If there’s one word I really like, it’s roadtrip. It has no Swedish equivalent, which is a shame – the direct translation makes it sound incredibly dull. My last proper roadtrip had been through Texas. That was the last time I went to the States, in an attempt to be reconciled with my dad. It ended with me punching him. We never saw each other after that.
The roadtrip I had ahead of me now would take me from Stockholm to Denmark, with a stop in Malmö. To be honest, the word roadtrip was far too positive under the circumstances. This was more like going into exile. I was on the run in a new hire-car. I longed for the day when I wouldn’t have to keep switching cars and phones. I longed for a day when everything would feel calm again.
The police are hardly ever as quick to react as they are in films. It would take them at least a day to realise that I’d disappeared. By that time I’d be across the Öresund Bridge, which itself would make it easy for the police to figure out where I was going. Always assuming that they managed to find the firm I had rented the car from. I jumped involuntarily every time I saw a police car on the road. I was terrified of not making it, of getting stopped before I had done what needed doing.
I had to get to Malmö.
I had to get to Denmark.
It’s roughly six hundred kilometres from Stockholm to Malmö. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by driving too fast, so I stuck to the speed limit much more carefully than I usually do. Hour after hour I drove on and on through our elongated country. I passed towns I’d never been to and about which I felt not the slightest curiosity. I hate small towns. I remember one summer when I was a child. Marianne had hired a caravan. She, my sister and I meandered from campsite to campsite for at least two weeks. I remember it as a relatively untroubled time. Because Marianne was driving, she was forced to drink less than usual. But apart from that there wasn’t much about that holiday that was fun. But Marianne did pretty well just by keeping herself sober.
I had an evening meal at a roadside diner. I joined the truck-drivers at the long tables and ate meatballs that tasted rubbery. I bought a bag of liquorice from the kiosk and got back in the car. Lucy loves chocolate, but I find liquorice far superior. So does Belle. Possibly just because I do, but I like the fact that we have something like that in common.
I called home to check that everything was alright and to say goodnight to Belle. Lucy sounded breathless when she picked up. Her voice was full of laughter.
‘Crazy bedtime tonight?’ I said.
‘We’ve been messing about,’ Lucy said. ‘We needed it.’
I could have done with it too. I heard Belle sweeping through the flat like a tornado in the background. It was a wonderful thing to hear.
‘I just wanted to say goodnight,’ I said.
Lucy gave the phone to Belle, but she wasn’t really interested in talking to me. She hadn’t sounded that happy in ages.
My heart felt lighter when I ended the call. As long as I knew Belle and Lucy were okay, I could concentrate fully on what lay ahead of me. First a stop in Malmö. Then another in Denmark. After that I would head home. And remain in hiding until everything was sorted out.
But things didn’t turn out the way I had imagined. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Fate really hadn’t been on my side over the previous few weeks. Even so, I felt disappointed as I stood outside our newfound witness’s door and no one came to open it. I waited on the pavement outside for a long time, hoping that I might see movement in one of the windows. Maybe she was home, but was scared of being seen? Scared to open the door because she had no way of knowing if the person knocking was friend or foe? Unless she was abroad.
Damn.
I thought about the people I had told to leave Stockholm: Susanne, whose real name was Nadja; and Wolfgang. They had got away, hadn’t they? I had to believe that, or I’d go mad.
It started to rain. That pretty much fits my image of the far south of Sweden, that it’s always raining there. There and in Gothenburg. Lucy thinks I exaggerate, whereas I maintain I’m just saying what I see. It was almost half past eight. I hadn’t booked a hotel in Denmark. I managed to get a room in a place on the motorway between Copenhagen and Roskilde. It was perfect. The following morning I would drive to Sjællands Odde and take the boat from there to Ebeltoft in Jutland, where Rebecca and Didrik lived. I was going to take the car with me. I ought to reach the Stihl family at around ten o’clock in the morning. Once I knew what I was looking for, it had been easy to track them down. Rebecca was a registered property-owner in Denmark, and there was no problem getting the address from the Danish authorities. Ebeltoft, fifty kilometres from Aarhus, a bizarre choice of location. Why not Copenhagen? That would have made Didrik’s commute much easier.
