Just beyond reception was the staff canteen. First there was a room with various buffet counters, and then four different queues to pay. Sara was hungry, but the others didn’t seem to want to eat, so she said nothing.
She amused herself by noting how all the passers-by threw hasty second glances at Lotta, sometimes involuntarily. She would have loved to know what they made of her childhood friend. What was she like as a boss? Lotta had been the one in charge even when they were little, but Malin and Sara had never engaged in the anonymous reviews that subordinates wrote in the adult world. Everyone had an opinion about their boss, and loved to share it with their peers. Views like that rarely went up the chain of command. It had been just like that when they were little.
Lotta’s office was big, airy and equipped with light furniture. A Scandinavian feel. And she actually had a view right towards SVT’s building. Stellan’s old stamping ground. Malin’s current one. This was the Bromans’ corner of the world – at least professionally.
‘What did you want to talk about?’ said Lotta.
Sara had brought her iPad. She’d transferred the videos she’d taken of the assaults from her mobile and the picture quality wasn’t the best. Old Super 8 footage filmed with a mobile and shown on a bigger screen . . . But it would have to do.
She said nothing when she started the film. But she scrutinised the two sisters’ faces carefully.
Malin’s eyes opened wide, and after a few seconds she looked away.
‘Stop!’ she said when Sara didn’t switch it off.
But for once Sara didn’t obey her.
‘Why are you showing us this?’ said Lotta, pushing aside the tablet. ‘Just a few days after Dad was murdered.’
‘Because this is to do with the murder.’
‘You’re surely not involved in the investigation?’
‘Your father filmed multiple rapes of underage girls.’
‘She’s not underage.’
‘Under eighteen, in any case.’
‘And it doesn’t look like he’s holding her down or threatening her,’ said Lotta. ‘She’s lying there completely of her own accord.’
‘What sixteen-year-old chooses to sleep with a fifty-year-old?’
‘They exist. Believe me.’
‘We can watch more films. In some of them it’s clear how terrified the girls are. And in others they’re drunk.’
‘It can’t be true!’ said Malin. ‘Dad would never do this.’
‘It looks awfully much like he did.’
‘I suppose that’s how they captured him,’ said Lotta. ‘Lured him into a trap. Now I understand why he would have helped the Stasi.’
‘You think he was tricked into doing this?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Lotta. ‘Dad was just as much of a victim as the girls.’
‘Do you want to see more?’ said Sara, who was having a hard time stomaching Lotta’s indifference.
‘Watch away if it does it for you. But not with us.’
‘It’s hard to comprehend,’ said Sara. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Because it’s not true,’ said Malin. ‘It’s taken out of context.’
‘No. The context is a rape.’
‘Stop it!’
‘And what are you going to do with this?’ said Lotta. ‘Give it to the tabloids?’
‘It’s interesting from two perspectives. One, for the murder investigation, as a possible motive. And two, for the three of us here, who all grew up with Stellan.’
‘Possible motive?’ said Lotta. ‘Do you think someone would murder an old lay thirty years later? Why? Who the hell hasn’t kissed a few frogs in their time? Let’s face it – in this girl’s eyes, Dad was an old man. But that kind of thing happens. He was extremely famous, and it was probably exciting – but then she regretted it afterwards, which I can understand. But she surely didn’t shoot our father dead over it.’
‘Don’t you see that it’s an assault?’
‘Honestly, I actually recognise her from school. She was special. Very sexually demanding. Sought out older men.’
‘What? So—’
‘I don’t mean that it was her fault, but you can sort of understand why Dad was tempted. She was probably pretty forward.’
‘Surely you can see she’s scared?’
‘Just unsure. He was probably the first person she propositioned – she didn’t know how to behave.’
‘Propositioned? Are you out of your mind?’
‘You’ve no idea how many women wanted to have sex with Stellan Broman,’ said Lotta. ‘You’re forgetting that there weren’t many celebrities back then, and the ones there were ended up being basically worshipped. There were only two TV channels, so everyone watched the same shows.’
‘I don’t understand how you can’t have any sympathy for the girls.’
‘We do,’ the older sister added. ‘But it’s thirty years ago, and we’re in the here and now, and I’ve just been offered a new job that will fall through if this comes out.’
‘It’s your father you should be angry with.’
‘Have you changed your theory, then?’ said Lotta. ‘What happened to the spying?’
‘There’s a connection to that. Other films.’
Silence.
‘What do you want?’ said Lotta, fixing her gaze on Sara. Malin was simply shaking her head and looking away. ‘You know what this can do to me as a public figure. Do you want something to keep quiet? What’s this actually about? Your sick obsession with our childhood? Isn’t it time to grow up?’
‘I . . . thought you’d want to know.’
Sara began to wonder herself what exactly was driving her forward.
‘No thanks. It changes nothing, and it really doesn’t make anything better. Leo and Sixten are constantly asking for their grandmother and I don’t know what to tell them. This is decades-old history. We’re not children any longer – we’re adults who have to try and process the fact that our father’s dead and our mother’s missing. And by “we” I mean Malin and myself. Not you, Sara.’
