Broken Mirrors (ARC)

by C S Duffy

  I recognised the phrase, though it took a moment or two for my brain to process it, during which time I’m fairly sure I stared at her with a look of vague terror. Finally I clicked: poor Lotta. I gave a sympathetic sigh.

  ‘This must be awful for her,’ I said with a brief smile. ‘Sorry, I understand some Swedish but no one seems to understand me if I try to speak.’

  The woman waved my apology away as she slammed the washing machine door. ‘I was an English teacher for thirty years,’ she smiled. ‘Then I taught all my grandchildren alongside Swedish so they were bilingual from the beginning. I think it is so important in our world today.’

  ‘I wish I’d learned another language as a small child,’ I said. ‘I know about seven words of French. It’s embarrassing really.’

  ‘It does not matter so much when you already speak English,’ she shrugged, filling another machine.

  ‘Have you been in touch with Lotta, since —? I mean, do you know how she is doing?’

  The woman frowned. 'Do you know her?'

  'No, not really. I've just been following on the news. I can't imagine how awful it must be for her hearing everything they are saying about her.'

  'Hopefully she has not heard any of it.'

  'Oh, did she — go away somewhere?'

  'I hope so.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Suspicion darted into the woman's eyes. 'What is your name?'

  'Ellie James. I am a journalist. I am writing a book about the murders and I would like to interview Lotta if I could, get her side of the story.'

  ‘Well that is impossible. She has been missing since the first night the police came.’

  18

  ‘I’ve got a book deal,’ I told Johan.

  We were sitting in a rickshaw fashioned into a table at one of my favourite restaurants in Johan’s neighbourhood, nibbling our starters of Thai scampi. Though we were on a side street in Stockholm with snow falling outside, inside there was sand on the floor and everywhere was strewn liberally with plastic flower vines and coconut shells. If I squinted, and tried really, really hard, I could almost pretend we were back in Thailand, in those first heady weeks of our relationship where the real world melted into a haze of lust and happiness. I reached over to stroke his cheek.

  ‘Ellie that is amazing.’ His face lit up. I searched his eyes but found nothing but happiness. He clinked his beer bottle against mine. ‘I am so pleased for you.’

  ‘What if I end up coming to the conclusion that I believe Mia to be the killer?’ I said quickly. I'd danced around this subject with him for long enough.

  'There is some evidence against Lotta Berglund, but what if it isn't enough? What if I find something else that incriminates Mia?'

  Johan went quiet for a moment, and the hubbub of the restaurant faded as little nerves stabbed along my spine.

  ‘Then you must write what you believe,’ he said quietly. ‘I trust your skills. You will discover the truth.’

  ‘Do you think the truth is that Mia is innocent?’

  He glanced away, suddenly focussing inordinately on dipping the last bit of scampi in chilli sauce. ‘Did you read that Lotta Berglund has taken off?’ he asked. I nodded.

  ‘She was last seen leaving her apartment minutes after the news broke about her ex’s accusation. Disappearing like that is not exactly the actions of an innocent woman, is it? If I were accused of something I would want to be questioned immediately to clear it up.’

  ‘It’s easy to say that when you’re sitting here not accused of anything,’ I pointed out. ‘I’d like to think I would too, but people don’t always do the sensible thing when they’re scared. An old police contact of mine in London once told me that it's the person who behaves impeccably in an interrogation he has his eye on. The ones that are willing to answer anything and remember every detail perfectly are more likely to have planned their answers. Normal people get flustered. If you're not expecting to be interviewed by the police, you forget stuff, get mixed up, or get angry or defensive for all sorts of reasons that don’t mean you're guilty of a crime.’

  ‘Okay,' he nodded, took a slug of his beer, 'so I could accept she panicked and ran the first night. But it has been two days now. She would have come to her senses and contacted a friend or family member by now.’

  I refrained from reminding him that Mia had been missing for over five months.

  We broke off as our main courses were delivered. I took my first bite and my mouth was instantly set on fire. I croaked pathetically and Johan chuckled and handed me my beer. He'd warned me against ordering a dish with three chillis next to it and I’d airily told him the spicier the better. He sensibly resisted reminding me of this.

  ‘The very first time I came here, I ordered a dish with three chillis on the menu,' he said as I gulped my beer and felt sweat break out along my hairline. 'It was almost twenty years ago. There was a big group of us from school, celebrating the end of exams or someone's birthday, I don't remember. All the boys were daring each other to order the hottest dish. Of course I accepted the challenge, then I ate maybe five mouthfuls with tears streaming down my face, sweat everywhere, just doing all I could not to start crying for my mother.' I giggled at his pained expression. 'This one guy whose name I can’t even think of now, but he was the star of the football team —’

  ‘The most popular guy in school?’ I asked, fluttering my eyelashes.

  ‘Yes, exactly,' Johan rolled his eyes. 'He bet me five hundred crowns that I could not finish the entire meal. I couldn’t even speak I was in so much pain, so I just nodded. Of course he shouted for everyone to watch and I honestly believed that I was about to die.

