The people in Rashid’s apartment didn’t know anything. They’d looked at him as if he were the one who wanted to buy a human being. But then someone dropped by, one of the same guys who got them the job at Azad’s grill. And after two glasses of vodka, they started discussing Rashid’s question.
“What did you find out?”
“There’s this guy, M.B. They don’t like him, you can tell by their expressions.”
M.B. Kouplan writes this down.
“Just M.B.?”
“He works with girls, trafficking all over Northern Europe, they say. If anyone thought grabbing a child off the street would be a good idea, it’d be him. But that wasn’t all.”
Kouplan writes. Northern Europe. Girls.
“They were talking about the girl. All the others were women, but one was the girl.”
Kouplan shudders, even though he knows hearing this kind of thing will be part of his job. Even though this girl could be anyone, even though he’s working. Rashid knows nothing more about this M.B., just that he has a big nose and likes his whiskey. For some reason, the whiskey drinking was supposed to be funny.
“I’m not sure I know why. Maybe because they stick to beer, Azad and the others. I don’t know.”
“Thanks, Rashid.”
“No problem … Kouplan.”
* * *
The police car is still in the street. You have to be rational and logical to keep from thinking that they are waiting for you.
Kouplan goes back to his computer and types in M B, in order to start somewhere. He gets megabytes of hits on Mercedes-Benz. M and B are common initials, perhaps the most common in Sweden, and a search on Eniro brings him nothing.
Perhaps M.B. means nothing more than that the man owns a Mercedes-Benz. He also finds hits on the Medical Library as well as a song by Orup. When the song starts buzzing around in his brain, he goes into the kitchen and makes a pack of noodles.
Line of Inquiry 1. Someone needs a child. M.B.? Buys and sells women, “the girl”? Plan: track down an “M.B.” in Rashid’s contact network. Ask around the Globe arena about a man with a big nose.
Line of Inquiry 2. Father (Patrick). No traces of a child in the home. Can be psycho and be hiding child in basement. Probably not. Plan: Call as if part of a survey and ask if he has a child (best not from cell phone or home phone).
Line of Inquiry 3. Pernilla. Is there something she hasn’t said? Why doesn’t she want the police involved? Plan: Ask about Julia and their life together. Ask why she’s avoiding the police.
Line of Inquiry 4. Someone else in Julia’s circle of acquaintances. Map out her circle, see Line 3. Plan: Talk to the employees at the li-
He hardly has time to react as the children burst through the door and into the apartment they share. Regina is on the threshold.
“Hello, Kouplan!”
Kouplan quickly shuts his notebook and smiles apologetically at Regina and tries to smile in a child-friendly way to the kids.
“Just done with my lunch and been sitting around.”
Regina laughs. She has a broad mouth.
“I’ve told you, you’re free to be in here.”
Kouplan keeps the ends of his mouth turned up, wonders if he can ever look as hearty as Regina. He nods toward the window.
“Something going on?”
“What … oh, the police car. No, I have no idea.”
“It’s been there since six thirty.”
“My, that’s a long time.… Liam! Be nice to Ida, please!”
A screech comes from the living room and Regina hurries away. Liam is apparently not being nice to Ida. Kouplan ought to go back to his room, but stands in the doorway.
“She took it!” Liam is insisting in a loud voice.
Liam is five or six years old. He’s just tall enough to look over the kitchen table. He argues volubly with his sister. He drops crumbs on the floor when he eats sandwiches, and has a way of explaining why the candy is missing from the box, and right now he’s screaming as if the sky is falling. When he sees Kouplan, he shuts up immediately. His sister grabs the tractor they’d been fighting about and Liam stares at Kouplan with sky-blue eyes.
Kouplan wants to ask him: If someone came and took you, how would you react? That would be idiotic, to ask him a question like that in front of his mother. No matter how he tried to ask it, she would notice how strange it was and start paying more attention to him and keep him in her memory more than she needs to.
Kouplan’s brother suddenly laughs: Keep you in her memory? Are you kidding? You already live in her apartment—she’s not going to forget who you are!
Liam’s wide eyes are staring at him.
“Did you see the police car?” asks Kouplan, in order to say something.
Liam smiles in the exact same way Regina had.
“When I’m big, I’ll be a policeman!”
Kouplan hides a shudder. Well, it’ll take at least fifteen years until Liam is able to put on a police uniform and by then all of this will be solved. It will all be solved by then, right?
* * *
How long can someone stay hidden?
He types the search into his computer, even though his brother’s voice tells him to stop shrinking.
There’s no good answer.
The search engine thinks he means, how long can chlamydia stay hidden in the body?
Someone on Flashback has wondered how you find a hidden person and is informed that the Tax Authority has a list of everyone living in Sweden. Now that’s a modified truth.
The police car finally starts to roll away, slowly and steadily like a crocodile.
The prey exhales without a sound.
