‘And what do you want me to do about that?’
‘Get someone to come and collect it.’
‘You feel that’s a good use of our resources right now?’
‘It doesn’t have to be an officer,’ Charlie said. ‘You know half the town, don’t you, just call someone, anyone.’
‘Fine,’ Adnan replied. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
She continued through the rooms. Most of the furniture was the same as it had been back then. In the high windows, the familiar, dusty plastic potted plants that had once been brightly coloured, but had now been bleached by time and sunlight. She continued up another flight of stairs, into the room where Fredrik had found William and Rebecka. The room that was probably still called the fucking room.
She walked over to the window and looked down at the small road outside. What happened to you, Annabelle? she whispered. Where did you go? If I were seventeen and drunk, where would I have gone? She tried to recall her younger self, tried to summon the feeling of drunkenness and upset feelings. It wasn’t hard. But where would she have gone? After a while, it dawned on her that she wouldn’t have gone anywhere, that she would more likely have stayed, drunk more, made a fool of herself. But, she thought, Annabelle’s not me. Annabelle is … She summed up what she knew about her so far. Annabelle was an intelligent, searching, determined young woman. Maybe not so different from me after all, Charlie mused, particularly if you add her fiery temperament (if that was in fact true) and her love of alcohol. And me … I would never have left a party unless something really bad had happened. Was that true for Annabelle as well?
25
‘There you are,’ Anders said when Charlie returned to the station. ‘Took you long enough.’
He walked over to the fridge. Micke and Adnan grinned at each other when he took out his soya milk.
‘What were you up to in the village shop anyway?’ Micke turned to Charlie.
‘I just wanted to see the place for myself,’ Charlie said. ‘Are we heading over to William Stark’s now?’
‘Won’t he still be in school?’ Anders looked at his watch. ‘Could someone call again to make sure?’
Charlie nodded to Adnan who pulled out his phone, stood up and left the room.
‘Did you find her second Facebook profile?’ Charlie looked at Micke.
‘Yes,’ Micke said. ‘But “A Friend in Need” has been inactive for eight months. And there was nothing of interest on there, just a bunch of cheating, desperate teenagers who needed help with their schoolwork.’
‘No weird comments or threats?’
‘Nothing.’
‘About that blood in the village shop kitchen, by the way,’ Charlie said. ‘It could be from a game.’
‘What do you mean?’ Olof stared at her.
‘The knife game,’ Charlie said, spreading her fingers on the table top, ‘you know when you stab between our fingers. There are a lot of marks on the table in the kitchen.’
‘The knife game?’ Micke said. ‘They still do that?’
Adnan returned and announced that William Stark was at his home; they could head over any time.
‘Where does he live?’ Anders asked.
‘Ribbingsfors.’ Micke started explaining how to get here, but Charlie cut him short. They had GPS. She liked the idea of people living at Ribbingsfors again. A place as beautiful as that shouldn’t be allowed to fade from memory and fall into disrepair.
‘The knife game?’ Anders said in the car. ‘Am I the only one who’s not familiar with it? What else did you get up to at your parties out here? Shoot guns at each other? Russian roulette instead of postman’s knock?’
Charlie laughed. She thought about the glue cans they had huddled around, the competitions about who dared to lean the furthest out on the cliff above the inlet gates, the fainting games.
‘We fainted each other as well,’ she said.
‘How?’ Anders looked at her.
‘Squeezed each other’s throats, just squeezing until we fainted, basically.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was a rush, just before you blacked out, and when you came to, it was like you had a new perspective on the world for a while.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anders said, ‘but that sounds really twisted. I think you should count yourself lucky you got out of this place. God knows if you’d have survived if you’d stayed.’
Charlie wanted to tell him she might not have, but that would have been because of more serious things than games.
‘Didn’t you do anything that wasn’t destructive?’ Anders said. ‘Didn’t you do anything except try to hurt one another?’
Charlie thought about the nights with Susanne, their conversations down by the river, Susanne’s hands in her hair, the sunsets. No, they hadn’t only hurt one another. There had been other things too.
Like what? Anders wanted to know.
‘Camaraderie,’ Charlie said, ‘love, warmth.’
Anders chuckled, but stopped when he realised she was being serious.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that a guy like me from Stockholm can’t quite understand.’
‘Exactly. I’m glad you’re finally getting that, at least.’
They turned onto the highway, and from afar, Charlie could see the Outlet Barn was still there.
‘Can you turn off here?’ she said.
Anders wondered what she wanted to do in there, and she told him straight, that the heat was killing her, that she had to buy something.
‘Make it quick,’ Anders said.
Five minutes later, she was back, now wearing a thin, floral skirt that reached her knees and a ribbed white tank top.
‘Nice,’ Anders said when she climbed in. ‘Really nice, actually.’
‘Shut up,’ Charlie said. ‘It was the nicest I could find.’
‘Then it’s a mystery to me how they’re still in business.’
‘Maybe everyone doesn’t share your sophisticated taste.’
‘Clearly.’ Anders started the car. ‘Ribbingsfors, by the way, what kind of place is that?’
