‘Would someone have shot him for driving badly?’
‘You’ve no idea what kind of disturbed people there are out there. High as a kite, pumped up on adrenaline, stuffed with anabolic steroids. Honking at them or overtaking them might be all it takes. Road rage is much more common than you’d think.’
‘We can’t possibly know,’ said Lotta. ‘But he didn’t drive aggressively, or slowly like an old man. Anyway, he barely drove at all. He can’t have upset someone.’
‘Did he receive any strange letters? “Presents” on the doorstep or in the garden? These days, practically all celebrities have a stalker or two. It’s nothing new, really. Just remember Evert Taube.’
‘But it’s been thirty years since Dad was last on television. Why would a crazy stalker wait until now?’
‘Maybe they’ve been inside. Or in a mental hospital.’
‘He’s always had nothing but love from people. I’ve never heard an ill word against him.’
‘What about the person who tried to burn down the shed?’ said Malin. ‘Might that have been a stalker?’
‘Odd way of showing adulation,’ said Sara.
‘Did someone try to burn down the garden shed?’ said Anna.
‘In the eighties,’ said Lotta. ‘It’ll hardly have been the same person after thirty-five years.’
‘He used to get letters and flowers and stuff like that,’ said Malin. ‘On the Allsång show, we receive loads of emails and presents for both the guests and Sanna, who presents it. Some of them are sick, although there are some sweet ones too.’
‘Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity,’ said Anna. ‘It’s happened quite a few times in Sweden – if someone with the same name owes money to some dangerous people.’
‘But in that case, they surely ought to have realised they had the wrong person when they saw Dad?’
‘He was shot from behind,’ said Sara, immediately regretting that she’d so clumsily mentioned the details of their father’s murder.
‘A mistake?’ said Malin, shaking her head. ‘How awful.’
‘What a horrible thought,’ said Lotta.
‘We’re knocking on every door in the neighbourhood – both to find Agneta and to get information about the murder. Violent crimes are often solved because someone happened to see something. A car parked somewhere odd. Someone throwing away their coat. Or dropping their mobile.’
‘But that doesn’t change the fact that our dad’s dead.’
‘No.’
The three childhood friends sat silently in the Broman family kitchen, just as they’d done so many times before, but now with an entirely different reason for the shared silence.
‘I went down to the jetty earlier,’ said Sara, smiling slightly. ‘I haven’t been there since middle school. Do you remember when we wanted to skim stones, but instead we threw sandwiches in the lake?’
‘Yes, it was really nice,’ said Malin.
‘No,’ said Lotta. ‘I don’t remember that.’
Without saying a word, Lotta’s grim-faced assistant put coffee and a carton of milk on the table, and without asking she poured milk into Lotta’s cup while the others were left to help themselves. Sara sipped the hot, black coffee – a sign that they were all adults. No hot chocolate now.
‘Did you look in the guest cabin, too?’ Lotta asked Sara.
‘No. Didn’t have time.’
Lotta’s gaze lingered on Sara before she turned to Anna.
‘You don’t have any trace of Mum?’ she asked.
‘Not yet. But we will,’ said Anna.
‘We’ll find her,’ said Sara.
‘I’m sorry, but I need to ask some more questions.’ Anna turned to Lotta. ‘The more we have to work with, the better.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did you notice anything at all strange or different when you were here? The atmosphere, something that was said, some new object or one that had moved from its usual spot? Anything?’
‘No.’
‘It was just as usual.’
‘No other visitors or calls?’
‘Well, the phone rang,’ said Malin. ‘Just as we were leaving.’
‘Did it?’ said Lotta. ‘I didn’t hear that.’
‘No, you’d got into the car. It was when I was saying bye to Mum.’
‘And the phone rang?’ said Anna.
‘Yes, so Mum went inside to answer as we left.’
‘It was Agneta who answered? Not Stellan?’
‘She said she was going to answer it.’ Malin couldn’t help smiling. ‘They still have a landline.’
‘But you don’t know anything about who it was or what was said?’
‘No, we left.’
‘It may have been a burglar calling to see if anyone was at home,’ said Anna.
‘But in that case they wouldn’t have broken in, would they?’ Malin said. ‘If Mum picked up?’
‘Or the person calling wanted to be certain that they were at home,’ said Sara.
The implication hung over them for a while before anyone said anything. Lotta looked thoughtful.
‘We’ll check the phone records,’ said Anna, in an attempt to placate the sisters.
‘Do many people call here?’ Sara asked.
‘No, almost never. They mostly see C.M. these days, and he lives next door. And Mum has her mobile. I don’t know why they still have the landline.’
‘And we know she’s not at C.M.’s?’ said Sara.
‘We’ve already checked with all the neighbours,’ said Anna.
‘Order to the slave – find Mum,’ said Lotta, smiling forcedly at Sara.
‘Order to the slave.’
She’d completely forgotten about that game, and she realised that it made her feel ill at ease.
Why?
Because of an old game?
Lotta had probably intended it as a friendly allusion to their childhood, but the reminder had made Sara uncomfortable. Now that she thought back, she realised that the games had been solely based on her obeying the sisters and being forced to do lots of humiliating things. That innocent childhood had encompassed more than sunshine and swimming. Some of her memories were darker than others.
