Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

broad shoulders, and their voices were changing. They had peach fuzz on their upper lips, hair on their legs and in their armpits. Their Adam’s apples were as big as ripe plums. Before games I used to try to hide in the changing room. It was a torment to have to undress in front of the others. I always claimed the shower in the corner and stood with my back turned, washing as fast as I could.’
    I close my eyes. These memories are painful. My eyes are stinging. I don’t want to cry right now. I’m feeling a little sick, but I go on: ‘Even today I can still hear the sound of the spraying shower water, the rough voices, the joking and teasing. The snap of towels slapping bare skin. Water fights, towel fights. And the whole time I’m standing in the corner with my back turned to all the other boys. It was pure hell. PE lessons were too. I was always the last one to be picked. Everyone sighed if they were forced to have me on their team. They never passed the ball to me. When I lie awake at night, I can still see their faces and hear their comments.’
    ‘How did you get through it?’
    ‘I didn’t. Finally I asked the teacher if I could practise discus throwing instead. Can you imagine that? The discus, of all ridiculous ideas. And the teacher went for it. So instead of playing basketball and football with the others, which was actually what I loved most, I would stand all alone on the grass behind the sports hall and throw the discus. Lesson after lesson. The teacher didn’t care. He just let me keep practising. That was probably a lot easier for him.’
    Silence settles over the room. I down the rest of the water in the glass on the table in order to stave off the feeling of nausea. I’m about to fall into the darkness, and I don’t want to go there. I clutch the glass tight, holding it with both hands. I need to concentrate. How am I going to make it home? I’m on the verge of collapsing. I open my mouth again and the words automatically spill out. I listen to the voice, which sounds unfamiliar, as if it doesn’t belong to me.
    ‘If only I’d known what was ahead of me when I entered that classroom. A darkness that would last three years. And that’s an endless number of dark days. A feeling of dread would fill me each morning when I forced myself to get out of bed. Three years of humiliation and annihilation. Do you know what that does to a person? I’ve never understood why they hated me so much. I was completely alone.’
    The memories are still buried in my body. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to put down the glass.
    ‘But what about at home? During all those years when you were having such a bad time, didn’t your mother notice anything? What did she do?’
    I can hear the bitterness in my voice as I say: ‘Nothing. She never did anything.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘It must have been obvious that I was having a bloody awful time of it. I never wanted to get out of bed in the morning. After school and all evening I would lie on my bed, alone in my room, and listen to music on my headset. Do you understand? Every night! Weekdays and weekends. Year after year. For three years not a single friend ever came home with me. No one ever phoned. And what did my mother do? Nothing.’
    ‘And you never talked about this with her? Didn’t she ever ask you what was wrong?’
    * * *
    I can’t bring myself to answer. Nausea has taken hold of me full force, and I feel as if I’m going to throw up at any second. My vision blurs. I see that the person across from me is leaning forward and saying something, but I no longer hear the voice.
    I can’t stay here. I pick up my jacket and rush out of the door, then set off running for home. Along the way I bump into a pram, almost toppling it over. A woman screams abuse after me. Outside of the Konsum supermarket I knock over a bucket of tulips.
    I manage to stay in control as I ride up in the lift. As soon as I get my door open, I dash for the toilet.
    I lift the lid just in time.

JOHAN HAD NEVER received so much criticism for a story as he did after his report on the murder at the conference centre, which was broadcast on Monday evening. Regional News was the only programme to reveal Viktor Algård’s identity and the first to mention his pending divorce, as well as the possibility that he was having a love affair. All of this provoked a heated discussion about journalistic ethics.
    After every broadcast Johan and Pia had a teleconference with the