by Mikaela Bley
‘But how …?’
‘I was forced to withdraw the police report, for Bianca’s sake. I checked Jeanette’s computer when I got home, and discovered that she logged into Gmail with an address I didn’t recognise. Not her usual one, that is. Then I saw that she’d emailed you — and it was not a nice letter, I can say. I confronted her, and she threatened to take Bianca from me.’
‘She can’t do that.’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know what she’s capable of. She must have found the picture of Elsa in the documents I brought home with me.’
‘But how did she make the connection?’
‘She probably knows a lot about you.’
Ellen bit her lip, and tried to take in the meaning of his words.
‘Are you going to report her?’ Jimmy asked.
Ellen shrugged.
They both stared out at the rain sluicing down the windscreen.
‘But think, if I were to report her, then we could —’ She hesitated, and lowered her eyes.
‘No, it won’t work. Sure, at some point I’ve had the same thought. When I found out that it was Jeanette calling you, I thought that maybe I finally had something concrete to go on. But I’ve also thought about what reporting her would do to Bianca. I’ll see to it that Jeanette doesn’t bother you anymore, I promise. I didn’t think it would get like this. I don’t know how I’ll get over you; I torment myself with it. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to think about Bianca. That’s why we have to break it off here and now. We can’t let it go any further.’
Ellen felt a sting of envy — an unpleasant feeling, and not aimed at Jeanette. It was about Bianca. A one-year-old. She felt ashamed.
‘Damn it. It would have been easier if you’d turned out to be a vampire,’ she said.
He laughed briefly. ‘Ellen Tamm …’
‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ She realised she sounded desperate.
All she wanted was to keep him there. Savour her last moment with Jimmy. She realised now that this was the end.
‘Are you crying?’ he asked her.
She didn’t want him to see how much it hurt, but she couldn’t hold back the tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, tenderly running his hand across her cheek, wiping away the tears. She felt utterly dazed.
They didn’t say a word to each other as she drove him home.
Once she’d dropped him off, she drove back onto Rosenlundsgatan. She was so cold she was shaking.
In the rear-view mirror, she could see him watching her as she drove away.
She lowered the mirror.
SATURDAY, 31 May
ELLEN
10.00 A.M.
It had finally stopped raining, but the sky was dark. The graves in the little cemetery bore witness to the end.
Ellen squinted up toward the steeple of Danderyd church. The air was cold. For the first time in, well, as long as she could remember, she was actually longing to go home to her mother, at Örelo. She had decided to go there after the memorial service and stay over for the weekend. Then she would stop by Elsa’s grave, and after that, they would have quite a bit to work out. After the past week, she realised she had to get a hold of herself. She couldn’t go on like this. Frozen sorrow, she thought, shuddering. Maybe it wasn’t all as black and white as she’d imagined after all. She had been forced to see things through other people’s perspectives and to reassess her own at the same time.
Elsa was dead.
Lycke was dead.
And Jimmy was out of her life. Again.
‘Ellen, what are you doing here?’
She turned and saw Andreas walking toward her on the gravel path, camera slung over his shoulder. Followed closely by Leif.
‘Aren’t you on leave?’ Leif asked.
‘Yes, but I’m here privately,’ Ellen answered curtly, turning toward Andreas. ‘How are you doing? Have you put something together?’
‘Listen,’ Leif cut across her, addressing Andreas. ‘Don’t just stand there and tell her what we’re doing here. Remember that she’s here for personal reasons. Let’s pack up and go. I’ve had enough of this foolishness. It’s enough to make you turn in your grave,’ he muttered.
‘Aren’t you going to go to the memorial?’ asked Ellen.
‘No, I think we’ll skip that,’ Andreas said. ‘Seems undignified somehow.’
***
Ellen had never been at a memorial service before, and didn’t know what to expect.
Instead of a little casket, they had set up an easel with a big photo of Lycke, taken at school. Bouquets of flowers and wreaths of all different colours and shades surrounded the easel, and candles were lined up alongside, the flames flickering in the draft. People in dark clothing were seated along the old wooden pews.
Ellen sat down on one of the empty pews at the very back. She let her gaze wander among the biblical images hanging on the walls. She saw that the wax candles in the chandeliers were not lit, and she wondered why.
There was a faint murmuring coming from the rows of people ahead of her. Ellen could not help wondering how well these people actually knew Lycke.
Some reporters were present — they stood out in their jeans and sneakers. They sat down on the pew on the other side of the aisle across from Ellen. Some she recognised, others not. It was unusual for journalists to be invited in. She tried to understand why the parents had allowed it.
She actually understood what Leif had meant when he’d said it was enough to make you turn in your grave. Even so, she herself was sitting here.
The only thing she could recall from Elsa’s funeral was that, after the ceremony, she had seen Elsa playing among the gravestones. That Elsa had jumped happily around in a white summer dress, with her hair flying around her face in the wind. She laughed and seemed happy, as if she’d just been given fairy floss and would soon get to ride the merry-go-round. When Ellen told her mother what she’d seen, her mother’s cheeks turned bright red and she had hissed at her not to talk that way.
