by C S Duffy
Johan got up, toyed with his phone as he waited for the coffee machine to heat up. Should he text Ellie or give her some space? Mia said she was distraught about him and Liv. The thought tore at him, ragged nails scratching at his heart. He would leave it for now. Wait until she came home to get her things.
Liv stayed with him for years afer their relationship had run its course because she was afraid he wouldn’t manage on his own. He could still remember the sting of mortification that prickled over him when she admitted that, a year after their split. He’d wanted to turn himself inside out with shame. Instead he’d gone out that night and come home with Sanna.
Sanna was beautiful, charming, interesting when she felt like it, but they were never suited. They weren’t supposed to be. It had amused her to slum it from her usual actors, musicians, start up millionaires for a summer and being with her helped him persuade Liv that he was just fine and she could get on with her life.
It had been fun, to begin with, but as the bickering increased Johan felt himself start to crumble. Even once he realised that Sanna enjoyed those arguments, that she would say cutting things just to wind him up for fun, it still frightened him.
By September, he was craving the weekend at Krister’s cottage. Just to be with his friends, to relax and breathe, and prepare for the conversation that was waiting for him back in Stockholm. Then she showed up at Sturekajen as he and Liv boarded the ferry on the Friday evening. Hej hej! Surprise! He’d stared at her coldly then got on the ferry and sat by himself, freezing on the top deck.
Liv came up the stairs just as they pulled out of Vaxholm, demanded to know why the hell he was being such an asshole. He’d tried to explain that he and Sanna had specifically agreed she would stay home for the weekend, that they would give each other a break and talk the following week. Liv snapped that Sanna was there now, so he had to pull himself together and stop being such a child. He had meekly gone down and apologised, but he was still angry. Why did she have to come when she knew they would only fight?
He hadn’t even absorbed the horror of her death when Krister broke it to him that a newspaper had accused him of her murder. Krister had begged Johan not to read it, not to read any of it, advising him to keep his head down, ignore it all and wait for the storm to blow over. Krister knew a bit about dealing with media storms from his job working with controversial drugs, so Johan took his advice and hid from the world for weeks and weeks.
He’d lied to Ellie about that. It wasn’t that his old friends looked at him with suspicion in their eyes. It was that he was afraid to look at them in case he saw it.
When Ellie tripped over him on the beach that night, it was like a fresh start. There were no question marks in her eyes when she looked at him. No sympathy about his father, no pity that Liv thought she had to sacrifice herself for him. No frown, no dart of nerves, no faltering smile as though she knew that Sanna Johansson dumped him hours before her death, and so had Karin Söderstrom.
39
I never would have predicted you becoming one of them. I’ve never killed anyone I knew before, unless you count Karin but I didn’t really know her. There wasn’t anything of her to know. She was a wisp, a ghost, a shadow of a person, like a seedling that sprouts the tiniest shoot then simply shrivels up for no reason.
That’s what they all are. Weak. Pathetic. Inadequate. Helping them to shrivel is my gift to them, to those around them, to the world at large. I should be celebrated, thanked, lauded. Awarded prizes and grants and respect for having the strength to allow natural selection to flourish. It is the medical establishment, the government, the social services who are cruelly contemptible, destroying the human race by allowing the feeble to thrive as parasites.
You hid your weakness well. I give you full credit for that. You almost fooled even me.
Sanna Johansson, the Queen of the Night. Full of fun and laughter and adventure, followed by a trail of gossip wherever she went. Modelling contracts, famous boyfriends, offers for a residency at a Los Angeles club. But that’s all it was, wasn’t it? Whispers. A mirage, masking the scared little girl who had to pop pills just to leave her house and face the world every day.
When you confessed your true self, I nearly laughed. I’d already felt the urge around you many times, but I have standards. I don’t kill just because I don’t like someone; that would make me pathetic. I had worried, even, that the urge was getting stronger, more indiscriminate. That I was finally turning into the monster I had always feared I was.
But I should have trusted myself. I should have known that my instincts are never wrong. You were one of my special people all along. It hardly took any persuasion to talk you into coming to the cottage that weekend with us after all. ‘He really wants you there. He won’t admit it — you know what he’s like — but I know how much you mean to him.’
You lapped it up like the pathetic narcissist you were.
This is how I know I am developing. From the messy terror of Karin to the exquisitely timed certainty of you, I’ve learned and improved and honed and refined. The tragedy is that it’s unlikely anyone will ever know.
People’s minds are too narrow to ever put aside the absurdities we teach our children and appreciate the reality of life. I blame education. It is ridiculous to teach children Darwin in one lesson, then in the very next period claim them the very opposite in Ethics or whatever nonsense they are calling it these days.
We are so proud of being so liberal, so accepting, it’s disgusting. The most tolerant country in the world? I alone expose the lie of that.
Gustav was a mistake. I fully admit it.
It was just the way he was sobbing like a child, I couldn’t stand it.
All the same, it was impulsive, hasty, ill considered.
It was unworthy of me.
It was her fault.
As a rule, I do not believe in blaming others for my failings. That is a sign of weakness. But she is a special case.
She is a true adversary.
And very soon, she will know it.
