Beyond All Reasonable Doubt

by Malin Persson Giolito

  Uncomplicated. But never shallow or unimportant. When Anna started her first company and spent her weekends getting it going rather than hanging out with Sophia, she and Carl began to see each other even more. It was the first time Sophia hadn’t felt lonely when Anna didn’t have time for her.

  Even after just a few months of friendship, she’d accompanied Carl to the countryside. He had taken her hunting, and with Carl she got to slit the belly of a freshly shot moose, empty it of entrails, stand in the hot steam, and let the heat melt the snow all around what had so recently been alive. Carl wasn’t the type to be intimidated. Not by death, not by blood, and definitely not by her. It made her feel oddly safe.

  Later Sophia had also come along to feed new families of deer; he settled the two of them downwind, so they could observe the fawns undisturbed. And she knew that when he was younger he’d succeeded in taming a hare. He’d given it food and water and made a bed for it under the front steps.

  It was a given for Carl. Death one day, caring for life the next.

  The family’s “place” was a yellow manor house. On the first floor was the hall; the library, with its grand piano; the dining room, with a table that seated thirty; the kitchen, with its open hearth where they’d grilled one New Year’s Eve when the power was out; and the billiard room, with the family’s collection of Zorn etchings.

  The first time Sophia got to visit Carl there, she had felt so welcome that she’d had to ask if his parents thought they were a couple. They didn’t, said Carl, who by the next year had brought his boyfriend along. Carl and his boyfriend had stayed together on the third floor, where only the family slept. Sophia never went up there.

  There were nine guest rooms and space for seventeen guests in all. She and Sture each had a room. Sophia’s was more than three hundred square feet and had silk wallpaper, parquet floors from the century before last, silk-edged velvet curtains, a six-foot mahogany headboard, Persian rugs, a tile oven with dark-blue pansies painted on the topmost tiles, and an enormous oil painting above the bed, depicting someone whom Carl claimed was the first gay in the family.

  She always got to sleep in the same room. It almost felt like her very own. At each visit, she began by hanging up her clothes in the Dutch wardrobe of cherrywood, opening the door into the adjoining bathroom, and running a bath.

  By the third time she was invited to spend the weekend with them, Carl Johan and Adrienne made sure she brought her grandparents. And they always set a silver tray in the room, bearing mineral water, a few mandarins, and almond biscotti. At dinner they would sit at their usual places, always the same ones.

  By the time Sophia was finished bathing, the evening meal wasn’t far off. Darkness was already waiting for her in the bedroom. She turned on the light and looked at the book she’d borrowed from the library. If she started reading it now, she would only fall asleep. It was time to dress for dinner.

  As she rubbed her legs with lotion she’d found in the bathroom, she turned on the small TV that stood on a narrow table along one of the long walls. It didn’t receive any channels, so she turned it back off. She buttoned her dress halfway up the back before wrangling it over her head; otherwise she couldn’t get it buttoned the rest of the way. Outside, the snow was still floating to the ground.

  * * *

  —

  Sophia was standing on the manor house steps in her thin, high-heeled shoes, so cold she was shaking. Someone had hung a fur on her; it smelled like an old cabinet and didn’t do anything for her ice-cold feet. Carl and his boyfriend had run off to ignite some firepower whose magnitude equaled that of a ground assault in the final, decisive attacks on the Belgian lowlands in World War I.

  “Fireworks. Obviously, we have to have fireworks.”

  Sophia had never understood why. But she’d stopped protesting years ago.

  Sture stood a few yards away, stamping his feet. He’d brought along a cigar and a snifter of brandy and didn’t seem to feel the cold. But he was sneezing so hard his knees bent. He was allergic to brandy, he liked to say. And cigars.

  Carl Johan and Adrienne were standing beside Sophia. Adrienne had hooked her arm through Sophia’s and her dainty feet were stepping lightly in place. She, too, was cold. Carl Johan had the family’s foxhound, Wallis, on a leash. The dog was darting in figure eights around their feet and whining.

