The Silent Girl (Sebastian Bergman 4)

by Michael Hjorth

  Someone was singing.

  He had no idea who it was or what they were warbling, but he left it on and lay down, gazing at the wall at the foot of the bed. The wallpaper was covered in little blue flowers, but they were so close together and their outlines were somehow so blurred that it looked as if an alien with blue blood had exploded in the middle of the room. White curtains, a white bedside table with a brass lamp, a desk. A white door leading into the bathroom. Sebastian guessed that ‘cosy’ and ‘family feeling’ had been the keywords when the room was decorated.

  He was restless.

  That familiar sensation.

  With a simple cure.

  However, not even sex was sufficiently appealing. He would have to go out, find a restaurant, buy drinks, make small talk, possibly even go dancing. It was too much like hard work, with the risk that the return might not be worth the effort. If it had been straightforward, he might have gone for it, but when he had spoken to Flavia after the interview, asked her whether she knew of a good restaurant in the area and if she would perhaps like to join him there – if not for dinner then at least for an after-work drink – she had made it very clear that her husband was waiting for her at home.

  He had sat through a brief meeting at the police station when Torkel and Billy got back, heard more about the scene of the crime and the Carlsten family, but they really had nothing to work on. They had decided to make a fresh start first thing tomorrow when they were due to see the prosecutor, then they had all come back to the hotel.

  On the way Sebastian had observed Torkel a little more closely. He had seemed subdued; perhaps the crime scene had affected him, but it was more likely to be Ursula. When they were out on a job her absence became even more palpable. Torkel had also informed the team that he intended to involve her in the investigation by giving her access to all data and images.

  He hadn’t chatted much to anyone, but he hadn’t said a single word to Sebastian. Was it time to tackle the situation? It was one thing not talking about what had happened when they hardly ever met, but now they were going to be in each other’s company 24/7. Did he have anything to gain by bringing it up?

  Whatever.

  He couldn’t just lie here staring at the wall. If he wasn’t going to go out on the pull, he might as well go and speak to Torkel.

  ★ ★ ★

  Torkel opened the door a second after Sebastian had knocked, as if he had been standing just inside. Without a word he turned away. Sebastian walked in, closed the door and stopped dead. He couldn’t quite take in what he was seeing. The walls seemed to be attacking him.

  Flowers, flowers and more flowers.

  Everywhere.

  Not small and discreet like the ones in his room, but great big gaudy bunches that made him think of the folk art of Dalarna. And they were so close together – as if a Carl Larsson wannabe on acid had gone crazy with his brush.

  ‘This is lovely,’ he said with a nod at the walls, guessing that ‘personal’ and perhaps ‘summery’ had been the keywords for this room.

  ‘What do you want?’ Torkel was unpacking the suitcase lying on his bed.

  ‘What do you think I want?’

  Torkel walked past Sebastian with two shirts and hung them in the wardrobe behind the door.

  ‘I was wondering if you wanted to talk about Ursula,’ Sebastian went on, addressing his back.

  ‘With you?’ Torkel closed the wardrobe door and turned to his colleague.

  ‘She was shot in my apartment.’

  ‘And what was she doing there?’ Torkel almost spat out the words. He sounded more jealous than he had intended, but that was what he wanted to know.

  That was what had been gnawing away at him.

  Eating him up from the inside.

  He loved Ursula. She was divorced now. Suddenly there was the chance of a proper relationship. He was no good at being alone, he never had been. He longed to be part of a couple.

  He longed for Ursula.

  And then she had been shot. Almost taken away from him. In Sebastian Bergman’s apartment, for God’s sake.

  ‘We were just having dinner,’ Sebastian said, wondering what Ursula had told Torkel about her reasons for being in his apartment. Surely she hadn’t told him the truth? Not that there was much to tell; they hadn’t slept together. But they were going to – that night. If only Ellinor hadn’t turned up with her lunacy and her Glock. Ursula wouldn’t have said anything to Torkel, would she? She was good at keeping secrets – on a par with Sebastian. Maybe even better.