Anna received a call and when she ended it, she turned to Sara.
‘We’re going to focus on a gang responsible for a wave of break-ins in this neighbourhood. They stabbed a man in his own home when they happened upon him.’
‘Stabbed?’ said Sara. ‘They didn’t shoot him?’
‘Burglars who resort to violence when they’re interrupted, in this neighbourhood. I think we can consider your father’s murder solved.’ Anna turned to the sisters.
‘And Mum?’ said Malin.
‘We’ll find her soon.’
‘Then they can . . .’ said Sara to Anna, who nodded.
She turned to her childhood friends.
‘Listen – go home to your families. Take care of each other. They’ll call if they need to ask you anything else.’
‘And when we find your mother,’ said Anna.
Sara hugged the sisters, and then Anna escorted them out.
Sara looked around the kitchen. Every single detail – every tile, every spice jar – served as reminders of her childhood. Sara couldn’t help looking in the cupboards. Nothing had changed.
It felt as if she’d travelled back in time and soon she would meet all of the house’s occupants, looking just as they’d looked when she’d said farewell to them more than thirty years ago. Would she warn them, or just take the chance to be a child and avoid thinking about all the things that filled her brain these days?
Sara shook off these thoughts. A longing for the past meant that she was wishing away her own children and family – her entire adult life and the experiences she’d gathered over the course of it. And she didn’t want to be without them.
It was high time she returned to her own life. To her own family, and the present.
But she would do that w
ith a new perspective on existence – the insight that anything could happen at any time.
Sara looked around one last time and shivered slightly.
Anna would have said that Sara could feel Stellan’s presence, but she knew better.
If there was one thing she could feel, it was Stellan’s absence.
8
Forest.
Forest, forest, forest.
How on earth could her fellow countrymen love this godforsaken backwater so much?
Why would anyone buy a summer cabin in the middle of an ancient forest stretching for kilometres in every direction? No views, no space, no air. Trees, forest, darkness.
And apparently Sweden was only properly hot for a week or so every year. It sounded very much like her own private vision of Hell.
You were supposed to go south on your holidays – not north. To light and warmth, not cold and darkness. The Swedes were slow, antisocial and bad at languages. They only spoke English. Not a word of German. There was no reason whatsoever to come here.
The dark landscape flew past the car window. Tens of kilometres without buildings or people.
‘Jönköping.’ How the hell did they name their towns in this place? It was unpronounceable. ‘Jöön-kööpink.’
Karla Breuer didn’t like travelling for work, she didn’t like travelling by car, and she didn’t like her fat colleague Jakob Strauss. Naturally, he’d questioned the entire mission, wondering what harm a gang of senile old spies could do.
She didn’t dignify that with a response.
Almost 200 kilometres an hour. It was time he contained himself. Their job was not to draw attention to themselves. They’d left the operations van a long, long way in their wake. What would they do in Stockholm without it? Sit there twiddling their thumbs, waiting?
And he couldn’t shut up either. He rambled on about everything from the medieval crusades to the dip in form experienced by Borussia Mönchengladbach. Things she either knew more about than he did or was completely uninterested in.
And there was the bloody music he felt obliged to play at top volume. ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry.’ You don’t say.
Finally, a view.
A big lake with a big island, and the ruins of an old castle.
And then more forest.
If she had been able to, she would have banned Germans from buying cabins in Sweden. She would have banned Sweden in its entirety.
And she would have banned men from driving cars, apart perhaps from small electric cars that couldn’t do more than 50 kilometres an hour.
That damn need to stimulate a rush of blood to the head by doing everything in excess! Sex, alcohol, sport, work, speed. All in doses that were too high. Too much, too fast, without interruption.
Never stopping.
Never thinking.
Never accepting the meaninglessness of life.
Just working. Competing, maximising and, deep down, screaming in panic.
She had never understood the point of reunification. It was responsible for this type of person. A childhood characterised by discipline and gloominess, jealousy of the West, and the desire for capitalism. And now that all of this was available to the ‘German Russians’, as the former East Germans were referred to, they couldn’t handle the freedom – everything had to be as expensive as possible, as ostentatious as possible, as eye-catching as possible. Branded fashion with bold logos, expensive cars with huge engines, big brash wristwatches, exclusive restaurants. All to show the world that they were definitely not some pipsqueak from the East with a bowl haircut and fake jeans. At least, not any longer.
It takes time to merge two countries – to unify two cultures that are so different. If it is even possible.
Ten years ago, when she’d found out that even in her department they would have to accept a number of employees with East German backgrounds, she’d expected a small flock of grey-haired, bureaucratic office rats. Deep-sea fish, barely capable of surviving without external pressure.
Instead, they’d been given delayed teenage rebellion. A bunch of adrenaline-filled Dobermans hungry for revenge, who put all their energy into being more stereotypically Western than Westerners could ever be. Now that they’d finally been let into the real security service, they wanted to be tougher and more efficient than all their new colleagues. They turned into stereotypes, and in her eyes they brought nothing of value.