After that, the visions of the living Elsa had disappeared. All that was left of her was Ellen herself.
Harald and Chloé came walking up the aisle. Chloé walked a few steps behind Harald, staring down at the ground. They didn’t touch each other.
The hunter, who had shaved off his beard, and the wicked stepmother, she thought.
When Harald caught sight of Ellen, he stopped by her pew and fixed her with that intense, searing look of his.
‘I heard that all this affected you, too. I’m awfully sorry. He’s affected all of us,’ he said, almost sounding like a minister as he spoke.
Ellen nodded. ‘I hope the ceremony goes well,’ she heard herself saying, for lack of anything else. But just so you know, it wasn’t the tennis coach.
‘We saw your colleagues were here earlier. I hope they’ll do something nice for Lycke in the press,’ he said, tugging on his tie.
‘I’m sure they will,’ Ellen said, trying to sound convincing.
He nodded a few times too many, as if trying to justify inviting the press along to the memorial service to himself.
Ellen watched Harald as he continued further up the aisle.
Chloé had already sat down in the front row. As if she had been the very closest to Lycke.
Selfishness.
An elderly gentleman came through the church doors alone.
Harald’s father. The resemblance was striking — Ellen recognised him from the painting at Harald’s home.
He limped, almost dragging his feet on the way in. As if every step he took was one step closer to the bitter reality.
After him came the principal from Lycke’s school.
Was she there to represent the school, or did she have a guilty conscience over not helping Lycke out with the situation with her s
choolmates?
Ellen saw a few parents from Lycke’s class, but no children.
When Helena entered, Ellen shuddered. It was like glimpsing the blackest sorrow close up.
Ellen gave her a cautious nod. Helena responded by looking down at the stone floor and continuing toward the front rows.
Could she have killed her child? Was she that crazy? Or evil?
She looked lonely. She would never get to talk with her daughter again. Never again say sorry, never hug her. ‘Never’ was never as final as when you talked about death. As long as you weren’t a believer, Ellen thought, looking at the cross above the altar.
I must never get that lonely. She pictured her own mother, and tried to imagine what it must have been like for her to lose Elsa.
Helena sat down on the other side of Harald.
Two women and one man.
Envy.
The church door closed, and it was suddenly deathly silent.
Ellen had a hard time breathing. The air was completely still. The candles on the altar had ceased their flickering.
When the church bells started ringing, she could breathe again.
She felt like crying. It was so strange — sometimes sorrow simply rushed over you, and it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t want to cry. She had no right to cry at Lycke’s memorial service. She hadn’t known Lycke.
This sorrow, which didn’t belong to her, made her neck hurt, and she felt the ache spread down her back. She shouldn’t have come.
The bells stopped ringing.
‘Sorrow affects us greatly,’ the minister said. ‘Let us begin this memorial service by folding our hands together and saying one last bedtime prayer for Lycke.’
Ellen did as he said.
‘God, who holds all children dear, watch o’er me, so little here. No matter where on Earth I stand, my fate is always in God’s hands. Fortune comes and fortune goes, God the Father always knows.’
Suddenly, someone in the front row stood up. Ellen strained to see who it was.
It was Mona. She was excusing herself to a few people, who had to stand up so that she could get to the aisle.
Ellen strained further.
‘Now I want us all to direct our thoughts to Lycke. Take out your hymnbooks,’ the minister went on. ‘Let us sing Hymn 248.’
Mona walked up the aisle, bag in hand, eyes staring straight ahead of her.
The organist began playing and the minister sang in his quivering voice. ‘Children of the heavenly Father, safely in His bosom gather …’
The congregation quietly joined in.
‘Nestling bird nor star in heaven, such a refuge e’er was given.’
Ellen slipped out from her pew.
***
Mona was not in the churchyard. She must have gone to the parish hall, Ellen thought, hurrying over. She pulled open the heavy door.
Even though she was trying to be gentle, the hinge creaked loudly.
The room was bigger than she’d expected. Almost like an auditorium. Chairs were lined up along the walls, and in the middle of the floor were some worn rag rugs.
There, right next to a window, sat Mona, her bag open beside her. She was sitting on a Windsor-style wooden bench.
Mona didn’t appear to have noticed when Ellen entered the room.
Ellen remained standing by the door and silently observed the older woman, curled up like a little bird under a blanket.
Ellen could see that Mona was shaking. The blanket slid off the chair and fell to the floor.
Closing the door behind her, Ellen tiptoed toward Mona. The floor creaked under her feet, but again, Mona didn’t seem to react.
Ellen picked up the blanket from the floor, and, as she placed it over Mona’s shaking form, she suddenly recalled how Mona had placed a blanket around Ellen’s shoulders when she was soaking wet from the rain.
Ellen remembered the fleece blanket. It was striped.
Only now did the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Buy 2 for 1 at ICA.
Mona’s blanket had the same pattern as the one Lycke had been wrapped up in. The bold-coloured stripes.
There must be lots of blankets like that, she thought. But the coincidence was strange.
Love and guilt.
But why? Mona had always seemed to be the only one who really cared about Lycke. Or had Ellen misunderstood that, too?
Mona.
