Buried Lies

by Kristina Ohlsson

  The company was located less than twenty minutes from downtown Houston. We were there before half past eight. A receptionist sitting in the lobby told us Dennis Woods was there.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I’m pretty sure he’ll want to see us. We knew his wife.’

  Saying we knew her was a bit of an exaggeration, but the receptionist didn’t need to know that.

  I could see from the look on her face that she had been informed of what had befallen Dennis Woods. The colour drained from her cheeks when I mentioned his wife.

  ‘Please, take a seat and I’ll call him,’ she said.

  We sat down and waited on one of the ugliest, most uncomfortable sofas in the world. If the circumstances had been different I would have started laughing, but the way things looked just then it was easy not to. I held Lucy’s hand while we waited. I never used to do that sort of thing. Not even when we were a couple. After a brief internal argument with myself I decided not to pull my hand away. We had crossed so many boundaries together in the past few days. This was the least dangerous of them.

  The lift pinged and the doors slid open. A man with greying hair and a poorly knotted tie emerged. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink for at least a week. To my surprise, he was in his fifties. Jenny Woods had been twenty-seven when she died.

  He stopped a metre away from the sofa and we stood up.

  ‘I hear you knew my wife,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think we’ve ever met before?’

  I explained why we were there. I told him almost the whole story, only leaving out the embarrassing part about the police’s suspicions regarding my own involvement. When I had finished, Jenny’s husband considered what he had just heard. Then he held out his hand.

  ‘Dennis Woods,’ he said. ‘Come up to my office with me. But you can’t stay long.’

  In the end I don’t think we were there more than ten minutes. But that was all we needed.

  Dennis Woods’s office was furnished in a way that made you think of an aquarium.

  ‘Jenny told me you met in San Antonio,’ I said.

  ‘Is this an interrogation?’ Dennis said.

  ‘No, definitely not.’

  ‘Then we’ll leave my private life out of this conversation.’

  This posed a problematic limitation on the discussion for Lucy and me. We were hardly there to talk business, after all.

  I tried to explain why I had asked about where Dennis and Jenny first met.

  ‘When Jenny came to my office, she told me several things which were of great interest regarding Sara Tell’s case,’ I said. ‘But to be able to make any further use of them, it would be very helpful if you could just confirm them.’

  Because it looks like she was lying about certain things, I might have added. But didn’t.

  Dennis Woods had turned away and was looking out of the window. His office was on the thirty-fourth floor. The view was vast. The heat made the horizon quiver.

  ‘Jenny never stopped talking about Sara,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What did she say?’ Lucy said.

  ‘That Sara had had such a tough life and had been so brave, trying to break with the past. That she was an incredibly loyal friend, the best you could imagine.’

  ‘What was their relationship like after Sara left Texas?’ I said.

  ‘They were in touch less and less often, until finally it faded away altogether. Until Sara got into trouble a few years later and contacted Jenny, asking for help. At first I didn’t know what it was about, but then the papers started writing about it. I pleaded with Jenny to stay out if it; it was nothing to do with her. But she refused to listen.’

  So at least that part of Jenny’s story had been true. Sara really had got in touch asking for help.

  ‘Did Jenny ever say if she thought Sara was guilty?’ I said. ‘Or did she think she was innocent of the murders she was accused of?’

  Finally Dennis Woods took his eyes off the window. He looked distraught.

  ‘That was what I never understood,’ he said. ‘The question of guilt didn’t seem to matter to Jenny. She just kept repeating that Sara needed her help and deserved to get it. She said there were things I couldn’t possibly understand, and that I just had to accept that Sara was important to her. I’ll admit I felt frustrated, but she wouldn’t tell me more than that. I had no desire to get dragged into a murder trial, and I didn’t like the fact that Jenny seemed to be heading that way.’

  ‘But that didn’t happen in the end,’ I said. ‘And it wouldn’t have done, even if the trial had taken place. Sara refused to accept Jenny’s help. Were you aware that she had a diary and a train ticket couriered to Sweden?’

  Dennis sat down at his desk. I had already noticed two framed photographs on the windowsill. One was of Jenny, the other a young boy.

  ‘My son,’ Dennis said, nodding towards the photograph. ‘We adopted him six months ago. How am I going to explain to him that his mum’s gone?’

  I almost expected him to start crying, but he didn’t. The question was rhetorical rather than emotional.

  ‘I have an adopted child myself,’ I said. ‘They can deal with more than we think.’

  Dennis gave me a look that was hard to read.

  ‘Really,’ he said.

  Lucy was looking intently at the boy’s picture.

  ‘Why did you choose to adopt?’

  Dennis Woods’s face turned bright red.

  ‘You’ve crossed the line now,’ he said. ‘How dare you come here and ask a question like that?’

  Lucy backed down quickly and apologised. I stared at the boy, trying to memorise what he looked like. I had a feeling I knew why Lucy had asked that question.

  To change the subject I reminded Dennis of the earlier question he still hadn’t answered. Had he known about the train ticket and diary?

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they were what Jenny took with her when she went to Sweden.’

  I stiffened on the uncomfortable visitor’s chair.

