The Man Who Wasn't There

by Michael Hjorth

  His technique.

  Nothing more than a trick, in fact.

  Suddenly she was struck by a thought. What if he was doing the same thing with her? The wine, the closeness, the personal revelations.

  A trick.

  Could he be so calculating? Was this just a ruse to get her into bed? Vanja put down her knife and fork; the wine gave her courage, and she got straight to the point.

  ‘Are you being so nice to me because you want to sleep with me?’

  Sebastian stopped in mid-mouthful. Was she seeing things, or was there a faint flush on his throat?

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, that’s what you do, isn’t it?’

  ‘For God’s sake . . . We work together, Vanja. Business and pleasure don’t mix.’

  She stared at him. There was something in those grey-blue eyes she couldn’t quite interpret.

  ‘I had to ask. I haven’t seen this side of you before.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said, putting down his fork and leaning forward.

  ‘Just being normal,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘Pleasant. This is the first time you’ve been nice to me.’

  She raised her glass in a toast.

  ‘It’s not because I want to have sex with you.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to go to bed with you either.’

  ‘Good, in that case we both know where we are,’ he said with a smile. Then his expression grew serious. ‘But I really do want to be your friend.’

  ‘You are. Honestly. And I wouldn’t mind another glass of wine.’

  Sebastian topped up her glass and she started eating again. Vanja couldn’t remember when she had last enjoyed a meal so much. He sat watching her, his eyes warm, almost loving.

  He could swear she hadn’t given Valdemar a thought since she sat down at the table.

  * * *

  It was two o’clock in the morning and the wine bottle was virtually empty. They had sat and talked about everything under the sun. Sebastian had managed to steer the conversation away from their troubles and made sure they maintained the simple closeness they had discovered.

  Vanja’s head flopped back against the sofa. The terrible thing that had happened to her seemed fainter now; the present was stronger. Something to do with the alcohol, no doubt, but it wasn’t just the booze. She had managed to keep Valdemar at arm’s length with the help of laughter and friendship. She didn’t want to go home. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t go to sleep here.

  She ought to go home.

  Had to go home.

  But she really didn’t want to. It would almost have been simpler if he had seduced her. It definitely wasn’t sexual, there was nothing about Sebastian that attracted her, but it would have saved her the trouble of choosing. Making a decision. She would have been able to stay. She knew that if anything happened it would be a total disaster in every possible way, but right now she almost didn’t care.

  She pushed the thought aside as quickly as it had come. It was utterly ridiculous. Disgusting. The idea of going to bed with him just so she could stay. She had drunk too much wine. She got up quickly; she was angry with herself, and it must be obvious.

  ‘I have to go.’

  Sebastian looked surprised, as if he couldn’t quite keep up.

  ‘No problem – shall I call you a cab?’

  ‘Please.’ She calmed down and went into the hallway to put on her shoes.

  ‘Sorry, it’s just that it’s so late.’

  ‘I understand.’ He followed her, leaned against the doorpost. ‘You’re very welcome to stay over if you want.’

  She glared at him, but he gave her a disarming smile.

  ‘I’ve got a spare room. A guest room. It hasn’t been used for years, but it’s there if you want it.’

  No, she was going home. She had made the decision, and there was nothing to discuss. At the same time, she knew what was waiting. Valdemar would come back to her as soon as she was alone again, she was sure of it. As she paced around her little apartment he would come to her, and he might even bring with him the compulsion to eat.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ she heard herself say.

  Sebastian nodded and went off to make up the bed. Vanja stood there wondering what the hell had just happened. Was he trying to seduce her after all? Why didn’t she protest? Why didn’t she just leave?

  ‘I’ll find you a toothbrush,’ he called.

  Because she didn’t want to, she realised.

  She wanted to stay with Sebastian.

  He wasn’t feeling stressed, it was more a sense of being watched, even though he was alone in the unfamiliar room. He couldn’t remember how he had got here. Through a door, presumably, but there didn’t seem to be one. Not behind him, anyway. There might be one at the other end of the big room, but he couldn’t see it. Two large spotlights were shining straight in his eyes. He took a couple of steps across the check-patterned floor. His footsteps echoed in the emptiness. He could smell . . . shampoo. He took a few more steps, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the other side. If there actually was another side. The lights blinded him, and beyond them there was only darkness. A bell started ringing, somewhere far away. In the darkness. The sound was getting louder, coming closer in spite of the fact that he wasn’t moving now. Then he felt a stabbing pain in his side, just below his ribs. Stabbing pain was wrong; it was more of a blow. He looked down in surprise, but couldn’t see anything except the checked floor. Another blow, to his chest this time. The chiming sound was really close now. It was playing a tune he recognised, but couldn’t quite place.

  ‘Alexander . . .’

  A woman’s voice.

  A name.

  His name.

  Alexander Söderling opened his eyes. He was lying next to Helena, his face buried in her long hair. Behind him his mobile was ringing as Helena elbowed him in the midriff.

