Beyond All Reasonable Doubt

by Malin Persson Giolito

  * * *

  —

  Stig Ahlin was drenched in a helpless sweat even before the two men made it through the open sliding door. The first thing they did was shove him into a corner. He didn’t know who they were, but he knew they hated him.

  The first blow landed before Stig could put up his hands, his arms, to protect himself. He was struck in the back of the head and he stumbled, blood flowing down the narrow valley on the back of his neck. The dizziness was worse than the pain.

  Stig was in good shape, more athletic than most. But the blows came one after another. While one of them was striking him the other took his mark, finding a new angle of attack. Stig tried to fend them off, keep his abdominal muscles taut, but it didn’t help. When he tried to brace himself he slipped, moaning in pain, flailing helter-skelter in vain, in the wrong direction. He fumbled in the empty space between his own helplessness and the other men’s fists.

  His eyebrow split, a rib cracked, one eye swelled shut, and his nose was bleeding like a fountain. Stig felt his knuckles hit someone, or something, and pain radiated up his forearm. It was quickly replaced by pain from somewhere else. Someone kicked him, and he fell hard on the concrete floor; he spat out a splinter, a piece of tooth; he tried to curl into a ball but was kicked again.

  Stig looked up from the floor. At last the guard had turned around. He took out his walkie-talkie and brought it to his mouth.

  Help is on the way, Stig managed to think. But then he saw the hesitant movement. What the guard wasn’t doing. He hadn’t clicked the walkie-talkie. He was holding it. Breathing on it. But he wasn’t calling for help.

  The fire was out now. The other inmates were standing in a semicircle around Stig. Watching him. The guard looked on. It took ten seconds, fifteen max.

  Then Anders the pedophile took half a step forward. There was a white plastic object in his hand. When the inmates from the neighboring workshop saw what it was, they interrupted their assault and let him pass, let him approach Stig Ahlin. Two toothbrushes taped together and sharpened like an awl at one end. Plastic didn’t set off metal detectors.

  Anders fell to his knees alongside the prone Stig, bent slowly over him, and sank the plastic into the soft gap between Stig’s ribs. It was astonishingly easy. As the weapon slid into his body he could feel the pedophile’s hand on his skin. Blood rushed across the workshop floor and under his own back; it was warm, almost hot. Then Stig faded into unconsciousness. By the time the guard finally called for help, it was all over.

  * * *

  —

  This isn’t happening, Sophia thought in the cab. It’s not possible.

  They had flown Stig to Karolinska Hospital by helicopter. He would undergo surgery.

  It was completely unnecessary for her to go to the hospital. They had insisted. Any information she needed could be given over the phone. They had assured her of it. Yet Sophia wanted to be there.

  No one else will be, she thought. I’m all he has.

  Even before she stepped out of the taxi, she realized her error. There was a crowd of people who wanted to know what was happening to Stig Ahlin.

  It wasn’t chaos; there weren’t that many journalists. No one was shouting, there were no hysterics. They spoke in low voices, no one running back and forth. They posed kind questions, introduced themselves, spoke one at a time in calm tones. And she responded. They let her finish, no interruptions.

  As she walked through the hospital doors she found herself looking into a silent camera, straight into its lens; she saw the shutter close. She blinked back.

  This isn’t happening, she thought again. It’s not possible.

  * * *

  —

  The journalists were still waiting when she exited the hospital again. Sophia shared what she knew. For everything else she referred them to the press conference the hospital director would be holding in cooperation with the police.

  It was scheduled to take place immediately, so Sophia stayed to watch.

  An investigation had been launched to find out what had happened and why security had failed.

  The three suspects had been isolated from the other inmates. Two of them were serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes. The third was a man who had been convicted of sexually abusing children. A knifelike stabbing implement had been involved.

  “It’s a statistical fact,” said the chief of police, “that brawls are very unusual in Swedish prisons.”

  An initial interrogation had been performed. The suspects had confessed to their crime and claimed it had been necessary. The chief of police did not want to give further comment on their statements. But it was clear that this was not a case of self-defense.

  It was an execution, Sophia thought. But she didn’t say it out loud.

  48

  Sophia had no conscious plan to take a walk. She just did it. She could hear noise around her: cars, an ambulance, music from an open window, gravel beneath her feet. But she didn’t think about them. The odors: exhaust and melting asphalt, her own sour sweat — they didn’t trouble her.

  When she came to Östermalmstorg and Hedwig Eleonora Church, she stepped through the open church doors. Just inside, in the cool air, a father and a child were standing before a rack of postcards. The souvenir shop was open. A handwritten sign urged visitors to stop by the summer café just beyond the second church door. Sophia caught a glimpse of a few round tables and white china. A woman laughed. It was a beautiful day, sunny with a pleasant breeze and scattered clouds.

  A man was tuning the organ at the front of the church. A group of Germans had gathered below the pulpit. In one of the side chapels Sophia read the words on the stone wall: WHOEVER DOES NOT RECEIVE THE KINGDOM OF GOD AS A LITTLE CHILD WILL NEVER ENTER IT. Sophia turned and left the church.

