For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  That day

  I have to stop thinking of it as a child, Annabelle thought. She stroked her still-flat stomach. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from going on her phone to see what was happening with the foetus this week. Mostly to reassure herself that it was just a small clump of cells. But instead, she had read that the foetus was one to two inches long from head to bottom in week ten. When she measured it out between her thumb and forefinger, she felt that was worryingly big. And she didn’t like the phrase from head to bottom. That meant there was something inside her that had a head and a bottom and looked nothing like the billowing water creature she had imagined. But it didn’t have feelings, she told herself. The brain in that tiny head could hardly feel pain, or could it? She was too afraid to do a search on it, scared that would make her waver. She already felt more emotional than usual. No, she had to focus on tonight, had to try to feel like herself again.

  She put her hair up and when she looked in the mirror it occurred to her that her mother’s mourning gift, the small sparkling diamond earrings, would go really well with the dress. But where were they? She had only used them twice before, then her mum had caught her and hidden them someplace. Where could she have put them? Annabelle went into her parents’ bedroom and rummaged through the shelves in the closet. Nothing. She pulled out a drawer in the bedside table, but found nothing but tissues and empty medicine packets. She sighed. Where to look next? Then it occurred to her she hadn’t set foot in the attic since she ran into a mouse up there several years earlier. If her mum wanted to hide something from her, she would obviously put it in the attic. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, Annabelle thought when she opened the creaky attic door. The memory of the mouse made her shudder. Were the earrings really worth putting herself through this unpleasantness?

  They were, she decided. Now that she’d made it up, she might as well look around. There was a thin layer of sawdust on the floor. It had fallen from the ceiling, her dad had explained once, some kind of animal had probably chewed its way into the roof ridge, he’d reckoned. Annabelle had been scared. She thought the house might be about to cave in on them, but her dad had reassured her, saying there was no danger at all. He would never allow a house to collapse on top of his family, would he? Now, the sawdust was helpful, she realised, because it showed the footprints leading in a straight line across the floor, in under the slanted roof on the south side, where boxes were lined up.

  Annabelle pulled out the outermost one and opened it. Nothing but moth-eaten knitted jumpers. She sighed and pulled out the next box. It contained her old baby clothes. Floral dresses with frills. She was just about to push the box back into place when she noticed the small wooden chest. Annabelle was sure she’d never seen it before. She grabbed the wooden handle and pulled it out, only to discover it was locked. Was her mum so concerned about her earrings that she’d locked them up? She looked around the attic for something to break the lock with and soon found a rusty hammer. She took careful aim and then struck the lock as hard as she could. Mum’s going to lose her rag, she thought to herself when the lock gave way after the second blow, but her curiosity was stronger than her fear of the consequences.

  Annabelle opened the lid. She quickly pulled out a number of soft black notebooks, old newspaper clippings and letters. But the tiny box with the earrings was nowhere to be found. She read the headline on the topmost yellowed newspaper article. Then she read the whole article and then the next one, the hairs on her arms standing straight up. She had just opened one of the notebooks when she heard the familiar creaking of the front door.

  35

  ‘Is the kitchen still open?’ Charlie asked when she entered the pub.

  ‘No reason why not,’ Erik replied, ‘since I’m still here.’

  She sat down at the only free table. The famous Gullspång salmon was on the menu tonight. Anders called and said he’d brought back pizza. He was going to eat it in his room and then go to sleep. It bothered Charlie that she replied she was going to finish her meal and then hit the hay; that she felt a need to explain this to him.

  The folk singer was already on stage. He looked tired. Like almost everyone else in the pub, he had probably helped with the search all day. Now he was singing the county anthem, a beautiful tune known to everyone in the room.

  Charlie was drinking a glass of wine when Johan from Missing People appeared.

  ‘Long day?’ he said and sat down without asking.

  She nodded. A bloody long day.

  ‘Did you hear the police arrested someone? A local hooligan, from what I hear.’ Johan took a sip of his beer. ‘I hope they solve it soon; it feels like this whole community is about to explode.’

  Charlie said nothing.

  ‘Want another one?’ He pointed to her half-empty glass.

  ‘I’d love a glass of white.’

  Johan went to the bar. Charlie thought about the pills she’d taken. She really shouldn’t drink more now. Just one more glass, she thought when Johan returned, one more glass, then I’m done.

  Things were rowdy over at the bar. Charlie saw Svenka swaying against a younger woman. Given what had happened, he should be with his daughter. Where was Sara now? Was she alone? Charlie pulled out her phone and typed out a text saying she could call her anytime, for any reason.

  No one else from the village shop posse was in the pub tonight. Charlie thought about Svante Linder. How uncomprehending he had been about what he had done to Annabelle. Clearly, he didn’t think of himself as a rapist. What else was he capable of ?

  ‘Do you want to be left alone?’ Johan asked.

  ‘No,’ Charlie said and realised it was true. She didn’t want to be left alone.

  The folk singer struck the familiar opening chord of ‘The River’.

