End of Summer

by Anders de la Motte

  Månsson hadn’t envisaged that the locals would be interested in attending, so hadn’t instructed his staff to turn anyone away. So instead of looking out at two rows of seats occupied by reporters he was now standing in front of a packed hall, with people crowding outside the doors trying to hear what was being said. It must have been over thirty degrees in there, and even as he stepped up onto the little stage he could feel the first trickles of sweat run between his shoulder blades. The spotlights in the ceiling were shining in his eyes, making it hard to make out any faces beyond the first few rows. All he could see were clenched faces and tense features.

  He cleared his throat and looked down at his notes – stiff, official phrases he had practised saying in front of the mirror. A camera flash went off, followed by another. A man with a bulky television camera on his shoulder took a few steps forward.

  ‘As you all know, just over a week has passed since Billy Nilsson went missing.’ He paused for breath. Another flash went off. ‘And after a thorough and meticulous search we have now reached a point where further efforts of that nature can no longer be regarded as justifiable.’

  He hadn’t planned to pause for audience reaction, but found himself doing so anyway. A murmur ran through the room, and grew to a buzz.

  ‘I have therefore decided to call off the search,’ he added. ‘We will however be continuing with other lines of inquiry.’

  ‘Do you still think Billy might have got lost?’ someone in the front row called out.

  He tried to see who the man was, but more camera flashes blinded him.

  ‘Well . . . We’re keeping an open mind and aren’t ruling out any scenarios.’

  The murmur grew to a rumble of voices.

  ‘Do you think the boy was abducted?’ another reporter called.

  ‘As I said . . .’ Månsson felt his shirt sticking to his back. He held his hands up to quieten the voices in the audience. ‘As I said, we’re keeping an open—’

  ‘Do you have a suspect?’ someone interrupted. Månsson shaded his eyes, trying to see if the question had come from another reporter.

  ‘W-we . . .’

  ‘Of course there’s a suspect. The whole damn village knows who did it by now. The only question is why Tommy Rooth hasn’t been arrested.’

  Månsson recognised this voice at once. Harald Aronsson. Before he had time to respond the noise level increased further still, and more people started to shout out, agreeing with what Aronsson had said. Several of the journalists stood up and pushed closer to the stage to make themselves heard.

  He held his hands up again and asked in vain for everyone to sit down so he could answer their questions one at a time. No one seemed to listen. People were yelling at him from all sides. Questions mixed with confident statements.

  ‘So you have got a suspect?’

  ‘Bring the bastard in, Månsson!’

  ‘What hypotheses are you considering?’

  ‘Rooth’s a dodgy fucker! Always has been!’

  ‘Is this about money? Have there been any ransom demands?’

  ‘We daren’t let our kids out of our sight as long as he’s on the loose!’

  ‘Do you believe Billy’s still alive?’

  In the end Månsson realised that he’d lost control of the situation and decided to give up.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered to himself as he left the stage behind one of his sturdiest officers. ‘Fucking bloody hell!’

  Chapter 13

  S

  he isn’t a particularly good daughter. Nor a particularly good sister, either. She’s so unsure of Mattias’s home number that she has to dig her dog-eared old addressbook out of a drawer to check before she calls him.

  The year Billy disappeared and Mum died, she was fourteen, Mattias sixteen. They grew up in an area Mattias once called the Shadowland. She likes the expression, and has thought about it a lot. Only more recently has she come to realise that he must have heard it in a film.

  The Shadowland is vast, yet you hardly ever hear about it in the news except when something terrible happens. The rest of the time it’s hidden behind the names of stations swishing past outside the train windows, or exits on the motorway that you never take, all the half familiar places you pass on the way to somewhere else.

  Two types of people grew up in the Shadowland, according to Mattias. Those who leave, and those who stay. And the two of them would be leaving as soon as they possibly could.

  Mattias got into the Police Academy in Stockholm the year he turned eighteen, one of the youngest in the intake. He left her behind in that big house with Dad and the empty rooms for two slow years. She was angry with him for that. Even so, she used to long for the weekends when he came home. Longed for him to talk about the flat in Stockholm that they would share, the things they would do together. She counted the days, ticking them off on a calendar like a convict counting down her sentence.

  ‘HellothisisCeciliaNilsson!’

  The voice on the phone sounds like a happy exclamation. Cecilia is her sister-in-law. Mattias’s first and only girlfriend. Against all the odds, Cecilia managed to get their relationship to survive his move away. She was smart, didn’t make any demands, just offered him a bed and a warm embrace whenever he wanted. And Mattias was stupid enough to want it.

  When there were only five days left to cross off on the calendar, Veronica found herself standing on the steps outside the church throwing confetti over Mattias’s graduation uniform and Cecilia’s meringue wedding-dress. Shiny white fabric stretched over a slightly protruding pregnant stomach. Mattias had got a permanent job at the police station in the village, and Uncle Harald gave them a terrace house as a wedding present. The wedding photograph is somewhere towards the bottom of the box in the clothes cupboard, but she doesn’t need to get it out to know that Mattias’s expression is more or less the same as the one in the family photograph. Because Mattias is an obedient boy, and always does what is expected of him.

