Free Yours Until Death by Gunnar Staalesen Page A

out.’
    She’d turned around so her back was against the wall. She began hammering the other one with her useless little fists. ‘Help,’ she yelled. ‘Help.’
    I pushed the button marked Alarm and heard a bell ring somewhere. I hoped it wasn’t one of those so-called ‘comfort bells’, the kind they install to reassure people who get stuck but which can’t be heard more than a few metres away. I hoped that this bell was ringing somewhere else – in the caretaker’s heaven, wherever he usually hung out – and that he was at home.
    The woman in the old fur coat had sagged to the floor. She was sobbing. I squatted beside her. ‘I’ve rung the caretaker. It can’t be very much longer.’
    ‘How long can we last? How long will the oxygen hold out?’
    ‘Oxygen?’ I looked around. ‘Long enough. I once heard about a Swedish cleaning woman. She got stuck for forty days in a goods lift in a factory. For the entire general holiday. But she survived. Of course, all she had was soapy drinking water.’
    ‘Forty days! But my God, man … Dear God! I didn’t think we’d …’
    ‘No, no, no. I only meant there’s no problem with the air supply.’
    I looked cautiously around. It was already a little close in here. Warm. But one thing was certain: the air wasn’t a problem. I sweated a little more.
    I looked up. There was no trapdoor in the ceiling like there used to be in the old days. The kind you could climb through and feel as if you were sitting in the bottom of a volcanic crater. They were always such a comfort.
    To my surprise I realised I was sweating even more now. You should never take a lift, I told myself. Lifts are for the old and for babies. Not for big strong …
    An old rat started crawling around in my belly. I looked from wall to wall to wall of the lift. It seemed smaller now: narrower. More cramped.
    Suddenly I knew my fists wanted to beat on the walls, break them down, that my voice wanted to yell: Help! Help! I even felt faint.
    I coughed loudly to reassure myself. ‘It won’t be long before we’re out. Not long now, Fru.’
    She’d collapsed. Sat staring at the floor. Knees drawn up. She’d lost her suburban modesty. She wore black panties under the brown tights and I saw she was plumper higher up than her legs had hinted at.
    Then I looked away. I’m a decent fellow. Never take advantage of helpless women. Or maybe I’m afraid of sex? I could certainly stand there and think about it for a while, analyse myself. I’d been pretty good at it once. That was just before I’d requested treatment.
    I listened to the sounds of the building around us. Concrete transmits sounds in the strangest ways. I heard rushing in the pipes and something which reminded me of coded signals being tapped from one jail cell to another. Maybe the whole building was full of lifts with people stuck in them two by two. And nobody could get out and nobody would come and help us. Maybe this was hell.
    I looked at her again. Spend eternity – with her? I was really sweating now. I couldn’t think of one relaxing thing. I tried. I thought of summer. A white sun-dappled beach, an open blue-green sea, high blue sky. Lots of air. Air. But all the other people on the beach spoke Danish.
    I thought about beer, golden beer in full glasses topped with white fresh foam. About red-and-white checked tablecloths, an open veranda, a woman. It was Beate. So that wasn’t relaxing either. Then I thought about Wenche Andresen.
    ‘Hello!’
    ‘Hello. Hello.’ My voice worked the third time. ‘Hello!’
    Someone was beating on the door to the fifth floor.
    ‘Somebody there? Are you stuck?’ It was a rough, caretaker’s voice.
    ‘We’re here and we’re stuck,’ I said. ‘Can you get us out?’
    Something was happening. I stopped sweating and the woman raised her head and began listening.
    ‘Of course I can. It’s those damned kids again. One of the fuses has blown. Just wait. It’ll be five or ten