‘It’s a mansion outside Gullspång where Frans G. Bengtsson used to live.’
Anders looked at her enquiringly.
‘Frans G. Bengtsson, the author of The Long Ships and …’
‘Yeah, I know who he is,’ Anders said.
‘Then why are you staring at me blankly?’
‘Because I didn’t know he used to live here. Why haven’t I ever read anything about that?’
‘Maybe because you don’t read much,’ Charlie said and smiled. She thought about Ribbingsfors and wondered what it looked like now. When she was little, the big house with its enormous wings had been abandoned. Cows had wandered about on the veranda and even in and out of the massive drawing room where the wealthiest people in the area had once been entertained. The only building that had been in a reasonable state back then had been the west wing, where Frans G. Bengtsson’s old desk still stood. Sometimes, tourists would go there, old men and women with thermoses, ready to walk in the great author’s footsteps, see the thousand-year-old oak tree in the backyard. It was said Bengtsson had written large parts of The Tall Ships sitting on a bench next to the trunk of that tree. The area around the tree had been one of Charlie’s favourite spots. She had used to ride her bike there when things were too chaotic at home. Sometimes she had brought a book, sometimes a notepad, but usually she had just sat on the ground, staring up at the vast foliage. Once, she had scared the living daylights out of two older ladies who had arrived at dusk. They hadn’t expected a child in the dark, they said in their own defence, they hadn’t been prepared for a little girl to be sitting there all alone, that was why they had thought she was a ghost.
‘What are you doing?’ they had asked. ‘What are you doing here all alone?’
And Charlie had replied that she was sitting there thinking her thoughts.
Couldn’t she do that at home, one of the ladies had asked. She could ca
tch cold, a urinary tract infection and …
But there was no peace to be had at home. Betty played music too loudly and could pop in at any moment to ask if she could have this dance. She never understood Charlie’s interest in books.
Why do you read so much, darling?
Charlie would reply that it was because she liked it. She never bothered to describe the feeling of entering different worlds, of allowing her own reality to fade away and being someone else. Being somewhere else.
‘Is it true?’ Anders said.
‘What?’
‘What we were just talking about, that Frans G. Bengtsson lived here?’
‘Well, yes, why would I lie about something like that?’
‘But here, of all places?’
Charlie looked at him and said that this was an amazing place, that anyone who wasn’t completely blind or stupid would see that.
‘Calm down,’ Anders said. ‘I was just wondering how he ended up here.’
They had reached the long birch-lined driveway that led up to the mansion.
‘Love,’ Charlie said. ‘Love brought him here.’
That day
It was a double history class. Annabelle felt she might die if she had to stay there. She got up as carefully as she could and mimed ‘bathroom’ to the teacher.
In the bathroom, she had a text from Rebecka. The delivery had arrived, she wrote. Svante was waiting in the car park behind the gym. Could she go and pick it up? They hadn’t spoken since Rebecka told her about William; just sat next to each other in class, in silence, so the message felt like an attempt at making contact more than anything. Rebecka wasn’t exactly the type to worry about leaving class to sort out something as important as this.
Annabelle heaved a sigh and wrote OK back. The last thing she wanted right now was to deal with Svante, but on the other hand they did need the booze. She needed both the booze and her best friend.
She went out to the parking lot. The orange BMW was waiting there, engine running and music thumping from its speakers. Svante smiled at her through the rolled-down window.
‘Long time no see.’
She nodded.
‘Nice shirt,’ he said with a grin.
Annabelle looked down at the T-shirt she had slept in and told him to stop being an ass.
‘But you look good in everything,’ Svante continued.
Annabelle thought to herself that he was the only person she knew who could make a compliment sound like an insult.
‘Do you have the booze?’ she said.
‘How about a thank you?’
‘Do you have the booze, thanks.’
‘I meant for what I said about you looking good.’
‘I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have class.’
‘I forgot you’re such a good girl.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t mind getting a job in the future.’
Svante said she didn’t have to worry about that. He would set her up with something at the factory the day she graduated, before then even, if she wanted.
‘Great,’ Annabelle replied, because she didn’t want to piss Svante off by telling him she would never in a million years agree to have her forearms shredded on the factory floor.
Svante leaned over to the passenger side.
‘Here,’ he said, handing her a clinking carrier bag. Just as she was about to grab it, he pulled his hand away.
‘What?’ Annabelle said.
‘Rebecka hasn’t paid.’
‘We’ll pay you later.’
‘Or I might just accept a kiss instead.’ Svante grinned. ‘What?’ he said when she shook her head. ‘Do you know how much this would cost you in the shops?’
‘I’d rather pay.’
‘Hey, Bella, if I were you, I’d fucking watch myself.’ He put the bag back down on the passenger seat.
‘Neither one of my parents work for your dad,’ Annabelle said, ‘so your threats don’t work on me. I don’t need you.’
‘Sure you do. You need me more than you even realise.’
‘You’re wrong.’
Annabelle turned around and started walking away.
