“You don’t have…?”
“My clerical collar,” I said, feeling for it. “A person can’t always be on the job. Sometimes even pastors have to have a private life.”
She gave a hesitant smile and sat down.
“So, here’s the thing,” I said, wondering how to lay it out. “Everything you told me last time I was here, about how Christopher abused you, I believe it. I believe that what you told me is true.”
“Great,” she said, still looking hesitant.
“But why did you take it all back during the police interrogation? You said you didn’t know what was real and what was your imagination. But you did know, didn’t you?”
“No one believed me anyway.”
“So you retracted your accusation because no one believed what you said?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Do you have trouble telling the difference between reality and fantasy?” I asked.
Linda didn’t respond.
“The police didn’t listen to you,” I said. “What were you planning to do about it, instead?”
She shifted her position in her chair. Gazed around the room.
“Nothing. Or…”
“Or?”
She twisted her arm behind her back and scratched her shoulder. There was nothing to suggest that this woman was crazy, that she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Why had she said such a thing during the police interrogation?
“I know who you are,” she said suddenly.
My thoughts froze.
“What do you mean?”
“I looked into it after the last time you were here.”
I opened my mouth, but the words got stuck somewhere on the way out.
“I thought a lot about getting revenge on Chris,” said Linda Lokind. “I don’t think I could have killed him, but I thought about various ways to hurt him. I did do that.”
She stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, her shoulders sagging. “Stella was the one who killed Chris. I tried to warn her. I know you don’t want to believe it, but the police are right. Your daughter did it.”
I couldn’t move. I was collapsing inside, drowning in my thoughts, caught in a vise of darkness.
“You’re lying.”
She shook her head.
She cautiously folded up the sleeve of her blouse and looked at the clock.
A knock came at the door. Three hard raps.
Linda rose and my legs nearly collapsed beneath me as I followed. The whole room seemed to be tumbling around.
“I have to go,” I said.
Linda walked ahead of me. I stopped in the middle of the living room as she continued to the hall. I heard her turn the lock. A man’s voice echoed in the stairwell, but I couldn’t make out what he said. Meanwhile I hurried for the kitchen, trying to find a place to hide, a way out—I don’t know what, exactly.
I could only see Linda’s back as she closed the door. Her movements seemed somehow hesitant now. Out of sheer instinct I recoiled, trying to keep out of sight.
The man clomped in without removing his shoes. His footsteps sounded like jackboots against the hardwood floor and without even thinking, I took a quick step to the side and grabbed the neck of the large, bottle-shaped floor vase.
I believe this is deeply human. There’s no understanding it if you’ve never experienced a direct and serious threat to yourself and your loved ones. You make irrational decisions and overstep boundaries as you never would otherwise. A person who can no longer flee must fight.
I lifted the vase off the floor slightly to determine how heavy it was and realized I would have to use both hands. Just as I looked up, the man rounded the corner in front of me. I saw his shiny black boots and my adrenaline pumped out full force.
“Police!”
He threw himself at me.
It all happened so fast—the room spun and shards of glass flew about us like a sudden snowfall. In the next instant I was on the floor with my cheek against the wood and could no longer breathe. It felt like I’d been run over by a car—my back had to be broken—and pain stabbed between my ribs like knives.
“Adam Sandell?” the policeman said in a booming voice.
All I could produce was a whimper.
“Adam Sandell?” he said again and again until I finally managed to confirm that it was my name.
Not until I was yanked up off the floor did I realize that there were two of them. The other officer was standing next to Linda, looking at me with disdain as he took out his handcuffs.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” he asked.
“Weapons? Are you nuts?”
“No sharp objects?”
I was frisked and advised that I would be coming along to the station for questioning. When I asked if I was under suspicion of anything, I was met only with vague excuses. I had to wait until we arrived at the station.
My pleas to loosen the handcuffs were met with silence. The car pulled up behind the police station and I was led across the parking lot like a criminal, flanked by the oversize officers.
41
I had to wait for half an hour before Agnes Thelin entered the small interrogation room. She placed my keys and wallet on the table.
“We’re going to keep your phone for forensic analysis,” she said, waving an order from the prosecutor.
“Forensic analysis? What crime have I been charged with?”
Agnes Thelin put on an expression of concern, as if she truly cared about me.
“Linda Lokind contacted us back when you came to her apartment for the first time, Adam. She was scared. You ingratiated yourself with her under false pretenses.”
“I only happened to be wearing my clerical collar that day.”
“You claimed to represent Margaretha Olsen.”
I couldn’t deny that, although I thought it was a fairly minor overstep. Definitely not the sort of thing that justified the brutality of those officers.
“We decided that Linda should contact us immediately in case of your return,” Agnes Thelin continued.
So that’s why it had taken her so long to unlock the door.
“But why am I sitting here? Why did they apprehend me? I haven’t broken any laws.”
