The Final Word

by Liza Marklund

  Security again.

  Annika heard Jimmy laugh in the living room, but couldn’t tell if it was at something the minister had said or the television programme.

  Robin Bertelsson had left the club after the murder. Why hadn’t he wanted to carry on working there? Did he think Joachim had gone too far? She put her hand on his face. The photograph felt cold beneath her palm.

  WEDNESDAY, 3 JUNE

  The room looked the same as before, apart from a chrome-plated fan in one corner. It moved slowly back and forth with a gentle hum, and every fifteen seconds the air hit Annika in the face, making her blink.

  ‘You mentioned that you don’t have much contact with your sister. Why is that?’ The psychologist had switched to her summer uniform, a knee-length denim skirt and white T-shirt. She was looking down at her notepad, which made Annika feel anxious: what had she written in it? Was it like other medical notes? What if the pad got into the wrong hands, if someone else read it?

  Annika gulped. The fabric covering the armchair was so scratchy that she rested her forearms on her lap. ‘Birgitta and I are totally different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Annika squirmed on the chair, defiance spreading within her. ‘Birgitta’s got no drive, no ambition. She just wants to be liked. Her goal in life is to sit in the pizzeria in Hälleforsnäs drinking beer with the cool kids from the nineties.’

  There, she’d said it, revealing her snobbish, big-city attitude. She readied herself for criticism and derision, but the psychologist wasn’t even blinking. Annika felt almost disappointed.

  ‘Does your sister still live in the town where you grew up?’

  ‘Apparently she’s moved to Malmö . . .’

  Should she mention Birgitta’s disappearance? The thought got no further and she said nothing. This wasn’t Birgitta’s hour. For once, everything wasn’t all about her.

  ‘Do you have any contact with anyone else from when you were growing up?’

  Annika sat in silence for a moment, mostly to give the impression that she was thinking. ‘Not really . . .’

  ‘Your boyfriend, the one who died, what about his family, friends, his parents, perhaps?’

  ‘No!’

  The answer was so abrupt that it surprised even her. The psychologist scribbled in her pad.

  The darkness was swirling, and a shiver of unease ran down Annika’s spine. She saw Sven’s parents in her mind’s eye, his beautiful mother and well-built father, Maj-Lis and Birger. She hadn’t seen them since Sven’s death: she hadn’t gone to the funeral, and they weren’t at the trial. Maj-Lis was dead, she knew that, breast cancer, a few years ago.

  ‘Your father died when you were seventeen. How did that make you feel?’

  The fan reached the psychologist, making her short hair quiver and the tissues in the box flutter.

  ‘Terrible,’ Annika said.

  ‘How have you dealt with it?’

  The air grew heavier.

  ‘I don’t think about it.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘He was drunk, and froze to death in a snowdrift.’ By the turning for the beach at Tallsjön, where she always looked the other way when she drove past.

  ‘Were you close to him?’

  She had been Daddy’s girl, Birgitta Mummy’s. ‘I guess.’

  The psychologist looked at her. ‘You felt “terrible” when he died?’

  Because he had abandoned her. Because she was left all alone. Because he had done it in such an embarrassing way, like an old alcoholic. People felt sorry for her, not because her dad had died but because he’d been stupid and weak, a disgusting old drunk. To begin with she wished he’d died of cancer or in a car crash. She’d imagined it would have felt different, that she would have experienced a higher class of grief, and people would have felt sorry for her for the right reasons. It didn’t matter now, but she could still remember how she had felt.

  ‘I remember that it felt terrible,’ she said simply. ‘I was very sad, but it passed.’

  The psychologist frowned, but dropped the subject. ‘You said last time that your mother doesn’t like you. Can you expand on that a bit?’

  Annika forced herself not to look at the clock on the wall: it would be disrespectful to start checking when she had only just sat down. ‘Well, what can I say?’ she said, and looked at the clock anyway. ‘It’s no secret. Mum tells anyone who’s prepared to listen.’

  It really was incredibly hot in the room. The breeze as the fan swept over her left a stillness behind it that made the air feel thicker.

  ‘What does she say, your mum?’