It was just after midnight when I switched off the bedside lamp. I closed my eyes, lay back on the pillow and waited for sleep, without really believing that it was going to come.
35
SATURDAY–SUNDAY
How wrong I was. To my surprise, I fell asleep at once. And with sleep the nightmares came back. Worse than ever. This time I was being hunted like an animal through the pouring rain in an abandoned part of town. With every step I grew wearier and more scared. I knew I couldn’t get away. I knew I was going to be shot.
I screamed when the shot was fired. That isn’t what happened when I shot someone in real life. The bullet silenced him and he didn’t make a sound. But in the dream I screamed. Loudly, desperately. Once again I was dragged through a grimy industrial wasteland. Once again I was buried alive. And once again I woke up in a cold sweat with a scream catching in my throat.
I’m never going to be whole again, I thought, as I kicked off the covers and went into the bathroom. Not as long as I fucking live.
The past kept me awake at night, and the present during the day. When the alarm-clock rang a few hours later I was lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling. My actions came automatically. I got in the shower. Turned the water on. Washed and dried myself. Found my shaving gear in the washbag. Brushed my teeth. Got dressed, left the room and paid at reception when I checked out.
‘Has everything been okay?’
‘Absolutely. I’d be happy to come back again.’
I would never come back. It wasn’t the sort of hotel I usually stayed in, and it certainly wasn’t in a location I passed particularly often. But I could hardly blame the guy in reception for that, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Instead I did what I guessed all his other guests did: paid and went on my way. Got in the car and drove off.
It was eighty kilometres to Sjællands Odde. I don’t remember what I thought on the way there. Perhaps I reflected upon the fact that the first part of the journey passed quickly on a wide motorway, but that the later stretch, on narrow roads, took much longer. Perhaps I thought about the sun, which was only intermittently visible, and when it did appear the grass became much greener, the sea much bluer, the road greyer. Or perhaps I didn’t think about anything at all. I had ended up in an intellectual dead-end. A Gordian knot of the mind. I gave up trying to disentangle any further thoughts and theories. Didrik could take over and do the groundwork, voluntarily or under duress. I wasn’t going to give up until he told me what he knew. What he was up to.
And not until I had found Mio, who had been taken from his preschool by Rakel, a former friend of his mother’s. How the hell had she dodged being dragged into the investigations into both Mio’s disappearance and Sara’s escape? Everyone else seemed to have been included.
There was a brisk wind blowing as I made the brief crossing from Sjællands Odde to Ebeltoft. The catamaran swayed back and forth. People queued for coffee and sandwiches, but I just sat in my seat looking out at the sea. Belle would have loved it. She loves any sort of boat, and is at her happiest at sea. Her grandfather used to say he’d never met a child with such a lack of fear for water. My heart ached at the thought of Belle’s grandfather. He had been the only member of my brother-in-law’s family that I liked. I would kee
p his memory alive for Belle. Tell her what he did with his life, and what made him such a good person.
We docked and I drove off the boat. Didrik’s house was on the coast, a few kilometres from the centre of Ebeltoft. It didn’t take more than five minutes to drive there from the harbour. Although I don’t really remember much about what I was thinking as I approached his house, I’m very sure of how I felt.
My whole body was shaking and my hands were slippery with sweat. I stopped the car a few houses away. On one side of the road a large, beautiful meadow spread out. On the other was a row of houses. Didrik’s was the last one.
Was he there? Was anyone there? I had met Rebecca in Stockholm earlier that week, after all. Perhaps the house was empty. Perhaps the whole family was in Stockholm.
