The Lies We Tell

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Lucy had checked all the staff on the national population database, including Rakel Minnhagen. The fact that she was currently registered as living in Solna was nothing new. But she had been registered at an address in Årsta havsbad the previous year. That information made me frown. Partly because she had been registered there for less than three months in late summer and autumn. And partly because Årsta havsbad primarily consisted of summer cottages that lacked running water and drains. The house she had lived in was on Arkitektvägen. My frown grew deeper. Surely I’d been to a party out in Årsta havsbad? Something like a decade, a century ago – I couldn’t remember.

  I called Lucy.

  ‘Have you ever been to a party in Årsta havsbad with me?’ I said.

  Lucy might well have wondered why I was calling to ask such an odd question. But she didn’t. We’d stopped reacting whenever the other did or said peculiar things.

  ‘Not that I can remember,’ she said. ‘Actually, yes. Wasn’t that where that awful friend of yours from university had a crayfish party? When all the guests were promised proper beds and you and I ended up sleeping in a hammock?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  It had been a terrible party. Of all the awful university friends I’ve got, there was none more awful than the guy Lucy was referring to: Herman Nilson. A stuck-up wanker who went on to become a very successful property lawyer. But the world needs people like that as well.

  Lucy arrived at the office a little while later. She did the same as me – started by looking through the online papers.

  ‘Still nothing,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said stiffly.

  I was terrified of Elias being found. Terrified of what that would mean for me.

  Rakel Minnhagen. Could she really be behind all this? And, if so, was she alone? I didn’t think that very likely. There were plenty more loose ends to look into. I had found the person who abducted Mio. I had found her home. But there was no Mio there. Only a dead Elias.

  I didn’t have much more to go on than the address in Årsta havsbad. I tried to work out why I was getting so hung up on that. Just because I’d once been to a party there, nine years ago (we’d figured out when it was). Without further ado I contacted the Land Registry and asked who owned the property where Rakel Minnhagen had been registered. The clerk rattled off a man’s name that I didn’t recognise.

  ‘He acquired the property last December,’ the clerk said.

  ‘Can you see who owned it before him?’ I said.

  ‘Of course. The previous owner was a Herman Nilson.’

  I sat for a long time in silence behind my desk. What did it mean that Rakel Minnhagen had been registered – and therefore possibly lived – at an address belonging to someone I had been at university with? Someone who had never been a particularly close friend, and whom I hadn’t seen or heard from in years. I had a nagging feeling that the answer was right in front of my nose. There was something I wasn’t seeing. Something I had missed. Something big.

  Then my phone rang again. I didn’t recognise the number and didn’t feel like answering at first. Then it occurred to me that I could hardly get any more surprises on one and the same day.

  ‘Martin Benner,’ I said.

  ‘This is Jocke from the garage. I just wanted to check when you were thinking of coming to get your car.’

  I coughed and tried to make my voice sound humble and authoritative at the same time.

  ‘It’s good that you’ve called. I’m afraid things have got a bit hectic here. Could the Porsche stay with you until, say, Monday next week?’

  I didn’t want to see the car. Didn’t want it anywhere near me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, that doesn’t work. It’s against our policy. Cars that have been fixed have to be collected. It’s to do with the insurance.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Obviously I’ll be happy to pay for any extra expense. If you could just look after . . .’

  ‘You clearly don’t get it. I can’t help you. Can you come this afternoon?’

  Only very rarely does one thing go to hell at a time. Usually it’s like playing a malicious game of dominoes. If one of them falls, the rest follow. As long as they’re standing close enough to each other.

  ‘I won’t forget this,’ I said, making my voice sound as unfriendly as I could. ‘I don’t expect this sort of behaviour from a company like yours.’

  ‘Nor we of a customer like you,’ said the guy calling himself Jocke. ‘The police have been here.’

  I stiffened.

  ‘Did they take the car away?’

  ‘What? No, I’d have told you that at the start. But it was all extremely unpleasant. There were other customers in the vicinity and they looked most put out. The sooner you come and collect your Porsche the better.’

  24

  Jocke got his way. I went at once. The sun was blazing and the car’s paint gleamed. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have been able to help myself and would have started grinning the moment I saw it. Not this time. The Porsche aroused nothing but feelings of discomfort in me.

  ‘I fixed the dent in the bonnet as well,’ Jocke said.

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  The dent in the bonnet. The cause of which I had absolutely no idea about.

  ‘What did you make of that?’ I said. ‘The dent, I mean.’

  ‘Tricky question,’ Jocke said. ‘The police asked the same thing. I assume they’ve got their own experts, but they wanted my opinion as well.’

  ‘They wanted to know if the dent was caused when someone was run over?’

  ‘He, not they. There was only one of them here. But yes, that’s what he wanted to know.’

  Just one police officer. Not more.

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Didrik, I think.’

  Of course.

  ‘And what did you say when he asked about the dent?’

  ‘That I wasn’t sure. That it looked as if someone had jumped up and landed on the bonnet on their butt. Something like that.’

