Cinderella Girl

by Carin Gerhardsen

  ‘She only knew his first name. But he was yet another “friend of Pontus”. It turns out that there are quite a few so-called friends who show up there. Some, but only a few, give her a little money. A tip, I guess.’

  Sandén did not know what to say, sitting there in the dark on the cold stone floor in a strange stairwell, but his heart was pounding so that it boomed in his ears.

  ‘Daddy, I’m sorry to have to say this, but I think Jenny is a prostitute. I think that idiot Pontus is keeping her as a whore in her own home and that he keeps the money for himself.’

  ‘I’m going to kill that –’

  ‘No, Daddy,’ said Jessica in such a calm, determined voice that he lost his train of thought. ‘You’re not going to ruin your life and ours for a little piece of shit like that. If you do that, I’ll never forgive you. You’re not going to do anything. We’ll talk about this later tonight. I’m taking Jenny home to Mum now.’

  ‘Thanks …’ was the only thing he could say before the call was over.

  * * *

  It was the best thing she’d eaten in her whole life. Never before had a hamburger tasted so good. Hanna talked without interruption as they ate. The words welled out in floods between bites. Her secret friend – Björn – did not say much, but that didn’t matter. He listened to her and smiled in a friendly way, and didn’t get mad when she spilled something.

  ‘Are you a man or a boy?’ Hanna wanted to know.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked back.

  ‘An old boy,’ Hanna giggled, and then Björn giggled too.

  They understood one another. When Hanna happened to get a little ketchup on her nose, Björn put ketchup on his finger and smeared it on his own nose. Hanna laughed at him and he looked happy. Mummy would not have liked that. But that didn’t matter any more.

  Björn wanted them to take a bath as soon as they’d finished their food, but Hanna wanted sweets first.

  ‘You brought sweets, didn’t you, Björn? You said you would,’ said Hanna.

  ‘I have sweets with me. But can’t we take a bath first, and save the sweets for later?’

  ‘But I want sweets now,’ said Hanna.

  ‘Then we’ll have a few sweets now, but save most of them until after the bath,’ Björn decided.

  Hanna agreed to that. Björn went out in the hall and took a big packet of sweets from his jacket pocket. Hanna waited for him at the table in the children’s room. Then the doorbell rang. Hanna leaped up from the chair and rushed out into the hall.

  ‘Someone’s coming!’ she called, but Björn silenced her with a finger over his lips.

  ‘We’re secret friends,’ he whispered. ‘No one else can be with us.’

  ‘But if it’s Daddy …’ said Hanna, but he put his hand over her mouth.

  ‘You don’t want to share the sweets with other people,’ he coaxed. ‘And Daddy has his own key; he wouldn’t ring the doorbell.’

  Hanna complied and they slipped quietly back into the children’s room and Björn closed the door behind them. They sat there quietly for a while and listened to the doorbell ringing again and again.

  ‘Hanna! Are you there? It’s Barbro! Open up, Hanna dear!’ was heard from outside the front door.

  Then Hanna smiled and whispered to Björn, ‘It’s just that silly Barbro. She lies like a rug.’ Daddy always said that. It sounded funny, thought Hanna.

  She poured sweets on to the table and divided them carefully into two roughly equal piles.

  ‘You only get three sweets before the bath,’ Björn suggested.

  Hanna nodded in agreement and took a fistful of sweets and popped them into her mouth. Björn looked at her as if he meant to say something, but he only shrugged. He studied her blankly while she chewed.

  ‘Now let’s take a bath,’ he said.

  * * *

  After sitting for a while on the cold stairs recovering, Sandén stood up with a groan. He suddenly felt very old, and very unhappy. He wanted to go home, immediately, but decided to make a final effort before giving up for the day. He was standing outside the paediatric nurse’s door anyway.

  The woman who opened it did not look as sick as he felt; she was dressed and her hair was done.

  ‘Jens Sandén, Hammarby Police,’ he said, holding up his police ID with a slightly trembling hand.

  ‘Come in,’ said the woman, who appeared to be in her forties. ‘I was expecting one of you to stop by.’

