The Final Word

by Liza Marklund

  Annika switched hands again. ‘What happened? Did Birgitta report him to the police?’

  ‘No, she talked to Camilla, the social worker. Steven was given an ultimatum – either he went on one of those aggression-therapy courses or Camilla would talk to the police. He was in therapy for six months. What do you think? Don’t they look lovely?’

  Annika spread her fingers out and admired Sara’s work. The polish had gone over the edges in a few places, but otherwise it was very professional. ‘Really great,’ she said.

  ‘The move to Malmö was Steven’s idea. I think it’s a bit pathetic to give in to whatever a man wants – I wouldn’t do that. But apparently it was more important for Birgitta to play at being a nuclear family than to live the life she wanted.’

  ‘Maybe she needed to get away from Hälleforsnäs,’ Annika said, unable to stop staring at her fingernails.

  Sara snorted. ‘This might not be the most exciting place in the world, but it’s good enough for me, and it’s good enough for Birgitta. That’ll be five hundred kronor.’

  Annika almost gasped. Sara noticed her reaction. ‘It’s much cheaper than it is at Stureplan,’ she said reproachfully, ‘and I pay my taxes and national insurance. You can have a receipt if you like.’

  A knock on the door made Sara leap up. Charlie began barking again in the other room. ‘It’s my one o’clock,’ she said apologetically, and disappeared into the hall.

  Annika put a five-hundred-krona note next to the wine box on the counter, said hello to the next customer, thanked Sara for her time, and left.

  Margareta Svanlund, Birgitta’s art teacher, lived on Karlavägen, one of the small streets behind the supermarket. The buildings were older there. Annika’s mother didn’t think they were anything special: she preferred modern houses, preferably made of white bricks.

  Annika rolled along the cracked tarmac, looking at the villas. This part of town could easily pass as Bromma or Mälarhöjden in Stockholm, but houses here cost a tenth of those in the suburbs of the capital. There, house prices were based on status and dreams, and no one dreamed of moving here.

  Annika parked in Margareta Svanlund’s drive, and saw movement behind the curtain. The little house dated back to the 1920s. It was pale yellow with a hipped roof, white shutters on the windows and a smaller cottage by the edge of the forest in brown and green. The paint was peeling. The flowerbeds were empty or covered with bark chippings – nothing had been planted this year.

  She got out of the car and locked it. The art teacher had been Birgitta’s form mistress at secondary school, and when their father had died she had acted as Birgitta’s support person. Barbro used to drink wine occasionally before then, but after she was widowed she’d started to drink seriously. She’d even spent a while in hospital – how had Annika almost forgotten that? Had she been in a psychiatric unit or rehab? Annika didn’t know. She had moved in with Sven for a month or two, and Birgitta had stayed with Margareta. She’d had her own little room in the attic, with a crocheted bedspread and sloping ceiling.

  ‘Well I never!’ the woman said, as she opened the door. ‘What a surprise!’

  Annika shook her hand. Margareta’s grip was firm and warm. She had grown old, her hair white and her back bowed, but her eyes were the same: sharp and bright blue.

  ‘I’m sorry to turn up unannounced. Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘Not at all. I don’t do much, these days. Come in and sit down and I’ll get you a cup of coffee. I’ve just made some.’

  Annika noticed that Margareta couldn’t walk very well. She was dragging her left leg, and supporting herself on the wall with her right hand as she shuffled into the kitchen.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Annika said. ‘You seem to be having a bit of trouble walking.’

  ‘Stroke,’ Margareta said. ‘Like your grandmother, only I survived mine. Sit yourself down.’ She gestured towards the kitchen table.

  Everyone here knew all about everyone else: Annika finding her grandmother on the floor of her house at Lyckebo after her stroke would have done the rounds, if not as much as her killing Sven had.

  Annika pulled out the old-fashioned chair and sat down. The room looked as she remembered, only smaller. She rested her hands on the table, which was shiny and worn with use. She noticed things she either hadn’t seen or hadn’t appreciated as a child: the kitchen had been carefully restored using traditional techniques and materials – wooden panelling, lime-wash, the pine floor like velvet after decades of scrubbing with lye soap.

