The Flood

by Kristina Ohlsson

‘And we called him crazy,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to know how right we are,’ Alex replied, and this time they both smiled.

  Alex got to his feet.

  ‘And I have to stress that we don’t know if we’re right,’ he added.

  Fredrika bit her lip to stop herself from speaking. She thought back to the beginning of this conversation, when it had almost seemed as if Alex was about to confess something to her. He’d told her about Noah’s missing brother, but was that the whole story?

  As if he’d read her mind, Alex said:

  ‘One more thing: I’ve spoken to Peder Rydh. He called me.’

  ‘Okay . . .’ She was surprised to hear Peder’s name.

  ‘I . . . This sounds stupid, but I’d just been talking to Noah, and I needed to run Noah’s story by someone.’

  ‘So you told Peder?’

  ‘Yes. And he passed on some information that Noah had forgotten to mention.’

  ‘Noah had been threatened?’

  ‘Possibly, but according to Peder he’d overreacted, exaggerated. If the threat existed in the first place.’

  ‘I don’t . . .’

  ‘According to Peder, Noah was kind of volatile, “talked a load of crap”, as he put it. I think maybe we should bear that in mind when we’re assessing his allegation that his brother is missing.’

  ‘Well, it can’t all have been in his imagination,’ Fredrika said. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I know, it’s a complete mess. Anyway, Noah didn’t say a word to me about any personal intimidation. However, he did think his brother might have been targeted by a former client. A father suffering from mental-health issues had sought his help, but ended up killing his entire family, then taking his own life.’

  ‘So who’s left to seek revenge?’

  Alex looked up. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Do the Johansson brothers have any other living relatives?’ Fredrika asked. ‘Why was it only Noah who contacted the police about Dan’s disappearance?’

  ‘The parents are dead, but Noah did mention a close friend of his sister-in-law who’s also concerned. I made a note of her name: Tina Antonsson.’

  ‘Sounds like someone we need to speak to.’

  ‘Mmm. If we think that’s our job . . . ?’

  Fredrika could see chaos looming as she and Alex started asking questions, treading on goodness knows how many toes along the way. Although the biggest issue was whether they had time. It seemed unlikely.

  ‘How was he?’ she said. ‘Peder – was he okay?’

  Alex hesitated before answering.

  ‘I don’t know. There was something . . . not quite right about him.’

  Fredrika rolled her eyes. ‘Another marital crisis?’

  Alex laughed. ‘Maybe. He certainly seems to have had problems holding down a job. I don’t know why he can’t just grow up and get a grip.’

  There was a knock on the door, and Ivan’s blond head appeared.

  ‘Have you got your phones switched off?’ he said. ‘God knows how many people are trying to reach you.’

  Both Alex and Fredrika glanced at their mobiles. Both were on silent, both had missed calls.

  ‘Israel,’ Fredrika said.

  ‘Renata Rashid,’ Alex said. ‘She’s texted as well.’ He read the message with his head down, face closed.

  ‘What does she say?’

  Alex swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the screen.

  ‘Alex?’

  Fear swept through Fredrika’s body like a forest fire.

  No more surprises, please.

  ‘I need to call her right away,’ he said, heading for the door. Fredrika stood up, desperate to find out what had happened.

  ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.

  Alex looked down at his hands, stared at the hardened scar tissue.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Just before he left the room he turned back.

  ‘What do you think we should do about Peder?’

  Fredrika shrugged. ‘I’m sure he’ll call again soon.’

  Alex sighed. ‘I hope so. Because we need him.’

  Peder Rydh’s mobile rang just as he joined the E4, travelling north. He checked the display, saw Alex’s name and rejected the call. He didn’t want to think about the message Alex had left on his voicemail the previous evening.

  Five seconds, and the phone rang again.

  ‘Fuck.’

  Too many things were going on at the same time.

  The kids’ school had just called to tell him that Eddie had a temperature. He had no choice but to turn around and pick him up. A few years ago, when Ylva was in the grip of depression, Peder had said he felt like a single parent to their twin boys. He now realised he hadn’t had a clue what he was talking about.

  He might as well answer; the fucking phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

  ‘Peder.’

  ‘Have you got time to talk?’

  The voice belonged to Jussi, a fifteen-stone super-strategist. Founder and boss of the security firm Peder had worked for after leaving the Solomon Community, before he took up his current post. A period of his life he preferred not to think about. Nor did he want to think about how Alex had reacted to Peder’s chequered employment record. As far as Alex was concerned, there was right and wrong, and very little in between.

  Peder viewed life rather differently.

  ‘Not really,’ he said to Jussi. ‘Keep it short.’

  ‘Of course. Things still the same?’

  Peder kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It is what it is.’

  Jussi coughed, as he usually did when he wasn’t sure what to say. Peder wasn’t interested in his ‘sorry to hear that’. It struck a jarring note. Jussi hadn’t understood back then, and he didn’t understand now. That was why he’d judged Peder so harshly.

  ‘Listen, I’m concerned about a former client,’ Jussi said.

