Vanished Read Free

damn hurricane?’
    Annika pulled her bag up on her shoulder.
    ‘Like I’ve actually got another life.’
2
    Thomas Samuelsson gently touched his wife’s stomach. The old hardness was gone. Since Eleonor had become branch manager at the bank she hadn’t had time to go to the gym as often as she used to.
    He let his hand gradually circle downward, past her navel, until it reached her crotch. His finger slowly followed the groove down to her thighs, feeling the hair and dampness.
    ‘Stop it,’ she muttered, turning away from him.
    He sighed, swallowed, rolled onto his back, his lust thumping like a hammer. He put his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, and heard her breathing settle into a slow rhythm again. She never wanted to any more.
    Annoyed, he threw back the covers and walked into the kitchen naked, his cock deflating. He drank some water from a dirty glass, put coffee into a fresh filter, poured in some water and turned on the machine, then went to the bathroom. In the mirror his hair was sticking up in all directions, giving him a look of irresponsibility more suited to his actual age. He sighed, rubbing his hair with his hands.
    It’s too early to have a midlife crisis
, he thought.
Way too fucking early
.
    He went back to the kitchen and stood staring out to sea. It was dark and wild. The night’s storm was still evident in the foam and waves, and the neighbours’ sundial had toppled over by the French windows.
    What on earth’s the point?
he wondered.
Why are we doing this?
    A great wave of melancholy swept over him, but he was aware that it verged on self-pity. Feeling the draught from the window and thinking of the shoddy workmanship, he shivered, sighed, then went and got his dressing-gown. It was a present from his wife last Christmas, green, blue and burgundy – expensive – from the NK department store. There were matching slippers, but he had never used them.
    The coffee machine gurgled. He got out a mug with the bank’s logo on it and turned on the radio, just in time for the news. The words filtered through his dark mood and the coffee, hitting their target randomly. The hurricane sweeping over the south of Sweden and the damage it was causing. Electricity supplies disrupted. Insurance companies promise prompt payouts. Two men dead. The security zone in southern Lebanon. Kosovo.
    He switched it off and went into the hall, pulled on his boots and went out to fetch the newspaper from the mailbox. The wind tugged at the pages and forced its way through the towelling dressing-gown, chilling his thighs. He stopped, shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. There was ice in the air, the sea would freeze over before too long.
    He looked up at the house – the beautiful, architect-designed villa that her parents had had built for them. There was a light on in the upstairs kitchen, the lamp above the table, designed by someone whose name he couldn’t remember. The light was greenish and cold, like an evil eye watching over the sea. The façade ofthe house looked grey in the morning light. His mother always said it was the most beautiful house in Vaxholm. She had offered to make curtains for every room when they moved in. Eleonor had declined, politely but firmly.
    He went back in. He flicked idly through the different sections of the paper, and ended up, as usual, at the property pages. A five-room flat in Vasastan, with an old tiled stove in every room. A two-room apartment in Gamla stan, a penthouse with exposed beams and stunning views in three directions. A wooden farmhouse outside Malmköping, with electricity and running water, at a bargain price!
    He could hear his wife’s voice in his head:
Daydreams! You’d be a millionaire if you spent half as much time on the share market as you do looking at property adverts
.
    She was already a millionaire.
    He felt a sudden sense of shame. She meant well. Her love was rock-solid. He was the problem, he was the one who was lacking. Maybe