‘I wasn’t that old either!’
That was my only defence. The only thing that helped me sleep at night. That I had been so young, and should never have been allowed to end up in that situation.
Lucy stopped a short distance away from me.
‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But why haven’t you told me about this before now? Given everything that’s happened in the past few weeks?’
‘Even in my wildest fucking imagination I had no idea that it had anything whatsoever to do with Sara Texas.’
I had raised my voice, and it felt good. Because nothing I had told Lucy had been a lie. I had simply chosen not to tell her the whole truth about why I stopped being a police officer in Texas. And – hand on heart – I hadn’t had the slightest idea that that terrible night had anything to do with Sara’s tragic fate.
I shook my head, my whole body trembling.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand what conclusion I’m supposed to come to now. Lucifer knows me, hates me, even. Because of what happened in Texas? Or something else?’
Lucy quietly brushed the tears from her cheeks.
I was clutching at straws. They snapped the moment I touched them. But I went on trying.
‘Maybe it’s a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘Sara can’t have meant Lucifer when she talked about Satan.’
Lucy shook her head and walked out of the room. I followed her to the door.
‘When will you be back?’
The level of self-control it took not to physically hold her in the room was new to me.
‘When I’ve finished thinking,’ she said. ‘You’re just going to have to wait, Martin.’
PART 3
‘They’re dying now.’
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BENNER (MB).
INTERVIEWER: KAREN VIKING (KV), freelance journalist, Stockholm.
KV:
You shot a seventeen-year-old boy?
MB:
Yes. My only defence is that I was very young. I should never have been put in that situation. That defence works for me. But I can’t answer for how other people feel about it.
(Silence)
KV:
I don’t think I quite understand. You called your boss and told him you’d shot a guy. What exactly did he say after that?
MB:
That we should stay at the scene until he arrived.
KV:
You weren’t to call for an ambulance?
MB:
The guy was already dead.
KV:
But you just went and buried him. His family . . .
MB:
I know. I know. It had been a turbulent time for the police district I was working in. Several of my colleagues had been accused of using excessive force in a number of different situations. The gorillas in Internal Investigations were starting to get seriously pissed off with all the incidents. My boss was terrified that my fatal shooting would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He probably envisaged his career coming to an abrupt end that night. If I was convicted of manslaughter or anything like that, some of the guilt would rub off on him. He’d have been fired and would have lost his pension. The whole lot. The Americans are ruthless when it comes to questions of personal responsibility.
KV:
You never questioned the extreme immorality of what you did?
MB:
Of course I bloody did. Many, many times.
KV:
Did you talk about it? You and your partner?
MB:
We never worked together again after that night. He requested a transfer to another district, and we lost contact. Some time later he got shot on duty.
KV:
And by then you’d already moved back to Sweden?
MB:
Yes. I left what happened behind. The circumstances surrounding my life at that time really were pretty exceptional. It was like waking up from a nightmare. I left all the crap in the States – the shooting, my disappointment in my dad – and returned home a different person. Something like that.
KV:
Your dad, yes. You had no contact with him after that?
MB:
I did actually return to the States some years later and looked him up again. But he still didn’t want anything to do with me.
KV:
I don’t really remember, although I know I read something about it in Fredrik’s notes. Your parents met in the USA?
MB:
They met in Sweden, but moved to the USA so that I would be born there and have American citizenship. They planned to move back to Sweden a year or so later. Marianne, my mum, moved first with me and all our stuff. My dad never followed. He abandoned us.
KV:
Abandoned is a strong word.
MB:
Think of a better one if you can.
KV:
Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.
(Silence)
KV:
Actually, about the fatal shooting in Texas . . .
MB:
Yes?
KV:
There’s no mention of it in what Fredrik wrote.
MB:
I know. There was no reason to tell Fredrik about it. I couldn’t see how it was relevant, on any conceivable level. And besides . . .
KV:
What?
MB:
I barely thought about it when I was in Texas with Lucy. I was completely absorbed in other things. My dad, for instance. So I never mentioned it to Fredrik. Which is why there’s nothing about it in Buried Lies.
(Silence)
KV:
So what was the next step? What did you do after that?
MB:
I looked at the pictures of the preschool staff that Lucy had got hold of. And went on waiting, just like before.
KV:
Waiting?
MB:
For even more people to die.
KV:
And did they?
MB:
Yes. God, yes.
16
Serious plays always stretch to several acts. There are intervals between the acts, giving members of the audience a chance to stretch their legs and buy refreshments. So that they can handle another bout of misery. But I never got that sort of break. Life just rushed on, carrying me with it. I kept thinking that it was ridiculous, that I needed to catch my breath. But fate, or whatever the hell it was, had other ideas.
