The Lies We Tell

by Kristina Ohlsson

  I took a deep breath and wished my drink had arrived.

  ‘There’s a perfectly natural explanation for why you didn’t know about Fredrik Ohlander,’ I said.

  And I told her what there was to tell. That after everything that had happened, I wanted to leave some sort of record behind if I died or disappeared. That I wanted to make sure my story was documented in the event that I was unable to tell it myself.

  Lucy listened impassively.

  ‘Too many people had died,’ I said gruffly. ‘Don’t ask me what I think now that Fredrik’s gone too. This really is unbelievably fucking unpleasant.’

  Our drinks arrived. Lucy sipped her wine, I my G&T.

  ‘Do you regret not having something stronger?’ I said.

  ‘Regrets are pointless,’ Lucy said.

  Her remark could have been directed at me, it was hard to tell. The alcohol made its way into my bloodstream and offered temporary respite.

  ‘Who knew?’ Lucy said.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Rubbish, he’s dead.’

  ‘That’s what’s so terrible. I didn’t even tell you about Fredrik.’

  Lucy drank more wine.

  ‘He could have talked.’

  That thought had also occurred to me. Particularly after what Didrik had said about him working on something ‘seriously top secret’. Had Fredrik felt the need to get the details of my fucked-up story confirmed?

  ‘Who else could he have talked to?’ Lucy said.

  ‘Anyone,’ I said. ‘I gave him all the names.’

  Lucy crossed her legs.

  ‘Anyone,’ she said. ‘Any one of all the people you yourself have talked to. You know what that means, don’t you?’

  I did. It meant that whoever killed him was one of the many people I’d met in the past few weeks. In Sweden, and in Texas. It was a nightmare scenario.

  ‘We need to find out what he did after he and I met,’ I said.

  A hopeless statement.

  ‘There’s a lot we need to find out,’ Lucy said.

  Another hopeless statement.

  Little more than a week ago she had been absolutely exhausted. Now her batteries were recharged, but there was a flatness far too close to the surface.

  My mobile rang. It was Madeleine.

  ‘I’ve got the name you wanted,’ she said.

  ‘Great!’

  My outburst made the other guests turn round. I calmed down.

  ‘But I haven’t managed to get hold of a picture of Mio.’

  I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. But disappointment wasn’t the dominant emotion. Once again I was left wondering how it was possible. How could not even the police have a photograph of a child who had been the subject of a nationwide search?

  ‘Can we meet up?’ Madeleine said.

  I glanced at the time.

  ‘I’m having lunch at the moment. Then I’m going to a funeral.’

  ‘A funeral?’ Madeleine said. ‘Who’s died?’

  ‘Far too many people,’ I said. ‘Would five o’clock work?’

  Fear came out of nowhere. I started looking round automatically. Lucy noticed my fluttering gaze and frowned. I ignored her. Was I being watched? Could I trust that the phone was secure? Or was I sentencing Madeleine to death as well?

  From one death to another. In American films funerals are always incredibly well-attended. The reality is often very different. We aren’t as popular as we like to imagine. And really – how many people do you want to attend your funeral? All your old shags? The forgotten and forsaken? People you’ve trampled on and shoved in the shit? Or all the old relatives whose names you don’t even know and therefore don’t give a damn about? The moment I got out of the car a short distance from the church where the service was going to be held, I made up my mind to write a guest-list. If I was going to die in the near future, I wanted to make sure the right crowd gathered at the funeral.

  I had no desire whatsoever to attract any unnecessary attention. So I had already decided in advance that if there weren’t many people there, I wasn’t going to go in. Either there’d be enough of a crowd to hide in, or there wouldn’t. There wasn’t. I recognised Jeanette Roos from a distance of a hundred metres. She hated me, and would kick up a hell of a fuss if she caught sight of me.

  I slipped behind a large tree. They’d chosen a church out in Nacka. I had no idea what their connection to the place was, but I was grateful for all the greenery surrounding the church, the churchyard and the car park. I didn’t particularly want to show myself, and I needed easy hiding-places.

  Marion, Bobby’s sister, was approaching the church from another direction. She nodded to her mother and walked right past her. I tried to remind myself what sort of childhood she’d had. How tough it must have been. But I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how many times I end up rejecting my own mother’s outstretched hand each month. She keeps begging for a full-blown mother-son relationship, and I keep saying no. But only to a full-blown relationship. A half-arsed one is fine.

  Jeanette was in pieces. I could see that easily enough from my ridiculous hiding-place. She was standing next to a younger woman who stroked her back from time to time. There was no sign of the priest. And hardly anyone else either, come to that. There was a group of young men, four or five of them, maybe, a short distance away. One of the men glanced in my direction. It was Elias Krom.

  My heart did an extra beat and I pulled back. The whole hiding-behind-a-tree thing wasn’t really right for me. The next time I looked out, they had all gone inside the church. Everyone except Elias. He was still standing outside smoking. His hand was shaking. Then he stubbed his cigarette out and started walking in my direction.

