Beyond All Reasonable Doubt

by Malin Persson Giolito

  “Yeah, maybe her mother most of all. We don’t put the blame on her, nothing like that. But she had quite a bit to deal with. What was she supposed to do? She had to. You can see it for yourself. I asked them to play it for you while I’m in makeup. That gives you something to do. It’s all set up, out in the studio.”

  “You’re done now,” said the makeup artist, spinning Sophia around. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.

  Jeez. Sophia blinked in disbelief. Is that what I look like?

  * * *

  —

  A beige easy chair and a pale gray sofa were facing each other in what looked like a cross section of a living room. Sophia declined a cup of coffee and sat on one side of the sofa.

  “Do you want to watch?” The studio gal shot Sophia a questioning look. When Sophia nodded, the woman started the VCR on the cart. “It’s not fully edited, but Lasse thought you should see it anyway.”

  On the TV screen, Sophia watched a woman in her fifties enter the studio, the same studio she was in right now. She was shown to a seat and given a microphone. Eija Nurmilehto was already seated, but it was the older woman who spoke first.

  When she was finished, the camera zoomed in on Lasse. He was leaning forward slightly in his chair. His eyes were shiny.

  “Why didn’t anyone notice how Katrin was feeling?”

  Eija responded. “Because she didn’t say anything.”

  Lasse still hadn’t taken his eyes from Katrin’s mother. He had moved so close that he was almost brushing her knee.

  “She didn’t mention anything to you either?”

  Katrin’s mother was clutching a tissue in one hand. But she wasn’t crying. Instead she just shook her head.

  “I wasn’t there,” she said at last.

  Katrin

  1997

  Katrin wasn’t actually all that worried. She didn’t spend all her time thinking about it, definitely not. Because her mother would get well. The doctors had said so. They were almost certain of it. And anyway, Dad was, a hundred percent. Absolutely sure, no doubt at all. They didn’t even have to talk about it, because they knew it would all be fine.

  Katrin had a cup of tea with her dad before she left. She would put on her makeup at a friend’s house.

  “It’s important for you to have fun,” Dad said as they put their mugs in the dishwasher. “Mom wants you to enjoy yourself. To be happy. For life to go on as usual.”

  Katrin gave him a kiss. She liked this about Dad. That he didn’t worry.

  In her bag was some brown liqueur her parents never drank anyway, and a few splashes of port, whiskey, and vodka. Not much of any one sort. but altogether the mixture filled half a plastic bottle. She’d watered it down with mixed-berry juice. Dad never kept track of the liquor cabinet in the first place, but it was even easier now. Mom at least used to get suspicious. Once she had been cleaning out Katrin’s backpack after a field trip and when she unscrewed the top of the empty thermos she could tell from the smell that Katrin hadn’t exactly been drinking hot chocolate while orienteering with her classmates. But Mom was gone — all weekend and four days after that.

  When they arrived at Gården he was already there. He had dark blue eyes and thick eyebrows and had told Helen’s brother that he thought Katrin was cute. He was two years older but didn’t care about that sort of thing. He didn’t consider her just a little kid.

  First, they danced. He held her, his hand on her waist, and she laid her cheek against his chest. He was tall.

  Next to him, she was light, soft. She felt her waist become thinner as he placed his hand there, and when his other hand slid down toward her butt it was like it became rounder all on its own. He thought she was sexy as hell, she could feel it, he couldn’t resist her and pressed her to him, kind of hard.

  She finished the bottle and he took her by the hand and they went outside together. None of the adults had noticed she was drunk. That was good, but it was even more important that she get out, she couldn’t throw up indoors or someone would call her house.

  It was cold outside. The night was black and the sky endless. Katrin held onto him; he held onto her. She kissed him. She took his hand again, his large hand, and brought it inside her jacket, inside her shirt. Then she had to stop. She couldn’t keep her eyes closed any longer. Her head was spinning. She didn’t want to throw up. She wanted to feel his cold hands on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth.

