by Mikaela Bley
‘He split.’
‘Do you hear what I’m saying, when I come back I want you gone. Otherwise I’m calling the police.’
He grinned patronisingly, but clenched his jaw as the elevator doors closed.
Even though it was past midnight, it was still warm out. She walked over to the Grand Hotel. It was humid and sweat was running down her back. She couldn’t see Jimmy anywhere. Tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. Finally, she gave up.
She sat down at a window table in the Cadier bar, and at first thought about ordering a vodka tonic, but changed her mind, and instead simply ordered a tonic. She emptied the bowl of chips and nuts before they’d even had time to bring her drink. She looked out over Skeppsbron, caught sight of her reflection in the window, and quickly turned her head away.
WEDNESDAY, 27 AUGUST
ELLEN
8.30 A.M.
Ellen was sitting at the Veranda at the Grand Hotel, peeling the shell off a boiled egg. She skimmed through the morning papers, ordered another pot of coffee, and looked out over Stockholm.
Would she dare go home now? Was Didrik still there?
He hadn’t tried to reach her, which was strange — the silence also felt threatening somehow. But that was soon broken by the sound of her phone ringing. It was from a number she didn’t recognise, and she answered.
‘Yes, hi, this is Monika Johnsson from Stentuna.’
‘Hello …’ Ellen wondered whether she was supposed to know who this was, but the name didn’t ring any bells.
‘Yes, we met by the barricade. I was the woman with the dachshund — I don’t know if you remember me?’
She remembered the dog, the one that peed on the condolence flowers at the crime scene. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, digging a pen out of her handbag on the chair beside her.
‘Well, I don’t know if this will be interesting to you, but I saw a police car drive past here the night Liv Lind was murdered.’ Her voice sounded cautious, as if she was telling a secret.
‘Did it have its sirens on?’ Then it wouldn’t have been so strange, considering there’d been a murder in the vicinity, Ellen thought, starting to sketch a timeline.
‘Yes, but it wasn’t a patrol car. It was an ordinary car with sirens.’
‘An unmarked car.’ It must have been the same car that the man at the petrol station had seen that night. ‘What time was it, do you remember?’
‘No, but it was late. I was babysitting for the neighbours and it had gone later than I’d expected.’
‘The neighbours — you mean Hanna and Patrik, or sorry, Stoffe?’
‘Yes, exactly. There was a teachers’ meeting, and Hanna needed help with the kids. Actually, they’re big enough nowadays, but I don’t know, she didn’t seem to want to leave them alone, and I try to help out sometimes — considering that Stoffe travels so much for work. It seemed that the meeting had dragged on, and when Hanna came home, she was extremely intoxicated. Not that it’s any of my business.’
A real little gossip, thought Ellen, even though she rated window-peepers highly. She made notes on the newspaper. ‘Are you sure this was last Sunday?’
‘Yes. I was watching TV, and I went out into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and then I saw the police car driving past at high speed.’
‘Did you get worried?’
‘Yes, it’s not that often you see police cars here, so I wondered what it was doing. That being said, there have been more police cars in the area than usual recently, because of those kids, so I think I mostly reacted to the fact that it was going really fast.’
Ellen had only written Hanna and police on the newspaper so far. She underlined both words twice. ‘Was there anything else that struck you?’
‘No, or I don’t know if this has any significance, but when I went to let Knut out into the yard and opened the door, he didn’t want to go out. He’s never like that. It was a creepy feeling. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think so,’ she said, but thought to herself that it was easy to say that kind of thing after the fact. It was only when you already knew that something awful had happened that you remembered those creepy feelings.
‘Well, as I said, I just thought it was strange.’
‘Why was it strange?’ Ellen didn’t really understand, and she’d now heard this car mentioned a few times too many to be able to ignore it.
‘I don’t know, but I woke up again when Ahlvarsson was out salting. And considering that he was the person who found the body, maybe that police car ought to have seen something, I don’t know. Do you see what I mean?’
Ellen chose not to comment or analyse until she knew more. ‘Have you spoken with the police about this unmarked car?’ This is getting ridiculous, she thought, as she underlined the word police yet again.
‘Yes. Some policemen came here that morning, after they’d found the woman, and asked if we’d seen anything, and I told them then about the car. I asked them to be in touch and let me know who had been driving — I don’t like the way they drive so fast outside here. We moved from the city to get some peace and quiet, and then the police drive around like lunatics.’
‘Have they called you?’
‘No, I suppose they have other things to deal with, or perhaps they’re embarrassed because they actually had a policeman in the vicinity when something so dreadful happened.’
‘Who did you speak to at the police station?’
‘The man who’s responsible for the investigation. I asked about that specifically.’
‘Börje Swahn?’ It must have fallen between the cracks, thought Ellen. Or else they were evading.
‘Yes, that’s his name. I talked to my husband, and he thought I should call you when we didn’t get any response from the police.’
‘I’m glad you called. How long have you lived in Stentuna?’
‘We moved here five years ago. We lived in Norrköping before that, but after we retired, we wanted to be in the country.’
