More Bitter Than Death

by Camilla Grebe

  “Well, they’re in a subordinate position to him, dependent on him. It could well be that they’re lying to help him. It wouldn’t be the first time. And Henrik shooting that woman in your group proves that he is capable of murder. The fact is that it is very improbable that the murderer is anyone other than Henrik, from a purely statistical perspective, I mean. Improbable, but not inconceivable.”

  “Why improbable?” Markus wonders.

  “Well, for the simple reason that if that were the case, then there would be two murderers running around, which is less likely statistically speaking, even if it is completely plausible. It is absolutely . . . plausible.” Vijay hesitates again a few seconds before he continues. “It could actually be that a complete stranger killed that Susanne woman. Imagine what that would have been like for Henrik. Someone kills your girlfriend. Then you’re accused of the murder. The child—who is not biologically yours, but whom you’re very close to—is taken away from you. People have suffered psychotic breaks after far less severe traumas, right? That would explain the killing in your clinic, wouldn’t it? Anyway . . . it’s very important that the police not assume the perpetrator is Henrik before they have proof. That reminds me of a case in Gävle in 2005. A twenty-nine-year-old man who was living in a shed in the yard of his adoptive parents killed two of his foster siblings within the space of a few months. Both the police and the prosecutor were so sure that the first murder was committed by the first victim’s boyfriend that they actually completely ignored the possibility that there could have been a different assailant, even though the evidence was suggesting that. If they had acted differently, the other girl might still be alive today.”

  “So, you’re saying it wasn’t Henrik?” Markus asks.

  Vijay sighs again, even deeper this time, frustrated at not having been fully understood.

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it could be someone else. But based solely on statistics, of course, it was probably Henrik.”

  “That thing you said before,” I begin. “That stuff about reactive versus instrumental violence. If it were planned, if it were instrumental, what would the motive have been?”

  “Well, the motive in an instrumental assault could be anything: money, revenge, sex. Although of course in this case there’s no indication that the motivation was sexual, is there? So I would guess that this crime wasn’t sexually motivated. What did Henrik say when they questioned him? They must have had time to do that before he killed the woman in your group and disappeared?”

  “He said he was completely innocent. That he had never beaten either Kattis or his girlfriend, Susanne. That Kattis was lying about everything, that she was trying to destroy his life. And that he was at the bar the night Susanne was murdered, which the witnesses support.”

  “Maybe it was a complete stranger after all,” Aina suggests. “A stalker. Someone who chose Susanne and went after her, lurking around in Gustavsberg?”

  “There’s a lot of talk about stalkers these days, actually. How would you describe the typical stalker?” Markus asks.

  “Maybe we should start by defining what a stalker is,” Vijay says, looking triumphant and shoveling another forkful of beef bourguignon into his mouth.

  Markus nods in surprise, and asks, “Okay, is there a definition?”

  Vijay smiles unctuously, addressing Markus as if he were one of his less gifted students at the university.

  “There are many definitions, but I think the best is Meloy’s from 1998. He said that, fundamentally, stalking is the conscious, malevolent, and recurrent pursuit and harassment of another person. And then if you look at the perpetrator, he is typically male, often with a documented criminal background and psychiatric problems or a history of drug abuse. On average they are more intelligent than other types of criminals, although there are subsets of stalkers who have lower-than-average IQs and lack social skills.”

  “So they could be either smarter or dumber than your average guy? That’s not really much to go on,” Markus says, looking dubious, but Vijay just shrugs and smiles.

  “This isn’t an absolute science. At any rate with stalkers there is usually some other underlying psychiatric disorder: borderline personality disorder, narcissism, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder. And then of course environmental factors can also play a role. Often some form of emotional episode precedes the behavior, for example a relationship ending, or a death, or maybe just the loss of a job.”

  “Does that make a person crazy?” Markus asks.