  ‘He’s good,’ Johan said, nodding at the folk singer.

  ‘Sure,’ Charlie said. ‘Maybe just a little bit too … predictable. His song choices aren’t exactly original.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I like. The predictability.’

  ‘If that’s the case, we’re pretty different; I prefer to be surprised.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Johan’s eyes flashed.

  Charlie looked at the stage again. The folk singer had reached the chorus and was now singing with his eyes closed.

  Johan looked out across the room and said Gullspång really was a special place. He had never seen anything like it.

  ‘Look around. Everyone’s so … I don’t know what, but they’re different, pretty direct and …’

  ‘I suppose it’s the booze. Don’t all people get like that when they drink too much?’

  Yes, Johan agreed with that, but he’d never seen so many people drinking so much before.

  ‘As you say, it’s a high-pressure time too,’ Charlie said. ‘People are probably tired, scared, stressed.’

  Johan said she was probably right. And wasn’t that the essence of small-town charm, that people cared about each other.

  One glass of wine turned into two and three. The tightness in Charlie’s chest had subsided and Charlie knew if she had one more glass, air would start reaching the bottom of her lungs instead of getting stuck halfway like now. Which is easier for you to say no to, a lady from social services had asked Betty once, the first or the second glass?

  Betty had laughed and said her problem was more likely that she had a hard time saying no at all.

  Linda called out last orders. Johan looked at Charlie and asked if she wanted to stay a bit longer.

  ‘If you like unpredictability,’ he said with a smile, ‘maybe you might want to …’

  To Charlie’s mind, that seemed fairly predictable. But maybe it was just what she need right now. She thought: just one more time. It’s for the thrill. I need the closeness, the blowout.

  They left the dining room to the lines of the final song of the night, ‘Hotel California’, that place you can check out of any time but never leave.

  Maybe it’s no wonder, Charlie thoug
ht, that so many people confuse chance with destiny.

  36

  In her dream, Charlie was back in the house. Summer in Lyckebo, Betty in her floral-print reclining sunlounger in the untended garden. Charlie herself on her knees in the overgrown driveway, the thistles that refused to relinquish their hold on the ground. The cats around her feet.

  You have to pull them up by the roots, honey, otherwise they just grow back.

  And Charlie digs at the soil with her bare hands; the roots turn into fingers. They slither around her wrists like snakes and try to pull her down into the dark.

  Loud knocking woke her.

  She got up slowly and clasped her head as she staggered towards the door.

  ‘Come on, open up properly so I can get in,’ Anders said.

  ‘What time is it?’ was the first thing she could think of to say. She realised she must look terrible, but that it was too late now.

  ‘Half eight. You were supposed to be at the station half an hour ago.’

  ‘Did anything new happen?’

  ‘Yeah, you might say,’ Anders took out his phone and showed her a tabloid headline: The video of missing Annabelle.

  ‘What the fuck,’ Charlie said. ‘Who the fuck leaked?’

  ‘I have no idea, but the guy you brought back to your room last night wrote the article. He’s a freelance journalist.’

  A tornado was growing inside Charlie. Had Anders seen them? She turned hot and cold by turns. I’m going to die now, she thought. It’s over.

  ‘Anders,’ she said and sat down on the bed. ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘Olof has been on the phone with Fredrik Roos since the news hit the internet. As you can imagine, her parents are wondering what the fuck this is about.’

  ‘What have you told them?’

  ‘That they shouldn’t believe everything they read in the paper. At the moment, that’s all we can do. That’s why it was important that the video thing was kept under wraps.’

  ‘I haven’t said anything,’ Charlie said. ‘I swear. You have to know that I wouldn’t …’

  ‘This one, Lager,’ Anders said. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one.’ He turned around and left.

  Charlie wanted to run after him, to try to explain … but what was there for her to explain. What had she told that arsehole of a journalist? They had talked, afterwards, but what had they talked about? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall a single word. When she stood up, she felt light-headed. She had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over. She didn’t make it to the bathroom before throwing up. And it was just too fucking typical, she thought, that the motel still had the same old carpets.

  She had just finished gagging when her phone rang. It was Challe.

  He asked how the case was going and Charlie could tell instantly that he knew everything.

  ‘Anders told me,’ Challe said. ‘Now, there’s no reason to be pissed off at him. There are limits, Charlie.’

  ‘I didn’t know. I …’

  ‘You’ve assured me you never drink on the job.’

  ‘This was an exception,’ Charlie whispered. ‘It was …’

  ‘It was once too many.’

  There was a long silence. Charlie saw her entire career washed away, all those years, all the extra hours to become the best; and all because of a drunken night, an idiotic journalist and … because of her own poor judgement. I’m an idiot, she thought.

  And then what she had expected: the news that she was suspended from the investigation and an offer to see a psychologist. It was for her own good, Challe said. She clearly couldn’t work when she was on the brink of a breakdown.

  Charlie sighed and thought to herself that Challe was clueless.

  ‘I love my job.’