  Sandén stepped into the hall and took the envelope of photographs out of his inside pocket – he had lost track of how many times he had done that. He was out of breath, but hoped that it was not noticeable as he tried to act normally.

  ‘Excuse me for bothering you, but this won’t take long,’ he apologized. ‘I’ve been running around tormenting paediatric nurses all day.’

  ‘That’s no problem. It’s just a cold and I feel much better. I’ll be back at work tomorrow. Won’t you come in?’ she asked politely.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m on my way home. I just need to show you a few photographs. They’re not very cheerful, these pictures. I want to warn you in advance. You see, a dead woman was found in Vitabergsparken. Perhaps you read about it in the papers?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We also found a little boy in a pram insert in the bushes,’ Sandén continued. ‘He’s in no danger; he’s being treated at a hospital and is almost recovered. But it’s been more than sixty hours since we made the discovery, and no one has contacted us yet about these missing persons. We haven’t been able to identify either of them, so that’s why I’m running around talking to nurses. This is what the boy looks like,’ said Sandén, holding up one of the pictures in front of her.

  She studied the photograph for a while in silence, but then shook her head.

  ‘It’s hard when they’re that little,’ she said. ‘They change so quickly at that age. How old is he?’

  ‘We think he’s about five months old.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t ring any bells. Do you have a picture of the mother too?’

  ‘Yes, I do. She was dead when she was photographed and it’s not that pretty to look at. You’d better brace yourself.’

  She crossed her arms and nodded. He pulled out one of the photographs and showed it to her. She answered almost immediately.

  ‘The boy’s name is Lukas,’ she said, swallowing. ‘Lukas Hedberg. He was born sometime in the middle of May. Pretty big for his age. I don’t remember the mother’s name. She’s very nice. Was very nice,’ she corrected herself. ‘There’s a girl too, Hanna – she must be three or so. Let’s see … March, I think. Born in March 2004. What happened?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ Sandén replied, ‘but it looks like she was run over by a car when she was out pushing the pram. A hit-and-run accident.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ the paediatric nurse said indignantly. ‘And little Hanna –’

  ‘We have to find out where they live,’ Sandén interrupted. ‘The relatives must be informed as soon as possible. You don’t happen to know the address, do you? Or the parents’ first names so I can call information?’

  She thought quietly for a few moments, then said, ‘Home visit. We make a home visit to our children when they’re newborns. I’m sure I have the address in my diary.’

  Her handbag was hanging on a hook in the hall and she took it down and pulled out the diary. Sandén was sweating profusely and felt like he needed to sit down again, but he could not very well sit down on the floor in the hall.

  ‘Let’s see here. May, I said …’

  She quickly leafed back through the diary until she came to the end of May, then took more time over each page, examining her notes. Sandén was standing close by, following her finger as it ran over the pages.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said at last, turning her face up towards him.

  ‘Home vis. Lukas Hedberg, Ploggatan 20,’ Sandén read. ‘You’ve been an invaluable help. I have to call the station.’

&nbs
p; He took the phone from his pocket but could not focus his eyes on the keypad. His thumb moved over the numbers, but he could not tell if he was hitting the right ones. He managed to press four times. Then he collapsed on the hallway floor.

  * * *

  Hanna showed her guest the way to the bathroom. The bathtub had not been drained since she had last used it. Björn pulled the plug and let the cold, murky water run out of the tub before he rinsed down the sides with the shower head. Then he filled it again with clean, hot water.

  ‘Should we put bath beads in the water?’ Hanna suggested. ‘Then it smells nice.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Björn. ‘If you think so.’

  Hanna gathered up some of the variously coloured bath beads from a drawer and scattered them in the water.

  ‘Are you going to take off your clothes?’ asked Björn.

  ‘You too?’ asked Hanna.

  Björn nodded and started unbuttoning his shirt. Hanna tore off all her clothes before Björn had even finished with his buttons. She bounded up to the bathtub, climbed over the edge and sat down.

  ‘Daddy has one of those too, although it’s a lot littler,’ Hanna observed, as Björn raised one leg over the edge of the tub.

