For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  ‘Leaving already?’ he said.

  Charlie nodded. She was leaving. It had been a long day.

  ‘Are you with Missing People, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Johan, by the way,’ he said and held out his hand.

  ‘Lisa.’ When she looked into his eyes, it was as though there was a hint of something familiar there after all, but the unmistakable Stockholm accent reassured her. She was just about to tell him she needed to go to bed, when she spotted the pack of Marlboros in his breast pocket; before she had time to consider, she heard herself ask if she could cadge a cigarette off him.

  Johan held out his pack and a lighter.

  ‘You’re going to smoke inside?’ he said when she lit her cigarette.

  ‘I’m hardly the only one.’ Charlie gestured at the room, where several cigarettes glowed.

  ‘Fine, but I’m going outside,’ Johan said. ‘Smoking inside makes me feel sick.’

  Charlie followed him out onto the small front door steps. The wind must have turned, because the smell of pulp was gone, replaced by the sweet fragrance of lilacs.

  ‘Are you from here?’ she said.

  ‘Stockholm. You?’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘I didn’t see you today,’ Johan said, ‘during the search.’

  Charlie pondered whether it had been a bad idea to do the lying thing with this man. This wasn’t a night out, not a fling, so there was no reason for her to make things up. What was she doing?

  ‘There’s quite a lot of us, I guess,’ she said.

  Johan nodded. It really was amazing to see, he felt, how many people had come to help out. There was something about this community that moved him: the commitment, the sense of togetherness, the hope of finding the girl alive. ‘She doesn’t seem to be in the immediate vicinity, at least,’ he continued, ‘unless she’s in the lake.’

  ‘It’s bottomless.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said it’s going to take time,’ Charlie said. ‘That lake … it’s supposedly very deep.’

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ Johan turned to her. ‘What do you think we’re looking for? I mean, is it a body, or … ?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good, does it?’

  ‘I just saw her dad this morning. He wanted to join the search, but he was in a terrible state. I get that he wanted to go out, though. I would lose my mind, just sitting at home, waiting.’

  Johan’s phone rang. He apologised and said he had to take the call. He quickly disappeared in the direction of the car park.

  Charlie went inside to use the bathroom. It was full of giggling women of all ages.

  There was only cold water in the tap. She held her wrists under it and studied herself in the mirror. A ghost, she thought. I look like a fucking ghost.

  ‘Charline!’ a familiar voice suddenly exclaimed behind her. ‘At first, I figured I had downed one too many shots, but it really is you.’

  Charlie turned around.

  ‘Susanne?’

  ‘Fifty pounds later. Oh my God, is it really you, Charlie? I saw you at the bar and I thought you looked familiar somehow, but not in my wildest dreams … but now that I see your eyes and that scar.’ She pointed to Charlie’s temple. ‘Fuck, Charlie. You finally came back.’

  20

  ‘You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Charline Lager,’ Susanne said. They’d gone back to the pub section and sat down at one of the tables by the wall.

  ‘Me too,’ Charlie said and realised it was true. She had missed Susanne, had missed having someone around who knew so much about her history; had missed their conversations, the way they had laughed when things looked truly dark.

  ‘Surely if you missed me so much, you could have called,’ Susanne said with a smile. ‘Oh, it’s okay,’ she added when she saw Charlie’s face. ‘I know you had to get out of here. That you wanted to start over.’

  ‘I should have called,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t know why I haven’t.’

  They sat in silence for a while, as though they both needed to stop and ponder all the time that had gone by.

  ‘And now?’ Susanne said. ‘How come you’re back now? Are you with Missing People?’

  Charlie told her why she had come.

  ‘Detective?’ Susanne smiled. Actually, yes, she could see how that would be. She could really see it. Then she turned serious. It was awful, she said, this thing with Annabelle. She couldn’t understand how a person could just disappear without a trace.

  ‘There are always traces.’

