Unwanted

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Admittedly he was getting a lot of valuable help from Mats Dahman, the data analyst from the National Crime Squad; Alex had asked if he could call him in to help with the investigation as soon as Sara’s parents rang. Mats had a handy programme for sorting the information that had come in. You could easily identify who had reported things that happened too early, for example. All those who claimed to have seen Lilian Sebastiansson at Stockholm Central Station at quarter to two, for example, could be weeded out automatically, because Lilian hadn’t disappeared by then. But the later ones were trickier. One woman who had been on the same train as Sara and Lilian said she had noticed a short man carrying a sleeping child when they got out onto the platform. But if the perpetrator took size 46 shoes, he was hardly likely to be particularly short. He was presumably quite tall, in fact. Assuming the shoeprints had anything at all to do with Lilian’s disappearance.

  Peder leant back in his desk chair and gave a dejected sigh. It hadn’t been particularly great last night, either. He hadn’t got home until ten, despite having made up his mind to get back earlier, and he’d found Ylva sitting at the kitchen table over a cup of tea. She’d been at home all day, but she was still feeling tired. For some reason, Peder found that infuriating, and had to make a real effort not to say anything critical or unkind. He made himself repeat the same old mantra that had been going round and round inside his head for the last ten or eleven months:

  She’s tired; she’s not well. She can’t help it. And if we take it slowly, one step at a time, she might improve. Things can only get better.

  Until about a year before, Peder had been one of those people who really enjoy their lives to the full. He considered it almost a duty for anyone lucky enough to have a healthy body and a decent situation in life. He enjoyed going to work every day. He enjoyed life in general, and a career that was finally taking off, and he enjoyed his Ylva and the thought of the family they were about to become. In short, he was a secure, straightforward, positive and harmonious person. Happy and outgoing. That was how he saw himself, anyway.

  But things changed when Ylva gave birth to the twins, their first children. Life as Peder knew it evaporated, never to return. The boys were immediately put in a special care incubator, and Ylva disappeared into a vast darkness called ‘post-natal depression’. In place of the life he had before, Peder got a different one: full of dissatisfaction and regret, of prescription drugs and long-term sick leave, and constant phone calls asking his mother to look after the children again. What was more, he had to cope with the misery of an everyday life with a total lack of sex. Peder felt instinctively that this was a life he had neither asked for nor deserved.

  ‘Ylva is so depressed that she doesn’t feel she wants any kind of physical relationship with you,’ the elderly, not to say ancient, doctor had explained to Peder. ‘You’ll have to be patient.’

  And Peder really had been patient. He tried to think of Ylva as incurably ill, almost the way he thought of Jimmy, with no prospect of getting better. Peder – and his mother, he mustn’t forget – took over all the day-to-day running of things at home. Ylva slept her way through September, October and November. She cried all through December, except for Christmas itself, when she pulled herself together for a day for the family’s sake. In January she was a little better, but Peder still had to be patient. In mid-February she had another setback and was down all month. In March things improved a bit again. But by then it was already more or less too late.

  In March, the Södermalm police, where Peder was working at the time, held its big spring party, and Peder spent half the evening having sex with his colleague Pia Nordh. A delicious relief. Horribly sinful. Totally unforgivable. And yet – in Peder’s world – entirely understandable.

  Afterwards he felt the deepest and most awful remorse he had ever known. But then, as Ylva gradually got better and better, and the days longer and longer, Peder started to forgive himself. He had a right to a bit of physical pleasure now and then, after the hell he’d been through. He had the solidarity and support of some of his colleagues, who knew his secret. It was only natural for him to fancy screwing someone else. Not all that often, but occasionally. He felt sorry for himself, thought he deserved a better fate. Bloody hell, he wasn’t even thirty-five. So he got together with Pia every so often. The damage was already done, after all.