Lotta was right. Sara was ashamed. She’d gone too far. Had she simply never forgotten the feeling of subordination from her childhood, and thought she’d get her revenge now? She needed to take a step back, but she didn’t want to admit her personal motives to Lotta.
‘OK, but in that case I wonder whether you know anything about these films that may be of use in the investigation. Were there any threats? Did any of the girls threaten to report him?’
‘It’s not even your investigation!’ Lotta went over to the window and her shoulders slumped.
‘You work with whores,’ said Malin.
‘I want to solve the murder,’ Sara replied.
‘It’s a bit much to come and show us a video like that just a few days after our father’s been murdered,’ said Lotta, turning around. ‘Do your bosses know you’re doing this? Or is this some kind of personal vendetta? If the film isn’t part of the investigation, then you’ve obtained it by yourself, which means you’ve committed trespass. And tried to blackmail us.’
‘I thought you wanted to know who your father was.’
‘We know who our dad was,’ said Lotta. ‘To us.’
‘You’ve always been jealous of us,’ Malin interjected. ‘Mum was always saying we should be kind and play with you because she felt sorry for you. And then you tell us that Dad was a spy, and now that he was a pervert. What the hell is wrong with you?’
‘I was jealous,’ Sara said honestly. ‘When we were little. But without any reason, I now realise.’
‘You ought to be a bit more grateful for what Mum and Dad did for you,’ said Lotta.
‘For letting me come round? Because you played with me for two months a year when your friends were away? Or because my mother got the chance to clean your house and deal with your shit? Thanks a bunch.’
‘For not reporting you.’
‘For what?’
‘For the garden shed.’
/> The words hit her like a kick from a horse.
‘What do you mean, the garden shed?’
‘You tried to set fire to it.’
‘What?’
‘When I went to Paris with Dad and Camilla.’
Sara was silent.
‘Did you think we didn’t know?’ said Malin. ‘Mum saw you.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Lotta. ‘I have to work.’
Sara got up and left. Shaken.
The garden shed.
So they knew.
Had always known.
The memories that she’d tried to suppress and block out. How she’d taken the metro from Vällingby to Bromma, changed to the Nockebybanan light railway and then walked the last stretch to the house. With a plan – or rather, a feeling – driving her forwards.
A day when there had been bright sunshine and strong winds. The clouds slipping quickly across the sky. And she’d felt more alive than ever.
Jane had worked almost constantly that first summer when they’d just moved, to save money for furniture, food and rent. Sara knew no one in Vällingby, and her mother had forbidden her from calling the Bromans. The memory of being in that echoing, empty flat without any friends, without anything to do, with the thought of how fantastic it must be in Paris eating away at her.
The growing desire for revenge. For justice.
Forty-four-year-old Sara could picture her thirteen-year-old self opening the door to the Bromans’ garden shed and getting out a bottle. Shaking it to make sure there was enough.
The lighter fluid that she’d sprayed over the outside of the shed.
Adult Sara couldn’t stop young Sara, despite the fact that they were the same person.
Or were they?
One of them had lit the flame and run away, and the other one could yet again feel the soles of her cheap sandals slamming against the pavement as she ran away from the Bromans’ house along the deserted summer streets.
High on her revenge for the non-trip to Paris, because the summers with the Bromans were at an end. She’d checked the papers for several days afterwards.
Arson at the home of Stellan Broman – it should have been a big story. Made Sara important.
But the papers never said anything. The fire never took hold.
42
Spy or not, Stellan had been shot by someone he had caused harm to. A girl he had raped, or someone close to them. Sara was convinced of it.
This was the last time she was going to visit the house. She couldn’t stand to see it anymore.
She could almost hear the desperate cries of the vulnerable girls. The panting of the men raping them.
Her image of her childhood was a lie that she’d swathed in rose-tinted summer memories. She realised that she hated the house.
Had she always hated it? But just in another way, for other reasons?
The police cordon was still there. Blue and white tape telling the world at large that something terrible had happened, but also that someone had dealt with it. ‘The terrible thing is on the other side of the tape. There’s nothing to worry about on your side. We’ve limited the crime to this place.’
Sara went round the back and looked down towards the water. Once again the picture of the three girls on the jetty sprang to mind. Three girls throwing sandwiches into the water and laughing hysterically.
But now she remembered. Now she could admit it to herself. It wasn’t just that she’d been so hungry.
It was also the fact that her mother, Jane, had made those sandwiches for the girls. Instead of eating them, they’d thrown them into the water and laughed. And then they’d told Jane to make more, which had gone into the water, too.
Sara had met her mother’s eye, but had quickly looked away.
It had been almost eleven in the evening, but it had still been light. Jane should have been allowed to go to bed. She had to get up early in the morning to prepare the breakfast.
But she hadn’t been able to.
