Buried Lies

by Kristina Ohlsson

  FO: What sort of surveillance are we talking about here? Phone-tapping?

  MB: Phone-tapping, internet monitoring, physical surveillance. The whole lot. Twenty-four hours a day.

  FO: Presumably they imposed official restrictions as well?

  MB: They asked me to stay in Stockholm. So I could be available for subsequent interviews.

  FO: And did you do that?

  MB: No.

  28

  The plane tickets cost fifty-five thousand kronor. We were going to be flying the day after the interview with the police, Lucy and I. Business class. If you’re going down, you may as well do it in style. My fate had merged with Sara’s. My only chance of clearing my name was to find the person who had earlier framed Sara. That was the conclusion I drew from everything that had happened.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid now, Martin,’ was the last thing Didrik said to me when we parted.

  His remark was almost comical. The concept of ‘stupid’ had shifted from defined to fluid in the space of an hour. I had been wrongly accused of the murders of two people. One of whom I had never even met. It was a stroke of sheer luck for the real murderer that I had been out to get some air the night I spent at the hospital with Belle. If I hadn’t done that my alibi would have been unimpeachable.

  The dilemma for the police was that all their information was too vague, not strong enough to have me remanded in custody. They believed my car was the one involved in both hit and runs, but they couldn’t prove it. They believed they could dismantle my alibi, but they weren’t sure. And they lacked any suggestion of a motive. The question they were struggling with was obvious: why would I have killed Bobby Tell and Jenny Woods? I was terrified of the moment they thought they had an answer to that question, because then I’d be finished. For good.

  I didn’t have the slightest doubt that the person who had gone to such trouble to frame me was going to help the police to understand my motivation. So I was in a hell of a hurry to put a stop to this madness. It was only a matter of days, or perhaps a week or so, before I would find myself remanded in custody without bail.

  Lucy didn’t hesitate about coming to Texas with me. But we spent hours debating whether or not we should take Belle. To me it was a question of her physical safety.

  ‘This isn’t a family holiday,’ Lucy said. ‘Taking her would be a huge risk. If Didrik finds out that you’ve left the country and also taken your daughter with you, he’ll think you’ve gone on the run.’

  ‘So what do you suggest I do? Leave Belle in Stockholm?’

  ‘No, with her paternal grandparents at their cottage in the archipelago. After all, she’s been looking forward to going to see them. She’ll be safe there, out in the country with them.’

  Naturally. She was right about everything.

  Belle was actually my biggest worry. If anything happened to me, if I died or ended up in prison, she would be back to square one. Without parents, and without a safety net. And there’d be no one to save her from growing up with foster parents in Skövde. Just thinking about it was physically painful. And I felt a rage so intense that it frightened me. Belle and I had come a hell of a long way together. I simply couldn’t accept that someone was trying to take what we’d built up away from us.

  Not without a fight.

  Not without one hell of a battle.

  Belle was the last thing I would give up. That was all there was to it.

  So I found myself calling her grandparents and explaining as briefly as I could that I needed their help. I didn’t tell them exactly what had happened, but they could hear from my voice that it was important for them to be there for me.

  ‘I see you’re calling from a phone with a hidden number,’ Belle’s grandfather said. ‘Is that something new you’ve started doing?’

  ‘It’s only temporary,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you have a new number you can reach me on.’

  The first thing Lucy and I did when we got back to the office after seeing the police was to switch off our mobiles and remove the batteries. We tucked them away in a cupboard and Lucy, whom we assumed they wouldn’t be tailing physically, popped out to get new ones. Just in case she was being followed – by the police or our as yet unknown antagonist – she went to a lot of effort to shake anyone off. She changed underground trains four or five times. She walked right round a number of shops before finally buying what she wanted. She paid in cash, then came back to the office. The police weren’t stupid, of course. They’d try to pick up the signals from our new phones, so we had to be very restrictive in our use of them. If the police got hold of the new numbers they’d be no good to us. For that reason Lucy had bought eight phones, and the same number of SIM cards.

