The Gilded Cage Read online

  They could have flown, then hired a car at the airport. Why did she always have to complicate things? Jack was right. She was completely useless. As a wife, and as a mother.

  Her good mood had vanished altogether.

  Faye fetched Julienne, and bought a banana that she ate on the way to the car, then tossed the peel in a bin before getting them both back in the car.

  ‘How are you feeling now, darling?’

  ‘I want to go home. Please, can we go home?’

  ‘Try to get some sleep and you’ll feel better.’

  Julienne was too tired to protest. She leaned her head against the door and closed her eyes. Faye put one hand on her thigh and pulled out onto the motorway again.

  Thirty kilometres from Jönköping she had had enough of Whitney Houston. Keeping her eyes on the road she felt for her mobile to put a podcast on instead, but couldn’t find it. She slowed down and pulled in behind a red Volkswagen Golf, then reached for her handbag, which she had left on the back seat to prevent it getting covered in sick. As she felt behind her, the car veered slightly. Julienne let out a whimper, sighed groggily, then fell back to sleep again.

  Faye stopped. Shivering with cold she felt through her pockets, under the seats. But her mobile phone wasn’t there. She realized it could be anywhere, at the roadside where they had stopped, or at the petrol station. She stifled a scream so as not to wake Julienne. She hit the steering wheel with both hands in frustration. Her phone contained the number and address of the neighbour who was going to give them the keys to the house.

  Faye turned round in a side-road and started to head back towards Stockholm. When she was younger she never gave up, but in recent years she had had a lot of practice at it.

  Matilda would never have given up. But Faye knew exactly how it was done.

  Faye was carrying Julienne in one arm and their luggage in the other. The lift door closed and she slid the grille across. She looked at her face in the mirror: dark rings under her eyes, puffy, pale skin. Beads of sweat on her forehead and top lip. And a look of resignation.

  Julienne opened her eyes.

  ‘Where are we?’ she murmured sleepily.

  ‘Home, darling. You weren’t feeling well, we can go to Skåne another time.’

  Julienne smiled dully. Nodded.

  ‘I feel sleepy,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know, sweetheart. You’ll soon be back in your own bed.’

  The lift stopped with a jolt. Faye opened the grille and hoisted Julienne up onto her hip. The weight was making her arms ache. Julienne had her arms wrapped round her like a little monkey, and protested feebly when she put her down to look for the keys.

  Jack hated it if she rang the doorbell and disturbed him.

  Eventually she got the door open and they stumbled into the apartment. She summoned the last of her strength to get Julienne’s coat and boots off, carry her to her bed and kiss her goodnight. Then she went up into the tower to see if Jack was still working.

  The study was empty, and smelled stuffy. She opened the window to air it, placing a plant-pot in the gap to stop the window from slamming shut.

  Jack must be at work, she thought with relief as she headed towards the bedroom to shower and change her clothes. She was glad she had a chance to freshen up before he got home. She felt pathetic, and didn’t want him to see her looking like a damp rag.

  Faye pulled the bedroom door open and it was as if the room in front of her was suddenly full of water. Everything stopped around her. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and a ringing in her ears that grew louder with each passing second.

  Jack was standing at the foot of the bed with his back to her. Naked. Faye stared at his backside. Saw the familiar birthmark on his right buttock. The birthmark was moving back and forth as he groaned and thrust his hips. In front of him was a woman on all fours, her back arched, legs wide apart.

  Faye staggered and reached out for the doorpost for support.

  Everything was happening so slowly. All sound was muffled, subdued. The floor around the bed was littered with clothes, as if they had been in a hurry to get out of them.

  She had no idea how long she had been standing there before they noticed her.

  Maybe she let out a shriek without being aware of it. Jack turned round, Ylva Lehndorf leapt up and tried in vain to cover herself with a pillow.