  But the bus arrived. And he got on and Katrin followed him and passed out in the back. When she woke up she was lying down and he was all over her, and Katrin realized that his friend was there as well, on the other side of the same seat. The friend pretended to be looking out the window, but she met his gaze in the reflection. Katrin didn’t remember the friend’s name anymore. But she could see in his eyes that it wasn’t like before. The look told her how bad it was. What was being done to her.

  She should have screamed, but that didn’t occur to her until much later. Another person than Katrin would have screamed. Another person than Katrin would have sat up and battled her way free. But instead Katrin lay where she was. She let him do what he was doing and she looked at his friend’s eyes in the window.

  The driver didn’t notice a thing. He couldn’t have. Because the bus drove and drove and when it was finally over, she was allowed to put on her pants again. Her underwear was gone, the zipper got caught on her pubic hair, and when the bus stopped he stood her up, with the help of his friend; she had to lean on his shoulder, he pulled her close as they hauled her down the steps and off the bus. They sat her on a bench, and only then did she throw up.

  He got back on the bus before it left the stop and the friend did too, and she said, “Don’t go. Please. Don’t leave.” But both of them left. Then she threw up until it turned dark red and she could tell she had a nosebleed, or she was puking blood. And she didn’t know where she was, but he and the friend had disappeared, and she knew she had to get home.

  Katrin didn’t cry when she lost her virginity. She didn’t even close her eyes. She couldn’t, because her head was spinning too fast, whirling, zooming down and out into something that was gone forever. Was it rape? Did she want it? She didn’t know. How could she? She didn’t say anything; what would she have said?

  When she arrived home, she went to the bathroom, locked the door, and got into the shower, on the floor under the boiling-hot water. Dad was asleep. He didn’t wake up when the hot-water heater came on. Mom would have; Mom would have woken up, but she wasn’t there. Katrin showered until she ran out of hot water and then she went to her room and Dad didn’t wake up, or else he was just letting her be. Dad left her alone.

  The next morning, she ate breakfast with Dad. He read the paper and she lay down in front of the TV. She didn’t say anything, because she had nothing to say.

  He asked, “Did you all have fun last night?”

  What did she say to that? She didn’t remember.

  Mom came home four days later. She was tired. She spent most of each day sleeping. When Katrin went to school, when she returned home, when it was time for dinner, when they were going to watch a movie on TV. The exhaustion never let up.

  Sometimes she came up to eat with Dad and Katrin, her robe open and her hair greasy. But she just picked at her food and left the table after a few minutes. Sometimes she wrapped herself in a blanket and lay down on a chair on the balcony. She fell asleep there too, even though it was cold.

  Katrin went into her room, crawled into bed next to her mother as she had when she was younger, cuddling up to her angular back. Her nightgown smelled like sweat.

  But Mom got so warm; the covers were too thick. She told Katrin that soon, but not now, they could talk, later, she just had to sleep for a while first. She was awfully tired.

  37

  Adam Sahla bolted up from the sofa, startled. He wiped saliva from his chin with
the back of his hand. What time was it? Bolibompa was over and the kids were no longer in front of the TV. Norah wasn’t home yet, but she would be soon — at nine, she’d said. He should get the kids to bed.

  He heard his daughter’s shrill voice from the children’s room. She wasn’t crying, but his son was protesting about something. Adam struggled to get up. He found the remote, which was stuck between the cushions, and changed the channel. He could catch a few minutes of the news before it was time to deal with the kids.

  “Go put on your pajamas,” he called, but there was no response. Instead his son started screeching. Adam couldn’t tell what he wanted. Then it was his daughter’s turn to start howling. Adam surfed through the channels and turned up the volume. Soon, he thought. I’ll go in there soon.

  “Quiet,” he tried again. Not as sharply this time. And not very convincingly — in any case, they didn’t listen.

