Babylon

by Camilla Ceder

  ‘I can take the museum,’ said Karlberg. ‘Not that I’m particularly comfortable with the idea of carting around stolen property worth a million or so.’

  ‘Send a car. By the way, where’s the stuff now?’

  ‘In a safe here,’ said Gonzales.

  Beckman took a sip of iced water. ‘But surely we’re investigating—’

  ‘The murders,’ Tell interjected. ‘I completely understand the frustration everyone here feels because our main line of inquiry so far has not led us anywhere. I feel exactly the same way. But that’s just how it is. Apart from the action points I just mentioned, we are abandoning all inquiries in the case of the stolen goods, as long as there is no risk of any connection with the murders.’

  ‘And the Danish police are fully up to speed on this now?’ asked Beckman. ‘Karpov, Pedersen, Sørbækk and Iversen. Our motley crew.’

  ‘We’ve said we’ll keep in touch. But what do you all think? For the time being we are assuming that Sørbækk and Iversen have no link to the murders. We should have proof of that before too long. As things stand, we have no reason to doubt that Sørbækk was telling the whole truth when she confessed.’

  ‘In other words, all the key connections between the cases were pure coincidence, a theory that you refused to believe,’ said Bärneflod, throwing a screwed-up piece of paper into the bin.

  Tell didn’t respond.

  ‘But the person who . . .’ Karlberg began as he worked on a particularly complicated doodle in the margin of his notepad. ‘The person who actually links these coincidences is Alexandr Karpov, isn’t that right?’

  Silence fell around the table. Karlberg grew more animated. ‘How come he’s never been our main suspect? He’s the one with the textbook motive: jealousy. He has no alibi to speak of, he was at home in bed, alone. He’s the link between all the key figures in the case. Is it because of his status, or because we regard him as honest and likeable?’

  ‘His assistants swear that Karpov had nothing to do with the break-in at Henrik’s house,’ Tell reminded him. ‘They’re taking all the blame.’

  ‘But what about the murders?’ Karlberg persisted.

  ‘We’ve just established that the murders had nothing to do with the museum lot,’ said Bärneflod. ‘I’d actually like to make the same point about Rebecca Nykvist, if we’re talking about motive and opportunity. She has no alibi either; she was at home alone. In which case, why did we let her go? I’ll tell you why: because we were working on the vague theory that there was a link between the murders and the break-in. If we’re thinking differently now, which we are, then surely Rebecca should be . . .’

  ‘I hear you,’ Tell mumbled. ‘But we certainly haven’t dismissed her. We’ve had her in mind and under surveillance all this time; it’s just that she isn’t behaving suspiciously. But you might still have a point, Bärneflod. Maybe we shifted our focus away from Rebecca a little too quickly. Karlberg, can you and Gonzales work on the Alexandr Karpov angle for a bit longer; Bärneflod, you take a look at Rebecca.’

  Tell chewed his lip absent-mindedly. ‘I’m going. But I want to be kept in the picture. I’m on email and I’ll be back in a few days.’

  Beckman nudged him. ‘Off you go on holiday with Seja, and don’t give us a second thought. Most of us can manage a couple of days without you.’

  Tell laughed politely. Out in the corridor Höije walked past. Tell didn’t acknowledge him.

  48

  Falkenberg

  They drove from Gothenburg to Falkenberg at first light to avoid the early summer traffic, with the husky voices of Mary Gauthier and Marianne Faithfull on the stereo.

  When the engine fell silent on the drive of the B&B, they were rewarded by the first glimmer of morning sun breaking through the mist. They felt relaxed, glad they had decided to come away, even though they only had a few days. They couldn’t check in yet; it was too early. Seja reached for Christian’s hand and put her bare feet up on the dashboard. The dawn broke as a peculiar radio play reached its conclusion.

  The veranda of the B&B jutted out over the water like a jetty. They could hear the lapping of waves from their room and had an unbroken view of the horizon. They went for a walk along the shore and Seja took a dip to freshen up after the journey. Christian shook his head – no chance.

  The wind coming off the sea was chilly. The water tore and scratched at her skin; it had none of the smoothness of Älsjön, the lake back home. Seja leapt out, howling, in a shower of salty spray, fell into a sand dune and wrapped herself in a big towel. The sand was fine and soft and warm, it made her want to bury herself in it, just as she had on childhood holidays in Løkken, where they used to slide down the dunes between the dry tufts of grass.

  They shared a bottle of white wine with lunch as they planned their afternoon; they wanted to visit two exhibitions. Christian felt like his father as he carefully marked the map.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if we get lost,’ said Seja. ‘That’s when you find the best places.’

  He put the pen down. ‘We’ll do whatever you want.’

  Seja took a deep breath and pushed aside her doubts about Christian and whether their relationship was what she needed, trying to revel in the moment. Only last week she had done a number of errands for the Melkerssons while their car was being repaired, so she didn’t feel guilty about asking them to feed the cat and keep an eye on her cottage. And it was nice to get away; they were together in a beautiful place.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Difficult? What’s difficult?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ she said evasively. ‘It’s just work. I wonder how things will turn out. What should I do – can I really carry on living in the cottage on my own? Will I have the courage and money to do what I want to do? I’m not likely to get a permanent job writing, that just doesn’t happen. And sometimes I feel I’ll go crazy touting myself around all the time.’