  Really good players know when to capitulate. I’m one of them. I knew I’d messed up. So I stepped out from behind the tree and waited for Elias.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  Hunted people easily run out of energy. Elias looked like he’d spent years running for his life.

  ‘I was thinking of attending the service, but that probably isn’t a good idea.’

  ‘There’s hardly anyone here,’ Elias said. ‘Best you don’t come in.’

  I couldn’t disagree.

  ‘Who was the woman standing next to Jeanette?’ I said.

  ‘Malin. Bobby’s girlfriend.’

  ‘I need to talk to her. Can you arrange it?’

  He stared at me, wide-eyed.

  ‘I’ve done you enough favours,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘You’re not getting me mixed up with Bobby now? He was the one who told you to pretend to be him and sneak into my office, not me.’

  ‘I didn’t sneak in.’

  ‘So what? I need to talk to Bobby’s girlfriend. If I give you a phone number, can you see that she gets it?’

  He shook his head and started to back away. His whole body was trembling.

  I stepped forward and grabbed hold of his arm.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I said. ‘Why are you so nervous?’

  He gulped several times before answering. His eyes were flitting about the churchyard so erratically that it was hard to follow them.

  ‘Someone’s following me. Not all the time, but nearly. Just when I start to breathe out, the bastard comes back. I don’t know what he wants, and I don’t know who he is. But I think it’s going to end badly. Like it did for Bobby and Jenny.’

  I chose my words with care.

  ‘I get that you don’t trust me,’ I said slowly. ‘But I’m still going to ask you to do this. Because otherwise this will never end. I can guarantee that.’

  ‘Did you get your kid back?’

  His words hit me like a punch, even though that wasn’t his intention.

  ‘Yes, she’s okay. But . . . I’ve only got her back on loan. You understand? There are things I need to sort out. Like finding out who killed Bobby, for instance.’

  Elias ran his fingers through his hair. It was greasy. There was dirt
under his fingernails.

  ‘I don’t want to get involved. Sorry, but that’s how it is. I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t care about Bobby, but now I have to think of myself.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do!’ I said, in a voice that was louder than I intended. ‘You won’t be able to sort this out on your own.’

  ‘What do you mean, “this”? What the fuck is “this”? I don’t understand a thing. I just want my fucking life back!’

  If he spoke any louder he’d wake the dead from their eternal slumber. Now it was my turn to look round at the churchyard and beyond. There was no one in sight. But that was hardly proof that neither of us was being followed.

  ‘Just fix it for me to talk to Bobby’s girlfriend,’ I said. ‘Do that, and I won’t bother you again. Okay?’

  He rubbed his face hard and blinked.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’

  He put his hands in his trouser pockets.

  ‘You should go into the church now,’ I said. ‘Before they come looking for you.’

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Why is it so important for you to talk to Bobby’s girlfriend?’

  I had no desire to elaborate on that, so merely said: ‘I think Bobby did a lot of looking for his nephew on his own. He may have left a load of stuff behind. Such as a picture of Mio, for instance.’

  Elias blinked again. His eyes seemed to be irritating him.

  ‘A picture of Mio? Haven’t you already got one?’

  ‘No.’

  Elias’s hand flew up from his pocket. He scratched the corner of one eye.

  ‘He looked a lot like you.’

  ‘Me?’

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  Elias nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘A lot like you,’ he said. ‘Same colouring.’

  A gust of wind made the trees tremble. I stood there in silence and watched as Elias went inside the church. I had unexpectedly found out something I hadn’t known a thing about before.

  11

  Evil’s name was Lucifer, and he lived in Texas. I had made a solemn vow to Lucifer’s associate that under no circumstances would I try to find out any more information about the big mafia boss. If I did, Belle was dead, and possibly also Lucy. The fact that I had now found out the colour of his skin was hardly the result of any conscious snooping. His skin was the same colour as mine. Dark. Or black, depending on your choice of words. The question was, what could I do with that particular nugget of information?

  Lucy looked surprised when I told her what I’d found out.

  ‘I don’t know why it matters,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a feeling that it does.’

  I agreed with her. Not knowing who Lucifer was bothered me more than I could put into words. He was the man who had kidnapped my daughter. He had murdered her grandparents. He had threatened to kill me and was using me as a coerced agent in Stockholm. Sooner or later I would give in to the temptation to find out who he was, and see to it that he disappeared from my life permanently.

  Lucy was studying me carefully.

  ‘Don’t even think of it, Martin,’ she said. ‘Just let it go.’

  She was asking the impossible, and she knew it. But she was also asking the only sensible thing.

  She changed the subject.

  ‘How was the service?’

  ‘Not a fucking clue, I didn’t even set foot inside the church.’

  ‘Wise.’

  We were sitting in Lucy’s office. She was behind her desk, I was slumped like a teenager in one of the visitors’ chairs. At the start of the summer our office had resembled a youth club. We had been planning a trip to Nice, and Lucy was busy trying out different sun-creams. That all seemed such a long time ago now. Lucy was leafing through some papers she had in front of her. She seemed older, somehow, or more taut, than she had done just a few weeks earlier. I probably did too. We had stopped laughing. It couldn’t really get much worse than that.

