Buried Lies

by Kristina Ohlsson

She paused for breath.

  I took the chance to invite myself in.

  ‘Are we really going to have this conversation on the doorstep?’ I said.

  There was a risk that she’d respond by slamming the door in my face. But she didn’t.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. We stood there in the hall. Evidently that was as far as she was going to allow me. I looked at her as she stood there with her arms folded. Her neighbour had said that she’d spent the day in the country. With her long white trousers and dark blue blouse she looked more like she’d been to a gallery or a smart wine-bar.

  ‘You think your brother and sister got what they deserved?’ I said. ‘Because they weren’t strong enough to break away at the same age you did?’

  Marion shook her head.

  ‘They were like two baby birds, waiting desperately for me to go back and take them away from there. How would that have worked? Neither of them was disciplined enough to hold down a job. Not to mention education. While I was working my arse off to get perfect grades, Sara and Bobby did all they could to sabotage their own futures.’

  ‘You’re the eldest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That usually entails a degree of responsibility.’

  ‘Sure. But that responsibility doesn’t extend beyond helping people to help themselves.’

  I realised that in many ways, Marion was a copy of me. Just like I had, she had done all she could to turn out different to her parents, and had realised that would only happen if she made different choices in life. Trying hard at school was one such choice.

  Knowledge is power. Power is freedom. Freedom is everything.

  Our eyes met in tacit understanding. I could see she had recognised that we were the same sort, she and I.

  ‘How do you think I can help?’ she said.

  ‘Bobby tried to get his sister off with the police and her lawyers. What were your thoughts about that?’

  ‘You mean did I think she was innocent?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  Her reply came quickly. I blinked in surprise.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence.

  ‘You think Sara murdered five people?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not a lawyer,’ Marion said. ‘And I’m not a police officer. But I knew Sara. If you ask me if I think she was sufficiently damaged and crazy to kill other people, I’m afraid I have to say yes to that question. But as to what the actual evidence says about the matter of guilt, you’ll have to ask someone else.’

  Shaken, I tried to find the words to express what I wanted to say.

  ‘As I understand it, Bobby believed the exact opposite on both of the matters you’ve just indirectly referred to,’ I said. ‘He didn’t think Sara was capable of murder, and he thought the evidence was too weak.’

  ‘But she confessed.’

  Marion shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘People sometimes take responsibility for crimes they haven’t committed,’ I said.

  ‘A lot of things happen,’ Marion said. ‘And they all happened to Sara.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to find any indication that Sara was charged with any violent offences before,’ I said.

  ‘Because she never was,’ Marion said. ‘Sara got away with an awful lot of things.’

  ‘Did you say that to the police?’ I said.

  ‘That Sara had been physically violent before? No, I didn’t.’

  I couldn’t help feeling sceptical about what she was saying. Up to that moment I had been prepared to see Sara Tell as a victim: a victim of a conspiracy and of threats that were so unpleasant that she was prepared to shoulder Job’s yoke without the slightest resistance.

  ‘I can’t get this to make sense,’ I said. ‘You say you left your childhood home when you were sixteen. You abandoned your brother and sister. But you still think you know them pretty well.’

  Marion’s hall was gloomy. I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t see her face properly. I couldn’t see her reaction to what I’d said.

  ‘Families are like chewing gum,’ she said. ‘You can go as far away as you like, but once it’s stuck to your shoe you can never get rid of it. We saw each other from time to time, obviously. When Sara finally started to talk about moving away from Stockholm I felt happy for her. She made one attempt to leave home after she finished school, but that went wrong. She was subletting a flat but didn’t keep up with the rent. She had something like five jobs in the space of a year, but she kept getting fired. How anyone could have employed her as an au pair is beyond me. She was the least together person on the planet.’

  Marion sighed. I was close to doing the same. Exhaustion hit me like a hammer-blow in the back. I had to go home and get to bed. Two sleepless nights were too much for anyone.

  ‘Who was Sara violent towards?’ I said.

  Marion looked away. It’s odd – family betrayal always hurts, even long after the relationships that held things together have broken.

  ‘A lot of people,’ Marion said. ‘Before she moved to the States, anyway. She took a wrong turn, so to speak. Started hanging out with a gang of real hooligans who used to get their kicks beating people up. I know drugs were involved as well. I never understood how Sara never got caught. The others in the gang did, one after the other. But Sara and Ed seemed to be made of Teflon. Nothing ever stuck to them.’

  This was new. I thought back to the pictures of Sara I had seen in the papers. The murderer with the pretty face and academic glasses. Actually rather similar to her big sister, I realised now that I was looking at Marion. But how could no one have known? How could Sara’s past as a gangster have gone completely unnoticed by police and media?

  ‘So Sara’s ex, Ed, was an active member of the same gang?’ I said.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that was how they met,’ Marion said.

  ‘Did you ever meet him? Ed?’

  ‘Only once. He seemed genuinely sick. A truly disturbed individual. Used to beat Sara black and blue. Which was kind of good in a way. It was his fists that gave her the push she needed to take off to the States.’

