The Lost Woman

by Sara Blaedel

  “And only God knows when the time is right for each person,” he said, when Sofie had emptied the bread basket.

  The phone in the kitchen rang. Sofie smiled at Stig, closed the door behind her, and answered.

  “Your mother won’t drink the protein drink I leave for her,” her mother’s home care aide jumped right in. “It’s not good, not at all. She’ll get even weaker and start aspirating again, and she’ll end up back in the hospital. You have to talk to her!”

  “I’ll come over right now,” Sofie said. She turned off the oven and wet the dishtowel covering the rolls that were rising.

  She was about to dig her boots out from under the mountain of teenage shoes when she noticed the open gun case. Which made her so mad, she could scream! Stig seldom irritated her, but this thoughtlessness, forgetting to lock up his hunting guns when the house was full of kids, was so typical of him.

  “Will you please come out here and lock your muskets up,” she yelled to him through the door. Several of the boys snickered; she’d done this before, and it was always good for a laugh.

  Not much was left of her mother. Less than a week ago, she had been released from the hospital after a serious case of pneumonia. Her white blood cell count had been sky high, and the infection had spread to her blood. Now she sat on the sofa with a blanket over her and a thick book on her lap. Was she reading the book, or did it simply give her a sense of dignity? Sofie had once caught her mother sitting with a book turned upside down.

  She was sixty-seven, but after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she had gone downhill fast. Suddenly, she was an old woman. She also had arthritis in her hands, shoulders, and back. Sofie knew the pain was worse than her mother let on, and she couldn’t hide her exhaustion. The once-energetic woman had disappeared. She still cleaned her small apartment above the flower shop, but it was a far cry from back when she had kept her large house, mowed the acre of lawn, and washed the windows before driving down to shop—without anyone thinking a thing about it. It was as if the energy had seeped out of her.

  “Ohhh, it is so irritating being old; I’m no good at it,” she often said. Her mother was now at the point where the day was a success if she had the energy to get out of bed and drink a cup of morning coffee while reading the newspaper.

  It was okay to be a slow starter, as Sofie put it. “There’s nothing you absolutely have to do. It’s okay to slow down,” she said, when her mother felt terrible about being old and unable to do anything.

  She kissed her mother on the cheek. “Mom, you have to sip on the protein drink, otherwise they’ll stick you back in the hospital.”

  Her mother’s steely blue eyes had softened over the past year. “Oh, Sof. I don’t want to go on. You have to understand, my time has come, my strength is gone.”

  “Let’s not get into that now, Mom.” Sofie walked out into the kitchen for the protein drink. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  Sofie sat down beside her mother on the sofa. “And I’m not leaving before you drink this. Then I’ll go down to the pharmacy and pick up your medication. What do you need from the store?”

  Her mother laid her hand on Sofie’s arm. “Honey…you said it yourself, can’t you hear? I can’t even walk down the street anymore.”

  “It’s only for the time being. You just got home. Being in the hospital is exhausting.”

  “No. This is my life now.” Her mother let her hand fall. “I’m not myself anymore.”

  Sofie couldn’t hold back her tears. They’d had this talk many times, but it had never felt so serious, so close.

  Her mother had made it clear that she wanted an out when she lost the will to live. They’d talked about it even before Sofie’s father died. In fact, Sofie had feared her mother would take her own life if her father went first. But it hadn’t happened; she hadn’t even spoken of it back then, though it was obvious how terribly she missed him.

  A year after his death, Sofie had invited her mother out, and for an entire evening they had talked about the right to choose when someone no longer wants to go on.

  “Of course it’s not something to be taken lightly,” her mother had said, to calm her daughter’s fears. “But life can take you to a place you don’t want to be, and that’s when I want to be allowed to end it. I promise you, though, I’ll hang on as long as I can.”

