by C S Duffy
Once seven randoms had agreed to be friends with Agneta, I took a deep breath and requested Gustav.
22
The bar was definitely not what I was expecting. It was in a cellar, a few blocks from Johan’s flat, which you accessed by a narrow, metal spiral staircase that I imagined must be a Health and Safety nightmare when mixed with alcohol. Downstairs, the place was cavernous, with bar area leading to games area leading to more bars, seemingly forever, exposed concrete walls and pipes randomly strewn with fairy lights and garlands of plastic flowers.
The air was filled with thwacks and cracks and shouts of laughter from the various air hockey games, bowling alleys and huge industrial tables crowded with chattering groups of friends. It wasn’t the sort of place one could sit unobtrusively alone with a beer and a book, but on the other hand, I was confident I could wander pretending to look for toilets or my friends, more or less indefinitely. I hovered near some kind of mass ping pong game, a group of teenagers marching around the table handing the bats smoothly to the next person without missing a beat, my eyes flicking over every table in search of Gustav.
He’d checked in here not fifteen minutes ago. Possibly a couple of beers had helped his decision to accept Agneta the sexy Skeletor’s friend request, though the fact he turned out to have 3427 friends suggested he wasn’t exactly discerning. A quick skim through his profile hadn’t turned up much that pinged interesting before his check-in just a few blocks away proved irresistible.
I wasn’t going to approach him again. Two attempts in a matter of hours would get me nowhere. I just wanted to — see him, I suppose. In the wild. Glance over who he was with — possibly someone I would recognise from the memorial, or Sanna’s friends list.
Linda Andersson had turned out to be one of his 3427 friends, which might be nothing or might explain why she’d taken such an anti-Johan stance. They could be drinking together. He could be on a date. There had been no obvious sign of a girlfriend on his profile, but it wasn’t uncommon for a certain kind of guy to fail to advertise on social media that they were spoken for.
‘Hey Ellie!’ I jumped a mile, then hastily composed my features into a smile as Mia gave me a hug. ‘What are you doing here? Where is Johan?’
‘Oh, he’s not here, I’m meeting a group of other new immigrants,’ I said, glancing around as though this group might magically appear. That was the story I’d given Johan too.
‘Oh fun, so great you are getting to know people. I am glad.’
‘Yeah, I’m just, uhh — hoping I’ve got the right place. I didn’t realise it would be so big.’
‘Well have a drink with me first anyway,’ she said, slipping her arm through mine and dragging me towards one of the bars. ‘My friend is late, and we haven’t had a chance to talk properly in ages.’
Mia was really alright, I thought a little while later as she poured the last of our bottle of rosé into my glass.
‘Did you know that Johan and I were once engaged?’ she’d asked as soon as we sat down, and I’m not entirely proud of the fact that my heart lurched.
She laughed. ‘On our first day of school, the teacher asked me to help Johan and Krister to tie their shoes. Krister told me he could do it himself, but I helped Johan, then I informed him that I thought we should now get married and he agreed. After recess, I decided I had changed my mind, and he also agreed. My first great love story. Skål.’ She raised her glass to mine and took a sip.
‘I read somewhere that you should thank all the previous girlfriends of the man you end up with, because they put in the training you benefit from,’ I smiled, taking a gulp of my wine. Some games machine started beeping frantically and a few people cheered. ‘I don’t know any of the others, so I guess I’ll thank you.’
Mia’s smile froze for an instant and I could have kicked myself. Sanna. Technically I hadn’t known her, but still.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and Mia smiled, shook her head.
‘Don’t be silly. We can’t all live our lives on, what is it — tender —?’
‘Tenterhooks,’ I supplied.
‘Yes. Sanna is dead and that is terrible, but we are not and we must live.’
‘I think Johan told me the story about the shoelaces,’ I said quickly, trying to change the subject. ‘It rings a bell. Though he conveniently left out his first engagement. I was shocked he didn’t already know how to tie his own laces at seven years old.’
‘Things were a little bit difficult for him at home when he was a child. I don’t think his mother had so much time to teach him that sort of thing. I’m sorry, maybe he hasn’t told you —’
‘He has. I should have made the connection’ I said, a prickly feeling dancing down my spine. That little flinch back on the jetty where we were waiting for Krister and I’d called him a plank. He hadn’t been ready to tell me, didn’t know if he could trust me yet.
She nodded. ‘I’m pleased he told you. He must really trust you.’
‘Lucky he has such good friends as you guys. You’ve obviously been there for him a lot over the years.’
‘We are lucky, also,’ Mia replied.
‘Did you know Sanna well?’ I asked. ‘Johan said you worked together.’
‘Not really. Our paths crossed sometimes, but we were not close friends. She always seemed fun, but — I’m not sure. Have you ever read the F Scott Fitzgerald quotation, hedonism is but despair turned inside out? Sometimes Sanna made me think of it. She had a little bit of darkness in her.’
‘Don’t we all?’
Mia looked surprised. ‘Do you?’
I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I think everyone does, given the right circumstances. I think people are generally more complicated than we often give them credit for.’
