Silenced: A Novel

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Alex took a sip of water even though he was not in the least thirsty.

  ‘That’s just the kind of point we need the opportunity to clarify,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative. ‘We need to know exactly what the circumstances were that led to an unknown woman being identified as Karolina Ahlbin a week ago.’

  Fredrika was standing right at the back, observing her boss throughout the short press conference. On the whole she thought he made a pretty good job of it.

  Just as Alex was winding up the conference, her mobile vibrated in her jacket pocket. She quickly left the room so she could speak undisturbed.

  A faint hope of it being Spencer crept over her from nowhere. They had not been in touch with each other that day and she was missing him.

  To hell with that, she thought wearily. Missing Spencer was like wishing for a white Christmas. If it happens, it happens, but it’s not worth getting your hopes up.

  When she was able to answer the phone, it wasn’t Spencer, of course, but a colleague from the national CID. He introduced himself as one of the investigators working on the series of security van robberies to which the man Yusuf, run over at the university, could be linked.

  ‘We’ve found something that I thought you’d like to know about,’ he said.

  Fredrika was all ears.

  ‘When the case came to us we did another scene-of-crime investigation,’ he said, ‘and we found a mobile phone with the dead man’s prints on. It was almost twenty-five metres from the body, so it was probably flung out of his jacket pocket when the car initially rammed into him.’

  There was a crackle on the line; reception was not very good just where Fredrika happened to be standing.

  ‘We took all the information off it and got hold of details of the calls made to and from it, from the phone company. It had only been used a few times, and in all cases the incoming calls were from unregistered pay-as-you-go accounts.’

  ‘Yes?’

  There was a sound of paper rustling.

  ‘Sven Ljung,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Sven Ljung?’ Fredrika echoed in astonishment.

  ‘Yes, he’s the listed subscriber to the phone which the hit-and-run victim’s mobile had been in touch with. It was Ljung he rang; two short calls.’

  Fredrika was thinking furiously, trying to fathom how it all fitted together.

  ‘When were these calls to Sven Ljung made?’

  ‘Two days before the robbery was committed.’

  Fredrika took a deep breath. The circle appeared to be closing, but she still did not understand what she had in front of her.

  ‘Oh, there’s one other thing,’ said the detective. ‘We were able to secure traces of metallic silver paint on the victim’s clothes, which also happens to be the colour of Sven Ljung’s Mercedes.’

  ‘Have you been able to match them?’ asked Fredrika, suddenly unsure what was technically possible.

  ‘We thought about that – it isn’t necessarily significant, there are loads of cars that colour, but when we discovered Sven Ljung had reported his car stolen the evening before the murder took place, we thought it was all getting more interesting.’

  Thoughts were whirring round in Fredrika’s head and anything to do with Spencer found itself relegated to a kind of mental waiting room.

  ‘Have you spoken to him? Sven Ljung, that is?’ she asked, her voice husky with suspense.

  ‘Not yet, but we’re working on it,’ replied the detective.

  They had a few more exchanges about the likelihood of Sven Ljung being an accessory to the hit-and-run murder, and thus possibly also the murder of Jakob and Marja. Then they ended the call and Fredrika pocketed her phone.

  People came crowding out of the room she had just left. The press conference was clearly over. Then her phone rang again.

  Spencer, thought Fredrika automatically.

  She was wrong again.

  ‘This is very peculiar,’ said her contact in the technical division. ‘I checked Jakob Ahlbin’s emails again and he had one from his daughter, several days after she died. As if she was still alive.’

  Fredrika gripped her phone tightly.

  ‘From which daughter?’ she asked, quietly so none of the reporters would hear what she was saying.

  ‘From Karolina,’ said the technician, sounding baffled. ‘But she’s dead, isn’t she?’

  Fredrika ignored his objection.

  ‘Can you read me out the email, please?’ she said.

  ‘Dad, sorry to have to tell you this by email, but I get no answer when I try ringing your mobile. It’s all a complete disaster here. Stuck in Bangkok in a terrible fix. Need help right away. Please answer as soon as you get this! Love, Karolina.’

  Bangkok. So it was Karolina who tried to ring her mother. Fredrika felt tears coming into her eyes.

  ‘So she didn’t know,’ she whispered, mainly to herself.

  ‘Hello?’ the technician broke in. ‘It can’t have been Karolina who sent the email, can it? Because she’s dead.’

  In Fredrika’s head there was only one answer to his question:

  ‘Lazarus.’

  BANGKOK, THAILAND

  Still oblivious of her own death and resurrection, Karolina Ahlbin boarded a flight from Bangkok to Stockholm later that evening. Paralysed by the belief that she was returning to her home city to bury her entire family, she was scarcely able to feel the pressure of the situation facing her. According to the smuggler, a nationwide alert had been issued and her picture had been in all the Thai newspapers. So she could not leave the flat and had to resign herself to being cut off from the flow of news about the murder of her parents and sister in Sweden.

  Her ally, the people smuggler, had worked fast since she asked him for help. But he freely admitted that it was a tricky challenge. His usual modus operandi when helping migrants get from Bangkok to Sweden was to get hold of the passport of an individual as similar in appearance to the migrant as possible. If the migrant travelled in possession of a genuine passport indicating citizenship of an EU country, there was nothing to prevent them entering Europe.

