The Lies We Tell

by Kristina Ohlsson

  ‘Does she look like me?’ Lucy said.

  Her voice was hollow. A car blew its horn at us. The traffic light had changed to green. Lucy released the clutch too quickly and the car stalled.

  ‘Shit.’

  She started the engine again and put her foot down.

  The woman in the film was holding Elias by his ankles as they carried him from one car to the other. At one point she looked straight at the camera. I froze the image and zoomed in. No, she didn’t look like Lucy. Above all, she was much stronger. Lucy would never be able to help carry a body the size of Elias’s.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, stroking her arm. ‘You’re not in this recording. Anyone could see that.’

  I studied the woman’s face intently. If only there was some way to improve the sharpness. And if she hadn’t been wearing that ridiculous wig that gave her a low fringe.

  ‘Is it Rakel?’ Lucy said.

  ‘That’s what I can’t see,’ I said.

  It was extremely irritating. The woman could be anyone. At best, I’d describe the portrait on the screen as a half-decent photofit picture. I pressed play again and brought the figures on the screen back to life. I watched the woman from behind as she went and sat in the car. And then I knew.

  ‘It’s her,’ I said. ‘It’s Rakel.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ Lucy said.

  I didn’t really want to answer that question. I just recognised her backside and way of walking. Even though the film was jerky, I was quite certain. The woman in the recording walked exactly the same way I remembered Rakel walking. That, and the fact that Elias’s body had been found in Rakel’s house told me all I needed to know. The question was: who was the man? And what was the connection between them?

  ‘So, here we are again,’ Didrik said.

  ‘Yes, here we are again,’ I said.

  ‘Last time, when we were asking about the murder of journalist Fredrik Ohlander, it turned out that your car had been in the garage for repair all night,’ Staffan Ericsson said. ‘Which was very practical, because we were able to dismiss you from our inquiries.’

  I was starting to get annoyed just at the sound of his nasal voice. There were traces of some indefinable liquid on the table between us. Coffee or tea, perhaps. Not blood.

  ‘Are you listening?’ his colleague asked sharply.

  I looked up.

  ‘Absolutely. It’s hard not to be captivated by everything you say.’

  Lucy snorted but managed to stop herself laughing. When it came down to it, there was very little cause for laughter.

  ‘After Belle’s grandparents died, I’m willing to concede that we started to rethink things,’ Didrik said. ‘Perhaps you were the victim of a conspiracy after all. We’ve had trouble finding forensic evidence connecting you and your car to the earlier murders. But the fact that a dead body has just turned up in your Porsche puts things in a rather different light, wouldn’t you say?’

  I tilted my head to one side.

  ‘But there was a witness,’ I said.

  Tension came and went so quickly across Didrik’s face that at first I thought I was mistaken.

  ‘What witness?’ he said sharply.

  ‘A witness to Jenny’s murder. That should have made up for the absence of forensic evidence, surely?’

  Didrik gave me a long stare. I smiled wryly. If he hadn’t realised it before, he knew now. That I was aware of what a lousy false witness they had. But he wouldn’t dare ask how I came by that information.

  ‘For the time being we’re focusing on this murder, not any of the others,’ Didrik’s colleague said.

  ‘Quite,’ Didrik said. ‘We’re prepared to accept the fact that you didn’t have the body in the boot of your car when you drove away from the garage. We’ve also checked your satnav and according to it you drove straight home, like you said. But, as we mentioned before, that doesn’t tell us much. So now we’d like to know what you did after you parked the Porsche in the garage.’

  I drummed my fingers silently on the tabletop. I wasn’t remotely inclined to sell out Nadja at Mio’s preschool. I didn’t actually want to say a word about what I’d been doing. But I could always string them along a bit.

  ‘I went to check out a new preschool for Belle.’

  ‘Really? How nice. And where is it?’ Didrik said.

  He was smiling, but the look in his eyes was wary.

