Playdate

by Alex Dahl

  She hurries through the empty rows and he walks towards her, removing the headphones from his ears.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Glad I caught you. The police have just announced an extraordinary press conference. In fifteen minutes, at the Plaza. Blix case.’

  Selma’s heart begins to pound hard in her chest and for a moment she feels woozy and untethered. She tries to bring herself back to the moment, and to her boss standing in front of her.

  ‘Have… have they found her?’ If it was good news, wouldn’t his expression be elated and overjoyed? For two weeks now the entire country has held its breath and prayed for the child. But… his face. Another vision worms its way into Selma’s consciousness, and this time, too, it’s as clear and harsh as a slap in the face. The girl, bludgeoned and still, eyes open and unseeing, half-wrapped in a stiff blue tarpaulin and left in a ditch off a dirt track, deep in a pine forest…

  ‘No,’ she whispers, just as Olav says, ‘My police contact wouldn’t say. Just that they have found a body. In Sweden.’

  ‘No,’ she says again. And then, ‘Jesus.’

  ‘We need to hurry,’ says Olav.

  They don’t speak in the taxi, and it takes less than five minutes to get to the Plaza Hotel behind the central station. Selma leans her head against the window, her whole body tense and pumping with adrenaline. The poor, poor girl. She uses all her energy to stave off the images of the murdered child, and the effort leaves her trembling. Olav shoots her a worried glance as they pull up in front of the tall building, and then they are out of the car and hurrying through the Plaza’s lobby to the press room at the far end of the ground floor. When they step inside, it’s already crowded, even though it is almost 10 p.m. and the press conference was announced less than an hour ago.

  The police chief, Hans Gundersen, steps onto the podium. He is unreadable and serious, and a stubborn blonde curl sticks up from the side of his head even though he has clearly tried to smooth it down with thick wax. A light grey stubble shadows his jaw and he blinks several times in the bright lights of the auditorium.

  ‘We have called this press conference to address a major new breakthrough in the Lucia Blix abduction case. A body has been found.’

  The room explodes into a cacophony of sound, a kind of collective, anguished groan. They’re all seeing her now, imagines Selma, dead and discarded, aged seven.

  ‘While we are unable to confirm the identity of the deceased at this point, we can confirm that it is not the body of Lucia Blix.’

  Again, a kind of collective exclamation fills the room: surprise, relief, confusion.

  ‘The body was discovered this afternoon at around 3 p.m. at an address in Mölleryd, Sweden, that is of significant interest to the investigation. The van next to which Lucia Blix was captured on CCTV on the morning of 20 October has been recovered at the same address. The body is that of an adult female. She was found buried in the garden of a private property owned by the wife of a man currently serving a long prison sentence at Fosie Prison in Malmö. Both Heiki Vilkainen and Mikko Eilaanen have previously served time at the same prison. Lucia Blix is still unaccounted for.’

  Hans Gundersen pauses for a long moment, letting this news sink in. The journalists start shouting questions, but Gundersen silences them with a hand.

  ‘Yes – TV 2?’ he says, and Arne Theissen from TV 2 News clears his throat loudly before speaking into his microphone.

  ‘Can you confirm whether the deceased is believed to have been murdered?’

  ‘I’m unable to say anything about the cause of death at this point, but like I said, the woman was found concealed and buried in the grounds of a private property. Yes, Aftenposten?’

  ‘For how long is the woman believed to have been dead?’

  ‘This is currently subject to investigation.’

  ‘Has any trace of Lucia Blix been uncovered at the property?’

  ‘I am unable to say at present. Yes, VG?’

  ‘Is the deceased believed to be the same woman who abducted Lucia Blix?’

  ‘I am unable to say at present, but police are actively pursuing all lines of inquiry. We are working on the assumption that the child was held for a period of time at the property in Mölleryd before being transported onwards to another location in a different vehicle.’

  ‘Are police still working on the assumption that Lucia Blix is being held by a trafficking network?’

