For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  ‘She worked at the home before,’ Olof said. ‘The nursing home,’ he clarified, ‘but now she doesn’t do anything, I think. Neither she nor Fredrik are locals, they have no family here and mostly keep to themselves, so I don’t know much about them. But Fredrik works at Bäckhammar’s paper mill.’

  ‘What do their jobs have to do with anything?’ Micke demanded.

  Charlie shot him a quick glance. He was chewing on a toothpick, looking confrontational.

  ‘I’m just trying to get a picture of the family,’ Charlie replied.

  ‘Does William Stark have an alibi?’ Anders said.

  ‘Yes,’ Olof replied. ‘He was with Rebecka Gahm when Annabelle left. They stayed at Vall’s until dawn. Fredrik Roos, the father, spoke to them when he was there looking for her.’

  ‘Why have you not managed to get more out of Rebecka Gahm?’ Charlie wanted to know.

  Olof asked what she meant.

  ‘I mean, she’s Annabelle’s best friend, she must know more about her than what she’s told us so far.’

  ‘You’re implying that we’re not asking the right questions?’ Micke put in. ‘She said it herself,’ he continued, ‘she was practically unconscious, she has big memory lapses from that night.’

  ‘Maybe she remembers more now,’ Charlie said. ‘Now that she understands how serious this is.’

  Olof nodded: she was right. Aside from finding the owner of the prepaid sim card and conducting additional interviews with Annabelle’s friends, they didn’t have a lot to go on. It could be, he continued, that a lot of them would recall more now that they realised this wasn’t a game.

  ‘I would like to know more about Annabelle as well,’ Charlie said.

  ‘What don’t you know?’ Micke said. ‘I thought you had had time to study the case file. It’s all in there.’

  ‘I want to know more about her as a person,’ Charlie replied, ‘not just facts about the last hours before she disappeared. I want to know who she is, what she likes to do, her dreams, wishes, fears. What?’ Charlie said when she noticed Micke rolling his eyes at Adnan.

  ‘Nothing,’ Micke said. ‘It just sounds difficult to me, finding all those things out.’

  ‘According to her parents, she’s a normal teenager who likes to read and does well in school,’ Adnan said.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly sound like a normal teenager,’ Charlie said.

  ‘All her social media activity confirms that assessment,’ Olof said. ‘Her Facebook account is full of book recommendations and questions from classmates looking for help with their homework.’

  ‘She could have more than one account,’ Charlie said. ‘In fact, a lot of young people have one account they let parents, relatives and employers see, and a hidden one where they can be slightly more … open.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were an expert on young people as well,’ Micke said.

  ‘I’m not,’ Charlie replied. ‘I’m just telling you that may be the case, that I’ve seen it before. There’s probably a different side to her, one she only shows to a select few.’

  ‘We already know that. I mean it’s not exactly her grades people are talking about in town.’

  Charlie looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘She has a bit of a reputation,’ Micke continued. ‘They say she’s a bit … flirtatious.’

  ‘Who says that?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘It’s just a rumour, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘People say she likes the fellas.’ Micke looked at Olof. ‘Well, it’s what they’re all saying,’ he said as though someone had objected, ‘I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Do we have names for these fellas she liked so much? Or the names of the people making the claims?’ Charlie said.

  Micke told her he didn’t, that it was just rumours. He simply wanted them to be aware.

  ‘Anything else?’ Charlie said. ‘A diary?’

  Olof shook his head. They hadn’t found anything like that when they searched her room.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ Anders said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Olof said. ‘How are we supposed to know?’

  ‘But judging from what you know so far, what’s your first instinct?’

  ‘I can’t help thinking,’ Olof said, gathering up a few sheets of paper, ‘I can’t help thinking she must have run into a lunatic.’

  ‘How often does that happen?’ Anders said.

  ‘Not that often, but it does happen. The motorway passes by not too far from here. A lot of people come through town, stop for a pint at the motel and …’

  ‘And find themselves out by a boarded-up village shop in the middle of the night, kidnapping a seventeen-year-old girl?’

  ‘You asked about my first instinct,’ Olof said. ‘I’m just telling you what it is.’

  Charlie’s throat was dry. She excused herself and went out into the tiny kitchen. The disorder in there made her feel unexpectedly relieved: no stern signs about cleaning up after yourself, just dishes, Tupperware containers and glasses full of dirty cutlery. The only clean mug was adorned with the green and white logo of the local football club. Charlie filled it up with water, took a few deep gulps and tasted the familiar taste of Gullspång’s tap water. Outsiders always complained about the water quality. There was something not right about the taste: iron, lime, sewage? Only now did she understand what they were on about.

  12

  The first run-through was done and Olof was showing Anders and Charlie where they could keep their things.

  ‘It hasn’t been used in a while,’ Olof said as he unlocked the door to a room whose walls were lined with shelves full of black binders. ‘These are leftovers from the eighties. We haven’t exactly needed the space, put it that way. I’ll ask someone to clear up a bit so there’s more room.’

  ‘We just need the desks,’ Charlie said. She nodded at the two teak desks with green bankers’ lamps that stood facing each other by the window.

