Lycke

by Mikaela Bley

  Harald nodded and said a name, then also wrote it down on the paper in front of him.

  The officer turned to her.

  ‘I was at work, too.’

  ‘Is there anyone who can confirm that?’

  Helena told him, writing the name of one of her colleagues on the paper. She would have to call her as soon as she got out of here.

  The on-duty officer, Mikael, came back in and sat down next to Lars. They nodded to each other as if in silent agreement.

  ‘Well, then. Have there been any threats made against the family?’ Lars continued.

  ‘Threats? What do you mean?’ Helena asked. It was starting to feel really stuffy in there.

  ‘Has anyone threatened you?’

  Helena looked at Harald, who shook his head.

  ‘Has anyone demanded money from you?’

  ‘What? Do you suspect that she’s been taken for ransom money?’ His voice broke.

  ‘We have to keep all avenues open,’ Lars answered.

  ‘But —’ Harald stopped, and fell silent. His shoulders sank lower.

  ‘I want you to know that you can feel safe with us. If anyone has demanded money from you to get your daughter back, you have to tell us that. We know how to handle that type of situation. So if it is the case, you have to tell us. We’ve actually had a number of cases where kidnappers have threatened the parents, telling them to not go to the police, but we have a good system in place for that. You don’t need to be afraid.’

  Threats? Ransom money? It was just one big mess of words that she couldn’t relate to. Everything was suddenly moving in slow motion.

  ‘Have you felt persecuted?’

  ‘Is there anyone who might wish Lycke harm?’

  No! No! No! Stop!

  ‘How did she do with friends at school?’

  ‘Good.’ Fortunately, Harald seemed to be in full command of his senses, and was able to answer some questions.

  ‘So there’s no one that you think wishes you or her harm?’ Lars asked again.

  Helena rubbed her eyes and looked at him. Shook her head.

  Lars typed something on the keyboard.

  ‘Is there anything else you want us to know?’ He looked first at her and then at Harald. ‘What are things like at home?’

  ‘What do you mean? We’re divorced. Harald remarried …’ Helena fell silent.

  The officers waited for her to finish what she’d been saying.

  ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ Harald’s question sliced through the air.

  Helena held her breath.

  ‘I cannot answer that question, nor do I want to. There is nothing that indicates that, and it doesn’t help anyone to speculate about such things. We are searching for your daughter — and as long as we don’t know otherwise, we’ll assume that she is still alive.’

  ELLEN

  8.10 A.M.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Ellen said, closing the door to the conference room — named after the TV4 comedy show Hey Baberiba — where everyone was already seated. ‘I was just talking with the police. They’ve found Lycke’s backpack in Rålambshovsparken. There’ll be a press conference in three hours.’

  ‘Good, then we have to stream it live. Make sure they plug it on News Morning,’ Jimmy said, from where he was sitting at the head of the table. ‘Can we get that into the next news broadcast?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ellen said, giving Andreas a quick hug before she sat down. ‘Welcome back.’ It felt good that they would be working together.

  ‘Thanks, it’s nice to be back at work. Even if it is Saturday.’ He smiled, but his eyes were red-rimmed. ‘A child is a mental adjustment, but two kids are a physical adjustment. I’m worn out.’

  He looked the same as always. Big jeans and an even bigger T-shirt, with the words Fuck the Fuckers written in capital letters across the chest.

  ‘Come back when you have three kids,’ Ann said, sitting across from them. ‘And it doesn’t get any easier when they get older, let me tell you.’

  Agatha’s glass was always half-empty. Her real name was Ann, but Philip and Ellen called her Agatha, as in Agatha Christie. She claimed she only read the cultural articles in Svenska Dagbladet and despised commercial content — that is, basically everything on TV4 — but in reality they knew she only read mystery novels. A colleague had told Philip in make-up, revealing that they both belonged to the same book club.

  ‘What do we know?’ said Jimmy, running his hands over the red varnished table. On the wall behind him hung posters from the hit series Lost, among pictures from the kids’ show Bananas in Pyjamas.

  ‘Okay,’ Ellen said, connecting the projector up to her computer. ‘Lycke Höök, eight years old. Daughter of Harald Höök and Helena Engström.’

  The picture of Lycke was projected up on the whiteboard.

  ‘She’s been missing for sixteen hours. She was last seen outside the Royal Tennis Hall.’

  Ellen opened the document containing what information she’d managed to compile about the family.

  ‘Lycke’s father runs the family-owned Hotel Ruby at Norrmalmstorg. Helena is a real-estate agent. They both grew up in Djursholm and are currently living in Östermalm, not that far from each other. Both were born in 1965. Harald’s wife Chloé is younger, born in 1977. She runs her own company, which is on hiatus because she is on maternity leave. She hasn’t earned a cent through it. The description of the company is that it sells organic children’s food.’

  ‘Meaning they’re upper class.’ Jimmy got up from the chair and picked up the marker from the whiteboard holder. ‘Okay, what possible scenarios are there?’ he asked, writing a word on the board.

  Kidnapped?