  We went to similar lengths to minimise the risk of our internet use being monitored. And we daren’t take any risks when it came to the possible bugging of the office. Anything sensitive was communicated in writing, on sheets of paper that we then burned. When we needed to have longer conversations we went out into the stairwell.

  I was reluctant to go home that day. But in the end I had no choice.

  Belle had had a lovely day with Signe. But children have a razor-sharp ability to read social situations. Belle figured out that something was wrong immediately.

  I picked her up in my arms and tried to joke my own anxiety away. It didn’t work.

  ‘You’re going to go and stay with Grandma and Granddad,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  I explained that some things had happened. So-called grown-up things. Nothing to worry about, nothing nasty, but it would be best if Lucy and I could be on our own for a little while.

  ‘How long?’ Belle said.

  ‘A week,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll be home again.’

  That was what I hoped, anyway, that it would take a week to shed some light on the conspiracy I had evidently been dragged into.

  Belle slept in my bed that night. It was impossible to get her to sleep in her own. I lay on my back for ages waiting for her to settle down. Then I crept out of the bedroom and started to pack. There are no curtains in the flat, but I’ve got blinds. I lowered them all. Belle and Signe had been at home all day and there hadn’t been any visitors. So the flat hadn’t been searched, and it hadn’t been bugged. Presumably they were waiting for an opportunity when the flat was empty. That made me feel a little safer, even if it was only a modest relief. I no longer knew what inner peace was. The fact that I had been looking forward to a trip to the Riviera as recently as a week ago seemed quite incomprehensible.

  Logistics. There’s nothing more vital in any emergency situation. I don’t know how many times I ran through our plan before we set off. I would drive Belle out to her grandparents the next morning. Then I would pick Lucy up and together we would make our way to Arlanda. The hire car would have to sit in the long-stay car-park. That was going to be a seriously expensive car.

  I made the most important phone call of the day once my bags were packed. He answered on the third ring. My friend Boris. Well, not my friend. Acquaintance. And a dubious one at that. I was pleased I had such a choice of mobiles. Because it really wouldn’t be great if the police noticed that particular contact just then.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ Boris said when he answered.

  His voice sounded the same, even though I hadn’t heard it for several years. Smoky and hoarse. Well-used, as Lucy once described it.

  ‘It has,’ I said. ‘Far too long. Sorry about that.’

  Boris laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry, my friend,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one to blame. I have – how can I put it? – been busy, not easy to get hold of. I was on the point of ditching the number you just called, so you’re lucky to get hold of me.’

  I thanked my lucky stars that he had answered. It wouldn’t have felt good to leave Sweden without talking to Boris first. Not good at all.

  ‘I’m very pleased you answered,’ I said.

  He fell silent. I hea
rd a noise in the background. Possibly a chair scraping the floor.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said.

  He knew I wouldn’t have called him otherwise. We weren’t friends in the sense that we met up regularly over a cup of coffee.

  ‘I can’t go into detail,’ I said. ‘The short version is that I’m in the shit. Seriously in the fucking shit, even. Someone’s trying to frame me for a double murder.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt, I haven’t got time to explain. Lucy and I are going away for a week, to try to get to the bottom of this whole mess. I need . . .’

  ‘Hang on a moment.’

  My heart-rate increased as I squeezed the phone. I didn’t have time to wait, and no time to listen.

  ‘You said I could call you if I ever needed help,’ I said. ‘I’ll never need help more than I do right now.’

  ‘Okay, I can hear it in your voice. You don’t have to tell me how badly you need help, I’ve worked that out. What I’m wondering is something else you said. That you and Lucy are – how did you put it? – going to get to the bottom of this. Are you crazy? I mean, you don’t know how to play a game where someone else’s opening gambit is a double murder, do you?’