  He stopped like a shot when she asked him if he was thinking of leaving Ylva, though. Was she crazy? Leave Ylva for some colleague dying for a fuck? Pia obviously had no idea about what was important in life, thought Peder, and dumped her by text message.

  Soon after that, he got a new job, moving on from the uniformed branch to become a DI – sooner in his career than most people. He was allocated to the investigation team of the almost legendary Alex Recht, and threw himself wholeheartedly into the new job. At home, to Peder’s genuine delight, Ylva started talking about the future, and how it would be in the autumn, when Peder was to take a spell of paternity leave, and then the boys would start at nursery; and they all went to Majorca for the last week in May. Peder and Ylva made love for the first time in over ten months, and after that some things seemed to start going back to more like what Peder thought of as normal.

  ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get everything back to how it was,’ his mother warned him. ‘Ylva’s still sensitive.’

  Peder actually felt like saying that Ylva was still bordering on the unrecognizable, but the week away had given him new hope. Ylva was gradually showing more sides of herself that he could recognize. It really would be risking everything to tell her about the affair with Pia Nordh, he told himself. And anyway, he had so deserved a bit of fun just then.

  Now it was the end of July. Two months since Majorca. He still had Pia’s number if he felt miserable again. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use it, but you never knew.

  There were times when he simply could not accept his situation, times when it was all too much. The evening he screwed Pia Nordh had been one of those. Last night had been another one.

  ‘Have you been working all this time?’ Ylva asked.

  Peder tensed. What the hell was this? An accusation?

  ‘Yes, there’s a kid gone missing.’

  ‘I saw,’ said Ylva, looking up from her teacup. ‘I didn’t know you were on that case.’

  Peder took a beer from the fridge and a glass from one of the cupboards.

  ‘She didn’t go missing until this afternoon, before that there was no case. And now I’m telling you that I’m working on it.’

  The cold beer chilled his hand as he filled the glass.

  ‘You could have rung,’ Ylva said.

  Peder lost his temper.

  ‘But I did,’ he sputtered, and gulped down some of his beer.

  ‘Yes, but not until six,’ Ylva said wearily. ‘And you said you’d be late, but you’d be back by eight. And now it’s ten. Don’t you realize how worried I’ve been?’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared where I was,’ Peder said curtly, and regretted it the same instant.

  Sometimes, when he was tired, stupid things like that just slipped out. He met Ylva’s eyes over his beer glass, saw the tears come to her eyes. She got up and went out of the kitchen.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Ylva, I’m sorry,’ he called after her, keeping his voice down.

  Keeping his voice down so as not to wake the children, sorry to try to get her back in a good mood. There was always somebody else whose needs he was supposed to prioritize over his own.

  Peder felt anxiety and his guilty conscience clawing at him as he sat there at his desk. He simply didn’t understand how it could all have turned out so wrong when he got home. He’d rung, hadn’t he? The only reason he hadn’t rung again was that he hadn’t wanted to wake the children. Or he tried to convince himself that was the main reason, at least.

  It had been a wretched night. The boys woke up and wouldn’t settle again, and it ended up with the two of them lying in between their parents in t
he double bed. Peder had fallen asleep with his arm round one of his sons. The little boy slept less fitfully that way.

  Driving home from work the evening before, Peder had hoped that Ylva would still be awake and might feel like sex. How naïve of him, looking back. She’d only felt like sex once since they got back from Majorca. And he could hardly bring it up with his best mates when they were in the sauna after training on Thursdays.

  It was bloody humiliating, thought Peder. Not being able to make love to your own wife.

  And nobody humiliated Peder, that was for sure.

  There had been so much life in Ylva when they met six years before. He could never for a moment have imagined then that he might cheat on her one day. But was it really cheating on someone when that person scarcely wanted sex all year? A year was an enormously long time, to Peder’s way of seeing things.

  Ylva, Ylva, where the hell have you gone?

  Pia Nordh’s number was burning a hole in his mobile.

