The Lies We Tell

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Lucy still looked doubtful.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said. ‘It’s too far-fetched.’

  ‘Far-fetched? Baby, sorry, but are you crazy? This whole fucking story is far-fetched. That’s the whole basis of it. But there must be something holding it together – there just has to be. And now there is. I met Rakel that evening I was out with Didrik. Who happens to be Sebbe’s father. What more do you need?’

  ‘So you think Didrik used to hit his son? And that’s why Rebecca has moved to Denmark?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, no.’

  But I was actually feeling quite relieved. Finally I had some sort of framework for all the disconnected thoughts I’d been fumbling with.

  Belle moved closer to Lucy and wrapped her arms round her waist. When did she get that tall?

  Lucy stroked Belle’s hair.

  ‘It must be possible to sort this out fairly easily,’ she said. ‘We can call the preschool tomorrow. Or find someone else who knows something.’

  Herman Nilson. That name came back to me. He, if anyone, would know what there was to know. Possibly without realising it himself, but that was irrelevant.

  ‘I’ll get hold of Nilson tomorrow,’ I said.

  ‘Martin, that’s a hell of a gamble.’

  ‘Maybe. But this has to end somehow.’

  ‘I’m all too aware of that. But didn’t Susanne say anything else about this kid called Sebbe? What his parents’ names were, for instance?’

  ‘She didn’t know.’

  Lucy sighed.

  ‘There aren’t many of us who know things we ought to,’ she said. ‘You didn’t even know that Didrik had moved to Denmark.’

  I almost started to laugh again.

  ‘That’s not the sort of thing we talk about,’ I said.

  I’d have to explain why another time.

  I winked at Belle.

  ‘Sebbe with the doggy,’ I said. ‘Woof, woof.’

  Lucy smiled, but Belle was serious.

  ‘He was mean,’ she whispered. ‘The boy with the doggy was mean.’

  29

  The day seemed to never want to end. I set off to administer a dose of reassurance to Wolfgang. We met as arranged at Kungens kurva, and I was as sure as I could be that I hadn’t been followed.

  ‘The key to your flat,’ I said before we parted. ‘Could I have it?’

  ‘What do you want that for?’ Wolfgang said.

  ‘I want to make sure your computer’s safe,’ I said.

  Before someone else does, I added to myself.

  Someone else. In the police? Staffan? Didrik? Both of them?

  Wolfgang handed me his key without a word. He seemed to have aged several years in the hours that had passed since we last met. I had to give him credit for being so sensible. He too had gone and rented a car. When I asked where he was going to go, he said he had a summer cottage outside Strömstad. It was a long way for an elderly man to drive at that time of night. And I didn’t like the fact that he was going to his own cottage. That was the first place any eventual pursuers would look. I said as much to him.

  ‘So where should I go?’ Wolfgang said with feeling.

  Not a silly question, and I had no good answer.

  ‘Do you have a relative you could go and visit?’ I said. ‘Or a friend? A friend would be better than family, harder to trace.’

  Wolfgang looked drained as he thought about this. Then he brightened up slightly.

  ‘My former brother-in-law,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen him for at least five years, but he always sends cards at Christmas and Easter. And he always says I’m welcome to go and visit whenever I want. He lives in Gävle.’

  ‘Perfect!’ I said, even if I had my suspicions as to whether this was the sort of visit the former brother-in-law had in mind when he sent those cards. ‘He’ll be pleased to see you.’

  Late at night. For the first time in over five years.

  Wolfgang nodded uncertainly.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’ll do.’

  Then he took the bag of things I had brought him and got into his car.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve got dragged into all this,’ I said honestly.

  ‘I don’t even know what it is I’ve been dragged into,’ Wolfgang said.

  There was a note of sourness in his voice. Then Wolfgang started the car and drove off. I raised my hand to wave, then got in my own car. I’d told the rental firm I’d be returning it that evening. They were open round the clock, so I could take it back whenever I wanted.

  I was tired. I felt that very clearly as I drove back towards the city. But I couldn’t relax. I was being tormented by too many ghosts and mysteries. If Didrik’s son really had attended the same preschool as Mio, why had Didrik sent his son to a preschool in Flemingsberg? Didrik bore his aristocratic surname, Stihl, with pride. He hated suburbs that weren’t populated by millionaires. His money was inherited rather than earned. I’ve never understood why he chose to join the police.

  I had never been to Didrik’s home. Our children had never played together (apart from the time they ended up at the same birthday party), and Rebecca had never been friendly with Lucy. We saw each other because of work and very occasionally met privately for a drink. There were strict boundaries to what we talked about. We talked about work. Our careers. Women. Why the police were so ineffectual. Where Didrik bought his smart suits. But never our children, and never much about our families. I had never met his son, and he had never met Belle. But he did get bonus points for knowing her name. I can never remember what other people’s children are called. All I could remember about Didrik’s son was that he was adopted, but I’d never given the matter any thought. Belle was also adopted, after all, albeit for different reasons.