  ‘Yes. Due to the established connection between the identified prime suspect, Mikko Eilaanen, to known trafficking networks in central and Eastern Europe, we believe it is highly likely that Lucia Blix is being held by one of these cells, having been kidnapped to order for reasons still unestablished. Yes, Dagsposten?’ He gestures at Olav and Selma, standing towards the back of the room.

  ‘Have the police uncovered signs of a struggle or violence at the address in Mölleryd?’

  ‘I am unable to say at present. The property is currently undergoing a full investigation by Swedish forensic teams. Yes, Bergens Tidende?’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘The discovery of a body is, as always in this kind of investigation, a game changer. This case remains our highest priority and every effort is being made to recover Lucia Blix safely.’

  *

  Back outside, Olav and Selma are both quiet and lost in thought. They walk across the pedestrian bridge to the central bus terminal, then along deserted Schweigaardsgate towards Oslo Cathedral and the T-bane station at Jernbanetorget.

  ‘I really thought they’d found her dead,’ says Olav, shaking his head back and forth, his voice soft.

  Selma nods and opens her mouth to answer, but no words will come. To her horror, she realizes she’s crying; big tears flow fast from her eyes, dropping off her nose and chin faster than she can wipe them away with her sleeve.

  ‘Hey,’ says Olav, stopping, tugging gently at her arm, making her stop too.

  She shakes her head half-heartedly, but still no words will come, and she lets herself be hugged lightly by her boss.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s been intense. Why don’t you take tomorrow off and spend it just, you know, reconnecting and gathering your thoughts?’

  ‘No,’ she says, forcefully. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Selma, look, I know how you feel. We’ve all put so much into the Blix case, and tonight was a real shock. But it’s important to take care of yourself and maintain a professional distance, no matter how much you care. You know that.’

  ‘I am keeping a professional distance,’ she says, but even as she speaks the words, she knows they aren’t true.

  ‘Take tomorrow off. That’s an order. And on Thursday why don’t we focus on some of the other important cases we’re working on?’

  ‘Olav, I told you, I’m fine. Totally fine. I’m just… tired. And you’re right, tonight was a shock. I think I’m just relieved it wasn’t Lucia they found…’

  Olav nods, unconvinced, then waves to hail a passing taxi. ‘We’ll share it,’ he says, and with a wink adds, ‘On Dagsposten.’

  ‘I was going to walk,’ she says, eying the empty streets, suddenly craving the fast walk uphill, past Oslo Cathedral and Deichman Library, alongside the ancient cemetery of Vår Frelser, then the last bit up Ullevålsveien to her street, Schwensens gate, her feet and her mind in overdrive. ‘Bye,’ she adds, waving at Olav through the window of the cab as it drives off.

  A very light drizzle starts to fall as she passes the imposing statue of Christian IV in the middle of Stortorvet square, and she rubs hard at her arms through her too-thin anorak. Glasmagasinet department store has gone into full Christmas mode; ornate seasonal decorations, baubles and tinsel fill the display windows. She walks fast, trying to order her thoughts, but they bombard her, making her head spin. She forces her mind to the moment the woman’s body was discovered in Mölleryd. She sees the police officer’s dawning realization as the grisly discovery was made. She sees a sniffer dog, a smallish, squat spaniel, tearing a
t the cool grey earth, whimpering and sniffing, then barking. The police officer, perhaps a young man in his twenties with a spray of acne on his neck and mellow, water-colored eyes, would have rushed over to the dog. The young man would have stood to the side, stroking a downy patch on the side of his cheek, watching as the forensic team uncovered what was unmistakably the remains of a human – a woman, bit by bit.

  The police hypothesis that Lucia has been kidnapped by a trafficking network will be strengthened by the discovery; the woman, ‘Line’, employed merely to instill trust in Lucia and her mother, then murdered when she was no longer needed. But where is ‘Line’s’ child, or the child that posed as her child, the little girl referred to as Josephine?