  The other hunting dogs howled from the kennel.

  “Well, she’s not gun-shy, anyway,” said Carl Johan, reeling in the dog. “Isn’t that right, Wallis honey, this is nothing, is it?”

  The dog was trembling harder than Sophia. Lifting one paw at a time, putting it back down again, putting her nose in the air and howling. She looked as if she wanted to cry. Or as if that was exactly what she was doing already.

  “She’s a real hunter. Used to it.” He turned to Wallis again. “But you’d very much like to know what it is we’re hunting, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you, girl?”

  The first rockets launched into the air. And as the red and yellow sparks spread across the sky, the foxhound went bananas. Sophia could see the whites of her eyes. Carl Johan swore as the odor of the gunpowder reached them. His hand was bleeding; he had let go of the hound’s leash.

  “She bit me,” he said.

  “Not gun-shy at all,” Adrienne snorted, adjusting her thin, fur-clad arm under Sophia’s. She raised the glass of champagne she’d brought out and pressed her lips together.

  “Happy New Year,” said Sture, stomping off toward the snowbank where the dog was huddled with her head between her front legs. He put out his foot and stepped on the leash. The brandy sloshed over the rim of his snifter and he dropped his cigar in the snow.

  Sophia stared at Carl Johan’s hand. Another shell flew into the air and the dog let out a howl. Everyone else looked at the sky, but Sophia couldn’t take her eyes from Carl Johan’s bleeding hand.

  Could it be that simple? She thought. No, there’s no way.

  Carl Johan had taken out a silk handkerchief and was pressing it to his wound. He didn’t seem to be in pain. Sophia walked up to him, took his hand, moved the handkerchief, and looked at the marks. Four dots of unequal sizes, all right next to each other. A few centimeters farther down, the skin was pierced. It looked like an abrasion.

  “Excuse me,” Sophia whispered, letting go of Carl Johan. She felt like she needed to sit down.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Adrienne asked. She was gazing at Sophia in concern. “Don’t worry about Carl Johan.” She leaned the other direction and tugged at Carl Johan’s coat sleeve. She, too, lifted his injured hand, glanced at it without much interest, and let it go again. “You see? He’ll be just fine. His vaccinations are up to date and anyway, he has only himself to blame. No reason to look so upset, Sophia. I’ve told him a hundred times.”

  A fresh swarm of rockets ascended into the sky. The hound howled in unison with the whistling. Adrienne went on.

  “I point out to him every year that he should give the dogs sedatives, but he refuses on the grounds that they’re hunting dogs, for goodness’ sake. This year Carl Johan can bandage himself up. And by the way” — she turned to Carl Johan — “you need to go shut Wallis up in the kitchen. She can’t be here.”

  Sophia jumped, let go of Adrienne’s arm, went over to Sture, and took the dog’s leash.

  “I can take her in.” She looped the leash over her hand and nodded eagerly. “I’m happy to take her in. I have to make a call anyway.”

  She pulled the dog over and walked off. Adrienne didn’t protest.

  Hans Segerstad didn’t answer until the fourth ring. He didn’t even say hello.

  “Sophia Weber. The woman herself…Are you calling to wish me a happy New Year? Are you drunk?”

  “There was a dog at the crime scene, right?”

  “Oh please, please…Sophia? If you think I’m sitting here paging through the Ahlin f
ile at ten minutes past midnight on New Year’s, you are mistaken.”

  “But there was, wasn’t there? When the neighbor called the emergency number, it was because the dog was making such a racket. It’s in the printouts. The neighbor wanted…that’s why it took so long. Because he only complained about the dog.”

  “When the neighbor called? What do you mean? Oh right…the emergency call. Sure, that’s what happened.”

  Sophia stood by the window. Wallis had lain down under a chair by the wall. At every sound, she got up, hit the seat above her, and lay back down. The winter night was illuminated by the thick snow. The fireworks flashed.

