Liv

by Mikaela Bley

  A diary was open on the table. She peeked in it carefully, but didn’t see anything exciting. The weather and boat times.

  ‘You have a very nice place — amazing view,’ she said when he came back with two cups of coffee.

  ‘Thank you. This is my little studio.’

  Thulin put the cup down in front of her and sat down opposite.

  ‘Do you paint?’

  ‘Yes, or I did. Most of the paintings on the walls here are mine.’

  Ellen looked back into the living room and at the paintings. Various motifs, but the same colour palette and style.

  ‘Now I mostly read newspapers and books and do crosswords. I used to do it together with my wife, but she passed away last Christmas. The view made her feel at home, she said. She was French.’

  Both of them looked out over Stadsfjärden and the inlet to the Nyköping harbour.

  Ellen nodded. His grief was palpable. A heavy feeling that she wished she could filter away. She sipped the steaming coffee.

  ‘I was thinking a bit about this while I was getting the coffee. The truth is, I wasn’t surprised when you rang the doorbell. In fact, I wondered why you hadn’t come sooner.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Ellen loosened her hair and let it fall around her like a sort of shield.

  ‘How come you’re digging into all this old stuff now?’

  She shrugged, didn’t really know how honest she should be. ‘I’m trying to remember what happened, and I have memory gaps. I want to move on, but I have a hard time doing that. My psychologist is trying to get me to take control of things and stop repressing what happened, and instead process the grief. I’m not sure, but maybe you might be able to tell me what you remember and help me fill in some details. If you want? It was a great sadness for our family, and we haven’t managed to move on.’

  ‘You should know that I worked as a policeman my whole life — even if it’s been a while now. I’ve worked on a lot of cases, so I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to answer everything, but if I don’t remember wrongly, this case was categorised as an accident.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And a kidnapping, before she was found.’ Her stomach knotted up.

  Thulin drank his coffee and offered her a biscuit. ‘My wife baked them.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She didn’t want to waste the biscuit he had left from his wife.

  ‘To tell the truth, there were a few things about that disappearance that I still wonder about.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Ellen, both surprised and expecting it, somehow.

  ‘I don’t remember the exact details, but when I retired almost ten years ago, I brought the files home. Just between us, you’re not really supposed to do that, but what are they going to do about it, put me in the clink?’ He laughed. ‘I should have destroyed them long ago, but I never got around to it. Particularly seeing as the case was shut when they found your sister — but I had a hard time getting rid of them. The case didn’t seem finished. I looked at them sometimes, but it’s been a long time since the last time.’

  ‘Can I see them?’ Her heart was beating faster.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘But I can try to answer your questions.’

  Ellen considered pushing him for the files, but let it be. ‘Why did you have a hard time letting it go?’

  ‘As a policeman, you meet a lot of people, and it’s often hard to explain what it is — call it gut instinct. Maybe someone behaves strangely, or someone changes their story or sticks to it too hard. It can be little, little things that make your ears perk up as a policeman.’

  ‘Do you remember what it was in this particular case?’ She couldn’t help asking, but didn’t know if she really wanted to know. It was as if she was walking on a minefield — with every question she asked, it could explode.

  ‘No, not off the top of my head.’

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I remember your parents and your brother. Your grandmother. Your brother’s friends. Neighbours on the island. It was an awful tragedy for you and your family. I can understand that you’re still grieving.’

  Ellen looked down at the newspapers and tried to hide her emotions, which were taking form as tears in her eyes. ‘It’s strange to meet again after so many years.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Many memories are brought to life.’

  She nodded. ‘More than I would have expected. What do you remember?’

  ‘I remember that you were a sweet little girl who cared about your sister very much. You were utterly crushed. I would imagine that the bonds are even stronger when you’re a twin. There was so much commotion around your sister’s disappearance. It became a real media circus: all of Sweden followed the search.’

  Ellen remembered how photographers had crept up on them and even followed her to school. She remembered that their family had been in the newspapers and been talked about on TV. It was hard to grasp for an eight-year-old.

  ‘It was extremely tough for you. We tried to offer you help at the time, conversation therapy and so on, but I seem to remember that your parents wanted to take care of it themselves.’

  She wanted to cry, but fought against it.

  ‘To be quite honest, I didn’t think it was an accident,’ he continued.

  Could she take hearing that? Was coming here really a good idea? Ellen put down the newspaper in front of her and wished she could simply end the chapter there and then. ‘You don’t think that she drowned?’

  ‘To me, it was no ordinary drowning. Your sister had injuries on her body for which there was never any real explanation.’

  ‘Did you document the body?’

  ‘Yes, but at that time we didn’t have digital cameras, so I took photos with an ordinary camera. The image quality turned out so-so.’

  ‘Do you recall what kinds of injuries there were?’

