.

He lowers the Angel, grits his teeth and keeps on moving forward. He listens for scrabbling noises or squeaks, but he can’t see any rats. Not yet, anyway. There are little black lumps on the floor that could be droppings — or dead flies. He doesn’t want to look too closely.

First one leg, then the other. Crawl, just crawl.

Suddenly Jan notices something on the roof of the passageway, perhaps five metres away. He lifts up the lamp again and sees that there is another hatch cover up ahead, made of corrugated metal, just like the one behind him.

The sight makes him crawl faster, as best he can. His head and shoulders keep banging against the concrete, his hands and knees are growing numb as they press against the floor — but at last he makes it.

He puts down the Angel in front of him and reaches up, almost convinced that the cover will be locked or screwed down.

But it isn’t. It is loose, and he places the palms of his hands against the metal and pushes upwards. There is a scraping sound, and the heavy cover moves. He is able to push it to one side, slowly and carefully. To his ears the screech of the metal is deafeningly loud as it moves across the concrete floor, bit by bit, but he keeps on going.

A black hole opens up above him; there is no light. The room above is pitch dark, and when he has finished shifting the cover, there is absolute silence.