The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,13
at Linnéa. It’s obvious he’s trying to hide his contempt for the black-haired girl with streaked eye-liner. ‘But you two were friends?’ he says to her.
‘Yes,’ Linnéa answers, and lowers her gaze.
‘Elias had problems, I understand.’
A nod is her only answer.
‘And he’d tried to commit suicide before.’
‘Once,’ Linnéa says, her voice little more than a whisper.
‘I see,’ the officer says. ‘Then perhaps there’s nothing more to say about it. Naturally the pathologist will examine him. But the situation does seem fairly straightforward.’
There is something so condescending about his voice that Minoo wants to scream. If Elias had been murdered, and the murderer had made it look like suicide, the police would miss it. Because that’s how things are in this stupid town. You’re only what everyone thinks you are.
‘I see,’ the policeman says again, and stands up. ‘Can you get yourselves home?’
Minoo hasn’t thought that far ahead. ‘I’ll ring my mum,’ she says.
‘How about you?’ the principal asks Linnéa.
‘I’ll manage.’
But the principal hasn’t finished. Minoo can see that she’s groping for words. Even before she starts talking, Minoo knows she’ll say something about Elias, and that it will be so terribly wrong.
‘Linnéa,’ she begins. ‘I’m so very sorry about Elias. He seemed to be a very special person.’
Linnéa’s voice is hoarse and tense when she answers. ‘Then why didn’t you tell him that?’
The principal is rooted to the spot. Her mouth is half open, but nothing comes out.
‘Now, let’s keep calm, all right?’ the police officer says, glancing at the principal protectively.
Linnéa gets up and leaves the room without a word.
Minoo looks at the principal uncertainly.
‘You can go now,’ Miss Lopez says.
Minoo walks back to her classroom to collect her bag. The chairs have been put on top of the desks. Specks of dust swirl in the light falling through the window. She walks up to her desk, but her bag isn’t there.
‘Minoo?’
She turns.
Max is standing in the doorway with it. ‘I held on to this for you.’
‘Thanks.’
When he hands her the bag, their hands brush against each other, and Minoo nearly drops it. Her arms have gone limp again.
How can I feel like this when I’ve just had such a horrific experience? she wonders.
‘How are you doing?’ Max asks softly.
‘I don’t know,’ Minoo says, surprised by the effortless honesty of her answer.
He nods understandingly. ‘When I was your age, someone close to me committed suicide.’
His voice is calm, but he clenches his fist. A certain kind of pain never goes away.
Suddenly she feels Max’s hand on her shoulder. The heat burns right through the fabric of her shirt. ‘If you ever want to talk,’ he says, ‘you know where to find me.’
‘Okay.’ She doesn’t dare say any more. She isn’t sure that her voice will hold up.
‘I’m really sorry. No one should ever have to see what you saw. Look after yourself now,’ he says, and gives her a little squeeze before he lets go.
Suddenly Minoo notices that she’s shaking. Panic takes hold of her, digging its sharp claws into her chest, making it hard to breathe. ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’
She rushes out of the classroom and down the stairs. The sunlight blinds her when she throws open the doors and runs out into the playground. Linnéa is sitting cross-legged, smoking, by the front entrance.
Minoo’s heart is pounding and she’s so short of breath she has trouble speaking. She looks towards the street and sees her mother’s red car. She can make out her familiar profile through the windscreen.
‘Do you want a lift?’ she finally manages to say.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Why were you running?’
‘I – I don’t know. I just felt I had to get out of there.’
‘I spoke to him just before it happened. He was going to come over to my house later that night. He wanted to talk—’ She stops herself. ‘We’d had an argument. But we weren’t … There was something he wanted to tell me … He wouldn’t have just …’ Linnéa doesn’t finish her sentence.
She can’t admit to herself, Minoo thinks, that her best friend abandoned her. ‘Why didn’t you say anything to the police?’ she asks instead.
‘The police.’ Linnéa snorts. Suddenly her gaze is hard and unforgiving.
‘Well, shouldn’t you tell them?’ Minoo says.
‘What the hell would you know about anything? You’ve always lived in your cosy house with your cosy family.’
Minoo meets her gaze. She’s ashamed because she knows