‘So you don’t want it?’ she heard Svante calling after her. ‘Rebecka already bloody paid. I was just playing around.’
Annabelle didn’t bother answering.
‘Did you put it in the usual place?’ Rebecka whispered when Annabelle sat back down next to her in the classroom. ‘You didn’t put it in your locker, did you?’
‘I didn’t get the booze.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘He’s a moron. I didn’t take it.’
‘But I already paid!’ Rebecka glared at her.
‘I’ll sort it out some other way.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll just sort it out.’
26
As they turned into the gravel yard in front of the house, Anders gave a low whistle. What a house! Charlie thought about what Micke had told her about the Stark family. They had moved here from Kristinehamn. William was an only child and in his final year of upper secondary school. His mother had died a few years before so now it was just him and his dad. According to Micke, the family had been wealthy for generations, so much so that they had been able to buy Ribbingsfors and renovate both the main building and the two wings.
A woman in her thirties opened the door.
‘William?’ she said when they asked for him. ‘He’s gone out. He went down to the lake.’
‘Are you … ?’ Charlie didn’t know how to finish the question.
‘I’m his stepmother,’ the woman smiled. ‘Kristina. Maybe you’d like to speak to his dad? Stefan!’ she called into the house. ‘You have visitors. It’s the police.’
A well-built man in gym clothes came into the hallway and shook both their hands. He was just on his way out for a jog, he said, as though apologising for how he was dressed.
‘We’re here to speak with your son,’ Charlie said, ‘but apparently he’s gone out.’
‘He was just heading down to the jetty,’ Stefan said. ‘He always goes down to the lake when he’s feeling bad; and the way things are … well, I’m sure you understand.’
‘Could we speak to you for a minute before we go find him?’ Anders said.
Stefan nodded.
‘Could I offer you a cup of coffee on the veranda?’
The view from the veranda made Charlie stop dead in her tracks. The scene before her was like a painting. The water glittering between the weeping willows, the buttercups, cow parsley and lupins in the meadow. And then the oak tree. The enormous thousand-year-old oak tree.
‘Can’t fault the view,’ Stefan said. He gestured for them to sit down in the wicker garden furniture.
Within minutes, Kristina joined them, carrying a tray of coffee cups.
‘They’re lattes,’ she explained as she put the tray down on the table and took a seat next to Stefan. ‘We had to buy one of those proper coffee makers, because we’re twenty-five miles from anything but filter coffee out here.’
‘Kristina,’ Stefan said wearily, ‘I don’t think they’re here to talk about the different types of coffee.’
‘We’re here to talk about Annabelle,’ Charlie said. ‘Did you know that she and William used to be involved?’
Stefan nodded. Of course they had known. Annabelle had been over several times. It certainly was no secret.
‘But then it ended,’ Kristina said. ‘William was inconsolable.’
‘That might be overstating it a bit.’ Stefan looked at her. ‘He was a bit subdued for a few days. But then he felt better.’
‘How would you describe Annabelle?’ Charlie asked.
Stefan and Kristina exchanged a quick look.
‘I suppose we didn’t see much of her,’ Stefan said. ‘The two of them mostly kept to themselves. They were in his room, listening to music and … Well, got up to the things teenagers get up to, I guess.’
‘Annabelle’s parents didn’t know
about their relationship,’ Charlie said.
‘Is that right?’ Stefan said. ‘That’s odd.’
‘We don’t see them socially,’ Kristina said. ‘They’re the kind of couple who mostly keep to themselves.’
Charlie sipped her coffee and turned her eyes back to the lake. She thought about Annabelle’s parents, their house outside of town, how lonely they seemed.
When they had finished their coffee, Charlie and Anders walked down towards the water. A cut path through the tall grass of the meadow beyond the veranda led them to the jetty. William was sitting at the far end of it with his back to them.
‘Fuck, you really scared me!’ he said when he realised he wasn’t alone.
‘I thought you’d been told we were coming,’ Charlie said, ‘so there was no reason for you to leave the house. We need to ask you some more questions about Annabelle.’
‘So ask,’ William said and turned back to gaze out across the water, ‘but make it quick because I’m heading out to join the search when we’re done.’
‘You and Annabelle,’ Charlie said, ‘were together for a while, weren’t you?’
William looked at her. He had answered that question days ago. Didn’t the police take notes so they wouldn’t have to ask the same questions over and over?
‘I was just trying to make conversation, but sure, let me get straight to the point. Why did your relationship end?’
Anders’s phone rang. He looked at it and made a gesture to Charlie to indicate that it was important, that he had to take it. He strode off, away from the jetty.
‘So, why did it end?’ Charlie repeated.
‘Because it all fell apart.’ William spat into the water.
‘How come?’
‘I’m not sure. It just fell apart. I suppose that’s how it goes sometimes. And no,’ he said, ‘I’m not a jealous psychopath, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘If you were, I doubt you’d tell me,’ Charlie said.
William asked her what she meant by that, and she clarified that psychopaths rarely describe themselves as such, that that’s part of their pathology, not having that kind of insight.
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