  ‘But you’ve always said you want to be independent. To be able to write about whatever you like. Don’t give up on that. You had a fantastic response to those articles you did on the Granith family – though of course I must mention that you wouldn’t have got to know them were it not for a certain someone . . .’

  ‘No way. I found the dead body, then I stuck with the investigation and wrote the articles without any help from you.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. But you could say that you got the scoop thanks to my incomprehensible naivety. That I was blinded by love. Among other things.’

  Seja took a sip of her wine and smiled. ‘I can’t believe you’re trying to take the credit for my only success.’

  ‘I’m joking. You know I think you’re fantastic.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever . . .’

  She twirled the glass absent-mindedly between the palms of her hands, apparently absorbed for a while in her anxiety about the future. He couldn’t blame her. It was hard to succeed as a journalist; she wasn’t twenty-one any more, and she had acquired a great many things to take care of, not least financially: the cottage, the stable, the animals, the car . . .

  Even though he knew it was presumptuous, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility towards her. If they did carry on seeing each other, then sooner or later the issue of living together would come up. What Seja had said in Copenhagen about the Melkerssons’ house was doubtless only the beginning. The financial aspect certainly didn’t put him off. But the little house in the forest frightened him. The stillness out there became silence, became emptiness and an anxiety-inducing malaise. He didn’t know what he was prepared to do for the sake of love. It seemed to change from one day to the next.

  ‘But then it’s not easy to succeed at any dream, is it? And the idea of touting yourself around – well, that’s part of every job, at one level or another. You just have to learn to handle it. It’s a matter of self-esteem. People will never stop judging you; you just have to learn to do your best and not care so much about what they think.’
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  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s the way most men think. It’s typical of women to adapt to how—’

  ‘Stop, please. Let’s not go all Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus! I’m sure you’re right. But I just want to enjoy the moment. With you.’

  She held his gaze.

  ‘We’re so lucky.’

  Her fingers caressed his temple, then traced his hairline down his cheek to his jaw.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ she said. ‘Shall we spend the afternoon looking at art, or shall we order another bottle? We can look at the sea, get drunk and have an early night.’

  Christian grabbed her hand.

  ‘Let’s go up to our room now. We can go out later. And then we’ll have all evening to drink wine.’

  He pulled her up from the chair.

  The water slurped as it was sucked down the plughole. He lay there listening to Seja singing in the shower. He was tangled up in the bedclothes; he rolled over to the other side and yanked the damp sheet free.

  Christian was also going to have a shower before they went out, but for the moment he was just glad he’d managed to stay awake. In certain respects the twelve-year age difference made itself felt. He wasn’t thirty any more.

  He glanced at the spines of the books on the bedside table; they were both about the war in Iraq. He flicked through them.

  Seja emerged from the shower with a towel wound around her head instead of her body. ‘Have you read them?’ she asked, gesturing towards the books.

  ‘No, why would I have read them?’

  ‘Because you’re working on that case.’

  ‘That particular case is more or less closed. And these books are about the war in Iraq.’

  ‘It’s all connected.’ She rummaged in her bag, hanging up her clothes in the wardrobe.

  Christian was reading the back cover of one of the books. ‘Surely that’s just a theory.’

  ‘An extremely well-founded theory, if so.’

  Seja pulled on her jeans and a top before going back into the bathroom. He watched her loop her wet hair into a knot in the doorway.

  ‘So is this the kind of thing you’re going to write about, then?’ A bit louder, so that she would hear him.

  ‘It’s interesting. I’m thinking about it.’

  Christian hauled himself out of bed and pushed past her into the shower. The hot water woke him up. He was looking forward to a walk through the town.

  ‘If you’ve finished, perhaps I could have a shave and clean my teeth?’

  In the mirror her cheeks were flushed from the hot shower. She changed from her black top into a white one before deciding she was ready to go out.

  ‘Will you be long?’

  ‘I’m ready now. Ready to drink in the culture. But have a little patience, I need to check my messages first.’

  ‘Freak.’

  ‘Absolutely. And I need to get dressed. Do you want to wait for me downstairs?’

  ‘I’ve got all the patience in the world when it comes to you.’

  She was just about to leave the room when she stopped. ‘Shall I tell you something? It comes back to what we were saying about my job.’

  ‘Sure, fire away.’

  ‘I’ve started writing something. No, two things actually. The first one is, as you suspected long ago, an article about smuggled cultural treasures, the ones you found in that house in Kungsladugård. It’s going to be an expanded news item with references to grave-robbing, among other things. I’ve spoken to two daily papers who will almost certainly take it.’

  She waited, probably to see how Christian would react.

  ‘So why were you sitting there worrying about the future before? Things are going really well for you.’