  Now Sofie stroked her mother’s hand before walking into the bathroom to get a grip on herself. To stop her tears. She leaned over the sink for a moment, then blew her nose, took a deep breath, and returned to the living room. “But it doesn’t have to be now,” she said, after sitting back down. “Wouldn’t you like to see spring?”

  Her mother reached again for Sofie’s hand. “My strength is gone.”

  “But do you even know how much medicine you need to take your own life?” Sofie blurted out. She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I will not come here and find you in a pool of blood, and don’t try anything with the gas oven in the kitchen. It could be dangerous for everyone else in the building.”

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  “And what am I supposed to do with myself while you’re lying here dying? Do you want me to sit here with you? Or should I just pace around at home, knowing what is happening? I just don’t know if I can do that.”

  Her mother shook her head quietly. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” She picked up the carton of protein drink Sofie had placed in front of her.

  “I understand you, and I don’t want to be egotistical,” Sofie said a while later. She held her mother’s hand again. “I want to set you free. I just love you so much, and I can’t even express how much I’m going to miss you.”

  “I love you, too.” Her mother set down the empty carton.

  3

  Have you seen Eik?” Louise asked Olle Svensson, when she ran into him in the hallway outside the lounge. The thin-haired investigator had shared an office with Eik before Rønholt moved Eik in with Louise and made them partners.

  “No, he didn’t come to lunch. He’s probably outside sucking on one of his cancer sticks.” Olle sipped at his coffee.

  Louise shook her head. “It’s been over two hours now since he went down to pick up some cigarettes and walk Charlie, and I just think it’s strange he isn’t back yet.”

  She didn’t like the look on Olle’s face. His brown eyes widened, and she really didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. Suddenly she wondered if he and Eik had, in fact, talked about moving his things out of her apartment later that day. Or if it actually had been said in jest.

  “Is there any more coffee in there?” she asked, nodding at his cup. Before he could answer, she was on her way into the lounge.

  Rønholt was right, Louise thought, as she walked back into the office. Everything was simply too awkward. She couldn’t even mention her partner’s name to anyone else in the department without it sounding suggestive. But where the hell was he? Surely he wasn’t so aggravated by her asking if he had the tickets that he just took off!

  Annoyed now, she walked over to the window. This was just pathetic. Had it been anyone else in the department, she would simply have assumed he’d gone for the day and had forgotten to say good-bye. Or else that something had come up.

  Or would she?

  She leaned forward and stared at the dog leashed to a hook in front of the convenience store. It looked exactly like Charlie. For a long time she waited for Eik to walk out of the store, but when the door finally opened, an older lady pulling her shopping cart emerged. Then the owner of the shop came out and set a plastic bucket of water in the snow by the wall. He petted the dog, then he said something and pointed to the bucket.

  Damn, it was Charlie! Definitely. But there was no sign of Eik.

  It took Louise two minutes to shut everything down in the office and slam the door behind her. She ran down the stairs through the rotunda, and a moment later was outside on the square.

  The German shepherd began wagging his tail when she a
pproached. She strode into the store, and after seeing there were no customers around, she asked, “Where’s Eik?”

  The owner came out from behind the counter and shook his head. “Don’t know. He’s gone. Bought cigarettes and forgot the dog. I brought him inside, but he started growling every time a customer came in. It’s been almost two hours, though, and it’s cold out there.”

  He shrugged his shoulders all the way up to his ears and looked at her as if resigned.

  “Charlie’s been out on the street all this time?” she asked. “What did Eik say when he left? He couldn’t have just forgotten him!”

  Once more the shop owner shrugged his shoulders. “He bought a pack of smokes, like always, and a new lighter. He paid and left. Haven’t seen him since!”

  Louise called Eik’s cell phone, but he didn’t answer. When she tried her own home phone number, the answering machine switched on. She thought for a moment before calling Rønholt’s office. She didn’t like the idea of involving him further in their private life, but on the other hand, he must have sent Eik out somewhere and forgotten to tell her about it.

