Liv

by Mikaela Bley

  ‘It just hurts so damned much.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, squeezing his hand harder. ‘It’s tough for all of us.’

  But it wasn’t the same pain. Her sorrow was completely different, and she wished she could show it to him, but he would never understand — especially because he was the one who was the cause of it.

  ‘What would I do without you? You’re so beautiful, Alexandra.’

  As usual, he tried to say it with a Polish accent. He thought it was funny, but it only made her feel uncomfortable. ‘Stop!’ she said, wriggling out of his grasp.

  ‘Take it easy — damn, the way you flare up all the time.’ He quickly got out of bed.

  She regretted it and wished she hadn’t reacted so quickly or so strongly, but it was too late. She cursed herself for always having such a hard time controlling her emotions. Recently it had got worse, but that wasn’t so strange. If it weren’t for Patrik’s behaviour, she wouldn’t have to feel the way she did.

  ‘This heat is brutal, doesn’t the AC work?’ He looked at the clock. ‘Shit, I won’t have time to shower now.’

  Alexandra lay on her back and looked at her husband as he got dressed. He pushed his erection down into his jeans and pulled a polo shirt over his perfect chest. Even though they’d been married for over twenty years, she never got tired of observing him. So perfect. When she saw the scratch marks on his back, she turned her eyes away. Part of her wanted to ask where they came from, but at the same time she didn’t want to know.

  ‘Couldn’t we do something, just you and me?’ She tried hard to make her voice sound soft. ‘We need that, considering all that’s happened. And I need to feel that you love me.’

  Patrik sat beside her on the edge of the bed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that, not now. We’ve decided that this is the way we want it. We can’t have this discussion every time. It doesn’t work. Especially not now — we need each other.’

  She nodded and clenched her jaw so hard that her teeth hurt. This conversation wouldn’t lead anywhere. But they hadn’t decided this was how they wanted it. He had made that decision, many years ago.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quietly, while she tried to suppress what was raging inside her.

  He got up again. Alexandra reached out her hand, but wasn’t able to stop him. ‘Come as soon as you can tomorrow,’ she said, trying to smooth over what she’d just said. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do with your mother.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, you always charm her.’ He gave her a kiss on the nose. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  He carefully closed the door behind him.

  She pulled the covers up around her, but quickly threw them off again and instead pulled on her bathrobe. ‘Patrik!’ she called and ran after him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, turning around on the stairs.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Of course. You too.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘I know. But it’s going to be fine, I promise. I’ll protect you, and Mum’s still here with you.’

  ‘As if that makes me safer,’ she said, snorting.

  ‘Shh, she can hear you. I don’t like you talking about her that way.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, pulling the bathrobe tighter around her.

  ‘Go back to bed now. We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he whispered, and then he disappeared out the door. Like a tomcat who came and went as he pleased.

  Once she’d heard him start the car and drive off, she went back to the bedroom. Lowered the temperature a few degrees on the air conditioning. Puffed up the pillows and neatly folded up the bedspread.

  Then she lay on her back in bed and stared up at the ceiling, forcing herself not to think about what Patrik was doing now. But every time she tried to focus on something else she wandered back to the same thoughts and images, which played out in her mind again and again. She clenched her hands hard and tensed her body, felt the burning behind her eyelids and closed them hard.

  ‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’

  Suddenly Märtha was standing beside the bed. Alexandra hadn’t heard her come in.

  ‘Are you sad?’

  She looked at her little daughter, who wasn’t so little any more — she had started first grade — but as she stood there in the long, white nightgown that reminded Alexandra of Pippi Longstocking, she still seemed so small.

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ she said, quickly wiping away the tears. ‘Come and lie down here with me.’

  Bea appeared like a long, black shadow behind her little sister.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ she asked in a hard voice.

  Alexandra felt Märtha creep closer, and she placed a protective arm around her.

  ‘You know, Bea. The question is, why aren’t you asleep? There’s school tomorrow, and I won’t have the energy to nag at you to get up.’

  Bea had started high school a week ago, and Alexandra already wondered how she was going to manage the coming three years. She didn’t know how long she could handle her daughter.

  Even though it was dark she saw how Bea’s eyes blackened. She hardly dared meet them.

  ‘The question is whether you know what decade this is? I don’t get how you go along with this.’

  ‘I know you mean well, but you don’t need to sound so angry, you might wake up Grandma. Please, don’t yell at me now, it’s hard enough as it is.’ Alexandra had to strain to make her voice sound calm.

  ‘This is not okay: don’t you get how sick it is? Do you want to be sad? I’m never going to be like you! Are people going to find out how you live, now? Huh?’ Bea swept out of the room and slammed the door. Fury was rattling in the walls.

  Having a teenager was so much worse than she ever could have imagined. Should she run after Bea? But what could she say? How did you explain what had happened?

