‘Cut it out,’ Svante said. ‘I don’t know what she’s on about. Hey, Sandra,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should go feed Turtle. I think he’s hungry.’
Sara stood up and staggered off. They heard her call out something about turtle food, but then there was only silence.
The cigarette resumed its journey and the next time, the ash ended up in Annabelle’s lap. She managed to brush it off before it burned a hole in her dress.
‘Unlucky,’ Svante said. ‘Now everyone gets to ask Annabelle.’
Annabelle sighed and said the whole cigarette thing was just a stupid game, that she didn’t have to answer anything.
‘Don’t be a poor sport,’ Jonas said.
‘You could always choose to do something,’ Svante said. ‘You could choose dare.’
Annabelle burst out laughing. So the cigarette game was just a disguised truth or dare. How old were they? Five?
‘Fine, I guess I’ll do a dare then. But don’t give me any bullshit about jumping around the house on one leg or whatever.’
‘Suck my cock,’ Svante said and pointed to his crotch. ‘I’ve heard you’re good at blowjobs.’
‘Are you serious?’ Annabelle stared at him.
Svante nodded. If there was one thing he never joked about, it was blowjobs.
‘Give over, will you, Svante,’ Jonas said.
‘What?’ Svante said. ‘Didn’t you just tell her not to be a bad sport?’
‘Sure, but …’
‘Drop your pants then,’ Annabelle broke in. She gave Svante a level look. ‘I can’t very well do it if you’re dressed. Or are you chicken? Are you scared?’
Svante said scared was the last thing he was. He put his glass down and unbuttoned his jeans.
Annabelle started crawling across the floor on all fours. Svante sat there grinning in his white boxers.
‘Take them off,’ she whispered when she reached him. ‘Take it all off.’
Svante stood up and pulled his pants down. He grabbed her hair and pulled her towards him.
Jonas got up and told them they were both sick.
Annabelle opened her mouth, moved closer, but then, just inches away, she tore free of Svante’s grasp.
‘You didn’t think I was going to do it, did you?’ she said. She rolled around on the floor. ‘Idiots,’ she laughed. ‘I’m so fucking sick of being surrounded by idiots.’
51
Her phone buzzed. Charlie picked up. It was Johan.
‘I just wanted to call to see how you’re feeling?’
‘I’m a bit tired,’ Charlie said. She checked her watch and saw it was nine, that it was morning, a new day. She must have lain down on the kitchen bench and fallen asleep in the middle of everything.
‘Can I come in? I’m standing down by the gate.’
‘I don’t think now’s such a good time,’ Charlie said.
Johan was the kind of person who didn’t understand the meaning of no, as Charlie discovered a minute later when he knocked on her door. She didn’t have the energy to get up, and prayed she had locked it.
She hadn’t, because seconds later he appeared in the kitchen. She saw him eye the mess around her, the newspaper clippings, the notebooks, the envelopes, the bottles and the ashtray.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I just had this feeling you weren’t doing well.’
‘I guess you were right about that. But unfortunately I don’t think you can help me.’
‘Does it have anything to do with this?’ Johan pointed at the things strewn across the kitchen table.
Charlie nodded.
‘Can I read it?’
‘Be my guest. Is it all right if I lie down for a bit? I think I need some more sleep.’
‘Go ahead,’ Johan said.
Charlie went to her room and lay down on her bed. She thought about all the evenings and nights she had lain there, trying to figure Betty out. Was this the reason behind the drinking, the darkness, the lack of personal history? No, she realised, this new, revolting knowledge was just the start of an even bigger why? Why did you do it, Mummy?
The pictures of the murdered little boy followed her into a restless, sweaty sleep.
When she woke up, she didn’t know if she’d been asleep for ten minutes or ten hours, if it was morning or evening.
Johan was still in the kitchen.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Four.’
‘P.m.?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve been reading, I see,’ Charlie said, nodding at the clippings.
‘Yes, but it took me a while to get it.’
‘I’m still not sure I get it, if I even want to get it.’
‘Did you know anything about this, I mean … did you have any idea they knew each other, your mum and Nora?’
‘No, I had no idea.’
‘It’s a pretty gruesome story.’
‘If you write about this in your fucking paper, I’m going to kill you.’
‘What kind of person do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know you,’ Charlie said. She looked at the papers and notebooks on the kitchen table and suddenly had an urge to burn it all, forget she’d ever read it.
‘Do you think it might have anything to do with the disappearance?’ Johan looked at her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But have you talked to any of your colleagues?’
‘I will.’
‘I don’t understand how they could do it,’ Johan said. ‘I don’t understand how you can do that to a small child.’
‘I assume,’ Charlie said, ‘there was something seriously wrong with them.’
‘According to the diaries, your mother was the driving force.’
‘Yes, but what do we really know about that? Seeing how Nora wrote it. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because surely it’s as bad to just stand there and watch?’
