For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  Class was over, but Annabelle didn’t notice until Rebecka snapped her fingers in front of her face. As they stepped into the hallway, her mum called.

  Annabelle’s first impulse was to not pick up, but then she figured she might as well because otherwise she would just keep calling. Once or twice, she had even come to school and caused a scene when Annabelle made her wait.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I had a message you weren’t in Swedish class.’

  Annabelle sighed. So Kalle had registered her as absent after all.

  ‘I was a bit late.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … I was just a bit late. Look, I can’t talk right now. I have class.’ She sighed and hung up without saying goodbye.

  Rebecka came up to her.

  ‘Mummy?’ she said and tilted her head. ‘Was that darling Mummy calling again?’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘I don’t get where she finds the energy. How can a person keep calling like that all the time?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Annabelle said. ‘But you know she’s …’ She trailed off and thought about what she wanted to say. What was her mum? Nervous? Mentally ill?

  ‘She’s not going to let you go out tonight.’

  ‘I don’t care. I have to go out.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me now?’ Rebecka opened her locker and let out a curse when a book fell out.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Who it was. Since it’s over anyway.’

  ‘Can we not get into it now?’ Annabelle said. ‘I promise I’ll tell you everything tonight.’

  ‘All right. But I have something to tell you too. Promise you won’t be angry.’

  Annabelle nodded and thought to herself that she was probably going to be angry, that that was always the case when you had promised you wouldn’t be.

  ‘It’s about William,’ Rebecka said. ‘William Stark,’ she added when Annabelle just stared at her without saying anything.

  ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, so why won’t you say anything?’

  ‘Why don’t you go on?’ Annabelle said.

  ‘We have … he called and was sad back when you … and we have been meeting up and … don’t leave! Fucking hell, Bella, you can’t just walk away!’

  21

  The folk singer took a break and went to the bar. Things were getting very loud at Svante and William’s table.

  ‘You know who they are, don’t you?’ Susanne said with a nod in their direction.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie replied. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I can tell you’ve been gone a while.’ Susanne smiled. ‘You can’t possibly think a group of teenagers can be interviewed by the police in the case of a missing girl without everyone finding out? Have you forgotten how quickly word gets around here?’

  Charlie shook her head. She hadn’t forgotten how quickly rumours or truths travelled around town.

  ‘What do you know about them?’ she said.

  ‘None of them is the type you bring home to mother, I suppose,’ Susanne said. ‘You can see for yourself,’ she added as Svante got to his feet and put both hands flat against William’s chest.

  Erik was there in a flash. For a long while, he and Svante just stood there, staring at each other. Then Erik shook his head and returned to the bar.

  ‘He shouldn’t be allowed in here,’ Susanne said. ‘I don’t get why Erik doesn’t ban him, but I guess he doesn’t have the guts.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Svante’s dad owns plywood.’

  ‘I see,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Erik isn’t exactly the sharpest tool, but I’d wager he’s smart enough to realise no one would help him if he decided to throw Svante out. No one wants to risk their job at the factory.’

  Charlie looked back over at Svante’s table. Annabelle’s friends, she mused. Wasn’t it a bit callous to be drinking in a pub when your friend had gone missing? Or was it exactly what a person needed after spending a day in the field, searching?

  Susanne’s phone rang. She apologised and picked up.

  ‘Sure, but I’m on my way. Sure, but I ran into an old friend and … yes, I know I said that and no, just like one drink. No, I’ll walk.’ She rolled her eyes at Charlie. ‘Right, but you do realise you can’t just leave the kids home by themselves.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Charlie asked after Susanne had ended the call.

  Susanne nodded.

  ‘He wanted to come pick me up. I don’t think it’s a matter of thoughtfulness or convenience. He doesn’t want me to stay out too late so he has to look after the kids by himself tomorrow. Damn it, I didn’t want to leave so soon.’

  Then stay, Charlie felt like urging her.

  ‘Give me a call,’ Susanne said and raised her hand.

  ‘I don’t have your number.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  Susanne asked for Charlie’s number, tapped it in to her phone and rang her up.

  Charlie stayed at the table for a while on her own after Susanne left. When she pulled out her phone to save Susanne’s number, she noticed she had two missed calls from Hugo. What was his deal? Did he really think she was going to cover for him if his wife decided to call? It was becoming ever clearer, she thought to herself, that he was a fucking idiot.

  The folk singer had started a second session after a break. This time it was all about the Louisiana cotton fields. The song brought back more memories of Lyckebo. Betty turning the music up and demanding that everyone dance. Charlie thought about the names Susanne had listed off, the people who had attended the parties. To her, they were nothing but fuzzy, indistinct outlines. The only one who still appeared clearly to her mind’s eye was Mattias.

  She had never been completely able to forget his face. Mattias had turned up at Lyckebo the summer Charlie turned twelve. He was a friend, Betty said. A friend who was in trouble. And since when had she ever closed the door on a friend who needed a place to stay? At first, Mattias had slept in the shed, but by the time autumn came and with it the cold, he had moved all the way into Betty’s bedroom; and just in time for Christmas, Betty had told Charlie that Mattias was going to stay.