  ‘Was she in the habit of having dinner with you?’ Torkel asked, trying to achieve a neutral tone. But there it was again, the jealousy. He just couldn’t help it. All those times he had invited Ursula to dinner; she had always turned him down.

  ‘No. Now and again, but no, it wasn’t a regular thing.’

  Sebastian fell silent. He was beginning to wish he’d gone to the pub instead, but this had to be done. It was time. Torkel stood there staring at him, clearly expecting Sebastian to continue.

  ‘I think it was all that business of her divorce from Micke,’ Sebastian ventured. ‘I suppose she needed someone to talk to.’

  ‘And she chose you instead of me.’

  ‘It was easier, I guess. I mean, she’s a smart woman. She must have known how you felt about her, and … nothing was ever going to happen with me. She was … safe.’

  Sebastian gave a little shrug as if to accentuate how innocent it had all been. Ursula might be more adept at keeping secrets but nobody was a better liar than him, Sebastian thought smugly as he directed his most honest and open gaze at Torkel, who couldn’t suppress a scornful smile.

  ‘Dinner at your place? Safe?’ He moved back to the bed to finish unpacking. ‘Have you ever had dinner with a woman and not gone to bed with her afterwards? Or before? Or during?’

  That was true, to be fair. Dinner was foreplay. Sometimes stimulating and enjoyable, sometimes a necessary evil. Sebastian glanced at Torkel. They had been friends once upon a time.

  He didn’t feel it was necessary to find their way back to that relationship, but it would be nice if Torkel wasn’t quite so overtly hostile. When Sebastian had returned to Riksmord after an absence of many years, Torkel had sought openness and mutual trust; Sebastian decided to go for it.

  ‘We once had a relationship, Ursula and I.’ He saw Torkel stiffen. ‘A relationship like the one you had. Years ago. Back in the nineties.’

  Torkel carried on putting away his clothes in silence. Sebastian watched him. Had it been a mistake to bring this up? Once again, it was time.

  ‘She was married to Micke, but …’ Sebastian cleared his throat. ‘She finished it when she found out I’d slept with her sister.’

  Torkel turned around, his expression suggesting that he couldn’t possibly have heard Sebastian correctly.

  ‘You slept with her sister?’

  ‘Barbro, yes.’

  ‘Is that why they don’t speak to each other?’

  Sebastian nodded. ‘You know Ursula,’ he said, taking a step closer to Torkel. ‘Do you really think she’d be interested in me in that way after what I’d done?’

  Torkel didn’t respond.

  ‘You know how she reacted when I turned up in Västerås,’ Sebastian went on. He was surer of himself now – definitely on the right track. ‘The very fact that she was prepared to have dinner with me was more than I ever dared hope for.’

  Torkel stared at him, looking for any sign of a lie. Sebastian was well aware that Torkel thought he had let him down many, many times, but there was no doubt that he would regard this as the worst betrayal of all; their fragile friendship would never survive.

  ‘If you’re lying about this I will never forgive you,’ Torkel said, confirming Sebastian’s conclusion. Sebastian nodded to show that he understood perfectly, and decided to take it one step further. He placed a heavy hand on Torkel’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, surprising himself with ho
w sincere he sounded. ‘For everything. For the way things have turned out.’

  Torkel glanced down at the hand, then at Sebastian’s face.

  ‘Have you told Ursula that?’

  ‘I’ve only seen her once since … well, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know. She told me.’

  When Sebastian had gone back to his room, Torkel sank down on the bed. That had been an unexpected conversation. Unexpected, but welcome. Riksmord hadn’t led an active investigation since the discovery of the bodies in the mountain grave. The intervening period had given them time to think. A great deal. And it had given time for emotions to surface.

  Rage.

  Loss.

  Jealousy.

  Following Sebastian’s short visit, Torkel realised that whatever he had gone through, it was still better than the burden Sebastian was so clearly carrying.