  ‘What the hell, I thought you were in Skåne!’ Jack yelled. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Faye tried to speak. How could he be angry? With her? She stood there speechless. Then a torrent of words tumbled out, about Julienne, her phone, the drive home. She tried to explain, tried to make excuses. Jack held one hand up and Faye fell silent at once.

  Jack gestured to Ylva, his business partner, to put her clothes on, and reached for a dressing-gown. He was bound to be frustrated by the fact that he hadn’t been able to come. He hated to be interrupted. He used to say that the ruined orgasm stayed in his body all day.

  Jack sat down on the edge of the bed. Looked at her with a cold, steady gaze.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ he said.

  The air went out of her.

  ‘No,’ she said, clutching the door-frame. ‘No, Jack. I forgive you. We don’t have to talk about this again, you made a mistake, that’s all. We’ll get through this.’

  The words echoed in her head. Bounced between the two lobes of her brain without finding a foothold. But she heard herself say them. So she must have said them. And meant them.

  Jack was shaking his head from side to side. Behind him Ylva had put her underwear on and was staring out of the window.

  Jack was looking directly at Faye, studying her from top to toe, and she ran a hand nervously through her hair, all too aware of how she looked. He tied the dressing-gown tighter around his waist.

  ‘It’s not a mistake. I don’t love you any more, I don’t want to live with you.’

  ‘We can get through this,’ Faye repeated.

  Her legs were close to giving way. Tears were running down her cheeks. She could hear the desperation in her voice.

  ‘Can’t you hear what I’m saying? I don’t love you any more. I … I love her.’

  He nodded towards Ylva, who turned to look at Faye. She was still wearing nothing but her underwear. Grey La Perla. Her taut stomach, perfect breasts, narrow boyish hips all mocked Faye. She was everything that Faye no longer was.

  Jack sighed and Ylva’s wary expression turned to derision as Faye sank to her knees in front of Jack. The wooden floor felt hard under her knees. They had had all the floors replaced when they moved in. Faye had wanted them to sand and oil the original floors, she thought they were beautiful, but Jack had snorted at the suggestion. Instead they had imported new floors from Italy, at a cost of several thousand kronor per square metre. But the expensive floor hurt her knees just as much as the old original floor would have done. It made no difference to her humiliation.

  ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Give me one more chance. I’ll change, I’ll be better. I know I’ve been hard to live with, mean … foolish … stupid. But I’ll make you happy. Please, Jack, give me a chance. You and Julienne are all I’ve got. You’re my life.’

  Faye tried to take Jack’s hand but he pulled it away. He seemed disgusted. And she could understand that. She was disgusted by herself too.

  He went over to Ylva, who was now sitting on the bed with one long leg crossed over the other. With a proud air of ownership he stood beside her. Put one hand on her bare shoulder. Ylva put her hand on his. Together they looked at Faye, who was still on her knees on the bespoke Italian wooden floor.

  Jack shook his head and said, without the slightest tremble in his voice:

  ‘It’s over. I want you to go now.’

  Slowly Faye got up from the floor. She backed out of the bedroom, unable to take her eyes from Jack’s hand on Ylva’s bare, bony shoulder. She didn’t turn round until she had passed Julienne’s closed door. She knew she ought to be think
ing of her daughter, take some sort of decision, take her, not take her, say something, not say anything. But Juliane was safe and the only thought her brain was capable of formulating was that she had to get out of there. At once.

  With the image of Jack’s bare backside between Ylva’s legs etched on her retinas, she stumbled out of the front door and let it swing closed behind her. Only when she was standing on the landing did she realize she’d forgotten to put any shoes on.

  Faye was sitting on the floor outside Chris’s flat, her body racked with sobs.

  Somehow she had managed to hail a taxi, and when he saw the state of her the driver had helped her into the back seat without a word.

  She had banged on the door in the vain hope that Chris could save her from everything, but when there was no answer she had collapsed to the floor. Now she didn’t know if she was ever going to have the strength to get up again.

  ‘Faye? Christ, what’s happened?’

  At last.