  I couldn’t really accept the point of Marion’s argument. There was nothing positive about a girl being abused by her boyfriend and running all the way to Texas.

  ‘Was Ed smart too, or just sick?’

  I was reluctant to use the same expression as Marion, but did so anyway. You have to be careful about saying people are mentally ill.

  Marion laughed.

  ‘I wouldn’t say he was smart. More lazy and lethargic.’

  ‘When Sara moved back home from Texas, do you know if she still had trouble with him then?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. But we had very sporadic contact at the time, me and Sara. Especially after I found out she was pregnant.’

  ‘You didn’t think she should be a mother?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I thought it was terrible. I don’t know how many times I stood with the phone in my hand, thinking about phoning Social Services.’

  She fell silent, as if she felt she had said too much.

  ‘Who was Mio’s father?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Ed?’

  ‘I said I don’t know.’

  ‘But Mio was living with foster parents while Sara was in custody?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My chest muscles stiffened as I held my breath. For a fraction of a second I was transported three years back in time. I could see myself standing with the phone in my hand, being told the news. That Belle would be placed in a foster home in Skövde. My throat stung as I breathed out.

  You can let down your adult siblings. But little children? No, you can’t abandon them. Not if you have the chance to do the right thing. And I thought I could see that Marion had had the chance.

  ‘You never considered looking after Mio yourself?’ I said.

  ‘Not for a moment. I don
’t take responsibility for other people’s mistakes. Especially not if they last a lifetime.’

  Human beings can be so incredibly different.

  The air in the whitewashed hall ran out. I needed to get out of there, fast.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ I said, reaching for the door handle. ‘By the way, you haven’t heard from Bobby recently?’

  ‘No, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’

  I was starting to get seriously tired of the unembarrassed way she kept marking the distance between her and her family. The door opened and cool air from the stairwell slipped into the hall.

  ‘Can you think of any good explanation as to why Bobby never turned to the media for help with Sara’s case?’ I said. ‘He went to the police and her lawyer, but never to the papers.’

  ‘Because Sara asked him not to. He came and asked if I could present the family’s case to the mass media. Probably because I was the only one of us who looked remotely presentable. But I refused, of course. Later on he texted to say that it didn’t matter anyway. Sara had forbidden him from carrying on his campaign to get her exonerated.’

  I supposed that would do as an explanation. With a short nod I thanked her again and left the flat.

  Marion followed me.

  ‘I can tell you think I’m a bad person,’ she said. ‘But I’m not. I’m just the sort of person who tries to do the right thing for myself.’

  I was already halfway down the stairs.

  ‘Sometimes the best thing you can do is to try to do the right thing for other people,’ I said.

  Then I turned and walked away.

  26

  It had gone nine o’clock by the time I got home. Lucy had put Belle to bed and was sitting on the terrace with a glass of wine.

  ‘Did it go okay?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know how to answer that,’ I said.

  My legs felt like they were made of soft toffee. I sat down, exhausted. Going in to get a wineglass felt like as much of a challenge as carrying a grand piano up the stairs.

  I reached distractedly for Lucy’s glass.

  ‘How was she?’ she said, letting go of the glass without protest.

  ‘Peculiar.’

  ‘Did you fuck?’

  I swallowed the wine and it caught in my throat. It stung like fire when I coughed.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Lucy.’

  ‘You usually call me Baby.’

  I rediscovered my legs and went in to get a glass of water. I heard noises from Belle’s room and hurried to take a look. She had got tangled up in the covers and was bumping the plaster-cast against the wall as she tried to pull free.

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, and helped her untangle herself.

  I held my hand to her forehead and waited until she fell back to sleep. Then I padded gently out of her room. Lucy was still sitting where I had left her.

  Without responding to her tawdry question I told her what I had found out from Marion. Lucy listened quietly but attentively.

  ‘You need to watch out,’ she said when I had finished. ‘You’re in a situation where you’re getting information from all sides, but with no way of evaluating it. Who knows what a bitter sister might blurt out? How can you be sure she isn’t making up all that stuff about Sara’s violent past?’

  I drank some wine. From the street came the muffled sound of traffic, and the evening sky was heavy with the same clouds that had hung there all day. We ought to forget the whole thing and go to Nice like we’d planned. That would have been the right choice, the only rational option.

  ‘I don’t think she was lying, seeing as she was almost pathetically honest about everything else.’

  ‘You mean the nephew she let Social Services look after?’

  ‘Amongst other things.’

  Lucy took her wineglass back.

  ‘Do you need me tonight or is it okay if I go home to sleep?’ she said.

  I was seized by an irrational fear that if I let her leave the flat she’d never come back. I wouldn’t be able to live with that. No way.

  As usual when I got scared, I adopted a defensive attitude. Because I knew what she was trying to say, indirectly.

  ‘You were the one who broke up with me.’

  She stood up abruptly.

  ‘Don’t start with all that crap again,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to take that.’

