The Lies We Tell

by Kristina Ohlsson

  ‘Do you know who he spoke to?’

  ‘No. But I know he asked to speak to whoever had been in charge of investigating Sara Texas’s case.’

  I felt a flash of anger. What the hell were the police playing at? Bobby was dead, Jenny too. And when a third person showed up asking for help, he didn’t get it. Despite his obvious connections to Sara. The peculiarities were mounting up in a way that couldn’t be coincidental.

  The investigation contained no photographs of Mio.

  And when Elias called and asked for help, he didn’t get any.

  ‘You need to find out who Elias spoke to,’ I said. ‘Do you hear? It’s important.’

  ‘I’ll try. I’ll . . .’

  ‘Call the police. Now. Then call me back.’

  19

  The flat was empty when I got home. Signe hadn’t picked Belle up from preschool, and I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to where Lucy was. She was refusing to answer her phone. With relief I noted that her things were still there. Everything looked exactly the way it had when we left home that morning. Even so, something felt different. My dirty laundry had been dragged out and laid bare in front of the grown-up I loved most. How the hell were Lucy and I going to move on from that?

  ‘Baby?’

  I don’t know why I called out to her when it was obvious she wasn’t there. In my defence, I wasn’t at my most rational. I was starting to get paranoid, just like Elias. Any wrong move could have catastrophic consequences. For me, and for my nearest and dearest.

  I took a long, hard look at myself. In general I thought I deserved at least a pass. The only new person I’d dragged into the shit was Madeleine. And I’d been very careful not to share everything with her. That was all I had to offer in the way of protection. I shuddered when I realised that probably wasn’t good enough. Not if people inside the police were involved. That was a new and frightening thought that had emerged from my conversation with Elias’s girlfriend. I didn’t know who Madeleine’s sources were. Nor Boris’s. If the police were involved, there was a chance that Boris or Madeleine had accidentally spoken to the wrong person. Frustrated, I went over to the sink and poured myself a glass of water. I could have done with something stronger, but there was no point even thinking about that. Not just then.

  I went out onto the terrace. The sky was blue, the sun warm and the wind mild. The view was vast, but I couldn’t take it in. I may as well have been standing looking at a rubbish tip. All of my senses were working frantically, trying to piece together a thousand tiny fragments into a recognisable whole. It was impossible. That day was and would remain a really crap one.

  My mobile rang again. It was Elias’s girlfriend, phoning me back.

  ‘I did what you said,’ she said. ‘I called the police and asked to speak to the same person as Elias did. They made a bit of a fuss at first, but in the end they did it. I got put through to a man called Staffan Ericsson.’

  Staffan Ericsson. The plank Didrik worked with. The one who couldn’t manage to look sly. It struck me that I recognised the name from the Sara Texas preliminary investigation as well. It had cropped up in a number of documents, hadn’t it?

  I walked back inside the flat. The boxes containing the preliminary investigation were in my study. I thanked Elias’s girlfriend for calling, and made her promise to let me know as soon as she had any news about Elias.

  Staffan Ericsson. I threw myself at the boxes like a wild animal and found him almost immediately. He had been one of the lead interviewers when they were questioning Sara Texas. I put the papers back in the box again. Was I losing my grip? Was I looking for ghosts in the absence of real people, real leads?

  Someone inserted a key into the front door. I got to my feet and hurried into the hall. The door opened and Lucy came in. She let out a yelp of surprise when she caught sight of me.

  ‘You’re home?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry if I startled you,’ I said.

  I wanted to ask why it was so important that I wasn’t home, but realised that she hadn’t actually said that. Feeling rather desolate, I was left considering how pathetic I had become.

  Lucy tossed her keys onto the hall table, kicked off her shoes and went into the kitchen.

  I followed her.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I told you I needed to be on my own.’

  She opened the fridge and took out a cola. She drank straight from the bottle.

  ‘Baby, what I told you earlier.’

  ‘About killing a guy and burying him in the desert?’

  ‘I didn’t murder him.’

  ‘Of course not, you just happened to shoot him.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Either way, I’m very sorry that I’ve never felt able to share the story with you.’

  Each word came out just as I had imagined. It was more about how I had felt than about what was practically possible. Of course I could have told Lucy; she would never have shared it with anyone. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anyone – least of all Lucy – to know something so awful about me. So I buried the terrible story as deep in my memory as I possibly could. What made that sort of burial at all possible was the fact that it wasn’t murder. However many times I replayed the scene in my head, I always came to the same conclusion: I couldn’t have done anything different. Not there, not then. Maybe now, but not then.

  Lucy put the cola down, as if she was waiting for me to go on.

  ‘I was so frightened,’ I whispered. ‘So horribly fucking frightened. After that I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a police officer. I didn’t fit. Not then, and not later.’

  Lucy looked down, unwilling to look me in the eye.