  Olof had a call and disappeared; Anders walked over to the desks and started tugging on the window blinds.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie said.

  ‘I figured we could use some light.’

  ‘I’d prefer keeping it dark.’

  ‘Why are you always so contrary?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing.’

  ‘Most people like light,’ Anders said, ‘especially now we’re finally having some sunny weather.’

  ‘There’s nothing more ominous than a clear blue sky.’

  Anders burst out laughing. What did she mean by that?

  ‘Ingmar Bergman said it, so at least I’m in good company.’

  Charlie unpacked her laptop and plugged her phone in to charge.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Anders said. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

  Charlie shook her head. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest. Olof had given them all the interview transcripts and she would prefer going over them to heading out for something to eat.

  She flipped through the transcripts, read about ex-boyfriends, love triangles and rumours about flirtations, and thought about what Margareta had said about no one from around here wanting to hurt Annabelle. Maybe it was time to put that statement to the test.

  Adnan came in to ask how they were getting on.

  ‘I’d like to speak to the parents,’ she said. ‘Today, if possible.’

  ‘Just go over there,’ Adnan said. He handed her a note with their address. ‘The house number is a bit hard to spot, but it’s the white house with the green door.’

  Charlie let Anders drive. They passed Gullspång town centre again. A group of teenagers on mopeds had gathered in front of the little kiosk.

  ‘Was that where you used to hang out?’ Anders asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Charlie replied. She was watching a blonde girl in her lower teens who was smoking a cigarette. Next to her was an equally young girl with an identical hairdo and in a circl
e around them a group of guys on mopeds. She remembered all the evenings she had spent there with Susanne. How sometimes they had walked up to the main road and fantasised about hitching a ride somewhere. But the stories about men in white cars, the kind of men who kidnapped girls, killed them and cut up their corpses, had made them keep their hands firmly in their pockets.

  But someday soon, Susanne had told her one night when they had had one too many cans of lager, someday soon, I’m going to risk it. I’m going to get in the first car that stops.

  And if no one stops?

  There’s always lorries, I guess.

  And if no lorries stop?

  Maybe I wasn’t talking about them stopping.

  ‘I’ve never understood,’ Anders said, ‘what people get up to in these small towns. I mean, there’s nothing here.’

  Charlie thought about summer days in Gullspång, about sunbathing below the falls, the parties.

  ‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘There’s so much more than meets the eye.’

  That day

  Never again. Annabelle had promised herself never to call him again. And yet, here she was, behind the school gym, smoking and dialling his bloody number with her free hand. He picked up straight away.

  ‘Belle,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t talk right now. Can I call you back?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ she said. ‘Your message already pretty much said it all.’

  ‘I’ll call you in a bit.’

  ‘Don’t.’ She was on the verge of tears. ‘Everything you told me … was it just … ?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t, but consider my situation. After all, you knew from the start that …’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said as the tears started streaming down her cheeks. ‘Fuck off. You’re as big of a coward as everyone else.’

  Then, before he could trot out any more excuses or lies, she hung up. She tapped out another cigarette with trembling hands and thought about the mistake she had made a few weeks earlier. Maybe it had made him realise what their relationship could cost him. He had told her his wife was out of town and Annabelle had taken it as an invitation. She had no recollection of him saying the children were going be there. If she had known that, she obviously wouldn’t have gone over to surprise him.

  Swedish class had already started, but how the fuck was she supposed to focus on textual analysis when the world was falling apart?

  Her phone dinged. It was from Rebecka.

  Where are you?

  Just walking around, everything’s shit, she replied.

  Your mum’s not going to let you go to the party tonight if she finds out you’re skiving off.

  I’m not allowed to go to parties either way.

  But you won’t even be allowed to go to mine. Come here!!!

  Ok.

  Annabelle stubbed out her cigarette and entered the school building. She bumped into William in the second-floor hallway. She nodded briefly and he nodded back. It was odd, she thought to herself, that two people who had been so close could become strangers, just like that. For a moment, she considered turning around and shouting after him that she took it all back, that she had messed up her life, that she needed him, that she actually loved him. But she didn’t do it. Because firstly, it would only make things worse and secondly, she no longer thought it was true.

  13

  Just keep your eyes on the road, Charlie told herself as they headed out of Gullspång town centre. Don’t look at the church, or that turn-off. Just keep your eyes on the road now.

  The potholes made the car rattle.

  ‘What kind of a bloody road is this?’ Anders said.

  ‘Just a regular road, I guess.’

  ‘They should repave it. This is worse than a gravel road.’

  ‘You don’t seem to get it,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘That Gullspång is one of Sweden’s poorest municipalities.’

  Anders said he did get it, it was just that … well, wouldn’t the cost of the damage done to all the cars far outweigh the cost of repaving?

  ‘The municipality doesn’t own the cars,’ Charlie retorted.

  The church was coming into view in the distance; Charlie wanted to shut her eyes, but kept glancing over at it. It hurts too much, she thought. I should never have come here.

