Some Kind of Peace: A Novel

by Camilla Grebe

  “There’s something else. What happened to Marianne—”

  “Marianne? What does she have to do with this?”

  “Maybe she knew something,” Markus says, inspecting me across the table as he pulls on the loose threads of his frayed jeans.

  “Now I really don’t get it. What does Marianne’s accident have to do with this?”

  “If it really was an accident.” Markus hesitates a moment. “We’ve been in contact with the Norrmalm police, who investigated what happened, and there is a witness who claims that someone pushed her out into the street. And since Marianne had set up a meeting with you, we think maybe she wanted to talk to you about something important. About Sara.”

  “About Sara? Why about Sara?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. We think it all fits together. What happened to Marianne is part of our investigation now.”

  Markus roots in his bag again and takes out a plastic folder with a yellow Post-it note saying BILLS—TO PAY on it.

  “I’ve seen that before,” I say, running my hand over the smooth plastic. “It was on Marianne’s kitchen table that evening. Why do you have it?”

  Markus doesn’t answer. Instead he runs his hand through his blond hair, which is still wet from the rain, takes the bundle of papers out of the folder, and pushes them slowly across the table, toward me.

  “Case notes?”

  “Yes, but not just any case notes. These are copies of your notes about Sara Matteus. Someone wrote their own notes on the copies. Look at this…”

  Markus leafs through to a page where there are long sentences written in blue ink.

  “May I?”

  Not waiting for his permission, I reach over and turn the bundle of papers toward me so I can read.

  “This is Sven’s handwriting,” I say, feeling my stomach clench. Why did he have copies of Sara’s case notes?

  I try to decipher his scrawled handwriting, but as usual it is almost impossible to comprehend. “…would not necessarily mean… problem with authority… self-aware.” Sven’s comments say nothing and cannot explain why he had the records.

  “Do you read each other’s case notes?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I blow my nose loudly in a red napkin that was already lying crumpled and damp on the table when we arrived, unconcerned that I am mixing my bodily fluids with some other customer’s.

  “Sometimes we help each other out with a patient, or maybe someone needs to look up a record to make a case study. Sven does some teaching on the side and writes scientific articles and that sort of thing.”

  “About Sara?”

  I shrug.

  “And if Sven borrowed the notes, why were they at home with Marianne?”

  I shake my head. I don’t know what to say.

  “There’s something else.”

  “What do you mean?” I look up at Markus.

  He takes a bite of a lavender cookie and points at the pile of papers without saying anything. I notice traces of white paint on his fingers. Maybe he was painting over the weekend? It strikes me that I know nothing about how he lives when he’s not working. I have a sudden desire to touch the specks of paint and ask him about it. I long to feel the rough, dry palm of his hand in mine. So near, and yet so far away. Instead, I leaf obediently through the bundle of case notes.

  Something falls out of the pile and lands on my lap. Carefully, I pick it up. It is a black-and-white photograph of a young girl, taken with—it must be acknowledged—a certain degree of artistry. She is heavily made up. Her eyes are framed by layer upon layer of black kohl. Her hair falls in soft strands, her gaze is provocative, and her mouth is perhaps smiling a little, it is hard to say. She is lying on her back on what appears to be a flat rock, her torso naked, with one hand resting between her breasts. It looks like she is holding something. A pendant, maybe? There is something vulnerable about her whole appearance, something childish in spite of her provocative pose.

  “Sara,” I say faintly.

  “Do you have any idea why Marianne had a photo of Sara?”

  I slowly shake my head.

  “Have you seen this picture before?”

  “No. Never. It’s…”

  I can’t finish the sentence, because something ties up my throat. Markus looks at me in silence. Then he nods curtly, as if he knows exactly what I mean.

  “Vulnerable, she looks so horribly vulnerable. In the midst of all the provocation,” he says, coaxing the photo carefully out of my hands, gently turning it over so that it lies upside down on the table between us. As if to show Sara some respect.

  Outside, the rain falls with unabated force.

  So it’s here, the day I have dreaded for the past week. I run my hand nervously through my hair and rustle aimlessly through the piles of papers on the desk in front of me. Aina’s face appears in the doorway. Without making a sound she mouths, “She’s here now.” I stand up and go to the door to welcome her. She had called and asked for an appointment. I could hardly refuse.

  “Hello, welcome. Please sit down.” I gesture toward the armchair.

  Kerstin Matteus nods and sits down with noticeable exertion on the edge of the seat. She is in her fifties and considerably overweight. She avoids making eye contact with me—back and forth her eyes flutter, looking out across the room and down at the floor, just never at me. Used and worn, her clothes look cheap and appear too tight for her massive body. Her top has a low neckline and I notice that her sun-leathered, wrinkled breasts are squeezed into a bra that is far too small. The dark parting in her hair betrays a bleach job that is growing out. She holds firmly on to a black handbag with big bare patches where the smooth synthetic plastic has flaked. I cannot see any apparent likenesses between her and Sara. How this gigantic woman can be the mother of slender, delicate Sara is beyond me. But then again, she probably didn’t take pills for several years, which usually efficiently eliminates all forms of subcutaneous fat.