  Guilt.

  Billy was sitting at the computer, naked apart from a towel wrapped around his waist as he sweated off a ten-kilometre run. He had been in the shower when his phone rang: one missed call and a message from Maya. He called her back without listening to his voicemail; it turned out that she had put various suggestions for flower arrangements in his Dropbox, and wanted Billy’s opinion.

  As he waited for the connection to the hotel’s Wi-Fi he had told her a little bit about the case, and she had asked about Vanja and Sebastian. Although she had met Vanja only in passing, she was very interested in her future husband’s friend and colleague; she was convinced that Vanja would benefit from therapy costing approximately the same amount as a small country’s GDP. Billy filled her in on the latest news, but didn’t share his suspicions about the family tie between Sebastian and Vanja.

  Then he had opened Dropbox. Thirteen pictures of different flower arrangements that all looked like … different flower arrangements. Did she really expect him to have an opinion on this kind of stuff? Sometimes he thought she asked him just to make him feel as if he was a part of it all, when in fact she was perfectly happy to make the decision herself. Like now. But they still went through the routine.

  She said: ‘Are you sure?’

  He said: ‘Absolutely.’

  She said: ‘I’ll choose, then.’

  He said: ‘Good idea.’

  She said: ‘You’re a star.’

  He agreed.

  When they had ended the call, Billy made all the necessary preparations to allow Ursula to be a part of the investigation. He downloaded all the relevant material, then created a page, encrypted and password protected. Then he sent the password to Ursula with a short message saying that they all missed her, and he hoped she was feeling better. He could have called her, of course, but for one thing he and Ursula didn’t really have that kind of relationship, and for another he honestly didn’t know what to say to her.

  When he had finished he glanced at the clock at the bottom of the screen. Too early to go to bed. Early next morning he would sort out the room they had been allocated at the police station, but until then there wasn’t much he could do.

  His thoughts turned once again to Vanja. And Sebastian. Knowing was one thing, proving it was something else. Nor did he have any idea what he would do with the information if his suspicions were confirmed, but right now the feeling of knowing but not knowing was annoying him. Like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. He wanted certainty, for his own sake.

  He googled ‘paternity test’: 24,300 results. He clicked on the top link: ‘DNA Paternity Test – 100% accurate! kr.1395’ filled the screen. He began to read. You paid up front, then they sent out a test kit. Two oral swabs per subject, which must be rubbed on the inside of the mouth for thirty seconds to collect cheek cells. That was a problem; there could be no voluntary swabbing. Billy closed that page and clicked on another link; this one offered 99.9% accuracy thanks to the world’s most renowned DNA laboratory, but the method was the same. Billy was just about to leave the page when he noticed a rubric on the side menu: ‘Alternative methods’.

  He clicked on the heading and the first line raised his spirits significantly. ‘If you are not able to use the swabs included in our test kit, you can send in a DNA sample using an alternative method, for example a toothbrush, or a used cotton bud or tissue.’

  Billy carried on reading with growing interest.

  On the outside she was shivering.

  Things had improved slightly after she had eaten, but the April night was not warm.

  After dark she had stayed close to the road, and had seen the lights of a petrol station. Keeping her head down, she had gone inside and waited until the boy on the till was busy with a customer. She had grabbed two wraps and a yogurt drink from the chilled counter; when you were hungry you needed proper food, not sweets. She had shoved everything into her pockets and slipped out. No one had called out to her or tried to follow her as she disappeared into the darkness once more.

  ★ ★ ★

  On the inside the emptiness and silence seemed to be growing.

  Or perhaps she was getting smaller. In spite of the fact that she still didn’t know where she was or how she had got there, she felt safe and secure. The cold couldn’t reach her here. Not even the darkness had managed to penetrate whatever was protecting the place that was not a place.

  And still there was silence.

  She was silent. Somehow that seemed even more important now. Perhaps the place would be able to cope with words from outside, but not from her. It would collapse, and she would not survive. She would never say anything again. Never. Not to anyone. She made herself that promise.