  ‘Big butt,’ I said, and made an attempt at a relaxed laugh.

  ‘Hmm,’ Jocke said. ‘Bloody big butt. But at least it no longer stinks of rotten orange. The car, I mean.’

  I’d never driven so cautiously as when I pulled out onto the road. I drove straight home and parked it in the garage. I had no intention of taking it out again for a very long time. To be on the safe side I left the satnav on. Then there’d be no doubt about whether or not the car had moved, in case anyone asked.

  Lucy had gone out when I got back to the office. I was disconcerted by the fact that Didrik himself had gone to the garage. He ought to have sent an underling. And then there was the fact that the unappealing Herman Nilson had lent his house to Rakel Minnhagen. There had to be a common denominator of some sort, holding all this crap together. So why was it proving so hard to find?

  I leafed through Lucy’s papers about the preschool again. If Herman Nilson was involved in the conspiracy I had fallen victim to, getting in touch with him would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Incredibly stupid. That notwithstanding, however, it was unavoidable. After some hesitation I called Madeleine Rossander. Her voice sounded flat when she realised who was calling.

  ‘Just a quick question,’ I said. ‘Do you remember Herman Nilson?’

  ‘Er, yes. We worked at the same practice until a few months ago.’

  Eureka.

  ‘Excellent. If someone wanted to bump into him and make it look like a coincidence – where would they find him?’

  I heard Madeleine take a deep breath.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I stifled a sigh. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand why she was asking. She didn’t want to throw her acquaintances onto a blazing fire. Even if she didn’t particularly like them.

  ‘I need to check something with him,’ I said.

  My voice was much lower than normal.

 
‘I don’t like this, Martin. What is it you need to check?’

  My fingers were totally dry as they touched the papers on my desk.

  ‘He rented out his summer cottage to a woman for part of last year. Or at least she was registered at that address. I’d like to find out how he knows her.’

  ‘And you were thinking of asking him completely out of the blue when you pretended to bump into him somewhere?’

  Her voice contained so many different shades of doubt that I could feel my cheeks burn.

  ‘I’m happy to admit that I’ve run out of good ideas,’ I said.

  I heard her laugh quietly down the phone. It was a nice laugh. I once tried to match-make between her and a friend of mine.

  ‘What’s the best thing about her?’ he had asked.

  ‘She laughs really easily,’ I replied.

  It had never occurred to me to try it on with Madeleine. She was far too good for me. Or too smart.

  ‘This woman,’ Madeleine said. ‘Does she have a name?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Not one that I feel like sharing right now,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll buy that,’ Madeleine said. ‘But keep your distance from Herman. He’s unreliable, towards men and women alike.’

  ‘Feel free to elaborate on that.’

  ‘Easy. He sleeps with any woman who comes near him, and only has a small number of male friends left, seeing as he has a tendency to exploit people in general. I was extremely surprised when he once cancelled a meeting to go and pick his godson up from preschool. In Flemingsberg of all places. Who the hell would pick someone like Herman to be a godfather?’

  A godson at preschool. In Flemingsberg.

  I made an effort not to sound too excited.

  ‘How come a man like Herman Nilson would have a godson at preschool in Flemingsberg?’ I said. ‘I thought all his friends were as rich as him.’

  No one rich would choose to live in Flemingsberg. Not if you had similar assets to Nilson.

  ‘I’m afraid I have no answer to that particular question,’ Madeleine said.

  ‘But perhaps you know the names of the godson’s parents?’ I said.

  ‘No, but if it’s important I could probably find out.’

  Was it important? Important enough to risk sending Madeleine out into the line of fire again? I needed to find some connections between all the little fragments of information I had.

  ‘If you could, please.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you,’ Madeleine said.

  ‘I might do the same,’ I said. ‘If it turns out that I really do need to get hold of Herman Nilson.’

  My office felt very quiet after Madeleine had hung up. I quickly checked the newspapers’ websites again. Not a word about poor dead Elias. I was starting to feel sick. Where was the body? And where the hell was Mio? He’d also been in Rakel’s house and had then disappeared from there.

  As long as Mio wasn’t dead. That thought made me feel utterly desolate. I didn’t know Mio; my relationship to him was purely practical. Either I found him and everything turned out alright, or I didn’t find him, in which case I might as well shoot myself. I hated being in that position. I hated the fact that I was expected to care so little about a young person.

  Restlessness crept across my body like a rash. There was so much I wanted to get done, without knowing how to go about it.

  I wanted to talk to the journalist Fredrik Ohlander’s family, but I didn’t dare contact them. Fredrik’s and my collaboration had been secret. And had to remain so. Previously for both our sakes, but now for mine alone.

  I also wanted to know more about who might be aware of the sin I had buried in Texas, but I didn’t know who to ask.