‘Hmm.’ Mia refilled our glasses as she thought this over. ‘I always wondered if — if what happened to her was not an accident.’
‘Do you mean suicide?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps a cry for help that went too far. She was very upset that day.’
‘Because of the argument with Johan?’
Mia went quiet a moment. I caught myself holding my breath. ‘I am not sure,’ she said finally, ‘but I did not believe they were healthy together. It was — what do you call it — a toxic relationship. They were two good people who were very bad for each other. The way he talked to her sometimes — it was not the Johan I know.’
A little chill danced down my spine. Behind us, the group of teenagers cheered as someone won the ping pong relay. I took a sip of my wine.
‘Some relationships are like that,’ I said. ‘Did you see her get in the kayak that day?’
Mia shook her head. ‘Krister and I had gone swimming. There is another island you can swim to, and we sat over on that beach for a little while before we swam back.’
So Johan and Liv were on the island alone when Sanna disappeared, I thought, an iciness sliding into my veins.
‘Johan said he was relieved when he woke up and found her gone.’
‘I am not so surprised,’ Mia said, her eyes troubled.
‘He would never —’
‘Of course not,’ Mia said quickly. ‘I don’t think he even knew she had the pills with her.
‘They were hers?’
Mia nodded. ‘She had a prescription. She was supposed to use them for fear of flying only, but that weekend she told me that she took half of one sometimes when things got a little bit too much.’
‘Did you tell the police this?’
‘Of course. They had discovered already it was her prescription.’
So the rumour about Johan having access to the drugs because he was a nurse was absolute bollocks. I smiled at Mia.
‘Maybe the police will officially declare it suicide,’ I said. ‘God, that’s a horrible thing to hope for, but at least Johan won’t be living under the shadow of it any more.’
‘There is nothing wrong in hoping for the truth,’ Mia said quietly.
‘That poor girl.’ I ra
ised my glass, though there was only the dregs left in it. ‘To Sanna.’
Mia took a sip, but she didn’t meet my eye.
‘Are you guys going to get on with planning your wedding now?’ I asked, and Mia rolled her eyes.
‘Oh my god, I wish someone had told me how boring wedding stuff was,’ she grinned. ‘I keep trying to persuade Krister to elope but he is determined to be to be a blushing bride.’
She rolled her eyes and I laughed and decided that Mia and I could definitely be friends.
23
Another bottle of wine later, I was distinctly wobbly as I hugged Mia goodbye on the corner. She didn’t appear to be nearly as pissed as I was, which I remembered from Midsummer as well. She must be one of those bizarre specimens that could hold her alcohol. I’d try not to hold it against her.
I had stumbled into the little square with the fountain and tripped over my own feet on the gravel pathway before I noticed that I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Or rather, I had failed to turn left wherever it was I should have. It was almost full dark, and it took me a few moments to get my bearings.
The fountain was off at this time of night, and I was more than a little concerned I would end up tripping into it if I wasn’t careful. Only I could get myself lost in a park the size of a postage stamp, I thought crossly, half picturing Johan’s expression if I phoned him to rescue me from the middle of the fountain. I felt weirdly disoriented and way drunker than I ought to be.
Just as I remembered that I’d forgotten to have dinner so was in fact precisely as drunk as I ought to be, the world fell out from under my feet and I went flying onto the grass. With a grunt I rolled over, trying to figure out what in the hell I’d managed to trip over, when I felt another blow to my ribs that sent me reeling.
‘What the fuck,’ I shouted, scrabbling to my feet as a huge, shadowy dude came into focus.
Gustav Lindström.
‘What do you want?’ he spat, and something about his expression made my stomach twist in terror. I glanced around. We were in the middle of the city. Dozens of apartments overlooked the square, there had to be other people wandering home from late night drinks, dog walkers. Surely. Somewhere.
‘Nothing —’ I said quietly, taking a step back, my hands in front of me in surrender. ‘Absolutely nothing. I’m just going home after a drink with my friend.’
‘You followed me. I told you I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘And I respect that. It’s a small city. We just happened to run into each other.’ I was amazed at how steady my voice sounded. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you, I’ll just be on my way —’
‘How do you know Sanna loved me?’
Before I could answer he staggered off, puked in a nearby bin. I hesitated a moment, wondering if I should scarper, then I grabbed a bottle of water from my bag and followed him over, handed it to him.
‘You really loved her?’ I asked gently. He sank to his knees, still clutching onto the bin. I crouched next to him as he nodded miserably.
‘For many years,’ he muttered, leaning his forehead against the bin.
‘What happened?’
‘It was all my fault. I fucked it all up, so many times.’
He took several deep breaths. The night was still, and for a few moments the only sound was his jagged breathing until a dog yapped from somewhere nearby and I breathed a tiny sigh of relief.
‘You were quite young when you got together?’ I asked finally.
He nodded miserably, lost in thought. I waited.
‘I thought I was supposed to have a different girl every night,’ he muttered finally. ‘Thought I would regret it if I didn’t.’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘I didn’t even realise I already had the only girl I wanted.’