  “I haven’t seen or heard from him since you left my office,” he said. He sounded preoccupied. “But he’s a big boy; usually he can take care of himself.”

  She shouldn’t have called. She threw her phone down into her bag and unhooked Charlie’s leash. She was so infuriated that she decided to walk all the way home to Frederiksberg. Eik’s taking off and abandoning his dog on the street in this cold was one thing; making her look like a complete idiot was even worse.

  The sixth-floor apartment was empty. Louise hadn’t gotten used to Jonas being at boarding school; the place was very quiet when he wasn’t home. She looked through the four rooms and saw that nobody had been there since they’d left that morning. She went downstairs and rang Melvin’s doorbell.

  “We just got back from Frederiksberg Gardens,” her neighbor said. He’d been happy to take on the job of looking after Dina, now that Jonas was home only on weekends. Louise patted her yellow Lab and asked Melvin if he’d seen Eik.

  “No, but I don’t see him forgetting Charlie.” Melvin had offered her a seat on his sofa, and now poured her a cup of coffee. “That dog is his one and only. Almost.” He winked at Louise.

  She shook her head and stared into the bloodred poinsettia on the coffee table. No, it didn’t seem very probable. Unless she had irritated Eik more than he had let on. But she couldn’t involve her seventy-eight-year-old neighbor in that.

  There was something comforting about sitting on Melvin’s plush sofa. The smell of his evening cigars hung in the curtains, reminding Louise of her deceased grandparents.

  Melvin had become a part of the family after Jonas moved in with Louise, as a foster child at first, when he was twelve years old. Orphaned during the civil war that ravaged the former Yugoslavia, Jonas had been adopted by a Danish activist minister and his wife, who brought him home and loved him as their own. He was only four when his adoptive mother died, leaving the child to be raised by his devoted single father. Eight years later, Jonas also lost his beloved father, who was murdered by an East European Mafia faction.

  Louise had known Melvin for several years, but only slightly, as a neighbor whose life didn’t intersect with her own. Jonas and Melvin had recognized each other at once and reconnected when they realized that Jonas’s father had presided over the funeral of Melvin’s late wife. They’d been living in Australia when she became ill. Her doctors botched her medications so badly that she suffered brain damage and lay in a coma. Thirteen years ago, Melvin had managed to bring her home to Denmark, where her final years were spent at a nursing home five minutes from his apartment. It had been four years since her passing.

  “He’ll show up,” Louise said, after she drank her coffee. “If for no other reason, there’s a concert we’re going to tonight. Do you have any plans?” She wanted to make it all sound as casual as possible.

  “Grete and I are going over to the Storm P. Museum for a lecture. It starts at six thirty, so I’m thinking we’ll grab a bite to eat before.”

  Louise smiled. At first Melvin had called Grete Milling his friend, downplaying the relationship, but gradually it became easier for him to talk about her as a natural part of everything he did. Everyone was thrilled that the two seniors had found each other.

  “I’d better get back upstairs,” she said. She carried her cup out to the kitchen. “I have to shower before I meet the others at Vega.”

  The fact was, she didn’t at all feel like going to a concert. A prickly unease gnawed at her. Eik wasn’t the type to leave his dog out on the street, just because he was angry. Something was wrong. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fight off her anxiety. On the contrary, it grew as she changed clothes, fed the dogs, and closed the living room door so they wouldn’t jump up on the sofa. Every time she called Eik’s phone, it switched to the voice mail.

  Louise bicycled to Vega, and while pedaling down Enghavevej, she went through an entire spectrum of doubt, confusion, anxiety, and fear. She didn’t understand what could have happened. It wasn’t that they weren’t allowed to do anything on their own. As long as they let each other know. If she hadn’t looked out the window, she wouldn’t have noticed Charlie. And she probably would have taken the stairway past the magistrate court and gone out that exit. The dog would still have been standing in the snow.