  I was on my feet just as quickly.

  ‘But it’s true. You said you weren’t prepared to give me another chance, but that you wanted to keep seeing me. Without any conditions or expectations. That’s exactly what you said.’

  I sounded like a five-year-old trying to renegotiate an agreement that had been wrong from the outset without bursting into tears.

  ‘And here we are anyway,’ Lucy said quietly. ‘Full of expectations and weighed down with obligations. Not because we’re a couple but because we’re friends, Martin.’

  I lowered my head wearily.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I see other people, that’s just the way it is. I didn’t think of it as wrong. I thought that’s how you wanted it. I’ve always assumed that you sleep with other people when you feel like it. And I don’t really have a problem with us doing that.’

  I looked up cautiously.

  Lucy was running a hand through her wild red hair. The way I loved curling it round my fingers.

  ‘In theory it’s a great agreement,’ she said. ‘But in practice . . .’

  She fell silent.

  I waited as long as I could bear to.

  Then I asked, ‘What do you want, Lucy?’

  She looked tense.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Right now everything feels pretty crap. This whole Sara Texas mess. It’s taken up so much time and energy. We’re not going to get to Nice, I think we both know that.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Bloody hell, Martin. Someone’s trying to frame you for murder. Someone who’s already run down and killed a woman in your car. Aren’t you scared?’

  Her green eyes were wide with worry.

  If I was scared? Yes, I was. But I was also determined not to let whoever was after me win. There aren’t many battles for our peace of mind, and we can’t afford to lose them.

  ‘Of course I’m scared,’ I said. ‘But the threat won’t get any smaller if we just ignore it. That’s starting to look very obvious now.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘First of all, sleep. Tomorrow I’m going to call Didrik at National Crime and tell him what’s happened. It’s important that the police have everything documented. Then we need to try to figure out who came to the office pretending to be Bobby Tell. I’ll let Didrik have the mobile number I’ve been in touch with, maybe he can trace it back to someone. And I think we ought to consider the idea of going to Texas. It could be a bad mistake to think we can sort this out without leaving Stockholm.’

  I realised that the thought had been there all along. I couldn’t tackle five different murders, and would never have time to do so. But I didn’t have to. Sara’s time as a suspected murderer had started in the USA, and there were only two murders there. If I could get her cleared of the two Texas murders, the Swedish ones would follow.

  I said as much to Lucy.

  ‘Texas is so far away,’ she said. ‘And the Swedish murders are in our own backyard.’

  ‘But that breaks the chronology,’ I said. ‘It seems pointless to ignore the murders that first brought her to the attention of the police.’

  Lucy shook her head slowly.

  ‘I think she did commit those murders, Martin. All of them.’

  ‘Still? You still think Sara Tell murdered five people? In spite of everything that’s happened in the past few days?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘The evidence,’ she said. ‘The weight of evidence is overwhelming.’

  ‘Only if we fail to get to the bottom of this,’ I said. ‘I think that’ll show all the so-called
evidence in a completely different light.’

  An unnecessarily chill evening wind was making me shiver. We walked quietly back into the flat.

  ‘We,’ Lucy said. ‘You said we need to find out who came to the office and asked you to help Sara. That we ought to go to Texas.’

  I stroked her back.

  ‘If you want to,’ I said.

  ‘Do you need me, then?’ she said.

  The question was incomprehensible, no matter how simple it sounded.

  ‘More than ever,’ I whispered.

  She hugged me harder than I deserved.

  ‘Prove it, then,’ she said. ‘Prove it.’

  Sleep does something to us. Something good. When I woke up the following morning I had slept for over ten hours. My head was heavy when I lifted it from the pillow. From the kitchen I could hear muffled sounds from Lucy and Belle.

  Lucy had stayed the night, of course. She had asked me to prove how much I needed her. So I did. The only way I knew how. I made love to her until I quite literally passed out. That sort of effort ought to have earned me a few points.

  ‘Am I going to preschool today?’ Belle said when I walked into the kitchen.

  Lucy stared at my naked body.

  ‘You forgot your underwear, Martin.’

  Without a word I went back to the bedroom. I’m man enough to admit when I’ve made a mistake, and to put it right.

  I returned to the kitchen, this time wearing not only pants but jeans and a t-shirt.

  Belle giggled and I kissed her on the head.

  ‘You’re not going to preschool today. Signe’s going to come and look after you.’

  Lucy smiled playfully as I poured a cup of coffee. My hand was shaking slightly.

  ‘What about us?’ she said. ‘Are we staying at home with Signe as well?’

  I drank the hot coffee, felt it run down my throat and warm me from the inside in the summer chill. Rested and relatively recently fucked, I felt ready for any battle.

  ‘We’re going to work,’ I said. ‘And we’re going to call the police.’

  Which was one of the first things I did when we got to the office. Everything was the same as usual there, which was the contrast I needed to understand how much my life had changed over the course of the weekend.

  Someone had stolen my car and run down and killed another person.