  It was a comparatively insensitive transition from one subject to another, but Peder didn’t comment. Jussi got in touch at regular intervals, always because of work, so this came as no surprise.

  ‘What client?’

  ‘A guy you dealt with. Johansson – one of your last jobs. Do you remember him? He had a brother who—’

  ‘I remember.’ Peder didn’t like the way the conversation was going.

  ‘He seemed satisfied, or at least . . . He went for the less advanced alarm system and the personal-data protection, then said he didn’t need our services any more.’

  Peder accelerated, flew past several other cars.

  ‘I remember,’ he said again.

  ‘The thing is, I usually follow up on former clients just to check that they’re happy, and I can’t get hold of Johansson.’

  Peder passed more vehicles. He remained in the overtaking lane, noticed that the speedometer had climbed above 140 kilometres an hour.

  ‘Give him a few days,’ he said.

  ‘Haven’t you read the papers? The funeral director who was murdered? They haven’t released his name yet, but I’m afraid it might be . . .’

  ‘I get it,’ Peder snapped.

  Jussi remained silent for a few seconds, then said: ‘What do you think we should do?’

  Peder switched lanes; he was a hair’s breadth from causing an accident.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘We can’t do anything until they release the name.’

  Jussi considered what Peder had said.

  ‘Okay, but then we need to contact the police, tell them what we know.’

  ‘We don’t really know anything.’

  ‘Come on, Peder! You were a cop, you know what we have to do.’

  ‘We have to be discreet. That’s what we promise our clients, and that’s what we have to stick to.’

  Jussi was worryingly quiet.

  ‘Hello?’ Peder said. He didn’t have
time to wait, didn’t have time to be patient.

  ‘Fair enough. When the name comes out I’ll ring the police. We could be sitting on important information without realising it.’

  Peder ended the call, then put his foot down.

  At first the lock protested when she tried to turn the key; it obviously wanted to keep her out. Tina was holding the key so tightly that her knuckles whitened. She was going to get into this house if it was the last thing she did.

  She’d waited a long time, thought she couldn’t do what she was doing now. If you gave a friend a spare key to your house, it went without saying that you didn’t expect that person to abuse your trust.

  ‘I want you to have this,’ Malin had said. ‘If we lock ourselves out, or . . . well, you know. Sometimes we go away, and if anything happens, I’d like someone to be able to get into the house.’

  Noah had also had a key, but no one else. And now Noah was gone.

  That was when Tina had made her decision – when she heard he’d been murdered. She had to visit the house, take a look around, see if she noticed anything the police or Noah had missed. If the police had even been there, which seemed unlikely.

  According to the man she’d spoken to, Noah’s death didn’t affect their view of Dan and Malin’s ‘disappearance’. That didn’t make any sense to Tina, and she found it deeply worrying.

  Will I be the next one to die?

  The question kept on going around and around in her head; it was making her paranoid. Please, please let the door open! She couldn’t stand here much longer in full view, fiddling with the lock.

  At last! She let out a little whimper of relief as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She locked it and tried the handle, making sure it wouldn’t open. Only to be overwhelmed by a fresh wave of panic.

  Nobody knew where she was.

  Nobody would be coming here over the next few days, maybe even weeks or months.

  What if something happened to her in the house? What if she was attacked and had to get out fast?

  It was no good, she couldn’t bring herself to unlock the door. She would just have to hurry. She had no intention of being there for a minute longer than necessary.

  Her palms were slippery with sweat as she left the hallway and went into the kitchen. There were no dishes on the draining board or the table. Had Noah tidied up, or had it been like this all along? Tina checked the dishwasher: some glasses, two cups, four bowls, cutlery. She shuddered. It seemed to her as if the family had got up in the morning, had breakfast, closed the door behind them and never returned.

  The same feeling dogged her footsteps in every single room: in the children’s bedrooms, the TV room in the basement, Malin and Dan’s bedroom, the dining room and the living room. Even the laundry room was tidy, but who moved to Australia for a year and left clothes hanging in the drying cabinet and dirty crockery in the dishwasher?

  Noah had warned her, tried to explain why it felt so wrong when he checked out the house.

  ‘Everything was slightly off kilter, and yet it wasn’t,’ he’d said.

  Only now did Tina understand what he’d meant.

  She went back to the children’s rooms, struggling with the sense that she’d made a mistake, that she shouldn’t be here. There was a chance – a remote chance – that the family really were in Australia. How would they feel about her sneaking around their home?

  She pushed her qualms aside. She knew exactly why she’d come, and why it had taken so long. That would have to suffice as an explanation. She opened the wardrobes in Hedvig and Max’s rooms. They were full of clothes, just as the shelves were full of toys and books and goodness knows what else. She couldn’t tell if anything was missing, if anything had been removed. There were two books on Hedvig’s bedside table. She picked up the top one, noticed that Hedvig had folded down the corner of a particular page. Tina wasn’t comfortable touching the girl’s possessions; she knew that Hedvig was very grown-up for a twelve-year-old.