‘Not as bad as strangling a two-year-old,’ Johan said. ‘Nothing’s as bad as that. That would be like saying you drowned my dad because you didn’t save him. I’m sorry,’ he said when he noticed the look on Charlie’s face. ‘I didn’t mean to … it’s really not the same thing …’
‘I think it’s time for you to leave now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Johan repeated. ‘It’s just so hard to understand. I really didn’t mean to …’
‘It’s fine, but I would prefer to be alone now.’
Johan got to his feet, but instead of leaving, he opened the window and pulled out his cigarettes. He took a few deep drags and gazed out across the garden.
Charlie thought maybe he was grateful now, grateful not to have been put in his father’s care, not to have grown up with these lunatics. What did it matter that the garden was big, that there was a lake nearby and that the forest was enchantingly beautiful? What did any of it matter when the woman who was supposed to have become his stepmother was … Well, what was she?
Charlie walked over to the window as well. Johan wordlessly handed her a cigarette and lit it.
‘The child, the one who died in the womb after the assault,’ Charlie said. ‘Did you get who it was that did that to my grandmother?’
Johan shook his head; he’d missed that.
‘The father,’ Charlie said, ‘the two-year-old’s father.’
Johan frowned and was quiet for so long Charlie felt compelled to clarify: ‘He was the one who assaulted my grandmother. It happened before …’
‘So it was revenge?’ Johan looked at her searchingly.
‘I don’t know what it was. An accident, I hope.’
‘If the boy’s father was the one who did that, the revenge theory sounds more plausible,’ Johan said.
‘It might have been both. A revenge that wasn’t all that seriously intended, a revenge that went off the rails.’
‘I suppose we’ll never know,’ Johan said.
That night
Svante had more stuff in the gazeb
o, he said, stronger stuff, the kind that could take her to the moon if she wanted.
But Annabelle said the only thing she wanted was to get away from herself. She wanted something that could silence every last bloody thought.
Svante said he could sort her out no problem. He said if she came with him to the gazebo, he’d definitely be able to help her. Annabelle hesitated for a split second. She didn’t like being alone with Svante. She had seen his eyes turn black when they were playing earlier, but he didn’t seem angry now.
‘Can’t we do it here?’ she said.
Svante shook his head. This stuff wasn’t something he wanted to share around.
They went down to the hallway.
‘You don’t need shoes,’ he said, ‘we’re only going to the gazebo.’
‘This garden,’ Annabelle said when they exited into the backyard, ‘is like a fucking jungle. And the trees’ – she pointed to the fruit trees – ‘are they sinking into the ground or is the ground rising around them?’
‘Wouldn’t that be the same thing?’ Svante said. ‘Fuck,’ he exclaimed and stopped dead.
‘What?’ Annabelle said.
‘I thought I saw a snake.’
‘Are you scared?’ She shot him a teasing smile. ‘If you’re so scared of snakes, you should have put shoes on.’
Svante strode away without a word. When they reached the gazebo, they sat down across from each other on the bench seats. Svante pulled a tin of hand-rolled joints from his pocket, took one out and lit it.
‘What’s the difference between those and the ones we smoked earlier?’ Annabelle asked.
‘These are stronger,’ Svante said, ‘hit harder.’ He handed her the joint. ‘Let it sit in your lungs before you exhale. It gives it more of a kick.’
Annabelle took a deep drag and waited as long as she could before letting the smoke out.
‘Good?’ Svante asked.
‘Fucking marvellous,’ Annabelle replied.
‘Thirsty?’
Annabelle nodded. She was very thirsty.
Svante bent down and fumbled around under the bench.
‘Well, well, what do you know,’ he said when his hands found a bottle. ‘How convenient that this was still there.’
He unscrewed the top and took a long swig before handing the bottle to Annabelle. She took three quick sips before the burning sensation overwhelmed her and she started to cough.
Svante laughed and said this was the strongest moonshine he’d ever come across.
‘How strong?’ Annabelle said and handed the bottle back.
‘Really fucking strong,’ Svante said with a smile. ‘Here, have some more.’
Annabelle wanted to say no; she’d already had too much of everything, and yet she drank more, sip after sip.
‘So, how’s your love life?’ Svante said.
‘What love life?’
‘That guy you fucked out on the island. Was it good?’
‘Yeah, I suppose it was.’ Annabelle started laughing. She was surprised at herself, because there really wasn’t anything to laugh about, but hard as she tried, she couldn’t hold it back. There was something about Svante’s face, it was changing shape, dissolving, growing and shrinking and growing again.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Svante said. ‘Have you completely lost your shit?’
Annabelle tried to reply, but she couldn’t quite make her lips form words and her tongue felt big and limp in her mouth. I need to get back to the others, she thought and yanked open the gazebo door. The ground was covered in a cotton-like fog. Svante called after her to wait, but she kept walking. It was impossible to keep to the small path winding its way through the grass, because it kept swaying, splitting and disappearing. She stopped to focus on where she was going. That’s when she was pushed from behind.
‘What are you doing?’ she slurred. A moment later, she was on the ground with Svante on top of her.
‘Lie still,’ he hissed when she started waving her hands in his face. ‘Lie still and shut up before I shut you up permanently.’