  “It was the dog that bit her,” she said. “Dogs do that when they’re frightened, they can bite anyone. Even their master. Or mistress.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hans Segerstad sounded annoyed. “You mean the dog bit Katrin to death?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sophia suddenly wondered why she’d called Hans. She should have known he’d be too drunk to talk any sense. “Of course that’s not what I’m saying. But I think it might have been the dog that bit her. No one has claimed that those bites were the cause of death. But the court believed Stig bit her for sadistic reasons. I don’t think he did. I think it was Katrin’s dog that bit her, and if that’s true there’s nothing to link Stig Ahlin to Katrin at the time of the murder. Do you hear me? Nothing!”

  “Would they have mistaken a dog bite for a human one? Do you really think those Englishmen were that hopelessly stupid?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Hmm.” Hans sounded completely uninterested and far from convinced. “We have to find an expert who will agree with you.”

  “Well, if that’s what we have to do, then let’s do it.”

  “Sounds good, Sophia.” The buzz in the background had increased. She could barely hear Hans. “That sounds excellent. We’ll talk later.”

  Sophia hung up. Her phone still in hand, she brought up Ludwig’s text and read it one more time.

  Primetime 60 Minutes. She locked the phone, stuck it in the evening bag in her hand, and left the kitchen. Wallis could stay put.

  It sounded like the fireworks were over. The others had gone down to clean up. She stood on the stairs to wait for their return.

  It shouldn’t be impossible to get a new opinion. Couldn’t money buy anything?

  In the meantime, I’ll talk to that evening paper guy, she thought. I’ll give him what I’ve found on Katrin. Then I’ll give Primetime 60 Minutes the results of the analysis. And tell them there was a dog at the crime scene. They’ve got money. They might find someone who wants to be on TV. And they can talk to Katrin’s parents, Eija Nurmilehto, Ida. No reason for them to meet Stig. Not yet. How many minutes are we talking about? A ten-minute report? They’ll have to settle for stock footage. As for me. I should have bought that suit. If worse comes to worst, I’ll borrow clothes from Anna.

  Sture climbed the steps, panting, and handed her his brandy snifter. She waved it off, instead accepting a glass of champagne from Adrienne. How they had managed to clean up the hill with all these glasses in hand, she had no idea. But Carl Johan stuck a freshly opened bottle into a snowbank alongside Sophia’s car. Sophia took her grandfather by the arm and looked at him.

  There weren’t many ways to work on a petition for a new trial. A typical case was like a living organism; there were a variety of tactics one could use. A weak indictment could be quashed until it went away; a matter of civil law could be delayed; an application to sue could be buried in paperwork. But a petition for a new trial was based on something that was already settled. Dead. The only remaining option was to beg. Beg the Supreme Court justices for mercy. And resurrection. Some used the media to their advantage. Sophia had never tried that; she thought there was too great a risk it might backfire. It was impossible to predict how a journalist would elect to describe her problems. But now it was time. She was ready.

  “Happy New Year,” she said, raising her glass to Sture. Once they’d toasted, she kissed him gently on the cheek. “How many Google hits did you say you had, again?”

  31

  The stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve passed almost unnoticed at the sex crimes unit at Emla Prison. The sounds of a nearby town’s celebrations were faintly audible outside the facility. Inside, it was quieter. The guards drank a quick toast with amber-colored soda. One of the prisoners turned the volume up as high as it would go to watch the New Year’s greetings on TV. Someone else banged on a wall. No one responded.

  Stig Ahlin had turned off his TV and rolled up the blinds. He opened the air intake as far as he could.

  Ida would turn eighteen on the fifth of January. It had been almost six years since they’d seen each other, and fourteen years since he got to spend his daughter’s birthday with her. He didn’t know where she celebrated New Year’s. Probably with her friends, tipsy on champagne she wasn’t allowed to drink. He didn’t know what she looked like anymore. When he tried to picture Ida as a young woman, it was Marianne’s face that appeared. He recalled the way Marianne had leaned toward him, mildly drunk, breathing into his neck. Happy New Year!