  “Well, if you’re a vulnerable individual,” Vijay says, dipping a piece of baguette into the gravy and smiling widely. Markus shakes his head as if he doesn’t agree, doesn’t believe what Vijay is saying.

  “No, Markus,” Vijay says, still smiling, his white teeth sparkling against his dark skin. “No, you wouldn’t go crazy if you lost your job. You would probably just play a shitload of computer games, right?”

  Markus, who suddenly looks embarrassed, pours some more wine for himself and Aina.

  “But,” Aina begins, “aren’t there female stalkers?”

  “Yeah, sure, but they’re way, way less common. I recently read a study done on eighty female stalkers in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It’s actually very exciting, because it showed that they have a slightly different profile than male stalkers. They tend to be single, heterosexual, well-educated individuals in their thirties. Here too there’s usually an underlying psychiatric disorder, usually borderline personality disorder. Female stalkers are a little less likely to resort to violence than male stalkers, but if the woman was previously romantically involved with the victim, the risk rises substantially.”

  I feel a cold gust of wind from the uninsulated window sweep over my body and I shiver. This whole conversation—all the death, all the hatred—makes me feel sick.

  “Was the person who killed Susanne necessarily a man?” Aina asks.

  “The tech guys say the perpetrator was almost definitely a man; the daughter also said that when they questioned her,” Markus says.

  “And purely statistically speaking, this type of crime is almost exclusively committed by men. Nine out of ten felonious assaults are committed by men,” Vijay added.

  “Could Susanne’s murder have been a robbery homicide? That little girl, she said something about the killer taking money, didn’t she? I didn’t think about that before,” Markus says.

  “Do you remember exactly what she said?” Vijay asks.

  “Not really,” Markus replies. “Something about him taking money, and that he could do magic.”

  Vijay smiles sadly and says, “Hm, except even though she said he took money, you can’t be sure that that’s what actually happened. You never know with kids. They have vivid imaginations, don’t they? Personally I’d be very surprised if it was a robbery homicide.” Vijay pauses and slips a pinch of snuff in under his lip. “Although, people do so many sick things that of course in theory, yes, it’s possible. But the violence was too brutal for—” He scratches his neck a little, pondering, looks up at the ceiling, pauses for effect, and then continues.

  “Kicking someone in the face, that is really very personal and suggests profound rage. Robbery homicide usually looks different from that. The perpetrator might flip out if the victim refuses to hand over their wallet, car keys, or purse. But there are exceptions of course. If the perpetrator, or perpetrators, were on drugs, that could explain the extreme violence. For example ‘roofies’—Rohypnol, or flunitrazepam as the drug is technically called—could create an emotional dulling which would enable the perpetrator to commit a vicious crime. Criminals use it a lot; they call them ‘crime pills.’ Did you know that? It’s frequently recommended on various Internet message boards for people who want to reduce their level of anxiety and dread before committing a burglary, robbery, or maybe a planned assault. Anyway, you said that the girl said that the perpetrator took money. That doesn’t necessarily mean this is a robbery homicide.
It may just mean that the killer took something with him. Murderers often take things from their victims: money, souvenirs.”

  Suddenly the nausea overtakes me, invading every cell in my body. I get up without a word and rush out of the room with Aina and Vijay’s eyes burning a hole in my back. This time too I make it to the outhouse before I throw up Markus’s stew into our small, rustic toilet.

  I sit there on the floor for a bit.

  Bowie smiles at me from the wall, but if I’m not mistaken, his eyes look worried under his blue eye shadow.

  A November night.

  I’m lying up against Markus’s body, his hands on my belly.

  “Have you made that appointment yet?” he asks.

  “Next Thursday. Are you coming?”

  “Of course I am. I want to see our baby. It’s totally incredible. Hey, when are you going to tell Aina? She’s going to be disappointed if she doesn’t find out from you.”

  I don’t respond, because I know he’s right. Instead I press my body closer and listen to the sound of the waves crashing and the wind racing around the corners of the house.

  “I love you,” Markus says, gently kissing the nape of my neck.

