For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  Later on, a young police officer will give Alice a very level stare and ask her if she believes in spirits. Do you believe in spirits, Alice?

  And Alice will look down at the table and say she doesn’t believe in anything any more.

  43

  Charlie’s hands were shaking when she got back on her bike. What had got into Nora? Why had she reacted so strongly to the necklace, to her being Betty’s daughter. Charline, she had called her. No one other than Betty and her elementary school teacher had ever called her that. She must have known me as a child, Charlie thought. She’s someone who was there that I’ve forgotten. But what was her problem with Betty? Considering her reaction, it was not trivial. That much was clear.

  Charlie had to talk to someone who knew this community. She stopped and pulled up Susanne’s number on her phone. Ten minutes later, she rode into her driveway. All the boys were home, Susanne had warned her, and Isak was out jogging, so they wouldn’t get a moment’s peace. Charlie could hear their loud voices long before she got to the front door.

  No one came to the door when she knocked, so she entered. The dachshund greeted her in the hallway. She petted it for a while, waiting for someone to come, but when no one did, she took her shoes off and went into the kitchen. Susanne was standing by the counter, leaning her head against the cabinet above it. She didn’t turn around until Charlie had almost reached her.

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said. ‘Yeah, I’m not exactly in the running for the mum-of-the-year award,’ she went on and pulled two yellow plugs out of her ears. ‘It’s a survival thing. I mean, you can hear for yourself. It’s the opposite of when we were kids. Back then, we needed these things to block out the sound of the adults. Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why don’t you eat with us? We haven’t got there yet.’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Let’s get a bit of a head start before we call the gaggle upstairs,’ Susanne said.

  ‘I was just at Nora and Fredrik’s,’ Charlie said after they had sat down at the table.

  ‘What for? I thought you had been put on sick leave.’

  ‘I just wanted to give something back to them. But Nora threw me out.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘It was when I told her who I was, who my mum was. She went completely crazy.’

  ‘Rumour has it that woman is in fact crazy.’

  ‘But why would finding out I’m Betty’s daughter make her so furious? She and Betty didn’t know each other, as far as I recall.’

  ‘I suppose Nora’s lived here for as long as we’ve been alive, but she didn’t go to the Lyckebo parties, we would have remembered that. But maybe her husband used to go. You know how the men always swarmed around your mother.’

  ‘And that would make her act like that now? And towards me?’

  ‘Maybe she’s not in the best mental shape.’

  The boys came downstairs. Milk glasses were knocked over and slices of toast ended up butter-side down on the floor. The second oldest boy, Nils, yelled at his younger brothers.

  ‘Where’s their big brother?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘I assume Melker’s upstairs,’ Susanne said. ‘He already ate. He’s a bit of a loner.’

  ‘Hey, police lady?’ Nils said suddenly. ‘Can I show you my new room?’ Charlie looked at Susanne.

  ‘Is that okay?’

  Susanne nodded. She might as well go with him now, otherwise he would nag holes in their heads.

  Charlie followed Nils upstairs.

  They reached the spacious landing. Charlie noted that the piles of laundry had grown since the last time she was there. Nils first showed her his little brothers’ room, then his parents’, and then his dad’s study. Charlie couldn’t help taking a quick peek. The walls were covered in bookshelves from floor to ceiling.

  ‘Dad really loves books.’

  Charlie turned to face the boy who was the oldest of the four. She hadn’t heard him coming.

  ‘He likes books more than films,’ the boy went on and pointed to the shelves.

  ‘You must be Melker,’ Charlie said and held her hand out.

  Melker looked at her, ignoring her hand. Yes, he was Melker and he was just like his dad. He loved books more than films too.

  ‘Me too,’ Charlie said.

  Melker studied her as though he didn’t believe her, that there could be another person like that in the world.

  ‘My mum doesn’t like reading,’ Nils said. ‘She says Dad doesn’t need this room, that one of the twins is going to get it before they kill each other.’

  ‘We’re keeping this,’ Melker said, glaring at his brother.

  ‘Come on!’ Nils said. ‘I was supposed to show you my room.’

  Nils had Susanne’s old room. Back then, the wallpaper had been shredded by cat claws and the floor covered by beige vinyl; now the hardwood floor had been uncovered and the wallpaper was new and pristine.

  Charlie sat down on the bed. The bedspread was the same fabric as the curtains, a lot of strange birds of different colours. Children were not minimalists when it came to things and colours, that much she had come to understand.

  ‘Nice, right?’ Nils said.

  ‘Really nice. Cool birds.’

  ‘They’re not birds. They’re angry birds.’

  ‘I see,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Angry birds are birds, idiot,’ put in Melker, who had stepped into the room.

  ‘Get out of my room,’ Nils said.

  ‘I’m not in it.’ Melker had stepped back across the threshold and was now ostentatiously leaning into the room.

  Nils decided to ignore him and turned back to Charlie.

  ‘You’re here because of the girl, right?’ he said. ‘To find Annabelle.’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘If you don’t find her, Dad’ll be sad.’

  ‘Yes, because she went to Dad’s school,’ Melker said from over by the door. ‘Of course he’d be sad.’