  As Selma places her key in the apartment lock, her mind is once again filled with the gruesome image of the little girl, gone forever, tossed like trash alongside a remote forest track. Though the image is not real and Lucia Blix most likely is still alive and being held somewhere, Selma is haunted and overwhelmed by it. She stumbles into the apartment and for the second time that evening succumbs to a powerful onslaught of tears.

  22

  Elisa

  I play around with a parallel narrative. In it, I’d say no, that afternoon in the vestibule at Korsvik School, firmly and non-negotiably, when two little girls ask for a playdate. Not today, sweetie, I’d say. No, I’d have to repeat. Lucia, no. Drop it now, okay? I wouldn’t be talked around. I would bundle a sulking girl into the back seat, and I’d spend the five-minute drive home irritated by the kids’ squabbles. Shhh, I’d have said. Or else. In this parallel universe I do not know what it’s like to realize that your child has been taken from you. I don’t know how it feels to stare at the closed door of her bedroom, acutely aware that the room is empty and dark behind it, her favorite toys and teddies lined up along the windowsill where she left them. I don’t know what it is like to wake morning after morning, realizing that no nightmare could be worse than your life. I will never know. I wonder if she knew that yesterday was her birthday. I wonder if she was alive to turn eight.

  In this parallel world, I do not know what it is like to stand in front of a room full of journalists and their hungry cameras, blinded by lights and sheer fear, begging for Lucia’s life. I won’t ever know. In it, I just live my life the way that I’d finally come to see it: as a magical life, with my husband, my daughter, my son. It’s a life that feels mostly like Tuesdays: neutral, unexciting, predictable. The kind of life that’s almost mythical and miraculous in its simplicity; a life that can’t be bettered, or at least not in any truly significant way – my past taught me that, at least.

  That life didn’t always seem magical to me. In fact, I’d hated it, stumbling through each long day filled with resentment and frustration, counting down to the moment I could lie down in the dark, drunk, relieved the day was over. And I came so very close to destroying it.

  By the time Lucia was taken, I had learned the hard way that the life I had was precious and that I needed to hold on to it by any means. And still, she was taken from me, grabbed from the center of our family as if by a hand reaching up from the underworld.

  *

  Lyder has gone to my in-laws’ for the afternoon, and it’s just Fredrik and me at dinner. I’ve made spicy Spanish tomato soup, but I’ve added too much chili and Fredrik eats slowly, stopping constantly to drink water but saying nothing. I can’t be bothered to apologize, though the food is practically inedible.

  ‘I was wondering if we could talk about something,’ I say. Now is as good a time as any – I’ve been trying to find a moment to speak about what’s haunting me.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, smiling at me across the table, eyes bloodshot and rimmed by deep blue circles.

  ‘You know Karoline Meister…’

  ‘Yes,’ says Fredrik, his eyes dropping to his soup, his voice hesitant.

  ‘I feel like they aren’t really pursuing that—’

  ‘Elisa, they have. You heard them – random loony on the internet.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘At least we’ve finally had some breakthroughs – we know more than we did a week ago.’

  ‘Yes, but like what, really?’

  ‘Like the fact that she was taken by a network.’

  ‘Yes, most likely, but—’

  ‘But what? It would be insane to waste police resources on some crazy woman on Facebook when we know for a fact that Lucia was taken by a criminal network.’

  ‘I just worry that there could be others… you know, people from the past who could hate us and that that’s why she’s been taken.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, you know that situation with Karoline Meister, well, I’ve had something too. A very long time ago. A thing…’

  ‘Elisa, stop right now.’

  ‘No, Fredrik, you need to hear—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about some flirt that happened years ago. Leave it be. Please. I’m begging you, Elisa. Please let’s just bury these insignificant, stupid missteps in the past and focus on finding Lucia.’

  ‘Yes, but what if it’s somehow related—’

  Fredrik silences me by placing his hand down very firmly on the table, and though it’s not quite a slam, it’s an unusual thing for my gentle husband to do.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry, too.’

