by Hans Koppel
He went for Sanna’s sake. To be a good example and not someone who said no to life.
Virginia was the formal type, with pursed lips and an unsympathetic face, cold and distant. Virginia was also, after half a glass, a crazy party animal.
And on those occasions, Mike thought about as much of Virginia as he did of fancy dress parties.
The other guests patted him on the shoulder and said that it was good to see he was getting out again.
It was now ten months since Ylva had disappeared and nearly six months since the newspaper article. Mike’s breathing was shallow, as if he was about to start crying. It had become a habit, the way he breathed.
The dinner was pleasant enough. Virginia was true to form, Dr Jekyll and Mrs Hyde.
It was later, once the table had been cleared and the music was thumping with youthful imprudence and playful erotic thrusts, that Virginia pulled him over and screamed in his ear: ‘I think you know.’
She nodded drunkenly and jabbed her finger at Mike’s chest. He had a horrible premonition, but it was so unthinkable that he couldn’t bear to acknowledge it.
‘Know what?’
‘What?’
She was really drunk.
‘Know what?’ Mike repeated in a loud voice.
Virginia stumbled forward and waved at Mike to bend down so she could shriek in his ear.
‘Ylva,’ she screamed. ‘I think you know what happened.’
Mike stared at her with his mouth open and a quickening pulse. She gave an alcohol-infused shrug and pointed at everyone around.
‘They all do.’
36
Mike sat up half the night with his mother and didn’t manage to sleep for many of the few hours that remained. When he had stared long enough at the light that seeped in through the bedroom curtains, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went over to Tennisvägen to see Virginia and her husband. It was nine o’clock and they had just got up.
Lennart opened the door. Mike marched past him into the kitchen where Virginia tried to hide her embarrassment behind the newspaper and claimed that she couldn’t remember anything.
‘Don’t give me that crap,’ Mike said, pointing an accusing finger at her. ‘Don’t give me that fucking crap. Ylva’s missing, presumably dead, and you think it’s funny to lay that shit on me. Something to gossip about over a glass of wine.’
Lennart took a step forward, tried to play the man.
‘Mike, why don’t you sit down, then we can talk this through sensibly?’
‘Don’t touch me.’
Mike’s breathing was audible.
‘I was so pleased to get your invitation,’ he said. ‘And then you throw that shit in my face.’
Virginia sat in silence, her cheeks burning red.
‘What the hell were you thinking? Do you think, do you both seriously think that I’ve got something to do with Ylva’s disappearance? Do you really?’
‘Of course we don’t,’ Lennart assured him. ‘It was a misunderstanding. Wasn’t it, Virginia?’
She sat paralysed, didn’t move a muscle.
‘Well, let me tell you that I had absolutely nothing to do with Ylva’s disappearance. She has been missing for ten months and seven days. And not an hour passes without me wondering what happened the night she disappeared, not a single hour. I just hope it was quick, that she didn’t suffer. And you have the gall to sit here and presume you know. To speculate! You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves, both of you.’
Mike turned to face Lennart, stared at him with contempt.
‘Riding around on your Harley without a silencer, do you know that everyone’s laughing at you? A middle-aged man on a motorbike. What next? An electric guitar? If you had any idea of what I’ve gone through, what Sanna and I have to face every day, you wouldn’t say that sort of thing, you miserable bastards.’
Virginia sat there without saying a thing and stared at the table. Lennart made another attempt to get the upper hand.
‘Mike, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Just shut up. You haven’t got the balls.’
Mike slammed the door behind him. He ran up the steps to Ankerliden and carried on towards Bäckavägen. He walked fast, even though it was a steep slope, and felt more confident in his step and calmer in his heart than he had done for a long time.
When he got home, his mother and Sanna were up and breakfast was on the table.
His daughter looked at him.
‘Where have you been?’
‘I went down to see Virginia and Lennart. There was something I had to say to them.’
‘Was the fancy dress party fun?’
Mike stretched out his arms and lifted her up.
‘It was great fun,’ he said and spun round in a jig.
He held Sanna tight and smiled at his mother.
Mike dropped Sanna off at school and drove straight to the hospital. He paid for a full day in the car park. He had no idea how long it would take but assumed that it might take a while.
He walked over to the lifts and read the sign. Fourth floor.
The door into the corridor was locked, so Mike pressed on the bell. A nurse appeared and walked towards him with raised eyebrows and a question mark on her face. He was wearing an expensive suit and obviously didn’t look like a patient.
She opened the door.
‘How can I help you?’
‘My wife is missing, presumably dead. My neighbours think I’m behind it. I have a daughter who is eight, I need help. Someone to talk to.’
He saw the nurse hesitate, as if she thought it was maybe a joke. Then she gave a quick nod.
‘Have you been here before?’
Mike shook his head.
‘Follow me,’ the nurse said.
She showed him where to wait and promised to be back shortly.
It only took a couple of minutes. She returned with the doctor, a man of around sixty. Mike thought he looked familiar. Maybe a parent of one of his friends.