  ‘In my view, there were crystal-clear defensive injuries, including scratch marks on the body, but the doctor maintained that they could have come from the reeds. I wanted the body to be sent to forensic medicine, but the doctor quickly determined — a little too quickly — that it was a drowning accident. She did have water in her lungs, so that was what she died from.’

  ‘Do you still have the pictures?’

  He shook his head, but Ellen could tell that he did. But it was probably best that she didn’t see them. She started snapping her fingers.

  ‘I wanted to send technicians to the place where she was found, but the preliminary investigation was shut down.’ Thulin leant back in his chair and looked out over the sea.

  She tried to process what he had just said. For some strange reason, she wasn’t surprised by what he’d revealed.

  ‘Death, death, death,’ she mumbled, hiding herself behind her hair.

  ‘I couldn’t get any support and couldn’t get further with my suspicions. I couldn’t prove anything. I understand that this must be hard to hear, but I think that the truth is often easier to handle than lies.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re here for a reason. I don’t want to stir anything up, but if you ask me, I intend to answer.’

  Ellen took a deep breath before she asked the next question. ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘I think her life was taken. It might have been an accident, something unintentional. I don’t know.’

  ‘Was there anything besides the injuries that makes you think that?’

  ‘The stories don’t add up.’

  ‘Whose stories?’ Ellen pinched herself hard on the hand.

  ‘In the interviews with your family. Your brother’s friends who were there that evening. People on the estate and so on. As I said, I don’t remember exactly, just that there was something that didn’t add up. Someone was lying.’

  ‘Who, then, and why?’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes, if we’d figured that out, then the outcome probably would have been different. Or anyway, if my gut feeling was right. At that time, we didn’t have that much experience questioning children. The images of what you’d seen and experienced were vague and your stories changed. We held long witness interviews. Well, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m being too candid.’

  ‘No, please, tell me what you remember.’

  ‘I remember that it was difficult to question you. You were completely out of it. We came to understand later that your parents had given you a sedative, so you could deal with the grief.’

  ‘What? They drugged me?’ Ellen felt confused.

  ‘No, I don’t believe that — it was entirely with good intentions. Considering the circumstances, they probably only got a reprimand and were told not to keep giving you the medicine. I think it was your mother’s prescription, so it wasn’t suitable for children. But I understood their intention.’

  He leant back in the wicker chair. ‘The alarm must have come in early in the morning. I remember a colleague and I driving out to Örelo. It was a hard place to work. Some of the few traces that were found were, of course, Elsa’s clothes, which were found far outside the area that was cordoned off. The police patrol that arrived at the scene thought they had done everything properly when they cordoned off the area, and yet it still wasn’t enough.’

  Ellen tried hard to absorb and analyse everything he was saying. He was both sympathetic and credible.

  ‘The general public were hearing conflicting rumours and got their information from the newspapers — well, from folks like you,’ he muttered. ‘I must say that your choice of occupation surprises me, considering what you were subjected to.’

  Ellen had to suppress the urge to start apologising.

  ‘We mapped all the paedophiles in the area, which weren’t actually that many.’

  ‘What other theories did you have?’

  ‘Accident was not something we discounted completely. Kidnapping, abduction was the other line. The police spent quite a bit of time on something that later turned out be a red herring. And then there were testimonies that were changed. Well, as I said earlier, it was messy.’

  Ellen nodded, wanting to know more.

  ‘One day, a mother came to us with her son and said that he had something he wanted to tell us. That he’d seen something that evening that strengthened my theory. But he changed his story several times, and finally we had to conclude that it must have been birds that he’d heard. It was hard work, extremely hard work. I think he may have been afraid. Maybe he knew more than he said.’

  ‘Do you remember who that was?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not something we need to go into. Elsa was found at the south island, by the Apple Orchard, I think you called it.’

  Ellen nodded. To this day, she could hear her mother’s wail when the plainclothes police parked in the gravel yard outside the castle and walked slowly up to the main entry. No words were needed.

  ‘She was by the rocks, out in the reeds. When I arrived at the scene, your father was trying artificial resuscitation, even though she’d been dead for forty-eight hours. It was a terrible scene. I’ll never forget it.’

  ELLEN

  12.00 P.M.

  Ellen walked along the shore path that led to the harbour. She passed the canoe racing course and walked out onto the long pier.

  She wished she had something calming with her, anything at all. Her anxiety was throbbing like a pulsing sore, and she was in a cold sweat.

  I can’t take any more, she thought. I can’t take any more.

  Some things had been repetition, things she’d read before, various speculations and conspiracies that had followed them throughout their lives. She’d gone through many of the articles from that time, and it hadn’t escaped her that something terrible could have happened to Elsa. But she had worked hard to downplay that and try to repress it.