  ‘In Flemingsberg. It’s called the Enchanted Garden.’

  His smile died.

  ‘Like hell you were there checking out a new preschool for Belle.’

  ‘Of course I was. A friend told me it was supposed to be really good. Go out there yourself and ask the staff. I’m sure they’ll remember me.’

  Didrik drank from the cup of coffee in front of him. No one had asked Lucy and me if we’d like any.

  ‘Martin, what are you up to?’ he said.

  ‘I’m trying to get my normal life back.’

  That was the truest thing I’d said to Didrik in weeks.

  Didrik shook his head slowly.

  ‘After everything that’s happened,’ he said. ‘You’re still not giving up. What the hell is driving you?’

  There was no way I could answer that. Lucifer’s curse was hanging like an axe above my family. I had sworn not to reveal anything else to the police, so I didn’t. The fact that I was subsequently called in for questioning was hardly something I could be held responsible for.

  ‘I think there’s a fairly simple answer to the problem of the dead body in the boot of the car,’ Lucy said after a few moments of silence.

  Didrik raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Really?’

  Lucy looked at me uncertainly.

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  I nodded in agreement.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Because there’s a camera in the garage. But perhaps you already knew that?’

  It was Didrik’s turn to nod.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our colleagues discovered it a few minutes after we left. They called to tell us the good news while we were in the car.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Well, then,’ I said.

  ‘Well, then, what?’

  ‘Seeing as I know I didn’t put the body in my car, I can only assume that the camera recording proves that. And shows someone else doing it.’

  More silence.

  ‘That might well have been the case,’ Didrik said. ‘If . . .’

  His colleague’s mobile phone rang and he left the room. I fixed my eyes on Didrik with my pulse rushing through my body.

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If only the recording hadn’t been faulty. Well, not the recording. The camera’s broken.’

  I used to play chess as a child. I like to imagine that I might have become quite good at it if I’d bothered to carry on. I’m a good strategist; I don’t find it hard to work out in advance which move is best. But on this occasion I felt uncertain. Both Lucy and I knew that the camera had been working perfectly well. Lucy had a copy of the recording on a CD in her handbag. We had hidden the other copies in safe places. Didrik was playing for very high stakes if he knew he was lying about the state of the camera.

  I would have to talk to Wolfgang when I got home. I needed to know who had gone to his flat and asked about the camera. Assuming anyone had. They could just as easily have broken the camera in situ when they knew they weren’t being watched. And then told the others it had been broken all along.

  Lucy’s left hand moved towards her handbag. I quickly took hold of her arm, rather too hard. She looked up in surprise. I chose not to meet her gaze. It was important that she didn’t pull the recording out. Not yet.

  ‘You look like you’re thinking of saying something important,’ Didrik said.

  For the first time he sounded uncertain.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I was just surprised to hear that the camera was broken.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a shame,’ Didrik said. ‘Do you happe
n to know who looks after it?’

  He said it almost in passing, but I realised the question was important. Even more important was what it told me. They hadn’t found Wolfgang.

  I turned cold with fear. The bodies were piling up. I didn’t know who I could trust, nor who would be allowed to live and who must die. But I knew I wanted to save Wolfgang if I possibly could.

  I got to my feet so quickly that my chair fell backwards.

  ‘Unless there’s anything else, I’m going to leave now,’ I said.

  Didrik and I gauged each other’s strength across the table. If he decided to charge me now, Lucy could produce the recording from the garage. If not, I was planning to walk out.

  Didrik’s face was dark and inscrutable.

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he said.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  Lucy stood up and followed me out.

  ‘What now?’ she said when we were standing in the street.

  ‘Now we go home and save Wolfgang’s life,’ I said.

  28

  And so we did. On the way up the stairs we saw two police officers standing and talking to a neighbour who lived three floors below Wolfgang.

  ‘A camera in the garage?’ we heard him say. ‘No, I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to ask someone on the committee.’