  Suddenly I feel self-conscious. What do you say to a woman who has just lost her child? And does it matter that the child was not five, but twenty-five, and on her way down in a society that was no longer able to take responsibility, no longer able to care about her? A broken person with lousy genes and a difficult childhood. I don’t think any of this matters; the pain is bound to be the same.

  I clear my throat and look down at my desk.

  “Kerstin,” I begin carefully. “I am so, so sorry about what happened to Sara. Is there anything I can do to help you? Perhaps you have some questions about… about Sara’s final days. We did see each other quite a bit and she was really making progress.”

  I briefly report on the treatment and Sara’s progress.

  “She was feeling much, much better and had stopped cutting herself. I think she had even met someone, someone she cared about. She talked a bit about you, too, Kerstin. I know she loved you very, very much, even though there were times over the years when you didn’t get along.”

  “Who could possibly have wanted to kill my little Sara?”

  She speaks slowly and calmly in a voice that is hoarse and raw from years of smoking, but also with sorrow. Kerstin looks up at my green walls and then over at the window that faces Medborgarplatsen. I don’t know if she really expects me to answer her question.

  “Well, I’m not with the police. I only know what Sara and I discussed here at the office.”

  “How can someone do such a thing to another human being?”

  Her gaze is still avoiding mine, but in her voice I sense resolve. As if she wants to get to the bottom of something important.

  “It must have been an evil person, no?”

  For the first time during our conversation she looks up at me, and I nod slowly, incapable of answering her question. An evil person. Obviously.

  “I don’t know,” she says, and her eyes fill with tears.

  “I don’t know… how I will cope with this.” Her voice becomes shrill and she leans forward, supporting her
self with both hands on the little coffee table between our two armchairs. Her head slowly sinks down until her forehead rests against the tablecloth and I notice light red creases in her neck protruding from the back of her sweater. Her weeping is clearly audible now. It is that uncomfortable, uncontrolled kind of weeping. The kind that makes people recoil in terror, the kind that causes tears, saliva, and snot to run in floods. Hopeless, defenseless, unrestrained weeping.

  I know it all too well.

  “Here,” I say, offering her my box of tissues, as if a few Kleenex could alleviate her sorrow.

  She doesn’t react.

  I crouch down carefully before her and softly stroke her coarse, bleached hair. A faint but unmistakable odor of mints mixed with alcohol reaches me in puffs when she sighs.

  “It… hurts… so… much.”

  Every word is an effort.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Does… it… ever… go away?”

  “No,” I reply. “It never goes away—but eventually, it stops hurting so bad.”

  Vijay Kumar opens the door with a broad smile. He looks the same as always, with his black mustache and white teeth, and we give each other a warm hug.

  How many years has it been? Ten? Is that even possible? Vijay was in grad school with Aina and me. We were always together when we were students. After graduation he stayed at Stockholm University to get a doctorate in psychology. His dissertation was titled “A Comparative Study of Applied Methodologies for Inductive and Deductive Criminal Profiling.” I have to admit I never got around to reading it, even though he had several articles based on it published in, for one, the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology.

  “Siri, my dear.”

  Vijay holds both my hands in his, the way he used to when we hung out in school. Suddenly this public display of affection embarrasses me and I gesture toward Markus.

  “Vijay, this is Markus, the policeman I told you about. You spoke on the phone, right?”

  “Yes, I was the one who sent you the pictures,” Markus says, shaking hands with Vijay.

  We follow Vijay’s gangly form down the narrow corridor in the Department of Psychology. He is wearing worn jeans and a flower-print shirt. Apparently, as a newly tenured professor, you can wear whatever you want.

  His office is small. Books cover the walls from floor to ceiling. Where he ran out of shelves, they are stacked in piles, forming massive, leaning, unsteady towers. It is mostly psychological professional literature, but there are also some books about art and design. I know that Vijay is interested in art. He told me once in confidence that he collects Swedish and Danish constructivists. I remember foolishly nodding as if I knew what a constructivist was and promised not to reveal this secret to anyone. “The Baertling,” he had whispered, “that one alone is worth half a million.”

  In the window, I see a photograph of a blond man in sailing attire standing on a pier. It’s Olle, Vijay’s Olle. I had forgotten to ask if they were still together when I had called, or perhaps I didn’t dare ask. Ten years is a long time, a lot can happen.

  Vijay turns off his phone to avoid interruptions and turns toward me.

  “So, Siri, darling. From what I understand, you have a serious problem hanging around your neck.”

  “You think?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s my understanding anyway,” says Vijay, taking out a thick plastic folder with photos and papers.

  I glimpse Sara’s soft, dead body between his hairy hands. He catches my gaze and carefully closes the folder and sets it on the desk between us.

  “First and foremost, I want you to be aware that my remarks are informal in nature. A solid investigation would require considerably more time.”

  He spreads his arms apologetically and stands up.

  “Do you want coffee?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he turns on the phone and calls someone to order three cups of coffee.