  TUESDAY, 19 AUGUST

  ELLEN

  7.15 A.M.

  The blinds flew up with a snap, and the morning sun blinded her. It felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. Ellen was more tired than when she’d gone to bed, and she already longed for evening, when she could crawl back into bed again.

  Strange dreams had lurked on the edges of the night. Some had felt real, others just awful. She was sweaty and took a quick shower to rinse off the unpleasant feelings.

  When she got down to the kitchen, she heard her mother, through the open kitchen window, humming an incoherent melody out in the garden. To the untrained ear it would have sounded like she was in a good mood.

  Ellen looked out.

  With a big sunhat on her head, Margareta was watering her herb garden. Her movements were jerky and didn’t match the melody she was humming. It was a way to try to conceal how she was really feeling, and Ellen knew it intimately. She looked around the big kitchen. It looked exactly as it always had. Greyish cabinetry that needed to be freshened up.

  ‘Hi, honey, do you want coffee?’

  Margareta was suddenly standing in the kitchen.

  ‘I can make a new pot,’ she continued. ‘That’s been on since five o’clock.’

  ‘No, no need. Why have you been up so long?’

  ‘The garden doesn’t take care of itself.’ Margareta took off her sunhat and gardening gloves and set them on the kitchen counter.

  Ellen noted that the gloves were completely white and presumably hadn’t even grazed the ground.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. And you?’

  ‘Like a log.’

  How nice, then we’re both lying.

  ‘You should be happy that I’m taking care of everything. Soon I won’t be able to any longer, and you’ll have to take over.’ Margareta poured out the last of the coffee from the pot. ‘Because Elsa … yes, and your brother …’ She stopped before filling the pot with fresh water. ‘They’re moving to
Australia. Yes, it seems they’ve bought a vineyard there. I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of mid-life crisis. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? When they have all this. But I guess that’s how it is, life is always a little greener on the other side.’ She scooped coffee into the filter.

  ‘When are they moving?’ Ellen asked. She’d stopped calling her big brother when she realised that all he said was How nice … Really cool … Good. It didn’t matter what she said, he wasn’t listening. If she’d moved into a shed and was on heroin he would have answered, How cool. Great. See you.

  ‘If they move, then I’m only going to see them ten more times before I die.’

  ‘What? But, Mum, you can’t think like that, can you?’

  ‘How should I think then, in your opinion?’

  Ellen shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I need coffee before I can think.’

  She went over to the cupboard with cups and opened the door. The sheet of paper on the inside of the cupboard door fluttered. She let her eyes wander among the handwritten names of friends and acquaintances. Agneta and Göran Carlsten. 2 children: Madeleine is unmarried, no children. Sofia, married to Jens, 2 children — Maria ’01 and Andreas ’05.

  Margareta had been making these lists as far back as Ellen could remember. Always, before they had a visit or would go to see good friends, she read up so that she’d be able to ask the right questions.

  ‘So how are your grandchildren, Maria and Andreas? Maria must be, let me think now, she was born in 2001, yes, so then she’s a big girl now.’

  ‘Why, Margareta! What a memory you have.’

  ‘Why did you put Jimmy there?’ At the bottom of the list was Ellen’s boss’s name. One daughter, Bianca, was written in a different pen.

  ‘Yes, and why not? With my bad memory I have to write down everything. Who knows — if he comes to visit I’ll know what his daughter’s name is, and then it will be easier to make conversation.’

  Ellen closed the cupboard a little too hard.

  ‘You know that you have an appointment with Dr Hiralgo at ten o’clock today, right? You’ll see him every other day. I’ve written down the times on a piece of paper that’s on the desk.’ Margareta looked encouragingly at her daughter before she put on her gloves and hat and went out into the garden again.

  Ellen poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the round kitchen table. On the table was a pile of newspapers. She opened the one on top and found a short article about the dead woman. The police had questioned neighbours but hadn’t found any witnesses. They were now reviewing surveillance cameras from the school and petrol station.

  That was all she was, a short news item, which got even smaller when compared to the centre spread about the man who was beaten to death on Sveavägen in Stockholm in connection with a derby at Friends Arena.

  It was headlined DEADLY ASSAULT. They had released a picture of him. Father of three children. Self-employed. Conscientious, according to the reporter. Today a minute of silence would be held for him at Friends Arena and then at all the soccer matches in Sweden during the coming week.

  She folded up the newspaper and picked up the phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Margareta, who appeared to have been watching her like a hawk and was back in the kitchen again. ‘If you’re thinking about working, then we can forget about all this.’

  ‘I’m not working,’ said Ellen, going out into the hall so she could speak undisturbed. She waited a few seconds to be sure that Margareta wasn’t following her and then entered the number for Börje Swahn of Nyköping Police.