  If he just gave her a call and made himself sound really, really charming, and sort of hinted it was all his fault for handling it so badly when they broke up, she’d be sure to want to see him again. Peder straightened his back as he sat there. This enforced abstinence was affecting his judgment badly, he told himself. Affecting his judgment and making him frustrated. He’d do his job much better if he could just have a little distraction.

  Peder’s fumbling fingers located his mobile. It took her a few rings to answer.

  ‘Hello.’

  Husky voice, warm memories. Crazy memories. Peder cut off the call. He swallowed hard and ran his hands through his hair. He’d got to pull himself together. This wasn’t the time to lose his grip on real life again. It just wasn’t. He decided to ring Jimmy instead and see how he was doing.

  Then Ellen, their assistant, stuck her head round the door.

  ‘Alex rang and said he wanted you to make sure the media get a photo of the girl to spread around. They didn’t get one yesterday.’

  Peder braced himself.

  ‘Fine, no problem.’

  Alex Recht felt under pressure as he assembled his team again on his return from Sara Sebastiansson’s. A pair of size 46 shoeprints belonging to an unidentified individual had been found just where Sara and Lilian were sitting on the train. Apart from that, there was no technical evidence to help the team in its work. Alex hoped the box that had gone off to SKL would give them some more leads.

  But the parcel delivered to Sara was extremely alarming. The act was so calculated that it felt like the work of a not entirely healthy mind. What was brewing here, exactly?

  ‘Fredrika, try to get Gabriel Sebastiansson’s mother to tell you everything – and I mean everything – she knows,’ he said sharply.

  Fredrika gave a brief nod and jotted a few words in the notebook she always carried with her. It wouldn’t surprise Alex if she turned up with a dictaphone one of these days.

  ‘The parcel puts a different complexion on things,’ he said. ‘Now we know for sure that Lilian’s disappearance was no coincidence, and that she didn’t just wander off. Someone who knew who she was – someone who clearly wants to hurt her mother – is deliberately keeping her hidden. As things stand . . .’

  Alex cleared his throat and went on.

  ‘We haven’t been able to interview Sara yet, but when I spoke to her yesterday there was no indication she might have any enemies apart from her ex. Until we get any information to take us in other directions, any tip-offs that come in, for example, we’ll work on the hypothesis that Gabriel Sebastiansson’s got the girl.’

  Alex fixed Fredrika with a look, and she said nothing.

  ‘Any questions?’

  No one said anything, but Peder squirmed in his seat.

  ‘How are you getting on with what’s come in from the public?’ Alex asked. ‘Anything we can use?’

  Peder shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said hesitantly, with a sideways glance at the analyst from the National Crime Squad, who had been asked to join them for the meeting. ‘No, we’ve nothing concrete to tell you. A few tip-offs have come in, but things won’t really start happening until her photo’s on TV and in the papers.’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘But they’ve had the photo?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Peder said quickly.

  ‘Good,’ muttered Alex. ‘Good. Somebody out there must have seen something. It’s just absurd that nobody on the train registered seeing Lilian leave it.’

  He took a breath and then added:

  ‘And naturally we’ll keep quiet about the parcel sent to Sara. God knows what the headlines would look like if it got out that the kidnapper scalped the girl.’

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. The air conditioning coughed and hissed.

  ‘Okay,’ said Alex in conclusion. ‘We’ll have another meeting this afternoon, when Fredrika’s back from seeing Gabriel’s mother. I’ve decided to send her on her own; I reckon we’ll get more out of the lady in question if she doesn’t have to entertain a whole delegation. Peder will carry on following up what comes in, and we’ll hope to hear back from SKL about the parcel soon. Peder can also contact the courier company that brought it round. I’ve asked Sara’s parents to draw up a list of people Sara knows, people we can interview and ask about Gabriel’s whereabouts. It’s going to be another busy day.’

  With that, the meeting was over and the team dispersed. Only Ellen remained at the table for a few minutes, making notes.