  The fact that there was a widespread trade in passports was not much help to Karolina’s smuggler. The passports he was able to buy on the second-hand market were those not of Swedish citizens with blond hair and blue eyes but of people originally from other countries. So when Karolina sought him out in desperation and begged for a way of leaving Thailand ‘in the next few days’, he was faced with a problem. After a few hours of brooding, the smuggler decided the only thing to do was to identify a Swedish tourist who looked vaguely like Karolina and then steal her passport.

  She scrutinised the picture suspiciously when he handed her the passport.

  ‘You can’t leave the country except in disguise, anyway,’ the smuggler assured her when he saw how downcast she looked. ‘They’ll be on the look-out at the airport for you and anyone else wanted by the police. Change your hairstyle and colour, and get some new glasses. At least then you’ll have a shadow of a chance.’

  As mechanically as if she were a clockwork toy, she took the steps he suggested. Cut her hair short and dyed it. Then she sat apathetically on the edge of the bed for hours. Now she had even lost her own appearance. And she still did not know why.

  An hour later she was at the airport with the stolen passport in her pocket, feeling her pulse rate rise as she approached security and passport control. The airport was crawling with uniformed police and Karolina had to make a real effort to avoid eye contact with any of them. When she was finally waiting at her gate, her pulse slowed a bit at last and sorrow washed over her again.

  I’ve lost everything, she thought emptily. My identity and my life, my freedom. And above all – my family. I’ve nothing and nobody to go home to. May the Devil take whoever did this.

  Sinking into her airline seat half an hour later and fastening her seatbelt, she felt too exhausted even to cry. Her escape had become cold and mute.

  And she
was beyond all salvation.

  I have become a non-person. I have become the sort of person who feels nothing.

  She leant her head on the backrest and thought one last thought before sleep claimed her: God help me when I find out who did this. Because I can’t be answerable for what I might do.

  At another airport in a different part of the world, considerably nearer to Sweden, Johanna Ahlbin prepared to board a plane home to Stockholm, unaware that her sister was heading to the same destination on a different plane.

  Her yearning for home intensified when she shut her eyes and pictured her beloved. The one who was always at her side, the one who had sworn never to leave her. He thought he was the stronger of the two of them, but in fact he was exactly as inferior as he had to be.

  Her love for him was strong and solid, in spite of everything.

  The only man she had ever let near her, the only one scarred enough to keep her secret without being terrified by it.

  My darling prince of peace, she thought.

  And she reached a decision, just as she heard the loudspeakers announce that all passengers were to fasten their safety belts and switch off their mobile phones.

  She would ring the police straight away and tell them she was on her way home. Once through to the switchboard, she asked for the man who had spoken at the press conference she had seen on TV earlier in the day.

  ‘Alex Recht,’ she said. ‘Can you put me through to him at once? My name is Johanna Ahlbin. I think he’s been waiting for my call.’

  TUESDAY 4 MARCH 2008

  It was almost as if Alex Recht sensed the moment he woke up that this was the day he would later look back on as the one that changed his life. At least that was how he would remember it, when everything was over and he was left alone: the certainty he felt in his body and mind the moment he opened his eyes, ten minutes before the alarm clock rang.

  He got up quietly and crept out to the kitchen to make the first cup of coffee of the day. He could not even bring himself to look at Lena as he left the room. The very sight of her unyielding back was painful to him. When he got back from work the day before she had been so tired that she could scarcely say a word to him. She said her head ached and went to bed before eight, just a few minutes after he came through the door.

  But now it was morning and work drew him on like a mirage in the desert. The memory of the call from Johanna Ahlbin, put through by the exchange just after seven the previous evening, made his heart beat faster. She had been very brief, apologised for not getting in touch. And he had had some apologies of his own. For the fact that she had heard the news of her parents’ death via the media. For the fact that they had not got hold of her in time. She assured him that she knew they had done their best and that it was partly her own fault. Which had enabled him to resume a rather sterner tone when he informed her that the police wanted to interview her as soon as possible.

  ‘I’ll come in tomorrow,’ she promised.

  And now it was tomorrow.

  He had just put on his coat when he realised Lena was there behind him in the hall. He gave a start.

  ‘You scared me,’ he muttered.

  She smiled, but her eyes were as lifeless as a stretch of frozen water.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said feebly.

  Clearing her throat, she went on:

  ‘We’ve got to talk, Alexander.’

  Had he not already known there was something awfully wrong, he would have known it then. Lena had only ever called him Alexander once before, and that was the very first time they met.

  He knew instinctively that he did not want to hear what she had to say.

  ‘We’ll do it this evening,’ he said, opened the front door and went out onto the doorstep.

  ‘This evening’s fine,’ she said in a muffled voice.

  He closed the door behind him without saying goodbye, and went to the car. And on the other side of the door, just as he turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine, Lena sank to the floor and started sobbing, and could not stop for a long time. In that moment at least, there was no justice for either of them.

