‘We are pretty much self-sufficient in vegetables here in the summer,’ the woman said, answering the question that Fredrika assumed to be reflected in her face as she caught sight of the glasshouse.
‘My husband’s father took a great interest in horticulture,’ the woman added as Fredrika approached.
There was something in her voice that caught Fredrika’s attention. It had a faint echo to it, with a sort of rasp to some of the consonants. The echo was hard to explain, coming from such a small person.
Fredrika held out her hand as she got to the steps and introduced herself.
‘Fredrika Bergman, police investigator.’
The woman took Fredrika’s hand and squeezed it unexpectedly hard, just as Sara had done at Stockholm Central the day before.
‘Teodora Sebastiansson,’ said the woman with a very slight smile.
It struck Fredrika that the smile made her thin face look older.
‘It’s very kind of you to let me come round,’ she said.
Teodora nodded with the same gracious attitude she had displayed when pointing out the parking place. The smile vanished and her face smoothed out.
Fredrika noted they were about the same height, but that was where the similarity ended. Teodora’s grey and presumably quite long hair was pulled back from her face into a severe knot, high at the back of her neck. Her eyes were as icily blue as those Fredrika had seen in her son’s passport photo when she retrieved it from the passport authority records.
Her body language was perfectly controlled. And her hands rested one on top of the other on her stomach, just where her blouse met her grey skirt. The cream blouse was enlivened only by the brooch fastened under her pointed little chin. Her ears were adorned with simple pearl earrings.
‘Naturally I am deeply worried about my little granddaughter,’ said Teodora, but her voice was so impersonal that Fredrika could not believe she really meant it. ‘I shall do everything in my power to help the police.’
She extended one hand in a simple gesture of invitation. Fredrika took three quick steps into the large hall and heard Teodora close the door firmly behind them.
For a brief moment there was silence, while their eyes grew used to the dim lighting in the windowless hall. That moment also felt like stepping straight into a museum of the end of the last century. A tourist from outside Europe would probably be willing to pay a small fortune to stay in the Sebastiansson family mansion. The feeling of being in another age was if anything intensified as Fredrika was shown into what must be the family drawing room. Every detail in the choice of wallpaper, mouldings, stucco ceiling, furniture, every painting and chandelier, had been hand-picked with exquisite precision to give the sense of a home where time stood still.
Fredrika was amazed, and could not remember having seen anything like it before. There had been nothing to rival the sight in front of her even in the homes of her grandparents’ most bourgeois acquaintances.
Teodora Sebastiansson was standing right beside Fredrika, observing the impression her home interiors were making with thinly veiled delight.
‘My father left a huge collection of porcelain, including the china dolls up there on the top shelf,’ she rasped, when she saw Fredrika staring wide-eyed at the tall, glass-fronted case that seemed to have pride of place right next to the gorgeous black grand piano.
Fredrika’s thoughts strayed immediately to her mother. She knew that if she shut her eyes, she would instantly be transported back to the time before The Accident and see herself sitting at the piano with her mother.
‘Can you hear the melody, Fredrika? Can you hear the games it plays before it settles in our ears?’
Teodora followed Fredrika’s gaze and ran her fingers over the instrument.
I’m already losing it with this lady, thought Fredrika. I’ve got to take back the initiative; I wouldn’t have been here at all if I hadn’t invited myself round.
‘Do you live in this big house all by yourself?’ she asked.
Teodora allowed herself a brittle laugh.
‘Yes, so there is going to be no question of an old people’s home where I am concerned.’
Fredrika gave a fleeting smile, and cleared her throat.
‘Well, I’ve come to see you because we’ve been trying to speak to your son, but we haven’t been able to get hold of him.’
Teodora listened and did not stir. Then all at once, she turned to look at Fredrika and said:
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’
Fredrika had lost control of the conversation again.
Peder Rydh was trying to do at least ten things at once, with the inevitable result that he perceived his work situation appeared as to be even more chaotic than it really was. An address stamped on the box delivered to Sara Sebastiansson had identified the courier company that brought it. Full of hope, he had rushed round to the company’s unobtrusive office on Kungsholmen. There was a good chance somebody there had accepted the parcel and would be able to give a description of whoever brought it in.
His hopes were dashed pretty soon.
The parcel had been left anonymously at the office the previous evening after closing time. The staff had found it in the morning, in the parcel deposit box that was open round the clock. The system was that the sender of the parcel would stick an envelope to the item, containing the recipient address, requested delivery time and payment in cash. Unfortunately the CCTV camera trained on the box had been out of order for a long time so there was no picture of the person who had left the parcel. The envelope with the money and address details had been seized, of course, and sent straight off to SKL by express courier, but Peder didn’t really expect them to find any trace of the kidnapper on either the money or the envelope.
He swore to himself and went back to HQ to pick up Alex so they could head off to interview Sara Sebastiansson again.
Then out of the blue, he had a phone call from Ylva. Her voice was strained and she wanted to talk about what had happened the previous evening. Peder said he would have to ring her back later; he was busy at the moment. Her call was an irritant and stressed him out. They were so indescribably remote from each other at the moment. They seemed to be living in separate worlds even when they were together. Sometimes it felt as though the boys were the only things they had in common.
