Unwanted

by Kristina Ohlsson

  ‘How do you want things, Doll?’ he whispered, holding up the burning match in front of her wide, terrified eyes. ‘Can I rely on you?’

  She nodded desperately, trying to get the sock out of her mouth.

  He grabbed her by the hair and leant forward. The match was burning.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, bringing the match closer to the thin skin where her neck met her chest. ‘I’m really not sure.’

  Then he lowered the match and let the flickering flame lick at her skin.

  Alex Recht and Hugo Paulsson met Sara Sebastiansson and her parents in a so-called family room an hour or so after they had identified Lilian. Warm colours on the walls. Soft armchairs and sofas. Indian wood tables. No paintings, drawings or photos on the walls. But there was a bowl of fruit.

  Alex scrutinized Sara.

  Unlike when she had been given the box with the hair, and later the preliminary news of the death, she now seemed more composed. With the emphasis on ‘seemed’. Alex had met enough suffering, grieving people in his professional life to know that Sara had a very long road ahead of her before she got back to anything resembling a normal, everyday life. Bereavement had so many faces, so many phases. Somebody, Alex couldn’t remember who, had said it was as hard to bear intense grief as it was to walk on thin ice. One moment it feels all right, the next it suddenly gives way and you are suddenly plunged into the darkest darkness of pain.

  Just at the moment, Sara seemed to be standing on a very small, but solid piece of ice. Alex felt he was viewing her from a distance. She was not really present, but not really absent, either. Her eyes were still red and puffy from crying, and she had a paper tissue in her hand. From time to time, her hand went up and wiped her nose with the tissue. The rest of the time, it lay motionless in her lap.

  Her parents sat quietly, their eyes bright with moisture.

  It was Hugo who broke the silence. First with the offer of coffee. Then with the offer of tea. And then with a promise that the interview would not take long.

  ‘We’re wondering why Lilian ended up here in Umeå,’ Alex began hesitantly. ‘Has the family got any connections in the town, or the area?’

  At first no one said anything. Then Sara herself replied.

  ‘No, we’ve no connections here,’ she said quietly. ‘None at all. Nor has Gabriel.’

  ‘And you’ve never been here before?’ asked Alex, turning to look at Sara again.

  She nodded. It was almost as if her head was not properly fixed to her neck, as it was wavering around in all directions.

  ‘Yes, once. My best friend Maria and I were here, the summer after we finished school,’ she whispered, and then cleared her throat. ‘But that was – let me see – seventeen years ago. I went on a writing course at a centre a little way outside the town, and then I got a summer job there as an assistant to one of the teachers. But I wasn’t here long, as I say, maybe three months in all.’

  Alex regarded her thoughtfully. In spite of the fatigue and grief that seemed to envelop her whole face, he could see a very slight twitch in the corner of her eye as she spoke. There was something bothering her, something that had nothing to do with Lilian.

  Her lower lip trembled a little and her chin was jutting out. Did she perhaps look a bit defiant, despite the tears welling in her eyes and threatening to overflow?

  ‘Did you make any new friends up here? Maybe a boy or something?’ Alex asked vaguely.

  Sara shook her head.

  ‘Nobody at all,’ she said. ‘I mean, I met some nice people on the course, and some of them lived here in Umeå, and we saw each other a bit after I started working at the centre. But you know how it is, you go back home, and then it all seems so far away. I lost touch with most of them.’

  ‘And you didn’t make any enemies here?’ Alex asked kindly.

  ‘No,’ said Sara, and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘No, not one.’

  ‘And the friend you came with?’

  ‘Maria? No, nor did she. Not as far as I can remember. We don’t keep in touch these days.’

  Alex leant back in his chair and indicated with a nod to Hugo that he was free to ask any questions he wanted. Alex and Hugo both felt a bit dubious about the link to the writing course, but to be on the safe side Hugo took down the names of all the other people on the course that Sara could remember. There was, after all, nothing else to go on as they tried to find out why the girl’s body had turned up in Umeå.

