‘I’m perfectly happy doing touristy things. But I feel no compulsion whatsoever to go to Christiana,’ Tell said firmly, keeping one eye out for the Italian restaurant he had visited on his last trip.
Seja burst out laughing. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! You sound like a retired bureaucrat . . . a Social Democrat.’
‘Because I want to sit and have a beer in the peace and quiet of Strøget instead of racing off to rub shoulders with drug addicts and losers? I get enough of that at work. I do vote Social Democrat, if you really want to know. And I’m not ashamed of that.’
Tell’s smile was strained; he certainly wasn’t feeling cheerful. Something about Seja’s naive, woolly liberalism bothered him a great deal. And now they were standing in Rådhuspladsen with an entire afternoon and evening at their disposal. Well on the way to wasting it all in petty bickering.
‘I don’t know why you’ve got such a problem!’ Seja crossly began to follow the stream of people heading for Strøget, even though she had just made it clear she had no intention of allowing herself to be carried into the commercial heart of the city along with thousands of other tourists. ‘Why have you got such a thing about Christiania – we don’t have to go there! I was just curious about what had happened there after all that talk of evictions. When I was seventeen or eighteen, my friends and I often went there. We used to sit in Månefiskeren, drinking Hof and eating chocolate pastries.’
‘That thought doesn’t exactly fill me with pleasure.’
‘You’re so uptight, Christian!’
Seja stopped to look at a jewellery stall, so abruptly that he almost walked into her.
‘How much is this?’
She picked up a ring with a large, transparent stone and held it up to the light, but put it down when she heard the price.
‘Listen. I know your job makes you look at things in a certain way, and I respect that. But sometimes you’re not very good at seeing things from different perspectives. There is more than one truth.’
‘Is there?’
‘My friends and I didn’t go to Christiana to smoke weed. We went to gigs. There was a terrific music scene back then. The father of one of my friends lived there.’
‘If you run, you might catch up with the demo,’ Tell snapped, suddenly tired of pointless arguments.
Irritation gave way to resignation. Seja noticed his change of mood, took his wrist and drew him close.
‘Hey. Let’s not quarrel. We’ve got the whole day ahead of us for once. And night.’
He squeezed her hand in return. ‘You’re right. Let’s drop it.’
‘Can’t we go up here? There are lots of lovely little shops and cafés.’
She chose a winding street at random, and she was right: the atmosphere was very different just a few metres away from the main street. Brightly coloured paint was flaking off the roughly plastered walls. In places it looked as if the buildings were leaning over the narrow pavements. The shops offered everything from macrobiotic food to office supplies and vinyl records, all competing for the limited space.
When Seja disappeared down a flight of steps to look at skin creams in a health shop, Tell sat down on a bench outside a tobacconist’s and inhaled the aroma of a cigar being smoked by a bearded man. He went inside and bought himself one too – treating himself to a cigar while on a trip wasn’t the same thing as starting smoking again – and tucked the slender packet into his jacket pocket.
He longed for a cold beer.
They continued along narrow streets towards Gråbrødretorv, where Tell was intent on sitting down with his cigar. They found a spot near the square in the cool shade of a tree and bought beer.
Seja stretched out her legs and took a deep draught of her Hof.
‘This the kind of place I was talking about. Something outside the mainstream; you can walk past an H&M just as easily in Gothenburg. And as for Christiana, I think it’s simply glorious out there in the summer. There’s such a contrast to the frantic tempo of city life, sitting on the grass by the river and . . .’
Just leave it, for God’s sake. Tell didn’t want to let their differences of opinion spoil the moment as he took big gulps of the cold beer, snipped the end of his cigar and lit it. It tasted wonderful; he inhaled deeply, even though he should have known better. He coughed and offered it to Seja.
‘Sadly it’s not hallucinogenic.’ He couldn’t stop himself. She kicked him hard on the shin under the table.
‘You’re being absurd. You know perfectly well that I’m not interested in smoking hash – that’s not what this is about. But to be perfectly honest, a joint would do you good. You’re just so uptight and narrow-minded.’
He couldn’t help being bothered by that comment; he wasn’t sure to what extent she was joking.
‘Narrow-minded?’ he said in the same casual tone of voice.
‘Don’t you think you should at least have tried things before you decide you’re dead set against them? Then you’d know what you were talking about.’
‘I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘So, by the same token, you could say I ought to take heroin just to be sure it’s not a good idea, or chuck myself off a roof, or shoot someone in the stomach, to earn the right to think it’s wrong?’
‘Have you ever shot someone? As part of your job, I mean.’
‘That’s not what we were talking about.’
He knocked back the rest of his Pilsner and waved to the waitress. Seja gazed at him, deep in thought.
At times like this she almost found his indignation amusing. ‘So when we have kids you’ll be telling them that one single puff will send them psychotic and kill them, just like we were told in school? And you think that’ll keep them off it?’
‘Speak for yourself. I’m much older than you. We didn’t learn anything about hash in school. And besides . . .’
He lost the thread as a chill ran through him. Kids? He suddenly felt raw, worn down by this never-ending discussion about drugs. And the fact that the word kids came so naturally to Seja’s lips frightened the shit out of him.