  ‘I know that,’ Challe said, ‘but you need a rest. Rest and professional help and …’

  ‘I think I’m the best judge of what I need.’

  ‘I don’t. If you were, you wouldn’t be making such terrible decisions.’

  Challe went on to talk about how many people had been worried about her well-being recently, that he should never have assigned her to this case in the first place.

  ‘Then why did you?’

  ‘Because you’re one of my best.’

  Charlie hung up on him, lay down on the bed and cried.

  That day

  Annabelle quickly shoved a few newspaper clippings and one of the notebooks under her dress and tried, as quietly as possible, to get down the attic stairs.

  Her mum had already started calling her from downstairs.

  Annabelle just managed to slip into her room and put on a long cardigan that hid the dress before there was a knock on the door. As usual, her mum opened the door a millisecond later, without waiting for a come in.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ her mum’s X-ray eyes scanned her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You look … upset.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘All right.’ Her mum stepped into her room. ‘Do you have plans tonight?’

  ‘I’m going over to Becka’s. Or maybe watching a film with your best friend is forbidden now too?’

  He mum said it wasn’t, but that she didn’t like being lied to.

  Annabelle wanted to scream that she felt the same way about being controlled, but she didn’t want to start a fight and get grounded, so she said she wouldn’t be out late, that they really were just watching a film. And yes, it was just her and Becka.

  ‘Twelve,’ her mum said. ‘You’re going to be home by twelve at the latest, and I don’t mean ten past or half twelve, I mean twelve. Can you promise me that?’

  ‘I promise,’ Annabelle said, and couldn’t help adding: ‘And I won’t stray from the path or talk to wolves, I’ll go straight to Grandma’s house.’

  ‘Twelve o’clock,’ her mum said and left.

  Ten months, Annabelle thought. I have to stay here for another ten months, but then, I’ll be free.

  She pulled out the notebook and clippings. From the parts she had read, she sensed she was onto something important, something important and terrible. Why else would the articles, books and letters be hidden in a locked trunk? I’ll read more when I get home tonight, she thought. But where to hide them until then? She didn’t dare leave them in her room. The way her mum went through her things, she couldn’t even keep a diary any more.

  That was when she thought of the secret stash. Her mum would never find that. When the things were safely stowed away, she packed what she needed for the night in a small bag. She had hidden the booze on the way.

  Her mum wasn’t in the kitchen when she got down, nor in the living room or the study. Had she gone up to the bedroom? Annabelle walked over to the stairs.

  ‘I’m leaving now,’ she called.

  ‘Why is the attic door open?’ her mum shouted. ‘Have you been in the attic, Annabelle?’

  37

  Charlie lay in bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling, incapable of getting up. Shower, she thought, I have to at least shower.

  The hot water ran out after only a few minutes. She stayed under the jet, letting her body grow numb with the cold.

  It’s all Hugo’s fault, she thought. If he hadn’t called and stirred everything up, she wouldn’t have drunk too much, wouldn’t have brought the fucking journalist back to her room, wouldn’t have … But then she realised she was acting like the least insightful category of perp, the weak kind that always blamed their crimes on others. Anders liked to tell them we all make our own decisions. She had never fully believed him.

  ‘I just cleared away the breakfast buffet,’ Erik said when Charlie entered the dining room. ‘But if you want, I could fry you up some eggs and bacon.’

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  Charlie nodded. She poured herself a coffee, walked over to a table and started flipping through the local paper. Naturally, it was full of the latest news about
Annabelle, pictures of people searching through ditches, the unanswered questions. But it said nothing about the video. Charlie hoped they wouldn’t publish a full spread on it the next day. Maybe the local journalists had stronger ethical backbones.

  Anders came over and sat down across from her.

  ‘I want to be alone,’ Charlie said.

  ‘And I would like to talk to you.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at the station?’

  ‘As I just said, I would like to talk to you.’

  Charlie wanted to ask: What exactly did you tell Challe? But then she realised she didn’t want to know. She couldn’t bear hearing about it, so she just said she was going to take some time off, rest up.

  ‘Good,’ Anders said. ‘You need it.’

  ‘I’m so glad everyone seems to know what I need,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Maybe you should be, since you don’t seem to be getting it yourself.’

  ‘As I said,’ Charlie said without looking up from the paper, ‘I want to be alone.’

  ‘It’s not to mess with you, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Anders said. ‘What was I supposed to tell Challe when he called and asked how you were and I knew you had dragged a journalist back to your room in what was probably a drunken state? All right, there’s no reason to look so reproachful. It’s not my fault you woke me up, coming up the stairs and … when I heard your voice, I obviously had to get up to see what was going on.’

  ‘Great,’ Charlie said, ‘that’s enough. How did you know he was a journalist anyway?’

  ‘He tried to ask me some questions yesterday. You didn’t know?’

  ‘The bastard said he was with Missing People,’ Charlie said. Why didn’t you stop me, she wanted to ask. Why didn’t you say something?

  ‘You might have got away with it if it hadn’t ended up in the paper.’