  At first, Charlie hadn’t been able to get her head around why. Why was it no longer true what Betty had always used to say, that her home was her castle and that she would never, ever share it with a man?

  And Betty had told her Mattias wasn’t like other men, that Charline would see that if she just gave him a chance.

  I’m sure you’re going to like him as much as I do one day.

  Anders was still awake when Charlie got up to their room. He had pulled the two beds apart and placed them as far from one another as possible.

  ‘I was starting to think you were going to close the place,’ he said before conveniently turning around so she could take everything but her knickers and T-shirt off and get into bed. Charlie looked at the cross-stitch embroideries with messages of love that hung on the walls. One read: Greatest of all is love, and above that: Love is patient and kind.

  ‘Did you say something?’ Anders asked.

  ‘I said all of bloody Corinthians seems to be plastered on the walls here.’

  Anders read the wall-hangings and agreed she was right. Hardly surprising, he thought, the words of love, since this was the honeymoon suite.

  ‘If I ever get married, there’ll be no reading from Corinthians,’ Charlie said, ‘that’s for sure.’

  And what was so wrong with Corinthians, Anders wanted to know; how could she find beautiful words about love so provocative? Besides, the subject seemed moot anyway, he pointed out, since she was set on never getting married.

  ‘Have I said that?’ Charlie said.

  ‘You’ve said you don’t believe in marriage.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing. Are there even still people who actually do believe in marriage?’

  ‘You’re cynical.’

  ‘You’re naive.’


  Charlie made herself comfortable. The sheets smelled faintly of cigarette smoke even though they were freshly laundered. The pillow was too flat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Anders said when she got up again.

  ‘Looking for another pillow.’

  She couldn’t find one, so instead she had to roll up a cardigan and put it on top of her pillow. Then she took out one of her books.

  ‘Would you mind turning the lights out soon?’ Anders said and turned over in his bed. ‘It’s one in the morning.’

  ‘I can’t fall asleep without reading.’

  ‘And I can’t fall asleep with the lights on.’

  ‘Then you have a problem.’

  Anders heaved a sigh, threw his duvet aside and got up.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘I have to find something to cover my eyes. I haven’t slept in three months and …’

  ‘Fine,’ Charlie said. ‘I get it.’ She put her book down and turned off her light.

  It was impossible to fall asleep. The pressure across her chest had been tightening all day and lying down made it worse than ever. And every time she closed her eyes, she was back in the house in Lyckebo. She could see the thin curtains fluttering in the living room, Betty prostrate on the sofa with a wet towel on her forehead.

  It’s the light, Charline. All this light hurts me.

  Anders had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up when Charlie turned the light on and picked her book back up. She tried to focus on reading, but it was impossible.

  It’s this place, she thought. This place is what’s making me unable to defend myself against it. I can’t keep it at arm’s length any more.

  The dream transported her to Lyckebo. She was in the garden. The cherry trees were in full bloom, the cats were slinking around her legs. Someone was on the tree swing. Betty? Mummy?

  She walked over, reached out to touch Betty’s back, but at that moment, the swing spun around and it wasn’t Betty. It was Mattias.

  Why are you here now, Charline? Why are you here now when it’s all too late?

  22

  The dining room was almost deserted at breakfast. Erik came in and said Missing People had eaten at half past six.

  ‘It’s going to be even hotter today.’ He looked out of the window. ‘People are going to be very thirsty tonight. I hope,’ he added as though he was ashamed to be thinking about business in the current situation, ‘I hope they find her today so all of this can be over.’

  Charlie asked Anders to drive on ahead to the police station. She wanted to walk there by herself, think, buy cigarettes. Even though she had taken it easy the night before, she felt clammy and dizzy. It’s symptoms of exhaustion, she thought to herself. I need Zoloft. She had called her GP and been told she had three months left on her prescription, so all she had to do was get to a chemist’s at some point during opening hours.

  When she got to the station, there was tension in the air. Everyone was clearly feeling the pressure of the stalled investigation. Of all tip-offs and interviews proving to be dead ends.

  ‘A girl can’t just disappear like this,’ Olof exclaimed. He was pacing around holding a coffee cup he wasn’t drinking from. ‘Unless she disappeared voluntarily, which by all indications she didn’t, so … she has to be somewhere.’

  He stopped in front of the big map on the wall and started pointing out all the areas that had been searched so far. The bog at the edge of town, the fields, every abandoned cottage and barn within a four-mile radius. The dragging of the river and lake had not yielded any results either so far.

  ‘The river’s too damn deep,’ Micke said.

  ‘What’s depth got to do with it?’ Olof wanted to know.

  ‘It means she could be in it, obviously, that they couldn’t possibly have dragged the entire river …’

  Olof cut him off and said that no, of course they hadn’t dragged the entire river yet, but if she was in there, the current should have carried her to the inlet gates.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Micke retorted. ‘There’s chasms down there, chasms, roots and spars. She could have got stuck anywhere.’ He turned to Charlie and Anders. ‘There’s a whole fucking underwater landscape down there. People have disappeared before.’