  ‘I really hope you find her. I can hardly imagine what her poor parents must be going through.’

  ‘Do you know them?’

  Susanne shook her head. She knew who they were, but they were older. ‘How would you feel about a shot, by the way?’ she said. ‘For old times’ sake?’

  Charlie looked longingly at the bar and said that sounded fun, but that she was on the job and …

  ‘One won’t hurt you,’ Susanne said and before Charlie could object again, Susanne had started pushing her way towards the bar; moments later, she was back with two brimming glasses topped with whipped cream.

  ‘I don’t get,’ she said, ‘I really don’t get how anyone can make this curdle.’ She held her glass up to show that the coffee had infiltrated the Galliano. ‘It’s because they buy crappy booze from lorry drivers. I’ll bet you anything this is just vodka with dye in it, otherwise it wouldn’t look like this. But never mind,’ she continued and pushed one of the glasses towards Charlie, ‘it’s all going to the same place in the end anyway.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a shot.’

  ‘Well, it’s about time then. Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  They downed their liquor.

  ‘So how are things with you?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well, where to start?’ Susanne said and wiped away some cream with the back of her hand. ‘A lot of things have happened, put it that way.’

  ‘How are your parents?’

  ‘Dad’s dead.’

  Charlie offered her condolences, but Susanne said what else can you expect. She was surprised he’d survived as long as he had. And his passing hadn’t been all bad, she added, because it had made her mum sober up. It was almost like she had gained a parent rather than lost one.

  ‘I think my mum’s the only one left of the old gang.’ Then Susanne started listing off all the people who had used to party out in Lyckebo and who were now dead.

  When she was done, Charlie thought to herself that Susanne had left out the one who died first. She had left out Mattias.

  ‘I put a flower on Betty’s grave sometimes,’ Susanne continued. ‘When I’m there for Dad anyway.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlie said. She looked over at the bar and wished she didn’t have a job to do.

  ‘Your mum. She was a proper alcoholic, but at least she knew how to make people laugh. People really laughed when Betty was around. Cheers to that. Cheers to Betty.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Charlie raised her glass and tried to think of a different topic. ‘Are you married?’ she asked.

  Susanne nodded. She was married.

  ‘Anyone I’d know?’

  Susanne shook her head and said he wasn’t from around there.

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Four,’ Susanne said and held up four fingers. ‘All boys.’ She shrugged as though she felt their sex was a failure in itself. ‘And you, do you have children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Smart decision.’

  ‘I’m not married either,’ Charlie said to pre-empt the follow-up.

  ‘Even smarter. I don’t know a single happily married person. And the kids thing, I know it sounds terrible, but kids are really overrated.’

  Charlie laughed and replied she’d always suspected as much, but that she wasn’t allowed to say it, being childless and everything.

  ‘You can’t say it as a
mother either,’ Susanne said. ‘Definitely not as a mother.’ She started talking about her sons, about how they were killing her. They fought, quarrelled and shouted at one another. She said she needed both wine and oxazepam to bear it. Yes, she was aware she wasn’t supposed to talk openly about it, especially the pills, but she didn’t have the energy to craft euphemisms. That’s just the kind of person she was.

  ‘Maybe that’s why I was drawn to you,’ Charlie said. ‘There was no one else like you here.’

  ‘And you.’ Susanne smiled. ‘And you, Charlie Lager.’

  Charlie thought about the time she and Susanne had promised each other never to drink. They had been spider swinging on the swing in the oak tree in Lyckebo and had sworn never to have children, never to drink, never to become like their parents. At the time, they had really thought they could do it, but their genes, or upbringing or whatever it was, seemed to hold strong sway over both of them. It had started with leftovers from glasses at the Lyckebo parties and before long they had moved on to stealing whole bottles of spirits and wine. Getting drunk for the first time had made Charlie understand Betty’s love for alcohol. Because that feeling, that amazing feeling when everything went calm and still inside her, that was … she had loved it from the first.