Ellen couldn’t let go of that thing about Hanna. ‘Do you know Hanna and Stoffe?’
‘Yes, or it depends what you mean, we’re polite to each other. But I try to avoid them — I don’t think the children are nice to Knut. And now we’ve discovered that Stoffe hasn’t just been away working. We never would have believed it. I just wanted to give you this information, but I would prefer to be anonymous. Thanks.’
She hung up. Just like that. Ellen looked at the phone and saw that she had a new voice message. She had to hold it against her other ear to shut out the murmur from the other breakfast guests and strained to hear.
The girl from the McDonald’s in Nyköping had left the message. She said that she’d seen a police officer in an interview on Aftonbladet talking about the murder in Stentuna, and she’d remembered that she had seen the same police officer at the restaurant on that day.
Ellen tried to call her back, but got no answer.
Police, police, police, she thought. That had been the second person who had told her that a police car was driving around Stentuna the night that Liv Lind was murdered. And now there’d been a police officer at the McDonald’s too. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. And Hanna had come home drunk. Where had she been? At a teachers’ meeting? She had to talk to Carola about the ring on Hanna’s finger again.
Without thinking about it, she called Börje Swahn at the Nyköping police department to check with him concerning the car, but of course he didn’t answer. Instead, she entered Carola’s number, who answered on almost the first ring.
Before Ellen even had time to speak, she started talking. ‘How nice that you called, I need to talk to you. Where are you?’ It sounded like she was in her car.
Ellen reluctantly told her where she was. ‘Has something happened?’
‘I don’t want to discuss this on the phone. I’m just
nearby.’
ELLEN
9.10 A.M.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes before Carola appeared out on the Veranda and took a seat across from her. She was in uniform and had put on a little make-up. The mascara was clumpy, and her cheeks were a little too rosy, and you could tell that she wasn’t used to applying make-up.
‘It’s lovely here,’ Carola said, looking out at the palace. Almost as if she was nervous and had just tossed that out to say something. She’ll probably start talking about the weather soon, thought Ellen.
The businesswomen and -men had all left after breakfast. Now, instead, they were surrounded by happy tourists all speaking different languages. They had all reacted when a police officer came in and sat down with Ellen.
‘So what’s happened?’ Ellen asked, stretching.
Carola looked at her with those sympathetic eyes that Ellen couldn’t tolerate. Get to the point, she thought. ‘I understand that you’ve seen the video,’ she said to move things on. ‘What are you doing about it?’
‘It’s terrible.’ It sounded like she meant it.
‘Yeah, or serves me right?’ Ellen closed her eyes briefly. ‘Or what’s that shoptalk among the police — that I got what I deserved?’ She smiled scornfully, even as she struggled to hold back the tears.
‘No, how can you think that. It’s the opposite.’ Carola ordered a cup of tea from the waiter. ‘That was what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve seen the video, and what happened is horrible. Those kids have been a problem for a long time, you already know that. But I want to talk about what happens in the video.’
‘Please.’ Ellen rolled her eyes. She wasn’t interested in a sermon; she understood very well how the video could be perceived.
‘Listen to me. I know what you’re going through, and it’s important that you get yourself out of it before something serious happens.’
Ellen shook her head. She couldn’t believe that she was sitting here talking to Carola about this. ‘It’s not what you think it is …’
‘No, that’s usually how this goes.’ She was speaking in a low voice, as if the Frenchmen beside them would understand what she was saying. ‘You and I don’t know each other, I actually know nothing about you, but I saw what I saw, and I recognise it.’
How carefully did she study the video? Ellen thought, and didn’t want to know what was coming next. She sneaked a glance at her phone. Still not a peep from either Jimmy or Didrik.
‘I’ve been involved in something like it myself. It was some years ago, now — it doesn’t matter when it was. I met a person I really liked. We had a great time, and after a while, we moved in together. Not officially, but more or less. Even though there were quite a few complications between us — but what won’t we do for love?’
Ellen nodded, but didn’t know where Carola was going with all this. She looked out the window and hoped that it would be over soon so they could get back to the case.
‘Like I said, everything was fine at the start, and I was hearing all the time from people that I was the most amazing thing that had happened to my partner, all while shit was being heaped on me at home. After a few months, my friends noticed how dominated I’d become. They told me, but of course, in love as I was, I couldn’t see it myself. My friends wondered why I couldn’t see them any more, why I didn’t come out with them to parties or on trips. I lost contact with many of the people close to me.’
‘Look …’ Ellen felt forced to explain. ‘I’m not going out with him, it was a one-time thing, something that just happened.’
‘A game. But it’s a dangerous game that can get out of control if you don’t stop it in time. At the start, I thought it was fun too. I liked domination, but sometimes, I did things that I couldn’t identify with or account for afterwards. Things I was ashamed of having done.’ She lowered her eyes, as if Ellen might see on her face what she’d done. If it wasn’t for the amount of rouge already on her cheeks, Ellen probably would have noticed her blushing. ‘It was a sort of power game, and I became an awful person: jealous, insecure, until finally it was just us, all the others were gone. It was both physical and mental abuse. Life was hopeless, meaningless. But even so, I continued to hope that everything would be fine, that it was just bad temporarily. But nothing was like it had been in the beginning. Instead, everything just got worse, and it culminated with me attempting suicide.’ Carola looked worn out, as if she was re-experiencing what she had just told.