  It seemed the news hadn’t started yet. Instead, Sophia Weber was on the screen, wearing a navy-blue suit and high-heeled shoes. Her hair was down and her eyes were sparkling. She finished a sentence, listened to the reporter’s commentary, and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. Then she was gone. Up came blurry images of a dead body. More blurry pictures: naked women, a girl photographed from behind. They flashed by, all but the little girl. That image froze on the screen. She was wearing a backpack and her hair was plaited into two skinny braids.

  What had Sophia said? That no other man was so hated. That we were prepared to do anything to get him convicted. She was talking about Stig Ahlin. This was a teaser for a documentary on Stig Ahlin.

  Sophia was back on-screen. Her voice was just as he remembered. She wasn’t apologizing; she didn’t demand attention, but she attracted it anyway. When Sophia spoke, you had to listen to her. Adam swallowed and turned up the volume some more to hear what she was saying.

  “A man who goes to prostitutes, who sleeps with a fifteen-year-old girl, whom we have heard subjected his daughter to sexual abuse. We want to do all we can to get him convicted. Locked up. To make him disappear. But…lowering the standard of evidence doesn’t mean we are able to convict more guilty people. Some claim this makes the law more effective. Effective sounds like a good thing. But when we lower the standard of evidence, only one thing is certain: more innocent people are convicted. It’s as simple as that.”

  Cut to Lasse Wilander, that channel’s star reporter. He was standing in front of a plain background and looking urgently into the camera. Next to him, a clock was ticking. Without taking his eyes from the lens, his voice steady, he rattled off his lines.

  “Stig Ahlin. A cold-blooded killer? Or the victim of the greatest judicial scandal in modern Swedish history? We will spend our entire premiere episode on the case of Stig Ahlin and the murder of Katrin Björk. We have scrutinized the actions of the police, the prosecutor, the court, and the correctional system. Hear the story of Professor Death. A man who has been subjected to injustice at every step of the judicial process: from the day he was labeled a suspect to the moment the sentence was handed down. Life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  Adam Sahla found himself standing in front of the TV. Just as the news began, he heard a crash. It had come from the kids’ room. He had to go see what it was. It sounded like someone had thrown the bed at the wall.

  When he walked into the bedroom, his son was standing there with a phone in hand. His daughter was flat on the floor, sobbing.

  “Mom! Come hooooome now!” His son shouted into the receiver. “I hate her. She broke my Legos.”

  “What are you doing? Why are you on the phone?”

  Adam took it from the boy, who kept shouting.

  “You never come when I call for you. I hate you, Dad. You just sleep and sleep and then you watch TV and you never hear. You never hear, Dad. Never, never, never. I want my mommy!”

  Adam spoke into the phone. “We’ll talk later.”

  He hung up.

  * * *

  —

  Adam had thought the kids would never calm down, but surprisingly enough his son fell asleep almost immediately. His daughter, however, was less cooperative. After an hour of trying to settle her, he lay down in her bed. He had already tried reading a story, bringing her water, singing a song so softly it made his throat sting, and swearing up and down that he would stay until she fell asleep.

  His daughter had placed one sticky palm on his cheek to make sure he wouldn’t disappear, and she was looking intently at him, her eyes wide open. Adam closed his own eyes, peeking now and then to watch as she slowly gave in to sleep. It took half an hour before her eyelids began to droop and her breathing slowed. Yet he didn’t dare move.

  It was past ten, and Norah still wasn’t home. They hadn’t spoken since their son called her, and Adam knew why she wasn’t back yet. This was another of her punishment strategies. His penalty for being unable to care for the children, for not doing as she wished and in the exact way she would have done it. But he didn’t have the energy to think about that right now. He hoped it would be some time before she came home, that he could fall asleep first. That way she couldn’t talk to him until tomorrow night at the earliest. He could work late.