My heart was pounding so hard it was hitting my ribs. It was a deeply unpleasant feeling and for a moment I thought I was going to have a full-blown heart attack. It felt like a bad strategic move to have no one but Didrik to rely on if that was indeed the case. I fumbled with clumsy fingers through my stock of mobile phones to find one I could call Lucy on.
I’m dying, baby. Look after Belle.
That made me pull myself together. I beat my hands against the steering-wheel, angry and upset at my own weakness. Like hell was I going to die sitting in a car in the middle of the Danish countryside. Like hell was I going to die before I’d found out what Didrik was hiding. Perhaps I’d been completely misinformed. Perhaps Didrik was nowhere near as significant a figure as I imagined. But he must have something to say. Because otherwise I had no one left to turn to. Rakel had vanished, and the rest were dead.
It was those words, those thoughts that finally made me open the car door and get out. I wasn’t having a heart attack. My pulse rate sank, the palms of my hands dried out. With a firm gesture I closed the car door and pressed the button on the key to lock it. I like to think that my back and neck were upright as I walked towards Didrik’s house. And I know I thought I was ready for whatever I was going to see or find out. I even thought there was no way I was going to be surprised.
Stupid. Very stupid.
The house was a traditional red wooden building. It had white detailing and a hipped roof. The walls of the ground floor were full of large windows. That was how I first caught sight of them from the road. I could see them right through the house. They were sitting at the back eating breakfast. The sun was shining and the wind was nowhere near as blustery as it had been out at sea. Didrik and Rebecca were seated opposite each other, each peeling an egg. Next to them, and opposite one another, sat two people I didn’t recognise. They seemed to be roughly the same age as me. Visiting friends? Or neighbours?
It was such an idyllic day. I couldn’t see anyone else about. That both pleased and troubled me. Seclusion was good. But sadly not only for me, but also for Didrik.
The moment had arrived. It couldn’t be put off any longer. And, like the fighter I had become, armed with nothing stronger than my own intellect, I marched straight into Didrik’s garden. There was no hesitation in my stride. I just walked, like a machine. As I walked round the house, Rebecca was in the middle of saying something that seemed to amuse the others at the table. She had her back to me, and therefore didn’t see me approach. But Didrik did. The expression on his face changed so abruptly that I had to force myself to carry on walking, as if nothing had happened. First, a look that clearly showed he was so shocked to see me that he didn’t actually recognise me. Then astonishment and surprise. And finally fury. But I just kept walking.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Sorry to intrude on a Saturday morning like this.’
Rebecca got to her feet almost unbelievably fast. I smiled at her apologetically, then took my time looking around me.
‘Lovely place you’ve got here.’
It was a huge garden, at least one hundred metres long. It stretched all the way to the sea.
The other couple at the table were staring at me in silence, unsure how to interpret their hosts’ reaction. I helped them.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have introduced myself. My name’s Martin Benner, I’m an old acquaintance of Didrik and Rebecca.’
I shook hands with the woman first, then the man. They both smiled warmly. They spoke unusually intelligible Danish, presumably tailored to an audience of Swedes. They said it was nice to meet me. I reciprocated. Then Didrik tried to interrupt my charade.
‘Martin, what can we do for you?’
‘Quite a lot,’ I said.
I raised my eyebrows pointedly.
‘Perhaps we should go inside?’ Didrik said.
‘Don’t bother on my account,’ I said.
We were interrupted by children’s voices. They were both talking Danish, but one had a Swedish accent. One was a boy, the other a girl. They came racing out of the bushes beneath a large apple tree some distance away. The girl was running first, dressed up as an Indian. The boy, the same colour as me, raced after her. Sebbe. He didn’t look like there was anything wrong with him. I felt a wave of relief. Didrik didn’t beat his child. And the boy didn’t look ill, either. Everything seemed fine.
‘It’s fantastic,’ the Danish woman said with a broad smile. ‘He looks so well!’
I looked at Didrik and Rebecca with concern.
‘Has he been unwell?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, I didn’t know.’
‘Martin, let’s go inside now.’