  'Then Mia ordered a glass of milk and pretended to knock it over so it went all over my plate. I didn’t even know that milk calms the effect of chillies until I started eating again, and none of the guys watching knew either, so I won the five hundred crowns.’

  The lights in the restaurant went out, plunging us into blackness for an instant, then flashed like lightning, followed by a sound effect of thunder. It was was a mad effect they did every hour or so, and it was always followed by a rumble of chuckles throughout the restaurant as people laughed at themselves for getting a fright. When the lights came properly back on, I just glimpsed the sadness in Johan's expression before he forced himself to smile again.

  ‘What did you spend your winnings on?’ I asked.

  ‘Albums,' he grinned. 'There is a record shop just around the corner that is open late at night. Krister and I went there and I bought Showbiz by Muse, Foo Fighters There is Nothing Left to Lose, Travis The Man Who… and one more.’ He scrunched up his nose as he thought. ‘Oh yes. Play by Moby.’

  ‘How very trendy,’ I grinned. I was toying with my meal, trying to nibble at the bits not drenched in the sauce of fire. ‘It was nice of Mia to help you out.’

  ‘Nice for a serial killer’

  There was a steely edge to his voice that made my stomach twist a little.

  'People are complicated,' I said. 'Even serial killers, I reckon. Whatever we eventually find out, it won't make your memories of your friendship and times you spent with her not true any more. They still happened.'

  Johan nodded. There was that little tightness to his jaw that always tugged at his guts. He took a bite and chewed with inordinate concentration. ‘I’m worried about Krister,’ he said. 'I have been for a while. He seems to be getting worse, not better. To begin with he was sad and shocked and hurt, but now he seems so empty. It's like his body still walks and talks but he is not present. I feel as though if he retreats into himself much more he might not come back.’

  Worry was etched in the little fine lines around his eyes. I reached over to squeeze his hand. Krister had to be okay, I thought. For Johan's sake if not his own.

  ‘I think it’s probably natural for it to get worse before it gets better,' I said, and Johan nodded though he still didn't quite meet my eyes. 'Emotional stuff is rarely linear. I bet that when he
seemed to be handling it well, it just hadn’t sunk in yet. It’s so much to get his head around.

  'Johan, I don't believe that we are going to discover she is completely innocent. I am beginning to accept that there is more to the story, but I heard her that day, I saw her hit you. I suspect deep down Krister knows it too.

  'But he'll still be feeling confusion over it all, reassessing everything he thought he knew about her. Guilt, probably, that he didn't know. Plus he has to grieve her. It's just like your memories of your friendship with her, maybe the woman he was in love with didn't really exist, but that doesn't mean the love wasn't real to him.’

  ‘You are very wise,’ Johan said with a brief smile.

  ‘I am. It's known throughout the land. Did something happen? Is there anything in particular that’s made you worried?’ I asked.

  I’m sure I imagined him hesitating before he shook his head.

  19

  It is perfect, my plan. It is like a piece of flawless machinery, impeccably designed to achieve precisely what it is meant to in a seamless flow. I can feel it inside me, fizzing and radiant with possibilities.

  I went to a watch factory once, on holiday in Switzerland as a child. There was a display which magnified the inner machinery of a fine watch to show how immaculately complex it was. The man behind the display noticed my interest and spoke to me. I couldn’t understand all he said; I could already read entire books in English but I was not familiar with his accent.

  I grasped, however, how this watch would never need to be wound or have batteries replaced because the workings were so exquisite they would last for infinity. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced. The perfection of it all.

  My plan contains some of the same wonder. The perfection is mitigated by the risk involved. That is inevitable. The machinery of my plan consists of people and people always bring the potential for mess and unexpectedness.

  But even the possibility of defeat means nothing to me because I have nothing left to lose. I am a husk, a broken shell, discarded and empty. If nothing has any meaning, then defeat has no meaning.

  I stare out over the sea. It’s a little windy today, the waves dance a deep, dark grey under the low sky. I don’t know how long I have been sitting here, though the numbness in my body suggests it has been some time.

  I am not cold, though. I am never cold any more. The glow of what is to come warms me from within.

  Because it is to come. There was no decision to make. As soon as the thought came it was inevitable.

  Now it is only a matter of time.

  20

  I woke with a start and lay for a moment, completely disorientated, trying to figure out what had woken me. I was in that foggy state of a deep sleep disturbed. The silence and stillness suggested was the dead of night.

  I blinked a few times as my eyes adjusted and the murky outlines of my weird empty little flat came into focus. My nose and ears were numb with cold, and a thick iciness had penetrated right through me, despite my heavy duvet. I sat up in confusion, fumbling for the bedside lamp as my teeth chattered.

  Had the heating gone off? The heating in the apartment building was communal, included in the monthly fee I paid to the residents association. If it had gone off I didn't even know how to go about getting it back on. There must be some kind of emergency contact, but I didn't have the first clue of how to find out.

  I reached over and grabbed a fleece jumper I’d conveniently dropped on the floor once upon a time, shivering so much I could hardly catch my breath. I remembered the documentary I'd once watched with my mum about an early South Pole expedition. One of the last photographs taken of the men showed them huddled together in a tent, icicles on their beards and eyebrows. I knew how they felt, I thought grimly, as I shuddered again, wondering what I should do about contacting the residents association at this time —

  Then I saw it.