I slipped my hand into my bag, felt around for my phone. Gustav was still leaning against the bin. I prayed he wouldn’t notice the glow as I swiped to open it, tapped the voice recorder app.
‘Did Sanna break it off with you?’
‘We could never stay apart for long. On and off, is that what you say? We were on and off and on and off, until she met him.’
A shadow crossed his expression, and it was there again. That tiny whisper of real menace that made me glad I was crouching and not sitting. I shifted my weight a little on my feet, ready to dart away if I needed to.
‘You mean Johan?’
‘The nurse?’ he spat. ‘The fucking nurse. He is a grown up, he knows how to be in a real relationship. What does that even mean? I loved her.’
‘Did you try to tell her that?’
‘She was just using him, trying to make me jealous. She didn’t love him. Didn’t really want him. She wanted me.’
‘So you tried to talk to her?’
‘I took the boat.’
My heart lurched. He took a boat that weekend? To the island? I glanced at my phone to make sure it was recording.
‘I had to tell her. She had to understand what she meant to me.’
‘Did you see her that weekend?’
‘I just wanted to say that I loved her. That it would be different this time. I didn’t want any other girls any more, I just wanted her.’
‘I bet she was happy to hear that,’ I said softly.
He didn’t reply, and after a moment I realised his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.
‘Did you get to the island? Did you find her?’
He turned around, sat with his back leaning against the bin, his head lolling to one side as he muttered under his breath. ‘She said she was happy with the nurse. She told me to leave her alone.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She was so beautiful. I loved her so much. How could she chose him?’
‘What did you do Gustav? How did Sanna die?’
He didn’t respond. I waited, barely daring to breathe until I heard him snore. He was out for the count. I propped the bottle of water next to him and I left.
24
‘It’s not a confession.’
Maddie’s girlfriend Lena had dark brown hair cut in a blunt bob, and a serious gaze that made her a tiny bit intimidating even as she sat crosslegged at the kitchen table in her pyjamas and a hoodie. We were sitting opposite each other as Maddie made coffee. I’d apologised all over the place for the late hour when I all but tumbled in their front door a few minutes earlier but they swore they had still been up.
‘But he says he went to talk to her that weekend.’
‘No, he says he wanted to talk to her. You say it was that weekend.’
‘He took a boat. He must have been going to an island.’
‘Stockholm is made up of many islands.’
‘But —’
Maddie brought coffees and a plate of homemade biscuits to the table.
‘He needs to be interrogated properly. He is drunk and your recording would not be admissible in any investigation without context or a witness. You are not incorrect that the police will be interested to talk to him based on this, but no more than that. It could be something, or it could be a wasted, broken hearted guy talking shit.’
‘But it could be something,’ I muttered stubbornly.
Lena smiled briefly. ‘It could be something. One thing that surprises me is that he does not refer to the police having spoken to him already — he didn’t say that when you approached him at the gym either, did he?’
I shook my head.
‘I wonder if he has been missed by the investigation. How did you identify him?’
‘Facebook. He posted on her wall Fy fan, Sanna the other day, and it struck me as an intense thing to say to another guy’s girlfriend. Then when Linda Andersson said Sanna might have been leaving Johan for someone else, I put two and two together.’
‘Nice work.’
‘Especially if it turns out he was there this weekend.’
Lena nodded slowly. ‘Or it could be that an ex who would not give up added to the stress Mia was talking about. It could have pushed her over the edge
.’
‘I’ve been thinking about these rumours about Johan,’ I said. ‘The fact that a newspaper picked it up in the first place and the whole world instantly declared him guilty — doesn’t it feel a bit, I don’t know, deliberate? Especially given that the police haven’t even confirmed foul play. Like, whatever happened, Johan is already guilty. End of story.
‘And more than that,’ I persisted, seeing doubt leap into Lena’s eyes, ‘if the story was about him having a hot temper that possibly got out of control, I could buy that people had heard things based in reality but twisted by gossip. But the way Linda described him, he sounded cold, cruel even. It’s so far off the mark that I can’t believe it’s based on anything real.’
‘Then what could it be?’ asked Maddie.
‘Well what if it’s not just gossip, but rumours that have been deliberately planted?’ I said. ‘What if it suits someone to have people think badly of Johan — to suspect him if they’re going to suspect anyone?’
‘Do you believe Gustav Lindström is capable of such manipulation?’ Lena asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘It is possible also, that you are considering the story only through the eyes of protecting Johan,’ Lena said gently. ‘I read newspapers, I talk to people about things happening in the city every day, and I have never heard of this story, much less believe Johan to be guilty. It could be that it seems to him the entire world suspects him, but I am not so sure it is the case.’
‘But it is possible Gustav spread these rumours,’ I persisted. ‘He knows all the same people that Sanna did, and he’s at least Facebook friends with Linda Andersson.’
‘Isn’t it odd then, that this Linda didn’t know it was Sanna’s ex she was thinking of leaving Johan for?’ Maddie pointed out. ‘She just said it was some other guy, right?’