If she doesn’t already.
40
‘So you’re the famous Johan.’
Ellie’s friend Maddie gave Johan the kind of cool, even gaze that normally made him squirm, but he barely registered it now. Ellie hadn’t answered her phone in over a day, nor had she shown up to pick up a change of clothes or her toothbrush. His messages to her were undelivered. After another sleepless night, he remembered Ellie mentioning the regular coffee morning at Café String, so he had called in sick and waited for Maddie outside.
‘Have you been in touch with Ellie?’ he demanded.
‘See you next time Maddie!’ The rest of the newcomers coffee group filed out of the cafe. Maddie gave them a distracted wave as she stared at Johan with troubled eyes.
‘Since when?’
‘Since Tuesday night.’
‘Nearly two days? She hasn’t been home in all that time?’
‘I hoped she was staying with you. My friend Mia said she was planning to go back to London but she has not packed or taken any of her things.’
‘Did she have it out with you about not telling her about you and Liv?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen her since she found out. But she met Mia and they talked. Mia said Ellie was too upset to talk to me yet, and that she would stay with a friend. I thought that would be you. I was waiting until she got home to try to —’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. Beg her to understand.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ Maddie said with a sad smile.
‘I know.’
Maddie frowned. ‘Let me try calling her. She might answer if it’s me.’
Johan felt his stomach twist with nerves as Maddie put the phone to her ear and frowned. Please let her answer. Even if it meant she was avoiding him, at least he would know she was okay. Maddie shook her head. ‘Straight to voicemail. Her phone is off or out of service.’
‘It’s been like that for almost a day and a half.’<
br />
‘Ellie didn’t reply to my texts yesterday, but I just figured she’d got caught up in stuff.’ Maddie opened up her message app, her eyes worried. ‘They’ve not been delivered. I don’t think she would have got on a plane without saying anything to me. And even if she did, it’s only a couple of hours to London, she’d be back in service by now. You don’t have one of those stalk-your-partner apps, do you?’
‘What?’
‘You know, the ones where you can see where your friends’ phones are, but everyone knows they’re really to keep tabs on your other half?’
Johan shook his head.
‘Let me ring Lena, she might have some ideas, or know whether we should call the police yet. Hold on.’
Maddie stepped away. Johan leaned against one of the tables outside the café. Despite the storm the night before, the clouds were still low and heavy, brooding over the city, making the mid morning feel like dusk. The hollow feeling was growing inside Johan’s chest.
Sanna. Karin.
Ellie.
No. Not Ellie. Please not Ellie, he begged silently.
He felt a numb panic gnawing at him. He should be frantic. He was frantic, inside. He should be shouting and yelling, finding her, saving her. But he felt frozen. It was like the time when he was little, and had been kicking a ball around Mariatorget when it rolled into the main road and he ran after it. He heard the urgent blast of the car horn echo in his ears as though from far away, but he couldn’t move.
Could only watch, trapped, terror sliding through his veins like acid as the blue car came closer and closer, filling his vision. This is what happened to Daddy. This is what happened to Daddy. Then the man who ran the ice cream stand yanked his arm and he was back on the pavement and the man was shouting at his mother and she was screaming, holding him close, and the blue car kept going.
‘Lena says we should go to the police,’ Maddie said, and Johan nodded. ‘She said we should go there in person, ask to speak to the team that interviewed Ellie last week. She’s texting me their names.’
‘Who — what? The police interviewed her last week?’
Johan stared at Maddie in shock, chills scuttling down his spine.
Maddie shook her head. ‘Oh Ellie, for fuck’s sake. Come on. I’ll fill you in on the way.’
41
A man had been killed after arguing with Ellie. Some guy who used to date Sanna — what on earth had Ellie been talking to him about? Gustav someone or other. The name rang a vague bell. Sanna had talked about him. She’d said something about him bothering her, but she had assured Johan it was under control.
Someone killed that guy? When Ellie was nearby? Because of Sanna? Johan’s head was spinning.
Maddie had got on the T-bana at Mariatorget, reminding him again of his promise to contact her the instant he heard anything. ‘And I’ll call you right away if I do,’ she added, biting her lip. ‘Lena might be able to ask around her police contacts a bit, get the inside track. I don’t know. She’ll be alright.’
Johan nodded. The numb, hollow feeling was pressing on his lungs, his windpipe. His girlfriend was missing, he was supposed to be sad. Just try not to be sad.
‘I don’t think they’re worried about her,’ Maddie added. ‘That’s my gut feeling. They were interested, but they weren’t concerned. I reckon they think she’s hiding out somewhere, taking a break from everything, just getting her head together.’
‘Where would she be? She doesn’t know anyone in Sweden except me and you.’
Maddie rubbed his arm. ‘I think it if we’ve learned anything today, it’s that Ellie’s been up to a lot more than either of us knew. Who knows who else she knows. She’s a smart girl. She knows how to take care of herself.’
But her forced smile told him she didn’t believe it any more than he did. ‘I’ll ring soon, okay?’ She gave him a quick hug and disappeared into the station, leaving Johan alone.