  ‘Life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would,’ Susanne said.

  ‘Does it ever?’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Susanne took a big sip from her glass. ‘But it was nice back when you could still dream.’

  Charlie nodded and said she knew what she meant.

  ‘Cut it out,’ Susanne suddenly exclaimed to a man who had come over and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come off it, Svenka.’

  ‘Why are you always in such a bad mood?’ said the man called Svenka.

  ‘Maybe because you can’t seem to understand I don’t want your hands all over me.’

  ‘Can’t we just chat for a bit?’

  ‘I was just on my way to the bar.’

  ‘And what were you going to buy?’

  ‘Hot shots,’ Susanne said, ‘more hot shots for me and my friend here.’

  ‘Arne!’ Svenka shouted to a man behind the bar. ‘Arne! Bring two hot shots as well.’

  Susanne rolled her eyes at Charlie.

  ‘Here we are,’ Svenka said proudly when the hot shots arrived. ‘Maybe now you’ll let me join you?’

  ‘We were actually having a private conversation,’ Susanne replied.

  ‘And who is your little friend then?’ Svenka asked. His bleary eyes turned to Charlie. ‘Are you one of the people searching?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that,’ Charlie said.

  ‘She’s with the police,’ Susanne said, ‘so that’s putting it mildly.’

  Svenka’s bloodshot eyes opened wide and he leaned across the table. About fucking time they brought in some back-up, he felt. Had they been up to Skärven? Had they started interviewing the coloured people up there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Charlie said.

  ‘I’m just saying that if I were the police, that’s where I’d look first.’

  ‘Good thing you’re not the police then,’ Susanne said.

  ‘You do realise, don’t you,’ Svenka pressed on without paying any attention to Susanne’s comment, ‘that one of the coloured fellows did it. Just think about all the bikes that have disappeared since they came. This is not a laughing matter, Susanne. Before the nineties, there were no fucking bike thefts, that’s for sure!’

  ‘You’re full of it,’ Susanne said. ‘People have always been stealing bikes in these parts.’

  ‘And then there was the thing with the pizza place,’ Svenka continued, unfazed.

  ‘We don’t know who started the fire.’

  ‘Definitely not a local, I’ll tell you that much.’

  ‘He’s not just an assaulter of women,’ Susanne said and slapped away Svenka’s hand, which had landed on her thigh. ‘He’s a racist too.’

  ‘I’m nothing of the kind. It’s just that nothing good has happened here since the Yugoslavs invaded every part of our society, and then, with that pack of Somali people that arrived last year … it’s no wonder things are happening. I’m just saying,’ he continued and put his used pinch of snuff in a glass on the table, ‘if it had been my daughter … if she was the one who was missing, I would have blown all of Skärven to hell.’

  ‘And would that bring her back?’ Susanne said. ‘A bombing?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Svenka said, ‘but an eye for an eye. Even the Bible says so.’

  Susanne laughed again and said the Bible also said something about turning the other cheek and that it was fucking sick to want to blow up innocent people, but Svenka wasn’t listening. He just kept ranting on about the scum up by Skärven; that anyone could see it was one of them who had attacked Annabelle and dumped her body somewhere.

  ‘That’s enough now,’ Charlie finally told him.

  ‘Enough?’ Svenka stared at her. ‘That might be easy for you to say. I bet you have a nice flat on some fancy street in Stockholm and haven’t had to deal with Yugoslavs, Somalis and all kinds of trash ever since the nineties.’

  ‘She’s from here,’ Susanne said. ‘She’s Betty’s daughter. Betty Lager’s daughter.’

  Svenka’s belligerent attitude changed. He looked at Charlie in that way she hated. After all her years in Stockholm, she had forgotten how annoying that look was.

  ‘So I see,’ Svenka said. ‘Now I see you’re Betty’s girl … Your mum … what a woman. People in these parts still talk about her parties.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Charlie said. ‘I can certainly imagine.’