  ‘You were out that night,’ she said in a low voice. ‘When Bobby and Jenny died. After what you told me about what happened in Texas . . . I needed proof. I needed to know that you hadn’t done what the police are claiming. That you hadn’t run down and killed Bobby, Jenny and God knows who else. Because you know, things really don’t look that rosy for you when you actually think about it. Who else but you could have taken your car and left the garage without leaving any sign on either the vehicle or the building?’

  All these sensible people, asking such sensible questions. First Madeleine, now Lucy.

  ‘You,’ I said. ‘You could have done the same thing.’

  Lucy nodded and raised her head.

  ‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who’s got the spare keys to the flat. And here in the flat is the spare key to the Porsche.’

  I cleared my throat, worried that Lucy was going to make some ridiculous confession.

  ‘But . . . it wasn’t me, Martin.’

  Her voice sounded exhausted.

  ‘It wasn’t me either,’ I said.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘I want to believe you so much, you know that.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. What the hell was she standing there saying?

  ‘Lucy, look . . . You’ve got to listen to me. I didn’t murder those people. That goes without saying, surely? I mean, what would my motive have been?’

  Lucy leaned on the kitchen worktop.

  ‘That’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to,’ she said. ‘If you are the murderer, what’s driving you to do it?’

  Time stood still, and me with it.

  ‘I . . . I wasn’t in the office the afternoon Elias showed up pretending to be Bobby,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve been wondering if that was when you started lying. If Lucifer has actually been blackmailing you ever since then, but you haven’t dared say anything. And if your interest in Sara Texas’s case and Mio’s disappearance is an attempt to create a plausible alibi.’

  I was speechless.

  ‘So I’ve been lying to you all along?’

  ‘Not because you wanted to, but because you had to. And to protect me.’

  ‘Belle’s kidnapping. How does that fit in?’

  ‘You were obsessed with t
rying to find Lucifer. Presumably you wanted to escape his threats by identifying him. When we went to Texas, we got too close. So they abducted Belle to make you back off.’

  The story she’d put together wasn’t bad. I shook my head.

  ‘Baby, listen to me now. Carefully. I—’

  ‘My name is Lucy. And I’ve listened to you far too bloody long, Martin. Please, tell me again how you ended up going round to see the woman you met at the Press Club and had sex with. What was her name again? Veronica?’

  Was this what the highway to hell looked like? Paved with shitty lies and homemade theories of how things really were? I tried something new. The truth.

  ‘I went round to see her because her phone number didn’t work when I tried to call her. And the reason I called her was because I wanted to have sex with her. Again.’

  I had to pause and retire to one of the kitchen chairs. It felt hard and unwelcoming when I sat down on it. Lucy listened with blazing eyes.

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ I said. ‘About who I am and how I live my life. And fine, we can run through it again. But I really can’t see what good that would do.’

  The fire in Lucy’s eyes went out and was replaced by something else. Something far more frightening. Despair and sadness.

  ‘Because you are who you are, or what?’ she said.

  ‘Something like that.’

  A single tear trickled down her cheek.

  ‘I’m such a fucking fool for getting involved in this,’ she whispered.

  I felt ashamed. More than I had ever felt before in my entire life. Not so much of what I had done as of what I realised I was. And what I, to be honest, wanted to be.

  I got slowly to my feet.

  ‘What we’re doing now,’ I said, ‘living together, being a proper couple. We’ve tried it before. Not officially living together, but being a couple. It didn’t go very well. Playing happy families doesn’t seem to be our thing. It—’

  ‘Martin, we’re not living together at the moment because we’re playing happy fucking families, but because we’re trying to survive a hellish situation that neither of us can understand how we ended up in!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. You’ve done everything you could for me and I’m just a bastard. I’ll . . .’

  She held one hand up.

  ‘No more useless promises, Martin,’ she said. ‘Not a single one. Okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Okay. I’m not going to make any promises I obviously can’t keep. But I do want you to know that I love you. More than anyone. There’s no one else who—’

  She interrupted me again.

  ‘Tell me it wasn’t you who murdered Bobby, Jenny and all the others.’

  Finally, something I could swear to.

  ‘I promise and swear that I’m not involved in their deaths.’

  It looked like she breathed out a little. I wished I could do the same. Madeleine’s analysis had taken root, even though I didn’t believe it.

  ‘And you’re not involved either, are you?’ I said.

  Quietly, embarrassed.

  ‘Not at all.’

  After that we just stood there looking at each other. For a long time. Far too long. In the end I moved closer, very cautiously. She didn’t protest when I put my arms round her.

  ‘When this is all over,’ she said, ‘I think we need to try something new. Or rather – I need to. Because I’m not getting anywhere, I’m just sort of stuck here with you. And that’s so fucking unhealthy.’

  I held her close, so close.

  If she left me, I would die.

  ‘But you’ll stay until we’ve sorted this mess out?’ I said, with my face in her hair.

  ‘Yes. But for Belle’s sake, not yours. And for my own. Lucifer’s threat applies to me too. I’ve got nothing to gain by not being with you right now.’

  It stung to hear those words. I deserved no better. But she did.

  Lucy gave me a brief hug and then backed away. I let her go.

