She's Never Coming Back

by Hans Koppel

  Blackness and silence, like floating in the universe. Ylva could almost see our blue planet in the distance; from a distance where nothing on the face of the Earth mattered. All worldly struggles became as dust. Her journey would soon be over, the ephemeral will-o’-the-wisp that was Ylva would go out. It was no big deal, it happened every second, every day, and had done since the beginning of time.

  Her life had taken some sharp turns. Her difficult childhood that degenerated and ended in catastrophe. It had all started as a game, but then had serious consequences. The shrink’s crazy daughter. Annika.

  The long interlude when she imagined that this was how life was meant to be. The summers on the boat, Mike, happiness with Sanna.

  The distractions that Ylva had amused herself with once she grew weary of all that.

  Sanna could manage fine without her mother, Ylva knew that, even if the knowledge hurt. Her memory of Ylva had probably already faded. She could hear Mike’s voice, how he would try to remind her.

  You remember Mummy?

  A misguided concern for Ylva’s memory that would only result in bad conscience, and for Sanna, the vague feeling of a person who had once existed but was no longer there.

  Ylva tried to imagine the world through her daughter’s eyes. What would Sanna remember about her? It could be anything. A time when Ylva had been a bit boisterous, tickled her on the tummy, had a pillow fight. Or perhaps a comment, hopefully something kind. Maybe a film they had seen together. Definitely one of their many swims in the sea. Ylva jumping into the water, of course. The other mothers used the steps, some of them even lowered themselves into the water. How cautious could you be! Women under forty who reversed into the water up to their waist and then fell back, splashing around like old women and stretching their legs. Without getting their hair wet.

  Ylva decided that that would be her gift to the world, that that was how she would live on. As the mother who jumped into the water from the jetty and only used the steps to get out. Ylva was happy. It wasn’t a bad legacy to leave behind.

  She didn’t want to dwell on the last chapter of her life. It was what it was and it would soon be over. Even if she chose to see it from their perspective, she had atoned for her crime and was reconciled with the thought that every person had the capacity for good and evil inside them.

  She stretched out her hand, pressed the light switch and suddenly the room was bathed in light from the floor lamp. She went to the toilet for a pee, flushed, and then crept back under the covers. She stretched out her hand, pressed the light switch, darkness.

  She pressed the light switch again, light.

  And again, darkness.

  Naturally.

  Yes, naturally.

  53

  Jörgen Petersson had found a real dive.

  ‘Three for a hundred kronor,’ said the quarter billionaire, blithely, as he put six beers down on the table in front of him.

  He slid three of them over to Calle.

  ‘Couldn’t we have started with one each?’ Calle asked.

  ‘Don’t worry – my treat,’ Jörgen assured him.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Just saves us getting up and down, you know how it is. So, tell me about your progress.’

  Calle told him about the telephone call with the managing editor, how he had ducked and held the receiver out from his ear fearing that his eardrum would be damaged by the bollocking she was going to give him. And how it had all turned out so well in the end.

  ‘So one doesn’t write about suicide, does one not?’ Jörgen mocked.

  ‘No,’ Calle said. ‘Because there’s always some dimwit who reads it and is inspired: I want to be in the papers too.’

  ‘Even if it’s the last thing I do,’ Jörgen quipped.

  ‘Exactly. Strange that the managing editor felt that she had to point it out. A bit of a let-down, I must say.’

  ‘And, ta-da, you’ve transformed progress into a setback,’ Jörgen said. ‘You’re about as pessimistic as Krösamaja in the Emil books. We could put you in a room full of stockbrokers and as soon as the stock market rose, you’d put your hands to your head and say: “First they’ll go blue in the face and then they’ll die.”’

  ‘And it wouldn’t be a moment too soon,’ Calle said.

  ‘I couldn’t agree with you more. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  They finished their first beers, pushed the empty glasses to one side and grabbed another full one. Nursing it like a baby bottle.