CHAPTER 10
When Julia was four years old, we went to the seashore. We took the bus to the stop by the swimming area and then walked past it. I walked slowly while Julia ran and jumped. She would jump over the roots of the pine trees, exposed through erosion and as thick as her arms. She stopped all at once to gape at a beetle. She leaned over it and then jumped back as it opened its coal-black wings and flew off. When I started laughing, she first imitated me and then she laughed whole-heartedly. The edge of the forest smelled like midsummer flowers.
“We haven’t been to this forest,” she said.
She would ask questions in the form of statements.
“It’s not a real forest,” I replied. “You can call it a grove. We’ve been here before. Once. When you were a baby.”
“When I was in your tummy.”
I laughed again. She laughed, too, without knowing why.
“No, after you were born. You were so little, I had to carry you everywhere.”
The sunshine streamed through the branches of the pine trees and we walked a few more yards and the sun poured down. I shut my eyes to it and drew in the scent of the midsummer flowers and listened to the water, the wind, Julia’s contented prattle. A bird twittered somewhere between heaven and earth, perhaps a blackbird. The birdsong landed inside me so softly and brought the world into here and now. Sun. Blackbird. Wind. How much time went by before I noticed that Julia had stopped talking. The bird started singing again and the silence hit me. I opened my eyes and could not see my child.
“Julia?”
The fight to call out softly versus scream at the top of my lungs … I had learned not to scream, so I hissed.
“Julia? Julia, where are you? Julia, come out, this isn’t funny anymore.”
* * *
I found her by the reeds. A swan was nearby, weighing about twenty pounds.
They stood, looking at each other. Julia had curious eyes and the swan was looking the way swans look. You don’t play with those birds.
“Julia!”
Julia jumped back. The swan took a step toward her with its black, squelching foot.
In two seconds, I was there and swept Julia up into my arms and far away from the swan’s pearl eyes. My heart was beating against Julia’s back, and she probably felt it. She sniffed and I
turned her toward me and smiled calmly to make her feel safe and finally she smiled, too.
“That was a really big bird,” she stated. “Were you afraid it would take me away?”
I stroked her cheek and the sun continued to beam down on us.
“Yes, I was a little afraid.”
“If it grabbed me,” Julia said, “I would do what we practiced.”
The swan was already swimming out into open water. It was beautiful from a distance. My heart had calmed down and I squatted in front of Julia.
“Show me!”
Someone not me would have thought she was having an epileptic attack.
“Let meee goooo!” she screamed and kicked into the air. She giggled and then screamed again. “I am Pernilla’s child! Not this bird’s! Take me to … where was that place?”
“Sofia Church.”
“Take me to Sofia Church!”
* * *
She always forgot that her safe place was Sofia Church.
CHAPTER 11
He’d found out something else. Because the police car had been occupying the space in front of his apartment building all morning long, he was forced to spend his time on Internet searches.
There was something urgent he needed to figure out, and Kouplan had to approach the issue from the right direction. He’s thinking so hard about it that he forgets to look around at the turnstiles, but all goes well anyway. That’s dangerous—it means sooner or later he’ll stop being vigilant.
He decides he’s going to go to the Globe Arena but then the phone rings and it’s Pernilla.
“Maybe she’s at Sofia Church!” she says excitedly. “We always agreed that we would meet there if we got separated.”
Kouplan nods, saying: “We’ll meet there right away.”
He’s thinking deeply about this as he transfers to the red line. He’s thinking about what he’s found out and what he can say to Pernilla. If the girl turns out to be at Sofia Church, he won’t have to say anything at all.
* * *
Janus sees him first. The dog is ridiculously happy to see him and when Kouplan bends down to receive a few slobbering dog kisses, he feels safe. A man greeting a blond woman’s excited dog—what can be less suspicious than that?
Pernilla hugs him unexpectedly. She has never hugged him before, even when he’d left her apartment. His body reacts instantly, the hug catches in his throat and he can’t say a word. His body is reminding him, as naïve and open as bodies can be: a hug feels good. By then, she’s already let go.
“We always told each other that we would meet here,” she says. “I don’t know if Julia remembered it. And it’s locked.”
She’s saying this as Kouplan is studying the church doors. They are big and heavy and might be hiding a child behind them.
“Have you checked the windows?”
Most of the enormous windows of the church are high over their heads. Two are within reach if you stand on one of the backs of the benches.
* * *
“Sit on the bench!” Kouplan tells her, but she doesn’t want to sit—she wants to see as much as possible: Julia safe within the warmth, being taken care of by the kind people of the church.
Still, if she were to stand with him, the bench would fall over.
So she sits down and stretches her neck in an impossible attempt to see through the window, while Kouplan is balancing on the back, holding onto the wall and lifting himself up.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
He tries to pull himself farther up and is standing on his toes on the back, and if he falls, she won’t be able to catch him. The only thing she can do is to sit as still as possible on the bench and watch Kouplan’s feet nervously. She sees that the soles of his shoes have holes.