Sara was sleeping and could not be woken when they visited her. The doctor who had been summoned that morning had given her a very effective sedative. Peder looked at her lying there on one side in her bed. A pale face framed in a tangle of red hair. A summery, freckled arm sticking out from under the cover. Another arm with a big burn that was just starting to heal. A blue bruise on her calf. Evil was fond of bright colours, Peder thought wearily.
Alex was in the kitchen, talking quietly to Sara’s parents, who were keen to tell him about all their son-in-law’s acts of cruelty to date. They had written down the names of people the police might be interested in talking to. It was a short list. Sara was very isolated, thanks to that dreadful husband of hers.
‘She was never able to hang on to her friends,’ said Sara’s mother. ‘Scarcely a single one.’
They warned Alex and Peder to be wary of Sara’s mother-in-law. They had admittedly only met her once, at the wedding. But she had made a lasting impression on them.
‘She’d go through fire and water for her son,’ sighed Sara’s father. ‘She’s not quite right in the head, that woman.’
Peder took the list of names and telephone numbers provided by Sara’s parents with some help from her mobile phone. With Alex at the steering wheel on the way back to Kungsholmen, Peder started ringing round. The reaction at the other end was always the same. Oh no, not again. Was it so bad this time that the police had been called in? What had that madman taken it into his head to do now? No, nobody had heard from him or had any idea where he could be.
‘But try talking to his mother,’ said one man Peder spoke to, once a good friend of Sara and Gabriel.
&
nbsp; Peder put his mobile away in his jacket pocket and spared Fredrika a fleeting thought.
‘To be quite honest, I imagined my son would meet a different sort of girl,’ said Teodora Sebastiansson, breaking the silence that had descended after Fredrika Bergman accepted the offer of a cup of coffee.
Fredrika raised an interested eyebrow over the cup she had brought to her lips.
Teodora fixed her gaze on something behind Fredrika. For a second, Fredrika felt tempted to turn round, but she took another sip of coffee instead. It was too strong, but was served in beautiful little cups that her grandmother would have sold her own grandchildren to drink out of.
‘You see,’ Teodora said rather hesitantly, ‘I had certain expectations of Gabriel. Really just the sort all parents have of their children, but he showed us quite early in life that he wanted to go his own way. I suppose that was why he chose Sara specifically.’
She took a discreet sip of her coffee and put the cup back down on the table in front of her. Fredrika asked guardedly:
‘Have you any idea how their relationship actually worked, Sara and Gabriel’s?’
She realized her mistake a split-second later. Teodora sat back even more stiffly in her chair.
‘If you are asking whether I, as Lilian’s grandmother, have been informed of all the hateful lies my daughter-in-law has been spreading about my son, the answer is yes. I believe I told you that when we spoke on the telephone.’
The message was not difficult to interpret – either Fredrika backed off, or the interview would be brought to an immediate end.
‘I realize this may be a sensitive issue,’ said Fredrika hoarsely, ‘but we are actually in the middle of a very serious investigation here, and . . .’
Teodora interrupted by leaning across the table that separated them and fixing her with eyes of steel.
‘My grandchild – not yours, mine – one of the most precious things I have, is missing. Do you think,’ she hissed, ‘do you think you need to spend a single second telling me how serious the situation is?’
Fredrika took a deep breath and refused to drop her eyes, though she could feel herself shaking.
‘Nobody doubts how anxious you are,’ she said with a composure that surprised her. ‘But it would be a very good idea for you to answer our questions, so we felt you really were trying to cooperate with us.’
Then she explained about the parcel that had been delivered to Sara that morning. Once she had finished, the room remained in eerie silence, and for the first time since her arrival, Fredrika saw she had managed to say something that Teodora took to heart.
‘We’re not saying,’ Fredrika went on, stressing the word ‘not’, ‘that your son is mixed up with this in any way. But we must – I repeat must – get hold of him. We can’t and won’t ignore the information about him that has come to our attention. About his and Sara’s marriage. And there’s no way we can cross him off our list of key people until we’ve spoken to him.’
There was no list of key people, but all in all, Fredrika felt pretty satisfied with her exposition. If she had not had Teodora’s full attention before, she certainly had it now.
‘If you do know where he is, this would be a really useful time to tell us,’ Fredrika said, quietly but forcefully.
Teodora slowly shook her head.
‘No,’ she said at last, so quietly that Fredrika hardly heard the word, ‘I don’t know where he is. All I know is that he was going to be away on business yesterday. That’s what he said when I spoke to him on the telephone on Monday. We talked about him and little Lilian coming to dinner here, once Sara was back from the latest of all those trips she drags the poor child along on.’
Fredrika observed her.
‘I see,’ she said, and then leant across the table herself. ‘The only problem is,’ she said, with a slight smile, ‘that according to Gabriel’s boss, he’s been on leave since Monday.’