  I ran my hand along the cool kitchen worktop. The kitchen smelled faintly of food. My stomach started to rumble and I found myself wondering if I’d ever come back to the flat.

  ‘I refuse to see this as a game,’ I said. ‘I see it as an investigation that needs to be conducted, and I’m pretty good at that. But . . .’

  ‘But you need protection?’

  ‘Not me. Belle.’

  Silence once more.

  ‘Martin, listen to me,’ Boris said quietly. ‘I know what you did for me. I’ll never forget that. Believe me, I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. So I’m prepared to do pretty much anything you ask me for. But looking after Belle. Christ, you can’t be serious? Do you really want to entrust that lovely little kid to an old ogre like me?’

  For the first time that day I burst out laughing.

  It almost felt as if Boris was repaying his debt by spreading a little happiness in my life.

  ‘We ought to meet up more often so we get better at understanding each other,’ I said, turning serious again. ‘I don’t want her to stay with you, I want you to keep a watchful eye on her while I’m gone. If you can’t watch her yourself, I want you to ask someone you trust to do it. I can pay handsomely if need be. Money isn’t a problem, as long as I know I can rely on the person concerned.’

  ‘That makes more sense,’ Boris said, sounding relieved. ‘Where’s she going to be while you’re gone?’

  The thought of leaving Belle with Boris for a week was still making me smile. She’d never have recovered from a trauma like that.

  ‘She’s going to be staying with her father’s parents out in the archipelago.’

  I described where, and Boris asked a few more questions.

  ‘I’ll put my best men on it,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about payment, it’s on me, no question.’

  If he hadn’t owed me a favour I’d never have accepted an arrangement like that, but I was happy to now. When it comes to guys like Boris, mafia bosses with contacts all over the world, from China to Russia to South America, you have to stay in credit. Because his debt-collectors don’t function like the rest of us.

  I felt relief spread through my body. Thank God, at least Belle was okay now.

  ‘I have to admit that I don’t know if she’s under any kind of real threat,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got reason to believe that whoever started all this crap has harmed a child the same age as her before.’

  My thoughts went to Mio, who vanished the day his mother Sara died.

  ‘Say no more,’ Boris said. ‘I’m genuinely pleased you called. It’s bothered me for years that I haven’t had a chance to repay you.’

  Exactly what I had done for Boris only he and I knew. Lucy knew of his existence, and had met him once. She avoided asking anything about him, and I was grateful for that. She had only asked me one question: ‘Why did he come to you, of all people?’

  I didn’t have a good answer to that. Nor did Boris. The situation with Boris was a bit like Bobby, really; for some reason I attract the strangest people with the hardest problems. And deep down I’m probably rather pleased about that.

  After I finished my call to Boris I phoned Lucy one last time.

  ‘All ready for tomorrow?’ she said.

  ‘All ready,’ I said.

  ‘Good, see you then,’ she said.

  I hung up with a guilty feeling in my chest. I hadn’t only got myself caught in the shit, I’d also got it smeared all over the only people I’ve ever loved. Shit’s like that, it sticks to whoever’s standing closest.

  The problem with this particular dirt was that I didn’t know how to get rid of it. My usual solution, to buy myself free, wasn’t going to work. It didn’t matter if I had all the damn money in the world – I didn’t even know who I ought to give it to.

  I had to try to unwind and get a few hours’ sleep. Otherwise everything would go to hell before I’d even got to the airport.

  Out of all the things I had to think about, my anonymous enemy troubled me least. Who was the man who had come to my office to plead for help on his sister’s behalf?

  He wasn’t Bobby, as he had claimed.

  Nor was he Sara Texas’s ex-boyfriend Ed – I’d seen a picture of him in Sara’s mother’s flat.

  So who the hell was he, and what were his motives?

  And, maybe even more importantly: had he come to see me of his own volition, or was he working for someone else?

