Silenced: A Novel

by Kristina Ohlsson

Fredrika felt a lump in her throat at the thought of Johanna Ahlbin, left all alone now. Fredrika had not been able to resist looking her up in the national register, while she was at it. Johanna Maria Ahlbin, born 1978, one year after her sister. Unmarried, no children. No one but her registered at that address, so it was a single-person household.

  Was there anything worse? The child moved, as if worried it might get forgotten. Fredrika tried to soothe it by stroking her stomach. The baby was unborn. It was there, and yet it was not. If anyone had rung at her door and told her that her parents and brother were dead, she would fall apart. She would miss her brother above all. Fresh tears pricked her eyes. Apart from Spencer there was really no one she thought of more highly.

  She wiped away the tears that were running down her cheeks like lost beings. Her own child was hardly likely to have any siblings.

  ‘You’ll just have to manage,’ she whispered.

  Then she raised her head and met her own red-rimmed eyes in the bathroom mirror. And felt ashamed. What had she got to be so upset about, when it came down to it? She was living a good life with friends and family, and expecting her first baby with a man she had loved for many years.

  Grow up, she thought angrily. And stop feeling so sorry for yourself. It’s only in fairy stories that people get any happier than this.

  With the towel wrapped round her head, she left the bathroom and went out to Spencer in the kitchen.

  ‘Can you make me a sandwich, too?’

  The ring of the telephone cut through the flat just before midnight. He went to answer as quickly as he could, before it woke his wife as well. He moved cautiously past her closed door, grateful for once that they no longer shared a bedroom. His bare feet sounded loud on the parquet floor. With one smooth movement he silently pulled the study door shut behind him.

  ‘Yes?’ he said as he lifted the receiver.

  ‘She’s rung,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘She rang earlier today.’

  He did not respond immediately. He had been expecting the call, but it churned him up, even so. He decided it was a healthy reaction. No human being could be part of a project like this without feeling something.

  ‘All according to plan, then,’ he said.

  ‘Everything’s going according to plan,’ confirmed the voice at the other end. ‘And tomorrow we go on to the next stage.’

  ‘Did she seem to suspect anything? Has she realised the all-encompassing nature of her predicament, so to speak?’

  ‘Not yet. But she will tomorrow.’

  ‘And by then it’s too late for her,’ he concluded with a sigh.

  ‘Yes, by then it’ll all be over.’

  He played with a pristine notepad on the oak desk. The gleam of a street light coloured the flowers on the windowsill yellow.

  ‘And our friend who came from Arlanda the other day?’

  ‘He’s in the flat where his contact left him. He should be ready for his task tomorrow.’

  Cars were passing in the road outside. Their wheels crunched over the snow. The exhaust fumes were white in the cold. How strange. Out there, everything seemed to be carrying on exactly as before.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to have a break in operations when we’ve finished this?’ he said softly. ‘Until all the fuss dies down, I mean.’

  He could hear the breathing at the other end of the line.

  ‘You’re not getting cold feet?’ said the voice.

  He moved his head from side to side.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said in a quiet, emphatic voice. ‘But a bit of caution does no harm at the moment, with everyone’s eyes on us.’

  The caller gave a low laugh.

  ‘You’re the only one they can see, my friend. The rest of us are invisible.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said huskily. ‘And that’s what we want, isn’t it? It would be a shame if they found reason to take a closer look at me. Then it would only be a matter of time before they saw you, too, my friend.’

  He put particular stress on the last words, and the laughter at the other end stopped.

  ‘We’re both on the same side in this,’ the voice said in a muted tone.

  ‘Just so,’ he persisted. ‘And it would be as well if I wasn’t the only person to remember that.’

  He hung up. Lit a cigarette, even though he knew his wife hated him smoking indoors. And outside the snow fell as if the weather gods were desperately trying to bury all the evil in the world beneath frozen rain.

  THURSDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2008

  STOCKHOLM

  She had lots of red hair, a shapeless mauve dress and very irritating body language. Her voice was shrill, her words harsh and angry. Peder Rydh was pretty sure she had BO and unshaven armpits, too.

  Peder was sitting right at the back, at the end of the row of chairs, wondering what he was doing there. On a course about equality in the workplace. When there were so many more important things to do. If Margareta Berlin had been there, too, she would have been feeling shamefaced about her decision. Of all the equality courses in the world, this must be the worst. Pity. For Ms Berlin.

  He fidgeted. Restlessness tingled in his legs, bubbled up and made his blood boil. It fucking well wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.

  He turned red at the recollection of Margareta Berlin’s scolding. She had looked so goddamn sure of herself, imposing the sentence from behind her desk. As if she was the right person to be teaching him how to behave in the force.

  And she’d had the nerve to bring up that little misunderstanding at the Christmas party, too.

  Peder swallowed hard. He felt shame and apprehension, but also fury, pure fury. It hadn’t been his fault. Anybody could see that. And what was more, Margareta Berlin had her facts wrong. The police force was no different from any other workplace; you could go to bed with anybody you liked.

  More pictures came into his mind’s eye, this time from the Christmas party.

  Hot bodies on a cramped, improvised dance floor in the staff room. Far more alcohol than had been intended, dancing to some music that was not part of the main programme. As his colleague Hasse put it the day after the party, things had got quite heavy. Peder had made the most of it. Lots of partying, lots of dancing. His feet had done the moves by themselves as he went whirling round with one female workmate after another.

  Then he danced with Elin Bredberg. Shiny face, dark hair and bright eyes. Peder had seen eyes like that before, oh yes. Hungry, come-hither eyes. On the pull. Gagging for it.

  And Peder was never backward in coming forward. If the door was open, he stepped inside. That was just the way he was. First he pulled Elin closer to him. Her eyes narrowed but were still smiling. Tempting, inviting. So Peder moved his hand from her back down to her bottom. Squeezed it and kissed her cheek.

  Before he knew it, her hand came flying through the air and smacked him round the face. And the party was over.

  Peder thought there were certain unwritten rules in life. Elin Bredberg must have known what messages he was receiving. He told her so, and demanded she take her share of the blame, if not all of it, which was what she really ought to do. In the end he had accepted that the fault was on his side. Not until the next day, when they were both a bit more sober and capable of normal conversation, but they had sorted it out between them, at least.

  Though Peder still thought she was the one in the wrong.

  And now look where it had got him. In a school hall in working hours, being lectured on equality by a woman who looked like a scarecrow and probably hadn’t had any decent sex since Jesus was walking about in sandals.

  Peder gave an inward groan. It was always so unfair. There was always some bad experience to shatter the least hint of happiness whenever it came along. That bastard who had squealed about the croissants had better mind his bloody back, because he had made himself an enemy in the force. A suspicion had dawned on him during the night, and the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

  ‘Gender is power,’ t
he lecturer boomed. ‘And women are, in a way, second-class citizens in this country. Even though Sweden is one of the leading democracies in the world.’

  She took a breath, her hair swinging all over the place.

  ‘We’re going to do a little exercise,’ she said crisply, surveying the hall. ‘I need a volunteer, a nice young man from the audience.’

  Nobody moved.

  ‘Oh come on now,’ she cooed. ‘It’s not difficult. Just an exercise that’s been around since time immemorial. And it’s fun, as well.’

  Peder sighed. Sighed and let his thoughts drift to Ylva, from whom he had separated six months before. Months of lonely evenings in his flat in the suburbs, and the boys coming to stay every other weekend. The odd evening or week of meaningless dates that never led to anything except sex that was hot the first time and then rapidly cooled.

  His chest tightened, his eyes smarted and he slumped a little in his seat. He wondered if it was the same for Ylva. He wondered if she felt empty, too.

  Because that was how he felt.

  Empty. So bloody empty.

