Liv

by Mikaela Bley

  To Ellen’s surprise, Carola did as she asked and stopped in a shady spot on the side of the road near the hospital.

  ‘I didn’t tell you about that tip. You were the one who sent it. Why did you do it?’

  ‘Why do you think? I wanted to make you understand that Liv wasn’t the damsel in distress you seemed to believe she was, but of course I had to be careful.’

  ‘Was that why you wanted to release that warning to women in Stentuna — to create confusion?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Carola asked, letting the car idle.

  ‘I want to try to understand. Can you tell me what happened? That’s why you knew she was found with her dress over her face.’ Ellen covered her mouth. ‘You hadn’t seen a picture …’

  Carola was shaking and nervously fingering the steering wheel. Several times, it looked like she was bracing herself and about to say something.

  Ellen tried to collect herself. ‘You were the one in the unmarked car. But how is it possible that they haven’t seen it on any surveillance cameras, it should have been easy to …’

  ‘I’ve been working as a police officer my whole life. I know how to avoid them.’

  Her heart was pounding. ‘Was it the blue lights that got her to stop?’

  Carola sat quietly with her head bowed. After a while she started talking. ‘I followed her from Stockholm. If I’d known she was going to drive all the way to Stentuna … I just wanted to talk to her, I know that deep down she loved me. She was the one who hit first …’

  Carola fell silent, and Ellen didn’t know what she should do or say. Most of all, she just wanted to get out and run away from there.

  ‘You asked me what children are capable of doing. They’re looking for kicks. They fight. Argue. Challenge fate. Just like us adults,’ said Carola. ‘Liv was extremely hot-tempered.’ She rolled up the sleeves of her uniform and showed the bruises that had turned yellow. ‘Me too, I guess. That’s the way we were. It often got violent. Well, I told you the whole story this morning.’ She darted a glance at Ellen before she went back to staring straight ahead.

  Ellen tried to fit it all together. ‘But I don’t understand, Liv was with Patrik, wasn’t she? Did she leave you for him? Was she bisexual?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so, but what does that matter now anyway? Is that really so strange or something to get stuck on? All you’re doing is confirming what Liv felt. She was ashamed of being gay — all she wanted was to live a normal life.’

  ‘No, sorry, that wasn’t what I meant. I mean, Patrik?’

  Carola shrugged. ‘Yes, ironic, isn’t it? She wanted to have kids and was prepared to sacrifice anything at all for that dream. I couldn’t give her a child. Liv left me for Patrik because he could give her a family. She would rather have shared her love with two other women than have continued to be with me. Do you know how that feels? There’s nothing left of me. She decimated me. I can’t handle the grief, to be honest. Look at me.’ She was shaking like an aspen leaf.

  ‘But it doesn’t sound like you two had a particularly good relationship, considering that she beat you?’ Ellen was trying to understand.

  ‘I loved Liv, even though she treated me badly. Above all because I knew that she loved me, but I just couldn’t live up to her expectations.’

  Ellen slipped her phone out of her pocket, afraid that Carola would fall apart completely at any moment.

  ‘Call the police, then. It’s just as well. I think they’ve probably already started to suspect me. They should, anyway. But maybe it would be best if you kept an eye on me until they get here. It would be a sensible act for the good of society, and something one would expect of the kind of responsible citizen you are.’

  Ellen tried to keep her breathing in check.

  ‘The cherry on top of it all is that she was the one who hit the most and the hardest. They were her games. I’d never been in a violent relationship before. Liv was the leader. Think about that when you paint a dignified picture of her …’ She held her chest. ‘I just wanted to talk to her and try to sort things out, but it was impossible. She changed her phone number and her email address. In the end, I followed her. I just wanted to talk to her, tell her how much I loved her. When I stopped her with the car, she was furious.’ Carola was having a hard time talking and stumbled over her words again and again. ‘She was the one who started hitting. I don’t know what happened. She said such awful things, and she often did, but this time …’

  ‘But …’ Ellen kept trying to fit it together, while still wanting badly to get out of the car. ‘How did Hanna wind up with her phone?’

  ‘I don’t know. I threw it away from the car. Either the kids found it or …’ She started hyperventilating. ‘When I came to work and heard that the Nyköping police had screwed up, I realised that I was lucky. For the first time in my life.’

  Without taking her eyes off Ellen, Carola drew her pistol from its holster.

  ‘How can I live with this? I’ve never felt anything so bad, and I can’t keep going. I miss her so incredibly much and I …’

  Ellen dialled emergency on the phone and pressed the green button. ‘Carola!’ she shouted as, in the same second, Carola put the pistol against her head.

  ELLEN

  5.00 P.M.

  Soon after the police and ambulance arrived at the scene, Ellen left. They could immediately determine that Carola was dead. A dog walker had witnessed the whole thing, and the police could dismiss Ellen as a suspect.

  They took her witness statement, but said that they would be in touch again soon for follow-up. They clarified that she was part of the investigation and took care to inform her that nothing could be leaked to the press.