  A week later Veronica packed her suitcase and left everything behind. The Shadowland, Mum, Dad, Billy. And Mattias.

  ‘Hello, this is Veronica.’ The alcohol on her breath bounces off the phone.

  The silence that follows is several seconds too long.

  ‘Vera,’ she adds.

  ‘Of course, hi! I didn’t recognise your voice.’

  A lie, naturally. What her sister-in-law is actually saying, in her passive aggressive way, is that they no longer speak with the same accent. That’s part of the game, like forcing Veronica to introduce herself with a name she hasn’t used in over fifteen years.

  ‘Is Mattias there?’ she says before her sister-in-law has a chance to add any predictable remarks about her not being in touch for such a long time (true) and that the girls are missing their aunt (pure lie).

  Cecilia takes a deep breath, presumably annoyed at having been thwarted.

  ‘He’s working late. A big surveillance case with the police in the city. Franzén’s letting Mattias run most of it. He’s going to be leaving next year.’

  ‘Mattias?’ Veronica realises her mistake the moment she says it. Blames the stress hormones and alcohol swirling round her brain. Or possibly wishful thinking.

  ‘No, Franzén, of course! Early retirement.’ Cecilia lets out a laugh, pleased to have gained the upper hand again. ‘Mattias will be replacing him, the youngest local police chief in the whole province.’

  ‘That’s great,’ she murmurs. ‘You don’t know where I could get hold of Mattias? I need to speak to him, it’s pretty urgent.’

  ‘Have you tried his mobile? Perhaps you don’t have the number?’ Obviously Cecilia already knows the answer to that even before she asks. One-nil to the solid, dependable wife.

  Veronica has no choice but to bite into the rotten apple. ‘No, I’d be very grateful if you could let me have it.’

  *

  Mattias answers on the third ring. She’s surprised by how hard and grown-up he sounds. But his voice softens a
little when he hears that it’s her.

  ‘Vera, hi. I didn’t know you had this number.’ He sounds pleased to hear from her. A bit, anyway.

  ‘Cecilia gave it to me. Is now a bad time?’

  ‘Not really, we’re just on a stakeout. Don’t expect anything to happen before midnight. How are you doing? It’s been a while.’

  ‘Fine.’ She hears how false it sounds. So does he.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  She takes a deep breath and composes herself.

  ‘Do you remember Isak Sjölin?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Billy’s best friend . . .’ As usual, their younger brother’s name makes the crack in the ice open slightly, not just inside her.

  ‘Only vaguely. Why?’

  ‘I think I’ve met him.’

  ‘Where?’ The police tone is back in his voice.

  ‘Believe it or not, but he’s in one of my therapy groups. Grief counselling.’

  ‘And how do you know it’s this particular Isak Sjölin?’

  ‘I don’t. But considering what he’s said, I don’t know who else he could be.’

  A few seconds of silence follow. Mattias’s voice comes closer to the phone.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That he lost his best friend when he was little. That he just disappeared, and nothing was ever the same afterwards. He spoke about our garden, the hollow elm tree, the treehouse, the hayloft.’ She takes a sip from the wineglass to stop herself talking, and holds the receiver away from her so Mattias doesn’t hear her swallow.

  ‘Did he mention Billy? Did he say it was him?’

  ‘No, not directly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ His questions came quickly, giving her no time to reflect.

  ‘Another member of the group asked if he was talking about Billy, but Isak neither confirmed nor denied it.’

  ‘So you don’t know for certain?’

  ‘Don’t know what for certain?’ Her brain was being sluggish again.

  ‘If it was Isak Sjölin. And if he was actually talking about Billy?’

  She doesn’t answer. Her brother the policeman has remorselessly uncovered the weakness in the story. Not even the silent name she imagined she had seen on Isak’s lips can change that, which is why she doesn’t mention it. Suppositions aren’t evidence. Assumptions aren’t the same as facts.

  Rather than assert a dry police statement of fact, he asks another question. One that catches her by surprise. One that she hasn’t had time to think about.

  ‘Do you think he knew who you were?’

  She pauses, forces herself to think.

  ‘I don’t actually know. I mean, how could he? I’ve changed my name, and no one from home knows where I live and work.’

  Hardly even my own family, she adds to herself.

  Mattias murmurs something, and she knows what he’s thinking. Policemen never believe in coincidence.

  ‘What did he look like?’ he asks.

  ‘Blond, average height. Blue eyes.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Twenty-five or so, just like . . .’ She stops mid-sentence, and Mattias finishes it for her:

  ‘. . . Billy would have been.’

  They say nothing for several seconds. She hears him moving about, then the crackle of a police radio.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says. He sounds annoyed. As if he would rather have carried on talking. ‘The Sjölin family moved away a long time ago, but I’ll try to find out where they went.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The police radio crackles again at his end of the line. A car door opens, followed by a woman’s voice whispering.

