She walked past the old house that had once housed the café. She and Betty had gone their sometimes when Betty had been paid.
Pick whatever you want, sweetie, whatever you want. No, come on, not the flattest cake, you bore. Pick something bigger. Then Betty would normally deposit a small fortune in the old jukebox sitting in the middle of the room.
Request something, darling. Anything, so long as it’s upbeat.
Charlie would feel embarrassed by her, by her loud voice and flappy movements. On happy days like those at the café, Betty occasionally butted into other people’s conversation, making them feel uncomfortable. And when it went too far and Charlie asked her not to talk to people she didn’t know, to stop eavesdropping, stop interfering, Betty just laughed and said she wasn’t eavesdropping. It was hardly her fault she could hear every single conversation in the room. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have the ability to filter out unimportant things.
In that, they were different, Betty and she. Because Charlie knew her strength was exactly that, filtering out unimportant things and focusing on what was important, homing in on the right signal amid the white noise. At least she had used to be good at that, before she let a lunatic into her life. She hoped it was still possible to regain that ability. Her therapist, who loved words like ‘self-medication’ and ‘insecure attachment patterns’, thought her skill at reading people and moods sprang from a need to survive. Charlie had developed those abilities because she had had no choice; at the mercy, as she had been, of a capricious and unstable mother. Unpredictability in particular was damaging for a child, her therapist said. It put the child in a constant state of readiness.
Charlie cursed when she reached the chemist’s and read the opening hours on the door: Mondays and Fridays from eleven to two. How was that possible? Zoloft won’t even be enough, she thought. I need something to help me sleep, something to help me stay awake, something to alleviate the damn pressure across my chest. Susanne, she thought and pulled her phone out of her purse.
Susanne picked up after just one ring. Screaming children could be heard in the background.
‘Charlie, is that you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I need help with something.’
‘Hold on.’
Charlie heard Susanne put the phone down and yell at a child. ‘You leave him alone, you hear me? No, of course he doesn’t want you sitting on his face, now get up. I’m sorry, I just had to separate them before they kill each other. What can I do for you?’
‘Would it be all right if I popped by?’
‘Of course. But I’m warning you. The place is a sty and I have the little ones with me because they had a slight temperature yesterday.’
A barking wire-haired dachshund greeted Charlie at the door. Susanne shoved it aside and gave Charlie a hug.
‘Welcome to the chaos. I hope you won’t feel obligated to call social services on your way home.’
Susanne had taken over her childhood home, but nothing looked the same inside. The walls and floors had been painted white and there was no wall between the kitchen and living room.
‘Open floor plan,’ Susanne sighed when Charlie commented on the changes. ‘It doesn’t exactly help to lower the noise level.’
There were stacks of dishes in the kitchen and the floor was littered with toys. Two boys of about five came running into the room. They rounded the kitchen island, skidded on the rug and disappeared before Charlie had time to say hi.
‘Excellent manners, no?’ Susanne said and smiled.
‘Twins?’
Susanne nodded. Double the joy, double the work.
‘What are their names?’
‘AD and HD.’
‘No they’re not, Mummy,’ protested one of the boys, who had returned. ‘We’re Tim and Tom.’
‘I know,’ Susanne said, noting Charlie’s look, ‘I let their dad name them. I guess I must have been pretty out of it after the labour. The other two are at school,’ she continued. ‘once they get home it gets even louder. And it’s not long until the damn summer holidays start either. Sometimes I wonder how the fuck I’m going to get through it.’
‘I wouldn’t stand a chance,’ Charlie said and smiled.
‘Of course you would.’
‘Your paintings?’ Charlie pointed to the living room wall. Susanne nodded. Everything on the walls was by her and it wasn’t to show off, it was … well, because they just couldn’t afford any other art.
‘With paintings like those,’ Charlie said, ‘you don’t need any other art.’
‘You don’t have to …’
‘I know. But I mean it. Don’t you remember how I used to tell you that, right from the start, that you would become an artist one day.’
‘I’m far from an artist,’ Susanne said. ‘I put a lot of time into it, but I don’t make any money.’
Charlie stopped in front of a meadow with a girl picking flowers and said that it was probably just a matter of time, that she was bound to be discovered sooner or later.
Susanne laughed. She couldn’t imagine a worse place to live if you wanted to be discovered. Who would ever find their way to Gullspång?
‘You sound like you live in the nineteenth century,’ Charlie said. ‘Have you heard of social media? You should have a blog, an Instagram account, where you post your paintings and announce when you have an exhibition and …’
‘I can tell you’ve been living in Stockholm. It just doesn’t work like that down here.’
‘How do you know if you haven’t tried. I just think it’s sad that more people don’t get to see your paintings.’
‘There are things that are much sadder than that.’ Susanne walked off to make coffee. ‘No filter coffee, I’m afraid,’ she called. ‘I hope instant works.’
‘No problem,’ Charlie said and sat down on the sofa. ‘I can only stay for a bit.’