  “Yes, bring milk and sugar. And those snacks with pieces of chocolate in them, you know… exactly, chocolate chip cookies.”

  I imagine the woman at the other end of the line taking Vijay’s order—it always seems to be women who do that sort of thing.

  “I’ve gone through the material: Sara’s patient records, the pictures from the murder scene—excuse me, the place where the body was found—and the police report.”

  “So, what do you think?”

  Markus looks at Vijay in anticipation.

  “Well, profiling is not an exact science. I, or one of my colleagues, cannot exactly describe your suspect. We can only make general statements based on statistically established facts from similar crimes. For example, I can say with ninety-five percent certainty that your perpetrator is a man, because the majority of violent crimes are committed by men. And then, the condition of the crime scene and the nature of the crime indicate that you are dealing with a well-organized, structured individual.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I can sense a slight skepticism in Markus’s voice—the same hesitation I felt when I suggested we visit Vijay in the first place. But Vijay doesn’t seem to notice; he is used to arguing for his case.

  “The crime scene was neat. The perpetrator left no evidence, beyond what he had planned to leave, that is to say, the farewell letter. We usually distinguish between two main groups of perpetrators with this type of crime. There are the disorganized, impulsive ones who literally beat someone to death in the heat of the moment or happen to kill someone when a robbery goes wrong. As a rule, they don’t plan the deed in advance, and they often leave lots of physical evidence, like cigarette butts, fingerprints, fibers, body fluids, and so on. Then we have the well-organized, structured ones who plan their deed a long time in advance. These are considerably less common. In this group of perpetrators, there are many different types, everything from sexual sadists to psychopaths. Because they leave behind less evidence and are, well, smarter, you might well say, they are often more difficult to link to the crime.”

  “So what does this type of murderer look like?” I ask.

  “Hmm, if you’re speaking in general terms, and not referring specifically to a very organized murderer, as in your case, he is most often young, around twenty to twenty-five, has low socioeconomic status, is unmarried, and is often a substance abuser. He has recently experienced an emotional loss, for example, his girlfriend left him. It is also common that there are several criminals in the immediate family, such as siblings or parents. The typical murderer also often has a long criminal career behind him, despite his young age. It could be anything, but he often has a criminal record. And then there are other, earlier problems, such as pyromania, problems in school, and that sort of thing. Also common. Many have psychiatric problems, like paranoia, depression, or schizophrenia. There are female murderers, too, of course. Studies indicate they have a different background. Often they come from dysfunctional families and have been subjected to assault, although that can apply to men as well.”

  Vijay’s voice has taken on a lecturing tone and it is clear that he is talking about his favorite subject. I know he can continue his lecture endlessly if no one intervenes. I clear my throat to get his attention. Vijay looks at me and smiles wryly. He has understood my message.

  “But in this case, not many of the ordinary descriptions apply. This murder has not been performed by a—”

  There is a knock at the door and Vijay gets up to open it. A middle-aged woman wearing sturdy boots and a thick moss-green cardigan looks in tentatively.

  “Coffee?” she inquires.

  Of course, I think, but say nothing. Vijay’s words about sexual sadists and psychopaths are gnawing at my insides. Evil people. Wasn’t that what Kerstin Matteus said?

  “So, based on what you know about this perpetrator—our guy—who is he?”

  Markus leans forward toward Vijay with renewed curiosity.

  “I would guess a middle-aged man, highly educated and able to function successfully in soc
ial situations. The farewell letter is well written and lacks misspellings and that sort of thing. It indicates a socially adapted individual. The crime seems well planned and the crime scene—excuse me, the place where the body was found—lacks physical traces. This indicates that he is intelligent and can plan in advance. Then he seems to have the capacity to emotionally shield himself from the victim, that is, he is a coldhearted bastard. The victim is only a chess piece in his game, a person he can do without. He is a man with a mission. Based on what you have told me about what happened after the murder, I believe the crime is not aimed at Sara, but at you, Siri.”

  Vijay looks at me searchingly.

  “No,” I say and answer the question he hasn’t asked. “No one would want to harm me in that way.”

  “That’s what you think,” Vijay says cheerfully, popping a cookie in his mouth.

  “When you figure out who the perpetrator is, I think the motive is going to be personal, very personal. Someone you offended or whose toes you stepped on earlier in your life. Someone who feels that you have treated him unjustly. A perceived injustice.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask uncertainly.

  “I mean that even though you can’t immediately think of anyone who hates you enough to kill, you will understand his motive when the whole picture becomes clear to you. Remember that the injustice that may have caused this is simply a perceived injustice. A normal, healthy person perhaps would not think you had done anything wrong. Or at least would not be prepared to kill because of it. It may be someone you rejected sexually or someone who feels wronged by you in some other way. Perhaps a patient who thinks you’re incompetent? Someone who is easily offended.”

  “How can you be so sure it’s personal?” I ask.

  “As I said in the beginning, you can never be one hundred percent certain in this job. But there is a lot that indicates that the crime is aimed at you. For example, the body was found on your property, below the pier, where you swim every day. Right?”