  For now, the team in Umeå was working on the basis that the girl had been killed in Stockholm and that Alex’s team should therefore take the lead in the enquiry.

  Hugo’s group had, however, collated all the information about the discovery of Lilian’s body. The telephone call that had initially lured Anne the nurse out into the car park had come from a mobile with an unregistered top-up account. The call had come from thirty kilometres south of Umeå. The phone had not been used since. No woman about to give birth had showed up at the hospital with her partner that night, so the investigating team assumed the call had only been made to get a member of staff out to the car park. Someone wanted the child to be found, without delay.

  There was so much that baffled Alex about this case. And he felt very clearly that he wouldn’t be able to focus his mind on it properly where he was. He needed to get back to Stockholm as soon as possible, so he could sit down in peace and think things through. He felt a disturbing sense of anxiety. The story just didn’t fit together. It just didn’t.

  Sara Sebastiansson’s husky voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘I never regretted having her,’ she whispered.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Alex.

  ‘It said “Unwanted” on her forehead. But it wasn’t true. I never regretted having her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  Fredrika spent the rest of the day trying to get through as many interviews as possible with Sara Sebastiansson’s friends, acquaintances and colleagues, using the contact details supplied by Sara and her parents. The list had expanded as a result of the first ring round. She allocated some of the people on the list to the extra investigator.

  It was an unambiguous picture of Sara that emerged. She was basically seen as a very warm and positive person, a good person. Almost everyone, even those not so close to her, thought her private situation had been very difficult for the past few years. Her husband was inconsiderate and inflexible, cold and controlling. Sometimes she was limping when she came to work, and sometimes she wore long-sleeved tops even in the middle of summer. They couldn’t be sure, of course . . . but . . . how many times could a person accidentally trip and hurt herself?

  None of the people Fredrika and her assistant spoke to recognized Teodora Sebastiansson’s picture of Sara as an irresponsible mother and unfaithful wife. But one of Sara’s closest friends told them Gabriel had been cheating on Sara with other women from the very start. She was crying as she spoke, and said:

  ‘You see, we all thought she’d get away from him, find the strength to leave him. But then she got pregnant. And then we knew, then we knew almost for sure that the game was up. She would never be rid of him.’

  ‘But she left him, didn’t she?’ asked Fredrika, frowning. ‘They’re getting divorced.’

  Sara’s friend cried even harder, and shook her head.

  ‘None of us really believe that. People like him always come back. Always.’

  One thing Fredrika picked up on in the course of the interviews was that even the individuals Sara referred to as ‘friends from way back’ turned out to be people she had got to know in adult life. She had not retained a single friend from when she was growing up in Gothenburg. To judge by the list, her parents were the only contacts she had on the west coast.

  ‘Sara once told me she had to break off with almost everybody once she met Gabriel,’ her friend explained. ‘The rest of us got to know Sara and Gabriel as a couple, pre-packaged, but I think Sara’s friends from before could never accept that she was with h
im.’

  The information coming out of interview after interview indicated that Sara did not have an enemy in the world, apart from her husband.

  Fredrika returned to HQ exhausted, clutching a hot dog in her hand. She fervently hoped Alex was back. And if he wasn’t, Fredrika was going to take the opportunity to shut herself in her room and try to relax for a little while. She needed to put her feet up and listen to a piece of music her mother had recommended, which she had downloaded to her MP3 player.

  ‘Something to meditate to,’ her mother had said with a smile, knowing that Fredrika, like her, considered music as important an element of everyday life as food and sleep.

  But it was Peder she ran into first.

  ‘Ooh, hot dog!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Mmmm,’ answered Fredrika with her mouth full.

  To her surprise, Peder followed her into her office and virtually collapsed into her visitor’s chair. Clearly there would be neither rest nor music for her at the moment.