  ‘We ought to do something fun,’ I heard myself say.

  Lucy shifted her focus from her papers to me.

  ‘We ought to get our lives back first,’ she said.

  And what if we can’t? I wanted to ask. What the fuck do we do then?

  ‘I’m going to go and see Madeleine now,’ I said.

  Another change. I never used to tell Lucy who I was going to see and when.

  ‘Anything I can be doing in the meantime?’ Lucy said.

  I stopped and considered.

  ‘The woman who’s called me two nights in a row now calls herself Susanne, and she says someone called Rakel Minnhagen abducted Mio from his preschool. That’s worth digging into. Check the preschool’s staff properly; I haven’t had time. I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, so keep your eyes open.’

  Lucy jotted down some notes and nodded. I looked on, feeling anguished. We were chasing lots of different threads at the same time, and whatever I did left me feeling inadequate. It was a horrible feeling. If I’d been obeying a senior officer, he would have yelled in my face: ‘One thing at a time, Benner! Hold this damn investigation together!’

  But I had no commanding officer, and there was no way I could hold my investigation together.

  ‘Do they know us at the preschool?’ Lucy said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Why would they?’

  ‘You tell me, I was just checking. Anything else?’

  ‘Passport photographs,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget to dig out passport photographs of the people working at the school when Mio disappeared. We need to know what they look like.’

  I’d barely finished speaking before Lucy and I were struck by the same thought.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Lucy said.

  We’d been stupid. Ridiculously stupid.

  ‘Mio,’ I said. ‘Check to see if he had a passport.’

  There were at least ten smokers standing outside the bar where I was meeting Madeleine. She had chosen the location, not me. A backstreet I’d never heard of, near Gullmarsplan. Not far from the Blå Soldat bar where Susanne had wanted to meet. The taxi-driver had to use satnav to find it.

  ‘I appreciate the need for caution, but isn’t this taking things a bit far?’ I said once we were seated.

  We were sitting at a small corner table. I avoided touching the walls. They were so filthy I’d have got stains on my clothes if I leaned against them.

  ‘Sometimes you have to think outside the box,’ Madeleine said.

  She put a brown envelope on the table. A waiter took our order. I carried on where I’d left off at lunch. Another G&T. Madeleine ordered a beer. The waiter disappeared.

  ‘How did you get on?’ I said.

  She’d already told me, admittedly, but I didn’t have time for small-talk. I was treading water in the Mariana Trench. It was exhausting, and very hard work.

  ‘Good and bad.’

  She ran her hand over the envelope. With a mixture of fascination and horror, I realised that she was nervous. It was unusual to see Madeleine nervous.

  ‘You know I’m happy to help you, Martin. But not with absolutely anything. And not at any cost. I’ve got children. I can’t risk their safety for your sake.’

  ‘I haven’t asked you to,’ I said.

  It was impossible to keep my voice steady. I lowered it as I went on: ‘What the hell’s happened?’

  Madeleine shook her head briefly.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just a feeling I got. There’s something that doesn’t make sense about this whole thing.’

  Our drinks arrived. Madeleine took several deep mouthfuls of her beer. My G&T tasted terrible.

  ‘I don’t usually have any trouble getting information out of the police,’ Madeleine said. ‘This time it was different. It’s as if the preliminary investigation has been flagged with big red warning signs. I had to come up with all sorts of peculiar excuses that would normally have been completely unnecessary.’

  ‘But you did manage to get the information?
’

  ‘Only half of it, like I said on the phone. I’ve got the name of the witness who saw Jenny Woods get run over. But no picture of Mio.’

  A woman walked past our table. I got the impression that she slowed down as she went past. Madeleine and I sat in silence until she’d gone.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit bloody weird?’ I said in a low voice. ‘That there aren’t any pictures of the kid?’

  ‘I’m not saying that there aren’t any pictures,’ Madeleine said. ‘I’m saying that the person I spoke to couldn’t find any, not a single one.’

  ‘What, you think someone’s hidden them? Someone inside the police?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know what I think,’ she said. ‘All I know is that it’s just like you said: extremely unlikely that the police don’t have any pictures of the child. That’s one of the very first things they ask for whenever anyone disappears.’

  I considered what I already knew. That Mio looked like me. That told me everything and nothing.

  ‘Who’s the witness?’ I said.

  I don’t know why I thought it was so important.

  ‘A woman by the name of Diana Simonsson. Do you recognise the name?’

  ‘No. Should I?’

  Madeleine pushed the brown envelope towards me.

  ‘Open it,’ she said.

  I did as she said and pulled out a sheaf of papers. At the top was a black-and-white photograph of a young blonde woman.

  ‘What about now? Do you recognise her?’

  I shook my head. She was a complete stranger to me.

  I started to look through the documents. It was a district court judgement. I read the first page with bemusement. It was a rape case. What did this have to do with anything? Rape is the most heinous of all heinous crimes. For that reason I very rarely agree to defend anyone suspected of it. Because I have immense difficulty sympathising with what they’ve done. And because I never feel completely sure of what they haven’t done. But there are exceptions. And I had one of them in front of me.