  ‘I have nothing new to offer since we spoke yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, no?’ she said. ‘You mean, besides the fact that you think Liv Lind got what she deserved? I thought perhaps you might like to comment on that before I quote you in today’s newscast.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You forgot to hang up yesterday, and I heard some of you at the station talking about Liv Lind, and it wasn’t especially pretty. She’d been sleeping around and …’

  ‘What! I never said that! Who do you think you are, calling and accusing me of something like this? This is madness …’

  ‘I have it recorded. Do you want to hear it?’ Ellen had prepared the file and now pressed play. ‘Can you hear?’

  Börje was silent a moment. ‘What do you want? We’re trying to investigate a homicide here and you’re out to expose us. You ought to be ashamed!’

  Click.

  So I’m the one who ought to be ashamed? thought Ellen and could imagine him standing there all red-faced and angry at the station. She was glad she wasn’t having to hear what he was saying about her. After a while she entered the number again and was surprised when he answered.

  ‘I have no comment.’

  ‘How good a job can you be doing if you think that Liv Lind got what she deserved? I have to say, I feel worried.’

  ‘Listen, I’m going to make sure that this is the last thing you do as a journalist!’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ She wished she’d recorded this call as well.

  ‘This is madness, are you hearing me? What do you want?’

  ‘I want the murder of Liv Lind to be investigated properly and I want her to be treated with respect. Is that so odd? Do you have anything to say about your little chat or do you want me to play it on News Morning with no comment?’

  He hung up again.

  Without thinking, she called Ove. He answered almost immediately, as if he’d been sitting there waiting for a call.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ It sounded like he moved away from the phone and closed a door. ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all summer.’

  ‘I’m here now.’

  ‘Are you out of your tree, or what? You haven’t been in touch for two months and now you call me on my regular number.’

  She didn’t have time to answer before he continued. ‘We can no longer cooperate.’

  ‘Yes, of course we can.’

  What was he up to? Had everyone lost it? Ove was the media spokesperson for the police in Stockholm. They had an arrangement. Ellen paid Ove to give her information about ongoing criminal investigations and happenings within the police. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but it was what most journalists were forced to do to get information that they in turn made good use of. In most cases.

  ‘We challenged fate the last time,’ he continued.

  ‘You challenged fate. And if I were you, I’d be a little more accommodating as I’m guessing you’d rather it didn’t get out how you and your wife tried to grab the reward for yourselves. Do you want to know what I did with it? Lycke’s father insisted that I ought to have it, so I decided that the family would start a foundation in Lycke’s name, to support BRIS and other organisations. Lycke’s mother and stepmother were given shared management of the foundation.’ Ellen was very satisfied with her solution. This way, they all got to pay for how they’d treated their daughter, and at the same time it supported work so that other children wouldn’t fare so badly.

  ‘Yes, I know, I read about it. And what? Do you think that makes you Mother Teresa or something? You can’t send me to prison — you’re sitting in the same boat, and I would drag you down in the fall. I don’t have to tell you that it’s illegal to pay bribes, do I?’

  ‘I was just speaking to one of your colleagues in Nyköping, and they’ve embarrassed themselves. Listen to this.’

  ‘What are you doing in Nyköping?’

  ‘The murder of Liv Lind.’ He doesn’t need to know more than that, she thought, finding the audio file. ‘This is the preliminary investigation leader there, Börje Swahn.’ She played him the whole audio file. Before Ove had time to respond, she continued: ‘He also threatened me. What do you think about the way your colleagues express themselves? Is it reasonable that they’re in
vestigating a murder with that attitude? Do you think that Liv Lind is going to get the attention she deserves?’

  ‘She’s dead.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Calm down, now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Knock it off, that’s just police shoptalk. It’d be fun to hear what you lot say in the newsroom.’

  ‘Do you think the Swedish people will buy that as shoptalk?’

  ‘What do you want, Ellen?’

  ‘I want to know everything about the murder of Liv Lind.’

  HANNA

  7.25 A.M.

  Slowly, Hanna went down the stairs. The rest of the family was still sound asleep. Stoffe had come home late last night and couldn’t bear to talk about what had happened. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it on the phone earlier in the day, either. Hanna had had a hard time sleeping and finally she’d gone and lain down in the guest room to avoid hearing Stoffe’s snoring and to at least get a few hours of sleep before she had to get up and teach.

  Soon she had to wake up Karl and Alice so that they wouldn’t be late to school; it wouldn’t look good and would draw unnecessary attention to them.

  A slight feeling of nausea sat like a lump in her stomach. Several times she’d been up and thought she was going to vomit. She shuddered to think of the coming nights when Stoffe wouldn’t be sleeping at home; she felt unsafe without him. Or was it in fact the other way around? There was tightness across her chest.

  She added an extra scoop of coffee and turned on the coffee maker. The sun was streaming in through the windows, and it was already warm.

  The coffee dripped down into the pot, and she tried to think clearly. Looked out at the other houses in Solbyn. It looked so calm and peaceful. Just as normal. The morning fog lay like a white blanket over the fields. It’s bewitchingly beautiful, she thought, but then her eyes fell on the blue-and-white barricades, and the idyllic image burst like a balloon.