Not if. When we have kids. As if he had no say on the subject. They’d never even talked about having kids. He had no desire whatsoever to have kids, although he was bright enough to realise that if he kept hooking up with childless women, the subject was bound to come up.
He just hadn’t thought it would come up so early. They’d only been together for a year or so. They didn’t even live together.
‘You know what Åke and Kristina asked me the other day?’ said Seja, changing the subject; Christian thought she sounded irritatingly blasé. ‘When we went round for dinner – after you left. They offered me – well, us really – the chance to buy their house. At a reduced price, on the understanding that Åke could keep some of his stuff in the cellar. What do you think about that? They’ve decided it’s time for you and me to put our relationship on a more serious footing, start living together.’ She imitated Kristina’s voice. ‘And when we do, their house is much more modern and practical, of course.’ She waved away a man selling roses.
Christian shook his head, feeling as if his brain had come away from his skull. When the waitress arrived with his beer, he dug out a couple of notes and placed them on the table.
‘Shall we go?’
Already on the move.
‘But we’ve just sat down. I thought we were going to eat?’
She got up and ran after him, grabbing his sleeve.
‘What the fuck’s the matter with you? You’re the one who’s been going on all day about just sitting down and chilling. If something’s bothering you, then let’s have it out. I’ve got no desire to sit around second guessing you, for fuck’s sake.’
Seja had raised her voice rather more than he would have liked on the crowded street. A passing group of men in suits grinned at them.
‘Could you tone it down a bit?’
‘Do you know wha
t this is? It’s a fucking power game, that’s what this is!’
‘What are you talking about? Could you calm down, please?’
‘What you did, what you’re doing right now! We’re chatting, I think everything’s fine. Suddenly I happen to say the wrong thing. I tread on one of your fucking sore toes, and bang! You’re sulky, you’re angry. The switch flicks and you clam up! You’re punishing me for something I don’t even know I’ve done.’
‘I am not sulking! Look! Here we are, walking along together, everything’s absolutely fine! I just didn’t want to sit there any more, we could . . . we could . . .’
He spread his arms wide.
She stopped. ‘Yes, what shall we do? What do you want to do?’
His brain stopped working. ‘We could . . . Shall we go to Tivoli?’
Seja set off, but he didn’t move. He gazed after her as she stomped off, heading back down towards Strøget against the flow of the crowds. Part of him wanted to see her disappear into the crowd. He wanted these pointless discussions to go away, along with the suffocating feeling that was overwhelming him.
It was a familiar sensation, he realised now. When he had found Seja’s things in his chest of drawers, he had felt happy because she still wanted him, in spite of his unreasonable behaviour and bad habits and the fact that he was often vile first thing in the morning. But another feeling had been lurking just below the surface: the feeling that he needed an escape route. He had felt an uncomfortable pang last Christmas when she had started talking about their summer holiday.
Several other situations came to mind now. Just a couple of weeks ago he had arrived home to find her friend Hanna in his kitchen, with her wild gestures, wine-stained teeth and long purple nails. Hanna was only supposed to be calling round to pick Seja up, but instead she had stayed there with her wine box and her chatter and her cigarette stubs. He had felt trapped and had withdrawn to the living room. If there’s no escape route, I’ll kick my way out.
If you had kids, you nailed every escape route shut.
He set off towards Rådhuspladsen and the hotel; it was far too early to go back, but he had no idea what else to do. He couldn’t see Seja anywhere, nor was it likely that she would return to the spot where they had parted company. Because she was too proud. She was just as proud as he was.
But then he was overcome by a wave of tenderness when he thought of her patience, the way she was always battling with her pride. Of the strength of character it took to be with someone who always made things difficult, always having to compromise her own needs and desires. And yet she still managed to stick to her guns. Seja never went for the easy option. That was why she lived in her little cottage in the forest, with her horse and her cat.
He laughed out loud. A woman in front of him turned around and smiled.
His sudden change of heart made Seja reappear. She was sitting on the far side of a church he didn’t know the name of, at a pavement café. She had switched on the palmtop she always carried and was absorbed in the screen. She had a steaming cup of something in front of her, a cappuccino perhaps, and a frothy little moustache on her upper lip.
He was close enough to see the moustache. And the Danish pastry; she took a bite, then crumbled a piece under the table for the pigeons.
That’s what she looks like when I’m not with her, that’s Seja when she doesn’t know I’m looking at her. He hadn’t the faintest idea why this felt significant.
He sat down at the edge of the steps leading up to the church door. He didn’t want the moment to end.
She stretched her back without taking her eyes off the screen. Lifted the hair from the nape of her neck, as she usually did in the heat. She had small, dark patches of sweat under her arms; she screwed up her eyes as she looked into the last glimmers of the evening sun, then put on her sunglasses. When she turned her face towards him he couldn’t work out whether she was looking at him or not. Not until her expression lightened and she sang, just loudly enough for him to pick up Stefan Sundström’s classic: It was almost like an advert, la la la la . . . Like some handsome stranger, but the same . . .
He smiled back and felt overcome by warmth. He got up and walked slowly to her table.