  It was only when Fredrika Bergman was actually sitting in the car with a road atlas open that it registered: Gabriel Sebastiansson’s mother – Lilian’s grandmother – lived in Djursholm. Big, expensive houses, huge gardens, and endless bisous on the cheek. Fredrika reflected for a moment that Sara Sebastiansson seemed to come from a very different background to her husband.

  In her mind, Fredrika went over the day so far. She was feeling a lack of structure and direction in her work. It had not escaped her that Alex was very skilled and competent at what he did. She also readily conceded that he had a vast range and depth of experience that she lacked. But she felt contempt, to put it bluntly, for his inability to incorporate new suggestions into their work. Particularly in the current situation. Loose threads remained loose, and Fredrika could not see that any concrete measures were being taken either to discard them or to follow them up. They were assuming – perhaps entirely wrongly – that the girl was being kept hidden by her own father and therefore was not in any immediate danger. Now they knew for sure that Lilian had not disappeared by chance. So how could Alex decree that what had happened in Flemingsberg was still of no interest?

  And how the hell could he let a National Crime Squad analyst attend their meeting without introducing him properly? In conversations with Fredrika and Peder, Alex had only referred to him as ‘the analyst’. Such an oversight that it almost made Fredrika blush. When she got the chance, she would take matters into her own hands and at least introduce herself.

  Fredrika was unwilling to admit it, but as a woman she was treated differently by the boss she and Peder shared. Particularly as a childless woman, she felt, she was treated differently. Not to mention the sense of exclusion she faced because of her academic background. That was one thing she had in common with the National Crime Squad analyst, at least.

  Fredrika considered making a quick phone call to Spencer before she got out of the car. But she decided against it. Spencer had hinted that they might be able to see each other again at the weekend. Best to leave him to get on with his work in peace, so he would have time to see her.

  ‘But you only ever see each other on his terms,’ Fredrika’s friend Julia had objected, a few times. ‘When have you ever been able to ring and suggest getting together on the spur of the moment, like he does?’

  Fredrika found questions and observations like that quite upsetting. The terms on which they met were given: Spencer was married, and she wasn’t. Either she accepted it, and the consequenc
es – such as Spencer always being less accessible to her than she could be to him – or she didn’t. And if she didn’t, she might as well look for a different lover and friend. The same was true for Spencer. If he had not accepted that Fredrika occasionally had relationships with other men, and then came back to him, they would have split up long ago.

  He doesn’t give me everything, Fredrika would say, but since I don’t happen to have anyone else at the moment, he gives me enough.

  Perhaps the relationship was unconventional, but it was genuine and it was practical. And it neither demeaned nor ridiculed either of them. A mutual exchange, in which neither appeared a clear loser. Fredrika chose not to examine too closely whether either of them emerged a clear winner. As long as her heart carried on signalling desire, she surrendered herself to it.

  An elderly woman, presumably Gabriel’s mother, was already standing on the front steps as she braked and pulled up at the edge of the gravel forecourt. The woman gestured to Fredrika to wind down the window.

  ‘Please park your car over there,’ she said, her long, slim finger graciously indicating a space beside two cars Fredrika assumed to belong to the house.

  Fredrika parked and climbed out onto the gravel. She breathed in the damp air and felt her clothes sticking to her body. As she walked over to Teodora Sebastiansson, she looked around her. The garden was larger than others she had passed on the way there, almost like a park, secluded and at the end of the road. The lawn was strangely green, and reminded her of the grass on a golf course. A wall ran round the entire garden. The gate through which Fredrika had driven was the only opening to be seen. She had a sense of being both unwelcome and shut in. Large trees of some species she didn’t recognize were growing all around and immediately behind the house. But for some reason, Fredrika could not imagine children ever having played in them. On the lawn over near the wall was a little collection of magnificent fruit trees, and further back, beyond where Fredrika had parked the car, was a greenhouse of abnormally large proportions.