  Something was very wrong, she was sure of it. More so with every passing second.

  4

  Camilla waved from a distance. Frederik walked over from the parking ticket machine with his scarf pulled up to his nose. He’d been living in California before he met Camilla, and he never missed an opportunity to say the temperature over there was more his style.

  “Do we have time for a beer before going in?” Camilla asked. She looked around. “Where’s Eik?”

  Frederik held the door open and herded them inside, where it was warm.

  “He’s coming,” Louise said. “He’s got the tickets.”

  She and Camilla sat down at a table. “How’s it feel being back at Morgenavisen?” Louise asked.

  Frederik bought two beers for them and a cola for himself, then he sat down and put his arm around his wife.

  “It would be a whole lot better if I weren’t on the editorial staff. My most important job is correcting commas and typos in everyone else’s articles.” Camilla smiled. “But it’s good to be back, and Terkel Høyer says he missed me.”

  Several years ago, Camilla had been a crime reporter at the paper, a job she had resigned from. Louise wasn’t sure how big a letdown the editorial position was. Some might call it a promotion, Camilla had explained, when she was offered the job, but it wasn’t hard to hear her disappointment. She wanted to write and have her name on the byline.

  Frederik laughed. “I’m probably the one who’s making the biggest adjustment, now that I have a working wife. I’m home more than she is.”

  He turned away when his phone rang. Louise and Camilla listened in, curious as to whether it was Eik, but Frederik began speaking in English.

  “It’s his agent,” Camilla said. “HBO wants Frederik to be the head writer for a hot new series. They’re negotiating the terms.”

  “Is he going to move over there again?” Louise asked. “You’ve just fixed up the apartment.”

  Her friend shook her head. “He can write from over here, and they can Skype.”

  Frederik seemed more relaxed now that he had stepped down as director of his family’s business, Termo-Lux, and declared that his businessman days were over. From now on, he would stick to screenwriting. While living in Santa Barbara, he had helped write for several major Hollywood productions, but he’d left all that behind when he moved back to Denmark. Which had definitely been the wrong move career-wise, judging from the sparkle in his eye now.

  “The concert’s about to start,” Camilla said. She downed her beer.

  Louise walked over to the window to c
heck the line. It was thinning out. Eik had been one of the first to buy tickets online for the small-venue performance. He wouldn’t miss it.

  Twenty minutes after the concert began, they were still sitting in the bar. Frederik had checked to see if Eik had left the tickets at the gate, but no. And the show was sold out.

  “Where the hell is he?” Camilla asked. “Did you two have a fight? What’s going on?”

  Louise sighed and slumped in her chair. “I haven’t heard a word from him since he said he was going to buy cigarettes and walk the dog.” Then she explained what had happened.

  “So he left Charlie at the convenience market,” Frederik said. “That doesn’t sound at all like him.” He suggested that they drive out to South Harbor to see if he was there.

  In the car, Louise felt her anxiety rising again throughout her body. She could barely concentrate on what Frederik and Camilla talked about up front.

  When they reached his South Harbor building, Louise looked up. The apartment was dark.

  “We still have a key,” Frederik said. “Let’s go up and see.”

  The hallway smelled surprisingly clean, considering the condition of the stairway up to the fourth floor. Large splotches of paint had peeled off the walls, revealing various colors from over the decades; lightbulbs hung naked from the ceiling on every floor. The mix of odors—industrial soap, cigarettes, smoke from cooking—wasn’t unpleasant. And it not only smelled clean, it looked clean, despite the rundown condition.

  “It looks worse than it really is,” Camilla said, adding that it had, in fact, been fun living there. More or less everyone knew everyone else. “It’s like they have their own little society here. People stick together and look out for each other, and there aren’t many places like that left.”

  Louise had been there only a few times, while Eik picked up some of his things. She’d been with him to his favorite watering hole, Ulla’s Place, farther down the street.