  ‘So suicide is contagious?’ Jörgen said thoughtfully.

  ‘Just like seasickness,’ said Calle.

  ‘Do you remember that girl at school who took her own life?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Annika, the shrink’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh yes, her.’

  ‘Lived in the white pile down by the water,’ Jörgen prompted. ‘Right out on the point. Black dog that ran up and down the fence barking whenever you cycled past.’

  ‘Oh, her. Hanged herself, didn’t she?’

  ‘Think so. No one really went into any details. Good-looking mum, as far as I can remember.’

  ‘Not my department,’ Calle sniffed.

  ‘The dad wasn’t bad, either. Richard Gere type.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  ‘The daughter, on the other hand, was rather plain,’ Jörgen added, philosophically.

  ‘God, listen to yourself.’

  ‘It’s possible she might’ve grown out of it, who knows? But I don’t think she’d ever be as sexy as her mum. Don’t you remember her? She was the neighbourhood MILF. Used to rake the gravel on the driveway.’

  Calle started, diving into his own thoughts: rake the gravel. The elderly woman in Hittarp. The one who looked familiar. Who had pointed out where Michael Zetterberg lived.

  ‘That dog used to make a racket, with all the boys cycling past for an ogle,’ Jörgen said.

  She had been raking the gravel. Just like she always had. It was her, Annika’s mum.

  Jörgen snapped his fingers under his friend’s nose.

  ‘Calle? Hello? Can you hear me?’

  The flex was attached to the base of the floor lamp. About two hundred centimetres from the switch, which was one of those you can tap with your foot. But Ylva normally turned off the light with her hand, so she didn’t need to get out of bed. There was about one and a half metres of cord from the switch to the wall, which had been pushed under the bed so it wouldn’t look messy.

  When the switch was off, there was no power supply to the lamp.

  Gösta and Marianne had overwhelmed her and locked her up with the help of a stun gun. Now it was Ylva’s turn to give them a taste of their own medicine.

  She was not a whore, she was the mother who jumped into the water.

  Ylva got out of bed and went over to the kitchen area. It was pitch-black, but she knew every centimetre of her limited space. She took the scissors and knife and went back to bed. The light was off, so no electricity could run past the switch.

  She crouched down, felt around for the flex and cut it as close to the base as she could. Using the knife, she stripped the ends, bent the wires out so there was a couple of centimetres between them. She stuck the end of the flex back under the base.

  From now on, she wouldn’t turn the light on, under any circumstances. Not until the time was right.

  She went back to the kitchen area and returned the scissors and knife to their place on the counter, where they were visible, in accordance with the rules. She was punished harshly if she ever broke or forgot the rules.

  She opened the drawer and took out the fork, the only piece of metal cutlery she had been given to eat with, went back to the bed and hid it under the mattress.

  She was going to give him a new experience, a completely new experience.

  ‘No,’ Calle Collin said. ‘No, no, don’t.’

  They had drunk six beers each and the bill was now standing at four hundred kronor. Plus twent
y for a bowl of peanuts. Calle couldn’t imagine that his super wealthy friend would leave anything more than ten as a tip.

  ‘It can’t just be a coincidence,’ Jörgen said.

  ‘Pff, well,’ Calle started. ‘What’s the connection, you reckon?’

  ‘I don’t bloody know. But one thing’s for sure, I don’t believe in coincidences.’

  ‘You don’t need to believe in coincidences,’ Calle said. ‘In our middle-class world – and I hope you don’t mind me including you in it, you just happen to have earned a lot more – but our middle-class world is so laughably small that it doesn’t take much. Do you know what I do when I’m feeling a bit paranoid and want to stoke the flames? I look up old adversaries on Facebook. All the bastards are there. You get a picture of the person in question and can see all the idiot’s friends. Then you look at the updates and discover a whole new raft of friends. And I tell you, you don’t have to do that many times before you come across a name that you know from somewhere else. You press on that and, hey presto, a new person and a new gallery of friends. Updates, and a click on. The whole world is connected. The fact that Annika’s parents live where they live, among other well-to-do folk, is not a coincidence. They always flock together. So they can avoid people with different points of view. So much for coincidence, thank you very much.’