  She weighed the book in her hand. Afterwards she couldn’t explain why she opened it at the turned-down page; it was just an impulse, something she had to do. The first thing she saw was a note, small, pale grey letters written in pencil.

  Hedvig’s handwriting.

  Tina read the short sentence as she heard a car pull up outside.

  He was wearing Wellingtons.

  She peered out of the window and saw a brown Saab. The driver’s door opened and a man got out. He stared straight at the house, straight at Tina. She quickly moved to one side, dropped the book on the floor.

  She didn’t dare check to see where he’d gone. She had to get out of the house at all costs. She clutched her mobile in her pocket. Her top was sticking to her back, she was hot and rigid with tension.

  She decided not to leave the same way as she’d come in. She didn’t want to meet the man in the Saab.

  Who was he? And what was he doing here?

  As Tina fumbled with the back-door lock, she heard someone insert a key into the front door. There was no time to speculate, she had to get out, maybe make a note of his registration number.

  Find out who else has a key.

  She inhaled the fresh air, then let out a huge sigh of relief. The door clicked shut behind her and she hurried down the steps, then edged along the wall of the house. Her heart was pounding. When she reached the corner she would peep around, see if the man had disappeared.

  Her forehead was beaded with sweat as she leaned forward. Please let him not be there, please let him—

  She couldn’t suppress a scream when she saw him standing less than half a metre away.

  What the . . . ?

  He gave a chilly smile.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  Tina backed away.

  ‘No problem,’ she said, but her voice was far from steady.

  He moved inexorably towards her.

  ‘Do you live here?’ he said.

  She shook her head, still backing away.

  ‘So what were you doing in the house?’

  Tina didn’t know what to say. She was in the middle of a residential area, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. How could she possibly feel so unsafe in broad daylight?

  The man’s eyes narrowed. For some reason it was clear to both of them that he had the upper hand, that he had the right to ask questions and she must answer. She felt a sudden spurt of anger.

  ‘Are you a police officer?’ she asked.

  Her tone was rather shrill, but at least she’d managed to say what she wanted to say.

  How can you have a greater right to be here than me? Or even the same right as me?

  At first he didn’t respond, then he said:

  ‘Yes, I am. And I think you and I need to have a chat.’

  Only then did she recognise his voice. He was the officer she’d spoken to on the phone, the one who’d dismissed her. And now he was standing here on Dan and Malin’s drive, asking her what she was doing there.

  Her shoulders dropped.

  ‘Something’s badly wrong,’ she said. ‘I know Dan and Malin aren’t in Australia.’

  He stared at her in silence. ‘I think it’s best if you accompany me to the station, then I can take a proper statement from you.’

  Tina swallowed. ‘Okay.’

  He turned and walked towards his car. Tina followed; her car was parked just in front of his.

  ‘I’ll drive myself,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘No, you won’t. Get in the back seat.’

  Tina had never had any dealings with the police, didn’t know what was common practice. But just as she knew something wasn’t right about Dan and Malin’s trip to Australia, she knew something wasn’t right about this situation.

  She didn’t dare walk along the pavement past the Saab. Instead she stepped into the road, intending to approach her car that way, but the police officer blocked her path.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re coming w
ith me. Otherwise I’ll bring in my colleagues, have you arrested.’

  Tina’s entire body was shaking.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘You do that.’

  Her response took him by surprise; he’d obviously been expecting her to cooperate.

  She took her chance and tried to run past him. She didn’t have a plan, she just wanted to get into her car and lock the doors. However, he was too quick for her. He grabbed her arm and opened the door of the Saab with his other hand.

  ‘Get in,’ he hissed.

  His breath smelled of tobacco.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The voice came from a man on a bicycle who’d stopped a few metres away. The grip on Tina’s arm loosened.

  ‘Nothing,’ the police officer said. ‘It’s just a misunderstanding.’

  A misunderstanding?

  Tina gave the cyclist a long look, silently begging him to stay where he was until she was safe.

  ‘I’ll take my own car,’ she heard herself mumble. At the same time she happened to glance at the back seat of the Saab.

  A bobbled blanket, a newspaper. But what really caught her attention and made her heart skip a beat was the pair of green Wellingtons, standing on the floor behind the front seat.

  Ten minutes. It needn’t take any longer than that. After an endless night with no rest and a morning filled with arguments with the kids, Malin was ready to jump out of the window. If it had been possible to open a window, of course. So she decided to take a shower. Ten minutes. Surely she could leave the kids alone for that amount of time? They’d stopped fighting and were sitting in front of the TV watching a film. There was no point in even thinking about lessons; none of them could cope with that, including Malin. Not when she was putting all her energy into keeping them alive. Herself and the children. And Dan.

  He hadn’t said a word since he got out of bed two hours after the rest of the family. Malin made no attempt to persuade him to talk. She didn’t want to ask him about the knives again, partly because there was no point, but also because she didn’t dare.

  Because I don’t want to hear the dark thoughts inside his head.

  She popped her head around the living-room door.

  ‘I’m going for a shower.’