  My phone contained a short note about Stesolid. Did Mio suffer from epilepsy or febrile convulsions? His aunt or grandmother ought to be able to answer that. And that ought to have made the police try harder to find him when he went missing. I thought about what Didrik had said when we met at the Press Club. That the police were convinced Mio had been killed by his mother before she took her own life. Had that conviction been so strong that it got in the way of any real attempt to find him? Apparently. That impression was also reinforced by the police file. There wasn’t a single photograph of the boy among the material.

  That couldn’t be right.

  I needed to talk to another police officer. Someone must have reacted to the way the investigation had been handled, must have disagreed with it. But the police were out of bounds to me; I wasn’t going to get anywhere there. I found myself thinking about Susanne instead. The woman who had called in the middle of the night and wanted to remain anonymous. I didn’t know her name, and I didn’t know what she looked like. But I knew where she worked, and that would have to do. Having made up my mind, I stood up and went outside to the hire-car. A short while later I was on my way to Mio’s preschool.

  25

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  Children would make excellent police officers if only they were allowed to start work before they turned ten. The little girl practically filled the doorway as she stood there with her hands on her hips.

  ‘I’m here to see one of the teachers,’ I said.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Susanne.’

  ‘Ha! There’s no one called that here.’

  She turned on her heel and ran through the cloakroom into the playroom.

  ‘There’s a man here! He wants to see someone called Susanne!’

  I hurried after her. In my eagerness I forgot to take my shoes off. I smiled broadly and warmly towards the horrified teacher who was staring at me from across the room. There were fewer than ten children there. Some of them were sitting drawing at a table behind the teacher. A few more were playing with a car track. And then there was the girl who had met me at the door.

  ‘There’s no one called Susanne working here,’ the teacher said.

  ‘Would you like to double-check that?’ I said, still smiling. ‘Because I’m quite sure. Someone here must know her.’

  The teacher shook her head slowly. I took a few steps towards her and heard the sound of someone moving off to my right. An older woman was approaching, trailing yet another child.

  ‘This man is looking for someone called Susanne,’ the younger woman said.

  ‘There’s no one of that name working here,’ the older teacher said.

  ‘Perhaps in a different section?’ I said.

  ‘There’s only one other room open during the summer,’ the older woman said. ‘There’s no Susanne there either.’

  ‘I might go and ask for myself,’ I said.

  ‘No need. I—’

  I interrupted her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But it really is very important. Either one of you goes over to the other room and asks if anyone either is called or knows Susanne, or I do it myself. I’m a lawyer, and I’m looking for Susanne in connection with an extremely sensitive matter.’

  The older woman straightened up.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘I can go and ask. But I can tell you now that you’re mistaken.’

  The children watched as she disappeared the way she had come, off down a short corridor. They were no longer drawing or lying down, just sitting quite still.

  ‘Who’s Susanne?’ one boy asked another.

  ‘No one,’ the other boy whispered.

  The younger teacher looked at me warily and then went over to the children who were playing with the car track. I stood where I was in the middle of the floor, as if I’d just dropped from the heavens. Perhaps I would end up regretting my excursion, but I didn’t think so. The teachers seemed cool enough, and appeared to have accepted the reason for my visit. As long as the older woman wasn’t calling the police. That wouldn’t be good.

  She came back a minute or so later. I could have shouted out loud with joy. The look of surprise on her face told me all I needed to know.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Apparently
you’re right. One of the teachers in the other room does know this Susanne you were asking about. She’s waiting for you out in the playground.’

  She was standing in the shade of a tree. Her face reflected a mixture of suspicion and anger. I stopped a couple of metres away from her. Relief spread through my body. I recognised her from the passport photographs Lucy had found. Short hair, side parting and a birthmark on her right cheek.

  ‘Susanne?’ I said.

  I knew that wasn’t her name, but I couldn’t remember the name of the woman in the photograph.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she said.

  Her anger gave way to another emotion just below the surface. Sheer, utter terror.

  ‘I’m sorry to show up like this, but you wouldn’t tell me your phone number. Or your name.’

  She shook her head hard.

  ‘I was very clear about why. I find it unbelievable that you can’t respect that.’

  Should I be feeling guilty? I didn’t think so. To a very large extent she herself was responsible for the situation she was in. Besides, she bore a lot of the blame for what had happened to Mio. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to understand her decision not to go to the police.

  ‘I don’t give a damn if you find it unbelievable,’ I said. ‘Can’t you just start by telling me your name? Or am I going to have to ask your colleagues? At the same time as I tell them about the jewellery you stole, perhaps?’

  She lowered her gaze and leaned heavily against the tree-trunk. From a distance we probably looked like a couple who were in the middle of breaking up. She looked so tired she couldn’t stand up, I looked so agitated I couldn’t stand still.

  ‘Nadja,’ she said. ‘My name is Nadja Carlsson.’

  That name had been on Lucy’s list, but not in the police’s preliminary investigation, just as Susanne, or Nadja, had told me before.

  ‘I’ve got a few more questions about Mio,’ I said.

  ‘I doubt I’ll be able to help. I didn’t really work with him that much.’

  ‘But you might know if he suffers from epilepsy?’

  She looked up quickly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He did. Or does. If he’s alive.’