The pictures were in a brown envelope on Lucy’s desk. I took it back to my own room and put it down next to the other material she had dug out, but didn’t open it. I couldn’t bear to. I needed a chance to recover before I got slapped in the face by any more surprises. God only knew what I had ahead of me.
Not to mention what was already behind me: decades of skilful avoidance, all to create some degree of distance from the worst thing I had ever done and experienced. Was Lucifer, of all people, going to come along and rip open that old wound?
That can’t be how I know him.
There can’t be any other reason.
Then one of my mobiles rang. There was only one person who had the number of that particular phone: Boris. The mafia boss who had promised to protect Belle, and then lost her.
‘Yes,’ I said when I answered.
‘It’s me. Can you talk?’
Boris’s voice sounded hoarse and anxious.
‘Of course. I was thinking of getting in touch anyway,’ I said.
Boris was outside somewhere. It sounded like he was walking into a headwind. Just like I was, only more literally.
‘Not over the phone,’ Boris said. ‘We need to meet.’
‘When?’
‘How about now?’
I ran my finger across the envelope I had taken from Lucy’s office. More surprises, more bad news, heading my way. I felt that very clearly.
‘Sure. Where?’
‘Same place as last time.’
For a moment
I wasn’t sure. What did he mean? Then I realised he must mean the time we met out on the island of Skeppsholmen. The same night I was called by one of Lucifer’s associates and entered into a pact with the mafia boss. The same night I got Belle back.
‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes,’ I said.
‘Good.’
Lucy and I had decided on a sudden whim to cycle to the office. It’s an excellent way of getting around Stockholm. I would be able to get to Boris relatively quickly.
It was while I was trying to remove the bicycle lock that she walked past. I didn’t recognise her at first, half hidden as she was behind a pair of enormous sunglasses. Then my memory cleared and came into focus. It was Didrik Stihl’s wife. Our eyes met as she pushed her sunglasses slowly up into her hair.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ I said.
I had time to ask myself if Didrik had told her about the suspicions against me before she reacted. She stiffened at first, then turned white as a sheet. Finally her cheeks blushed vividly. Oh yes, she knew. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been so embarrassed.
‘Oh, hello, Martin.’
It looked like she was trying to smile, but it didn’t quite work. The smile got caught halfway and ended up as a brittle grimace. And it also looked like she didn’t know if she should stop and talk, or carry on walking. She decided to stop. But not for long.
Her behaviour irritated me. The lock came loose and I freed the bicycle.
‘Everything okay with you?’ she said.
The same grimace again. And her voice cracked as she spoke.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘Excellent, even.’
I smiled my widest smile and felt my cheeks strain.
‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘Really great.’
She lowered her sunglasses again, like a curtain. The performance was already coming to an end. She was about to move on.
I remembered how uncomfortable Didrik had been at our last meeting when I told him to say hi to Rebecca. I looked at her carefully. Something wasn’t right. Something beyond the fact that she was agitated at having bumped into her husband’s former friend (or whatever we had been) who was now suspected of several murders.
‘How about you?’ I said.
‘Oh, I’m fine too,’ she said.
‘Are you on holiday or just out for a morning walk?’
I don’t know what made me ask such a ridiculous question. It was a transparent attempt to pry into what she was doing. She had no reason to tell me anything about her life.
‘I’m not sure you could call it a holiday,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a few days off and took the chance to come up here.’
‘Come up here? How so?’
‘To Stockholm. I live in Denmark these days. In . . . out in the countryside.’
So she and Didrik were separated. Since when? I wondered. When we had met at the Press Club he had been married to Rebecca. But why should he have been telling the truth? Didrik and I weren’t particularly close friends. Until our meeting at the Press Club we hadn’t seen each other in over a year. Why would he have told me he’d left his wife? Or vice versa, whichever way round it was.
Rebecca nodded quickly.
‘I need to get going,’ she said. ‘Look after yourself.’
‘You too,’ I said. ‘Sorry to hear about you and Didrik.’
For a moment she looked confused, then she smiled briefly and walked on. The confusion that had flashed across her face spread to me. Had I misunderstood something? Had they not split up after all? But they must have done, because Didrik could hardly be living in Denmark.
I cycled off along Sankt Eriksgatan, still mulling things over. Perhaps the fact that Didrik and his wife had split up wasn’t merely an irrelevant detail. Perhaps I had actually just been supplied with a very important snippet of information. I had no way of knowing. That bothered me. Hugely.
I didn’t see him at first, and that set me thinking. Last time we met was definitely on Skeppsholmen, wasn’t it? I parked the bicycle and started to stroll through the unkempt backyard. I didn’t dare call out. I took out my mobile phone, the one only Boris called me on. No missed calls.