  29

  Two murders, not five. I tried to turn that into a mantra rolling round my head of its own accord. To stop us thinking about the fact that Sara had been accused of five murders and concentrate on the two she was supposed to have committed in the USA. In the end it worked pretty well. Maybe even for Lucy, who hadn’t said anything on the subject of guilt since our chat on the roof terrace.

  Our flight to New York took off at quarter to eleven in the morning. I had no trouble leaving the country. Whether that was through sloppiness or naivety I don’t know, but either way, the police hadn’t bothered to seize my passport or block it. We would have a four-hour wait for the connection to Texas. Lucy and I sat in our throne-like seats eating nuts.

  ‘If the circumstances were different, this could have been a really nice trip,’ Lucy said.

  I didn’t reply. The memory of how it had felt to hand Belle over to her grandparents was still far too painful. If I hadn’t known that Boris would be keeping an eye on her, she would have had to come with us to the US. I’d never have left her without being convinced she was safe. I didn’t expect any help from the police.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Belle’s grandfather had asked when we met at the little harbour where he’d left the motorboat that would take them out to the island.

  ‘USA,’ I said.

  ‘How do I reach you?’

  ‘On the number I gave you yesterday. Or by email.’

  He nodded. Out of all Belle’s relatives on her father’s side, her grandfather was the one I liked best. A thoughtful older man who didn’t ask too many questions and who seemed to think it best if people could keep things to themselves.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said, and shook my hand.

  He could see that something had happened, but had the sense not to ask more questions.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And thank you for looking after Belle.’

  He rested a hand on her head.

  ‘You never have to thank us for that. We should be thanking you. Again. For sorting everything back then. That time . . .’

  We had talked about it, he and I. He agreed with me. It was a disgrace that Belle’s aunt, his daughter, wouldn’t take her. It would have been great for Belle to grow up with children the same age and two parents. Now she had me instead. Which wasn’t too bad, on the whole, b
ut it could have been better.

  Lucy stroked my arm and brought me back to the present.

  ‘Are you okay, Martin?’

  ‘No.’

  I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. My body had been running on adrenalin, and it had exhausted me. I hadn’t set foot in the USA in over two years. I’d sworn never to go back. Yet there I was, sitting in a plane that was roaring across the Atlantic. God alone knew what demons and ghosts from the past the trip was going to wake up.

  While a lot of people knew that I had once been a police officer in the USA, not many of them knew how I had ended up there. Not that it was a particularly remarkable story. That was where my dad was from. The man who had once abandoned me and never come back. After high school I took my lovely grades and headed off to Texas to meet him. Maybe I thought he would be able to answer some of my many questions. He had a new family, I found out. He didn’t want to be reminded of crap from the past, and asked me to leave him in peace.

  I didn’t. Because I thought that if he was given a bit of time he would regret pushing me away. I was born in the USA, so have American citizenship. My parents met while my dad was an exchange student in Stockholm. When they realised Marianne was pregnant they went to the USA and lived there for two years. All so that I would have the same citizenship as my dad, and to give Marianne a chance to get to know her husband’s home environment.

  When I was one year old they decided to move back to Sweden. Marianne set off first with me and all the luggage. My dad was going to follow along later. But he never did. He called Marianne and said he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want her, or me. According to Marianne that’s when her problems started. The drinking and smoking. Everything got better when she met the guy from Sälen who became my sister’s father, but when he walked out as well things fell apart again.

  I remember the astonishment I felt when I first arrived in the USA. I had expected to feel at home, to discover that I was much more American than Swedish. That didn’t happen. At first I thought it was because there was something wrong with Houston, where my dad lived. So I tried living in Dallas for a while instead. That didn’t work either, so I went back to Houston. I can’t really remember the details of how I ended up in the police force. It certainly wasn’t something I’d ever thought about back home in Sweden. But suddenly the opportunity presented itself, and I had nothing better planned. The training was only a year and a half, and then I got my first job. I lasted a year before resigning and returning to Sweden after another tragic encounter with my so-called dad.