She hoped that Strauss wouldn’t ruin this for her. This was her final chance to prove that the legend of Abu Rasil was true, while also burying him. To show everyone that her theories were correct – that one single man, with just one aim, had been responsible for most of the terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s. She wanted to show the world that she wasn’t mad, and she wanted to rescue her legacy. It was all connected.
Her entire career had been characterised by the mysterious terrorist. There had been many witness accounts of his existence, yet her colleagues refused to believe them.
Breuer did, though.
She’d written report after report, tied witness statements to technical evidence and grainy photos to signatures on hotel bills and car rental agreements. In vain.
Someone had pointed out that Breuer herself was helping to build up the myth surrounding the terrorist, but the more frightening Abu Rasil appeared, the better, in her view. If the threat became big enough, her colleagues’ eyes might be opened.
Despite the lack of interest from those higher up, she had chased elusive shadows across continents, following in his footsteps, trying to think his thoughts. But Karla Breuer had always arrived too late. Had always missed him. Now she knew that she would be in the same place as Abu Rasil for the last time. Soon, her career would be over. Before that, the world needed to believe in the ruthless terrorist called Abu Rasil, and Breuer needed to deliver if she was to stand a chance of getting out with her honour intact.
She’d been looking forward to growing old on a beach somewhere hot, but that dream had faded when she’d heard about the call to Stockholm. Now Breuer understood that the instinctive reluctance she’d felt about retiring was connected to her colleagues’ view of her as being fixated on a figment of her imagination. They believed her opponent had died long ago, if he’d ever existed in the first place. But Breuer was trying to warn them that he was waiting in the shadows, planning one last act – worse than anything they’d seen before.
Just like her, Abu Rasil was considering his legacy. Naturally, he didn’t want his work to be forgotten. The world would remember him. As the greatest terrorist ever.
9
Sara couldn’t stay at a crime scene if she wasn’t part of the investigation, but neither could she let go of this incomprehensible murder.
Who had shot Stellan?
And why?
Outside the house, the curious onlookers had been joined by reporters. A couple of them recognised Sara, and called out her name as if they were old friends.
‘Is it Stellan?’ one shouted.
‘Is it to do with prostitution?’ said another.
Sara didn’t reply, but they wouldn’t give up. The moment she got into the car, Tillberg tapped on the window.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said. ‘Just say no if I’m wrong. Is it Uncle Stellan? Is he hurt? Is he dead?’
Sara started the engine, put the car into Drive and put her foot down.
This wasn’t just about the murder; an important part of her childhood had been erased. Instead of going home, she drove along Grönviksvägen to Rättviksvägen, then past the square at Nockeby and on to Drottningholmsvägen. There she took a left when the lights turned green, and went across the bridge.
In the middle of Kärsön, she indicated left, crossed the opposite carriageway and drove down to Brostugan – the cafe beneath the bridge. She could sit here and think in peace and quiet while still being close to Stellan’s house – it was almost visible across the water. It felt good not to leave the Broman family quite yet.
Sa
ra stepped out of the car’s air-conditioned coolness into the sauna of summer. The only thing disturbing her peace was the traffic up on the bridge.
She walked towards the main entrance, stopped outside and checked the menu. Alongside her were people in shorts and vest tops doing the same – hungry despite the heat.
A group of middle-aged bikers meekly carried their trays inside. Then they put on their helmets, making themselves look dangerous again, before rumbling away. The other patrons didn’t seem able to make up their minds, so Sara decided to go ahead of them.
Inside, the cafe felt like the quarters of a well-to-do farmer from another era. The fact that all the customers were sitting outside in the sunshine reinforced the slightly unreal feeling of the inside. In the queue at the till was an older man, joking with the woman in front of him that he got a discount because he was a regular, before quickly adding that he lived alone beside Mälaren because his wife had dementia and had moved to a home. Perhaps it was a clumsy chat-up line, Sara thought to herself. But on the other hand, why not try your luck?
Sara took a large glass of water and a coffee with too much milk and headed outside to sit in the sunshine – as far from the other patrons as possible. She ended up next to a dull gravel car park in which Pontiacs and modern Mustangs were over-represented. Together with the grey-haired bikers, the cars gave the impression that Brostugan was a gathering place for men in late middle age who were still keeping their boyhood dreams alive.
Sara wondered fleetingly what her own girlhood dreams had been, but she couldn’t think of any. Did that mean she would avoid a midlife crisis? Or did she simply have a lot of repressed dreams?
The sun was practically burning her skin and a couple of wasps were circling her coffee cup, followed by the classic solitary fly that buzzed right in front of her eyes. She wafted it away, but knew it would return. Sara had never been here before, so she carried on looking around. A deserted mini golf course. Canoes on the shore. A flag advertising an ice cream brand, fluttering down by the water. Maybe it was to tempt boaters, otherwise its position was odd.
A single bead of sweat trickled down her brow. The sun was shining properly – maybe she would end up sunburned. Like most people nowadays, she was mostly worried about the climate, rather than pleased about the heat now that they were finally getting a proper summer.
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