  We fall into silence, me picking at a leftover crust of toast, Fredrik intently working his way through the revolting soup, not stopping until his spoon scrapes against the bowl and every last drop is gone.

  23

  Lucia

  The man is wearing a big jacket and the heavy boots I heard on the stairs. On the side of his face is a red-brown smudge and I think it’s blood.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says.

  ‘Where’s Josie?’ I ask, but the man shakes his head. It means he won’t tell me.

  His voice is scratchy, and his eyes are red – it’s what happens when you shout a lot.

  All the lights are off in the house and we go downstairs slowly. I look around for Josie and her mamma but can’t see anyone.

  Outside, it’s very cold and the moon looks like a sparkling lump of ice thrown high into the sky.

  ‘Over here,’ whispers the man and points at a blue car that’s exactly like my grandpa’s car. He lights a cigarette, and his stinky white smoke clouds the black air.

  I have to lie down on the back seat, and the man covers me with a scratchy light blue blanket, pulling it up all the way to my chin. Then he gets in the front seat and then the car starts moving. I want to scream because even if it was terrible to be with Josie and her mamma and the man, it’s much worse to be with just the man. I’m too afraid to make any noise, but my eyes can’t help crying. In the end I just close my eyes very tight and listen to the car sounds and pretend this is my grandpa’s car and it’s him who’s driving me and that we’re going home.

  *

  It’s light and the man is standing outside the car, watching something on his phone and smoking. He must sense me looking at him – he turns and sees that I’m awake. His smiles at me, giving me a little wave with the hand holding the cigarette. Then he gets back in the car. We’re in a forest, by the side of a small gravel road.

  ‘Do you need the bathroom?’ he asks.

  I do, but I don’t answer him.

  ‘You can go here, no one will come, and I’ll turn around.’

  I really have to pee, so I get out of the car. I look back at him, but he’s staring down at his phone. The road we’re on is up high and there’s a long, steep, rocky slope down through the forest to my right. I could run, now. Or I could run back the way we came – he wouldn’t be able to turn the car around very fast on such a narrow road. I glance at him again, but he hasn’t moved and he isn’t looking at me. My legs are shaking and the air is very cold. Where would I run to? There’s nobody here. Even if he didn’t catch me, I’d be lost in these woods. Besides he probably would
catch me, I remember how fast he was the last time I tried. ‘And then he’ll kill you,’ Josie’s mamma said.

  I pull my tights down and pee behind the car. When I stand back up, the man’s hard eyes are on me in the mirror, making sure I don’t even think about trying anything funny. I get back in the car.

  ‘You don’t have to be scared,’ says the man. ‘You can sit up for a while, but when I tell you to lie back down, you listen, okay?’

  I nod, and he hands me a Coke and a stick wrapped in foil, then starts the engine. My stomach groans when I unwrap it and see a long baguette with ham and cheese.

  ‘Where is Josie?’ I ask when I’ve finished.

  ‘You’ll see her soon,’ he says.

  ‘And my mamma?’

  ‘Her too.’

  I drink the Coke and look out at the tall, dark trees. They’re enormous Christmas trees and there are so many of them, it must be a very big forest. We stay on the road for a very long time, maybe many hours. We don’t pass any other cars, and the man doesn’t seem worried about this.

  ‘Where are we?’ I ask.

  He looks at me in the mirror.

  ‘Arden.’

  ‘Is that a country?’ I ask.

  ‘Kind of. It’s a huge forest that covers lots of countries. The bit we’re in now is in Belgium.’

  Two deer cross the road. After a while the road begins to drop and the trees get shorter. At the bottom of a valley we cross a stone bridge and I see rushing brown water underneath it.

  ‘You know, I have a son,’ says the man. ‘He’s about your age. Cool kid.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I ask.

  ‘They, uh, won’t let me see him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Child protection services.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I went to prison,’ he says.

  I nod and look at his big hands holding the steering wheel. They are covered in tattoos, even the fingers.