Because she’d had to make more sandwiches.
And covering it all, there had been that sticky, sweet scent of sun cream – intimately connected to the degradation of her mother. She felt Stellan’s hands on her, slowly massaging the lotion onto her while talking about how important it was to be protected from the sun.
And then she’d sat there with the sisters and joined in with everything they did, even when that was humiliating her mother.
Sara returned to the present, rounded the house and unlocked the door.
The big, empty house. So strangely desolate.
Had it ever been inhabited? It was hard to believe, despite the fact that she’d been part of that life.
The house smelled stagnant. The summer warmth released odours from the walls, floors and furniture. All the distinct scents of the objects and materials – no longer being blended into a human presence. No smell of cooking, tobacco smoke, coffee, skin covered in beads of summer sweat or perfume.
What was going to happen to the house?
Would Agneta live here alone if she ever returned? What would the sisters do with it if the worst had happened?
Sell. Sara was convinced.
They weren’t big on sentimentality.
The house had probably meant more to her than it had to Malin and Lotta.
Would she be able to live here?
Never.
Not now.
But once upon a time it would have been a dream for her.
Sara crept through the house carefully. The eternal guest, the one who didn’t belong here. The silence was charged. The light didn’t reach into every corner, and the twilight brought her imagination alive.
The parquet creaked and the walls groaned.
She felt a presence.
Someone close by.
As if there were a faint echo, she thought she heard the murmur of the past. Distant sounds lingering from all the big parties. All the happy guests. All the ruined lives.
A lonely saxophone made its way through the clatter and hubbub.
From the drawing room, she heard the hoarse voice of a long-forgotten femme fatale. Clinking glasses being carried away by the catering staff.
Someone throwing up in the guest toilet.
The final dance towards dawn. A handful of couples swaying to the soft jazz. The snoring of guests who’d fallen asleep on sofas and under tables.
Someone treading on broken glass and bleeding onto the white rug in the hallway.
Nothing that had happened in the house had been as it seemed.
She ought to burn the whole thing down. The way they pulled down the houses of serial killers and Nazis – an attempt to eradicate the evil. The evil energy, as Anna might have put it.
Sara wandered around, looking about. When she caught sight of the album labelled ‘Malin’s graduation’, she couldn’t help herself.
She opened it and encountered photos from outside the school in Bromma, from the moment that could have been when Sara finished, too. Followed by the reception at home and the party in the evening. Her return to the Bromans’ protection that had ended so badly.
She saw a younger version of herself beside Stellan. Martin was a few seats away.
She’d felt as if they had a thing when they saw each other again over drinks before dinner. It had been so easy to talk to him and laugh together. Suddenly the two-year age gap was nothing, and neither of them seemed to want to leave the other. But they were brusquely separated by an unsympathetic seating plan.
Her young love . . . What if they’d been able to keep talking that evening? If she hadn’t crashed and Lotta hadn’t been able to throw a spanner in the works . . .
Was that why Sara had later felt that she had to have Martin? To get one up on Lotta, who’d been turned down by him when they were in sixth form together? But then Lotta had hit on him again at her sister’s graduation party, before dumping him as soon as he fell in love with her.
Perhaps Martin had been easy
prey after that. Twenty-one years old, heartbroken and needing comfort and security. As far as Sara was concerned, it was still a victory.
Martin had become hers.
But now?
The firmer and clearer the past became, the looser the contours of the present became and the more unreal her life seemed. Was she really living in the present? Wasn’t it all about what happened back then?
Didn’t everyone cling on to their youth? The time when emotions were at their most powerful, when everything was important and possible, when people were eternal. Eternally beautiful or eternally ugly, eternally good or eternally bad. Less transient. Less ordinary.
She put the graduation album down and picked up ‘Janina 1972’ instead. She opened it and examined the photos of a young Jane. Very young. In what must have been clothing from Poland. Then photos of her in new, probably Swedish clothes that she’d likely been given by the Bromans. They were really more Agneta’s style. Janina. Jane. Sara’s mother. With a happy smile that disappeared in the later photos.
Sara checked the spine of the album again.
1972.
That was wrong.
Her mother had come to Sweden in 1974. Stellan had got it wrong. Odd. Sara had always thought of him as a pedant, but perhaps the domestic help didn’t matter that much.
She looked at the row of photo albums, and thought back to the childhood she’d witnessed but never really been a true part of. Now she knew she ought to be infinitely grateful for that.
‘You’ve always been jealous of us.’
Sara nodded to herself. A decision began to take shape.
Nothing could be undone, but it was possible to change your view of anything. Up in the attic, she rooted through the boxes until she found what she was looking for. She took the whole box downstairs and outside, where she set it in the middle of the lawn at a safe distance from any bushes and trees. Then she went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard that she’d known contained acetone, even as a child. She emptied the whole bottle into the box and then she lit it. She ignited the whole box of matches at once. The effect was like a miniature welding torch. A small fire lighting a bigger one.
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