The man held out his hand. Mike shook it, gratefully.
‘Hello. My name is Gösta Lundin. You want to talk to someone?’
Mike nodded.
They went into one of the rooms and the doctor closed the door behind them.
‘Please, sit down.’
‘Thank you.’
Gösta Lundin sat down on the other side of the desk.
‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Mike, Mike Zetterberg.’
The doctor started, looked up at him briefly and then wrote down his name.
‘ID number?’
Mike rattled off his number.
The doctor placed his pen on the desk and smiled at Mike.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘So, you just came here without an appointment?’
‘Yes.’
‘And why was that?’
Mike told him the story.
‘… she just never came home,’ he concluded. ‘It was no more dramatic than that. I have no idea what’s happened to her, whether she had an accident or was murdered.’
‘But you think that she’s dead?’
There was a pause before Mike answered. He wanted to be sure of his words.
‘I find it difficult to believe anything else.’
‘You said that your friends suspect that you might have something to do with your wife’s disappearance. Do the police share this view?’
‘My wife had an affair a year or so before she disappeared. And, for all I know, maybe not just the one. When I told them that, the officers leaned back and looked at each other. As if they were just waiting to ask where I’d hidden the body.’
‘But that didn’t upset you as much?’
‘It was upsetting and offensive in every way, but at the time, in the chaos that followed my wife’s disappearance, I basically couldn’t have cared less. There was no official charge, more insinuations in the form of exchanged looks and silent observation. As if they were waiting for my cons
cience to get the better of me and for me then to break down and tell them what I’d done.’
‘So why is it different now?’
‘Because I’ve just managed to settle back into what we call everyday life. The party felt like a turning point. It was a fancy dress party. I hate dressing up. But I went, just to prove that I was back on track.’
Mike looked up. Met the doctor’s gimlet eyes.
‘You think that it shouldn’t bother me?’ he said. ‘What the neighbours think and do. That, given everything else, it shouldn’t make a difference?’
Gösta Lundin shook his head, without taking offence.
‘I didn’t say that. And it wasn’t what I meant either.’
Mike regretted saying what he had.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not at all. I just want you to say how you feel. And what about the sense of loss?’
‘Like a hole, I’m just a shell and there’s an echo inside. That’s how it feels. Though sometimes I wonder if I really do feel that or if that’s just how I am expected to feel. Sometimes it’s like sweat on your forehead. There’s a pressure and dull thumping inside your skull. Not metallic, more … I don’t know, muffled. It’s physical, put it that way. But more often there’s a kind of distance.’
‘Kind of distance? What do you mean?’
‘People’s voices. It’s as if I’m disconnected. I hear them, but I’m wandering around in my own fog, almost like I’m drunk. But not, at the same time. It’s more that I see myself as another person, as though I’m standing outside myself. When I hold out my hand and take someone else’s, it’s as if I’ve got nothing to do with me. The same when I’m talking: it’s not me. The words come out of my mouth like a foreign advert that’s been badly dubbed, my mouth doesn’t synch with the sound. But even more, it’s as if nothing’s changed. Everything is just the way it was before, everything just carries on.’
‘Your daughter,’ the doctor probed.
‘Sanna …’ Mike said. ‘I don’t know. It feels like she’s moved on, done her grieving, accepted. Yes, that’s it. Mummy was there and now she’s not. Doesn’t exist any more. It’s almost frightening.’
‘Is she happy?’
‘You mean, in general? Yes, I think so. No, I know she is. Every day is an adventure.’
‘Has she got friends?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So, what you’re talking about, what you suspect, none of it has spilled over on to your daughter?’
‘No, if it had, I’d go mad.’
Gösta Lundin moved on his chair.
‘So, really, what we’re talking about is something that a drunk and not particularly intelligent woman came out with at a party?’
Mike snorted with laughter. Gösta looked at him intently. Mike shook his head.
‘Did you know that you have to wait five years before someone can be declared dead?’ he asked. ‘And then it’s the tax authorities who announce it first, while you still have to wait another six months. But what then? Do you invite people to a funeral and sit there and look at an empty coffin and talk about a person no one remembers any more? And why the tax authorities? What have they got to do with it?’
‘You confronted the woman,’ Gösta said. ‘Tell me about that.’
‘I went to her house. At first she claimed that she couldn’t remember anything, then her husband said that I’d misunderstood her. She was obviously embarrassed.’
‘But you’re convinced that she said what everyone else is thinking?’
Mike nodded.
‘And if you follow that thought through to its conclusion? Imagine that it’s all your friends and acquaintances talk about, nothing else. Constantly. That they sit around in groups and nod in agreement with every accusation that is voiced or insinuated.’
Mike looked at the doctor, who was smiling at him.
‘Then you realise how ridiculous it is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, maybe.’
‘I think it’s a good thing that you came here. I suggest that we make another appointment straight away and that we continue to meet regularly until things get easier. Is that okay with you?’
Mike nodded gratefully. Gösta Lundin looked up at him as he leafed through his diary.