  ‘She sent them by courier,’ I said. ‘What do you mean, went to Sweden?’

  Dennis looked surprised.

  ‘She may have sent them by courier, but she certainly went to Sweden. Sara couldn’t make her mind up. First she was desperate for Jenny’s help, then she said she didn’t want it.’

  ‘At what point did Jenny travel to see Sara?’ I said, thinking about what Jenny had told me. ‘Was it before Sara was arrested?’

  ‘After,’ Dennis said. ‘Just before the trial. As I understand it, they never actually met. Then when Sara managed to escape and commit suicide, Jenny came back to the US. She was in a terrible state, I might add.’

  This was information Jenny had withheld from me. And from Bobby and Eivor. Unless perhaps they had met her then?

  ‘I really am quite pressed for time,’ Dennis said. ‘So if you haven’t got any more questions . . .’

  ‘Just two more,’ I said quickly. ‘Three, actually. Did Jenny have any tattoos?’

  Dennis grimaced. Tattoos evidently weren’t his thing.

  ‘One,’ he said. ‘On the back of her neck.’

  My heart started to beat faster and I could feel the adrenalin kick in.

  ‘What was it of?’

  ‘It was a word, not an image. It said Venus.’

  Venus and Lotus. I started to see a pattern that I’d been blind to before. And I remembered what the policeman Larry had called her: whore.

  ‘Did Jenny ever mention anyone called Lucifer?’

  ‘No.’

  Of course not.

  It was becoming more and more obvious that Sara and Jenny had made the same mistake while they were au pairs, and ended up in Lucifer’s clutches. Then they spent the following years trying to extricate themselves from the past.

  Neither of them had succeeded terribly well on that score.

  ‘You said you had one more question?’ Dennis said.

  I had two, really,
but I didn’t say that.

  ‘What was the reason for Jenny’s trip to Sweden last week?’

  ‘I presume she wanted to see you. She had been in touch with Sara’s lawyer’s secretary about getting her things back. Don’t ask me why, maybe she just wanted to draw a line under everything. But then she heard that the case was being looked at again, this time by you. And suddenly her old obsession seemed to come back to life. She was impossible to reason with. Even though Sara was dead and buried, she was adamant that she had to travel to Sweden and make one last attempt to clear her name.’

  For the first time in our conversation his eyes clouded over.

  ‘I hope it was worth it,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Because now she’s no longer here. My only hope is that the police find whoever did it, but that doesn’t seem very likely, does it?’

  I opted to stay silent. Lucy and I thanked him and got ready to leave. But I wasn’t prepared to give up so easily. I wanted an answer to the question I had asked at the start.

  ‘With all due respect for your private life,’ I said cautiously. ‘There’s no way you could tell us if you and Jenny first met in San Antonio the weekend when Sara was accused of having murdered a woman in Galveston?’

  Dennis Woods’s expression didn’t change.

  ‘My wife and I met here in Houston,’ he said. ‘Here at work. She was a trainee in my department. Where she was the weekend a woman was murdered in a hotel in Galveston I don’t know. But I can tell you I haven’t set foot in San Antonio since I buried my mother there almost ten years ago.’

  38

  According to the thermometer in the car it was almost forty degrees when we drove out of the car park and set off towards Galveston.

  ‘We could have been in Nice now,’ Lucy said.

  I didn’t answer. My sunglasses were pressing against my temples and I took them off.

  ‘Or we could have stayed at home,’ Lucy said. ‘We could have gone to Dad’s place in the country and picked berries. Made juice and gone for walks in the forest.’

  She took one hand off the wheel and put it on my arm.

  ‘Please, go on,’ I said. ‘Tell me about berries and juice.’

  People are often surprised when I tell them about my hidden talent. I’m a demon when it comes to making juice and jam. Who I inherited that skill from is a little unclear. Marianne isn’t remotely practical, and my dad can’t have spent many minutes in the kitchen during the course of his entire life. But of course not everything needs a genetic explanation. Blind chance can have a violent impact on any bloodline.

  I opened my eyes in time to see a road sign that confirmed we were on our way to Galveston. I was trying to put on a brave face, but inside I was in pieces. Self-control was another thing I was usually good at in professional contexts, but this time I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it up.

  Everyone has their limit. You just have to be able to figure out where it is.

  ‘She killed the taxi driver,’ I heard myself say. ‘Possibly in self-defence, but she did kill him.’

  Lucy took several deep breaths.

  ‘I think she killed the woman in Galveston too,’ she said quietly.

  ‘So why was Jenny Woods so keen to give her an alibi for that murder in particular?’

  ‘Because she felt sorry for her? Because she believed she was innocent?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Jenny went to great lengths to try to get Sara off. Not only did she construct evidence which was clearly false, she also travelled to Sweden to help. Twice. I can’t understand what was driving her. She must have felt personally affected by what was happening to Sara. Otherwise her actions seem completely illogical.’

  A car pulled up behind us. Far too close. For far too long. I watched it in the rear-view mirror. It wouldn’t be strange if we were being tailed. Impractical, though.

  ‘The child,’ Lucy said. ‘Jenny’s child. The one they adopted at more or less the time that Sara died. I could see you were thinking the same as me.’

