Box 21 by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström Page B

the toilet and put everything you’ve brought into the bin, then stick some used paper towels on top. Keep everything, the gun and the ammo and the explosive and the video, in a plastic bag; the stuff in the bin might be wet. Oh, and some string. I need string too. Can you get hold of some?’
     
‘So I’m to walk past you and pretend you aren’t there?’
     
‘Yes.’
     
Alena Sljusareva turned her back on the water and walked away. When she reached the road the wind had picked up. It was a wide road that cut through the harbour area, passing the warehouses on its way up towards Gärdet.
     
The city centre was full of people, tourists desperately shopping while the rain fell. Alena was grateful for the crowds. The more people there were in the streets, the easier it was for her to hide.
     
She took the metro to the Central Station, went to find box 21, opened it and put the video in her bag. Then she stood for a while in front of the open locker, staring into the dark interior where their belongings were stacked on two shelves. Their lives. At least, the only parts they accepted. All that mattered after three years.
     
She had only been there twice before, on the day they acquired it, and then yesterday.
     
Almost two years ago, Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp had taken them to the Central Station. He had told them that they were to leave the Stockholm flat for a few weeks and work in Copenhagen instead. The flat there had turned out to be in a building just off the Strřget shopping area and close to the harbour. The customers were mostly drunk Swedes fresh off the Malmö ferry, smelling of lager and duty-free chocolate bars. They often paid for two goes, went off after the first time to drink through the night and returned to slap the girls about or wank in front of them or ride them once more before going back home.
     
While they had waited for the train to Copenhagen, Alena had said she needed to go to the toilet, simply had to go. Dimitri had been alone with them and warned her not to even think of giving him the slip. If she didn’t get back in good time for the train he would kill Lydia. She believed him. She never had the slightest intention of leaving her friend alone with him anyway. Nothing could have made her.
     
All she wanted was a locker of her own, a kind of home.
     
One of her regulars was a man with a plumbing business in Strängnäs, who every week would spend hours on the road to come and see her. He had told her about the safe boxes you could hire for two weeks at a time. They were meant as a convenience for visitors to the city, but were mostly used by the homeless.
     
Instead of going to the toilet, Alena had used her fifteen minutes away from Dimitri to get one of these lockers. It had been frantic, but she had made it and returned happily with a key hidden in each shoe.
     
Her helpful regular had cut a copy of the key and agreed to take things to the locker and to keep renewing the agreement before it ran out, his part of the bargain if she allowed him to do extras. She always bled a lot afterwards, but it had been worth it.
     
Standing in front of the open locker, she knew how true that was.
     
Having a place that was their own, where Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp couldn’t get his fingers on their things, no matter how much he threatened, that had been worth every blow.
     
Alena knew she would never come back and she took all that was hers, the necklaces, earrings, dresses. They each had their own key. She left Lydia’s things and her money; when she got out of hospital she would find what was hers waiting for her.
     
She locked the door and walked away.
     
The metro again, the green line this time. The train was packed. She got off at St Erik’s Square, climbed the stairsto the wet tarmac outside and started walking, keeping a lookout for that Vietnamese restaurant, one of her route markers. After the restaurant it wasn’t far to another flight of stairs, though this one was beautiful, with great big