  ‘It really is lovely to see you,’ Margareta said. ‘Now, tell me all about what you’re doing, these days. Are you still working at the newspaper?’ She put two mugs on the table. Annika recognized them: they were from Höganäs – Berit had some the same.

  ‘For the time being,’ Annika said.

  Margareta poured the coffee. ‘Milk or sugar?’

  ‘Black, thanks,’ Annika said.

  Margareta sat down heavily. ‘And you’re living with Jimmy Halenius?’

  ‘His children, too, as well as mine,’ she said. ‘I’ve really come to ask if you’ve heard from Birgitta recently.’

  ‘You’re the second person to ask. Your mother phoned the other day, wondering the same thing. Why do you both want to know?’

  ‘I heard that you’d talked about her maybe renting your little cottage for the summer. Is that right?’

  ‘The water pipe to the cottage froze last winter and I haven’t got round to getting it repaired – they’d have to dig up half the lawn – so I said she was welcome to stay there if she wanted, but that there was no water. She said she’d think about it.’

  ‘Was that long ago?’

  ‘The beginning of May, so about a month ago.’

  ‘She didn’t call in last week, by any chance? Or the week before that?’

  ‘I was staying with my sister in Örebro last week, so I don’t know.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why don’t you just tell me what’s happened?’

  Annika shifted on her chair. ‘No one seems to know where Birgitta is. Steven says she went off to work as usual on Sunday morning and didn’t come home that evening, but he’s lying. Birgitta hasn’t been to work for two weeks. I know she was here in Hälleforsnäs last week, and she’s resigned from her job and lied to her boss. Have you got any idea where she might be?’

  Margareta got up and fetched a plate of almond biscuits. Annika took one and bit into it.

  ‘What makes you think Birgitta’s been here?’ the old teacher asked.

  ‘Roland Larsson saw her in Malmköping last Friday, and her mobile phone has been traced here the previous week.’

  ‘So she’s officially missing, then?’

  Annika nodded.

  ‘Well, let’s not jump to conclusions,’ Margareta said. ‘When I spoke to her she said she was going to come up and look for somewhere to stay this summer. Maybe she doesn’t think my little cottage would work – it would be hard to live there without running water if you have a small child.’

  ‘Did she say when she might come?’

  Margareta shook her head. ‘We talked about other cottages that might be available. She asked about Lyckebo, your grandmother’s old place. She said she was going to call Harpsund and ask if it was available to rent. Do you know if it’s still empty?’

  A jolt of anger and jealousy ran through Annika: Lyckebo was nothing to do with Birgitta. She didn’t even like it there. Lyckebo was hers. ‘I think so,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Steven and Birgitta rented Old Gustav’s place a few summers ago, of course, but that’s been sold now. A young family from Stockholm.’

  Annika drank some coffee. No one else was allowed to rent Lyckebo. ‘How did she sound, the last time you spoke to her?’ she asked.

  ‘Happy,’ Margareta said. ‘Said she’d started painting again. It sounded like the move to Malmö had done her good.’ A black cat strolled in from the hall and jumped on to her lap. She stroked it absently and it started to purr loudly
. ‘Birgitta could have been a good artist. Her feeling for colour and form was exceptional. I remember her as having great technical ability, in both oil and watercolour . . .’ She tailed off and gazed out across the kitchen.

  ‘But?’ Annika said.

  Margareta changed position and the cat jumped down. It disappeared again. ‘Birgitta only ever chose things that were easy and beautiful. She always shied away from anything dark and difficult. She had a lot of talent, but to develop she would have had to get to grips with things she found difficult, and she didn’t want that. Birgitta was content, and that’s not a good quality to have if you want to move on.’

  ‘Do we have to want to move on?’ Annika asked.

  Margareta smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I think so. If you’ve been given a talent, you ought to try to do something with it. We have a responsibility towards the gifts we’re given, even intellectual ones.’