  ‘People?’ Olof raised his eyebrows. ‘Who would that be?’

  ‘Like … yeah, what the fuck was his name, the alcoholic who disappeared?’

  Charlie realised she was barely breathing. A strange sense of relief spread through her when no one seemed to be able to remember a name.

  ‘That was ages ago,’ Olof said, ‘were you even born when that happened?’

  Micke looked at Olof as though being reminded of his youth was a violation. Yes, he had been born when that happened. And he hadn’t forgotten it, because his brothers had always talked about it when they went swimming as children.

  ‘If she’s in the river, we’ll find her,’ Olof said. ‘Then it’s just a matter of time, and we’ll keep doing our interviews in the meantime.’

  They ran through the list of young people they needed to talk to in more depth. The ex-boyfriend William Stark was one of them, Olof said … yes, he supposed everyone could see why. And Svante Linder as well, because he hadn’t been particularly co-operative in his first interview.

  ‘They were at the motel yesterday,’ Charlie said. ‘William Stark, Svante Linder and a few others.’

  ‘Was there trouble?’ Olof asked.

  ‘Not trouble, exactly, but they seemed pretty upset. Svante gave William a good shove.’

  ‘Svante’s the type to make trouble,’ Olof said.

  ‘Well, clearly, everyone has to be interviewed again,’ Charlie said. ‘But I’m most interested in the best friend, Rebecka Gahm.’

  ‘We’ve already asked her about that night; she doesn’t know more than anyone else,’ Micke put in.

  ‘But if anyone knows anything, it’d be her. Would you mind if we do another interview?’

  ‘Of course not. I was just thinking …’

  ‘Great,’ Charlie said. ‘And did you get a chance to talk to your grandmother and her friends in the Bible group?’

  ‘Yes, I actually managed to talk to them all. The last ones just now this morning. Retired people,’ he said with a smile, ‘when they can finally sleep in, they want to get up at the crack of dawn.’

  ‘And?’ Charlie said. ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Nothing of note, except that Annabelle seems very well thought of by the members of the group. All the old biddies said practically the same things about her, that she’s curious, clever and well read. A very unusual young woman.’

  Charlie wanted to ask if clever young women were really all that unusual, but she didn’t have the time or the energy to challenge Micke again.

  ‘When was their last meeting?’

  ‘Last Sunday,’ Micke replied.

  ‘Did they notice anything different about Annabelle at that time?’

  ‘Nothing they shared with me, anyway.’

  Charlie pictured Annabelle, sitting on a chair next to the church altar, surrounded by greying old ladies and the minister. She pictured her in deep discussion, saw the old ladies’ smiles and appreciative looks. Who are you, Annabelle? she thought. Who are you and where have you got to?

  There and then

  Alice is endlessly fascinated by the fact that her own house and Rosa’s, which are identically built, can be so different on the inside. At Rosa’s house, there are curtains instead of doors. Out the back, there are wind chimes in the trees and there’s no table in the kitchen. They order food from the pizza place on the corner.

  How can they afford it? Alice wonders. Rosa says they get a special deal. And her mum does actually work as well; she makes money. She reads cards. It’s crazy, Rosa says, how much people are willing to spend on finding out about their future.

  In Rosa’s bathroom, there are brown jars full of pills. Rosa shows Alice her favourites: orange, oblong ones that are hard
to swallow. They’re magical, she says, because after you take one, you go all calm inside. She hands Alice a pill and shakes out another for herself. And Rosa’s right, Alice thinks to herself, because she does feel calm. It’s like a soft cotton rug unfolding in her chest and Alice forgets about her mum’s aching joints, forgets about her dad who never comes back and everything grows calm, warm and quiet. What kind of pills are they?

  Rosa shrugs. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that they make her happy; what else is there to know?

  They are interrupted by Rosa’s mother screaming.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ Rosa gets to her feet, runs into the hallway and through the rustling drapery to her mother’s bedroom.

  ‘It’s this man. Could you please tell him to leave.’

  Moments later, Alice hears a few terrible curses and a large, sweaty man with nothing on except a towel around his hips appears in the hallway.

  ‘Get out,’ Rosa says. ‘Beat it.’ She has brought his clothes and dumps the bundle by his feet.

  But the man doesn’t want to leave. He and Rosa’s mother have some unfinished business. And besides, he wants to get dressed at his own pace. Rosa says that if he doesn’t leave immediately, she’s going to call the police.

  ‘Grab the phone, Alice,’ she shouts towards the kitchen. ‘Call the police and tell them there’s an intruder in the house.’

  The man swears, scoops up the pile of clothes and disappears.

  Having locked and bolted the door behind him, Rosa walks into the kitchen, opens the window and shouts after the man that he forgot his disgusting pants. Does he want them or should she burn them?

  The man doesn’t respond and Rosa tosses the yellowy-white pants right out of the window.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ Rosa says as they watch the man running away with his clothes in his arms, ‘whatever happens, I’m never going to have a husband.’

  ‘What about kids?’ Alice wants to know.

  Rosa’s not sure.

  ‘But how are you going to have children if you don’t have a husband?’