  He gave her a warm smile in response and lowered himself across from her with a sigh of pleasure.

  * * *

  Barbro could not relax. The situation was absurd. Either everything was fine in the apartment and she should just forget all this and go home to bed. Or else something was wrong, really wrong. And what good did it do to sit here in the stairwell staring out into the darkness? She had done a lot of things right the past few days, but this – it just felt cowardly. She might as well end with guns blazing – wasn’t that the most important thing? What other people thought should make no difference. Even if she were a hysterical female disgracing herself. She had to follow her own conscience and do what felt right to her.

  There was a three-year-old in there who had told her that she was home all alone, that she had to find food for herself and had hurt herself. Now suddenly there was a grown man with her, but what kind of strange character was it who didn’t open the door when the bell rang? Who didn’t even yell at her to go away when she shouted through the letter box. Instead he had kept quiet and hidden somewhere in the apartment. That was not normal, it just wasn’t. If Hanna’s father believed that Barbro was a lunatic who was trying to disturb them, he would have called the police. Which would have made her happy. But he hadn’t done that – he refused to communicate with her, and he withdrew into the apartment with the little girl.

  What if something horrible was going on in there? What that might be Barbro could not imagine, but the more she thought about it, the more obvious it seemed to her that something was not right. And what was she doing, really? She ought to be slapped. Get up now, Barbro, and take hold of the situation. Don’t be one of those people who only stand and stare.

  * * *

  A fragment of a thought fluttered past as she passed Hamad’s darkened office on her way to the coffee machine. She put a teabag in the brownish cup and noted that she ought to clean it with salt to get rid of all the old stains that weren’t removed in the dishwasher. She put it in the machine and pushed the button for hot water. Squeezed out the teabag with a spoon and tossed it in the wastebasket, added milk from the refrigerator. And there it was – that unpleasant feeling that you get when you know you haven’t followed a thought to its conclusion. Because you were interrupted, because you couldn’t, or because you didn’t want to, didn’t dare. Petra tried to shake off the feeling, and took a biscuit from the cupboard although she didn’t really want one.

  She took the teacup and started walking back to her office. Stopped outside Hamad’s door, which was open, inviting an unannounced visit. But he was not there. Sjöberg and Hamad were up at Bjurholmsplan; she and Eriksson were the only ones in the offices on this corridor. Eriksson almost always worked with his door closed, unwilling to subject himself to the friction of encounters with other people. Petra remained standing outside Hamad’s room, staring into the darkness. Come back, thought. What were you trying to tell me? It was close now; it was there knocking again, but would she let it in?

  She saw herself sitting in Clarion’s bar one fateful November night; saw herself exchange a fleeting smile with a charming anaesthetist over Jamal’s head. Who made an early exit, leaving her in the clutches of a serial rapist who drugged her and dragged her home with him. To then film and rape her together with … someone. The Other Man. What bad luck, Jamal, that you didn’t stay longer, then we could have left together.

  She saw herself sitting with Jamal in the commotion at Pelican. Noisy, cosy, warm and convivial. As it always was with Jamal. They could have left together then too, but he had other plans. He wasn’t taking the metro; he was going to walk home. Home?

  They had worked out together after the course, but had they done that? Sometimes; sometimes not. There were periods when she didn’t see him as she struggled with her machines and weights. When she was boxing with the sandbag in the adjacent room, he was still at the machines. Or was he? When she showered, he showered too; but how long did that take? Thirty minutes, like her, with shoulder-length hair that had to be washed and blow-dried? Or ten minutes, like most guys?

  And his warmth, his eyes, his way of embracing her? What did that mean? His way of being close to her and yet inaccessible? Near and far. He had just separated from his wife, but she didn’t really know why. How well did she really know him? Very well, and not at all.