  Fredrik and Nora Roos lived in a simple, white wooden house just where the village petered out into fields and meadows. Half the lawn had been mowed; the mower had been left out in the yard. Charlie thought to herself that it would be a while before someone put it away.

  The doorbell was broken so Charlie knocked. It was a long time before she heard footsteps approaching. Fredrik Roos opened the door; unshaven and red-eyed, he asked them to come inside. Yes, he had heard detectives were coming down from Stockholm, and it was a good thing, he said, and showed them into the kitchen. He poured coffee with trembling hands. It was a good thing they were calling in outside specialists.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no milk,’ he said as he placed two chipped mugs on the table in front of them. They had sat down in the room he referred to as the parlour.

  ‘We don’t mind it black,’ Charlie assured him. She looked around. The walls were hung with paintings of crying children, the kind that had recently become popular in Stockholm as a kind of ironic gesture. She wondered if they had been inherited from dead parents. White wooden letters spelled out Carpe Diem above the fireplace. Charlie had always thought of those words as a taunt, and now they came off as more scornful than ever.

  She was just about to ask after Annabelle’s mother, when a fair, skinny woman in jeans and a T-shirt appeared in the doorway. The woman said nothing, just stared vacantly at Charlie and Anders.

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ Fredrik said. ‘I thought you could use your rest … I mean, since you had finally managed to fall asleep.’

  ‘I wasn’t sleeping.’

  Charlie looked into her haunted eyes and figured she was probably telling the truth.

  ‘These are the detectives from Stockholm,’ Fredrik said. ‘They’ve come to ask some more questions.’

  ‘Well, get on with it then.’ Nora spread her hands, wobbled and sat down on an ottoman. ‘Ask away.’

  There was something familiar about Nora. Charlie felt sure she had seen her before, but she didn’t think it would have been out at one of the Lyckebo parties. She knew the names of the handful of women who had frequented Betty’s house.

  ‘Coffee?’ Fredrik said.

  ‘Who gives a damn about coffee?’ Nora replied. ‘How am I supposed to think about coffee when my daughter is missing?’

  ‘There’s no need to raise your voice,’ Fredrik said.

  ‘Annabelle is missing. I’ll raise my voice as much as I like.’ She turned to Charlie. ‘Do you have children?’

  Charlie shook her head.

  ‘You?’ Nora looked at Anders.

  Anders nodded.

  ‘I think you can sense …’ Nora said and looked out of the window. ‘I think as a mother, you can sense when your child is no longer alive.’

  ‘We will do everything we can to find her,’ Anders said.

  ‘It’s too late. And don’t stare at me like that, Fredrik. You were the one who thought we should let her run around as she pleased.’ Nora stood up and left the room.

  ‘She’s angry because I haven’t enforced the rules as strictly,’ Fredrik said once Nora was out of earshot. ‘We always had different ideas about how to raise her. Nora wants to control Annabelle, while I … I’ve wanted to give her more freedom.’

  ‘And now look what your freedom’s cost her!’ Nora shouted. She must have stopped behind the door to listen. ‘You must be asking yourself if it was worth it now. Well, was it?’

  Fredrik shook his head. He was close to tears now. It was sad to see, Charlie thought to herself, that some men wouldn’t allow themselves to cry, that they couldn’t let go, even under circumstances like these. But then
she thought about the erratic woman behind the door. She supposed someone had to hold things together.

  ‘She’s right,’ Fredrik said. ‘If I had been as strict as her, none of this would have happened. But is it really … Is it really reasonable to more or less permanently ground a virtually grown woman?’ He turned to Anders.

  ‘No,’ Anders replied, ‘it’s not.’

  Charlie realised she had to steer the conversation in another direction before Fredrik got bogged down in self-recrimination. She had met parents of missing children before, but none that had seemed as consumed with regret and guilt as Fredrik. Maybe it would have been more understandable if the missing child had been very young, if he had put the child in danger through negligence or lack of attention. But this was a seventeen-year-old, a girl who was one year away from being of age.

  ‘Tell us about that night,’ Charlie said. ‘Tell us about the night she disappeared.’

  Fredrik rubbed his face. ‘She was going over to Rebecka’s. They were just going to watch a film, but then she didn’t come home.’

  ‘And that was when you went out to look for her?’

  Fredrik nodded. When Nora started feeling anxious, he had gone straight to the village shop.

  ‘Why not to Rebecka’s house?’

  ‘Because neither Rebecka nor Annabelle were answering their phones, so we figured they might have gone somewhere else. Nora was the one who told me to go straight to Vall’s.’

  ‘And what time was this?’

  ‘Just before one.’

  ‘Tell us about what happened when you got there.’

  ‘I already have. It was a party that had spun out of control, young people sleeping and talking nonsense, loud music, drunkenness. Svante Linder was sitting in the kitchen with a friend. Well, I’m assuming you know who everyone is already. Either way, everyone seemed completely unperturbed.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean that if they had done something to her, if they had done something to my little girl … they probably wouldn’t have … they probably wouldn’t have looked so unperturbed. And I found Rebecka upstairs with this guy William. It was when she told me Annabelle had gone home that I knew. I just knew something horrible had happened. I could feel it.’