  I don’t respond to that either, but that night, for the first time in a week, I don’t dream about Hillevi. Instead I sleep peacefully, like a child, without waking up even once.

  Something is different in the office.

  It’s as if the fluorescent lights have a warmer glow. The light-green walls seem lit from within. And I realize that what’s making my office suddenly look so different is the couple sitting across from me. They’ve changed. Patrik is sitting upright with a smile on his face, possibly a satisfied grin. Mia is a different woman than I remember from our last session. It has been awhile since they came in together. Sick children and Patrik’s job have forced us to postpone our appointments a couple of times, but the change is striking. Mia’s hair falls in soft, light brown waves around her face. She’s wearing makeup—I can’t say that I find it particularly tasteful; green eye shadow has never been my thing—but the effort makes her look infinitely more cheerful, and so do the clothes. Dark blue jeans and a black blouse with a plunging neckline have replaced the shapeless sweat suits she normally wears.

  But maybe most important of all: Mia is sitting in the armchair and Patrik is in the upright chair. I don’t know why this detail catches my attention, but it feels like an important sign, a peace offering from Patrik, maybe. His bony rear end chafing against the hard wood in exchange for her more active participation.

  “You look unusually chipper. I hope you’re doing as well as you look,” I say.

  Mia giggles and looks embarrassed for a second. Almost as if I had asked about something intimate.

  “Yeah, it’s actually . . . a little bit of a miracle,” she says in a voice I don’t recognize. Her frail, hoarse voice has been replaced with a full-bodied alto.

  She looks hesitantly at Patrik, who still has that grin on his face. It looks mischievous somehow, as if they were two teenagers who have just had sex in my bathroom. And what do I know? Maybe they did.

  He scratches at his bleached hair, revealing the black roots, and pushes his horn-rimmed glasses a little further up his nose.

  “Mia’s right. It’s . . . fantastic, actually. It feels like we’re on the right track again.”

  “Do tell,” I say. “What did you do to get everything to work?”

  Mia looks up at the ceiling, seeming to think it over for a bit, and then says, “Well, we actually did everything we talked about last time. You know, draw up a chart to divide the housework and stuff. And we worked on that model you gave us for problem solving. It’s definitely working but . . .”

  “But what?” I ask.

  “Mia stopped taking those pills,” Patrik says quietly and squeezes Mia’s hand hard. I can see how a redness spreads up Mia’s pale throat as she nods mutely. We sit like that for a while, in silence.

  “Was it hard?” I ask finally.

  Mia doesn’t seem to be able to answer at first. Just slowly shakes her head.

  “Nah, that’s what was so . . . strange. It really wasn’t hard. Because as soon as Patrik stopped being mad . . . As soon as he sort of let me in . . . well, I don’t know. I don’t think I needed the pills anymore, not really.”

  “And how are you doing now?” I ask.

  “Better, better than in ages. It’s weird. I feel so . . . strong, as if I could climb a mountain, rock puking children night after night without sleeping, run a marathon . . . Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that sounds absurd?”

  “No, not at all,” I say, and gently touch her arm, feel the thin, shiny synthetic material of her blouse slip away beneath my fingertips, cold and slippery like a fish.

  Mia and Patrik both smile, a little shyly maybe. It all sounds a little too easy. A relationship in crisis, a partner, a mom who’s taking benzodiazepines to get by, then a few weeks later everything is back to normal again: no addiction, no conflicts, gently caressing each other when they meet in the kitchen, cheeks blushing, mutual understanding and desire, cooperation, a sudden willingness to understand where the other is coming from, empathy. Is that it? Can it be so simple, so banal?

  “I think you’re going to have to help me understand,” I begin cautiously, afraid to question or jeopardize their newfound harmony. “How exactly did you find your way back, because I’m sure it wasn’t as easy as just flushing the pills down the toilet, right, Mia?”

