She's Never Coming Back by Hans Koppel Read Free Book Online

didn’t sound natural, and saying ‘your husband’ sounded insecure, as if he was nervous and having a go at her, in a don’t-do-anything-stupid sort of way.
    He sat there and stared at the display on his mobile phone. The screen image was of Sanna and Ylva on the swimming dock at Hamnplan, dripping with water, smiling happily at the camera with the Danish coastline in the background.
    Hi, it’s me. Your husband …

11
    Ylva heaved and gasped, tried to think straight. They had driven into the garage, carried her down some steps that swung ninety degrees to the right, west towards the water. They had walked along a corridor, two to three metres long and opened double doors into the room she was in now.
    She compared this with her mental image of the house. She’d never been inside before, just seen it from the outside, but she knew that the ground plan was basically square.
    Ylva realised that they’d built the room she was in more or less in the middle of the cellar, as far from the outer walls as possible. The breeze blocks that separated her from therest of the cellar were more than a hundred centimetres thick. They may have insulated the walls even more behind the blocks.
    They had built a music studio, a soundproof room where you could make as much noise as you liked without anything being heard outside. So basically, no matter how much she screamed, no one would hear her.
    But the room couldn’t be completely sealed. There had to be an opening, some kind of ventilation. Oxygen could of course get in through the cracks and joins in the doors and walls, but an extractor would be bigger.
    She quickly crossed the room again, opened the cupboard doors, inspected the walls and ceiling, got down on her knees and looked under the bed.
    There was a vent in the bathroom and in one of the corners of the room. Ylva took the chair from beside the bed and pulled it into position. She got up on it and put her mouth to the vent and shouted for help. Stretching at such an awkward angle gave her cramp in the neck and she found it hard to keep her balance. She almost fell off the chair a couple of times, but managed to stay upright by bending her knees. She screamed for help, desperate and scared.
    She had no idea how much time had passed when shefinally gave up in tears, climbed down from the chair and collapsed on the bed. She looked at the TV screen. The white halos around the street lamps were bigger and the lights in her own house had been turned off. It was night.
    Ylva wondered whether Mike had tried to call her. She couldn’t be sure. Maybe he’d wanted to, but hadn’t dared. Mike was scared that she’d get irritated, that she’d think he was keeping an eye on her, clipping her wings. How many times had she not checked her breath when she felt that he was following her around? Ingratiating and happy to help, but also anxious and on guard.
    And even though she’d never said it aloud, the sentence hung in the air and spoke volumes.
    You can’t lock me up, Mike. It won’t work.
    Mike dropped off to sleep quickly but woke up again just after two. He saw that Ylva wasn’t home yet, went to the loo and then came back to bed. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the light in the bathroom and sat down on the toilet for a piss, everything to increase his chances of going back to sleep, but as soon as he was under the covers again, he was wide awake. Red wine usually had that effect. It made him dozy and sleepy at first, but then he woke up with his heartgoing like the clappers. His brain immediately engaged and proceeded to take him on a twisting and shuddering big dipper ride. The associations were inevitably negative and dark.
    Wherever Ylva was now. He could picture it. Her falling back on to a bed, quickly followed by an intent lover who kissed her passionately on the mouth and then on down her neck. The shirt being ripped off, wild, almost like a parody of a film, but to them, natural and real.
    Ylva’s lover’s eager