  Fredrika Bergman started to worry something was wrong, and anxiety took up permanent residence inside her mind. She was still sleeping well at nights, but sleep was bringing her neither the harmony nor the rationality she had expected, just more energy for brooding. Spencer had answered when she phoned him the previous evening, but sounded distracted and said little, beyond the unexpected news that he was going away and would not be back until Wednesday evening. He would not be able to see her before then, or to talk on the telephone. He had scarcely touched on where he was going, and had ended the call rather abruptly by wishing her a good night, saying they would speak again soon.

  Naturally her pregnancy was making her emotions more volatile than usual, but Spencer’s change in behaviour unsettled her for other reasons, too. Perhaps it had been a mistake to take him round to her parents’ after all? He would hardly have suggested it himself. But on the other hand, the weekend dinner date had had a more or less miraculous effect on her mother, whose comments about the baby and its father were now exclusively positive whenever Fredrika spoke to her.

  Was it perhaps the need to dampen down her anxiety that sent her off to work early that morning? At any rate, by half past seven she was already there. The team’s corridor was deserted, but she could tell that both Peder and Joar were in. She decided to go and see Peder.

  ‘Anything from the national CID on Sven Ljung yet?’

  ‘No, they’re waiting until they’ve got in some of the other information they’re trying to assemble.’

  ‘What are they waiting for?’

  Peder sighed.

  ‘Bank account transactions, for example. It’s always worth checking if there’s money tied up in these things.

  Fredrika went to her office, and Joar came in after her.

  ‘Interesting email from our friend Lazarus yesterday,’ he said, meaning Karolina Ahlbin. ‘Particularly in the light of the fact that her sister finally made herself known later on in the evening.’

  ‘Certainly is,’ agreed Fredrika, taking off her coat and leaning forward to switch on her computer.

  ‘Though it could be an attempt to put us off the track. Karolina trying to look innocent.’

  ‘The question is what she’d be trying to look innocent of, and to whom,’ said Fredrika.

  ‘Drug offences,’ supplied Joar.

  ‘What?’

  ‘New information’s come in by fax from the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok after our press conference. They’re six hours ahead of us over there.’

  Fredrika took the sheet of paper Joar held out to her and read it with growing surprise.

  ‘Has anybody rung this Andreas Blom, who apparently interviewed her when she went to the Embassy for help?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Joar. ‘We left it until you got here.’

  ‘I’ll ring straight away,’ said Fredrika, reaching for the phone even as she spoke.

  She glanced over the fax again as she waited for an answer. Karolina Ahlbin was evidently known to the Thai police as ‘Therese Björk’.

  Maybe she preferred Therese to Lazarus, Fredrika thought exasperatedly.

  Peder was given a special dispensation to postpone his session with the psychologist for a few more days. He ended the call to HR boss Margareta Berlin with a feeling of relief. She sounded more reasonable now, but he had no time to stop and analyse whether it was because he sounded different himself.

  Ylva texted to say that his son was much better. He felt another surge of relief and replied that he was glad to hear it. He had scarcely put down his mobile before it bleeped again.

  Why not come over and eat with me and the boys tonight, if you’ve got time? The boys are asking for you. Ylva.

  Without thinking he fired off a reply:

  Good idea! Will try to be there by six latest!

  He regretted sending the message the instant it had go
ne. How the hell could he promise to be anywhere by six – he hadn’t the faintest idea how the Ahlbin case might develop in the course of the day.

  Damn. His veneer of feigned cool cracked to reveal the disintegration underneath. And he thought those most forbidden of words: Nothing’s ever going to work in the long run. Not with any woman. I’ve got to make my mind up.

  It was unclear to him at that moment quite what it was he had to make up his mind about. But he knew it was not a healthy sign that he viewed dinner with his own family as an imposition, an inconvenient duty. As if work was the only soul mate he wanted in his life.

  Furious for no reason, he grabbed the phone again and rang one of his contacts in the CID who was dealing with the double murder on Sunday night.

  ‘Anything new on the Haga Park murder?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not a thing. So we thought we’d release the victim’s picture to the media and hope somebody recognised him.’

  ‘No match for the prints either?’

  ‘Not a whiff. But we might have something else. Or in fact – we have got something else.’

  Peder was listening.

  ‘Sven Ljung’s car was found just outside Märsta by a woman out for an early morning walk.’

  ‘Bingo!’ cried Peder, with more enthusiasm in his voice than he had first intended.

  ‘Don’t get too bloody carried away,’ said the other detective. ‘The car was set on fire and it’d been burning a fair while by the time we got there.’

  Peder’s spirits plummeted. A burnt-out car would mean very few clues.

  ‘Well, at least it means we know there must be some link to the case, or cases,’ he said determinedly. ‘Otherwise the person who took it would hardly have bothered to set fire to it.’

  ‘Probably not,’ his CID colleague agreed. ‘And there’s another thing we’ve found out.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Peder asked.

  ‘That it was very probably used as a get-away car after the security van jobs, not just the one in Uppsala but also the one the media reported in Västerås at the weekend. In the Uppsala case we’ve nothing more to go on than some witness statements that it was a silver metallic car, but in Västerås we got bits of the registration number, and they tallied with Ljung’s.’