She felt her heart beat extra fast as she saw the colour drain from Teodora’s face.
‘So naturally we’re wondering why he lied to his own mother about that,’ she went on mildly.
She sat back again.
‘Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me?’
Teodora said nothing for a long while. Then she declared:
‘Gabriel never lies. I refuse to call what he told me a lie, before he has himself admitted that it really was one.’
She pursed her lips and her colour slowly returned. She looked Fredrika in the eye.
‘Are you conducting the same thorough investigation of Lilian’s mother?’ she said, her eyes narrowing.
‘In a case like this, we investigate everyone in the child’s immediate vicinity,’ Fredrika replied tersely.
Teodora clasped her hands on the table in front of her and smiled a wry, superior smile.
‘My dear girl,’ she said sternly, ‘it really would be most unfortunate if you didn’t take a closer look at Sara.’
Fredrika sat up straighter.
‘As I say, we’re looking at everyone who . . .’
Teodora held up a hand to interrupt her.
‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘you and your colleagues would gain a lot of time by focusing more on all those people Sara allows to come and go as they like in that flat.’
When Fredrika made no reply, she went on.
‘You may not be aware of the fact, but in my opinion, my Gabriel has been more than patient in his relationship with Sara.’
She clicked her tongue in a way Fredrika knew she could never imitate, however much she might want to.
‘He was put through total humiliation,’ she said, and Fredrika was taken aback to see the old lady’s eyes glinting with tears.
Teodora looked out of the window at the dark sky and dabbed the corners of her eyes. When she looked back at Fredrika, her face was white with rage:
‘And then she told all those atrocious lies. As if Gabriel hadn’t suffered enough, she then had to go and try to destroy his life by accusing him of being a wife-beater.’
She gave a sudden, shrill laugh that made Fredrika jump.
‘If that isn’t evil, you tell me what is.’
Dumbfounded, Fredrika could only watch the older woman’s little theatrical performance, or whatever you could call it.
‘Perhaps you didn’t know that Sara had well-documented physical injuries each time she reported your son for assault?’
Teodora stopped her before she launched into her next point.
‘Of course I knew,’ she said, glaring at Fredrika as if to say the question was both unnecessary and lacking in judgment. ‘Some of her other male friends must have lost patience with her, of course.’
Then Teodora reached across the table and took the cup of coffee Fredrika had scarcely more than tasted.
‘I have rather a lot to do, as I’m sure you understand,’ she said apologetically. ‘So if you have no more questions . . . ?’
Fredrika swiftly took one of her cards from her inside pocket and put it on the table.
‘Feel free to contact me any time you like,’ she said firmly.
Teodora nodded and said nothing, but they both knew she would never ring.
When they were back in the gloomy hall, Fredrika asked:
‘Does Gabriel still keep any of his things here?’
Teodora again pursed her lips.
‘Naturally. This is his home, after all. He has his own room upstairs.’
And before Fredrika had time to respond, she went on:
‘Unless you have a search warrant, I shall have to ask you to leave my house at once.’
Fredrika hastily thanked her and left. It was not until she was standing on the steps and Teodora was shutting the door behind her that she realized what she had forgotten to ask:
‘By the way, what size shoes does your son take?’
Ellen Lind had a secret. She had just fallen in love. This made her feel terribly guilty, for some reason. Somewhere out there, she t
hought, looking out of the window, a child was being held captive by some deranged person, and down in Söder the child’s mother was going through all the torments of hell. Ellen had children of her own. Her daughter was nearly fourteen and her son twelve. She had been on her own with them for quite a few years now, and had no words to describe what they meant to her. Sometimes at work she felt herself going all warm inside at the very thought of them. They had a good life, a full life, and occasionally – but only occasionally – the children’s father put in a brief appearance. Ellen was waiting patiently for the children to get older and understand how badly their father had behaved all those years. At their age, there was no room for anything but pleasure when their dad got in touch. They never asked about him, and when he did turn up, Ellen noted they had stopped asking him where he’d been, and why he hadn’t rung for weeks or months.
Ellen had found out from mutual acquaintances that he had a new girlfriend again, and that she had very quickly got pregnant, which Ellen did not find very amusing. In fact the thought of it made her gnash her teeth. Why have more children, when he didn’t even look after the ones he’d already got?
But more than anything, Ellen thought about her new love. Rather unexpectedly, it was her interest in stocks and shares that had brought them together. She hadn’t yet come across any colleagues who shared her enthusiasm, but outside work she had several friends who were eager to give her tips and advice. It was all just a big gamble for Ellen. She never invested large sums, and she was careful never to risk her profits. This last spring had enriched her life, and the children’s, more than she had ever dared wish. A successful and in fact rather bold venture had paid so well that Ellen and the kids had been able to go on a package holiday abroad for a couple of weeks earlier that summer. They went to Alanya in Turkey, staying in a five-star hotel. All inclusive, of course. Masses of food and drink. Excursions and the beach or the pool in the daytime. Entertainment in the evenings. Ellen had realized how desperate she’d been for a break like that. She and the children, just as it always had been.
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