The Man Who Watched Women (22 page)

‘He'd just turned eight that first time. He didn't really understand what was happening. Of course. He was thirty-eight when it stopped. By then it had destroyed him.'

‘It went on for thirty years?' Vanja looked sceptical.

‘Yes.'

‘Why didn't he just leave her? Or stop?'

Sebastian had been asked that question many times. Edward's mother was ill, she had no way of stopping him from leaving, and he became an adult. Why did he stay?

‘At first he was too small. Then he was too scared. And then … it had gone too far.' Sebastian shook his head. ‘I can't explain it more clearly without going into more detail about what makes us the people we become, and that wouldn't help in this case. You don't have the imagination to understand their relationship.'

Vanja simply nodded. Sebastian's dismissal might have been intended as an insult, but she could take it. She was glad she couldn't imagine everything the lonely eight-year-old had gone through.

‘Didn't anybody find out? Didn't anybody suspect anything?' Billy was leaning forward, interested. ‘I mean, it must have affected his schoolwork, among other things.'

‘His mother threatened to kill herself if he told anyone. It was essential that he should behave in a perfectly normal way so that no one would suspect anything. If he did anything even remotely different, people might begin to wonder, might find out. Oddly enough, he became more and more “normal” the longer it went on. He became a master at dealing with any situation that might arise. He had to. If he didn't do what he was supposed to do, she would die.'

His mother lies down on her stomach on the bed and pulls up her nightdress. He never sees her face. It is buried in the pillow. At first she explained how he must lie down on top of her, what he must do, how he should move. She has stopped doing that now. Now she is silent. To begin with, anyway. He knows exactly what will happen. There are no deviations. She shouts for him, asks him to sit down beside her, tells him what a big boy he is, what a good boy he is, how glad she is that she has him, how happy he makes her. Then she takes his hand and guides it beneath the covers. Everything happens in exactly the same way every time.

After a while the noises start. From deep down in the pillow. He hates the noises. He wishes they would go away. The noises mean that it will soon be over. He doesn't like what they do. He has realised by now that other mothers don't behave like this. He doesn't like it. But he likes what comes next even less. After the noises …

‘Every time he was forced to have sex with her, he was punished afterwards. He was unclean. Dirty. He had done something ugly and disgusting, and his mother couldn't stand the sight of him.'

Her head is turned away as she opens the door of the windowless cupboard under the stairs. He goes in and sits down on the cold floor. There is no point in crying or begging to be let off. That will just make it worse. He will be in there for even longer. He wraps his arms around his knees. She closes the door without a word. She has not spoken since she made those noises into the pillow. And he isn't even sure if those were words. It is dark. He never knows how long he sits there. He can't tell the time. No one has taught him. They have just started learning in school. He knows the hour and half past and quarter past and quarter to. But it doesn't matter, because he has no watch to look at anyway. Sometimes he thinks that's a good thing. If he had a watch, he would know how long he has been locked up for, and he might panic. Think she had forgotten about him. Or gone away. Left him. As it is, the time and the darkness flow into one. His teacher once told him that dogs have no concept of time. They don't know if they have been alone for an hour, or a whole day. In the darkness he is a dog. He loses all concept of time. Is it five hours or two days? He never really knows. He is just happy when the door opens. Like a dog.

He doesn't understand. He will never understand. He does everything she tells him to do, and yet he ends up here. In the darkness and the cold. It is never his suggestion that they should do what they do. Never his idea. She is the one who shouts for him. The one who pushes his hand down the bed. And yet she cannot look at him afterwards. She thinks he is dirty. Ugly. He gets hungry, but the hunger disappears. The thirst is worse. He pees on the floor. He would prefer not to. He knows he will have to clean it up afterwards. When she opens the door. When the punishment is over. Sometimes he defecates as well. If he's in there for a long time. He can't help it. When she doesn't open the door for a long time …

‘Eventually he was let out. He was forgiven, but it wasn't over. He must be reminded of his sins, and so that he wouldn't repeat them she would attach one of those big bulldog clips to his foreskin. And there it would stay until she gave him permission to remove it.'

Everyone in the room grimaced, Billy and Torkel perhaps with a little more feeling.

‘I don't buy it.' Billy again. ‘How is it possible for someone to go through all this without anyone noticing? He must have had a fair amount of time off school.'

‘She rang and said that he was ill. Asthma and migraine. Otherwise he was very successful in school. In spite of everything he got through junior school, high school and university. Top grades all the way. Afterwards he got a low-grade job, just to make enough to live on. He was obviously overqualified, but lied on his CV. He had superficial contacts. Colleagues. His IQ was somewhere in the region of a hundred and thirty, so he was certainly intelligent enough to play “normal”, but he was completely incapable of forming deeper relationships which required empathy or any kind of genuine emotion. He might be found out if something like that happened.'

Sebastian paused and drank a glass of water.

‘His mother died in 1994. Just over a year later, Edward began to seek out other women. His first victim was a colleague at the National Board of Health and Welfare, who was obviously interested in him and sometimes tried to chat to him.'

He is waiting. In one hand he holds the bag containing the nightdress and the stockings. He knows that she wants him. She is planning to take over. She wants to continue what his mother used to do. She wants to do the dirty thing. The bad thing. She wants to make him do things that will lead to the punishment. The pain. The darkness and the humiliation. They all do. But he does not intend to allow it. Not this time.

He rings the doorbell. She smiles. He knows why. He knows what she wants, but she is going to get a surprise. This time he is going to take control. She barely has time to invite him in when he hits her. Hard. Twice. He forces her to show him the bedroom. Off with her clothes. On with the nightdress. Down on her stomach. He ties her up with the stockings. When she cannot move, he leaves the bedroom. He takes the bag containing his supplies and the empty bottle into which he intends to urinate. He searches for the place. The place where she will lock him up. He finds it in the cellar. A lock on the outside. Dark on the inside. He arranges the things he has brought with him on the floor. Now he will be able to get through the punishment. Afterwards.

‘But there is no afterwards. He cuts their throats, just to escape the punishment.'