  He had given Ida a dollhouse for her fourth birthday. He’d installed lighting and purchased tiny furniture. In the morning, before she woke up, he had placed the illuminated house next to her bed and covered it with a sheet. She had awoken and sat up in bed, her back ramrod straight and her mouth wide open, the faint light of the shrouded dollhouse glittering in her dark eyes.

  Back then, they still knew each other. She missed him when he was gone and was happy when he returned. A few years ago, Stig had written a long letter to Ida. But he’d known even while writing it that he would never be able to send it. There were far too many reasons not to.

  One of the countless shrinks Stig had spoken with during his years in prison said after a few months of work that he accepted that Stig considered himself innocent. And in that case, Ida’s mother must be considered just as much a victim of circumstances as Stig was. It took some time for Stig to understand what he meant: that Marianne couldn’t be blamed for wanting to protect her daughter. And that a mother always takes her child’s side.

  Stig stopped speaking during those sessions. After four months, he was no longer summoned for treatment. Instead he was allowed to spend that time in the workshop. He had been offered the chance to further his education, of course, even though priority was given to those without previous higher education. But unless he could do research, it was pointless. He preferred to build tables and chairs.

  Sometimes Stig dreamed that he had murdered Ida’s mother. He fell asleep and was suddenly sitting on a bare floor with Marianne’s head in his hands. She was looking at him with dark, shiny eyes. She was powerless, breathing through her mouth. Then he crushed her skull, felt it give way like layered hardboard. Her skin tore away; her hair matted with blood. Or else he pressed his hands to her throat, his thumbs digging into her thin skin until her eyes bulged out and the blood vessels there burst like the glass in an old windowpane.

  The next psychiatrist, a short, almost dwarf-sized woman with black bug eyes, also tried to get Stig to consider what it must have been like for Marianne when she was confronted with all the suspicions surrounding Ida, about Ida’s injuries and Ida’s stories.

  So Stig told her about his dreams.

  “It’s not a nightmare,” he said. “More like just a regular dream.”

  Then he stopped speaking during those appointments and soon that treatment, too, was terminated. “Incapable of feeling remorse,” the psychiatrist wrote in the file. That information would be saved for the future; it was important to record. In case he ever applied to have his sentence time-limited.

  It had been a long time now since Stig Ahlin was forced to undergo treatment. They left him alone. In solitude. It was just as well.

  Misery isn’t con
tagious, Stig’s father used to say. But that wasn’t true. Misery was epidemic, a flare of wild cancer cells spreading in every direction. Airborne infection. It was contagious if you talked about it. It was contagious if you thought about it. Or it could be spread by physical contact. It was impossible to vaccinate oneself against misery. And it was incurable. So Stig preferred to be alone. Ida was better off without him.

  Stig left the blinds up and lay down on his bed. He couldn’t hear anything outside any longer. It was the start of a new year. He tapped cautiously on the wall. Then a little harder. In the next room was a family man, a mechanic by trade, convicted of seven rapes. Stig let his hand rest against the painted wall; it was chilly and vibrating slightly — the neighbor’s TV was on. He wanted to wish someone a happy New Year. He knocked one last time but received no response.

  32

  Sture and Sophia only spent two nights at Carl Johan and Adrienne’s. For three days, they had lunch and dinner and took long walks, and Sophia tried to relax. Whenever there was a short break in the game of social intercourse, she sat on the sofa in the library under layers upon layers of blankets that smelled faintly of tobacco. She read the first few pages of a book, dozed off, paged through a newspaper, built a fire in the tile oven. Slept, played billiards, made tea, baked a cake, ate it up.

  After lunch on January second, she could stand it no longer. It was time to leave.

  “Stay,” Adrienne pleaded.

  But Sophia shook her head and mumbled something about work. She wanted to go home, to a functional Internet connection, to a phone she could use without standing in a very particular position, leaning slightly to the right to keep from dropping coverage. She wanted to go home to her apartment, to the file and her office.