“Nothing,” he says again. He taps at the window. “It’s completely dea … empty inside.”
She hears that he almost said dead and his consideration for her feelings makes her want to cry. Kouplan’s feet in their worn shoes jump down from the bench and he sighs and catches her eye.
“I think I’ll walk around the church and see what I can see. You can stay sitting here if you want.”
The words make her dizzy, the way words have ever since Julia went missing. If I want to. What does want even mean? Especially if I only want one thing and it’s not sitting on a bench?
Kouplan doesn’t leave.
“How are you holding up?” he asks, holding out his hand in a meaningless gesture.
She draws in a deep breath so that she doesn’t die. Looks as far away into the heavens as she can. What does this mean, how am I holding up?
“Let’s take a walk together around the church,” she says, as she forces her body to feel lighter than lead. “But she’s not here.”
* * *
She’s not here. Kouplan feels it because Pernilla feels it, but he takes her for a walk around the church anyway. Her nose is red and he knows it’s not the chill.
“Do you often come here together?” he asks and is careful to put his question in the present tense.
“Not lately, but we were here often when Julia was younger. It was the only place where we…”
She falls silent and he looks at her. Like one frightened deer to another. What has she been part of?
“What…” he begins and then changes his question. “How did they help you here?”
Pernilla’s eyes flutter and she is looking over the brick walls and up into the ice blue heavens.
“There was a priest here. I don’t know if it’s the same priest. He was … well … good. I’m a little sensitive.”
She turns toward him as she says that last word. Her face is more open than he’s seen before.
“I’m sensitive to certain things. And there are some people who just accept you for who you are.”
What things? He wants to ask. What made you so sensitive?
Instead he asks, “What was the priest’s name?”
“Thor. I don’t know his last name.”
Kouplan writes this name into his brain. It’s easy to remember. Thor, the Norse god of war.
“Do you go to church?” asks Pernilla.
“Never.”
“You’re not religious?”
“Not at all.”
“But you don’t eat pork.”
“No, I don’t.”
* * *
He comes with her to her apartment. It seems more important than going to the Globe Arena and meeting more questioning eyes and negative responses. There are a few things he needs to know about Pernilla and these are the kinds of questions you just can’t ask in the middle of the street.
“Aren’t you going to keep searching for Julia?” asks Pernilla.
She’s putting her key into the lock.
“I’m doing it right now.”
He can’t tell her that her odd behavior is hampering his investigation. If only she wouldn’t be as closed up as an oyster.
“I have three lines of inquiry,” he says instead. “I need some more information from you before I can go further in the investigation.”
“What kind of information?”
“Let’s sit down first.”
* * *
A real detective would open his laptop. Kouplan opens his light blue notebook from his class in Swedish as a Second Language.
“One line of inquiry is Patrick. But I don’t think he’s involved.”
Pernilla shakes her head.
“No, he’s not.”
“I’m going to follow up, just to be sure. Make a few calls. Anyway … the next line of inquiry is a rumor of a guy who trades in people. I’m going to go back to the Globe Arena and check if anyone has seen him.”
Pernilla is staring at him.
“What if he’s the one?”
He sees the fear in her eyes and remembers the disgust in Rashid’s voice when he mentioned M.B. He puts conviction and warmth into his voice.
“If he’s involved, Julia
is alive.”
“Why would he take her?”
Kouplan puts his hand on his warm coffee cup. Yes, why her? And why did he end up in this exact apartment, in this exact country, in this exact body, sitting across from this exact woman?
“These things happen sometimes,” he replies. “And then, I have one last line of inquiry: People who knew Julia.”
“Yes, I’m trying to remember if there was anyone in particular…”
“I’m going to the library tomorrow morning as I think they’re closed now. And I’ll also follow up on Thor.”
“On Thor?”
“You told me he helped you and Julia. So he must have liked her.”
She nods in a way that neither confirms nor denies what he says.
“Of course, but why would he be the one who took her?”
“Maybe she came to the church as you agreed. And he took her in, especially if he didn’t know where you lived? Or maybe he contacted the police?”
She stiffens, her coffee cup in her hand. A wave shimmers over the dark brown surface.
“No, he wouldn’t. He’d take care of her until I would come for her. Yes, that’s exactly what he would do.”
She’s nodding at her own words as she looks into his eyes. He can see that she has hope that Julia is safe and sound at Thor the priest’s place. But Kouplan has met all too many priests to feel the same way.
“So those are the lines of inquiry,” he says. “I’m going to go home and get something to eat and then I’ll finish up with Patrick, just to rule him out.”
“Okay.”
“First, however, I need you to answer an extremely important question.”
It’s been the question on his mind since that morning. Ever since he’d been searching on the web to find numerous men with the initials M.B. That led him to the Tax Authority.
He puts down his coffee cup and looks right at Pernilla.
“Why isn’t Julia Svensson registered with the Tax Authority?”
The Truth Behind the Lie Page 5