Behind Blue Eyes

by C S Duffy

  We were in a gym in a part of Stockholm I’d never been to before. When I’d realised it was near where Maddie lived with her girlfriend Lena, I’d texted to see if she fancied a workout. It was one of those fancy places that smelled more of new equipment than sweat. The upbeat house music that pounded from the speakers was presumably cutting edge and the whole place was a bit suspiciously Instagrammable and gleaming for my tastes. Not, to be fair, that there technically exists a gym that’s to my taste, on account of them being places where one goes to exercise.

  Maddie turned out to be one of those bonkers keen fit people though, which I should have been prepared for, what with her being Australian and all. She was now lying on a mat, raising and lowering her legs, and I was sitting next to her, mucking about with the smallest weights I could find, which I figured at least showed willing.

  ‘What did she even want that late at night?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘Johan said later it was some kind of boy trouble, though she seemed more irritated than upset if you ask me. ‘Course, she always seems irritated to me. Maybe that’s just her face.’

  Maddie chuckled and rolled over, started raising her shoulders like a fish on dry land.

  ‘It was more the fact that it’s a one room flat, for heaven’s sake, what exactly did she expect me to do with myself? I did the dishes as slowly as I could, but then it was a choice between sitting on the kitchen floor, or going back to the main room with them and pretending to be invisible. I ended up sort of perching at the edge of the bed reading a magazine, wishing I had noise cancelling earphones.’

  In truth I’d sat staring blindly at the magazine, composing and discarding several scathing comments in my head as I watched them out the corner of my eye and tried to telepathically transmit orders to her to stop bloody touching his bloody arm.

  ‘It’s your flat too,’ said Maddie, ‘she shouldn’t make you feel like that. They could have gone out for a drink if she didn’t want to include you, but however you look at it, it was rude. I wouldn’t stand for one of Lena’s friends behaving like that, and we’ve at least got a separate bedroom. I mean, there’s Swedish shyness and there is plain being an arsehole. Ignoring you like that in your own home is just plain being an arsehole.’

  Maddie got up and went over to some kind of metal torture device. I perched on a bench nearby, toying with my pointless teensy dumbells. I felt better already. There’s something about pouring it all out to a friend, repackaging the whole thing into a funny story, that took the sting out a bit I should have taken Maddie up on her offer of a coffee ages ago.

  ‘Did Johan apologise at least?’

  I shrugged. ‘Not really. He’s — he’s so amazing and sensitive most of the time, but it’s like he’s got this blind spot where his friends are concerned. They’ve all known each other forever, I don’t think he can imagine what it’s like to be on the outside of them any more, you know?’

  Maddie nodded. ‘I’ve got a mate like that at home. Our mums were best friends and we were born within a couple of months of each other so we’ve known each other our whole lives. Over the years a few people have pointed out she’s a bit weird. She isn’t rude exactly, she’s just off in her own world a lot of the time, but I’m so used to it I don’t even notice.’

  ‘Yeah, I think it’s something like that. There’s also —’ I hesitated, not sure whether I wanted to get into the rest of it. It wasn’t that it was a secret as such, just that dropping so I found this dead body that turned out to be my boyfriend’s ex and half the city think he murdered her into conversation is harder than you’d think. ‘There’s other stuff that’s been going on, and that little crew have really supported Johan a lot. I think he thinks he owes them.’

  Maddie finished her set and took a swig of water.

  ‘So what are we actually doing here, babe?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe it’s known as exercising?’

  She shook her head. ‘Yeah I am, but you’re mucking about like you’re trying to get out of gym class at school. Which is totally fine, I don’t give a crap if you work out or not, I’m just wondering why we’re here?’

  I shrugged. I took a sip of water, though she was entirely correct that I hadn’t sweated a drop yet.

  ‘Is it something to do with the hot trainer dude you keep looking over at? Are you cheating on Johan? Or trying to? It’s totally cool by me, it’s just that if I’m accessory to a spot of stalking, I like to know it.’