‘What happened then?’ Ellen was quite moved by what she had just heard, and thought of the bruises she’d seen on Carola.
‘I got dumped for someone else. Do you understand? I got dumped.’ Anger flared up in her face.
‘But wasn’t that good?’ asked Ellen, but realised quickly how cold that sounded.
Carola didn’t reply, and took a sip of her tea. ‘I wasn’t right, I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t good-looking, skinny, smart, or clever enough. I was the weak one, the lesser one. I couldn’t have children and I wasn’t someone you could live out your perfect life with.’
‘I didn’t mean to …’
‘This is exactly what I’m trying to say to you. Get yourself out before it goes too far. What are you worth if you’re left by someone who was already treating you like shit?’ Her eyes darkened.
‘I’m sorry …’
Carola nodded. ‘I’m not looking for sympathy, that wasn’t why I told you. I just want to warn you.’
They both sat silently awhile.
The tough policewoman looked so small and lonely, and without thinking, Ellen placed her hand on Carola’s. She recognised the fear in her eyes. But it wasn’t about Didrik, it was another kind of fear — and resignation — that was somehow familiar.
After a while she took her hand away. ‘How are things now? Are you feeling better?’ she asked, even though she knew it wasn’t the case.
‘It’s over. It will never be us. Never. Well, you saw what happened the other day when I collapsed.’
Ellen nodded and suddenly had a funny impulse to say that everything would be fine, but because she knew they were only empty words, she left it.
‘I’ll just go up to my room and get my bag.’ That was a lie, but she felt a strong desire to get away from the table and all the rattling porcelain. She needed to rinse off her face and think, catch her breath …
‘Did you spend the night here?’ Carola asked with surprise.
Ellen nodded and hoped there wouldn’t be any follow-up questions.
‘I’ll go up with you,’ she said instead.
‘No, there’s no need.’ She wanted to be by herself.
‘Okay, but I’ll come with you — I’m going to TV4 now, anyway, and you too, I assume. Do you have a car? Otherwise I can drive you.’
‘Oh yes, I see. Okay …’
‘They’re doing an interview with me on Crime Scene Sweden, hence the uniform. Maybe we can have lunch afterwards — I have a few work-related things to go over, too.’
Ellen felt cornered.
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor and walked silently through the corridor to Ellen’s room. She waved the key card and opened the door.
Carola went in first. ‘Did you stay here by yourself?’ She glanced at the unmade double bed.
‘Uh, yeah. There were only double rooms available. Excuse me,’ she said, and quickly slipped into the bathroom, closed the door, and locked it. She sat down on the edge of the tub and turned on the tap.
She didn’t actually want to go to work, but she couldn’t go home, either, until she knew that Didrik was gone. She tried not to think about what Carola had told her. It made her reflect on so many things.
‘Is everything okay?’ Carola knocked on the door.
‘Absolutely.’ She pinched her cheeks and tried to get colour into her lifeless face. Filled her lungs with air and u
nlocked.
Carola was standing right outside the door. Ellen had to make an effort to get past her. She was much too close, and it felt extremely uncomfortable. Especially now, when Carola knew so much about her.
‘Shall we go?’
‘Where’s your bag?’ asked Carola, who refused to move.
Ellen looked around in confusion. ‘No, right. I didn’t have one.’ She scratched her head, and in that moment, Carola took hold of Ellen’s other hand. It happened very quickly. She stepped closer and brushed her other hand along Ellen’s cheek.
Ellen was caught off-guard and froze. She wasn’t that type of girlfriend. She’d always had a hard time with physical affection with others, except with the person she actually loved. She found it difficult with friends who wanted to hug, walk arm in arm, touch each other’s hair, and all the things you did with your girlfriends.
But when Carola took another step closer to her, she realised that this was something quite different. She backed up. ‘Sorry, I think you must have misunderstood me.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ Carola looked down at the floor. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
ELLEN
10.15 A.M.
Ellen tried to tell herself that she must have misunderstood the situation earlier at the hotel room and did everything to ignore the oppressive atmosphere in the car.
Carola babbled on about some new software that had been installed in all the police cars and had created a lot of problems. When she laughed, it was a little too loudly, and her gestures didn’t really match what she was saying, which made Ellen nervous.
They parked outside the TV4 building, and Ellen told her she needed to register the car to avoid getting a ticket. Together, they went over to the entrance. Before they separated, she asked Carola to find out which unmarked car had been active in Stentuna right before or at the time of the murder. Carola sighed and said she would see if it was possible to produce that. It ought to be on the surveillance cameras if nothing else, Ellen thought, and took the opportunity to also ask whether the Nyköping police had watched the surveillance footage from the McDonald’s from that same evening.