“You swung a vase at my colleague.”
“Swung? Is that what he claims?”
“He doesn’t claim anything. There were four of you in that room.”
“But you have to question Linda Lokind again. She confessed to me that all her accusations against Christopher Olsen were true. He assaulted her again and again, and she thought about ways to get revenge.”
“I can’t discuss details of this investigation, Adam. You have to trust we’re doing our job.”
“How could I trust you? My little girl is locked up despite the complete lack of evidence!”
“We just received new results from the lab. The crime-scene technicians have discovered small irregularities on the soles of Stella’s shoes, and they match the print from the scene of the crime. We are sure that print came from Stella’s shoe.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Of course it’s true.”
“But it could have ended up there any time at all. Stella has an alibi!”
Agnes Thelin made her hands into a pyramid under her chin. Her eyes were a little shiny, but her gaze was steady and firm. I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere. She had made up her mind. She and Jansdotter the prosecutor had decided that Stella was guilty and that I was a common liar. Nothing I said would change their attitude.
“How are you doing, Adam? You’ve been overstepping a lot of boundaries recently.”
I pressed my hands to my temples to get rid of the constant pounding.
“DA Jenny Jansdotter has filed a police report on you,” Thelin went on, taking a piece of paper from the pile on her desk. “You attacked her on the street, shouting and acting threatening.”
“Attacked? Threatenin
g?”
My vision flickered. I fumbled around on the table for something to drink. My mouth was full of dust. The light was so bright I had to squint.
“Adam?”
“I want a lawyer.”
* * *
Contrary to my expectations, it actually felt like a relief when Michael Blomberg lumbered through the door and sat down next to me.
“Trust me,” he said, placing one huge paw on my shoulder.
Ulrika had made the arrangements to get him here.
“I did not attack Jansdotter” was all I managed to get out.
“Of course you didn’t,” said Blomberg. “These charges are completely absurd. You have no reason to worry.”
I was stuck in a nightmare.
“I understand that this is awful,” said Agnes Thelin, “and that you’re not feeling well.”
Blomberg’s hand shot out.
“I’m having increasing doubts about how you conduct your work around here,” he said.
I looked at him. At last he was doing something.
Agnes Thelin went on as if nothing was amiss.
“What I’m going to say now will seem shocking and terrible at first, but in the long run I believe it will come as a relief to you, Adam.”
I turned to Blomberg, who fingered the knot of his tie.
“I know you’re just trying to protect your daughter,” said Chief Inspector Thelin. “But that is no longer possible.”
A sudden calm descended over me. I didn’t understand where it had come from. The pounding in my forehead ceased and the saliva streamed into my mouth once again. My vision cleared. It was as if the moment had caught up with me at last.
“Yesterday I went to the jail to question Stella again,” said Agnes Thelin. “Quite a bit of new information came out.”
I pictured what was about to happen, in the span of a few seconds. The future was a movie playing in my head just before it occurred in reality.
“Stella says she did not come home as early as you claim.”
“No?”
“She believes it was past one o’clock, maybe closer to two.”
“No, that’s not right.” I shook my head firmly. “She was drunk. She’s mistaken about the time.”
Second after second vanished. I looked at Blomberg, who looked at Thelin, who looked at me. We knew, all three of us, that this was an act and nothing more. A performance.
“That’s not all Stella had to say.”
I filled my lungs with air.
“She was there,” said Agnes Thelin. “Stella was there on the playground at Pilegatan when Chris Olsen died.”
“No,” I said. “No, that’s not true.”
“She has confessed to being there, Adam.”
My vision flickered again. The air caught in my throat.
“No,” I said over and over. “No, no, no.”
“She has confessed.”
PART TWO
THE DAUGHTER
What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (TRANS. CONSTANCE GARNETT)
He knew that henceforth, all his days would resemble one another, and bring him equal suffering. And he saw the weeks, months, and years gloomily and implacably waiting for him, coming one after the other to fall upon him and gradually smother him.
ÉMILE ZOLA, THÉRÈSE RAQUIN (TRANS. EDWARD VIZETELLY)
42
The worst part about this cell isn’t the rock-hard bed you can hardly flip over in. It’s not the dim light. It’s not even the disgusting rings of old piss in the toilet. The worst part is the smell.
I have to confess that I was one of those people who thought the Swedish correctional system was a straight-up chain of decent hotels. That it was hardly punishment to be locked up in this country. I believed it was more or less like an after-school program where you could just chill, lie in bed and binge TV series, get fed pretty good stuff, and not have to care about anything.
I said in school one time that I didn’t understand why there were homeless people in Sweden, and that I would much rather be in prison than live on the street.
After six weeks in jail I will never again say I want to be locked up, or that I think it’s like a hotel.