  Over in the far corner where the big scary weights and grunting men lived, Gustav Lindström was encouraging a client through a gruelling set of what I believe are called back squats. Whatever they were, they did not look a lot of fun.

  ‘I’m not cheating on Johan,’ I began carefully. ‘Or trying to.’

  ‘But we are here because of Mr Muscle over there.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

  ‘Because —?’

  ‘Because — because I think Johan’s last girlfriend might have been about to dump Johan for him when she was murdered.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Maddie. ‘I think I need a juice.’

  In the juice bar, I picked at a raw muffin and poured out the whole story, while Maddie sipped something that looked like pond scum. When I was finally finished, she sat quietly for a few moments. In the testosterone corner, Gustav’s client was roaring as he deadlifted what appeared to be the weight of a small horse.

  ‘Holy shit, babe, I would have been on the first plane home.’ She reached over and squeezed my hand. ‘You’re a fucking warrior.’

  ‘I was hardly going to leave Johan. And I don’t think you’d leave Lena in the lurch like that either.’

  Maddie grinned and shrugged. ‘She could come with me I guess.’

  I laughed and shoved away the thought that Johan might not follow me if I announced I was off. I mean, of course he would, it was just that when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember him moving to London being discussed as an option. Which would actually make a lot more sense, given that his job was a bit more easily transferrable, and he could already speak English. Not that I would have wanted him to move, I was definitely up for the adventure of a new life. We probably did talk about it and I dismissed the idea so quickly I’d forgotten.

  ‘But all that stuff we talk about at the newcomers coffee,’ Maddie was saying, ‘all those little things you have to figure out, learn the language, deal with new people all the time, take numbers to queue — hell, gender neutral toilets gave me the heebie jeebies for months. Washing your hands next to some bloke, it’s weird,’ she grinned. ‘Until you get so used to it that you go home for Christmas and nearly get beaten up in a bar in Brisbane for absentmindedly following a guy into the gents’. The point is, all that normal immigrant shit is more than enough do your head in. And you’ve had this on top of it. I’d be a wreck.’

  ‘Meh, I’m tough as old boots,’ I said with a smile that was a bit more wobbly than I’d intended. Maddie reached over and squeezed my hand.

  ‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘The police are still investigating?’

  ‘I guess. There’s apparently some law about early investigations being top secret, so we don’t really know what they’re up to.’

  ‘But his lawyer doesn’t reckon they’re closing in on him or anything?’

  ‘He’s innocent.’

  ‘Yeah I get that, but rightly or wrongly, he’s not in any danger right now?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘So what are you doing all this for, babe? Isn’t it best to let the police get on with their jobs, then deal with whatever happens? If he’s innocent, you’ve got nothing to worry about, right?’

  I shook my head.‘Even if they don’t charge him in the end, he’ll have it hanging over his head for the rest of his life — like that Linda said, people will think he got away with it unless they catch someone else.’

  ‘And do you think that guy killed her?’ Maddie nodded in Gustav’s direction.

  ‘I don’t kn
ow. But if she was seeing him in the days or weeks before her death, then he is potentially relevant. He might know something, he might not, but I have to talk to him.’

  Maddie wrinkled her nose as Gustav and his client walked by, both of them essentially more gorrilla than man. ‘You need to be careful Ellie.’

  ‘I’m hardly going to approach him alone in the dark or anything.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. Though yeah, he could break your neck with his thumb, so watch out on that front too, but — Lena is police. She works with domestic abuse cases, so she won’t know anything about any of this, but I do know from her that they don’t fuck about here. The laws are seriously strict. There’s no bail, did you know that? If they arrest someone, it means they’ve got a case so airtight it could you could travel to the bottom of the sea in it. If you’re going to step on Swedish police’s toes, you need to be really, really careful. For your own sake.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘In London you do.’

  Her gaze was unrelenting. I looked down at my juice.

  ‘Plus, surely when you investigate a story, you’re not invested in the outcome, are you? Isn’t that the whole point, to be neutral?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But you’re not neutral here, are you? You’re trying to prove Johan is innocent — and what if you can’t?’