  Annika tried to concentrate. She had to make an effort, or why was she here? And it was only words. If she tried hard enough she could summon a story she had heard about someone else she barely knew. ‘That I’ve ruined her life. She and Dad and Birgitta would have been a happy family if it hadn’t been for me.’

  The proportions of the room seemed to change: it got narrower but seemed to stretch at the same time. The sound of the fan became more distant.

  ‘Does she ever say what you did?’

  Annika’s voice echoed oddly inside her head, as if she had discovered herself telling a lie. ‘Mum says there was something wrong with me when I was born, that I’m brain-damaged. That I was born . . . bad.’ Her cheeks burned. It sounded so silly, as if she were making it up.

  ‘Bad? What does she mean by that?’

  Annika shut her eyes, trying to disappear. ‘I don’t actually know,’ she whispered.

  The fan hummed. When she opened her eyes again, the psychologist was looking at her intently. This was the sort of thing they liked, she felt sure, mothers who weren’t up to scratch.

  ‘You said it isn’t a secret that your mother doesn’t like you. What does she say to other people?’

  Annika looked towards the window. It wouldn’t be long before forest fires broke out. If she was still at the paper she’d be sent as close to the flames as possible. ‘That I almost killed Birgitta when she was a baby.’

  The psychologist adjusted her position, then rubbed her forehead. ‘Can you elaborate?’

  ‘Birgitta was in an incubator,’ Annika said. ‘She was born prematurely, and it was my fault.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I tripped on the front steps and cut my knee. My mother was so distressed by the accident that she started to get contractions and her waters broke.’

  ‘So your share of the responsibility was . . . what? That you tripped over? When you were two years old?’

  Annika nodded. ‘Mum didn’t want me. She got pregnant and couldn’t go to art college.’

  The air from the fan hit her again. Her hair flew up in front of her face and she pushed it back.

  ‘Would you like me to turn the fan off?’ the psychologist asked.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’

  ‘How would you describe your feelings towards your mother?’

  Annika was breathing through her mouth now, and her eyes were stinging. ‘I don’t like it when she calls. I avoid her as much as I can.’

  The psychologist wrote something down. ‘In psychology we generally talk of the “basic emotions”,’ she said. ‘The majority are negative – anger and fear, sorrow and shame, disgust and revulsion – but there are a few positive ones. Usually joy, curiosity and surprise. If you were to use some of those to describe how you feel about your mother, which ones would they be?’

  Annika swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Does it feel uncomfortable to think about it?’

  Did it? Was she feeling uncomfortable? What basic emotion was that?

  She let the darkness fill her lungs and stomach. What did it consist of? Demands and accusations, reproachful eyes, clumsy fingers dropping things, the shouting: Go away! Her eyes filled and she took a deep breath to hold back the tears. ‘I’m ashamed,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t good enough, I was always doing things wrong. Mum was angry, and used to get so upset. I wish .
. . I wish, well, that I could have been . . . better.’

  ‘No joy?’

  Annika checked deep down in the darkness: was there anything light and joyful? Any peals of laughter, a smell of fresh baking? With Grandma, yes, and Dad. Can you see the magpie? He’s got such beautiful feathers, all shiny and blue, like a late summer’s night. Anyone who says they don’t like magpies has never really looked at them, not properly . . .

  She shook her head. No, no joy, not with Mum. Longing: what sort of basic emotion could that be? Sadness, maybe? Unfairness? Maybe that was part of anger. She didn’t know. What a mess . . .

  The psychologist wrote something on her pad, then flipped back a page and read in silence for a moment. ‘We talked last time about an accident, when your boyfriend died. Can you tell me some more about that?’

  The air closed in around her. She didn’t want to go there.

  ‘He . . . fell into a blast furnace.’

  ‘A blast furnace?’

  The fan roared.

  ‘At the ironworks, back home. It was abandoned by then, shut down, when it happened. They’ve put a discount outlet there now, in the old factory building.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Annika was clinging to the arms of the chair, hard, hard, hard, to stop herself falling. ‘He was chasing me with a knife, and he killed my cat. I tried to defend myself, and he fell.’