  ‘How was your day?’ he asked, sounding tired.

  ‘Good and bad,’ she said evasively.

  She still hadn’t told him that she had taken herself off to Flemingsberg, still less that she had then sent an identikit artist there to make a sketch of the woman with the dog who had held up Sara Sebastiansson and made her miss the train.

  ‘Did the searches reveal anything?’ she said instead.

  Peder took his time to frame his thoughts and eventually said:

  ‘They certainly did. And it all seems a damn sight murkier than we thought, to be honest.’

  Fredrika sat down at her desk and studied Peder. He still looked the worse for wear. Her attitude to him had at times been one of casual contempt. He was childish, puppylike, and unhealthily fond of showing off. But this particular afternoon, when they were all feeling the effects of what had happened over the past few days, she could see him in a different light. There was a human being inside Peder, too. And that human being was not coping well.

  She quickly ate up her hot dog.

  Peder somewhat hesitantly laid a thin sheaf of papers on her desk.

  ‘What’s this?’ Fredrika asked.

  ‘Print-outs of emails from Gabriel Sebastiansson’s work computer,’ replied Peder.

  Fredrika raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I got them about an hour ago,’ said Peder, ‘just after I got back from interviewing Gabriel’s uncle. Fat lot of bloody use that was.’

  Fredrika gave a wry smile. She’d had a few interviews like that herself in the course of the day.

  ‘What’s in them?’ she asked.

  ‘Read them and see,’ responded Peder, ‘because I’m not sure I can believe they say what I think they’re saying.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Fredrika, leafing through the sheets.

  Peder just sat there. He wanted to watch as she read. Uneasy and eager at the same time.

  She read the top sheet first.

  ‘It’s an exchange,’ Peder explained. ‘It starts some time in January.’

  Fredrika nodded as she read.

  The exchange was between Gabriel Sebastiansson and someone calling himself ‘Daddy-Long-Legs’, which Fredrika with her scanty knowledge of children’s literature assumed to come from a harmless series of picture books she knew.

  Gabriel and Daddy-Long-Legs were discussing various types of wine and planning dates for wine tastings. By the time she had read two pages, Fredrika could feel a wave of queasiness rising inside her.

  Daddy-Long-Legs, 1 January, 09.32: The others in the circle don’t want to taste wines of any vintage earlier than 1998. What’s your view?

  Gabriel Sebastiansson, 1 January, 11.17: I think 1998 grapes would be fine, but preferably a younger wine. I am sceptical about long storage.

  Daddy-Long-Legs, 2 January, 06.25: Questions have also been asked about the countries of origin of the wines, and the grape varieties. Is this important to you?

  Gabriel Sebastiansson, 2 January, 19.15: I naturally prefer blue grapes to red. I am less concerned about the regions from which the wines come. I might like to sample something a little more exotic than I did last time our eminent circle met. Perhaps from South America?

  ‘Oh good God,’ whispered Fredrika, her throat tightening.

  ‘It isn’t wine tasting they’re talking about, is it?’ said Peder dubiously.

  Fredrika shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I really don’t think so.’

  ‘Red grapes, could they be girls? And blue grapes boys . . . ?’

  ‘I reckon so.’

  Fredrika’s stomach churned.

  ‘My God,’ she said under her breath, and put her hand over her mouth as she read on.

  Daddy-Long-Legs, 5 January, 07.11: Esteemed Member! Our next wine tasting will take place next week! Our supplier will provide us with delicious wines to sample and enjoy through the evening and night. Payment in cash on the day. Further details of the venue will follow as previously arranged.

  They could work out that Gabriel Sebastiansson had attended four ‘wine tastings’ in all, since the start of the year.

  ‘How do they find out about the venue?’ Fredrika asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Peder said in a weary voice. ‘But I rang a friend of mine in the National Crime Squad who deals with this kind of shit. He said they have all sorts of ways: could even be by text message from unregistered mobiles.’