  Back home in her apartment, she kicked off her shoes. She stood there in her hall, at a loss, unsure of what to do. She had turned off her phone. To be safe, she unplugged her landline. Locked the door. Went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Closed it again. Opened the pantry. Closed it again. She kept linens in the next cupboard over. Mangled tablecloths and other items she never used. She took out a worn, blue-checked kitchen towel, so smooth, its embroidered monogram as soft as silk. She brought it to her nose. It smelled clean, like childhood and her grandmother. It made her feel tired.

  Don’t think.

  Sophia just wanted to rest awhile. She hated oversensitive people, like her mother. People who cried and broke down and forced others to steel themselves and take responsibility. Forced others to be strong because they felt their own feelings were more important, more worthy.

  To Sophia, being sensitive had never seemed like a virtue; it was a sign of egoism.

  What did Sophia have to cry about? Stig Ahlin was her client, not her friend. She worked for him. It was a job. It wasn’t her fault that he was dead; it wasn’t even her responsibility. She brought the kitchen towel to her face again, breathing in its scent. Letting the memory of her grandmother drown out everything else.

  When the tears came, Sophia bent forward, pressing her fist into her mouth to keep from making any noise. But the sounds came out of her anyway. The strain was too much, she couldn’t stop it, she couldn’t handle it. Her body shook with convulsions.

  “There, there…,” her grandmother would have said.

  Sophia sat down on the floor, stroking her own cheek with the fabric. She closed her eyes.

  “There, there…,” her grandmother would have murmured. Droning, like a lullaby, the same word again and again. “There, there…Just get it out. There, there…Cry as much as you can.”

  FOUR

  49

  The kitchen was clean, the fridge turned off. The phones were forwarded to an answering service and the email autoreplies were set. The lobby was empty, the hallway was empty, and all the offices besides Sophia Weber’s were lock
ed.

  Sophia, Lars, and Björn had decided to close the office for two weeks. There was no reason for it to be staffed; that only cost money. Soon even Sophia would be on her way.

  She had brought two empty boxes into her office. But as she looked at the rows of binders on Stig Ahlin, and all the documents stacked on the floor, she realized two boxes would never cut it.

  Pulling the first binder off the shelf, she opened it, pried open its rings, took out the papers, and dropped them in the wastebasket. It was immediately overfull. She found a garbage bag in the kitchen and repeated the process for the second binder.

  She lacked the energy to page through the documents first, to see if she ought to save anything. She really should be sorting everything, but she didn’t have the energy for that either. She didn’t even have the strength to find more boxes to put the case in. All she could manage was to throw it out. And she had to get this case file out of her office. It could not be there when she returned from vacation.

  When the doorbell rang, Sophia had filled the garbage bag with documents to be shredded. She dragged it to the lobby and looked at the entry phone. The image wasn’t especially clear, so she turned on the speaker to let the visitor identify themself.

  “My name is Ida…,” a young woman said hesitantly. “Sörensson.” She looked down, toward what she must have thought was the camera. “Stig Ahlin’s daughter. To see Sophia Weber.”

  Sophia greeted Ida in the lobby. As Ida hung her denim jacket in the coatroom, Sophia sneaked a look at her in profile. Those blond curls the media had been so fond of when she was younger — she still had them. But she seemed to be trying to tame them now. Her hair was waist-length and only curled at her temples. Did she resemble her father? It was hard to say. Something about her eyes, the way her forehead wrinkled.

  Ida rubbed her hands together. It had to be eighty degrees in here — the ventilation system was off, and the poorly insulated top floor always got too warm this time of year, even in bad weather. But Ida looked like she was freezing.

  “Please,” Sophia said as they entered her office. She pointed at the visitor’s chair. “Have a seat. I’ll just grab something to drink.”

  When Sophia returned from the kitchen Ida was still there, sitting among the documents that formed the remains of Stig Ahlin’s case file. She was looking at the timeline that was still tacked up on the wall. Her index finger was tracing the line where Sophia had noted all the important events in the murder of Katrin Björk. It appeared that she was reading everything carefully.

  Emla Prison had shipped Stig Ahlin’s belongings to Sophia, whom Stig had listed as his next of kin. Sophia had been planning to send the items to Ida by messenger, but Ida was insistent. She very much wanted to come and pick them up at Sophia’s office.

  “Of course,” Sophia had said. “Just come on by.” But inside, she knew. I don’t want to, she had thought, even then. I don’t want to talk about that. Don’t think you can just come by and ask me anything, because I’m not about to answer.

  “Have you decided on a date for the funeral?” Sophia took a glass of water from the tray and handed it to Ida.

  “We’re not having one,” Ida replied, accepting the glass. She drank it greedily. “Only an interment. I’ve told the funeral director I want to do it. We don’t need a pastor. If they’ll just show me the spot, I’ll do it myself.”

  “Do you need help? With anything else?” Sophia took back the empty glass and set it on the tray.

  “No. Thank you, but it’s not necessary.”

  Ida pointed at the very first event on the timeline, the one that signified the night of the murder.

  “Did you know that on the night Katrin Björk was killed, I was brought in for observation?”