  ‘But she was Dad’s friend as well. She was friends with Dad.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ Melker said.

  Charlie stood up, went over to the door and shut it in Melker’s face without a word.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Do you mean Annabelle and your dad are friends?’

  Nils nodded.

  ‘Yes, but we promised not to tell anyone. She was here once when Mum was with a friend in Gothenburg with the twins. It was in the middle of the night, but I had a dream and woke up.’

  ‘Did you tell your mum?’

  ‘No, because Melker says that if I do, we won’t get a new dog. Daddy promised us a puppy.’

  ‘It’s good you’re telling me this.’

  ‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’ the boy eyed her anxiously.

  ‘I might have to tell your mum,’ Charlie said, ‘but no one’s going to be cross with you, Nils. You did exactly the right thing.’

  When she walked back downstairs, she had to pause for a moment and catch her breath, to avoid coming down looking shaken. Isak Sander, she thought. The lover.

  44

  Fredrik was leaning over the kitchen counter, looking out at the driveway. How many hours had he stood like this, staring down at the road? Occasionally, especially after taking one of Nora’s many pills, he’d thought he’d seen Annabelle unlatch the gate and run up towards the house. The day before, he’d seen her in her white graduation outfit, the one they’d picked out together before she finished year ten. At first, it had scared him, that his brain could turn the figments of his desires into something so real. Maybe he was losing his mind, like Nora?

  He couldn’t shake what he’d read about that alleged video. ‘The filmed sexual assault on Annabelle.’ He’d called Olof the second he saw it, wondering what the hell was going on, why they would keep something like that from him. But Olof had just calmly replied that they we’re doing everything they could, that they had to keep some things to themselves, that it was for
the good of the investigation. It had made no difference that Fredrik had screamed that he wanted to know what it showed, who had assaulted his daughter, was it Svante Linder? Olof just kept apologising and referring to the good of the investigation. And about Svante Linder … Olof couldn’t comment on that either, except to say that he was in detention. Then Olof advised him not to read the papers, that all they were after was selling copies and chasing clicks, that they had a way of twisting and distorting things. Olof had asked him to try to focus on something else, as though that were an option.

  Fredrik thought back yet again to his encounter with Svante Linder that night. Was it possible for a person to be so cold that he let a father search a house for a daughter he had … well, what was it he had done, then? That boy with his terrible reputation, was he really capable of … ? Fredrik couldn’t bear to finish the thought. Nora had lost her mind when she heard about the video and Svante Linder being arrested. She had struck and scratched Fredrik when he prevented her from driving down to the police station. If she was going to carry on like this, he thought and rubbed a scratch on his arm, if she was going to carry on like this, she would have to go back to that facility soon. In a way, that would be good, because as it was, a lot of his energy was spent caring for Nora, making sure she ate and slept and didn’t … kill herself. The priest had told him not to leave her unattended.

  Fredrik thought about her outburst at that poor detective that morning. Why had her dead mother aroused such fury in Nora? Betty Lager … Fredrik remembered the poor alcoholic woman. He’d never gone to any of her infamous parties, but from what he’d heard, things had been wild out in Lyckebo. He had no memory of Nora ever saying anything negative about Betty Lager before, or had she?

  At least Nora had finally fallen asleep on the living room sofa: short, jagged breaths. Fredrik tiptoed past her and went upstairs. He fetched the video camera and the box of tapes and went to Annabelle’s room. It was the part of the house where her presence was strongest, where he could still imagine her coming back soon. He sat down on her white bedspread and turned the video on.

  Annabelle’s big, toothless smile, her tongue poking out the gap. She had lost four teeth, both in her upper and lower jaw and could no longer say s.

  She laughs, tries. The camera shakes with his own laughter.

  ‘And where’s the tooth you lost yesterday?’

  ‘In my secret hiding place,’ Annabelle whispers and points to the door in the wall beneath the slanted ceiling. ‘I put it in my secret hiding place. Do you think the tooth fairy will be able to find it?’

  Fredrik paused the recording and looked over at Annabelle’s larger closet. It wasn’t really a closet; it was a passage leading to his and Nora’s bedroom. Now he remembered the hiding place they’d found when Annabelle was little. They had discovered the loose board in the wall through sheer chance when they were building a fort. Behind the board was a deep hollow in the wall. Annabelle had called it her secret hiding place. When the police had asked for her diaries, letters or notes, he hadn’t thought of the hiding place. How could it have slipped his mind?

  He went into the closet, hunched down under the slanted ceiling and searched around for the loose board. If she did keep a diary, maybe this is where it was hidden. He felt around. There was indeed something in there. He pulled out a notebook with some newspaper clippings stuck between its pages. He unfolded the yellowed paper and read: ‘Thirteen-year-olds behind the murder of a two-year-old.’ He skimmed the text. He remembered the case. It had happened when he was a teenager himself and everyone around him had talked about how horrific it was. But what was an almost forty-year-old newspaper article doing in Annabelle’s closet? It hadn’t been there when he put the money from the tooth fairy in, he was sure of it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Fredrik jumped when Nora’s face suddenly appeared in the doorway. He quickly put the article and notebook back.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought … I just feel so bad.’