‘You look familiar,’ he said. ‘I think I may have seen you in Laröd. Do you perhaps live there?’
‘Hittarp,’ Mike said. ‘Gröntevägen.’
‘Gröntevägen,’ Gösta repeated. ‘That’s what I thought. My wife and I have just moved here from Stockholm. We live some way up Sundsliden.’
Mike looked surprised.
‘Really? And we haven’t met?’
‘I think I’ve seen you,’ Gösta said. ‘But you’ve had other things on your mind, for obvious reasons.’
‘But all the same,’ Mike said. ‘We’re practically neighbours. You mean the white house on the hill? The one that was renovated? With a music studio in the basement?’
Gösta put down the diary and strummed an air guitar while he hummed the intro to ‘Smoke on the Water’.
Mike couldn’t hold back the laughter. A psychiatrist pretending to be a pop star – the unexpected simplicity was beautiful.
‘Though it’s mainly drums,’ Gösta said. ‘That’s my release. Bang, hit, bang, hit. Let go of all the rubbish.’
37
It was important to show feeling, to respond convincingly. Ylva performed her only duty well, she was convincing. It wasn’t hard, she almost looked forward to the visits. Any form of human contact was preferable to the isolation and loneliness. What they had told her was true, she had learned to be content with what she had.
Ylva alternated in her role as mistress, from vampish and challenging to timid and innocent.
It was unbelievably embarrassing. He was over sixty, educated and intelligent, and should know better. But Gösta Lundin was no different from other men. He chose to believe in her lusty moans, chose to believe that she arched her back to increase her ecstasy, chose to believe that she pulled him close to be filled with his manhood.
When he knocked, she stood in front of the door where she could be seen, with her hands on her head. She stood like this until he had come into the room and looked to check that the knives, scissors, iron and kettle were in place on the worktop. All these items were potential weapons and if he couldn’t see them, he would hit her, or, worse, turn in the doorway and not come back for days. Then she had to make do with what she’d got and put up with the smell of old rubbish.
Sometimes Gösta’s wife came down to get him, if she thought that he had been there for too long or she felt obliged to say something. Nothing pleased Ylva more. If Marianne came to get her husband, Ylva tripped around happily in the background, as if she was satisfied.
Marianne pretended not to see, but Ylva knew that it hit home.
Mike Zetterberg had stopped at a red light. He felt good, calm and strong. He always did when he came back from the hospital. He had been there five times now and was already much more stable than the first time he had gone to the clinic.
Gösta Lundin was a good doctor, considerate and kind. He called himself the Florida pensioner. He’d moved away from Stockholm in search of an easier life in his autumn years. Most Stockholmers chose Österlen, but Gösta and his wife couldn’t see the point in living beside that brackish water where the algae flourished as soon as it was warm enough to swim in.
They were both happy with their choice and neither of them missed the capital. Except when the dialect became a bit too thick or the hostile comments about outsiders got too upsetting. In that sense there was a big difference between Helsingborg and Stockholm, Mike knew that only too well.
The pedestrians crossed the road in front of his car. Bodies moving, people on their way somewhere, a river. Mike was doing pretty well. Life had in some miraculous way taken over. He wouldn’t say that he felt any less grief or that it had gone away, but it wasn’t as all-consuming as before.
Sanna was hap
py, seemed to be almost unbelievably harmonious and unperturbed. Mike exchanged a few words with her teachers practically every day, but the many in-depth conversations from the period immediately after Ylva’s disappearance had now been replaced by something more akin to pleasantries.
‘Everything okay?’ Mike asked.
‘Yes, we think so,’ the staff said. ‘She’s a strong girl.’
His mother was an enormous support. Without her, it wouldn’t have been possible. She collected Sanna from school and made supper several days a week. Sometimes she stayed over and cleaned the house the following day. Mike felt like a spoilt teenager, but he knew that the benefit was mutual. Kristina had lived up to her sudden importance.
They talked a lot about Mike’s father, nearly more about him than about Ylva. Any talk of Ylva ended in guesswork and speculation, conjectures that didn’t lead to anything positive, but that continued to ferment in his subconscious, only to surface a few days later as horrible dreams.
And on those nights, Mike couldn’t get back to sleep. And then he sometimes phoned his mother and cried on the phone. They talked about grief and loss, about the awful feeling in your throat that made everything taste bad and that made it hard to breathe.
His mother and Gösta Lundin. Wise, understanding, sensible people who listened and let him talk, be miserable and weak. No bloody pills that calmed you down and took the edge off things.
Mike had to be clear-headed and present for his daughter.
It was his only obligation. And it gave him strength, this single priority. It had given him another perspective, he didn’t care about anything else. His work was a means, not an end in itself. At meetings, he had started to ask the questions that no one else dared to ask, to raise obvious objections that normally were the remit of only the most powerful and influential.
Someone waved at him. One of the pedestrians had stopped in front of his car and was trying to catch his attention. A beautiful woman, who was smiling at him.
Was something wrong, Mike wondered, then he realised who it was and waved and smiled back.
