Missing

fuck?
    ‘Ready as soon as I can. Just give me a couple of minutes.’
    She put her ear to the door and heard steps walking away. There was a laminated chart showing emergency exits right in front of her nose and she studied the options while she fumbled with the safety-pin in the waistband. Checking the number of her room, she found that it was just two doors away from the emergency stairs. She rushed to get her jacket and handbag, and then listened again at the chink in the door. Cautiously, she opened the door a fraction and peeped into the corridor. It was empty.
    She stepped briskly into the corridor, shutting the door behind her quietly. Seconds later, she was running down the back stairs. They had to lead to a door opening into the street.
    Then she remembered. The briefcase! She had left it behind. It pulled her up short, but it took only a moment of hesitation to realise her briefcase was lost. And so was the wig in the bathroom. Shit, almost 740 kronor down the toilet and such a brilliant investment too, which should have given her many nights of undisturbed sleep. Even the complimentary soaps and the little shampoo bottles had been forgotten.
    At the bottom of the stairs she stopped in front of a metal door with a lit green Emergency Exit sign. Pushing on the locking bar, she opened the door enough to put her head outside. A police car was parked just twenty-odd yards away, but it was empty and this gave her enough courage to step out into the street. She looked around, realising that she was at the back of the Grand Hotel.
    The morning traffic in Stall Street had come to a standstill. She squeezed between the cars without looking too obviously stressed and crossed Blasieholm Square. At the Arsenal Street corner, she turned right, walked past Bern’s Café and down Hamn Street. No one seemed to have followed her, but to make sure she continued across Normalm Square, along Bibliotek Street and began slowing down only when she was outside the Wiener Café.
    The café seemed a good place to sit down and think. She chose a table as far away from the window as possible and tried to calm down.
    This had been a far closer shave than at any other time since she’d started to spoil herself with nights in hotels. She had better forget about the Grand for quite a while. What she didn’t understand was how Grundberg could have got wise to her. Had any of the staff recognised her and phoned his room? Why in that case leave her in peace all night? Well, she’d never know. Perhaps just as well.
    She looked around the café. Everywhere, people were having breakfast.
    She wished she had some money. A drink would have been nice, her throat felt sore. She wondered if she was running a temperature as well and put her hand to her forehead. Hard to tell.
    She looked at her watch to check the date. It had stopped again. She’d worn it on her arm ever since receiving it as a Confirmation gift seventeen years ago. A present from mummy and daddy. With best wishes for a happy, prosperous life.
    Imagine that.
    It was true that she was happier nowadays, relatively speaking. She had decided to make something of her miserable life and had come to believe she actually could do it. This was important, but anyway she was much happier in her present life than as the well-behaved daughter from a solid, middle-class home. ‘Good’ behaviour had been the first thing to go and, come to think of it, it was hard to say why they tolerated it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, many other character flaws were discovered and finally all family patience with her ran out. That was the end of her life in the executive villa.
    The one reminder of her past came in the form of a white envelope without a return address that turned up in her box at the Drottning Street post office every month, year in and year out. It always contained exactly one thousand five hundred kronor.
    Never a word in writing, never any questions about how she was getting on. Her mother pai to clear her conscience, just as she’d paid to stop herself worrying about the little children in Biafra. As likely as not, her father knew nothing about it.
    Renting the post office box cost sixty-two kronor a month.

    A young waitress with a ring in her nose came to her table and asked what she’d like to order. Quite a few things actually, if only she’d had the money. She shook her head, got up and started walking down Bibliotek Street towards the Central Station. She had to change