One of the boys – Tim? – had found a wooden sword that he was now waving at his brother.
‘Drop your weapon,’ Charlie said in a pretend stern way and the boy, who was apparently too young to understand irony, dropped his sword and started shouting for his mother.
‘What’s the problem, Tim?’ Susanne said. She had brought two big cups of coffee and a plate of cinnamon buns.
‘The lady yelled at me,’ the boy sobbed, ‘she said I couldn’t have my sword.’
‘And she’s right,’ Susanne said. ‘He just fights with it,’ she said to Charlie, ‘so you were completely right.’
‘She can’t tell me what to do,’ Tim said.
‘You know what?’ Susanne dropped to her knees in front of her son. ‘She can. She can tell people things like you’re not allowed hit people. Because she’s a police officer.’
The boy opened his eyes wide and turned from his mother to Charlie.
‘You don’t look like a police officer,’ he said after a pause. ‘Police officers have blue clothes.’
‘Not all police officers,’ Charlie said.
But Tim wasn’t listening. He just kept asking about where she kept her gun, if she threw children in prison, if she …
‘Only inquisitive little children,’ Susanne broke in, ‘she throws inquisitive little children straight in the dungeon.’ She started laughing when Tim grabbed his brother by the hand and vanished.
Charlie knew she should give Susanne the whole spiel about not using the police to scare children, but she realised this was her only chance to talk to Susanne in peace.
‘How’s it going?’ Susanne said. ‘Are you going to find her?’
‘Sooner or later, everyone’s always found,’ Charlie said. ‘Most people, anyway,’ she corrected herself.
‘Alive?’ Susanne said. And then: ‘You don’t have to answer; I realise you can’t talk about the investigation.’
‘So far, I don’t know much more than you.’
‘Annabelle Roos,’ Susanne said. ‘That girl has spent her fair share of evening
s in the pub.’
‘I know,’ Charlie said. ‘Strange that she hangs about there, really. I mean, she’s only seventeen.’
Susanne burst out laughing. Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, in Gullspång, you got into the pub whenever you felt like it; Charlie should be well aware of that. A ginger tabby jumped up on Susanne’s lap and started tramping round and round.
‘So lie down then, Poki, lie down and I’ll stroke you.’ The cat settled down on her lap and started purring.
Charlie reached out and scratched the cat behind the ear.
‘Remember all the cats out in Lyckebo?’ Susanne said. ‘How many did you actually have?’
‘A lot. Betty couldn’t deal with spaying and neutering and that; they were all inbred.’
Susanne laughed, because it was true. That weird albino that always followed them around, for example: there must have been something wrong with that one.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ Charlie said. She checked her watch. She had to get back to the station. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I’ve been having some sleeping problems and now I’ve forgotten to bring my pills and the chemist’s is closed so … I was wondering if you had something to … help me sleep?’
Susanne got to her feet. Of course she had. She had so many pills she’d never have to wake up if she didn’t want to.
‘Come with me,’ she said.
Charlie followed her upstairs. Susanne pushed a hamper aside and they zigzagged their way between toys and piles of clothes.
‘I keep everything locked up,’ Susanne said when they reached the bathroom. She climbed onto a step stool and got down a key from on top of a white medicine cabinet. ‘You can’t be too careful in this house.’
‘Quite the selection,’ Charlie said when she saw the well-stocked shelves.
‘I order them online. Well, maybe I shouldn’t be telling a police officer that, but what the hell am I supposed to do when doctors are so stingy with prescriptions and the pharmacy is closed more often than not? I hope you understand.’
Charlie smiled. She understood.
Susanne handed her a box of Imovane. Then she rooted around some more and found a box of oxazepam. ‘Take these as well. I have plenty.’
‘Is that Zoloft?’ Charlie asked, pointing at a box she recognised.
‘Yes.’ Susanne took it out. ‘Is that something you need?’
‘I left mine at home, and I get pretty shaky without them.’
‘I hear that,’ Susanne said. She opened the box and realised there were only four pills left.
‘That’ll do. The chemist is open tomorrow.’
Susanne warned her not to count on it, because you couldn’t really bank on correct opening hours in Gullspång. All it took was for someone to be off sick and it could stay closed for weeks. No wonder, in other words, that people in the area came up with alternative supply chains.
On her way back from Susanne’s, Charlie called Anders and told him she would be a bit late. Anders said that was no problem, because William Stark didn’t want to report to the police station.
‘Why?’
‘My guess would be that he’s afraid of the gossip, that people will think he had something to do with Annabelle going missing.’
‘Let’s go to his house instead,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’
‘What are you up to?’
‘I just need to check something.’
After they hung up, Charlie continued towards the village shop. It loomed, big and white, on the hill on the other side of the river. Halfway across the bridge, she stopped and leaned over the railing. Looking down into the black depths, she couldn’t understand that she had once jumped in from this spot. It had been a late summer’s night when she and Susanne were twelve. They had escaped on their bikes from a rowdy party in Lyckebo and halfway across the bridge, they had decided they wanted to go for a swim. When Susanne had started skidding down the steep slope next to the bridge, Charlie had laughed and said they should jump.