  ‘Well, yes, but one piece doesn’t make a future. Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you is that I’ve also started a slightly bigger project. Inspired by my mother and my grandmother. My mother’s life when she was growing up in Finland, what happened when she moved to Sweden with Dad, and – I haven’t got that far yet.’

  ‘Oh? Like a book? A sort of biography?’

  ‘No, no. Not a biography. But the idea of a fictional account came out of my thoughts about . . . language. My mother’s refusal to put things into words. I thought that instead of being angry with her, perhaps I should try to give her a language. After all, she was shaped by her grandmother and her upbringing.’

  Christian started buttoning his shirt. ‘You know, you’ve told me hardly anything about your parents.’

  She usually got annoyed when he asked. But this time she was the one who had brought it up.

  ‘I know,’ Seja said pensively. ‘But that’s a part of the problem. I’ve always been as inarticulate as my mother when I’ve tried to talk about her, as if the very thought of her made me unable to speak. Perhaps it was my way of adapting, I don’t know. Just as my father has learnt to accept that everything is just the way it is. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to feel mute in any context; words are my thing, aren’t they?’

  She laughed. ‘At the risk of sounding pretentious, I’d like to relearn my mother tongue, literally. When I was little she sometimes used to tell me stories about when she was a child in Finland. I’d like to carry on where she left off. Fiction, but inspired by reality.’ She looked at Christian, her face tense with expectation, as if his opinion was of the utmost importance.

  He chose his words carefully. ‘I think it sounds good. It’s a good idea to sort things out with your parents before it’s too late, because otherwise you’ll regret it. And I also think it would help if you put your journalism to one side when it feels like hard work, and focus on something you feel really passionate about. It’s important that you enjoy what you’re doing. Otherwise you just can’t hack it in the long term.’

  ‘Is that what you think? Do you find your job fun?’

  Christian raised his eyebrows in response to her question, which clearly struck him as more or less absurd. Words such as fun and boring just didn’t apply to his job. Eventually he smiled.

  ‘I’m not talking about what I ought to do now. I’m talking about what you ought to do. It’s not as though I’ve sorted things out with my parents either.’

  He laughed as she attempted to wrestle him down onto the bed. ‘Mind the shirt! It’s new!’

  She soon bounced back to her feet, gasping for breath. ‘It’s a feel-good project. A turning-thirty-crisis project. I’m not saying I’m a writer, or that it will turn into a novel. But I know I’ve really missed writing, in my own way. Not as a journalist, but the way I’ve always done it: just writing what springs to mind.’

  ‘Don’t justify it,’ said Christian. ‘Just go for it.’

  After she had gone downstairs, he logged on and scrolled through his emails. A message Renée had forwarded that morning caught his interest. He picked up the phone to ring the office just as Seja came into view in the front garden. She crouched down to examine something on the ground; he couldn’t see what it was. He put the phone down, wrote a few lines to Karlberg and forwarded the message.

  49

  Gothenburg

  The rain after the heat came as a relief. These days Rebecca Nykvist used Slottsskogen park almost as her own private garden. It lived and breathed as a perfect balance between man and nature. The extensive lawns provided open aspects and enclosures where it was often possible to catch a glimpse of fallow deer and elk. People were ridiculously afraid of getting slightly wet, reacting to the warm spring rain as if it were a vicious hailstorm, striking their cheeks like nails. The buggy mafia frantically packed away their blankets and plastic platefuls of half-eaten banana mash, their suddenly superfluous parasols and surprised, bawling offspring. Indifferent teenagers in front of Björngårdsvillan brushed dried grass off their backsides and headed off towards Linnéstaden or Majorna. Older couples looked up at the sky, their expressions irritated: was the weather trying to upset them personally?
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  Soon, Rebecca was alone. She tipped her head back, rolling her stiff neck until it felt soft and pliant. A pale rainbow arched above the tree-tops.

  She had taken a half day’s leave. Nobody said anything at work, of course they didn’t. No doubt there had been plenty of talk when she came back to the office so soon after Henrik’s death.

  Sometimes Rebecca felt like a caricature of herself: even when her partner dies she doesn’t cut herself some slack. She never takes any time off work.

  The truth was that it helped her to stick to a daily routine. It gave her something else to think about when she was afraid that the agonising sense of loss would finish her off.

  And the job itself had never really got to her emotionally, not even when she had been dealing with patients. If she let herself be affected by all the frustration she encountered, or mixed her own emotions with her relationships at work, she wouldn’t last long. And, besides, she had no intention of addressing her colleagues’ gossip.

  No, she kept her distance, kept her sorrow to herself, and carried out the less than stimulating tasks she was given to a standard that was beyond reproach. Bided her time as she waited for some kind of closure.

  Her troubles at work would soon blow over. This too shall pass, or whatever the phrase was. The same could not be said for her personal life. This bloody awful business with the police and the boiler and Henrik’s . . .

  Rebecca had come to realise the true extent of Henrik’s double life. There had been parts of Henrik that she hadn’t known at all. Could she have found a way in? Or was that just the kind of man Henrik was, a man with secrets? A man who was simply not to be trusted? Yet another one?