  Faye looked up and saw Chris walking cautiously towards her. Faye reached out to her, now sobbing so hard that she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Help me,’ were the only words she managed to utter.

  PART 2

  ‘How can you be sure that … that it was him who did it?’

  ‘I can’t go into detail about that at the moment,’ the policewoman said, without meeting Faye’s gaze.

  ‘Please, I’ve lost my daughter. But the idea that Jack … I mean, we’ve had our problems, but I still can’t believe … there must be some sort of mistake …’

  ‘I really shouldn’t …’

  The policewoman looked round. The other officer had gone to fetch Faye some coffee. She lowered her voice and said:

  ‘It’s not just the blood we found in the car. The satnav shows that Jack drove to a harbour on the shore of Lake Vättern in the middle of the night. We found a boat there with traces of blood that’s probably Julienne’s.’

  Faye nodded, then winced as the movement made the wounds on her face sting. The interview was being taped, so she knew she wasn’t going to hear anything they weren’t ready to release. They wanted her to trust and form a connection with the woman standing in front of her looking at her sympathetically. They wanted to get her to cooperate. They didn’t understand that they didn’t have to play any games with her. She was going to cooperate. Jack wasn’t going to get away.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call? Anyone you’d like to come over?’

  Faye shook her head. She grimaced again with the pain. She had been patched up in hospital, and now had a number of stitches.

  ‘We can probably leave it there for today. But I’m sure we’ll have to come back to ask some more questions.’

  ‘You’ve got my number,’ Faye mumbled.

  ‘The vicar’s on his way. Obviously you can go home if that’s what you’d like to do. But I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to be on your own right now.’

  ‘The vicar?’

  At first Faye didn’t understand what the police officer was talking about. What did she want with a vicar?

  ‘Well, people who … who have suffered a loss like yours often need comfort, someone to talk to.’

  Faye looked up and met her gaze.

  ‘People whose children have been killed, you mean?’

  The police officer hesitated, then said: ‘Yes.’

  A movement on the bed. Someone had sat down on it. Faye forced her eyes open and found herself looking directly into Chris’s. They looked simultaneously concerned and firm.

  ‘I love you, Faye, but you’ve been lying in this bed for two weeks now. As soon as anyone mentions Jack or Julienne you start crying. This can’t go on.’

  She nodded towards the door.

  ‘If you want anything you’re going to have to come and find me. If you want food, from now on you’re going to have to go to the kitchen and make it yourself. I won’t be coming into this room again, even if you swear Denzel Washington is lying naked and tied to the bed.’

  The next day Faye stumbled into the kitchen, wearing her underpants and a Nirvana T-shirt.

  Chris had a cup of coffee in one hand, and Vanity Fair lay open on the table in front of her. She looked at Faye over the rim of the cup.

  ‘There’s breakfast in the freezer. I’m sticking to the Lindsay Lohan diet.’

  Faye pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Coffee, fags and the morning-after pill.’

  She smiled ironically.

  ‘Get yourself something to eat. I have to get to work soon. Do you want to come along?’

  Faye shook her head.

  ‘Probably better to stay at home. Watch a film, have a cry, feel sorry for yourself. I’m just glad you’ve emerged from that room. It was starting to smell.’

  Faye put her hand on Chris’s arm and looked her in the eye.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘For everything. For … oh, you know.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. You can stay at casa de Chris until you’re back on your feet again. As long as you shower regularly.’

  Faye nodded. That sounded like a deal she could live with.

  Faye felt wretched. Almost hungover. When Chris had gone she lay on the sofa, took out her mobile and called Jack. As she had done every day. Obviously because she wanted to talk to Julienne, but perhaps even more because she wanted to hear his voice. Each time she called he sounded more irritated and their conversations grew shorter and shorter. It was like talking to a stranger.

  ‘Yes?’ he replied curtly.

  ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  ‘So I saw. Julienne isn’t here right now. They’ve just left for preschool.’

  ‘They?’

  Jack cleared his throat. She could hear noises, voices in the background.