  On the inside.

  ★ ★ ★

  On the outside it was difficult to make her way through the forest in the darkness. She tripped and fell several times.

  Got back up again. Kept on going.

  Then she reached a dirt road. The main road was to the left – and to the right? It must lead somewhere. She had spent last night outdoors; it would be nice if she didn’t have to do that again.

  She followed the road that was actually little more than a track churned up by the wheels of some vehicle, and after a few minutes she reached an iron gate between two posts. No fence on either side. Behind an enormous rhododendron she could just see a house. No lights on. No car parked outside.

  She crept all the way around it twice, then picked up a stone and threw it through the window of the veranda door before slipping back into the gloom and waiting for a reaction that never came.

  ★ ★ ★

  It was cold inside the house, but not as cold as outside.

  She sat down on the floor and ate one of the wraps – roast beef. She would save the other one until morning, along with half the yogurt drink. Then she went into the kitchen. The fridge was empty, but she found some tins in one of the cupboards. Tuna, chopped tomatoes, glacé cherries. She put them in her jacket pocket.

  She wasn’t really thinking. Just acting. She wasn’t thinking very much any more. For long periods she didn’t think at all.

  Good. She didn’t want to think.

  Didn’t want to remember.

  She went into one of the rooms and found two beds. It smelled of dust and summer cottage. She pulled off the duvet and the pillow and crawled right under one of the beds with them, pressing her back against the wall.

  Made herself small.

  As small as she was on the inside.

  The dream.

  That bloody dream.

  He didn’t have it quite so often these days; sometimes he even managed to convince himself that he’d shaken it off. That it had gone. But it always came back.

  Just like now.

  Sabine like a bundle of pure energy on his shoulders. Walking down towards the sea; she wanted to play in the cool water. The air was humid, sticky. There was a little girl with an inflatable dolphin. Sabine’s last words:

  ‘Daddy, I want one of those.’

  The sea. Splashing around. Laughter.

  The shouts from the beach.
r />   The roar.

  The wall of water.

  Her little hand in his, the thought that he must never, ever let go. All his strength, all his concentration. Focus. His whole life, there in his right hand.

  Sebastian threw back the covers and went into the bathroom. Screwed up his eyes at the harsh fluorescent light as he had a pee, and slowly, painfully straightened out the fingers of his right hand.

  The hand that had suddenly been empty.

  The hand that had let go of his daughter.

  He flushed the toilet and went back into the bedroom. The clock on the TV showed 04:40. He knew sleep was out of the question, so he got dressed and went outside. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour or so; there wasn’t a soul in sight. He crossed the street and walked down towards the water, following the shoreline until he reached a road, the E16 / E45. Carried on along the water’s edge.

  The dream.

  That bloody dream.

  He knew why it had come back. Even though he had done his best to stay away from the pictures of the crime scene, and tuned out during the handover, there was no getting away from the fact that this case involved murdered children.

  Again.

  Just like last time.

  He shouldn’t have anything to do with dead children. He couldn’t handle it any more.

  After about half an hour he turned and followed the same route back to the hotel. A quick shower, then down to the dining room. He helped himself from the buffet, then went into the inner room. Somebody certainly loved floral patterns on the walls; this time the blooms were black on a white background. He chose a table for two and sat down.

  As he was pouring his second cup of coffee Vanja came in and glanced around, looking for a familiar face. She gave Sebastian a little smile, then went to get her breakfast. She looked tired, Sebastian thought. That seemed to be her default setting these days: exhausted and joyless. The rift with the person who had meant the most to her throughout her entire life had left its mark.

  Sebastian ought to be pleased; he had wanted her to distance herself from Valdemar since the day he had found out she was his daughter, but he was keeping a low profile, very conscious of what she had said about choosing to trust him, about not being able to fight the whole world right now. That could change very quickly, particularly if she found out about all the things he’d done.