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  Charlie shook her head. She didn’t remember. How was she supposed to remember every nut job who had ever been to one of the Lyckebo parties?

  ‘Is it your first time back since … I mean, how long since you moved away?’

  ‘Almost twenty years.’

  ‘Twenty years … Well, bugger me if time doesn’t just fly. It feels like yesterday that …’

  ‘Hey, Svenka,’ Susanne said. ‘I think your friends want you.’ She pointed in the direction of the bar where a group of loud men had gathered.

  ‘All right, all right, I get it,’ Svenka said. ‘But mark my words.’ He raised a finger to Charlie. ‘Mark my words when I say you’re going to find your man up at Skärven.’

  ‘Right now we’re just looking for a girl,’ Charlie said.

  They watched Svenka stagger over to join his friends.

  ‘I don’t remember him ever being in Lyckebo,’ Charlie said. ‘I have no recollection of him being there.’

  ‘I guess every man from around here went to Lyckebo one time or another,’ Susanne said.

  ‘About me being from here,’ Charlie said. ‘Maybe you could keep that to yourself? I would prefer to just … I just want to focus on solving this case now. And I don’t really want to talk to people about Betty.’

  ‘I get that,’ Susanne said. ‘But to be honest,’ she continued, ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to recognise you. You haven’t been here since you were a child.’

  ‘You recognised me.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘And Svenka?’ Charlie nodded to the bar. ‘He doesn’t exactly seem the type to keep things to himself.’

  ‘Svenka’s an old drunk. When he wakes up tomorrow, he won’t even remember he was here.’

  ‘Nice bloke, by the way,’ Charlie said, ‘really friendly and nuanced.’

  They burst out laughing.

  ‘But he sounds worse than he is,’ Susanne said. ‘He’s just a confused little failure of a person.’ For a moment, she didn’t say anything, just gazed out across the dance floor. ‘Like most of us here.’

  That day

  ‘Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.’ Kalle stopped reading when Annabelle slunk into her seat.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said.

  Annabelle nodded.
>
  ‘You were late yesterday as well, and you didn’t even show up to the class before that.’

  ‘I was ill.’ She thought to herself that Kalle was insanely strict about absences. Why couldn’t he just look at her results and leave well enough alone like most other teachers?

  ‘We’ll have to have a talk later. I’ve just started reading from a novel,’ Kalle said. And then, to the whole class: ‘Could someone tell Annbelle what book I’m reading from?’

  Crickets. Kalle sighed. It was incredible that no one remembered. Bloody hell, he’d told them just a few minutes ago.

  ‘The Stranger,’ Annabelle said. ‘The Stranger by Albert Camus.’

  Kalle nodded, she was right. It was a famous opening and a famous book. To know it was general knowledge. That made it extra sad, he felt, that no one had remembered the title.

  Annabelle sat down. Kalle cleared his throat and started over. ‘Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow.” ’

  Annabelle thought of her own mother. If she were to die, Annabelle might get her times mixed up like that. She had always had a lot of difficulty with time. But would she be sad? Guilt rushed over her when she realised she wasn’t sure. What if she was actually relieved? Maybe I’m a psychopath, she thought. I might be as numb to things as that Meursault guy. She tried to tell herself it was expected, given how her mum was out to ruin her life. It had been worse than usual lately because she had refused to tell her where she’d been. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to meet Him, for her to show up and act insane.

  Kalle’s monotonous voice, talking about the analysis they were supposed to write, turned into a dull background drone. Annabelle looked out of the window and thought about her first time with Him. It had been the first dance of the spring down at the pub. She had had too much to drink and had sat down by the lake to sober up. And that was when he had appeared and offered her a ride home.

  At first, she had figured he was just trying to be nice, that she would never be able to seduce him, which is why she was surprised when he didn’t remove the hand she put on his thigh. She had asked him to stop the car somewhere and he had obeyed.