Then they had stood there, on the other side of the railing, with the green inlet gates in front of them. That’s where they were going to end up, Susanne had said, if they suddenly turned on the current. They’d be crushed in the turbine. It would be a horrible way to go.
Charlie had said that first of all the current started out weak and if they actually jumped in when it was already strong, they’d drown long before they reached the turbine. And besides, drowning was supposed to be the best way to go.
And how did she know that? Susanne had asked. Had she been talking to drowned people, or what?
They had talked about that for a while, until Charlie had moved closer and then, without really realising what she was doing, had grabbed Susanne’s arm and jumped straight out.
She could still feel the fluttering in her stomach, the feeling that she was never going to land, and then, when she did, the cold in her feet, the suction that pulled her down, the urge to give in and sink.
The police cordons flapped in the languid breeze when she reached Vall’s village shop. The yellowed tabloid placards in the windows were so bleached by the passing of time, they were no longer legible.
Charlie went closer. She thought about the first time she and Susanne had dared to come here. How old had they been back then? Twelve? Thirteen? No one at the party back at home in Lyckebo had even noticed them grabbing a can of beer each and sneaking off. They had drunk the beer before they got here and had laughingly tottered into the shop part before realising the parties were thrown higher up the building. Back then, there had still been ageing merchandise downstairs: bags of flour, tinned foods and rock-hard sweets in glass jars. That all seemed gone now.
The main door was locked. Charlie walked around the house and into the garden, sat down on the old bench by the gazebo and lit a cigarette. She looked up at a window on the top floor and remembered how a girl had tried to jump out of it once, how she had stood swaying on the windowsill, shouting that no one could stop her from jumping. And then, when everyone who had gathered behind her was too afraid to move, she had, at length, stepped down onto the floor, pushed through the small crowd and sobbingly run down the stairs. But Charlie had brighter memories from this place, too. She thought about how they had sat on the veranda: her, Susanne and a few older, tanned boys. They had played guitar, sung songs about the summer of ’69 and watched the sun rise over the river. Charlie took a quick drag and let her eyes roam across the overgrown garden, wishing the place could speak to her. What had happened here less than a week ago? She walked over to the back door. There was a temporary bar across it. She called Micke and asked him to bring the key over. Because it was their lock, right?
Micke said it was and asked what she was doing there. He had a way of making every question sound like criticism. Charlie tried to hide her exasperation.
‘Can you just bring the key down here?’
‘I’ll send Adnan. And hey, I’m not your personal assistant.’
Charlie hung up. Ten minutes later, Adnan arrived with the key. He offered to go in with her, but she said there was no need. She just wanted to have a look around.
‘Just be careful on the stairs,’ Adnan said, ‘there’s a tread missing halfway up.’
I know, Charlie thought. Would you just leave already?
A familiar smell of stale party greeted her as she entered the hallway. The floor was sticky and every step she took made a smacking sound. So far, everything is as it always was, Charlie thought, looking up at the sweeping staircase. The wallpaper had come loose in a few places and people had doodled in ink and black felt tip pen on the white walls. There was everything from the traditional Wanna fuck, call, followed by a number, to slightly more witty scribblings like Why drink and drive when you can smoke and fly? And then a few racist lines about how a pig born in a stable is still a pig. As Charlie moved in closer to take pictures of all of it on her phone, she noticed the smaller text.
It was written with a thinner pen and partly obscured by a strip of wallpaper.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
Not a coincidence, Charlie thought after reading to the end, not a coincidence and not fate. Why would anyone write a poem by Poe on the wall of a house that was like an unsupervised youth centre? She was so preoccupied with the poem she almost put her foot through the hole in the stairs.
The kitchen looked the same. It smelled of smoke and drunkenness. Charlie went over to the table by the window. It was covered in hundreds of notches and cuts. The knife game, she thought, and remembered the game with the knife’s point between widespread fingers. In the middle of the table, the surface was darker. Charlie tried to remember what Olof had said about the technical investigation. Wasn’t it on the kitchen table they had found blood? Why had she not thought of the knife game when Olof brought that up?
There was a big aquarium in the next room. It wasn’t until she was just a few feet away that she suddenly spotted the turtle. It was sitting on a big rock. The water beneath it was a brown murk full of cigarette butts and debris. Charlie couldn’t stop staring at the turtle. Was it even alive? She almost hoped it was dead, but then it suddenly opened its eyes and looked at her. Why hadn’t the technicians removed it?
‘Again?’ Adnan said when she called.
‘Who owns the turtle in the village shop?’
‘How am I supposed to know? I didn’t even know there was a turtle there.’
‘Well, there is. It’s not having a great time.’ Charlie fished out a butt floating on the surface. ‘This water is foul.’
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