  ‘God, you’re drunk,’ Jörgen stated.

  ‘I’m not drunk.’

  ‘Okay, well, think about this then. Imagine if the shrink and his MILF wife for some reason held the Gang of Four responsible for Annika’s death …’

  ‘There is no Gang of Four. They were friends for a while in secondary school, and, yes, they were bullies and should have all been locked away, I couldn’t agree more, but, and I mean a big but, they weren’t a gang. After Class Nine you never saw them together at all. One of the guys dropped out of school, if I remember right. Jörgen, you bloody weirdo moneybags, are you listening to me?’

  ‘I’m listening, I’m listening.’

  ‘Well, look like it then, don’t just sit there staring at the wall.’

  ‘I’m not staring at the wall, I’m thinking.’

  ‘Would it be possible to share some of your great thoughts?’

  ‘I think I’m right. The group split after Annika’s suicide. I don’t give a damn what you say, I think I’m going to call Ylva’s husband.’

  ‘Then I won’t have a job to speak of.’

  ‘I can employ you, you can write my memoirs.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be very difficult: woke up, won the lottery, fell asleep.’

  ‘I’m going to phone him,’ Jörgen said.

  ‘You’re not,’ Calle retorted.

  ‘Just try stopping me.’

  ‘Jörgen, for fuck’s sake, come on. I’ll lose my job, I will, I’m not joking.’

  54

  ‘Karlsson speaking.’

  The chief inspector answered without his eyes leaving the page. The local newspaper was a must for a man in his position.

  ‘Yes, hello, my name is Jörgen Petersson.’

  Stockholmer, Karlsson thought to himself.

  ‘I’m trying to get hold of whoever is dealing with the disappearance of Ylva Zetterberg,’ Jörgen continued. ‘She went missing about a year and a half ago, if I’ve understood correctly.’

  The missing away-player, Karlsson thought, who was killed by her jealous husband, the one with the crocodile tears. Who’s still a free man. Without a body, they couldn’t link him to the murder.

  ‘That’ll be me,’ Karlsson said.

  ‘I’ve got some information that I think might be of interest.’

  ‘Let’s hear it then,’ Karlsson said, and returned to his reading.

  Anyone who had information that was of interest had to be pumped for it; anyone who had information that was of interest didn’t say, I’ve got some information that might be of interest. That was a given, just like anyone who said they had a good sense of humour or claimed they were intelligent usually didn’t or wasn’t.

  ‘Right,’ Jörgen started. ‘I went to school with Ylva. Brevik School on Lidingö, here in Stockholm.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I’m from Liiiiiidingö, so what I’m saying is important, Karlsson mimicked to himself, and turned the page of his newspaper. He noticed that Kallbadhuset would be opening again soon. About bloody time. How long does it take to renovate a swimming pool?

  ‘Ylva was part of a gang. There was her and three guys. Real tough nuts. We called them the Gang of Four.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘I know it sounds stupid, but please hear me out.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The guys are all dead,’ Jörgen said.

  Karlsson studied the cinema listings. He’d got it into his head that a film he wanted to see was showing, but none of the titles rang any bells. He’d just have to rent a DVD as usual.

  ‘That’s not good,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Jörgen said, ‘and now Ylva’s missing as well. It seems like too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Karlsson had got to the TV page. He skimmed over it. Nothing that was very exciting.

  ‘It can’t just be coincidence,’ Jörgen insisted.

  ‘These tough guys,’ Karlsson said. ‘How did they die?’