  The ambulance personnel tried to attend to her, but all she wanted was to go home.

  Carola had died instantly. The bullet hit the target, as they say.

  The sound of the sirens echoed in her head as Ellen stood in the shower. The clothes she’d had on she had crumpled into a plastic bag. The bloodstains would never go away. The image of Carola’s brain matter on the window showed up as soon as she closed her eyes. She scrubbed her whole body until her skin was completely red and raw. It stung as she rubbed her whole body with disinfectant. After the shower, she crawled into bed. She was shaking and had a hard time settling down, but in the end, she must have fallen asleep from pure exhaustion, because when she woke up, she had several missed calls on her phone.

  The police wanted her to come to the police station on Kungsholmen to provide a proper witness statement.

  Ellen put on clean clothes and tried to drink a glass of water, but found it difficult to swallow. The nausea lingered on.

  Then she caught sight of the wall and stopped in shock. Everything had been taken down except the passport picture of her. It must have been Didrik, she thought, trying to imagine what he’d been trying to communicate. Ellen went up to the wall and took down the picture of herself and threw it out along with the clothes.

  An hour later, she was sitting in an interview room with the police.

  They asked her what she knew, and Ellen told them the whole story. From beginning to end.

  It felt as if they wanted to steer away from the fact that Carola was behind the murder of Liv Lind — that in fact they questioned Carola’s involvement in the murder. They wanted to mould Ellen’s story, influence her, and insist that she’d misunderstood, and that perhaps it happened some other way.

  It felt familiar.

  ELLEN

  6.30 P.M.

  When the police searched Liv’s apartment, they found no traces of Carola. There was nothing there that connected them. In Carola’s apartment, on the other hand, they’d found all the more. Among other things the panties and the ring.

  After the interview, Ove stopped by, and he and Ellen had a coffee in the cafeteria at the police station. He seemed sincerely a
ffected by what had happened.

  ‘God, my head is just spinning. The police are going to have a difficult time.’ He tugged on his moustache and shook his head. Told her in confidence that they’d found email correspondence and messages on Carola’s computer that had been sent to Liv’s old email, and that they’d also gone through Carola’s old phone lists and seen that they’d had daily contact for a long period of time. Apparently, they’d had a violent relationship. A game that got out of control, was Ove’s explanation for it all.

  It was far from the first time that Ellen had heard that expression the past few days.

  Ove shrugged. They had only managed to uncover minor details. They’d questioned an old friend of Carola’s who had confirmed that Carola told her that the relationship had been violent. She apparently didn’t have many good things to say about Liv, even though she’d never met her. She didn’t even know what she looked like, and so had had nothing to contribute when they’d released a picture of Liv and asked the general public for help.

  ‘How did it come about that you put me in touch with Carola?’

  ‘I don’t really know.’ He yawned. ‘She was the one who came to me, and I guess I thought she might be good for you. She could put women in their place.’ He realised quickly that he shouldn’t have said that. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t what I meant.’

  Ellen understood exactly what he’d meant.

  ‘I thought it was a fucking great idea, given the way Börje and the gang had just messed up. I had no idea that …’

  ‘What do you mean? So she approached you?’ She remembered that Carola had said she’d been lucky.

  ‘Yes, she wanted to do it, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. She was capable, but she’d also been having a hard time the past year, been on sick leave a lot, and …’ He fell silent. ‘When she herself came forward with an initiative, I thought it was good. I gave her your number and told her that we should be generous with the tips so that you wouldn’t start playing audio files on TV and the sort of shit you’re so aggressive about. That was smart of her. That way she was able to keep a close watch on the investigation and what information came out. My God.’ He shook his head and took a sip of his coffee, which must have gone cold by that point.

  ‘What if I hadn’t been so aggressive? Maybe you never would have solved the case.’

  ‘Listen, don’t get delusions of grandeur now. Börje is a good man, I’ve said that all along.’

  When Ellen left the police station she felt very confused and shaken. The image of Carola’s brain matter had etched itself permanently in her mind, and even though her eyes weren’t closed, she could see the blood.

  From the very beginning, Ellen had believed that the blow that killed Liv couldn’t have been the first one. But that Liv herself might have been violent hadn’t occurred to her, and she was ashamed of how narrowly she’d been thinking. Slowly, she walked over to her car. The footpaths were full of people enjoying the warm summer evening.

  She passed a 7-Eleven. The tabloid placards screamed POLYGAMY and she sadly turned her eyes away. She couldn’t help thinking about the children and about Bea. Despite everything the girl had done to Ellen, she could only feel sorry for her. She must have been scared to death that her family situation would be exposed. Bea hadn’t asked for any of this. Children who bully others often just want to be seen and heard. There was a reason that she had behaved the way she had, and it was doubtless not easy growing up under conditions like hers. Ellen felt she could truly understand how betrayed Bea must have felt at the moment her dad introduced a new wife. Hopefully, this whole thing would bring something good with it in the end. Ellen couldn’t bear to think about it any more now. It was too much.