  ‘He didn’t kill her.’

  Maddie put her hands up in surrender. ‘No, I know, I’m not saying that. But, what’s that thing about how you can’t prove a negative? What if it turns out to be most likely a tragic accident, but there’s no real way to prove it? Real life can be messy like that. How will you handle it if —’

  ‘There is proof,’ I said, draining my carrot and apple juice, which hadn’t been nearly as disgusting as I had expected. I turned away from the concern in Maddie’s eyes. ‘I just have to find it.’

  Half an hour later, Maddie had gone home, I had stretched more than was possibly good for a person, and Gustav Lindström was finally done with his client. They parted with much backslapping and self satisfied laughter, and as he turned towards the reception bit, I darted after him.

  ‘Excuse me? Oh sorry — do you speak English? Engelska?’

  ‘Yes of course,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Great, thank you. I’m — I just saw you, with your client, and I wondered if you had any, umm, vacancies? Is that what it’s called? I mean, could you — work me out?’

  He looked me up and down as though I were a prize calf. ‘You want to lose weight?’

  Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, I thought, then quickly swallowed that and forced a smile.

  ‘A bit, maybe. I mostly want to get, you know —’ I belatedly realised I was making a muscle like Popeye. ‘Strong,’ I finished lamely. ‘Stronger, at any rate.’

  ‘Are you willing to commit?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘I mean, seriously.’

  ‘Umm, sure?’

  ‘You will train when I tell you, for how long I tell you and how hard I tell you?’

  ‘That sounds as though it would be the point.’

  ‘You eat exactly what I tell you? Sleep when I tell you?’

  Was this guy serious? I got a sudden vision of him standing over me and Johan in bed, commanding us to sleep, and I bit down a giggle. ‘I mean, as long as there’s nothing good on telly.’

  ‘You don’t want to train,’ he said dismissively. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Like I said, I want muscles. One or two, at least.’

  With an impatient smirk, he started to walk down the corridor. I scuttled after him.

  ‘I want to ask you about Sanna Johansson.’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘If I could just ask a question or two first?’

  ‘Are you a journalist?’

  I hesitated. ‘That’s not why I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Go to hell, journalist scum.’

  He flung open the door of the men’s changing rooms.

  ‘I know you loved her,’ I blurted desperately.

  He froze.

  ‘I think she loved you too. Doesn’t she deserve the truth to come out?’

  He hesitated a moment and I held my breath, then he stepped into the men’s changing room and slammed the door behind him.

  Bugger.

  20

  I just want to know what happened. I’m not angry, I’m not bitter — I don’t feel anything any more. I’m numb, I think. I’m trying to move on, trying to find some kind of peace. But I can’t do that until I know. There can be no peace for me while I have these questions.

  I won’t tell the police anything, I won’t tell anyone. I suppose you have no reason to trust that is the truth, but if you look into my eyes you will see someone who is broken. I’m not on a mission of vengeance or justice. Not anymore. I doubt anyone would believe me at this point anyway.

  They think I’m crazy. The police. My friends. His family. My family. They think I’ve gone mad with grief, like a character in a gothic novel. They expect me to start wearing my wedding dress to work, or wander the streets cradling dolls instead of the babies I’ll never have.

  Maybe I will. Maybe I should just give into it. Maybe that is who I am now.

  So that’s why I’m not any threat. Whatever you tell me, there’s nothing I can do with the information even if I wanted to. They would listen patiently and send me home, even if I tried to tell them. I’m no longer someone people listen to. I’m barely even a person any more. They think I’m going crazy because I lost him. But it’s not even him any more. I am crazy because I lost me.

  You are the only person who can give me back.

  21

  I’ve gone soft, I thought later that evening. I sighed in frustration and Johan looked up from the football game on TV. It had been years since I’d fucked up a doorstepping that spectacularly. Doorstepping — approaching an interviewée cold, most often on their own doorstep — was my thing. I was brilliant at it.