  I took my eyes off the mirror.

  ‘That it could be Mio?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The car behind accelerated and drove past. Not following us, then. I couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief.

  ‘But how could something like that have happened?’ I said. ‘How could she have got Mio out of Sweden? Without leaving any trace of what she’d done?’

  Lucy shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But Jenny went to Stockholm without telling anyone except her husband. If she’d met up with Bobby or Eivor – or Sara – then we’d have known about it. There must have been some purpose to that trip.’

  I thought so too. Perhaps Sara had called in desperation and asked her friend to come to Sweden. Asked her to take care of Mio. But that didn’t feel like a particularly safe plan for the boy. Because Jenny had a tattoo at the back of her neck as well. If Lucifer was behind the threats against Sara, it seemed odd that she would entrust her son to someone who had previously been part of Lucifer’s network.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Lucy said when I aired my thoughts. ‘Maybe it felt safe to entrust the boy to someone who had the sense to appreciate the threat against him. And who could give him a decent upbringing. Think about the people Sara had around her – gangsters and thugs.’

  ‘That was before she became a mother,’ I pointed out. ‘We still know very little about Sara’s social circle during her last years in Sweden.’

  The fake Bobby’s words about everything being connected were ringing in my head. He had said I wouldn’t be able to ignore Mio’s fate. That it formed part of the whole picture. If Jenny had ended up looking after Mio, then fake Bobby was most definitely right.

  Even so, I said, ‘We mustn’t get stuck on in-depth analysis of what happened to Mio. That’s not the priority. Not as much as the murders Sara was accused of committing, anyway.’

  ‘But if he’s right in front of our eyes it would be stupid to ignore him,’ Lucy said.

  ‘We can look into that once we’re back in Stockholm,’ I said. ‘Right now I can’t actually remember what Mio looks like.’

  A thought came and went in my head. There was something wrong about the fact that I couldn’t remember how Mio looked.

  Lucy took out a bottle of water.

  ‘You can always call Boris and see what he thinks,’ she said.

  I ignored the sharp tone of voice she used to talk about Boris. But it reminded me that I hadn’t heard from him for twelve hours. I got out my mobile and sent a text.

  Everything okay?

  Then I called Belle’s grandfather. The phone rang forever before I finally reached an answer-machine. I tried calling Belle’s grandmother, but her mobile was switched off. There was no landline out to the island.

  ‘No answer?’ Lucy said.

  ‘They’re probably out in the boat,’ I said.

  Only in Sweden would anyone get it into their head to go out in an open motorboat when it’s only fifteen degrees and cloudy.

  I kept my mobile in my hand, waiting for one of them to call me back.

  ‘Those tattoos,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to see if Sara’s friend Denise has got one as well.’

  Denise was the only one of Sara’s friends whose name her au pair family knew. That bothered me.

  ‘You mean she ought to have had more friends than that?’ Lucy said. ‘More friends that the Browns would have met enough times to remember them?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Those damn tattoos. The Texas police could think what they liked. I was still convinced that Sara – and probably Jenny too – had been working for Lucifer. Lucifer. The demonic shadow I hadn’t managed to get an inch closer to, despite my best efforts.

  I remembered something my old professor at university had said, and swallowed hard. He had said I mustn’t be so hasty, so quick to draw conclusions. But in Texas I had no choice. If they were wrong, I’d just hav
e to go back and adjust them later. Even if that meant I was taking risks. The sort of risk that could end up getting me and Lucy killed.

  In that respect Sara Tell was rather surprising. What had she been up to? Hadn’t she learned anything on the streets of Stockholm? Didn’t she realise that she had to keep a guy like Lucifer at arm’s length?

  A new thought took root. So quickly that it made me sit bolt upright in the car seat.

  Lucy started.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Do we have any idea how Sara ended up with the Brown family in the Heights? Did she find them through some agency, or answer an advert?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘What difference does it make?’

  I didn’t reply. A suspicion was starting to develop, and I didn’t have time to wait for it to be confirmed. The thought was as crazy as it was unlikely, but if it was true then it would explain several things which had thus far seemed inexplicable.

  It didn’t take long to find Mr Brown’s contact details on the internet. Victor Brown’s name and photograph appeared on his company’s website, along with a phone number. It would have been better to talk to his wife but I didn’t have time to be fussy.

  I could hear how disgruntled he was when he realised who was calling him.

  ‘I really can’t apologise enough for bothering you,’ I said. ‘I’d just like to know one important thing. How did you first come into contact with Sara?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean how did you find her? How did she end up being your au pair?’

  It sounded like Brown was talking to someone next to him. He sounded stressed when he answered.

  ‘We like Swedish au pairs and usually advertise in the larger Swedish morning papers.’

  ‘And how come you chose Sara? You must have had a lot of responses to your advert.’

  ‘If I remember rightly, she sent a very persuasive application letter. Then we interviewed her over the phone, and after that it was a done deal. One worry we always have is that we’ll get an au pair who quickly realises that Houston isn’t really much of a fun place to be. In that sense Sara stood out, because she made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in any other American city, she only wanted to come to Houston.’