  She’d been the one who’d wanted to go swimming, even though she knew that Elsa couldn’t swim that well. That was exactly why she’d suggested it. Because swimming was the only thing she was better at, compared with Elsa.

  She remembered Elsa disappearing. She got angry and ran off to the house. She went to bed.

  Ellen rubbed at her forehead and continued walking down the pier, which was narrow and had no railing on either side. She was nervous of taking a wrong step and falling into the water.

  When she’d walked out a short way, she sat down, pulled off her espadrilles, and put her feet in the water.

  If Ellen had called for help in time, perhaps they would have found her alive. If Ellen hadn’t forced her to go swimming. If Ellen …

  She hit herself on the thigh and lay back with her hands over her eyes. No one was walking past so far out on the pier, so she could lie there in peace.

  She counted to a hundred and then sat up again, took the phone out of her handbag, and called her brother. She was almost surprised that she still had his contact information, considering how long it had been since they’d last spoken.

  He didn’t pick up.

  She called again.

  On the third try, he answered. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Why don’t you pick up when I call?’

  ‘Because I’m working.’

  Couldn’t he try to be a little nice? ‘How are you all doing?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Was it anything important?’

  ‘I thought maybe I could stop by this evening, after you’ve finished work.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I’m staying with Mum and I’m in town now, so I thought it might be fun to see you, Vera, and Irma.’

  ‘I don’t know if that will suit us.’

  ‘Why not?’ She was trying not to feel hurt. Why did she bother?

  ‘Yeah, well, you know, there’s school tomorrow, and the kids have a slight fever. I feel quite out of sorts myself, actually. I had a temperature of almost thirty-eight degrees this morning.’

  Who checks their own temperature? she thought. As if he needed to have his illness validated.

  ‘It can’t be that bad, considering that you’re at work. I don’t have to stay long. Just say hello. Hug them and drop off a present.’ In which case, she’d have to get them something.

  ‘Not today, Ellen. Some other day, maybe.’

  His indifference was total.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Of course. We’ll just have to do it another day.’

  ‘What, at Christmas then?’

  ‘No, but can’t we just talk next week?’

  ‘I saw Didrik the other day, it’d been a while. He said that you two don’t see each other any more.’

  ‘No, and you shouldn’t either. Stay away from him.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because he’s an untrustworthy person. I have to hang up now, Ellen.’

  ‘I just went to see Kjell Thulin.’

  There was silence on the phone.

  ‘He doesn’t think it was an accident. He thinks that Elsa was murdered.’

  Still silence. It sounded as though Peder went into a room and closed a door. ‘Are you completely out of your mind, Ellen? What are you doing? How can you be so selfish?’

  ‘Maybe I saw him because I needed to.’

  ‘Is this never going to end?’ He sighed audibly. ‘Do you think you’re the only person who suffered? Huh? Is that what you think?’

  ‘I don’t remember — apparently Mum drugged me.’ Ellen was still in shock after the conversation with Thulin and hadn’t processed the information. ‘Which friends did you have over? I know your girlfriend was there, and that you were making out in your room all evening, and I know that Didrik was there — who else? Is there something I don’t know? Did you lie to the police?’

&nb
sp; ‘Ellen, I cannot go over this with you. It was a long time ago. It’s over.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She stared down at the water and held her feet completely still.

  ‘Don’t tell Mum that you’ve seen Kjell Thulin, please. It’s hard enough for her as it is.’

  ‘She’s actually the one who’s encouraged me to deal with it. As if you care about her. I hear you’re moving to Australia. She appreciates that a lot. Really.’ He had no right to criticise her. ‘Nice talking. Say hi to the girls.’

  Ellen hung up and let the phone drop onto her lap as she kicked her feet in the water to get rid of the mirror image of herself.

  ELLEN

  2.00 P.M.

  ‘I think my whole worldview is changing.’ Ellen settled into the stick-back chair in the tiled room at Dr Hiralgo’s. She was glad that she had an appointment with him today, after everything that had happened and what she’d found out.

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Nothing seems to be the way I’d thought. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s as if nothing adds up. I do things I don’t want to do, I find out things I don’t want to know. Death, death, death,’ she whispered, looking away in an attempt to hide it and fixing her eyes on a tile seam. The tiles flowed together and blurred.

  ‘You know what?’ he said.

  She closed and opened her eyes a few times, and then met Dr Hiralgo’s gaze. She tried to decide if he was attractive or not, apart from his age, the moustache, and the lack of hair. She shook her head and didn’t understand how her own brain worked or why she was thinking about that now.

  Dr Hiralgo leant forward, but there were still several arm’s-lengths between them.

  ‘This business with your tics, your mantra, or whatever we want to call it. It’s actually counterproductive. You are suppressing something that you need to process. It’s as if you are constantly seeking confirmation for your anxiety. You work with death and are drawn to death, simply because your body is seeking that anxiety.’