  ‘We still don’t know what she wanted. Veronica,’ Lucy said.

  ‘She might just have been trying to get information after all,’ I said.

  So now, apparently, we were going to talk about the nightmare we were living in.

  ‘Did she try anything like that, then? Did it feel like she was milking you?’

  Not the way I remembered it. But, on the other hand, that’s probably the whole point of a good information gatherer. That the target didn’t notice anything.

  ‘Quite a few things happened after you left,’ I said.

  ‘What sort of things?’

  I took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

  ‘Elias Krom’s girlfriend called. He’s vanished. Without trace.’

  Lucy opened her mouth to say something, but I went on.

  ‘And I found out that Veronica’s real name is Rakel. She was the one who snatched Mio from his preschool. Do you see? The Rakel who took Mio is the same woman I met at the Press Club.’

  Lucy’s chin dropped. But there was no stopping me.

  ‘So I asked Boris for a favour. I’ve ordered a break-in at Rakel’s house.’

  Lucy closed her mouth again.

  ‘Are you with me, baby? Are you going to stay, like you just said?’

  She looked so strained. It was only a few hours since she found out that her best friend had once shot another man and then laid him to rest in the desert.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.

  20

  Evening fell. Lucy was sitting in bed reading the police report into Mio’s disappearance. I had already ploughed through all the material but I didn’t want to point out that what she was doing was unnecessary. Better for her to push on than stand still. As for me, I had other plans. Partly to get through a night full of bad dreams that would doubtless have been strengthened by the day’s events. And partly to make an uncomfortable phone call. Discreetly I slipped one of my mobiles into my pocket and went out onto the terrace. Lucy followed me.

  ‘Why are you standing out here?’

  ‘I was thinking of making a call.’

  ‘A secret one?’

  I hesitated for a brief moment.

  ‘I was thinking of calling my old boss in Houston. Because I can’t bear the idea that what happened back then has got anything to do with what’s happening now. I’m worried we’re placing too much weight on what Bobby’s girlfriend said. Maybe this is all about something else. Somehow.’

  Lucy looked like she was going to ask: ‘Do you really believe that?’, but didn’t. Because hope springs eternal, and neither of us wanted the story we were living with to become even worse than it already was.

  ‘Have you managed to look at what I found out about the staff at Mio’s preschool?’ she said.

  I felt ashamed. That had slipped my mind completely after Boris rang.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just haven’t had time.’

  Sorry was a word that was starting to crop up far too often in our relationship. The film Love Story taught us that real love makes that particular word redundant. There’s nothing to forgive, and nothing to ask for forgiveness for. A utopia so fucking divorced from reality that it ought to be forbidden from ever being mentioned.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Lucy said.

  She looked up.

  ‘Do you want to be alone?’ she said.

  ‘Please.’

  Lucy went back inside the flat and closed the terrace-door after her. I watched her through the glass as she disappeared into the bedroom. Then I took out my phone and called a man I never thought I’d have to contact again.

  It was half past nine in Sweden. But in Houston it was only half past two in the afternoon. I tried to get hold of my old boss at the police station where he had worked twenty years ago. The receptionist’s voice sounded bright and cheerful when he answered. That sort of thing does a lot for the confidence of the citizens. It’s good for them to feel that the force
s of law and order are with them, not against them.

  I introduced myself with a made-up first name and explained why I was calling.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Superintendent Josh Taylor,’ I said. ‘If he still works there.’

  ‘What’s it concerning?’

  ‘Pastor Parson’s funeral.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  I repeated the phrase again. The receptionist asked for my telephone number and told me that someone would call me back. Someone, but not necessarily Josh Taylor. I could hear that he believed what he was saying. Presumably it was usually the case that people who asked to speak to particular officers via the switchboard were called back by someone else entirely. But this was no usual case, and Josh Taylor would realise that if he was given my message.

  After we’d buried the man I’d shot, we gave him an alias in case we ever needed to discuss what had happened. We called the dead man the Pastor. Parson’s was the name of the company that had once run the oilfield where we had buried the body. The word funeral shouldn’t be too difficult to interpret under the circumstances.

  I sat down and waited for Taylor to call back. We hadn’t had any contact since the first time I left Texas. There hadn’t been any reason to be in touch. So I wasn’t really sure what his role was in the police these days. I thought the receptionist had more or less indicated that he was still working there, but where he stood in the hierarchy was impossible to know.

  I stood up to go in and get a glass of water. Then my mobile rang. Already? I stared at it as if bewitched, as if I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it was ringing. It rang and rang and I was incapable of reaching out my hand and making it shut up. Because what was I going to say if it was my former boss, Josh Taylor, calling? He belonged to a police force that had been corrupted by Lucifer’s network. At worst, Lucifer might even be his boss. Who knew, maybe Taylor himself had gone and found salvation in the court of the great mafia boss?

  But curiosity got the better of me. I answered in a hoarse voice: ‘Yes?’

  It wasn’t possible to see who was calling, so I answered in Swedish. The voice on the line put a stop to all my doubts.

  ‘Benner?’