Evil or crazy?
Or neither.
‘You killed her,’ she said slowly, louder than she’d intended.
Mona didn’t react.
‘But why?’
Mona still said nothing, but her shaking grew worse.
Ellen moved a chair from the wall and sat down. She reached out and took Mona’s hand, shocked at herself.
‘I don’t understand. You were the only one who actually cared about Lycke.’ Ellen spoke gently. She didn’t want to frighten Mona, afraid of how she would react. The woman in front of her was in some sort of shock. She had to proceed calmly. With every second that passed, Ellen became more and more sure of herself.
Mona had known that Lycke was at the tennis hall. She could get close to Lycke without using force. If Ellen had understood correctly, Mona seemed to be the only one that Lycke actually turned to. Her stomach knotted up. Without meaning to, Ellen squeezed Mona’s hand hard.
Mona squeezed back.
Ellen was breathing heavily. Death, death, death …
She looked down at Mona’s correctly fitted shoes, her thick ankles. Varicose veins were visible through her black nylon pantyhose.
Death was what they looked like to her. Death had many different faces.
Suddenly, everything was clear to her. Ellen had focused on hatred and evil. But, in reality, it had been the contrary — it was goodness.
Helena was Lycke’s evil mother, who lacked the correct maternal feelings. Chloé was the wicked stepmother. Harald, the selfish father. And then there was Mona. She was the only one who had really, genuinely cared about Lycke, who had been like a mother to her. Ellen thought about what the medium, Mingus, had said — that many people had been involved in Lycke’s death. Maybe he had been right. Without them realising it.
Ellen suddenly thought of the bird that killed her young to save them from something that had frightened her. Was that why she had done it? Had Mona been trying to save Lycke? And, if so, from what? From her family? Had there truly been no other way out? Had she killed her because she wanted to protect her? So contradictory.
‘You were rescuing her,’ Ellen said, again surprising herself with her words. It went against all logic and reasoning, and all basic values of what was good and what was evil.
Mona looked at Ellen, and Ellen would never forget the expression on her face.
‘I didn’t intend to kill her,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But it was like something took over.’
Behind the round glasses, her eyes were filled with tears.
Ellen could hardly believe what she was hearing, much less comprehend the contradictions to this whole tragedy. It was too much.
‘It’s so terrible, but it was the only way out,’ Mona continued.
She’s confessing.
This is crazy. This is damned crazy, Ellen thought. I’m sitting here with a murderer.
Her hand shook, she wanted to pull it away, but forced herself to hold on.
‘It’s those swine who are sitting in the church right now. I couldn’t stay. I’m not one of them.’ Mona raised her head and straightened her bent back, then spoke louder. ‘It’s hypocritical. They pretend to be grieving for someone they never cared about before. Why now? Can you explain that? The ones who are sitting in there on pews in the house of God are the ones who bear the guilt for Lycke’s suffering.’ Her expression cleared. ‘I
… killed her, but it was to save her. I had no choice. She was already lost. In a world where no one, and I mean what I’m saying, no one cared about that little girl. No one! Except me.’
She collapsed back in the seat again. As if she had used up the last of her energy. She put her hands to her chest and mumbled something containing the word ‘pressure’.
Ellen couldn’t understand it; it was hard to hear what Mona was saying.
Mona rocked back and forth on the chair, swaying her head. Her behaviour was disturbing. Ellen looked toward the door and hoped that someone would come in. Mona still kept a firm grip on her hand.
‘I delivered her from evil,’ she whispered. ‘From the family.’ She slowly shook her head. ‘I’ve always grieved that I didn’t get to be part of my family, that my father rejected me, that my mother treated me like dirt. I couldn’t watch them treat Lycke in the same way. What kind of life is that, can you explain that?’
Ellen shook her head. She thought about the bag that had been found in Rålambshovsparken, which was on the way to Mona’s place in Abrahamsberg. She must have gotten rid of it in sheer panic. Why hadn’t that even occurred to Ellen?
Because it was so wrong.
‘She’s better off now,’ Mona continued, patting Ellen on the hand. ‘Finally, she can be with God. He is going to take care of her.’ She nodded with conviction. ‘Finally she can feel safe and loved. That family, a model of perfection that turned against God’s will. Just like the Devil. That’s where they’re coming from.’ She placed emphasis on her words. ‘Lycke was subjected to evil. The rain never stopped falling on Lycke. So then how was she to grow? I wish someone had rescued me the same way when I was that age, so I didn’t have to experience the rest of this life over and over again.’
‘But, what do you mean? Why didn’t you get help for Lycke instead of killing her?’
‘Help? Don’t be so naive, dear. There’s no help to be had. People can’t be changed, and there is no system in society that could have rescued her. They only make it worse. Believe me, I know. Everyone betrayed her.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘The school betrayed her. Her classmates. The teachers. They said they would deal with Lycke’s situation after the summer holidays. After summer! The Devil was created as an angel …’ She fell silent and looked, if it was possible, even deeper into Ellen’s eyes. ‘I see what you’re thinking — you think I murdered her.’ She shook her head. ‘The family and people around her were slowly killing her, long before I did …’