  ‘And being in her closet helps?’

  45

  On her way from Susanne’s house, she called Anders.

  ‘Check out Isak Sander,’ she said.

  Anders couldn’t hear her over the wind, so she had to stop the bike and repeat it.

  ‘We’ve checked him,’ Anders said. ‘He has an alibi for that night and …’

  ‘Isak Sander’s the one who had a relationship with Annabelle,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s our Rochester.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’

  ‘His son just told me.’

  ‘His son.’

  ‘Yes, I was over at Susanne Sander’s and one of her sons told me that Annabelle and his dad were friends.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to stay out of the investigation?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I have to stay away from friends, though, right?’ Charlie said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anders said. ‘I didn’t mean … We’ll check it out.’

  ‘See if he has a pay-as-you-go phone as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ Anders said. ‘Hey, Charlie,’ he added.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Charlie thought about how surprised Susanne had been that she suddenly had to go. Had something happened, she had asked. Charlie had told her it was nothing. Susanne had clearly not believed her, but there was no way Charlie could have told her the truth with all the children at home. How was Susanne really doing? Charlie thought. How much did she know about her husband?

  That evening

  They could hear the music long before they saw the big village shop loom up on the hill above the bridge.

  ‘Wicked bassline,’ Rebecka said. ‘I almost feel like dancing.’

  ‘How do I look?’ Annabelle said.

  ‘Perfect, as usual. What about me?’

  Annabelle studied Rebecka’s face, asked her to look up, spat on her finger and wiped off a mascara smudge on her cheek.

  ‘There you go, now you look pretty for your lover.’

  ‘Don’t call him that,’ Rebecka said. ‘He’s just … He’s just William.’

  ‘How long have you had the hots for him anyway?’

  Rebecka shook her head. She wasn’t really hotter for him than anyone else.

  ‘But did you want to fuck him when I was with him?’

  ‘Lay off, will you? Why are you being like this?’

  Annabelle didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t actually care, but now it suddenly felt important.

  ‘You should know, Bella,’ Rebecka said, ‘that William would never choose me over you. But I’m guessing you already know that. So I don’t understand what you’re getting at with that stuff. Sometimes you seem to forget that we’re best friends.’

  She started walking.

  ‘I don’t think best friends are supposed to fuck each other’s boyfriends!’ Annabelle shouted after her.

  Rebecka stopped, turned around.

  ‘He’s not your boyfriend any more. You can’t take him back just because you’ve been dumped by that other guy.’

  ‘You should never have gone with William in the first place,’ Annabelle countered. ‘You just don’t do things like that. What are you doing?’ she went on when Rebecka bent down and started digging her hands into the gravel by the side of the road.

  ‘Let the person without blame throw the first stone,’ Rebecka said and threw a handful of gravel down in front of her.

  Annabelle had to laugh. That made Rebecka even more upset.

  ‘Why do you always have to fucking laugh when someone’s pissed off at you? When you’re always so bloody serious otherwise. What’s wrong with you, Annabelle Roos?’

  46

  Back at Lyckebo, the cat was sitting on the front steps as though it were waiting for her. It followed her in when she opened the door. Charlie poured it a saucer of milk and reminded herself she had to buy cat food. She should try to eat something too, but it was as if her entire
body was on strike. She wasn’t hungry, just filled with a nagging worry about what she had found out that morning. Susanne’s husband had had a relationship with Annabelle. Did Susanne know? Would she have been able to keep it to herself if she did? Charlie thought about Hugo’s wife’s irate phone call. Jealousy and betrayal could unbalance even the most stable person. She sat with the cat on her lap for a while. It had a big, bloated tick behind its tattered ear and gave her a miserable look when she pulled it out. It was as though its eyes were saying, I thought I could trust you. Are you going to hurt me too? Charlie put the tic on the table and felt the familiar satisfaction at seeing all its parts still attached, its head and all the black legs. She started meticulously searching the cat’s fur. There were tics of various sizes everywhere. She pulled them out and stroked the cat’s chin and belly by turns. It seemed like it was starting to understand that her intentions were good. She thought about how Betty had used to burn the ticks. It had changed nothing when Charlie had said it was horrible, that it was cruel to the animals. Betty couldn’t help it that she loved the feeling when the little creatures burst and turned into a puddle of blood.

  When all the ticks were gone, the thoughts of Isak Sander returned. She took out her phone and googled his name. He looked even better in pictures than in real life, she realised when a picture of him appeared on her screen. Other than that, she didn’t find much, just basic information about his address, profession and name day. And a short article from the local paper in which he was interviewed about good young adult fiction. Isak Sander, librarian, father of four, Susanne’s husband, but also an adulterous, unreliable bastard.

  In an attempt to distract herself, she tied two old kitchen towels around her knees and went over to the shed to fetch the bucket containing Betty’s gardening tools. The cat followed her. The trowel and cultivator were so rusty the handles turned her hands red. She spent a long time crawling around on her knees, toiling, digging and hacking at clumps of grass, thistles and dandelions. After working for over an hour, she had only uncovered seven tiny tiles. Charlie sighed and tossed the trowel aside. It was no good.