  Ellen opened a map of Stockholm on which she had circled the tennis hall and then Rålambshovsparken. ‘According to the police, the backpack was found here.’ She pointed with the mouse to the spot on the map. ‘That is, on the other side of town. So either someone carried her off against her will, or …’

  ‘Okay, what do you say if we start with the news angle,’ Jimmy interrupted.

  ‘I thought that was what I was doing,’ Ellen replied.

  ‘What do we know that no one else knows? Evidently, a crime has been committed here.’

  ‘Yes, the police think there’s a crime behind it, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s too late to find her alive.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Leif, looking up from the newspaper he was reading. ‘She’s obviously just hiding somewhere and will soon pop out and say, “peekaboo”.’

  ‘Do you think this is funny?’ Ellen asked.

  Leif sneered. ‘Do the police have any suspects?’

  ‘None so far. They’re talking with family members and others close to the girl.’

  ‘But there’s a possible suspect?’ he continued.

  ‘Not at the present time,’ Ellen replied. ‘According to my source,’ she added. ‘Do you have any information otherwise?’

  ‘No,’ he said, shrugging.

  Leif leaned in towards Agatha and said something that Ellen couldn’t hear.

  ‘Don’t whisper. If you have something to say, say it out loud,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Let’s continue,’ said Jimmy, tapping on the board with the marker pen.

  ‘Did you know that fifteen hundred children disappear every year in Sweden?’ Agatha chimed in.

  Jimmy, who was just about to write something on the whiteboard again, turned around.

  ‘What? Is that true? I want to know more. Let’s do something on that. That’s good, Ann.’ He wrote the figure down on the board, but stopped himself. ‘But there must be a lot of immigrants included in that figure, right?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Ellen gasped, as if something had lodged in her throat. ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t ma
tter at all, of course. It’s just as bad, but I’m just thinking about the news value and the angle. That’s the way we need to think.’

  Ellen looked at Agatha. ‘I’ve never heard that figure before. Can it really be correct?’

  ‘Yes, of course it’s correct,’ she answered. ‘But most disappearances don’t lead to massive police hunts or the involvement of the general public. Usually it’s one of the parents who has taken the child. I was also surprised by that number, to be honest. You don’t hear about those kinds of disappearances. It’s in cases where a third party is involved that the police and media become interested in the whole thing.’

  ‘Yes, and when it involves a white upper-class child,’ Ellen muttered.

  ‘Exactly,’ Jimmy said. ‘That‘s the grim reality. I know just how unfair the world can be when you don’t have money and you’re darker than the average Swede.’ He pulled on a lock of his dark hair to emphasise the point. ‘That’s how it is. But it doesn’t matter, that’s not why we’re here.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Why aren’t the police brought in when it’s one of the parents who’s behind the disappearance?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Usually, it’s classified as a custody dispute —’

  ‘Stop. Can we focus on Lycke now?’ Jimmy interrupted. ‘We don’t have all day.’ He cast a harried glance at the clock.

  ‘International Missing Children’s Day is on 25 May,’ Andreas added, typing on his phone.

  Everyone turned their eyes to him.

  ‘What? I just mean, isn’t that a bit sick?’ he said, smiling a little self-consciously.

  ‘Yeah, right. Someone has carried her off just to draw everyone’s attention to what day it is. Simply a PR exercise,’ Ellen said, forcing herself to smile.

  ‘What the hell,’ he said, laughing. ‘I thought maybe it could mean something.’

  ‘Ann, I’d like you to check up on everything about the family,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘None of them have a criminal record,’ said Ellen.

  Agatha slowly set her teacup down beside her plate, which held two rusks spread with marmalade. She swivelled the cup so that everyone could see what was printed on it. World’s Best Mum.

  ‘Lycke goes to the Cedergrenska School in Östermalm. A private school, or ‘free school’ as they’re called these days. Definitely a for-profit, in any event. Those kinds of schools shouldn’t be allowed, if you ask me.’

  ‘Thanks, Ann. Now we know where you stand politically on that issue,’ Jimmy sighed.

  Ellen couldn’t help thinking that Agatha ought to dye her roots. She had an almost inch-long strip of grey hair showing.

  ‘Go ahead, Ellen,’ Jimmy said, sounding tired.

  Ellen went over to the whiteboard and took the marker from him.

  ‘We have to find her. So what do we do?’ she said, impatiently.

  ‘No. How do we go about making this into good news?’ Jimmy corrected her, but stepped aside anyway.

  ‘Paedophiles,’ he added, sitting down. ‘Write that down.’

  As if he’d merely tossed out what he was going to have for dinner. Ellen hoped no one saw how her hand shook as she wrote the word on the board. Then she underlined Kidnapped?, which Jimmy had written down earlier.

  ‘Considering the family’s assets, kidnapping is not completely unreasonable. According to my contact at the police, they haven’t received a ransom note yet, but perhaps it’s forthcoming,’ Ellen said, writing another word down on the board.

  Family.

  ‘Just because she’s white and upper class doesn’t mean we have to rule that out,’ she clarified.

  ‘What motive would they have had? Is the dad a paedophile?’ asked Andreas.

  ‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘Or at least, he hasn’t been convicted of anything.’

  ‘Or the mother,’ said Ellen. ‘It could just as well be her.’

  Agatha sighed. ‘Why would the mother kidnap her child, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, but maybe she killed her accidentally and has hidden her body someplace. Or else she wants to get revenge on the father. Who knows? There was a case in the US where —’

  ‘In the US, yes,’ Agatha interrupted her.

  ‘That sounds really sick,’ said Andreas.

  ‘So you think that it’s more perverse if the mother did something to her daughter than if the father had sexually abused his daughter?’

  ‘Uh, no. What?’

  ‘Can we move on?’ Jimmy said, rocking his chair onto its back legs.

  Ellen cleared her throat. ‘Yes, we should try to talk with friends, neighbours, and the family, but we should keep it within bounds. The tabloids can do the shit work.’

  ‘Absolutely. But we still have to be first to the ball,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Missing People is starting another search party at ten o’clock. Unfortunately, we won’t have time to be there because it coincides with the press conference.’

  ‘Search? Why should we be part of the search? If there’s something you should be searching for, it’s news,’ Jimmy reiterated.

  Ellen sat down.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way …’ Jimmy said, his expression softening.

  There was a vibration coming from her bag. Before Ellen had time to think about it, she fished out her phone and answered.

  ‘I just saw you on the news.’

  Ellen got up and pushed her chair in under the table.

  ‘I don’t understand, why would you of all people be reporting on a missing girl?’

  ‘Hi. Yes, exactly.’ Ellen tried to keep her voice neutral so that no one in the room would suspect anything, but the attempt had most likely failed.

  ‘It’s terrible. Why are you doing this?’

  Ellen headed for the door. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, the feigned enthusiasm in her voice ricocheting off the walls.

  ‘No normal person should be expected to do that, considering all we’ve been through.’

  Ellen tried to balance her phone, her bag, and the computer while attempting to swipe her pass card to get out.

  ‘I’m not normal,’ Ellen replied quietly, hoping that no one in the room heard her. Sweat was running down her back. She had to get out. She tried the card again.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said acidly to her colleagues when the door finally clicked open.

  ‘What did you say?’ her mother said.

  Ellen leaned against the wall in the corridor.

  Her mother continued. ‘Think about the little girl’s family. You haven’t forgotten how we were treated by reporters, have you?’

  ‘Please. Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘You can be so hard. What are you trying to prove with this, Ellen?’

  Ellen didn’t reply.

  ‘How can you get involved in something like this? I can’t understand it. How can you of all people do something so low?’ Her mother began sobbing.

  ‘I’m trying to find her, that’s what I’m doing!’ Ellen had to fight not to scream at her.

  ‘What has happened, has happened. It can’t be undone,’ her mother went on.

  ‘I know,’ Ellen whispered, her bag sliding out of her hands and falling to the floor.

  ‘We won’t ever get her back.’

  Ellen closed her eyes.

  MONA

  10.10 A.M.

  Every muscle ached.

  Mona placed a hand over her chest. It was there that it hurt the most. Her heart was beating so hard.

  The night had been virtually sleepless. The worry, as well as the storm, had kept her awake until the wee hours. At last she’d taken one — or was it two? — sedatives. Laid down on the bed and let the pills do their work.

  Actually, she wished she never had to wake up again.

  Even though it
was past ten, she wasn’t yet dressed.

  She was sitting on the couch. She’d been trying to do a crossword in today’s newspaper, but so far had been unable to fill in a single letter.

  The rain was pouring down outside the windows. In the background, she heard the subway train come to a stop at the platform. Even though she’d lived by the station in Abrahamsberg her entire adult life, she hadn’t gotten used to the sound. The screeching from the brakes could still wake her in the middle of the night. She’d talked with the landlord a number of times to try to get him to put in thicker glass, but he refused. It cost too much money. Even though she only had three windows and a balcony door.

  She gave up on the crossword and instead picked up a book. After reading the same page countless times, she turned on the TV.

  The phone rang in the hall.

  She stuck her feet into her slippers and pulled her thin bathrobe around her. With hesitant steps, she went into the hall and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Mona Pärsson,’ she said, straightening the crocheted tablecloth under the phone.

  ‘Martin Jansson here, from the police department. I hope I’m not calling at —’

  ‘Have you found her?’ Mona asked, before he could finish the sentence.

  ‘No, unfortunately. But we have found her bag — well, her backpack that is.’

  The pressure in her chest grew stronger. She’d seen that on the news.

  ‘We understand that you’re the one who packed her bag. I need to know what was in it.’

  Mona felt completely disoriented.

  She tried to remember.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I did what I usually do. I put in her tennis clothes, gym shoes, towel … or no, no towel, shower soap. She always changed at school, so I don’t know if she put anything else in the bag.’

  ‘But you don’t remember anything else?’

  ‘No, or yes, actually, a hair band.’ She’d worn her hair loose that morning.

  ‘Okay.’

  He sounded a bit disappointed. She hoped she’d been able to give him the information he needed.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’