Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

‘Thank you.’

When Jan left the room he looked at the clock. It was twenty past two. Soon it would be twenty-four hours since William had entered the bunker and Jan had crept up and locked him in.

It felt like a year.

Nina and the rest of his colleagues from Lynx and Brown Bear were sitting in the staffroom. They barely spoke to one another; they were just waiting. It felt like a funeral tea. Sigrid Jansson wasn’t there — she had signed herself off sick after her interrogation by the police and gone home.

Because that was what they were doing, wasn’t it? Interrogating people? That’s what it had felt like, and Jan was exhausted after all the questions. He knew that the police had read the letter he had sent to William’s parents, and that they were searching for the boy’s kidnapper, but surely he wasn’t a suspect?

He poured himself a cup of coffee, sat down with the others and tried to relax. There was no longer any sign of the sun outside the window. It was still too early for twilight, but it was on the way.

William’s second twilight in the forest, followed by evening, followed by night.

‘How are you feeling, Jan?’ one of his colleagues asked quietly.

He looked up. ‘Not too bad.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Thanks.’

Not his fault . Sometimes Jan actually thought this was true, and that William had just somehow disappeared. But then he remembered what had really happened, and he felt sick. He was tired, beaten. He wasn’t strong enough.

The nursery was unbearably quiet without the children. Silent and still. Not much happened; uniformed officers came and went in the corridor, their expressions still grim, and Jan realized that William had not been found.

He finished his coffee and looked out of the window again. The forest up above the nursery loomed like a dark shadow.

Stop this , a voice said inside his head. Do the right thing and stop this ritual now. Let him go .

Jan got to his feet. ‘I have to go.’

‘Do you want to go home?’ asked Nina.

‘I don’t know... I might take a walk up to the forest.’

He looked helplessly at Nina, but she turned and gazed sadly out of the window. She said quietly, ‘They don’t think he’s there any more.’

‘OK... But I might just wander up there anyway before I go home. I have to do something.’

Some of his colleagues gave him sympathetic smiles, but Jan didn’t smile back.

The dell looks so fragile from a distance, Jan thinks. It’s only a wooden hut after all, built to function on a trial basis for a few years before it disappears without a trace. Winter is on its way, and one severe storm sweeping in from the sea could rip off the roof, smash the walls and race through the rooms.

St Psycho’s is a different matter altogether. The grey-stone building has stood for more than a hundred years, and will doubtless stand for a hundred more.

It is Saturday, and Jan has a night shift at the pre-school. He expects to hear the happy voices of the children when he opens the door, but all is quiet. The only sound is a faint clinking from the kitchen, and as Jan is taking off his jacket Hanna appears. She is holding a knife in her hand, but it’s only an ordinary table knife; she’s in the middle of emptying the dishwasher. ‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Hi. I thought Lilian was working today?’

‘She’s ill.’

Jan looks around. ‘Where are the children?’

‘They’ve gone to visit Mira’s new foster family.’

‘Oh, right... When will they be back?’

‘Any minute now.’

Jan takes a step closer to Hanna, in spite of the fact that there is no one else in the building, and says quietly, ‘Listen, all the stuff we’ve talked about... all those secrets. You won’t mention anything to anybody else, will you?’

He feels really stupid, but Hanna merely shakes her head, her expression blank. ‘Secrets bind us together.’

‘You’re right,’ Jan nods. ‘We have a pact.’

He has no time to say any more; the door bursts open and two small bodies dressed in waterproofs come hurtling in: Mira and Leo.

Mira shouts with joy when she spots Jan, and both he and Hanna automatically move apart. Maintain the façade in front of the children .

Mira and Leo are accompanied by a man in a blue cap, a light-brown jacket and sturdy boots. He looks calm and reassuring; he smiles and shakes hands, first with Jan and then with Hanna, introducing himself as ‘Mira’s second daddy’. They both smile back at her new foster father.

‘It all went very well today,’ he says. ‘They’re great kids... This is going to be fantastic.’

‘Absolutely,’ Jan says.

Now the children are back he can’t talk to Hanna any more. She finishes at half past six, and goes home dead on time, with big hugs for Mira and Leo and a brief nod to Jan.

When he is alone with the children he makes supper and sits down at the table with them. ‘Did you have a good time today?’

Mira nods. ‘I’m going to live on a farm. They’ve got horses!’

‘Wow,’ says Jan. ‘Did you get to stroke them?’

Mira chatters on, brimming over with excitement. Jan sees the look on her face, and it makes him feel happy too.

Then he glances over at Leo. He knows that Leo is also going to live on a farm outside the town, but he can see no trace of excitement in Leo’s eyes. ‘Have you had enough to eat?’ he asks.

‘Maybe... Can we have some sweets?’ asks Mira. She knows it’s Saturday.

The children have some chocolate, read two picture books, then go to bed at quarter past eight, after the usual protests.

Jan sits down in the kitchen to wait. The underground passageway leading to St Psycho’s is calling to him, but he has no intention of going down there tonight. That can wait until tomorrow, when the laundry will be empty and security will be slightly more relaxed. Tonight he will just slip up to the visitors’ room. He has to take that risk.

At half past ten he goes up in the lift. He opens the door a fraction at first, but the room is empty and in darkness.

Nothing has changed, but when he quickly goes over to the sofa and lifts up the cushion, he finds a new envelope. It is pale blue this time, and not as fat.

When Jan is safely back in the kitchen, he opens the envelope and discovers that it contains eighteen letters, but he is really interested in only one of them. It is addressed to him, to Jan , and he rips it open immediately, like a Christmas present.

Inside there is a small piece of paper, with a short message in spidery handwriting. But Jan reads it over and over again:

A reply. A reply from Rami. It has to be. Jan puts down the piece of paper; his hand is shaking. Through the window he can see the lights of the hospital, but he suppresses the urge to go straight out into the night to search for Rami’s room.

‘Keith Moon meets Topper Headon!’ Rettig shouts. ‘That’s exactly what it sounds like when you play, Jan!’

Jan nods and plays one last roll. He has been sitting behind the drum kit for almost an hour, and the music has made him forget the letters from the hospital.

And now Rettig has paid him a compliment, which is kind; Jan isn’t sure whether to pass on the bad news about the Dell. But eventually he decides to tell him. When only he and Rettig are left in the rehearsal room, he casually says, ‘By the way, the pre-school is going to be closed at night.’