My room is under one hundred square feet. They call it a room because cell sounds more depressing. One hundred square feet is like the size of a horse’s stall. It’s smaller than most Swedish backyard greenhouses. It has a bed, a desk, a chair and a shelf, a toilet and a sink.
I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I’m in here for a reason, and I’m not a victim. I ache all over, I’ve lost weight, and my thoughts plague me like tinnitus. But there’s no reason to pity me. Hell no. Back in middle school I had a favorite expression that I used all the time, and it feels more fitting than ever these days: Don’t play with fire if you can’t handle the heat.
* * *
Once a day, you’re let out for some fresh air. If you’re lucky. Sometimes there’s not enough staff, and sometimes they can’t come up with an escort to the elevators. Sometimes they mostly don’t give a shit which it is.
There’s something like a dog park on the roof. All you can do is walk around, back and forth, in small circles. But so what? It’s a change. It’s something different. You get away from the smell and the trapped feeling for a while. But it doesn’t make your thoughts or the sinking feeling in your stomach go away.
One night, rain was pelting down like giant nails, but I trotted around on the roof anyway. Back and forth. It didn’t matter that I was freezing my ass off, that the rain stung my cheeks. Anything that is not just flat-out sitting or lying down is gold around here.
Radio, TV, internet? Not a chance. I have full restrictions. I’m not allowed to see, hear, or read anything that isn’t directly linked to my case, like detention documents or memos from the court and fun stuff like that. No binge-watching shows, no music, not even a single text. I’m not allowed to make or receive phone calls, and the only person who can visit me is my lawyer.
Three times a week, the commissary cart comes by and I stuff myself with two thousand calories of chocolate and Coke. Sugar is a super-underrated drug, and it’s the only one you can get your hands on in here.
Actually, it’s incredible how much you can long for the moment when two strangers turn the lock and bring in a tray of food. For the first few days I almost started bawling each time. Just getting to see another person made my whole body rejoice. I darted out of bed and was about to throw my arms around their necks, and then I peppered them with at least fifty questions about everything under the sun just so they wouldn’t leave again.
As soon as I’m on my own, my mind starts buzzing. The smell comes back.
* * *
I had been here for two days when they sent me to the psychologist.
“I didn’t ask to see a shrink,” I told the guard.
He stared at me like I was a speck of dirt the janitor had missed.
“It can’t hurt.”
I think his name is Jimmy. He’s got one of those gross goatees that looks like wiry pubic hair on the end of his chin, and his eyes are ice-blue. I one hundred percent recognize him, probably from Étage or some other club.
The guards can be divided into two categories, no problem. Number one: the ones who see this as just a job, something that puts money into their account once a month. Maybe the jail is just a temporary stop on their search for a more rewarding or better-paying career. Number two: the ones who get off on the power. The ones who came here on purpose. Maybe they were rejected from the police academy, probably thanks to the psychologist. They’re the ones who like bullying and violence and consider the inmates to be vermin.
You quickly learn to tell the difference. Even though most of them have the same cold eyes, there is a crucial difference between apathy and contempt.
Jimmy is definitely one of the power-hungry ones. It’s something about how
he looks at you. Sort of from below and above all at the same time. As if he considers himself better than me, superior, even though he knows deep down that it’s really the other way around, and that makes him furious. He spends way too much time at the gym. His upper arms are thicker than his thighs, and his neck would look better on a bull. I have such an urge to pin those fat arms to his sides.
He responds to every question with another question.
“Are you joking? What do you think? Do I look like your mother?”
I just want to scream in his face.
If one of us needs a psychologist, it’s sure as fuck not me.
* * *
I have a theory about psychologists. I’m not saying it’s true for all of them, but I certainly have encountered my share throughout the years and so far I haven’t run into any exceptions.
Here’s the thing: if you get a degree and are fed a bunch of explanatory models and diagnoses, it seems to me like it’s pretty much unavoidable that you would later try to apply what you’ve learned. It would be stupid not to. So you get out of school and greet people—clients, patients, or whoever—with the attitude that you should be able to explain why people are the way they are and do the things they do. A psychologist’s job is basically to force the rest of us into one of their templates.
Suggestion: you should do the opposite!
Reason: people are unique.
All those psychologists who came and went. Was that life? All the self-assessments and personality tests. The first thing they start with, obviously, is a rough childhood. It seems to be every psychologist’s wet dream to find a broken soul who has repressed a bunch of terrible memories from their childhood.
The bizarre thing about all these diagnoses they throw around is that it’s so easy to see yourself in most of them. There’s not a single psych test where you wouldn’t check off some of the boxes.
For a while I was sort of obsessed with that stuff. Since everyone believed there was something wrong with me, even my own family—or maybe my own family most of all—I tried to get to the bottom of the problem. Everything I read said that it would feel better when you put a label on it, when you could put a name to the problem, when you knew that there were lots of other people dealing with the same thing.
A Nearly Normal Family Page 14