MemoRandom. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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       7

      He had to make sense of things. Get his weak, pathetic body out of this damn hospital bed and force his head to make the right connections. Try to work out what was going on. Why he had lied to his boss about the gaps in his memory, why he was scribbling cryptic warnings to himself, and why that name made his pulse race out of control.

      Janus. Clearly a code name for an informant, and a very important one, to judge by Bergh’s questions and paranoid behavior. The problem was that he couldn’t remember any code names, he couldn’t actually remember a bloody thing. Well, that wasn’t quite true, he wasn’t Jason Bourne. He could remember loads of things, just nothing that could help him make sense of what had happened. It was as if the stroke had sliced through his brain, cutting off all connections to the part where events of the past few years were kept. The only thing that seemed to bridge the gap was an indefinable, creeping sense of unease. Something was wrong, considerably more wrong than just a weak body trying to recover from an accident, or even a gash in his brain and migraines from hell. What was it Bergh had said about his crash? The words hadn’t wanted to fall into place properly.

      Sarac snorted and tried to hold his breath for a moment to stifle a sob. The mood swings were hard to get used to. He was being tossed between anger, grief, and fear, and occasionally a euphoric sensation that felt almost like happiness. The whole process made it much harder to make sense of everything.

      Damn it! He grabbed a couple of tissues from the bedside table and blew his nose. It would get better, it had to get better.

      One of the nurses put her head around the door.

      ‘Can you handle another visitor, David? It’s the man with the beard,’ she whispered with a smile.

      ‘Hmm.’ Sarac tried to sound as if he knew who she was talking about, but didn’t succeed.

      ‘About forty, one metre ninety, suntanned, very fit. He’s been to see you most days.’

      ‘Sure.’ Sarac nodded, feeling relieved. He recognized the description and his mood improved at once.

      The nurse walked into his room, followed by the man with the neatly trimmed beard.

      ‘Hi, David!’ The man smiled broadly as he pressed Sarac’s hand between both of his. He went on holding it in a way that made a lump start to grow in Sarac’s chest. ‘Good to see you looking brighter today.’

      Sarac nodded, then held his breath for a few seconds to get this new surge of emotion under control. Peter Molnar was one of his best friends, and also something of a mentor to him, but bursting into tears the moment he saw him was definitely not Sarac’s usual reaction. What the hell was happening to him? He swallowed a couple of times and managed to force a smile.

      ‘Fucking good to see you, Peter,’ he muttered. Then suddenly wondered when he had started to swear so damn much.

      The nurse’s description of Molnar was pretty accurate. The only thing she had left out was his short, blond hair, with a slightly raised side part, and the chewing gum that was constantly on the go between his square, white teeth, spreading a smell of mint around the room.

      ‘I brought some roasted nuts from that place you like on Södermalm.’ Molnar tossed a ziplock bag, filled to bursting, onto the bedside table.

      ‘I mean, he is allowed nuts, isn’t he, nurse? There aren’t any rules about that, are there?’ He winked at the nurse, who was adjusting Sarac’s drip, and rounded it off with a dazzling smile.

      ‘You don’t seem the type to be too bothered about rules.’ She smiled back. ‘Ten minutes, maximum, or you’ll have me to deal with.’

      The nurse left the room, slowly pulling the door shut behind her as she gave Molnar one last look. The man pulled up a chair, sat on it the wrong way around, and rested his arms on the back.

      ‘Nice!’ He grinned, nodding toward the door. ‘I can see why you’d want to lie here and get looked after while the rest of us work our backsides off. We did a raid in that heroin case last night – more than a kilo. Your information was correct, as usual.’ Molnar was still smiling, and Sarac realized that he was doing the same, almost without noticing.

      ‘Like I said, good to see you, Peter,’ he said, trying to match his relaxed tone, but mainly just sounding a bit maudlin. The happiness he had felt just now was gone. He couldn’t remember the case Molnar was talking about, couldn’t actually remember a single case they had worked on. And this strong, suntanned man in front of him only emphasized his own wretched condition. His collarbone and the bandages around his head and stomach. The mood swings, not to mention the lack of energy. He must have lost at least five or six kilos of muscle while he’d been lying there, if not more. Molnar seemed to notice the change in his mood, because he hurried to break the silence.

      ‘The boys say hello. They wanted to come as well, but I told them to wait a bit. Thought you probably needed a chance to recover first. After everything you’ve been through.’ He pulled a face.

      Sarac nodded and unconsciously put a hand to his head.

      ‘I bumped into Bergh. He said you had a few gaps in your memory,’ Molnar said.

      Sarac took a deep breath, trying to muster his thoughts, but the headache kept getting in the way.

      ‘Well …’ he said. He cleared his throat to make his voice sound more steady. ‘It’s not like it is in films. I know who I am, where I live, what my parents’ names were, where I went to school, how to tie my shoelaces, all that sort of thing.’ He waved one hand, trying to find the right words. ‘But everything feels so distant, it’s like I’m СКАЧАТЬ