Unwanted

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Mats, who was dealing with the information from the public one bit at a time, entering it into a database, pursed his lips and shook his head as he searched through the tip-offs. No, no one else had rung in with information to support Ingrid Strand’s story.

  Fredrika did not doubt that Ingrid Strand had really seen what she had told the police she saw. She simply wondered where Lilian and her father – if it was him Ingrid had seen – had gone once they left the platform. Why hadn’t anyone else seen them after that?

  They had questioned taxi firms and people who ran shops inside Stockholm Central Station, but not the slightest lead had been forthcoming. Nobody could remember encountering a tall man carrying a child who looked like Lilian. That didn’t mean they hadn’t seen them, of course, but no one remembered anything of the kind. And that troubled Fredrika, because there had been huge numbers of people with every opportunity of seeing them.

  Alex didn’t sound particularly concerned about their inability to pin down how Lilian had left the station.

  ‘Give people a bit of time,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later somebody’s going to remember something.’

  Give people a bit of time.

  Fredrika gave an involuntary shiver. How much time had they got, in actual fact?

  Everything depended on who had taken the girl and why? Fredrika realized with a sinking feeling that she was the only one in the team who had still not discounted it being anyone other than Gabriel Sebastiansson.

  The examining magistrate had largely gone along with Alex and Peder and thought it most likely to be Lilian’s father who had taken her off the train. Admittedly, Ingrid Strand hadn’t seen the man’s face, but the information she had been able to give them pointed in that direction. But of course it was no crime to collect your daughter from a train. There was no order banning Gabriel Sebastiansson from contact with his daughter, even though it would naturally be desirable for him to keep her mother informed of where he was taking her. The fact that her hair had been shaved off, on the other hand, could readily be categorized as assault, the examining magistrate argued. But since there was no evidence to link her father to the parcel of clothes and hair, they could not exclude the possibility that something else entirely had happened to the girl, even though the magistrate said several times that this was highly unlikely.

  After half an hour’s deliberation, the magistrate reached her conclusion: the child had been abducted; her mother had not been informed; the child had suffered maltreatment and the parcel sent to the mother could be construed as a threat. That was sufficient for classifying the crime as a potential abduction, with Gabriel Sebastiansson as the prime suspect. A warrant could therefore be issued for his arrest, and Alex would issue a national alert.

  Alex and Peder looked hugely relieved as they left the examining magistrate’s office. Fredrika walked two steps behind them, frowning.

  She peered at the list of Sara Sebastiansson’s circle of acquaintances and family, people she would try to see the next day. Predictably enough, Peder was delighted to find her so willing to hand over the task of continuing to investigate Gabriel’s contacts. He looked quite triumphant, as if he had just won the lottery.

  But Fredrika preferred to maintain her sceptical stance.

  She no longer doubted that the perpetrator was someone with whom Sara had some kind of relationship, wittingly or unwittingly. But she was not convinced that that person had to be Gabriel. She thought about the woman Ellen had spoken to that afternoon. The woman who had lived with a man who hit her, and who now believed him to be the man who had taken Lilian. There was a microscopic chance that the man she was talking about actually was Gabriel Sebastiansson, but even there, Fredrika was keeping an open mind. No one else had reported Gabriel to the police, and surely they would have done if he were the man the anonymous woman was talking about? That was if they worked on the hypothesis that the woman’s call constituted an actual report of being assaulted by the man. Alex and Peder had impatiently dismissed her attempt to try to unravel the information in the woman’s call, asking her to focus on ‘real, concrete scenarios’ rather than the invented variety.

  Fredrika gave a grim laugh. Invented scenarios. Where did they get these expressions from?

  Thanks to the analyst Mats, she had at least been able to find out what happened when they tried to trace the call. The woman had rung from a telephone box in central Jönköping. The lead stopped there. In Jönköping. Fredrika ran a quick check to see if Gabriel Sebastiansson had any contacts there, but drew a complete blank.

  Fredrika, for her part, was sure the incoming call had nothing at all to do with Gabriel. The question was whether it was worthy of attention, even so. Ellen was right, of course: whenever the police appealed to the public for help, there always were a number of very odd people who rang in.

  Fredrika frowned. Maybe Alex was right when he said she hadn’t got the right feel for the job. On the other hand. Fredrika took a deep breath. On the other hand. If you took notice of what Alex and Peder classed as the nub of police work, then the work Fredrika was doing now could be classed as the very sharpest end of that work.

  Because when it came down to it, in the case of the woman with the dog on the platform in Flemingsberg, and in the case of the woman who rang in with the tip-off, Fredrika had absolutely nothing to go on but her gut instinct. That was something those boys ought to approve of.

  Gut instinct. The very phrase made her feel queasy.

  She put one hand cautiously on her stomach while the other noted down yet one more thing that needed doing the next day. Pay a visit to Flemingsberg Station.

  Her guts rumbled.

  Dialogue, thought Fredrika. Right now, there was nobody apart from her own guts to have a dialogue with.

  Peder Rydh felt relaxed as he left work later that evening. In fact, he felt great. For the simple reason that he was not intending to spoil his evening by going home to his sulky wife, but was heading out for a beer with some of his workmates instead.