He should go home. Ellie could be there, waiting for him, munching on cereal because she couldn’t be bothered waiting for dinner. He checked his phone again, but there was nothing, of course. His messages to her were still undelivered. She was still gone.
He couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in the flat without her. He needed to take action, to do something, anything, to find her, to make sure she was safe. He just didn’t know what. He’d tried ringing Krister earlier but he hadn’t answered, and neither had Mia. Mia had a big event on that night, and Krister would probably be locked away in the lab, working for hours, forgetting even to eat.
Once, at uni, Krister had collapsed from dehydration after working without so much as a sip of water for a full day during a heat wave. He had told them all that evening, with a bizarre pride, as though damaging himself was a badge of honour. Johan, almost qualified as a nurse, had started to lecture him, and Liv had laughed and called him an idiot, but Mia had been angry.
When Johan and Liv left Krister’s student room that night and were walking hand-in-hand back to the T-bana, Liv had turned to Johan, her eyes shining. Mia was in to Krister — it was so obvious!
It was going to be so perfect. Four best friends, all in love. Johan had shaken his head, said he thought four best friends in love was a bit weird if anything. Liv laughed and called him an old cynic.
It didn’t quite work out like that in any case, Johan thought. He and Liv had only had a couple of good years left in them at that point, and though Krister had never said outright, Johan often suspected that all wasn’t entirely well between him and Mia. Once, months ago now, before Ellie arrived, they’d all been having dinner at a Thai place near Skantstull. Liv had been held up at work, and when Johan got there, Krister and Mia were already at the table. They didn’t see him, and Johan had hesitated by the door a moment, unsure as to what he was looking at.
They were sitting, side by side, staring into space, in silence. As though they were unaware of one another’s presence. As though they were robots put on pause.
Seconds later, Liv arrived in a flurry of apologies and complaints about her boss. Mia had jumped up to greet them both and Johan decided it couldn’t have been as odd as it looked. Krister and Mia lived together, worked together some of the time. They’d probably just run out of things to say.
Johan found himself outside Liv’s apartment building before he realised. He hadn’t rung her that morning when he rang Krister and Mia. He had started to, automatically reaching out to Liv for comfort and advice like he always did, but then he had remembered Mia describing Ellie’s distress.
Things were long over with Liv, if they’d ever really existed. They’d been kids. Best friends playing at being in love without really knowing what it meant, then best friends who loved each other deeply but had no idea how to be adults together. Now, finally, they were just best friends and it was perfect.
But Ellie didn’t see it that way. How could she, when she didn’t know any of it? The thought of her feeling hurt and threatened and as though he didn’t love her tore Johan up inside. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. He’d thought he was protecting Ellie by waiting until the right moment to tell her everything, but all he’d done was upset her.
Johan punched in the code for Liv’s building and took the stairs two at a time.
‘Liv!’ he bellowed at her front door. She hadn’t answered when he rang the doorbell, but that wasn't unusual, she normally ignored it if she wasn’t expecting anyone. Unexpected calls turned out often than not to be neighbours on the residents’ association board trying to drum up support for some hostile coup or other.
‘Are you home?’ Johan yelled.
Liv’s flat was in silence, the hallway unusually shadowy. She must have closed her living room blinds, Johan thought in surprise. That wasn’t like her.
She mustn’t be home. If she was there, there would be music on, or TV, or probably both. When they lived together, the constant background noise had driven Johan bonkers.
He stepped back into the hallway and was about
to lock the door behind him when he stopped. Liv should be home by now. She was an early bird, at the gym by 6am, office by 7:30, because she loved nothing more than long evenings relaxing at home, or with friends. He looked at his watch. Quarter to six. He knew Liv. He couldn’t think of a single occasion on which Liv hadn’t been home at a quarter to six.
His heart beginning to thud, a strange, echoing sound in his ears, Johan opened the door again, stepped into her dimly lit hallway. He closed it carefully behind him, feeling a strange impulse to protect Liv from preying eyes. She might be ill. She could have picked up a summer cold, or a migraine. She might be in such a deep sleep she hadn’t heard his shout.
Not bothering to take his shoes off, Johan walked slowly down the long hallway. Liv’s bedroom door was open. Her bed was neatly made as usual, no sign of her there. The kitchen was empty. He finally made it to the living room and paused, his blood roaring in his ears as his brain tried to register and reject the sight.
She was asleep. She was asleep, she was asleep. His mind frantically, urgently, pleaded with him even as he felt a howl building in his chest. She was lying face down on the floor, her knees bent at an awkward angle under her, almost as though she had been looking for something under the sofa and had just stopped.
Nej, nej nej, Liv — snälla —
Johan wasn’t sure whether he moaned the words out loud as he sank to his knees. His whole body shook as he leaned forward and gently brushed Liv’s hair back from her face. Her eyes were wide and staring. The scream that ricocheted around the room was his.
42
Someone must have handed Johan a cup of coffee at some point because he now held one in his hands. He was sitting on the stairs opposite Liv’s front door, watching police swarm in and out of her flat. Radios crackled static, detectives conferred in low voices, and from deep inside the flat flashbulbs went off as every inch of Liv’s home was photographed and dusted, analysed and swept for fibres.