  ‘How absolutely horrible,’ said Fredrika in agitation, and reluctantly went back to the print-outs.

  ‘Read the last sheet,’ Peder demanded a little impatiently.

  Fredrika was more than happy to skip some of the text, and leafed to the end.

  Daddy-Long-Legs, 5 July, 09.13: Esteemed Member! The high point of the summer is almost upon us! We have taken delivery of an unexpected consignment of wonderful wines made from numerous grape varieties and all from the incredible vintage of 2001! Come and enjoy them next week! Venue to be announced separately as usual, but you can mark Tuesday July 20th in your calendar as the red-letter day. You can assume our event will start at around 4 p.m. Please note that this event is not to be held in our own wonderful part of the country, and you should allow at least five hours for the drive. Let me know as soon as possible if you can attend!

  Fredrika instantly raised her eyes and stared intently at Peder.

  ‘But . . . the 20th of July was the day Lilian went missing,’ she said with a deep frown.

  Peder nodded without a word.

  They held each other’s gaze for a few moments more.

  Then Fredrika flicked through the print-outs. There were no messages with dates any later than the email she had just read.

  ‘According to Gabriel’s employer, he was on leave on Monday to Wednesday this week,’ she said reflectively. ‘He left it very late to apply for the leave, said he needed some days off for private reasons.’

  ‘And as far as we can tell from the movements of his mobile, he was somewhere near Kalmar just after 10 p.m. the day Lilian was taken. The phone hadn’t been used since that morning, but late in the evening he turned it on again.’

  ‘And who did he ring?’

  ‘That was when he rang his mother,’ said Peder.

  Fredrika gave Peder a long look.

  ‘Just say their little, what can I call it . . . “event” . . . was in Kalmar,’ she began, and Peder nodded to show the same thought had occurred to him. ‘That would more or less fit with the journey down taking five hours.’

  ‘So he must have left town at about eleven to get there for four when it all kicked off,’ Peder supplied.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Fredrika eagerly, putting the print-outs on the desk. ‘Have we got anything to fix when the phone left Stockholm?’

  ‘No, there’s no registered activity after eight in the morning,’ Peder said, thinking it over.

  ‘Okay, doesn’t matter,’ said Fredrika. ‘We know that at ten he was in Kalmar, ringing his mother, at any rate. We can assume that by
then the whole thing was over and he was on his way home.’

  She looked at Peder.

  ‘In that case, he can’t have taken Lilian from the train,’ she said, summing up what they had just pieced together. ‘Not unless he was in a car on his way to Kalmar at the same time.’

  Peder squirmed.

  ‘Or,’ he said, ‘it could have been that he decided to arrive at the “event” late and took Lilian with him.’

  Fredrika shook her head.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it could have been. But wouldn’t that make it a very muddled story? First he has to take Lilian and get her into the car. Then he drives down to Kalmar and . . . goes to some sort of sick club, or whatever you want to call it. Then he drives back home with Lilian, scalps her, sends the hair to her mum, murders her and gets someone to drive up and dump her at the entrance to Umeå Hospital? The records from Tele2 say the phone wasn’t active north of Stockholm during the period in question, don’t they?’

  Peder drew himself up. Fredrika could see that the new information was stressing him out.

  ‘Correct,’ he acknowledged, ‘and it certainly does sound a bit too much when you put it like that.’

  He thought for a moment and then thumped his fist on Fredrika’s desk.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said, ‘everything’s happening too fast in this goddamned mess! How the heck did he manage it all? It just doesn’t fit! Maybe he gave his phone to someone else?’

  Fredrika put her head on one side and looked briefly into the distance over Peder’s shoulder. She thought she could hear Alex out in the corridor.

  ‘Or,’ she said slowly, ‘it could be that these two stories have nothing to do with each other.’

  Alex Recht left Umeå just after four. Lilian Sebastiansson’s body was to be flown air freight down to Stockholm later that evening.