The Asylum by Johan Theorin Read Free Book Online Page B

hospital again. But the woman behind the fence has disappeared. Only the pile of leaves remains.
    The routines continue. The children come inside, take off their coats and boots and go straight to the playroom, where they sit down with a variety of games. Jan has always been fascinated by how disciplined small children can be when they know what they are supposed to do.
    When everyone is settled, Marie-Louise looks at the clock. ‘Time to go.’
    She takes a magnetic key card out of a cupboard in the kitchen and leads the way to the cloakroom.
    ‘Leo!’ she shouts. ‘Time to go!’
    Beside the coat hooks there is a white door that Jan has not noticed up to now – or at least it hasn’t occurred to him to wonder what lies beyond it.
    Marie-Louise swipes the card and keys in a four-digit code, three–one–zero–seven, and the white door opens. ‘My birthday,’ she says. ‘July thirty-first.’
    Jan can see a steep stone staircase beyond the door. Marie-Louise switches on the light and turns around, holding out her hand and smiling. ‘Right then, Leo – shall we go and see Daddy?’
    Leo hasn’t been playing outside. He is barely five years old; a slight child with skinny legs, dressed in little blue dungarees. He takes Marie-Louise’s hand and walks down the stairs with her, one step at a time. Jan follows in silence.
    ‘Could you close the door, Jan?’
    The shouts and joyful laughter from the pre-school are cut off abruptly. The staircase is as silent as the grave. The walls seem to be made of the same material as the wall surrounding the hospital; any sound is muted down here.
    Leo’s little legs plod on down the stairs. Marie-Louise doesn’t speak either; there is a palpable seriousness in the air.
    After twenty steps they reach the basement level, and set off along an underground corridor with a concrete floor which is covered in a thin blue carpet. But someone has spent time trying to make the corridor look pleasant: the walls are painted a sunny yellow, and adorned with brightly coloured pictures.
    Jan sees that they are pen and ink drawings. He couldn’t have drawn them – they are too cheerful. Laughing mice swimming in a pool, elephants smoking great big pipes, walruses playing tennis.
    It feels as if the animals are in the wrong place down here.
    ‘Here we are,’ Marie-Louise says all of a sudden. ‘We’ve arrived, Leo!’
    They have walked some fifty metres and are deep underground now, presumably beneath the hospital itself. To the right there is a white-painted lift door with a narrow pane of glass. But the corridor does not end here; it continues straight on for another eight or ten metres, then turns sharply to the right.
    Marie-Louise opens the door of the lift for Leo, and he toddles inside.
    Jan also takes a step forward, but she shakes her head. ‘Leo wants to go up on his own,’ she says. ‘The children are allowed to do that if they want to.’
    Jan nods. He feels tense, but he had hoped to get as far as the visitors’ room. ‘But we do go up with the children sometimes?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ says Marie-Louise. ‘You and the child make that decision together.’
    When the door is open Jan catches a brief glimpse of the lift. He sees a small metal chamber with two buttons marked UP and DOWN, next to another card reader and a red panic button. CCTV cameras? He can’t see any on the walls or ceiling.
    Marie-Louise steps into the lift, swipes her magnetic card and presses the button marked UP. ‘Bye then, Leo!’ she shouts as she closes the door. ‘See you soon!’ Her voice sounds even more exuberant than usual, as if she is trying to chase away a sudden twinge of unease.
    Jan catches sight of Leo’s little face looking out of the narrow window. Then the lift makes a clicking sound and begins to move upwards.
    ‘OK, that’s it, we can head back,’ says Marie-Louise. Her voice sounds calmer now, and she goes on: ‘Someone needs to collect Leo in an hour – perhaps you could