  ‘One died from cancer about three years ago. Another was murdered and the third was killed in a motorbike accident in Africa about a year ago.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound good,’ Karlsson said. ‘But I don’t quite see the connection. Other than that they were friends when they were younger.’

  ‘Well,’ Jörgen said, ‘there was a girl.’

  ‘Ylva?’

  ‘No, another one.’

  ‘I see.’

  A complete tosser here, Karlsson thought to himself.

  ‘Annika Lundin,’ Jorgen told him.

  ‘Annika, right.’

  ‘And she committed suicide.’

  Karlsson tutted and folded his newspaper. He leaned back in his chair and looked out the window.

  ‘After that, the Gang of Four all went their own ways.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After she committed suicide. Aren’t you listening?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Good. Because what’s really interesting is that Annika’s parents, Gösta and Marianne Lundin, moved to a house opposite Ylva.’

  ‘Gösta and Marianne …?’

  ‘Lundin,’ Jörgen repeated. ‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence.’

  ‘No, that doesn’t sound likely.’ Karlsson yawned.

  ‘You should talk to them,’ Jörgen said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Karlsson replied. ‘Do you have a number I can reach you on?’

  Jörgen gave him his mobile number and his home numbers. Karlsson pretended to write them down.

  ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything more,’ Karlsson assured him. ‘Thank you for calling.’

  He replaced the receiver. Cinema, he thought. What was that film I wanted to see?

  Gerda knocked gingerly on the door and interrupted his musing.

  ‘Lunch?’ his colleague asked.

  Karlsson got up and put on his jacket.

  ‘Not a bad idea.’

  Jörgen Petersson knew how far-fetched it all sounded. In his mind it was absolutely crystal clear, it was only when he put it into words that it sounded crazy. The chief inspector had promised to talk to the Lundins, but Jörgen doubted he would even pick up the phone.

  He wondered if the policeman would have treated him differently if he’d known who he was and what he represented. The answer was without a doubt yes. But he couldn’t exactly fax over a copy of his bank balance. Did he know anyone who could pitch his case? Anyone in the police? Nope. The closest thing to a legal acquaintance he could think of was the commercial lawyer he used to write contracts.

  If Calle Collin’s Facebook theory was true, and these lawyers knew other perverters o
f the law, who in turn were mates with the public prosecutor, who hung out with the police, he might just get through after sitting on the phone for a few hours. And any credibility he had would by then be jaded, as his conspiracy had been passed from one person to the next like Chinese whispers.

  If Jörgen Petersson wanted to get any further, he had to talk directly to Ylva’s husband. No matter that he’d promised Calle he wouldn’t. Ylva’s husband was the only one who might listen.

  It was possible that Jörgen was barking up the wrong tree, that his thoughts were as mad as they sounded, but there remained one question that had to be answered. And that question could only be put directly to Ylva’s husband.

  55

  Ylva looked at the screen. She saw Mike and Nour and Sanna get in the car. Sanna was in the back seat again, but seemed happy with her lot. Their routine seemed as pain-free as a morning routine could be with a daughter who took an eternity to spread the butter, ate slower than a snail and wasn’t happy until her laces were done up in a perfect bow and both ends were the same length.

  This was possibly the last time she would see them. Certainly the last time she would see them on the screen. She wasn’t sad. It was fine now. More than enough.

  She turned off the screen, lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She went through the plan again. If it was actually a plan; she wasn’t sure. She intended to do what she’d decided, then what would be would be, she had no control over the result.

  The glass of water, the flex, the fork under the mattress.

  She had never hit anyone, didn’t know what to do. She took out the fork and felt the points. It wasn’t particularly sharp. She pulled back the sheet and stabbed the mattress. It didn’t even make a hole.

  The eyes, she thought, she had to get his eyes.

  She replaced the fork under the mattress, tucked in the sheet and went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was someone else now, not the same person who had been dragged down into the cellar eighteen months ago. She wondered whether Mike would recognise her.