  Annika glanced at her watch. She should be going.

  Margareta pushed her mug and half-eaten biscuit away. She got to her feet with an effort, waving away Annika’s offer of help. ‘I’ll see you out,’ she said.

  In the hall, as she was putting her sandals back on, Annika glanced into Margareta’s living room. The mirrored door was ajar, and light was flowing in through the curtainless windows. The floor was covered with corrugated paper, and she caught a glimpse of an easel and a half-finished painting. Stacks of paintings were propped against the walls.

  ‘Since the stroke I haven’t been able to crochet,’ Margareta said. ‘You need two hands for crafts, but I can hold a brush.’

  ‘Can I see?’ Annika asked.

  Margareta gave a slightly apologetic shrug.

  The room smelt pleasantly of oil and turpentine. Annika looked in amazement at the paintings. She was no connoisseur of art, but these were spectacular modernist portraits in strong colours. She stopped in front of an abstract portrait of a bald man in bright pastels, his penetrating eyes sharply critical. He looked out at her from the canvas with arrogant derision.

  ‘That’s Georg Baselitz,’ Margareta said. ‘A German artist. He said women can’t paint. He uses a lot of pastels himself, which is why I chose to show him like that.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Annika said. ‘Is it for sale?’

  Margareta laughed. ‘I don’t sell my pictures. I’m not an artist.’

  ‘No, seriously,’ Annika said. ‘An artist, who says women can’t paint, painted like this by a woman? I’d like to buy it.’

  The old teacher shook her head. ‘If you like it you can have it.’

  Annika shuffled her feet. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Margareta smiled. ‘I know. That’s why you can have it, if you want it.’

  Together they wrapped the picture in corrugated paper, then Annika carried the parcel out to the car and laid it on the back seat.

  Margareta waved as she drove off.

  Had Birgitta really tried to rent Lyckebo?

  Dark clouds were chasing across the sky. She steered away from the town, past the turning to the beach at Tallsjön, towards Granhed.

  Neither her mother nor Birgitta had been especially fond of Grandma’s place. Mum thought the walk through the forest to reach it was too long, and complained about the midges that hatched in the marsh where the stream ran out into the lake.

  Had Birgitta gone ahead and called Harpsund?

  The fork that led to the cottage appeared on her left, so she slowed down and turned on to the patch of grass in front of the barrier.

  She wouldn’t have to sign a contract if she simply made an enquiry. It cost nothing to ask. If Birgitta could do it, so could she.

  She pulled on the handbrake and switched off the engine. Leaving her bag on the back seat, she put her mobile into her pocket, locked the car and headed off quickly through the forest. She could still see her footprints from earlier in the week on the grass. The pines sighed; the air felt electric.

  It couldn’t be that expensive to rent somewhere with no access by road, no electricity or running water. Maybe she could set up her own business and work as a freelance, writing for consumer magazines and updating websites, then deduct the rental costs as office expenses.

  She reached the old meadow and the abandoned cottage. The black sky made the house look even smaller. She walked up to the kitchen window and peered in. It looked so naked, lonely and abandoned. If she ever had the chance to rent it, she’d buy a cloth for the table, a rag-rug to cover the hatch to the cellar, and a picture of angels watching over children on the edge of a cliff.

  She leaned against the wall and fished out her mobile. She gazed at the grey water of Hosjön as her call to Directory Enquiries was connected. She asked to be put through to Harpsund.

  ‘Good afternoon, my name is Annika Bengtzon,’ she said, sounding over-polite and almost obsequious. ‘I was wondering if it might be possible to rent one of your cottages?’

  ‘One moment, please,’ the woman at the other end said. ‘You’ll need to talk to Per.’

  Annika introduced herself again and explained that she was interested in renting one of the estate’s cottages. Her grandmother had lived there for many years – she had actually been the housekeeper at Harpsund: perhaps he remembered her. No?