  Instead he thought about Stig Ahlin. When Sophia had first contacted him to ask for advice, Adam had assumed she wanted to talk about the investigation into the sexual abuse of Stig Ahlin’s daughter. That was Adam’s specialty, what he worked with most frequently. He’d had the case file sent up and had browsed through it in preparation. It had made him feel as despondent as usual. Stig Ahlin’s daughter had shown physical signs of abuse; she had demonstrated odd behaviors and had been interviewed by a skilled person who allowed her to speak without urging her on or putting words in her mouth. Several things the girl said had raised question marks. In Adam’s opinion, it had been a well-managed investigation with multiple strong indicators of abuse.

  He had also glanced through the interviews with Stig Ahlin’s wife. She had appeared trustworthy. Not out for revenge — sad and shocked rather than angry and bitter.

  Yet the investigation had been closed. This wasn’t unusual, of course. It was often the case. The girl hadn’t been able to share any clear and explicit account of abuse. Whether this was because of her age or some other reason was hard to say. Nor were there any unambiguous medical indications that she had been exploited. To be sure, such clear indications were extremely unusual, but their existence or lack thereof still played a role in determining the priority of a case. Stig and his wife had just gotten divorced. She was not financially secure, and she was fighting her ex for alimony. It would have been difficult, to say the least, to file charges against him based on her information.

  Adam stroked his daughter’s silky-smooth arm. She had refused to go to bed unless he let her put on a white lace sundress. She had kicked the covers off, and her dress had slid up over her bare hip.

  He carefully removed the child’s hand from his cheek. His little girl was asleep now, exhaling right into his neck, and when he turned to face her he could smell her breath.

  When she was a baby he had enjoyed all the ways she smelled — the warm cardamom scent of her powdered skin, her soft hair that reminded him of Nutella. But what he loved most of all was her toffeelike breath.

  These days, those scents had changed. A faint whiff of bitter almond reached him as he kissed her as gently as possible to keep from waking her. They had forgotten to brush their teeth.

  Adam shouldn’t let himself get worked up over the Stig Ahlin case; it had been long before his time. But he couldn’t help it. The investigation had been closed when it should have been given priority. So many measures should have been taken, but instead the case had been buried in closure forms. It was still the same; little had changed in the years since Stig Ahlin went to prison. Some things never did. The onus was placed on little kids. Wispy, terrified girls and boys who didn’t
even know what was expected of them.

  Adam cautiously wiggled his way out of the bed and sneaked to the door. He wanted to go to his own bed. Norah could clean up the kitchen when she got home. He needed sleep. In the doorway, he turned around to look at his children. His son was battling with his covers; his daughter sighed and muttered in her sleep.

  Stig Ahlin is not a victim of a miscarriage of justice, Adam thought. Stig Ahlin is exactly where he should be.

  38

  In some ways, this felt like rowing across a lake. At this stage the analysis was over; only routine and habit were left. Sophia was drained of emotions, ideas, strength. The petition for a new trial would soon be complete. Collected into binders, boxes. Marked and copied. The document itself would be physically delivered from her office to the registrar of the Supreme Court. And Sophia was rowing: slowly, rhythmically, with no real thought but of arriving. On the other side.

  Physical labor, she thought. The type lawyers do at night, once your brain stops cooperating.

  The petition wouldn’t get any better than this. There were no further arguments to add or refute. Everything had been composed, proofread, corrected, and read again. Now she was sitting on the floor in the lobby with her legs out in a V and binders and attachments spread out before her. Before she could drag herself and the petition to Riddarholmen, where the court was located, she must check one last time to make sure the original and the copies matched exactly, that no pages were missing or mislabeled.

  She always did this part on her own. Otherwise she would lie awake at night and wonder if something was missing. And it seemed so improbable that Hans Segerstad would agree to lick the tip of his finger and slowly page through each document that she hadn’t even bothered to ask.

  He’s busy giving interviews, she thought, setting yet another binder aside. Or eating dinner with Lasse Wilander. They’re celebrating all my amazing success, since they’re taking credit for it.