  ‘Yes, OK, I’m awake,’ he muttered as he turned over and picked up the phone. The time was closer to morning than night. Number withheld. He took the call.

  ‘Alexander,’ he said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Alexander Söderling?’

  The voice pronounced his surname ‘Soderlang’. American. Alexander sat up straight.

  ‘Yes.’

  The man on the other end gave his surname and the name of the organisation he represented in a drawling southern accent. Alexander realised this was a conversation he didn’t want to have just a metre away from Helena, even if she appeared to have gone back to sleep. He got up and left the bedroom.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he said as he closed the door behind him.

  ‘Apparently the Swedish police are investigating Liz McGordon’s death.’

  Alexander cleared his throat again as he walked barefoot along the narrow landing towards the stairs.

  ‘Who’s Liz McGordon?’ he asked, glancing in on Selma before closing her bedroom door too.

  ‘The woman who died in a car accident up in northern Sweden some years ago.’

  Alexander stopped on his way to his son’s room. He had never even heard of Liz McGordon.

  ‘Are we talking about Patricia Wellton?’ he said.

  There was a brief hesitation; he thought he could hear papers rustling, then the man came back.

  ‘Possibly, yes.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Alexander could feel himself getting annoyed. He really didn’t want to have this discussion in his home, on his mobile.

  ‘As I understand it the police have found a number of bodies,’ the man went on without the slightest indication that he had heard Alexander’s question. Alexander closed Daniel’s door without looking in.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘As I understand it,’ the man whose name Alexander had already forgotten said again, ‘they have made a connection between those bodies and Patricia Wellton.’

  Had they? That was more than Alexander knew. He hadn’t been online since he left
the office around three o’clock the previous day. He had decided to spend the afternoon and evening with the family. He had taken the kids swimming, then he and Helena had cooked dinner together. Shared a bottle of wine. He couldn’t remember the last time they had done that. After dinner he had put the children to bed, read not one but two bedtime stories, watched the news with his wife and finished off the bottle of wine. They had gone to bed at the same time and made love before falling asleep. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened either. By the time he dropped off Alexander he had almost felt like a normal dad, someone who knew nothing about mass murder in the mountains and dead Americans. But that was last night, and now reality was tapping him on the shoulder from the other side of the Atlantic, and he was on his way downstairs to get an update.

  ‘You know more than I do,’ he said truthfully as he picked up his iPad from the living-room table.

  ‘It’s all over your newspapers.’

  ‘I’m just checking now.’

  He quickly found Expressen and a second later he saw the reason for the early-morning phone call.

  WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN BURNT-OUT CAR

  LINKED TO MOUNTAIN MASS MURDER

  He skimmed through the article. Nothing about the fact that she was American, nothing about anything really, except that the accident was somehow linked to the discovery of the six bodies up on the mountain. It didn’t say how or why.

  ‘Have you found it?’ the man said, with more than a hint of impatience in his voice.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got it here, but—’

  ‘Firstly, it’s unfortunate that this has come up at all.’

  Alexander’s growing irritation moved up a level and turned to anger. Calling and complaining about things he could do fuck all about, either back then or now.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said, not even bothering to sound polite any more. ‘If you didn’t want them to be found, then you should have done a better job when it came to burying them, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Secondly,’ the man continued calmly as if he hadn’t even heard Alexander.

  It was Alexander’s turn to interrupt. ‘For your information, it’s four o’clock in the morning here, so if you’ve got a long list maybe you could call back during office hours.’

  ‘Secondly,’ The voice in his ear suddenly acquired a sharpness which indicated that the man on the other end wasn’t used to being interrupted or challenged. And that he didn’t like it on the few occasions when it did happen. ‘Secondly, we were under the impression that Patricia’s death was an accident.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘As I understand it, the police are treating it as homicide.’

  Shit! Alexander stiffened. He immediately understood what this meant if it was true. But it couldn’t be true, could it?

  No way.

  He read the comparatively short article again, and this time he saw it: one sentence in which the journalist mentioned that the car fire probably wasn’t a consequence of the accident. Fuck!

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said, noticing to his disappointment that his voice wasn’t quite steady. ‘According to the information I received, it was an accident.’

  ‘It seems you were misinformed.’

  ‘Or the hack has got it wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  There was a brief silence as the American left the last sentence hanging in the air so that Alexander would grasp the implicit threat. He shuddered as he stood there in his pants, even though the house was always at a very pleasant 21 degrees. The air conditioning was just one of the things they had fallen for when they bought the place four years ago. As the children got a little bit older Helena became desperate to leave the city; she’d had enough of the traffic, and she wanted a garden. She got 3,000 square metres, with a sea view from the beautifully designed house on the hill. He had left the military and taken over Nuntius a few years earlier, and Helena was making her way up the ladder at Handelsbanken. They had a good life, he and Helena and the children. Or at least they had had, until these old ghosts came back to haunt him.