  Time was running out. Lucy and I tried not to draw attention to ourselves by racing up the stairs, but walking normally was a strain when we were in such a hurry. We stopped outside Wolfgang’s door, but just as Lucy was about to put her finger to the doorbell I stopped her.

  ‘Damn, we’re going to have to phone him instead,’ I said as quietly as I could.

  The police officers in the stairwell could hear us as well as we could hear them. They’d only be curious if we started ringing on our neighbours’ doorbells, all out of breath.

  Quickly we ran up to my flat. Thankfully Wolfgang answered after the first ring.

  ‘I can’t hear you very well,’ he said. ‘I’m out shopping.’

  I drew a sigh of relief.

  ‘Listen very carefully,’ I said. ‘That camera in the garage. I think it could cause serious problems for you. You need to stay away for a few days. Can you do that?’

  That was the second time in one day that I’d told someone to leave town and go into hiding. I had become death’s tour-guide. Wolfgang protested, naturally. First he said he didn’t have anywhere to go. Then he admitted that he did, but that he didn’t want to go.

  In the end he listened. He promised not to return to his flat. We agreed to meet up two hours later, in a car park at Kungens kurva. I promised to take a bag of clothes and other things he might need.

  ‘It isn’t the police I need to worry about, is it?’ he said.

  What could I say?

  ‘I hope not. But unfortunately I don’t think we can be sure of that.’

  I hadn’t really had time to think that through properly. Were the police involved? If so, at what level – were individual officers being paid to pass on information, or were there others who were involved to a more serious extent?

  ‘Dear God,’ Wolfgang muttered.

  He was an old man. I hoped I hadn’t frightened the life out of him.

  ‘Any medication?’ I said.

  ‘I always carry it with me,’ Wolfgang said.

  He was that generation. The ones who lived through the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The ones who had their cellars full of tinned food and always carried things like passports and medication with them.

  ‘Excellent,’ I said.

  Lucy and I guessed that Wolfgang was about the same size as me. We packed a bag of essentials at once. I felt extremely hesitant as I folded some underwear and put it in the case. Because two men being the same size was no guarantee that they shared the same taste. Without ever having seen Wolfgang’s underwear, I felt absolutely certain on that point.

  ‘Toothbrush,’ Lucy said.

  ‘I’ll have to buy one on the way.’

  ‘If they’ve got you under surveillance, they’re going to be hysterical when they see you going off and buying toiletries. They’ll think you’ve gone on the run.’

  ‘They won’t,’ I said. ‘I’ll shake them off along the way. Otherwise I may as well not bother meeting Wolfgang.’

  I’d become an expert at shaking off potential followers. If it went on like that I’d soon be able to join the police again. A thought I dismissed instantly. I didn’t want to remember my time as a police officer. Not the shot that was fired, nor the guy I had killed. And definitely not the heat and the hard shovel in my hands as I dug another man’s grave.

  Benner, we’re going to bury this problem.

  The nightmares had been driven out temporarily by an increasingly grim reality. But Lucifer was still there. A man who had evidently known who I was long before I heard of his existence. A man I mustn’t try to find. A man Sara had said I knew.

  ‘What is it now?’ Lucy said when she saw me standing there deep in thought.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Or too much. Depending on how you choose to look at it.’

  She gave me a quick kiss just as I was about to leave. The first in far too many hours.

  ‘Shouldn’t Belle be home soon?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I looked at my phone. No missed calls from Signe. The anxiety was ever-present. If Belle went missing again I’d go completely mad.

  I hadn’t got to the end of that thought before someone put a key in the lock. Belle and Signe almost tumbled into the flat when Belle pushed the door open before Signe had time to pull the key out. The relief. Impossible to put into words. But it made my eyes very moist.

  Two childish hugs later I was on my way out of the flat. I was planning to cycle to a different car-hire firm. And pay cash, like any sensible criminal.