  Even so, I knew where Didrik lived. Or used to live. I didn’t know if he’d moved since he and Rebecca split up. If they had actually split up. But it sounded like it when she said she’d moved to Denmark.

  Didrik had inherited his maternal grandmother’s house out in Djursholm. That wasn’t something Didrik himself had told me, but I’d heard it from envious colleagues of his I’d encountered through work. His comet-like career in the police had put a lot of people’s backs up. A lot of police officers thought, like me, that he ought to have done something else. That he didn’t fit in. Which in and of itself didn’t really matter to me. I hadn’t fitted into the dull machinery of the police either. That actually formed something of a bond between me and Didrik. We could look at each other and know we were the same sort.

  The car was practically driving itself as I passed the centre of Stockholm with no thought of actually heading home. I knew where Didrik lived because I had represented one of his neighbours a few years before: a man who had been accused of assaulting another man while drunk at a crayfish party. There was quite a lot in the papers about it. About how unusual it was for one multimillionaire to face another in court in an assault case that seemed to be more about wounded pride than physical harm. It ended with me getting my client cleared. He swore eternal gratitude to me and invited me round to drink punch on his veranda.

  The thought of sitting on a veranda drinking punch made me laugh. Not much of an uproarious laugh, more one of sorrow. Punch and verandas (and clients) belonged to a past life. My present was exclusively concerned with conducting clumsy detective work and simply surviving.

  Slowly I cruised past the fancy villas in the area where my client lived. His house was the last one in the road. Didrik’s was the one before that. There were two cars in the drive. Both Mercedes. I stopped and looked at the garden. There was a man cutting the lawn. He wasn’t at all like Didrik. A dog was running in circles around the man, barking loudly and excitedly. Did Didrik have a dog? I didn’t think so. A lad in his late teens came out of the house and went over to the man with the lawnmower. They looked alike, almost certainly father and son. The man switched the mower off and took whatever the lad
handed him. A phone, perhaps?

  I parked at the side of the road. The man and teenager both watched me as I got out of the car and walked towards them. The man said something into the phone and then put it in his trouser pocket. Dark-green trousers, with a lot of pockets. Combat trousers, Lucy called them.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said when I was standing by the brick wall that separated their garden from the road.

  It reached just above my knees and the more rebellious part of me felt like clambering over it and rolling onto the grass.

  ‘I’m looking for Didrik Stihl,’ I said.

  ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t live here any more.’

  ‘Oh dear. Do you know when he moved?’

  ‘Of course I do. That’s when my wife and I bought the house. Last year, early September.’

  I hadn’t been in touch with Didrik at the time. Again.

  ‘Do you know where they moved to?’

  The man’s eyes narrowed. He was wearing a pale beige shirt that was too thick for both the evening sun and grass-cutting. Patches of sweat were spreading across his chest and under his arms.

  ‘What business is that of yours?’ he said.

  Wise man. You shouldn’t talk to strangers. It’s stupid of us to teach children that that rule doesn’t apply once they’ve grown up. It’s just as valid all the way from the cradle to the grave. At least in the sense of being cautious. Like the man in the combat trousers was being.

  I pulled out the same card as usual, did my best to look relaxed and even managed to squeeze out an attempt at a smile.

  ‘I’m a lawyer,’ I said. ‘I need to get hold of Didrik on a matter of business.’

  The man’s shoulders relaxed.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ he said.

  He gestured to his son to take over the mowing. Without a word the lad started the mower and set off behind it.

  The man cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, if I understand correctly, the family moved to Denmark,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that was it,’ the man said, suddenly looking very sad. ‘It wasn’t a particularly happy story, that move.’

  I stopped myself coming out with another ‘really?’ and waited.

  ‘But perhaps you already know what happened? Why they moved?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘I don’t know a thing.’

  The man watched his son walk back and forth across the lawn.

  ‘It’s not really my place to say,’ he said.

  ‘Was it to do with those reports?’ I said.

  The man stopped watching his son and looked at me. His eyes were dark with anger.

  ‘If you’ve come here to talk about that rubbish, you can leave at once.’

  I stared at the smart villa, unsure of what to say. Didrik and Rebecca must have ended up with several million kronor at their disposal. I remembered how Rebecca had looked when we ran into each other. How pale and tired she had seemed.

  ‘I haven’t come to talk about anything except where Didrik is these days. If you don’t know, there’s no need for us to continue this conversation.’

  I wanted him to soften, because I felt he had something to say. Something that might explain why the Stihl family had moved abroad. Because there were big holes in the story of child abuse.

  ‘Didrik’s a police officer,’ the man said. ‘You can’t just walk away from a job like that. So you’ll probably find him somewhere in Stockholm. I think it was only the wife and son who moved to Denmark. Didrik commutes on a weekly basis.’

  A gust of wind made the leaves on the fruit-trees dance. It would soon be autumn. I realised that I was looking forward to a time of year that I usually hate.

  ‘An unusual arrangement,’ I said.

  ‘To put it mildly.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t have Didrik’s contact details?’

