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

hands drawn to her cunt, her gasps and half-strangled cry as he penetrated.
    Mike opened his eyes to clear the images in his head, replace them with what his eyes could see: the window, the clock-radio, his clothes on the chair, the wardrobe and the mirror. Everything was real and existed in the real world.
    He turned on the bedside lamp, let his eyes adjust to the light. Time, 02.31. It wasn’t that late. Not really.
    Ylva had gone out with her colleagues. They were drinking wine and talking loudly about work, male colleagues who for some reason were senior to them and smug with it, about promotions and being overlooked. Or they were telling stories about their husbands. What was good and bad about them. Those who had problems wereoffered comfort and advice and, when they’d analysed it thoroughly, they raised their glasses and came out with over-confident claims.
    I’m absolutely certain …
    And whatever might follow a lead-in like that.
    No, it was men who were absolutely certain. Men without voices. Men in old men’s bars, with a cheap pint in front of them. The female equivalent was probably:
Well, I still think that …
    Ylva and her female colleagues would soon return to their lives with a lighter heart, having offloaded their problems through the course of the evening.
    Mike wondered if he was ever discussed in his role as manager. And if so, what his staff actually said. That he was weak? Probably not, not at work. Vague? No. What negative opinions would they have? Mike reckoned cold, that he was like a robot. They might even call him a psychopath and say that he showed absolutely no empathy. Which was presumably wrong, Mike guessed, because a psychopath was in fact sensitive to signals around him or her and careful to exploit them. Even if he or she decided in the end to ignore them and do whatever was necessary to get their own way.
    Mike pushed the thought from his mind, felt almost hotand bothered by the interest he imagined his employees had in his life.
    He fell asleep again, secure in the knowledge that he earned nearly four times as much as Ylva and the life they lived would not be possible without his income.

12
    The Gang of Four, Calle Collin thought to himself, and sighed loudly.
    Jörgen Petersson had too much money, that was obvious. Too much money, too much time and too little to do. Was Ylva the equivalent of Mao’s old widow, was that what he imagined?
    Calle almost got annoyed. Why did all the nutters come to him? He was like a magnet for idiots. Did he have a neon sign saying ‘tolerant’ above his head? Was he too nice? Did they think that because he was a homosexual he understood the pain of being an outsider and so welcomed every man and his dog with open arms?
    Probably the latter. Positive prejudice could be just as hard to deal with as negative. Jörgen had called him a good-natured poof. And Calle had asked what that made him, a fag hag?
    The Gang of Four. How stupid was that?
    What was Jörgen thinking, anyway?
    Calle was still lying in bed. He had a headache and was too tired to masturbate. But he could feel the restlessness of the alcohol that was in the process of leaving his body. He had a wank all the same. To blanket his hangover and anxiety and change his frame of mind. He came on his stomach and got out of bed with his hand over the sperm, so it wouldn’t drip on the floor. He hurried out into the bathroom, wiped his belly clean, had a piss and went back to bed.
    The Gang of Four. As if they were a group of nonconformists in monk cowls who spoke in tongues and were blood brothers.
    They weren’t that bad. And, anyway, the group kind of disintegrated halfway through Class Nine and formed new alliances and constellations.
    Typical of Jörgen to give them a name. The Gang of Four.
    He had always overdramatised things as a child. But maybe that was the secret behind his success, that he was not blinded by detail, that he could still see the woods despite the trees.
    That was