changed now.’ He looks at Minoo with a glazed expression and smiles. ‘You needn’t worry, Minoo. They have a new plan for you.’
The hair on the back of her neck stands up. ‘A plan?’ she asks.
‘They haven’t told me the details yet. The important thing is that they’ve agreed to let you live. That’s all that matters to me.’
‘But you have no problem with killing those you don’t care about?’
‘I don’t like to do it, but it’s necessary.’
‘Necessary?’
Max shuts his eyes. The serum has stopped working. He refocuses on her as if he has only just become aware that she’s standing there. ‘What were we talking about?’ he asks.
Minoo opens her mouth but is unable to speak. It’s as if she’s run out of lies.
And Max sees it.
Or are the demons telling him what happened? They aren’t affected by the serum. Max’s eyes harden.
She tries to head for the door, but he grabs her wrist tightly and pulls her to him. ‘Let go!’ Her voice is so weak, like in one of those dreams where you can’t scream, only whisper.
‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What have you done?’ he repeats.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she whispers. ‘I have to go.’
Max lets go of her. ‘I won’t harm you, Minoo,’ he says pleadingly.
She wants to throw up when she remembers how she kissed him.
How could she have kissed him twice without realising he was the murderer? And how can she tell the others?
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says again, and runs out of the classroom.
54
THEY’VE CRAMMED THEMSELVES around Nicolaus’s kitchen table. Nicolaus is standing beside the counter, petting Cat distractedly.
Minoo’s tense shoulders are pulled up so high that they’re almost earrings. She leans forward with her hands on the tabletop. She’s going to be strong now. She’s going to tell them. Across the table she meets Anna-Karin’s eyes. Anna-Karin has also been forced to reveal her secrets to the others.
Minoo has rehearsed what she’s going to say, over and over again, in her head. She tries to gather her courage, to suppress the shame that, on some level, she knows she doesn’t have to feel – but what good is that when she feels it so intensely?
Now everyone’s looking at her.
‘It’s Max,’ she says. ‘Max is the killer.’
That wasn’t how she had intended to start.
‘Max?’ Anna-Karin asks.
‘Max who?’ Vanessa asks.
‘He’s our mentor,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘The maths and physics teacher.’
‘The good-looking one?’ Ida asks.
‘What makes you think it’s him?’ Anna-Karin asks.
And Minoo explains, without looking at them: about Max and Alice and the woman in the painting, about the evening she was at his house, about the kiss by the viaduct, about Gustav’s doppelganger, who was Max, about every thing Max had confessed to her in the classroom.
The only thing she doesn’t tell them is the plan that Max was talking about, the one that the demons have devised for her. It’s too frightening.
‘How could you be so fucking stupid?’ Vanessa says.
‘I didn’t know until yesterday,’ Minoo stammers.
‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ Vanessa says. ‘I’m talking about the truth serum! Anything could have happened! How could you use it on him while you were alone with him?’
‘I had to.’
Linnéa has sat there silently, watching Minoo. But now she leans forward and smiles coldly. ‘So what would have happened if Max had killed you? Then we would never have found out he was the murderer.’
‘I wanted to be sure it was him,’ Minoo says.
‘Exactly. So you wouldn’t have to tell us your dirty little secret.’
Minoo doesn’t know how to answer.
‘And you kissed Gustaf when we thought he was the killer,’ Linnéa continues. ‘That’s pretty fucked up.’
‘He kissed me, but I pushed him away.’
‘But for a second you liked it,’ Linnéa says. ‘Even though you thought Gustaf was the killer, you liked it.’
‘I never said that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
Linnéa is dissecting her alive, Minoo thinks, picking her apart bit by bit and showing how disgusting and disturbed she is.
‘That’s enough,’ Vanessa tell Linnéa. ‘Jonte was selling drugs to Elias, and look what you were doing with him!’
Minoo doesn’t know who they’re talking about, but it’s clear from Linnéa’s face that it hit home. She falls silent and sinks back into her chair.
‘I don’t think any of you is without fault,’ Nicolaus says. ‘We have to move on.’
‘But what should we do?’ Ida asks.
‘Whatever it is, we’d better do it soon,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘Now that Max knows that Minoo knows.’
The significance of Anna-Karin’s words slowly sinks in.
They had waited for this