Someone moved on the gravel a few metres behind me. I spun round and found myself standing face to face with Boris. I couldn’t stop myself from flinching when I saw the state he was in. He looked fucked. Totally fucked.
I felt marginally reassured when I realised that recent days and weeks had only taken their toll externally. His eyes hadn’t lost any of their sharpness. But they had become cold and hard.
‘You’re not very discreet, Martin,’ he said.
His voice sounded a bit hoarser than usual.
I looked around. There was no one in sight.
Boris shook his head.
‘Not like that,’ he said. ‘You haven’t brought any shadows with you. I meant the way you were strolling about here, as if you owned the place. In the middle of the day.’
He pointed behind my shoulder towards the back of a restaurant, defaced by an ugly projecting roof. That was where we had stood last time.
‘I didn’t see you,’ I said, feeling the same need to defend myself as young children usually do.
Boris shook his head again.
‘Come on,’ he said.
We went and stood beneath the roof.
‘Didrik Stihl mentioned your name when I was called in by the police,’ I said.
‘He did, did he?’
‘You’ve cropped up in their investigation into the murder of Belle’s grandparents.’
Boris took a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket. To my mind that jacket was one hell of a mistake on a lovely summer’s day, but I didn’t have the same need as Boris to look cool.
‘Why were you called in by the police?’ he said.
Without knowing why, I felt ashamed, even though it was Boris I was talking to.
‘They think I murdered someone else,’ I said.
Boris started to laugh.
‘You really are excelling yourself these days, aren’t you?’ he said.
The laugh turned into a cough.
‘You should quit smoking,’ I said.
‘Too late,’ Boris said. ‘For that, and for a fuck of a lot of other things.’
He straightened up and handed me the piece of paper he’d taken out of his pocket.
‘I already knew you’d been called in by the police about another murder,’ he said. ‘And I knew they’d got some idea about me. So I’m going to lie low for a while. Leave the country until things cool down.’
I felt suddenly cold with inexplicable fear. Boris was one of my few lifelines. What would happen to me if he left the country?
‘Don’t look so distraught, Benner. You’ll be absolutely fine without me.’
I felt like protesting. I wanted to tell him about Lucifer, about the man I’d shot. But I kept quiet. Boris was under no obligation to take care of all my problems. That was my responsibility, no one else’s.
‘Aren’t you going to look at it?’
My fingers felt numb and clumsy as I unfolded the sheet of paper. I found myself staring at a grainy, black-and-white photocopy of a woman’s face. I didn’t understand, and looked from the woman to Boris.
‘Do you recognise her?’ he said.
I did. More than I ever wanted to. The picture had to be a few years old, but I had no trouble seeing who it was: Veronica, the woman I’d gone home with from the Press Club.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I recognise her. Why are you showing me this?’
‘She was a member of the same gang as Sara Texas, here in Stockholm. I received the picture yesterday. My source failed to include her picture and details in the initial bundle.’
Boris had done me an invaluable favour when I got back from Texas. Using his contacts in the police he had got hold of the names and photographs of the people around Sara Texas before she moved to the USA. Members of the gang who got their kicks beating people up at random
on the streets. That was how I’d found Elias.
The news that the woman I’d gone home with from the bar knew Sara Texas shocked me.
‘I thought she was older than Sara,’ I said, mainly for the sake of saying something.
‘She is,’ Boris said. ‘She turned thirty not long ago.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Don’t you know?’
He grinned. Evidently he wasn’t having any trouble figuring out how I knew the woman in the picture.
‘She said her name was Veronica,’ I said.
‘But her real name is Rakel,’ Boris said.
For a moment my heart stood still.
‘Rakel?’ I whispered.
‘Originally Rakel Svensson. Now Rakel Minnhagen.’
17
Saying goodbye to Boris wasn’t particularly emotional. I was in a state of shock and couldn’t think straight. He would have liked to stay in Sweden to help me, but the way things were developing had made that hard for him. Not to say impossible. I had no idea who had given the police his name, but somehow he had popped up in the investigation into the murders of Belle’s grandparents. And that was extremely unfortunate.
‘Try not to be so fucking alone in all this,’ was the last thing Boris said before we parted.
As if loneliness was something you chose.
‘Sure,’ I said.
I cycled straight home and got the hire-car out of the garage. Then I drove the short distance to the home of the woman who had called herself Veronica but whose real name was evidently Rakel Minnhagen. The same name as the woman who was supposed to have abducted Mio from his preschool. And who was also supposed to have known his mother, Sara. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned her before? Elias hadn’t, Jenny hadn’t, the police hadn’t. And nor had Malin. I presumed that the answer to those questions was that her change of name had given her a degree of protection. That and the fact that Bobby didn’t have time to track her down. If they’d met before he died, he would almost certainly have recognised her.
The Lies We Tell Page 11