  The doctor’s voice made Fredrika feel she was being watched, even though she knew it was ridiculous. The doctor was on the telephone and not there in front of her. If she were to guess what he looked like, she would say he had glasses and thinning hair. And maybe narrow green eyes.

  ‘Karolina Ahlbin was brought to the hospital in an ambulance last Thursday,’ said the doctor, whose name was Göran Ahlgren. ‘She was diagnosed with what would popularly be called an overdose, in this case an overdose of heroin injected into the crook of her arm. We did what we could to save her, but her internal organs had already taken such a battering that it was impossible to bring her back. She died less than an hour after she was admitted.’

  Fredrika jotted down what he had told her.

  ‘I can send over copies of the confirmation of death and cause of death forms,’ he added.

  ‘We’ve already had those,’ said Fredrika, ‘but I would be grateful for a complete copy of the patient’s notes, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  She could hear the hesitation in Göran Ahlgren’s voice as he went on.

  ‘Are there any suspicious circumstances?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not in her case,’ said Fredrika. ‘But her death is linked to another case, so . . .’

  ‘I shall make sure you have the paperwork you need by this afternoon,’ said the doctor.

  Fredrika got the feeling he was rather keen to hang up.

  ‘Had she been a patient at the hospital before?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Göran Ahlgren. ‘Never.’

  There was a knock at Fredrika’s door and Ellen Lind came in with some papers, which she put on the desk. They gave each other a nod and Ellen departed.

  We should see more of each other outside work, thought Fredrika, and felt tired at the very prospect.

  She hardly had the energy to socialise with her existing friends.

  Göran Ahlgren cleared his throat to remind her he was still on the line.

  ‘Sorry,’ Fredrika said quickly. ‘I just had a couple more questions about how Karolina was identified. Did she have any ID documents on her?’

  ‘Yes she did. She had a wallet in her back pocket with a driving licence in it. Identification was made using the picture on the driving licence and confirmed by her sister, who came with her in the ambulance.’

  Fredrika was struck almost dumb.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Her sister. Just a moment, I’ve got the name here,’ said the doctor, leafing through some papers. ‘Yes, here we are. Her name was Johanna, Johanna Ahlbin. She was here to identify her sister.’

  The thoughts were whirling round inside Fredrika’s head.

  ‘We haven’t been able to contact her sister,’ she said. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to her for long,’ said Göran Ahlgren wearily. ‘But I remember she mentioned an imminent trip abroad. I believe she left over the weekend.’

  Fredrika felt a growing sense of frustration. There had been no reference to the sister’s presence in any of the documentation she had received from the hospital or the police.

  ‘Did the police officers who were sent to the hospital speak to the sister?’

  ‘Only briefly,’ said the doctor. ‘There weren’t any obvious irregularities that needed looking into. I mean, the deceased came in with her sister, who filled us in on the background. And the identification was a straightforward matter, too.’

  The fatigue that normally slowed Fredrika’s brain suddenly cleared away. She gripped her biro hard and stared straight ahead. So Johanna Ahlbin had been present when Karolina died. Then she had gone abroad and was not contactable. And two days ago her father’s grief had made him take his own life.

  ‘Who informed Karolina Ahlbin’s parents of her death?’ she asked, her voice unnecessarily stern.

  If she had not known better, she would have said the doctor was smiling as he replied.

  ‘I can’t say for certain,’ he said. ‘But Johanna Ahlbin said she would do it.’

  ‘Do we know if she told anyone else about the death? Did she ring anyone while she was at the hospital?’

  ‘No,’ replied Göran Ahlgren, ‘not that I saw.’

  Bewildered, Fredrika tried to get to grips with the story that was emerging.

  ‘What sort of mood did Johanna Ahlbin seem to be in while she was with you?’

  The doctor paused, as if he did not understand the question.