  He felt curiously relieved. They had known all along that Gabriel Sebastiansson had taken the girl, of course, but now they knew it more definitely, they wouldn’t have to grapple with the ‘who’ any more and could concentrate on the ‘where’. Where was the girl?

  Peder laughed out loud as he thought of Fredrika getting bogged down in every little tip-off and sidetrack that cropped up in the investigation. She was no bloodhound, that was certain. More a very tired little pug dog with short legs and a snub nose. Peder gave another laugh. A pug, that was her. And pugs shouldn’t play with the big dogs like Peder and Alex.

  Peder’s legs found their own way to the bar. He was walking tall as he went in through the door. By chance, Pia Nordh was there. He noted that several of the lads recognized her and grinned at him. He grinned back. No comments, guys.

  Peder was a man who liked relying on sheer chance. Chance had made him very happy on more than one occasion. Ylva had less faith in chance and liked to plan everything that possibly could be planned. Taking the day as it came was not something that appealed to her.

  In fact, that was the spark in their relationship, the glow, Peder told himself. It was fun and a challenge to live with somebody who thought differently, followed a different pattern.

  But there was a down side, too.

  Chance lives a life of its own and isn’t amenable to being structured out of existence. It was so ironic that chance was the very thing that had devastated their lives. Peder didn’t like thinking along those lines, particularly when he was on the beer and a bit drunk, but that was precisely what had happened. Their lives were pretty much devastated, and sheer chance was to blame. Along with Ylva’s inability to go with its flow.

  When Ylva had the ultrasound scan, both she and Peder had been dumbstruck to discover they were expecting twins.

  ‘But,’ Ylva stuttered, ‘there are no twins on either side of the family.’

  The midwife had explained. Two-egg twins could be the result of
genetic predisposition. Identical twins, on the other hand, from a single egg, are purely random.

  Peder found the phrase energizing, a source of great strength. Random twins. But Ylva, he realized later, had started to fall apart from the very first moment she heard the words.

  ‘But this wasn’t what we planned at all,’ she said repeatedly during her pregnancy. ‘This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.’

  Peder remembered being surprised, since he had not in any way shared that clear image of ‘how it was supposed to be’.

  One of the other lads in the group interrupted his reverie by thumping him on the back.

  ‘How’re things going in the Recht team?’ he asked, his eyes plainly signalling his envy.

  Peder savoured the moment. To hell with all his gloomy thoughts; here was a source of energy to tap into.

  ‘They’re going bloody well,’ he said with a genial smile. ‘Alex is such a pro. He’s got an incredible feel for the job.’

  His colleague nodded attentively and Peder felt himself almost blushing. Who would have thought that after only a few years in the police department he’d be standing here referring to the great Alex Recht by his first name?

  ‘Things have turned out bloody well for you, Peder,’ said his colleague. ‘Congratulations, you jammy bastard!’

  Peder gave a self-deprecating wave of the hand and thanked him for the compliment.

  ‘The next round’s on me,’ he said loudly, and instantly found yet more colleagues flocking round him.

  He had to answer a steady stream of questions. The guys were all very interested in how things were done in Recht’s team. Peder relished being the centre of attention and didn’t bother to mention the elements of his new situation that for him felt distinctly negative. Like the fact they were often short of resources and had to borrow people right, left and centre. Like the fact that he had to work on his own to a far greater extent than ever before. And like the fact that Alex Recht didn’t really live up to his amazing reputation in many ways.

  After a while they switched to talking about the other members of the exclusive team. Almost immediately, the conversation turned to Fredrika Bergman.

  ‘You know what,’ said one of Peder’s colleagues from the Södermalm police, ‘we’ve got a so-called civilian appointment in our team, too. And I’ve never worked with a more useless individual. Goes on the whole time about databases and structures, draws diagrams and rules lines. All talk and no action, in fact.’

  Peder eagerly swallowed a gulp of beer and nodded.

  ‘Too fucking right!’ he exclaimed. ‘And, like, no feeling at all for which lines of enquiry are seriously worth following up. Trying to keep all the balls in the air at the same time, and impossible to work with as a result.’

  Another mate from his time in Södermalm squinted hazily in Peder’s direction, and gave him a crooked grin.

  ‘But maybe she’s a nice eyeful, that Fredrika?’

  Peder grinned back.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I hate to say it, but . . . . yep, she’s a very nice eyeful.’

  Enthusiastic grins spread from face to face around the assembled party, and they ordered another round.

  It was eleven before Peder was able to leave the bar with a modicum of discretion in the company of Pia Nordh. His head was spinning with alcohol and lack of sleep, but his gut instinct was telling him unmistakably that this was another of those rare occasions in a man’s life when he has the right to go to bed with a woman other than his wife.

  As Pia closed the door of her flat behind her a short while later, there wasn’t a trace of bad conscience in his body. Just alcohol and desire. Overwhelming desire. He gave it a right royal welcome.

  Teodora Sebastiansson was a relic of a bygone era, a fact she was very aware of, and it was a status she cherished. Sometimes she felt almost as though she had no place in the age in which she was now living.