  The murmur from the outdoor cafés receded when she turned down towards Pipersgatan, where her car was parked. She felt lost: where should she go? Before she could get in the car, her phone rang. She hesitated when she saw that it was Margareta, but after a few rings, she answered.

  ‘Come home, Ellen. Something has happened and it’s serious. We have to talk.’

  ELLEN

  9.50 P.M.

  It was almost ten o’clock when she turned into the farmyard. The lamps on the facade and the castle gable were on, but there were no lights on inside. The halls and the kitchen were dark. Likewise on the top floor. There weren’t even any lights on in Margareta’s room.

  The front door was open, but that wasn’t that unusual. They almost never locked the kitchen entrance.

  Ellen went in and turned the light on in the hall, stood quietly, and listened. Not a sound could be heard.

  ‘Mum!’ she called.

  She’d thought that her mother would be awake when she came home. She was the one who wanted to talk, but Ellen didn’t really know if she could take much more today. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to her mother, and the whole way home, she’d tried to think of what could be so important.

  She went into the kitchen and turned on the ceiling light.

  On the table was a bottle of gin and a bottle of tonic. Both were half-empty. She must have passed out, thought Ellen, feeling relieved and worried at the same time.

  She went upstairs to the corridor of bedrooms and knocked carefully on Margareta’s door. When she didn’t hear anything, she pushed the door open. She didn’t need to turn on the light to see that the bed was empty. She looked around the room and went into the bathroom. No one there, either.

  She was seized by fear. ‘Mum!’ she screamed, trying to take a few deep breaths, but it was hard to fill her lungs.

  No answer.

  The castle was big, but there were only a few rooms they really used.

  This wasn’t like her. A thousand different scenarios played out in Ellen’s mind. She snapped her fingers and stamped her feet. It felt as if her legs were falling asleep.

  She opened the door to her own room.

  A lamp was on and the window was wide open. The curtain and lampshade were completely black with insects, as were the walls and ceiling. Everything from small flies to beetle-like creatures and wasps.

  She turned off the lamp and closed the window. There was intense buzzing.

  ‘Ellen.’

  She gasped and turned around.

  ELLEN

  10.15 P.M.

  The moonlight streamed in through the window and fell on her where she was sitting in one of the two armchairs.

  ‘Mum.’ Relief immediately turned to anger. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I see that you’ve taken down our portraits.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be in here, why didn’t you shut the window? There are insects everywhere.’

  Margareta shrugged.

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Do you know what the insects symbolise?’

  ‘No. And I don’t want to know either.’ Large moths and other unidentifiable bugs were buzzing around her. She waved her hands.

  ‘They can’t do anything to you,’ Margareta said slowly.

  ‘I don’t like them. I don’t understand what you’re up to, why are you sitting here?’

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing at the armchair beside her. ‘I’ve decided to be honest. I can’t stand it any longer.’

  Ellen sat down reluctantly.

  ‘Didrik was here earlier today. He said that you’d asked about the grain and whether he was at Örelo when Elsa disappeared. Peder also came to me and said you’d asked a lot of questions. In truth, I guess this was what I wanted to happen when I sent you to Dr Hiralgo, even as it pains me that now you’ll have to find out the truth. But I can’t take it any more, Ellen.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve paid Didrik and his mother so that they would keep quiet. Do you know whose this is?’ In her hand she was holding a necklace with a water lily on i
t. One similar to the one Ellen had around her neck. ‘For all these years we’ve tried to protect you, but it hasn’t worked. You’ve been impossible. But I think we made the wrong decision, and when I saw you going through my desk, I thought you’d seen the necklace …’

  ‘So, that one is Elsa’s?’

  ELLEN

  10.45 P.M.

  ‘How can you have Elsa’s necklace? Didn’t it sink and disappear?’ Ellen looked at her mother for a long moment.

  ‘It was an accident, Ellen. A sibling quarrel that went too far. We shouldn’t have left the two of you alone.’

  Ellen went over and took the necklace with the broken chain. ‘What went too far? What are you trying to say? That I was the one who …’ She shook her head and squeezed the necklace hard. ‘That I killed Elsa?’ She was breathing heavily. ‘What do you mean? I know I should have tried to get hold of you when she disappeared …’

  Ellen had always felt guilty about her sister’s death. If she had told someone that Elsa had disappeared, maybe she would have been found in time. But that she could have killed her … She tried to stay calm, but it was hard. ‘I don’t need to listen to this.’ She went to the door.

  ‘You stay here.’ Margareta stood up firmly from the chair. ‘Now you’re going to listen to me, young lady.’

  Ellen turned around and met her mother’s sad eyes.

  Her legs crumpled.

  ‘We searched. She wasn’t where you said the two of you had been.’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘I’ve tried, believe me, I have tried to remove the memories of how this could have happened. Everything was a power struggle for you — you were always so jealous of Elsa, and your temper was frightful, we couldn’t control you. It was one of your outbursts of anger that went too far. It was often the case that you couldn’t remember what you did when you got so angry.’

  The ground cracked open.

  ‘You really don’t remember?’