  ‘Did he often do things like that? Chase you, threaten and hit you?’

  You can’t leave me like this. What am I going to do without you? Annika, for fuck’s sake, I love you!

  ‘He . . . Yes, he used to . . .’

  ‘Is it hard to talk about it?’

  The darkness closed around her. Her lungs were screaming, her hands burning, and she fell and fell and fell.

  Nina steered the hire-car over a long bridge with wide arches. The Lule River shimmered below the concrete, almost a kilometre wide here at its mouth.

  The care-home where Ingela Berglund lived was in a part of the city known as Björkskatan, ‘birch magpie’ (although the name had nothing to do with magpies or any other bird, according to the manager of the care-home: skatan was dialect for ‘headland’). She had to turn left when she reached the Hertsö roundabout, then follow the signs. Just to be sure, Nina had hired a car with a built-in satnav.

  The bridge came to an end and she drove into the city, low brick buildings clad with panelling, gnarled deciduous trees with bright foliage. Off to the right, on the far side of a broad expanse of water, she could see a vast industrial area. She passed a warehouse by the harbour, a few brick buildings, and then she was out of the city centre. The housing became sparser, and the traffic around her melted away.

  Sure enough, she reached a large roundabout with two different petrol stations, just as the manager had told her, and bore left towards Skurholmen. A couple of minutes later she reached the turning for Bensbyn and Björkskatan (perhaps Bensbyn was just as misleadingly named, and it wasn’t really a village of bones).

  She rolled slowly past the houses. This was a side of Sweden she very rarely saw. Simple, well-kept homes, glassed-in balconies, neat lawns, playhouses and ornamental shrubs. This was where people lived with their families, in a country they were proud to call their own.

  The satnav was flashing on the dashboard: she had reached her destination. She gazed out through the windscreen at what looked like a suburban shopping centre. There was a health centre clad in orange panels that also housed a chemist and a chiropractor’s clinic. She swung round and found an empty space in the car park, checked that her mobile was in her pocket, then switched off the engine and got out, locking the car behind her.

  A cold, sharp wind was blowing that she hadn’t noticed inside the car. The sky was low and blue. She looked at the time – she was a bit early, but that couldn’t be helped.

  The care-home was a two-storey, panel-clad building with geraniums in the windows. A sign saying WELCOME in ornate script was screwed to the front door. Nina rang the bell and heard it echo inside the building.

  A woman of her own age opened the door. She was wearing jeans and sandals, holding a bunch of keys, and looked anything but welcoming.

  ‘Evelina Granqvist?’ Nina asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ the woman said. She was the manager. For the past four years she had had power of attorney for Ingela Berglund, and was her official trustee.

  ‘Nina Hoffman,’ Nina said, shaking the woman’s hand. ‘Sorry I’m a bit early, but there wasn’t any traffic.’

  ‘Come in,’ Evelina Granqvist said, and walked off towards what looked like a kitchen. Her movements were slightly jerky and abrupt, as though she was already finding the visit uncomfortable. ‘You can take your shoes off,’ she said, over her shoulder.

  She spoke in a pronounced local accent, slow and melodic, a lot like the way Ivar Berglund talked.

  Nina stood by the door and made a quick appraisal of the home. There were framed pictures on the walls, probably painted by the residents, and there was a large noticeboard with names, pictures and descriptions of various activities: ‘Sandra climbed to the top of Ormberget!’ and ‘Today Peter did some baking!’ Off to the left there was some sort of dayroom – she could hear people talking and laughing on television.

  ‘Do you want coffee?’ the manager asked, without looking at Nina. The question was probably so deeply embedded in local tradition that not even an unwelcome visit by a police officer from Stockholm could shake it.

  ‘Thanks. I’d love some,’ Nina said, taking her shoes off.

  A man with Down’s syndrome poked his head out of the dayroom and looked at her.

  ‘Hello,’ Nina said. ‘My name’s Nina, what’s yours?’

  ‘Peter doesn’t talk,’ Evelina said, from the kitchen.