  ‘We’ll be following developments from here,’ the voice went on, ‘but we would really appreciate it if you could take the time to inform us if anything new comes up.’

  What he meant was: find out what the fuck is going on and report back right away. An order in the form of a polite request.

  Alexander promised to keep in touch, and the call was over. He put down the phone beside his iPad and stared out into the darkness. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, a Sub-Zero PRO 48, which in his opinion had cost far too much. He scanned the shelves and concluded that he didn’t really want anything, so he closed the door. He considered a glass of water, but decided against it. He went back into the living room, sat down in one of the Hans J. Wegner chairs and picked up his iPad again. Re-read the article, which was written by someone called Axel Weber. Should he contact this Weber? He dismissed the idea almost right away; given his past, it would probably just exacerbate the situation. He carried on surfing; Aftonbladet hadn’t made nearly as much of the story. Perhaps they felt it belonged to their rival. The morning papers had simply reported the discovery of the bodies on the mountain; there was nothing about the car fire and the dead woman. Alexander sighed, put down his iPad and thought for a while. He soon realised that it didn’t make any difference how he approached the problem, he always ended up in the same place, with the same person. He had to be told. It was time to take the bull by the horns. He reached for his phone and keyed in a number from memory. It was many years since they had been in touch; he hoped the details were still correct. Alexander heard it ringing, then a man’s voice.

  ‘Charles.’

  No hint of having been woken up.

  ‘It’s Alexander. Söderling,’ he added, just to be on the safe side.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Straight to the point. And why not? There was no reason for small talk. Alexander disliked the man he had been forced to call, and he had no doubt the feeling was mutual. Alexander was also . . . afraid was too strong a word, but the other man made him feel uncomfortable. There was something particularly unpleasant about him. Unpredictable.

  ‘What actually happened up in Jämtland? To Patricia Wellton? The Yanks just called.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes – do you think I’ve called you at four in the morning for fun?’

  ‘No, I mean “the Yanks”. Do you really use that word? You sound like some 1940s movie.’

  Alexander thought it sounded as if Charles was smiling. As if this wasn’t important. As if it had nothing to do with him. He decided to get the call over with as quickly as possible.

  ‘Was it anything to do with you?’

  ‘Was what anything to do with me?’

  ‘The way Patricia Wellton died.’

  ‘Do you really want to know the answer?’

  No, a little voice screamed inside Alexander’s head. No, I don’t. As long as I don’t know, I only have to react, not act. I don’t want to know. The voice was telling the truth, of course, he really didn’t want to know, but he had no choice.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But that might mean you’d have to lie to . . . the Yanks.’

  Alexander closed his eyes. So Patricia Wellton had been murdered. Things had gone from bad to worse to total disaster in minutes.

  ‘Because I’m assuming you’re not going to tell anyone,’ Charles went on. Alexander could tell that he was no longer smiling. Far from it.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter what I say, does it?’ Alexander said, trying to keep the sense of resignation out of his voice. ‘If the police know she was murdered, they’re going to find out anyway.’

  ‘That is a problem.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it’s your problem, Alexander. If you make it mine, I will make sure that your problems get even bigger.’

  Another threat. T
hey were coming thick and fast this morning. Alexander didn’t need to bother thinking of an answer; the man on the other end had already hung up.

  He put his phone down on the table and got to his feet, even though he didn’t know where to go or what to do. In fact, there was only one thing he did know: he wouldn’t get any more sleep tonight.

  Sebastian couldn’t sleep. It was impossible. He had tried to settle, but however much he tossed and turned, it was no good. The apartment was silent, yet it felt as if it was teeming with life.

  She was here.

  She was sleeping in the guest room that Lily had insisted they should have just in case anyone came to stay.

  His daughter.

  Thank you, Lily.

  His head was spinning. However hard he tried, he couldn’t catch up with his thoughts; they were too numerous, too diverse, fears and possibilities flying in all directions.

  It was four thirty when Sebastian finally gave up and got out of bed. The wooden floor creaked loudly, which bothered him; he didn’t want her to wake up. As soon as she opened her eyes she would want to be on her way. He had noticed that Vanja had been on edge when she was going to bed, slightly anxious in case he touched her and turned out to be the man he really was, deep down. And yet she had stayed. He had managed to get close to her in a way he had never dreamt possible. If only he could spend more time with her, then her wariness would completely disappear. She would realise that he would never try anything with her and, secure in that knowledge, she would appreciate him even more. He would clamber up onto the pedestal, and she would never be able to work out why he never tried anything. Never.

  He tried to tiptoe out of the room, but the old wooden floor creaked everywhere. In the end he gave up and hoped for the best. He went into the kitchen for a glass of water; he listened, but heard nothing. The previous evening was still enveloped in a kind of mist. In spite of the fact that he hadn’t drunk anything, he felt almost intoxicated with the rush of possibilities. Fate had brought her here, and now it was up to him to make sure she came back. Again and again. Until it was just as natural for her to seek him out as it had once been for her to meet up with Valdemar.