It was only for the neighbours’ sake that he didn’t raise his voice. I didn’t move a muscle. I just stared at the running children, racing through the park-like garden like rockets. The boy’s steps were quick and lithe.
‘I’m going to get you now!’ he cried to the girl.
But he didn’t. In fact he missed her by several metres.
‘Ha!’ the girl said, and turned round.
She was running back towards the water now. Sebbe set off after her. No one runs faster than a man who’s been humiliated.
And no one takes greater risks than someone who hasn’t got much to lose. I saw his feet pound the grass, his blue shirt blowing in the wind. And I just knew.
‘Mio!’ I shouted. ‘Mio!’
He stopped abruptly. So suddenly that he fell down. Slowly he turned round and looked at me. His eyes were big and wide-open.
‘Daddy?’ he said.
36
‘Christ, Martin, that’s enough!’
Didrik’s voice was a warning, so loud and clear that no one could possibly mistake it. Not even the children. The girl stopped running and turned to look at the adults.
Didrik waved to them.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, and tried to smile. ‘We’ve just got a grown-up thing to sort out here.’
But the boy was already on his way over to us.
‘Are you my daddy?’ he said. ‘Are you?’
His words breathed life into some terrible childhood memories. I didn’t see my father once when I was growing up. I lived with my very blonde mother and my equally blonde sister, and every time I saw a black man in the street I thought: Could that be him? Until I reached the age of ten I was obsessed by the idea that my dad was out there somewhere, that I could find him if I just made enough of an effort. It never happened. No matter how hard I looked, or however many people I asked, I never found him.
Rebecca ran to meet the boy.
‘Sebbe, he’s just a man we know. He isn’t your daddy.’
The neighbours stared from Didrik to Rebecca with their mouths gaping. Didrik tried to explain what they’d just seen.
‘Of course you know he’s adopted,’ he said. ‘He’s clearly at the age where he wants to know more about his background.’
‘And his name,’ I said.
If looks could kill, I’d have reached my last breath several seconds ago. My heart was pounding like a steam-hammer, but I was still alive.
‘Mummy, what’s going on?’ the girl asked.
‘Nothing, I think,’ the woman said, and glanced anxiously
at Didrik.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ Didrik said in the same tone of voice he had just used on me.
His tone caused a reaction in his visitors. No one likes feeling threatened. The man stood up.
‘I think we’ll be going now,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’
The woman stood up as well. The girl ran over to her and took her hand. Rebecca was still standing on the grass with her arms round Mio. She looked horrified.
The neighbours thanked her. I wondered if they’d ever come back.
‘I’ll explain another day,’ Didrik said.
He was evidently more optimistic than me.
The neighbours disappeared. As did Rebecca. Holding the boy by the hand, she vanished into the house.
‘What are you going to explain, Didrik?’ I said when we were alone. ‘Because, speaking purely for myself, I’d much rather not wait until another day.’
Didrik was standing motionless with his hands in his trouser pockets. His gaze was fixed on a point far out in the water. His ribcage rose and fell in time with his breathing. In and out, in and out. He looked the way he always did. Like a pleasant, affluent man in the prime of life. Warm and open. Not like a sadistic child-beater, or a murderer.
I didn’t like the silence that had arisen.
‘That wasn’t Sebbe,’ I said, to break it.
At last Didrik looked away from the sea.
‘What do you know about that? You don’t give a damn about children. You hardly care about your own.’
I let the insult pass.
‘True,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what Sebbe looks like. But I have, despite your efforts to prevent it, seen pictures of Mio. And unlike other people, I can tell one black child from the other. That lad on the grass was Sara Texas’s son. So what have you done with your own?’ The clicking sound came from the left, from inside the house. I had no trouble recognising it, and I knew exactly what I was going to see when I instinctively turned my head.
‘You need to leave now.’
Rebecca was standing in the doorway with a rifle in her hand. She was remarkably calm. So, to my immense surprise, was I.
The Lies We Tell Page 22