When he leant over her, the pigeons took off with a cacophony of flapping wings.
‘Shall we go back to the hotel?’ he whispered against her mouth.
When she shook her head, his rough cheek gently scratched her face. ‘The night is young. In fact, it’s only just begun.’
23
Gothenburg
It wasn’t going to be a pleasurable visit. Even Beckman had moments when she was tempted to apologise for the job she had to do. When Rebecca opened the red door, her expression couldn’t have made her thoughts any clearer.
‘Haven’t you people done enough?’
‘Well, you could say that.’
‘I really don’t have time for this.’
‘No?’
‘I’m working from home today, I’ve got loads to do.’
Beckman cleared her throat. The fact that Rebecca Nykvist had been taken into custody and subsequently released gave her the upper hand, and she was making the most of this. Or perhaps she really was busy. Beckman was surprised that she hadn’t signed herself off work, but perhaps she needed to work to keep her anguish at bay.
It was as if Rebecca had read her mind: ‘It feels better if I keep going. I’ll go crazy if I’m just pottering around the house.’
It was a start. Self-awareness? Beckman asked if Rebecca would prefer her to come back some other time. There was no reason to engage in an unnecessary trial of strength. In any case, she wasn’t really sure what she was looking for.
‘I don’t really need you,’ she said. ‘If you want to carry on working, I can look around on my own.’
Rebecca peered distrustfully at Beckman and the officer standing behind her on the steps.
‘Isn’t spying on me 24/7 enough for you people? You mean you want to poke around the house as well? I thought you’d already searched the place?’
‘I’ll be looking around on my own. My colleague will wait outside. Or in the hallway.’ Beckman was getting tired of standing on the steps. ‘Unfortunately, looking around is part of the process in a murder investigation. And I’m not searching for anything in particular. I just want to take a look around.’
Rebecca stepped aside. ‘I’ll be in my study. But if you take anything away – evidence or whatever you call it – I want to be informed.’
‘Of course.’
Beckman removed her shoes. The hallway was still in disarray. Perhaps Rebecca was depressed. Beckman knew that she saw a psychologist on a regular basis, which was reassuring. However, as Rebecca pointedly disappeared into the room beyond the kitchen, Beckman couldn’t help remembering that she had abused her ex-boyfriend and threatened to kill him. Several times.
She went upstairs and stood on the landing, contemplating her non-existent plan. She heard the floor creak downstairs, then silence. No doubt Rebecca was listening to her every move.
She was searching for Henrik’s secrets, because Henrik had definitely had secrets. This was true of most people who were murdered without an obvious reason.
There were two alternatives: firstly, that Rebecca knew about these secrets and was lying. Beckman was in no doubt that she was a skilful liar, that wasn’t the issue. And yet she was leaning towards the other option: that Rebecca’s confusion under interrogation had been genuine; that she knew nothing about her partner’s secret life. Or was she afraid? Perhaps. She had a good poker face.
Beckman thought for a while. Where would Henrik hide things he didn’t want Rebecca to find? Was the study his private space? No. Henrik would choose a much better hiding place than that.
She went into the bedroom. There was a cabinet on either side of the double bed; the one on the right had obviously been Henrik’s. The Land of Ur could well have been on his reading list, even if it looked old. As she flicked through it
, a bookmark fell out. She put it back between the pages. She looked at the next book: Åke Jönsson’s Football – the Development of the Greatest Sport in the World. So Henrik had been a football fan.
Camorra – the Mafia in Naples. Beckman had heard of that. Tomas Lappalainen. She read the back cover before opening the first page and scanning a couple of paragraphs.
A clattering sound from downstairs made her put the book back; there was nothing else in the dark recesses of the cupboard apart from a half-empty packet of painkillers. It sounded as if Rebecca were rummaging through the kitchen cupboards. Beckman went through the storage space under the bed and the little room leading off the bedroom, her eyes stinging in the dust as she rooted among things that had been packed away long ago. Under the mattress of the spare bed she found a DVD in a blank case. Deciding that someone could have hidden it there deliberately, she took it with her.
The musty smell of the wardrobes made her feel ill. Her back creaked as she stood up. Perhaps this was a waste of time. She had to assume the burglars had found whatever they were looking for; they had certainly been thorough. Signs of their activities were everywhere, but she could also see traces of the police search. She wondered how long Rebecca would wait before sorting out Henrik’s possessions, his clothes, his books. The smells, the immediate reminders. People handled that kind of thing differently. Beckman had always imagined it would be easier if memories didn’t confront you everywhere you looked. But then what did she know?
There was no light in the loft, just two small windows at each end casting a small amount of daylight across the wooden floor. Beckman considered going out to the car to fetch her flashlight, or asking Rebecca if she could borrow a torch, but decided against it.
She was on her way down the stairs when a sudden thought sent her back to the bedroom. She picked up The Land of Ur and turned it upside down. The bookmark – or had the picture in fact been hidden between the pages? – was a photograph of a necklace and a clay statuette, perhaps in the form of a person. It was difficult to tell how big it might be in real life. The photograph was amateur and, judging by the things just visible in the background, it had probably been taken in that very room.
Babylon Page 13