  ‘By the way,’ I said to Lucy when I was already halfway through the door. ‘Do we know anyone called Sebastian? Or Sebbe?’

  She tilted her head. From the kitchen I could hear the chink of porcelain. Someone was playing with the tap in the sink. Then Signe’s voice: ‘Belle, wash your hands like a big girl.’ As if bacteria on her hands were the greatest threat to her wellbeing.

  ‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, I suppose we know Sebastian Berg. At the Ministry of Finance.’

  I laughed.

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not him,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of a child.’

  Lucy laughed too. Not because it was all that funny, but because she needed to.

  ‘That makes it even harder,’ she said. ‘I can’t think that Belle has a friend called Sebastian.’

  Just then Belle came out into the hall.

  ‘Or have you?’ Lucy said. She has far greater confidence in Belle’s ability to explain things than I do. ‘Have you got a friend called Sebastian or Sebbe?’

  Belle’s little face turned serious.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not a nice one, anyway.’

  Lucy and I blinked.

  ‘Okay, not a nice one. How about one who’s mean?’ I said.

  ‘Sebbe with the doggy,’ Belle said.

  We were getting warmer, I could feel it. Sebbe with the doggy. I searched my memory, but everything was a mess.

  ‘Was it a real dog?’ Lucy said.

  ‘The sort you have to clap,’ Belle said.

  There, that was it. The memory drifted up to the surface like a secret that had been sunk in water but then pulled loose of the weights holding it down. Belle had come home very upset from a birthday party last summer. So upset that I felt I had to call the birthday-child’s mother to ask what had happened. She was, it had to be said, a very courageous woman. She had freely opened her home to ten three-year-olds without asking their parents to stay. Utterly incomprehensible. When Belle has a birthday I rent a room somewhere and make sure all the parents stay.

  ‘You clapped your hands and it moved when it heard the noise,’ I said.

  The memory m
ade me giddy. How could she remember? One of the boys who was asked to the party had taken along a toy dog that reacted and moved in response to different sounds. Belle, who loves dogs but knows she’s never going to have one as long as she lives with me, was extremely taken with the toy dog. And distraught when the boy hid it from her. She still talked about that dog. Every time we passed a toy shop. It was the dog rather than the boy that she remembered.

  The mother I spoke to on the phone had made me laugh. Because the boy had evidently told Belle that if she didn’t leave his dog alone, he’d send his dad after her. And he was a policeman.

  ‘Perhaps you know him?’ the mother had said. ‘You must have plenty of dealings with the police, seeing as you’re a lawyer.’

  Then she had said his name, which had made me laugh even louder.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ I muttered to myself as we stood in the hall.

  Lucy was staring at me anxiously.

  ‘Don’t you know who the father of the boy with the dog is?’ I said.

  Lucy shook her head.

  ‘I know you talked about it, but I don’t remember the details.’

  ‘Didrik,’ I said. ‘It was Didrik’s son who took the dog to the party with him.’

  I went back inside the flat. Wolfgang’s bag felt heavy on my shoulder.

  Lucy was holding her head.

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ she said. ‘What have you got into your head now? That Didrik’s son Sebbe is Herman Nilson’s godson? That Didrik, of all people, had a child at the same preschool as Mio? That sounds extremely unlikely. He doesn’t even live in Flemingsberg.’

  Thoughts were moving through my head with the same unstoppable force as a freight train on a straight piece of track. I thought about the bruises on the child that the preschools had reacted to. There was no way Didrik was the sort of man who hit his child. Was there?

  ‘We think Rakel knew Herman Nilson,’ I said slowly. ‘Who in turn was godfather to a child called Sebbe. Who attended the same preschool. You might not remember, but Didrik and Herman Nilson do know each other. Didrik was at that crayfish party out in Årsta havsbad. I didn’t get the impression that they knew each other well, but I know their wives spent half the night chatting in the kitchen. Maybe that’s how their families are connected.’