  The man withdrew his head and shut the door. The voices from the television faded to a muffled murmur.

  The hall floor was covered with pale linoleum. Nina’s stockinged feet slid on the chilly surface. The kitchen looked like an ordinary kitchen in an ordinary house, not like that of an institution. Two mugs of coffee and a plate of cinnamon buns, probably the ones Peter had baked, waited on the table.

  Evelina Granqvist closed the door behind her. ‘I thought I made myself clear yesterday,’ she said. ‘I’m opposed to the idea of you questioning Ingela. She can’t stand witness in a trial.’

  Nina sat down at the table, picked up a bun and took a bite. ‘Naturally, you’re perfectly entitled to your opinion,’ she said.

  ‘I heard that you’ve requested to see Ingela’s medical records as well. What are you hoping to get from this? You can’t seriously think that she had anything to do with the things her brother is standing trial for?’

  Nina took another bite and studied the woman. Her arms were folded and her legs crossed in an obviously defensive posture. She looked challenged and affronted, possibly also sad and anxious. ‘I don’t think Ingela is mixed up in Ivar’s activities,’ Nina said. ‘Could I have some milk in my coffee, please?’

  Evelina Granqvist’s jaw tensed, but she went to the fridge, and took out an open carton of milk.

  ‘Thanks,’ Nina said, and poured some into her mug. She took a sip. The coffee was now lukewarm and as grey as dishwater.

  ‘So why are you here?’ the manager asked.

  Her arms were no longer folded.

  ‘Because Ingela matters,’ Nina said.

  Evelina Granqvist’s eyes widened. Nina sat in silence, eating the bun, waiting for her opponent to speak.

  ‘How . . . What do you mean?’ the woman eventually asked.

  Nina reached for a napkin and wiped sugar from the corners of her mouth. ‘The preliminary investigation into the crime that Ivar Berglund is standing trial for has been going on for more than a year. A dozen detectives have been involved, but no one has given any thought to Ingela.’

  She stared at the manager, hoping that was true.

  ‘I’ve said no whenever they’ve asked to
question her,’ Evelina Granqvist said stubbornly. ‘I’ve explained to them that it isn’t possible.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ Nina said. ‘No one made enough effort to talk to Ingela.’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything about what her brother has done.’

  ‘Now you’re thinking in exactly the same way as those detectives,’ Nina said. ‘You’re speaking for Ingela, as if you knew better than her.’

  The manager folded her arms and crossed her legs again. ‘It’s for Ingela’s sake,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her to get upset.’

  ‘Your concern is understandable,’ Nina said.

  ‘I’ve got a good relationship with Ingela. She trusts me. Why should I allow you to see her?’

  Nina straightened her back. ‘Everyone working on this case has dismissed Ingela Berglund as stupid. I think that shows a lack of respect.’

  The manager’s face took on an almost defiant look. ‘I don’t see why it’s so important,’ she said. ‘Nothing that man might have done is reason enough to upset Ingela.’

  Nina looked at her intently. ‘The trial concerns the murder of a down-and-out in Nacka last year. The perpetrator tortured the victim, pulled his nails out, hung him naked in a tree above an anthill and smeared him with honey. The cause of death was asphyxiation, by a plastic bag. We’re going to look beneath every last little stone to find the killer, even if it means upsetting your routines.’

  Evelina was staring at her.

  ‘Ivar Berglund is suspected of having committed other crimes,’ Nina went on. ‘We haven’t got enough evidence to charge him with them yet, but we’re linking him to the assault of a local politician, Ingemar Lerberg, in Saltsjöbaden last year. I don’t know if you read about the case in the papers?’

  Evelina blinked several times. Perhaps she was searching her memory.

  ‘The perpetrator spread Ingemar Lerberg’s legs apart until the muscles ruptured. His hands were tied behind his back and he was strung up by his wrists, which meant that both his shoulders were dislocated. The soles of his feet were whipped, five of his ribs were broken, his jaw was smashed and one of his eyes was crushed. He’s still in a coma, a year later, with severe brain damage. Unfortunately he’s still breathing by himself, so there’s no ventilator to switch off.’