Johan Theorin - The Quarry

She looked down at the table.

‘So what did Bremer say then?’ Per asked.

‘He spent most of the time talking to the girl in the front seat; it was obvious she was an old hand and had been there several times before. Cindy or Lindy, he called her.’ Ulrica smiled tiredly. ‘I shouldn’t think that was her name... both Petra and I were given new names in the magazine. Petra was called Candy and I was Suzy.’

‘And the men were always called Markus Lukas, weren’t they?’

Ulrica nodded. ‘I suppose most things were fake in that industry... Anyway, we were driven out to the house — it felt as if we were deep in the forest — and as Bremer pulled up I realized that nobody knew where we were. That wasn’t a very good feeling... and the house was big and dark, with thick curtains at the windows on the ground floor. It smelled of detergent, but I remember thinking that was probably just covering up a whole load of disgusting smells that you would start to notice if you stayed around for too long.’

‘And Jerry, was he there?’

‘Yes, he was there. He said hello and brought some papers over for me and Petra. We both signed some kind of contract, it said something along the lines that we were doing this voluntarily and weren’t underage.’

‘Did they check your ages?’

‘No... Bremer asked how old we were when we rang up, I think, but nobody asked us for our passport or driving licence or anything like that.

‘I don’t know if it was so we could learn how things worked, but Petra and I were allowed to stay in the studio while Cindy/Lindy was being photographed, with Bremer egging her on. She sat on the bed stroking herself and undressing for the camera. It was ridiculous sometimes, what she was doing. Shy yet wanton at the same time, somehow... as if there was a war going on inside her.’

She lowered her gaze to the floor.

‘When I saw her I realized I could never make a career of this, or even do it again... I just wanted to go home, even at that stage. But I still had my own photo session to do; it was impossible to back out. I just had to do it... I was to be photographed on a sofa. So I had to walk into the bright light, and we made a start. You didn’t really have to move, just pose in different positions.’ She paused. ‘I was really nervous, but it was just routine for the others — all in a day’s work.’

‘Who was there?’ Per asked.

‘Bremer was standing between the spotlights; he was directing everything and telling me what to do, then there was a young lad who was the photographer, then this wiry, tattooed guy who was to do the shots on the sofa with me.’

‘So what was Jerry doing while all this was going on?’

‘Not much,’ said Ulrica. ‘He was probably standing to one side somewhere “adjusting his trousers”... that’s what we used to say about the dirty old men who hung about near our school.’

Per could imagine Jerry doing exactly that.

‘Then it was Petra’s turn. She was after me, with this other guy who was also called Markus Lukas.’

‘What do you remember about him?’

Ulrica thought about it.

‘He was taller and a bit older, much more muscular,’ she said. ‘Taller and quieter, a bit bored maybe... it was obvious this was just a job to him. At least my Markus Lukas chatted, made the odd joke and tried to get me to relax. And he told me his real name afterwards. It was Tobias... Tobias Jesslin, and he was from Malmö.’

Per made a mental note of the name. A Markus Lukas called Tobias — another real name among all the false ones.

‘Are you still in touch with Petra?’ he asked.

Ulrica looked horrified. ‘In touch?’ she said.

‘Have you got a number or an address? I’d really like to talk to her as well.’

‘Petra’s dead,’ said Ulrica.

Per looked at her in surprise.

‘She died at the beginning of the nineties. We’d lost touch by then, but I heard about it, and I saw the notice in the paper.’

‘How did she die?’

‘I think she was ill... It was just a rumour, but I think she had cancer.’

Per looked down into his coffee cup; that was a word he didn’t want to hear. ‘Very sad,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Ulrica, ‘and what happened to Madde was just as bad. Or even worse, actually.’

‘Madde?’

‘Madeleine Frick. She was another friend of mine from school. She moved to Stockholm after we left, but just a couple of years later she threw herself in front of a train.’

Per breathed in slowly and said quietly, ‘Did she work with my father as well?’

Ulrica nodded. ‘I think so... I never saw any pictures or films, of course, but when we met up that summer she told me she’d been out to Ryd and had done some filming too. “With the wiry guy or the tall one?” I asked her. “The tall one,” she said. I didn’t want to hear any more... that was the only time we talked about it.’

Per didn’t say anything. Of the four girls he had found who had filmed with Jerry, two were dead.

Suddenly a door flew open in the hallway.

‘Mum?’ a boy’s voice called out.

‘Coming!’

Per looked at her and tried to come up with one last question. ‘How do you feel about it now?’

‘It’s OK,’ said Ulrica, getting up to rinse her coffee cup. She looked at him. ‘What’s done is done... If you do stupid things when you’re young, you regret it, and if you don’t do anything stupid, you still regret it, sooner or later. Don’t you agree?’

Yes , thought Per. If you survive .

But he didn’t say anything.

As he drove away from the farm, he thought about Ulrica Ternman, then about Regina. What was he doing? He wanted to save girls who sometimes didn’t want to be saved. He wanted to save them from his father.

Just before he reached the motorway, he pulled into a car park and rang Directory Enquiries. He found two people called Tobias Jesslin. One lived in Mora, the other in Karlskrona.

Karlskrona was closer to Kalmar, so he tried that number first. After three rings a girl’s voice chirruped: ‘Hello, this is Emilie!’

Per was taken aback, but asked for Tobias anyway.

‘Daddy’s not here,’ said the girl. ‘Do you want to talk to Mummy?’

Per hesitated. ‘OK.’

There was a rattling sound, then a stressed female voice came on the line. ‘Hello, this is Katarina.’

‘Hi, my name’s Per Mörner... I was hoping to speak to Tobias.’

‘He’s at work.’

‘Where does he work?’

‘Honolulu.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The Honolulu restaurant. Who are you?’

‘I’m... I’m just an old friend. We haven’t been in touch for a long time. This is the Tobias who used to live in Malmö, isn’t it?’

The woman didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

‘Yes, he did live in Malmö.’

‘Good,’ said Per, ‘I’ve probably got the right person then. When will he be home?’

‘He finishes at eleven... but you could ring him at the Honolulu.’

‘Or I could go there... what’s the address?’

He made a note of it and rang off.

Then he thought it over. It was almost seven o’clock now, and it would probably take him about an hour to drive down to Karlskrona.

He made a decision, and got in the car. He would go and see Tobias Jesslin, who once upon a time had been called Markus Lukas.

Vendela spent the whole of Tuesday working on the new garden. Before lunch she planted ivy, box and a long row of elder saplings which would provide good foliage and shade when they had grown, and in the afternoon she hauled bags of compost and small limestone blocks and created three little flowerbeds. She could see in her mind’s eye the rows of green leaves emerging in May, the stems growing strong in June, the big petals turning towards the sun.