  ‘She was upset, of course,’ he said. ‘But not in a particularly dramatic way.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t as distraught as a lot of relatives are when someone dies unexpectedly. I got the impression Karolina Ahlbin’s drug abuse was known to the family and had been a problem for a long time. That doesn’t necessarily mean the death was expected, of course, but it did mean the relatives were to some extent prepared for the possibility that this was how it might end.’

  Not her father, Fredrika thought dully. He was entirely unprepared. He shot his wife and then himself.

  She ended the call to the doctor, not at all clear about what she had discovered.

  An odd family. Very odd, in fact.

  A glance at the clock showed it would soon be time for the morning meeting in the Den. She reached for the papers Ellen had left on her desk. A copy of the follow-up report on the unidentified hit-and-run victim. She leafed through it quickly and saw there was nothing new in it. The pathologist performing the autopsy would send in a report later in the day.

  Her thoughts went to the crumpled scraps of paper and the Arabic script she was having translated. They probably meant nothing, but still needed checking out.

  The translator answered after the third ring.

  ‘It wasn’t the easiest handwriting to decipher,’ he said.

  ‘But you could make it out?’ Fredrika asked urgently.

  ‘Yes of course,’ said the translator, sounding almost offended.

  Fredrika suppressed a sigh. It was always so easy to tread on people’s toes, to cross lines that were never evident from the outset.

  ‘We’ll take the straightforward part first,’ began the translator. ‘The pamphlet. It’s a prayer book. A collection of verses from the Koran, nothing strange about it at all. And there was nothing written in it, either. But then there are these bits of paper.’

  Fredrika could hear rustling at the other end.

  ‘The first one has the names of two locations in Stockholm: the Globe and Enskede. Two Swedish words, but written down phonetically, in Arabic. That must be it, otherwise I’ve no idea what it means. And I’m an Arab myself, so I ought to know.’

  He gave a laugh and Fredrika had to smile. The translator’s laugh died away.

  ‘The other one, the one you told me had a ring wrapped in it, says: ‘‘Farah Hajib, Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq’’.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Fre
drika.

  ‘No idea,’ said the translator. ‘And it may mean nothing beyond the most obvious thing, namely that in Sadr City in Baghdad there lives a woman called Farah Hajib. Perhaps the ring’s hers?’

  ‘What sort of place is Sadr City?’

  ‘It’s a lesser-known district of Baghdad which is, or at any rate used to be, controlled wholly or in part by the Shiite grouping known as the Mehdi Army,’ explained the translator in a matter-of-fact way. ‘A real trouble spot, you could say. Many people had to flee from there because of the conflict between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims after the fall of Saddam’s regime.’

  Pictures from the news reports of the inferno of internal antagonisms and clashes that was post-2003 Iraq resurfaced in Fredrika’s mind. Millions of people moving into the interior of the country and into neighbouring states. And added to those the very few, all things considered, who had made it all the way to Europe and to Sweden.

  ‘Maybe she’s here?’ said Fredrika. ‘As an asylum seeker?’

  ‘I’ll send up my translation in the internal post,’ said the translator, ‘so you can check with the Migration Agency. Though I suspect it will be hard to locate her with just a name. You can’t even be sure she has given the authorities here the same name.’

  ‘I know,’ said Fredrika, ‘but I still want to check. And how did you get on with the map? Could you decipher anything?’

  ‘Ah yes, the map. I’d forgotten that.’

  There was more rustling.

  ‘The writing says: ‘‘8, Fyristorg’’.’

  ‘An address in Uppsala, then?’

  ‘It seems to be, yes. That’s all there was. But as I said, I’ll send this up and you can get back to me if you’ve got any questions.’

  Fredrika thanked him for his help and decided her immediate priority was to check out the address in Uppsala, the city where she and Spencer had first met.

  It was nearly ten and she only had a few minutes before the meeting. Time to banish Spencer from her thoughts so she could concentrate. She raised her eyebrows when she discovered what was at 8, Fyristorg.

  It was the address of a Forex foreign exchange bureau.