  Her own mother had never beaten about the bush when it came to telling Teodora what life was ultimately all about. You had to get an education, get married, and immortalize yourself. The last of these you achieved quite simply by reproducing. Education, husband and children: the holy trinity of womanhood. There was no room for a career within the strict boundaries of that trinity, and nor would you need one, since a husband was expected to support his wife. You only bothered with education as an aid to making conversation with cultivated people.

  As she had told Fredrika Bergman, Teodora was of the firm opinion that her son could have made a far better match than Sara. Teodora had waited patiently in the wings, hoping her son would come to his senses and leave his wife while he still had the chance. To her aggravation, he never did, and it was Sara who bore Teodora her first grandchild.

  Since Teodora had herself been brought up in one of life’s harder schools, she had honestly seen nothing to object to in her son’s desperate and justified efforts to bring his wife up to scratch. Despite what she had told Fredrika Bergman, she had considerable insight into her son’s life with Sara and the turbulent aspect the relationship sometimes assumed. Teodora could not help regretting Sara’s inability to please her husband. Sara had certainly – certainly – never tried to hide who she was. And Teodora accepted that her son had married Sara to a large extent as an embarrassingly delayed rebellion against his poor parents. Nonetheless, Teodora was in no doubt at all where her daughter-in-law’s loyalties lay once things came to a head and she turned to the police for help. So the life of luxury Gabriel could offer didn’t suit her after all!

  It was stupid of Sara, very stupid, to think that a good mother like Teodora would let her husband and grandchild down, under any circumstances. She was thinking above all of Lilian, she told herself as she lifted the receiver and rang two of her husband’s faithful old servants, who owed the Sebastiansson family large sums of money and considerable favours.

  The simple part was saving Gabriel’s skin by arranging the alibis he needed and deserved. The hard part was guiding and directing him in life from now on. After the second phase of trouble and the second report to the police, Teodora had had a serious talk to her son. She had no particular problem with his attempts to knock Sara into shape, but the police involvement had got to stop. It was awkward for the family, and clearing his name repeatedly could prove difficult in the long run. Particularly as his efforts to smarten Sara up left such visible marks, and particularly as she hadn’t the sense to keep quiet about things one always sorted out within the family.

  After the time Gabriel was legally banned from seeing his own wife, and therefore ended up ringing her a few times too many one evening, Teodora had finally had enough. He was either to see that he got Sara back, which from the outset she really did not favour, or he was to abandon his attempts to make her into a good person, and file for divorce. Divorce and sole custody.

  Teodora didn’t know exactly how her son had managed it, but suddenly he and Sara were living together again. It didn’t last long. Sara carried on making trouble and soon it was time for another separation.

  And now Sara had inconceivably pulled off the trick of depriving Teodora of her only grandchild. Her whole body was shaking. There was plainly no limit to the ways Sara imagined she could destroy the Sebastiansson family. Teodora, a mother herself, had seen how Sara treated her child, oh yes. No firm hand, and no particular maternal care, either. If the child was returned to her mother, Teodora was going to fight tooth and nail for her son to be allowed to bring the child up on his own. Sara would finally meet a foe impervious to police reports and threats. Sara would find out what happened when you lived your life in a way that was bound to destroy you, and tried to take your child with you to perdition.

  In view of these feelings for her daughter-in-law and grandchild, she had had no difficulty at all in lying on her son’s behalf, either the day before or during that day’s interview with Fredrika Bergman. It was most regrettable, of course, that her son had not had time to inform her he was going on holiday, s
ince that would have simplified the basis for further lies considerably.

  She sighed.

  ‘They’ll be back, you know,’ he said.

  Teodora jumped at the sudden sound of his voice.

  ‘Goodness, you gave me such a fright.’

  Gabriel stepped over the threshold of his father’s library, where Teodora had been sitting ever since Fredrika Bergman left the house. Teodora got to her feet and walked slowly towards him.

  ‘I’ve got to know, Gabriel,’ she said in a low, urgent tone. ‘I’ve got to know for sure. Have you anything – anything at all – to do with Lilian’s disappearance?’

  Gabriel Sebastiansson gazed past his mother, out of the window.

  ‘I think there’s a thunderstorm brewing,’ he said huskily.

  There was a time, when Nora was much younger, when the darkness had been her enemy. Now she had grown up, she knew better. The darkness was her friend, and she welcomed it every evening and every night. The same went for the silence. She welcomed it, and she needed it.

  Under the cover of darkness and silence, Nora quickly packed a suitcase of clothes. As usual in summer, the sky never turned completely black, but that deep, velvety blue was dark enough. The floor creaked under her bare feet as she moved about the room. The sound frightened her. The sound disturbed the silence, and the silence did not want to be disturbed. Not now. Not when she had to concentrate. Actually, it was quite simple packing this time. There was no need to take everything with her. She would only be gone a few weeks.

  Nora’s grandma had been glad to hear her voice when she rang.

  ‘You want to come and stay for a bit, love?’ she exclaimed when Nora revealed her plan to go and visit her grandmother in the country.