  The blind shifted, just a tiny bit, as a breeze fluttered through the room.

  The window was open.

  It wasn't possible.

  I jumped as the wind blew again with more force, and a gust of snow scattered over the windowsill. I stared, frozen with horror, my heart pounding as though it might burst out my ribcage.

  My breath caught in my chest as I waited, half imagining a shadowy figure about to climb into my room, brandishing a syringe that would catch the light from the street lamps outside before —

  Oh for heaven’s sake, I told myself crossly. The flat was on the third bloody floor. Anyone about to come through that window would have to be Spiderman. There wasn’t even a balcony below the window.

  I shuddered as the unwelcome image popped into my head of a creature crouching at the edge of next door's balcony, its arms snaking two, three metres along the wall to catch hold of my bedroom window.

  The window had been locked tight all winter. I'd moved in to the flat in late November when it was already much too chilly to consider letting fresh air in. It was a modern window, double glazed. Even if someone had somehow reached it from the outside they wouldn't have been able to open it.

  Unless they opened it from the inside.

  Propelled by sheer terror I scrabbled from the air mattress, stumbling in my terror and smashing my knee against the hardwood floor. I slammed the window shut and pulled the lock tight. The room was still bitterly cold. I shivered in my pyjamas even with the fleece jumper on as I froze, listening intently for any noise, any movement.

  There was something.

  Chills of pure fear rippled through me as I strained my ears, wondering what in the hell I was going to do if it turned out to be —

  Someone snoring. My upstairs neighbour, whose snores reverberated around the building most nights. I rolled my eyes at myself, nearly laughed with relief as I heard him snort and fart as he rolled over.

  After our Thai dinner that evening, I'd gone back to Johan's and we had shared a bottle of wine as he poured out stories. We’d sat at the kitchen table and I held his hand in mine as he talked and talked and I felt closer to him than I had in a long time. The wild Midsummer Krister was arrested after hitching a lift on the back of a rubbish truck, naked. The time he and Liv argued over whose turn it was to mop the floor and she ended up dumping the bucket of dirty water on his head. The weekend Mia finally agreed to move in with Krister but refused to hire a moving van because it was just a few blocks, so they had trekked back and forth for hours carrying a box each at a time. Sometime on the Sunday afternoon, it had been discovered that a bottle of olive oil had broken and had been dripping all they way, so there was what appeared to be a permanent trail staining the pavement between the two apartments.

  'Well at least I will always find my way home if you annoy me,' Mia had laughed.

  I hadn’t stayed over though. It had been in the air, the possibility, but I’d had this gut feeling that he needed to be alone with his memories, so I left. When I got back to the flat I’d sat by the window a few minutes, staring out at the darkness, wondering if I’d done the right thing, or if I should get dressed again and go scampering over the snow to get to him.

  I must have opened the window then. I couldn’t remember doing so, but it was the obvious explanation. Between the beers at dinner and the wine after I'd been a bit foggy. I must opened the window then not shut it properly afterwards and sometime when I was asleep the wind had blown it open again.

  I’d nearly frozen myself to death because I was a drunken idiot who’d decided not to sleep with her boyfriend, I thought, rolling my eyes. Only I could risk bloody hypothermia inside my own bed. Now that the window was closed, the temperature had risen a few degrees, but it would be a while before it was comfortable enough to sleep.

  I yanked on my trusty giraffe onesie and some thick ski socks and made myself a cup of tea, then curled under the covers, feeling my insides slowly thaw out as I sipped. I’d left the blinds open, and when I turned the lamp off a smattering of stars pierced the dark purple sky.

 
You never saw stars that bright in London, I thought, and a wave of homesickness washed over me. I felt a sudden yearning for light pollution and filthy streets and comforting telly and supermarkets that made sense and people who asked strangers if they were alright. A world where I had half a dozen people to text when I needed a partner in crime for a cheeky after work wine on any given evening. Where I didn’t know any serial killers and I slung men out the minute they’d caught their breath. Life was so much simpler when I waved them off with a cheery lovely to have met you, thanks for all the shagging. Bye now, don’t forget your pants. Tube station's that way.

  I heaved a miserable sigh and watched my breath cloud the icy air. What on earth was I doing in this strange, freezing, dark country with its rules I still hadn’t fully grasped almost a year on, its murderers and its Johans? I loved him with a force that took my breath away, but I didn’t know how to be with him through this. It was too big, too bizarre, too much. I always got it wrong. I gave him space when he needed me, crowded him when he couldn’t take it.

  My tea had gone cold but the rest of me was almost defrosted. I was wide awake though, so I reached for my laptop and waited the inevitable age for it to clank to life. It crossed my mind I should probably have taken Ola Andersson's advice and cleared some memory, and my lip curled as I remembered his patronising smile.

  Then I remembered his ski jacket, and something pinged in my brain.

  I opened up my Notes app, where I had made a list of all the victims.

  Karin Söderström, 15. Exposure following asthma attack. Sälen.

  Sven Olafsson, 49. Died of an asthma attack in Tantolunden Park