52
Johan was just about to leave when his phone dinged. Charlie had walked him to the door to lock it behind him. She couldn’t take any more unexpected visitors right now.
‘Fuck,’ he said after reading the message.
‘What?’
‘They found her.’
‘Where?’ Charlie said.
‘In the river, by the village shop. By the inlet gates. I have to go.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Johan opened his mouth as if to object, but she’d already put her shoes on.
In the car on their way to Vall’s village shop, Charlie thought about Fredrik’s bloodshot eyes, Nora’s flapping hands, the lawnmower in their garden, Annabelle’s pink bedroom. The pain. She thought about the tattoo on Annabelle’s arm, Becka and Bella forever, on the little semicolon on Annabelle’s wrist, that there would never be more to come now. Her story would end here.
They parked near the beginning of the bridge. They were still a few hundred yards from the inlet gates, but it was as far as the car could take them. Several other cars were already parked along the road. Charlie’s eye was caught by an old yellow Volvo with a sticker in its rear window. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way. In the dust next to it, someone had written Hell no!
Johan took out his camera from the back seat.
‘Are you coming?’ he said. ‘I don’t know where to go.’
‘I think there’s a footpath further on,’ Charlie said.
The path was no longer a path. Brambly undergrowth made the going difficult. But after a few minutes, they reached the police cordon. They were not alone. Around twenty people had already gathered there. Most of them looked like they had dropped whatever they were doing to witness the denouement of the drama. The divers could be heard talking about how she was stuck, that they had to be careful. Charlie and Johan tried to get closer, but Micke was guarding the blue-and-white tape and stopped them when they tried to pass.
‘No journalists,’ he said and looked at Johan. Then, when Charlie tried to go on alone, he put a hand on her shoulder and said the cordon was there for a reason. No unauthorised access.
Charlie opened her mouth to say something prickly, but then decided she didn’t want to give Micke the satisfaction. So she backed up, turned around and started walking away at a brisk pace.
‘Let’s go over to those trees,’ she said to Johan and pointed. ‘There’s a cliff there.’
They ran into the stand of trees and reached the cliff where they had a view of the sun-bleached green inlet gates and the waterfall.
‘Look,’ Johan said. ‘They’re bringing her up now.’
Charlie wanted to shut her eyes but forced herself to keep them open. Even at this distance, she could see it all clearly: the blue dress in tatters along her pale body, leaves and weeds in her dark hair. Her thin white arms.
It was as if the sounds and the world around Charlie faded away. She was no longer a grown woman, she was a young girl, a girl who had been out half the night and who had come home and opened the door to her mother’s bedroom. She was the girl who sat motionless on the beach, watching Mattias vanish into the dark waters of the Skagen.
Why are you here now, Charline? Why are you showing up now, when it’s already too late?
Eventually, you’ll return to the sea. Sooner or later, we all do.
Charlie turned around and slipped down the side of the cliff. Then she broke into a run.
‘Wait!’ Johan called after her. ‘Charlie, stop!’
But she kept running, just like she had that night nineteen years ago, ran without protecting her face from the branches whipping at her face, without looking up. And then she fell, fell and had the air knocked out of her. I should get up, she thought, once her breathing had returned to normal, but she didn’t have the strength.
‘Are you okay?’ Johan had caught up with her.
Charlie sh
ook her head. She wasn’t okay. She was very far from okay.
‘You can’t just lie there,’ Johan said and held out his hand.
Charlie was about to protest and tell him she absolutely could. The way she was feeling, it was a tempting alternative, to just let it all go, stay down and never get up again. Because what was the point of getting back up and fighting in a world where young girls were dragged up from the bottom of a river, a world where teenagers had to numb themselves with drugs to survive, a world where she couldn’t save anyone, not even herself?
She rested her head on the heather and closed her eyes, as though everything around her would go away if she could just shut her eyes tightly enough.
That night
Fog had settled across the fields and crickets were chirping from the grass verge. Annabelle was staggering down the gravel road. There was a throbbing between her legs; something was seeping out of her. She thought to herself she should be crying, but no tears came.
What time was it? Eleven? Twelve? She pulled her phone out of her purse. Almost half twelve. Her mum was going to have a fit. She was going to meet her at the front door, shake her shoulders and furiously demand to know where she had been, and then she would notice the rips, the blood, the torn dress. And how was she going to explain those things?
Her eyes weren’t working right; the world around her seemed to be slipping. It was as though everything was coming loose, as though she was on her way into something that was only real to her.
She gazed out across the fields and tried to calm herself with what her dad had used to tell her when she was little, that fog was actually dancing elves. She had never been able to spot any dancing girls in the billowing whiteness, but now she saw them, girls with sweeping arms in the meadow and further up among the trees.
She was so preoccupied she didn’t notice the figure in front of her until it was no more than a few feet away. A yelp escaped her at first, but when she recognised his face, she relaxed.
‘Oh, it’s just you?’ she slurred. ‘You scared me half to death. What the fuck are you doing here?’
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