  I’d checked the population register on my way out to Djursholm, but hadn’t found him. Either he was cheating, and was now registered in Denmark, or his details had been declared confidential and hidden from public view. Nothing strange about that, the same thing applied to plenty of police officers and prosecutors. I’ve thought about doing it myself many times, but have never got round to it.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ the man said.

  ‘He didn’t give a new address on the contract of sale when you bought the house?’ I said in an unassuming manner.

  The man thought.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Unless they just gave the Danish address. I don’t honestly remember. But if you don’t mind waiting, I can go inside and check.’

  Just then it felt as if I had all the time in the world. Whether it was the lush greenery of the gardens or the beautiful summer evening, or simply my own yearning for an ordinary life in which I drank punch, I don’t know.

  ‘Please, go ahead,’ I said.

  As the man disappeared inside his house I saw the door of my former client’s villa open. A young woman emerged. I didn’t recognise her. Perhaps that house had changed hands as well.

  Lucy phoned.

  ‘What’s taking so long?’

  ‘I’ll be back soon. I just had to check something.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We hung up and the man came out of the house with a document in his hand. He tried to walk quickly but I could see he was limping. Trouble with his hips, maybe. But wasn’t he too young for that? I had, and still have, a childish attitude towards ageing. I’m terrified that there’ll come a day when I can no longer take care of myself. Not my own piss, not my own shit, and not my own hygiene. I shall die then. I can’t deal with helplessness.

  ‘Here,’ he said, unable to conceal his satisfaction. ‘You just need to have things in order. I keep telling my wife that.’

  He handed me the document. I noted that it was the first page of a longer deed of sale. It included the details of both buyer and seller.

  ‘Looks like he lives on Södermalm,’ the man said. ‘That is where that street is, isn’t it?’

  I didn’t reply, just stared at the sheet of paper.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ the man said anxiously.

  Yes.

  There certainly was.

  Because the address Didrik Stihl had given as his new home was where Rakel Minnhagen had taken me after we met at the Press Club.

  30

  I arrived home just under an hour later. From the car I called Harriet, the woman I had met when I tried to get hold of Rakel (or Veronica, as I called her at the time) at the address where we’d had our encounters. She told me there was no Didrik Stihl among the members of the housing association. But there was a man of that name renting an apartment from its official occupant. She didn’t know how long that had been going on.

  Bingo. But a fucking unpleasant discovery all the same.

  On the way upstairs I snuck into Wolfgang’s flat and removed his computer. It appeared not to have been touched, but I wouldn’t know that until I started it up. I was almost certain someone must have been inside his flat by then. Someone who had cleaned up after themselves and left no sign of having been there.

  Someone like Didrik?

  We sat on the terrace and drank some wine. I explained what I had found out about where he was living. Lucy turned pale. I couldn’t understand how Didrik, of all people, was involved in the crap I was splashing around in. Could Didrik have run down and killed two people in a car that resembled mine? And then gone on killing? Moving a body from a house in Solna to the boot of my car? Together with Rakel? The thought was as laughable as it was horrific. Yet it did seem to be the only plausible explanation.

  Lucy started when she heard a noise coming from the street. She was like me now, always on her guard. Unable to tell what was important and what wasn’t. The noise stopped and Lucy relaxed.

  I made an attempt to summarise where we were: ‘There was a dead man lying in the boot of my car today. A dead man who was in a ho
use in Solna yesterday: the home of a woman I slept with, who lied about both her name and where she lived. And who also abducted Mio. I met her one evening when I was out with Didrik, who is registered as living at the address where she took me, and who therefore could have given her access to the guest-flat we used. It was Didrik who led the investigation into Sara Texas’s crimes. It was his colleague, Staffan, whom Elias spoke to when he called the police and asked for help. So – Didrik and Rakel are a team. They’re behind this whole story. What I can’t understand is why. Or why they’re trying to frame me for the whole thing.’

  I could feel my throat contracting and it seemed harder to breathe. Didrik and I hadn’t really been friends in any conventional sense, but I had still thought of him as an ally. Someone I could trust.

  Lucy put her wineglass down. She had dark circles under her eyes. They say that a beautiful woman looks good in anything, but exhaustion isn’t a good look for anyone.

  ‘We need to try to understand what’s making him do all these insane things, assuming it is him,’ she said.

  ‘Assuming it is him? Baby, it is him. Along with Rakel. If there was anyone else involved we’d have seen them by now.’

  Lucy said nothing. Said nothing and kept thinking.

  ‘The move to Denmark,’ I said. ‘I want to know more about that.’

  ‘Does there have to be anything funny about it? Couldn’t it just be that Rebecca got a new job or something?’

  I pictured her before me, the way she had looked when we ran into each other on the pavement. Pale and hollow-eyed. But above all scared. I had assumed Didrik had been bad-mouthing me at home and that was why she seemed so upset. Now I was no longer so sure. She may have been frightened for other reasons. Few things make people so worried as thinking that their worst secrets are about to be uncovered.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  Lucy’s hand shook as she reached for her wine.

  ‘We don’t know anyone else who knows Didrik,’ she said. ‘You aren’t going to be able to find out more about the move without it looking very obvious.’

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘I know Herman Nilson.’