  ‘I didn’t have time to take Julienne today, there’s a lot on, so Ylva drove her.’

  Faye couldn’t believe it. Only two weeks had passed, and already Ylva and Jack were playing happy families. Faye had been replaced. Exchanged for a newer model. Like any old housekeeper or child-minder.

  Not seeing Julienne had been a torment, but up until now she hadn’t felt up to it. She had persuaded herself that it was in her daughter’s best interests to be in familiar surroundings, and that it would only harm her to see her mum shattered by grief.

  ‘Hello?’ Jack said.

  ‘I need to come and get some things,’ Faye said, forcing her voice to sound normal. ‘And I want to see Julienne.’

  ‘Now isn’t a good time.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For you to come and get your things. Everything’s a bit upside down here. We … I’ve bought a house. We’re in the middle of moving.’

  Faye closed her eyes. Focused on her breathing. She mustn’t let herself go to pieces.

  ‘Where are you moving?’

  ‘Gåshaga. Close to Henrik and Alice, actually. It wasn’t planned, but we … well, we saw a wonderful property online.’

  We. He was talking about them as we. Jack and Ylva. Since 2001 it had been Jack and Faye, but now he was we with someone else entirely. Faye held the phone away from her ear to stop herself hearing. She had nagged him for years about moving to a house, saying it would be good for Julienne, but he hadn’t wanted to. He liked being close to the city and his office. But now evidently he and Ylva had seen a ‘wonderful property online’. Just like that.

  ‘… text me a list of what you need, and I’ll have it couriered over.’

  ‘OK,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘What about Julienne? I need to see her.’

  ‘I really think that could wait until you’ve got yourself somewhere to live, but OK. You can come next week, once the move is over,’ he declared magnanimously, and ended the call.

  In her mind’s eye Faye could see Ylva making nice with Julienne, spoiling her, dressing her up, indulging her, watching films, plaiting her hair. She was probably an expert at French plaits. Even the inverted type
Julienne always asked for but Faye had never managed to get right.

  And every time she closed her eyes she saw Jack and Ylva in front of her. Ylva with her perfect lips and pert breasts. Jack penetrating her, telling her how beautiful she was, groaning her name when he came.

  The biggest irony of all was that Ylva Lehndorf was everything Faye could have been if Jack hadn’t said he wanted a housewife who’d be there for him when he needed it. Why had he changed his mind?

  He was the one who had transformed her into a different person, after all. Someone she no longer recognized. And if she wasn’t Jack Adelheim’s wife, who was she? During her years with Jack she had peeled everything else away, layer by layer. There was nothing left.

  Faye had borrowed Chris’s car. Her hands were shaking so hard that she could barely hold onto the steering wheel. She was going to see Julienne again. At last.

  There was hardly any traffic on the road out to Lidingö. The sun was shining, and thin clouds were chasing across the blue sky. She followed the satnav’s instructions and stopped in front of a hill. At the top lay a large stone building that looked like a palace. A wonderful property. The sort of house she herself had dreamed of.

  Jack’s Tesla was parked in the drive. Some men were lifting removal boxes from a large truck.

  She rang a bell at the gate, looked into a camera and had to wait a few seconds before it opened with a gentle rumble. She drove in and parked behind the truck.

  A bald foreman yelled at her to move her car so it wasn’t in the way. Faye raised her hand apologetically and did as he asked.

  Julienne came running out, and Faye undid her belt and jumped from the car. She clutched her daughter to her, breathing in her smell. Tears were burning behind her eyelids despite the promise she’d made to herself that she wasn’t going to cry. She would grit her teeth and bear it, no matter what.

  Jack came out onto the steps. He was wearing beige chinos and a green pullover with a pale blue shirt-collar sticking out of it. He was more handsome than ever.

  ‘Darling, I’ve missed you so much,’ Faye said, kissing the top of Julienne’s head. ‘I just have to have a little talk with Daddy. Can you go and play, and I’ll come and find you?’