  “Well, actually I think it was that easy,” Mia says, running her hand through her freshly washed hair, tucking it neatly behind her ear.

  “No, no, no, it must have started with me actually shaping up,” Patrik says.

  “I think that when I figured out why I was so incredibly pissed off at Mia, my anger just evaporated. We talked and I told her about my mom and stuff.”

  “And then I felt like I had no choice but to get off the Serax for Patrik’s sake,” Mia adds. She’s more enthusiastic now, gesturing vigorously in front of her face, her chubby hands like fat sparrows.

  “Well, you’ve done a remarkably good job, if I may say so. I mean, you’re not schoolchildren, I don’t mean to belittle your efforts. You’ve really fought for this. What you need to know is that it is very easy to fall back into the old rut again. If the going gets tough, if you have a falling out, if you’re vulnerable. It can be helpful to keep that in mind, to know it’s not abnormal. What’s important is that together we come up with a plan for how we will sustain your progress.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Mia says calmly. “I feel so strong, did I mention that? I think I can handle anything.”

  I glance at Patrik, but he doesn’t say anything, just nods enthusiastically, and tugs at his T-shirt, which says The Smiths.

  Friday morning.

  A sharp bang wakes me up and I spring upright in bed but don’t hear anything other than the house’s normal sounds, the soft humming of the refrigerator, rain falling on the roof, and the wind howling outside.

  The darkness outside my window is so dense that it’s like a big, black animal has wrapped itself around my little cottage to sleep.

  I get up, put on my frayed bathrobe, sneak out into the living room, and feel a cold draft sweeping over the floorboards. I shiver and glance at the clock: six thirty, almost time to get up.

  Everything in the living room seems calm, but I notice right away that something is wrong with the center window. A long crack runs all the way across it, as if someone hit the pane with a heavy object.

  I stand at the window for a long time looking out at the darkness. Everything is black and I can’t make anything out, just the faint gleam of the bay below the rocks. The wind must have picked up overnight, because now I hear pine branches whipping against the sides of the house. Yet another branch must have fallen and hit the window. It happened once before, but the window didn’t break that time.

  It’s still pitch-black outside when I creep down thr
ough the leafless rosebushes to the outhouse. Icy wind blows in under the T-shirt I wear as a nightshirt.

  Markus is at a disaster preparedness course in Västerås and I didn’t sleep well, woke up several times with my heart racing, swimming in sweat. I don’t remember any dreams, just a vague but insistent feeling of panic and anxiety, and the feeling that it’s all too late, that the damage is already done, that an event that can’t be stopped has already been set in motion.

  The muddy little path isn’t frozen stiff, but almost. Quiet and firm, the ground only gives way a few millimeters beneath my rubber boots. In my hand I’m holding the big flashlight, the one I always carry. The beam of light searches its way across my waterlogged lawn to the rocks beyond. There was a time when I was truly afraid of the dark; now I only feel a little anxious when the blackness surrounds me, like a sort of dizziness maybe, hardly a handicap, but uncomfortable.

  Just as my hand closes around the door handle to the outhouse, I hear a sound behind me. At first I think it’s an injured animal, because it’s a shuffling, dragging sound.

  I turn around and aim the oversized flashlight at the house, lighting up the door and the flaking paint on the wood siding. I let the beam of light sweep over the ground: yellowish-brown clumps of grass, scraggly pine tree branches that the fall storms have brought down, frost-tinged needles in drifts around the foundation. I don’t see anything out of place. And all I hear is the rhythmic sound of waves hitting the rocks.

  “Markus, is that you?” I ask, but no one answers me.

  I decide it’s an animal and nothing else.

  Again I think we should move into the city. It’s impractical in many ways to live out here, but something keeps me here.

  Stefan?

  It’s as if I thought leaving the house would increase the distance between us.

  Our house.

  Markus is ambivalent about it. He’d prefer to live in an apartment in Södermalm, but since he works in Nacka, the commute is nice and short from here. And he knows how much I want to stay.