  “No.” Sophia rearranged the coffee cups, the thermos, and the water she’d placed on the tray along with a plate of cookies. It was mostly for decoration; in some instances, it could have a calming effect. Putting something in your mouth, sipping at a glass. “No,” she said again, steeling herself, preparing herself to be the target of Ida’s accusations. “I didn’t know that.”

  “They were supposed to examine me, a whole team of investigators. Psychologists, social workers, police, doctors. And they wanted to observe how I acted when Mom and…Stig weren’t there. To determine whether he’d abused me or not. I guess that’s how they do it. They place the child in a different environment. I had to stay at a special home for two nights.”

  Sophia picked up the plate of cookies and offered it to Ida. She shook her head.

  “I don’t remember much about those days. But I remember crying when I was supposed to go to sleep. They let me come to the kitchen. Sit on the counter and drink warm milk. Then the woman sang, I think she was a psychologist, or a social worker, she sang me a lullaby, and I pretended to fall asleep. But at some point, I must have fallen asleep for real, because I couldn’t have been awake all night.”

  “That’s an odd coincidence,” Sophia said.

  She went to her desk and sat down. From the top drawer she took a white envelope, also sent from the staff at Emla. In it was the key to Stig Ahlin’s safe-deposit box. She set it on the desk.

  “That it was the same night as the murder? Yes, very odd.”

  Ida ran her hand along the paper on Sophia’s wall. Petting the timeline, stroking it as if it were a living being. Her finger stopped at the point that showed the weeks before the district court trial began.

  “And here,” Ida said, tapping her finger. “Exactly three weeks before the murder trial began, the police informed Mom they were closing the incest investigation. The investigation hadn’t turned up anything, or not enough. Those days at the home, all the interviews, all the doctor’s examinations. They didn’t believe me. Or, wait. That’s not exactly how they put it. They said they thought I seemed like a good girl. Mature for my age. Something like that. But it wasn’t enough to bring charges. What I had to say wasn’t enough. I wasn’t clear enough. The investigation was closed.”

  Sophia could hear the gulls calling from the quay. She was holding the envelope with the key in her hand now. The boxes were already in the lobby. As soon as Ida had her belongings, she would go. Sophia could get back to cleaning. Ida turned to Sophia, her eyes perfectly clear.

  “What is it that they want you to provide? What evidence does it take? Can you tell me? What should we have done? What should Mom have done?”

  Sophia didn’t respond. Stig Ahlin may have been dead, but he was still Sophia’s client. Nodding sympathetically as Ida explained why she hadn’t wanted to see her father — she really couldn’t do it.

  “They told Mom not to worry. It didn’t matter that the investigation was closed. It was no problem. She shouldn’t worry. Because they were going to get him for murder. He had killed Katrin Björk and would be locked up for it. That’s what they said. They would lock him up. For so long that I would be a grown-up before he got out. As long as he was convicted of homicide, Mom didn’t have to worry. He would never get to be alone with me again.”

  “Ida,” Sophia attempted cautiously, “I understand this is difficult for you. But I don’t think I’m the person you should be talking to.”

  Ida cut her off.

  “My mom…” She raised her voice and her eyes were gazing steadily into Sophia’s. “You have to understand that Mom…I have tried to imagine what it was like for her. Stig was her husband for many years. He touched her. She slept beside him, night after night. I assume she loved him, that she wanted him to touch her, listen to her, love her. I assume she wanted all of that. But…she never met anyone new. I’m all she has.”

  “I haven’t looked at the incest allegations,” Sophia lied. “You shouldn’t ask me about that, because I don’t know anything.”

  Sophia stood up and walked around the desk to Ida. She held out the envelope.

  Take it now,
Sophia thought. Go home. Open your dad’s safe-deposit box, go through his things, get to know him a little. As much as you can. That will help you move on.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t help you with your questions,” Sophia said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  Ida looked down at her hands. She shook her head as if in protest. She raised her voice; it trembled slightly. “Did I ask you for anything? I wrote to you. An email. But you never responded.”

  Sophia frowned. She glanced at the stack of documents with the nutjob emails.

  Shit, she thought.

  “There was something I wanted you to know,” Ida went on. Suddenly she looked very young. Not a woman anymore. She wrung her hands, licked her lips, tugged at her long hair and pushed it back. “About Stig. I thought that…you should have known…something important.”

  Sophia slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I would have, if I’d known you wanted that. But your email must have gotten lost. You see, so many people wrote to me after the murder. I never got yours.”

  She tried to catch Ida’s eye, but Ida was still staring intently at her own hands.

  “But you know, what happened to you, Ida…, the fact that your father was convicted of murder, you couldn’t have done anything about it. Even if it feels like you could have. I have a hard time believing…they were two different things.”

  Ida snatched the glass of water again. She filled it to the brim, gulped it down, and looked up at Sophia. At first she looked like she might protest, but then she changed her mind. She set the glass back on the tray.

  “You’re right,” Ida said at last. “I couldn’t…it doesn’t matter anymore.” She took the envelope from Sophia’s hand and turned it over a few times. Then she shoved it into her handbag. “Anyway, it’s too late. It’s too late now.”

  * * *