  Petra glanced back along the corridor and slipped into Jamal’s office, closing the door behind her. In the darkness she groped her way up to the desk and sat down at the computer. Dragged the mouse back and forth a few times, until the screen lit up and the computer asked for a password. Jamal never changed passwords; he always used the same one: Maryam, his mother’s name. Petra quickly went through his e-mail, but to her relief found nothing of interest. Then she clicked on ‘My Pictures’ but there was only one folder: ‘Sample pictures’, a default folder with images of mountains, sunsets, flowers and winter scenes. She was just about to log out when something made her open the folder of sample pictures anyway. And there it was at the very bottom, the picture of her in Peder Fryhk’s bed; the picture that had been sent to the police commissioner.

  Petra took a deep breath, not knowing what to do. After a moment’s deliberation she deleted the picture, emptied the virtual wastebasket and logged out. Without any idea whatsoever of how she should deal with this.

  She got up and was just about to leave the room when her mobile phone rang. It lit up the office for her and she quickly made her way to the door, opened it as quietly as she could and went out into the corridor before she answered.

  ‘Jens?’ she said, but there was no one there.

  All she could hear was a woman’s voice in the background. She drew the conclusion that Sandén had called her accidentally and was about to hang up, when something the woman was saying made her change her mind.

  ‘Stora Mossen,’ she could make out. ‘Third floor. I need an ambulance immediately. I’m a nurse myself and I think in the worst case it may be a stroke.’

  ‘Jens!’ shouted Petra. ‘What’s going on?’

  Rumbling in the receiver, racket and noise.

  ‘Hello!’ she cried, even louder now. ‘Is anyone there?’

  The door to Einar Eriksson’s office opened and he came out and looked at her questioningly.

  ‘I think something has happened to Jens,’ Petra explained. ‘I’m trying to make contact, but –’

  ‘Hello,’ she suddenly heard the woman’s voice in her ear. ‘I have a policeman here whose name is Jens Sandén. He collapsed and I’ve called an ambulance. Are you a police officer?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Petra. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I can’t explain it, but I know he’s very concerned that you should know that the address is Ploggatan 20. Do you understand?’

>   ‘Ploggatan 20,’ Petra replied, with her heart in her throat. ‘I understand.’

  ‘The boy’s name is Lukas Hedberg. He has a three-year-old sister whose name is Hanna Hedberg. I have to go now.’

  ‘Hedberg,’ mumbled Petra, but the woman had already hung up.

  Eriksson and Petra stood staring at each other for a few moments before the information sank in.

  ‘But I talked with the girl this afternoon and with her father just now,’ said Eriksson with a puzzled expression.

  ‘And they weren’t missing any family members?’

  Eriksson shook his head with a frown.

  ‘Then it wasn’t her dad,’ Petra said. ‘We have to go there. Do you know where it is, Einar?’

  ‘By Vitabergsparken. Ploggatan is an extension of Stora Mejtens Gränd. Or the other way around. But Sjöberg and Hamad are in the vicinity. We’ll send them there if it’s urgent.’

  ‘It is,’ said Petra, speed-dialling Sjöberg.

  * * *

  There was a terrible racket in the stairwell, someone hollering and screaming and hammering with something that sounded like metal. Sjöberg and Hamad quickly ran up the stairs to the fourth floor. A dozen people were assembled there watching with amusement an elderly woman who was crouching down, banging the cover of the Hedberg family’s letter box. When Sjöberg caught sight of Barbro, he could not conceal the start of a smile.

  ‘You can go home now,’ he said to the curious observers, holding up his police ID so that they could all see it. ‘We’ll take over here.’

  Hamad herded them away and made sure they scattered. Sjöberg extended his hand to Barbro and helped her up.

  Barbro greeted them quickly, without taking the time to smile back at the policemen.

  ‘I’ve been ringing, but no one opens. But I know someone’s in there.’

  ‘Really?’ said Sjöberg, putting his ear to the door.

  He kept it there for a minute or so before he gave up.

  ‘There’s not a sound coming from inside,’ he said. ‘Are you sure someone’s there?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Barbro replied. ‘Before I rang I listened for sounds from inside the apartment, just like you. I heard both a child’s and a man’s voice. I called to Hanna through the letter box, but then it went completely quiet. I think it’s very strange that no one opens the door when you ring –’