The Key by Sara B. Elfgren & Mats Strandberg Page B

Tears of blood were trickling down her pale cheeks.
    Then it strikes Linnéa that now, when she is gone, Olivia has finally achieved what she always wanted: everyone is talking about her and wants to know more about her. Everyone is fascinated by her.
    ‘Holy shit!’ Tindra points to another drawing. ‘Did you do that one? I
love
it!’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I understand exactly what you felt like when you made it,’ Tindra says.
    Linnéa looks hard at her own work, tries to see it with the eyes of another. Asks herself what it reveals, if anything.
    She had hesitated for a long time over her portfolio before deciding on an ink drawing of a heart-shaped flower arrangement around a heart, anatomically correct and bleeding.
    Linnéa wonders if Vanessa had understood that the image was all about her. And that it is still true.
    She had never thought that Vanessa would want her. It had made her very happy to realise that she was wrong. Happy, and then, just a little later, utterly terrified. To have Vanessa and then lose her would be unbearably painful. And she knows it will happen. That loss is certain. When she finds out just how fucked up Linnéa actually is, Vanessa will grow tired with her.
    Whatever it is we have together now, I should get out of it, Linnéa thinks. It will never work out. Better end it myself, here and now. Make a clean cut, then the wound will heal faster.
    Panic wells up, and with it comes a prickly chill that makes her whole body break into a sweat.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Tindra asks.
    ‘No. Panic attack.’
    ‘Can I get you something?’ Tindra rummages in her bag. ‘Look, I think I’ve …’
    ‘No, thanks,’ Linnéa says quickly. ‘See you later.’
    She hurries out of the library. Hears voices around her on the stairs as she keeps her eyes fixed on the stone steps and counts the fossils to get a grip on her mind.
    She can’t think how she’ll endure the funeral this afternoon. But she must do it somehow, for Anna-Karin’s sake.
    When Linnéa steps into the entrance hall, someone walks straight into her so she falls over backwards and drops her bag.
    ‘Fuck’s sake …!’ she says furiously. She looks up.
    It’s Erik Forslund. Grinning at her.
    ‘Gosh, I am
sorry
,’ he smirks. ‘So
very
sorry.’
    That grin. The same expression as the time he forced her to jump off Canal Bridge.
    Panic is hammering in her head.
    ‘I do hope I didn’t hurt you. Last thing in the world I’d want,’ Erik says.
    Robin is near him, just a step away. Linnéa remembers the scene on the bridge, how Robin hung back but still did what Erik told him to do.
    As she grabs her bag, she sees Robin’s hand suddenly reaching out for her. Their eyes meet and she can just pick up his thought: his strong feeling of guilt, but also something else that is close to fear.
    ‘Oh, piss off,’ Linnéa tells him.
    Robin’s hand drops to his side.
    She stands on shaky legs, then walks away. Her heart is thumping.
    ‘Wow, Robin. Such a gentleman,’ Erik says behind her back. ‘Are you in love?’

13
    Anna-Karin slices through the layers of the savoury gateau with the edge of the server. The swampy bread alternates with gluey mayonnaise, glistening slivers of gravadlax and dull roast beef, segments of egg so hard boiled that there’s a green ring around the yolk. The sight is disgusting but, at the same time, she feels ready to eat the whole gateau. She carefully lifts her portion onto a plate.
    She is so very tired, as if she isn’t properly awake. She could lie down and go to sleep right here, on the plastic flooring of the parish hall. Sleep and eat are what she wants to do these days, nothing else.
    This is my mother’s funeral, she tells herself as she collects a napkin and a cutlery set. My mum has died. She will never be back. I will never meet her again.
    But she doesn’t feel anything. Nothing, except a vague sense of shame that her feelings aren’t stronger, and an intense wish that today would soon be