  People have become more suspicious of press in recent years, but at the end of the day, everyone wants their side of the story out. All you need to do is work out what it is they’re desperate for you to tell the world, and promise to do it. Shout it louder than the rest, and you’ll be ushered inside, giving a triumphant finger to the rest of the press gaggle as the door closes behind you. Works every time.

  Johan was slouched on the sofa, beer in hand. He’d barely spoken a word since I got home, though he’d been texting the whole time. Presumably discussing the game with Krister, though what on earth it was people found to actually discuss about a bunch of blokes kicking a ball at one another, I would never know. The ball went that way, then it went the other! Someone kicked it — yes, with his foot!

  I was curled up on the bed with my laptop, scrolling through Gustav Lindström’s irritatingly locked down Facebook profile. He might not post often anyway, I told myself, clicking through the handful of photos that were public. But there were posts, tantalisingly invisible to me, I was sure of it.

  Sanna had liked two of his photos. She’d be able to see his whole profile, I thought sourly, clicking back and forth between her profile and his.

  Johan roared and I jumped a mile. Hammarby had scored. Hammar-bai, I mentally corrected myself, remembering again the way Liv had curled up on the couch — my couch — like she bloody lived here, staring into my boyfriend’s eyes as she unloaded her troubles on him as though I didn’t exist.

  Maddie was right. She’d been lucky I hadn’t lamped her one.

  Of course it wasn’t exactly likely Gustav Lindström had posted anything obviously incriminating on his Facebook wall. I was looking for connections between him and Sanna that might shed some more light what they were to one another. Mutual friends, mutual likes or events. Photos with glimpses of body language. Their relationship, whatever it was, was a crucial piece of the jigsaw puzzle. I was certain of it.

  Of course, once upon a time I was also certain
that the Guardian news desk job I’d applied for was mine, that Dan Philipson absolutely fancied me back, and that my then flatmate wasn’t going to abscond with her half of the rent. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for my gut to tell me a load of old bollocks, I thought with a sigh. Johan yelled at the TV and I went into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  For all I knew, I thought as the kettle boiled, there was something posted on Gustav’s wall that gave him an alibi for the weekend Sanna disappeared. He could have been on holiday on the other side of the world, with another woman.

  Another woman. A thought burrowed its way into my brain and I hesitated, knowing it meant playing with fire. It might not work. He might just ignore a friend request from someone he didn’t know. But if so, then no harm, no foul. It couldn’t be traced back to me in any case.

  I brought my cup of tea back into the living room. Almost before I knew what I was doing, I’d logged out of my Facebook account and created a new one using the dummy email address I sometimes used to communicate with witnesses. I called her Agneta, after the blonde one in ABBA, the first Swedes I’d known and loved.

  So as not to involve some poor anonymous woman off Google images, I used a photo of me. Not one Gustav would ever recognise as the bird who approached him that afternoon; my mum barely recognised me in this picture. It was from the height of my club days, the only photographic evidence I’d allowed to survive.

  My diet of toast and cocaine had rendered me pretty much skin and bone, my cheekbones hollow in a way I’d hoped made me look like Kate Moss, but in fact more accurately resembled Skeletor. One morning, in a fit of manic come down, I’d bleached my hair straw-white. Or, tried to. Using actual bleach meant for cleaning the toilet. I still had some scars on the back of my neck from the burns, and it’s a miracle I hadn’t got any on my face or in my eyes. Looking like Worzel Gummidge (meets Skeletor: hot, eh?) for a few months was actually pretty good going for having not-entirely-on-purpose doused myself in bleach.

  The point was, I didn’t look like myself. To be on the safe side, I made the image black and white and blurred it by 1%, which obscured my features just a teensy bit more, and would probably be taken for arty-fartiness. I clicked on the page of the gym where Gustav worked, and sent a handful of friend requests to people who had liked their most recent few posts, then with the help of Google translate, posted in Swedish: back on Facebook guys - sorry for being dramatic! followed by a row of the embarrassed face emoji. That would hopefully take care of my lack of previous activity.