  ‘I have to go now,’ he says. ‘Stay away from this Isak until I’ve found out who he is and what he’s after. He could be a reporter trying to worm his way in, or in the worst case some sort of nutter. It’s almost twenty years ago. Anniversaries always get people going.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good. Look after yourself, Vera. I’ll do some digging and call you as soon as I know anything. It’s good to hear from you.’

  The call ends abruptly, so she doesn’t have to think of an appropriate response.

  She puts the handset back on its base. Drains the last drops from the wineglass as she walks to the window. Her eyes are drawn to the spot where the smoker had stood. She can’t see the glow of a cigarette this time. Oddly enough, she can’t help feeling a little disappointed.

  Just as she is about to lower the blinds she sees something moving right below her window. She realises what it is before she has time to feel worried. An animal, padding softly through the darkness with its nose pressed to the ground.

  At first she thinks it’s a dog, but then it reaches the light of the streetlamp. It stops, looks up towards her window and tilts its head slightly, as if it’s looking right at her.

  A black nose, white chest, red fur.

  A fox.

  Chapter 14

  Summer 1983

  M

  ånsson didn’t get back to his house on Algatan until just after ten o’clock that evening. His talkative neighbour’s water sprinkler was on, and he thought he could hear someone moving behind the neatly trimmed conifer hedge next to the drive, so he hurried inside as quickly as he could.

  He had stayed at the police station until the main television news was over and the clip from the unfortunate press conference had been broadcast for the last time. The regional chief of police had called just a few minutes later, as Månsson had expected him to. He had made all the right noises, making it sound like he was sending a few detectives over just to help out. Månsson had thanked him for the initiative. Said he was looking forward to working with the regional detectives, and that any extra resources that could help solve the case were of course very welcome. But he knew what it was really about. They were taking Billy’s disappearance away from him. His case.

  Malin was waiting for him in the kitchen. She was making toasted sandwiches, which he realised she must have put in the oven the moment she heard the car. The smell of melted cheese, pineapple and ham made his stomach rumble, and he suddenly realised that he hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime. He sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs and took a sip from the glass of milk his wife had placed on his mat.

  ‘Are the boys asleep?’

  Malin nodded. ‘They wanted to wait up for you, but I said you’d probably be home late. Johan wants you to wake him up, he wants to tell you about the match.’

  ‘Of course . . . how did it go?’ In truth he had no idea what match they were talking about. He suspected that his wife knew that, but she played along.

  ‘Two-nil, he scored one of the goals.’

  ‘That’s great. And Jakob?’

  Malin pulled a face that was all too familiar. Månsson sighed.

  ‘Have they been getting at him again?’

  ‘He won’t say anything, just shuts himself away in his room.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Månsson took another sip of milk. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Probably the same gang as last time. The shopkeeper’s two boys, Patrik Brink and another one.’

  ‘Should I call the parents? Sören’s a sensible man, so is Olle Brink, most of the time.’

  ‘I don’t think that would help. Not right now, anyway.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Månsson mumbled.

  The children are merely repeating what they’ve heard their parents saying at the dinner table, he thought. That he and his colleagues are never going to find Billy. That he hadn’t had the guts to bring in the only plausible perpetrator. That he was actually frightened of Tommy Rooth.

  Månsson was perfectly aware of the source of all this. Brink and the shopkeeper both belonged to Harald Aronsson’s inner circle, and calling them to control their little brats would only diminish him still further in their eyes.

  Malin pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. ‘I saw you on the local news,’ she said in the same tone she used to c
onsole the boys when they were little. ‘How are you doing?’

  Månsson felt her hand on his arm and muttered something into the glass of milk. His first instinct was to say that it was nothing to worry about. That everything was under control and there was no need to her to be concerned about him. Malin would accept that and not ask any questions. Just tilt her head to one side in that slightly sad way she did when she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. So he spared them that and changed the subject.

  ‘The Nilsson family,’ he said. ‘Magdalena’s in a bad way, she’s not even getting out of bed now. The doctor’s there every day. And Ebbe looks like a ghost. As for the children, they . . .’

  He looked down again, turning his glass and watching the last drops of milk roll about the bottom. Malin squeezed his arm without saying a word.

  Månsson glanced at his wife. They had been together for almost twenty-five years, knew each other inside out. Malin’s face was a little fuller than when they first met, her body too. The lines at the corners of her mouth and between her eyebrows were more pronounced, and if you looked really closely you could see little flecks of grey in her hair. She looked more and more like her mother, which of course it would never occur to him to point out. He loved her more at that precise moment than he had ever done. The fact that she was sitting there, just holding his arm in silence.

  All of a sudden he was filled with a sense of immense gratitude. He and Malin were sitting there in the kitchen while Johan and Jakob were tucked up in their beds, safe and warm. He almost said as much to her, told her he felt ashamed, not of his efforts as chief of police and lead investigator, but because he felt relieved. Relieved it wasn’t his little boy who had been swallowed up that August night, plunging his family into darkness. But before he had time to say anything he was interrupted by the egg-timer on the cooker, announcing that his supper was ready.