  ‘Lyckebo?’ Per said. ‘It’s listed as available to rent on our website. I had an enquiry about it just a few weeks ago.’

  ‘From Birgitta Bengtzon, by any chance? She’s my sister.’

  ‘Yes, that was her. She thought it was a bit too expensive. We’re only renting it on a yearly basis.’

  So Birgitta had tried. ‘How much is it?’ She held her breath as Per leafed through some papers.

  ‘The cottage has a kitchen on the ground floor and one room upstairs,’ he said, sounding as if he was reading aloud. ‘There is also a guestroom with an open fire, an outhouse and woodshed, and an outside toilet. The cottage has no electricity or running water, but there is a well on the site. The contract is on an annual basis, and runs from the first of April to the thirty-first of March. The quarterly rent is 3,850 kronor.’

  Almost thirteen hundred kronor per month. Could she afford that?

  ‘Would you like to take a look at it?’ Per asked.

  ‘Thanks,’ Annika said, ‘but I know it very well. I grew up there.’

  ‘Perhaps you could share the cost with your sister,’ Per said. ‘Then you’d both be able to enjoy it. It’s a wonderful location.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Annika said. In her new life as a freelance, would it be hard to justify the expense to an accountant? Explain why she had to rent a cottage beside a lake in Södermanland to carry out her work? If the worst came to the worst, she could always take the job at the Hälleforsnäs Allehanda.

  She walked back and sat down on the porch step. Had Birgitta been here last week? Had she looked through the kitchen window and missed the tablecloth, the rag-rug and the angel on the wall?

  Why had Steven lied about when she’d disappeared?

  She raised her phone again.

  Steven answered straight away. ‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Annika replied, and looked towards the old barn. ‘The police have traced Birgitta’s mobile. She wasn’t in Malmö last week, she was in Hälleforsnäs. Did you know that?’

  He was silent, so silent that she thought they had been cut off. ‘Steven?’ she said.

  ‘What was she doing in Hälleforsnäs? Is she there now?’

  ‘Steven,’ she said, ‘can’t you tell me what really happened when Birgitta disappeared?’

  He coughed. She could hear the theme tune of a children’s programme in the background.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Annika said. ‘I’m in Hälleforsnäs now, and I’ve looked, but I don’t know where to try next. You have to tell me what really happened or I can’t help.’

  She could hear his breathing, and waited in silence for him to answer.


  ‘She had a relapse,’ Steven said. ‘Nearly three weeks ago, at the weekend.’

  Annika looked up at the sky. The clouds were swirling, turning the surface of Hosjön steely grey.

  ‘She went to a bar after work,’ Steven said. ‘When she came home we had a terrible row. I was terrified she was going to lose it again. She shouted that I was controlling and spying on her.’

  ‘This was the Saturday night?’

  ‘She got in touch on Tuesday, said she felt ashamed. She asked me several times to forgive her and said she wanted to be left in peace.’

  Annika was forcing herself not to get angry. ‘You’ve spoken to her?’

  ‘Diny, can you turn it down a bit? I’m on the phone . . . What did you say?’

  ‘You spoke to her?’

  The music got quieter.

  ‘No, she sent a text.’

  That matched the tracking result.

  ‘Why did you wait two weeks before sounding the alarm?’

  He gulped audibly. ‘She asked me not to say anything. Said she wanted to think, and that she needed to get hold of you.’

  ‘Me? What did she need me for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Daddy,’ Annika heard the child say at the other end of the line, ‘Pingu’s finished.’

  ‘Can you hold on a moment?’ Steven said.

  ‘Sure.’

  There was a thud in her ear as he put the phone down to help his daughter with the television. Did she watch the same programme all day long?

  ‘The description you gave me,’ Annika said, when he returned, ‘of the clothes she was wearing. It was all wrong, wasn’t it?’

  He coughed again. ‘She went to the bar straight from the shop. She was wearing her work shirt and her brown jacket.’

  Annika thought for a moment. ‘Have you spoken to her at all?’

  ‘I’ve tried calling, but she said I needed to give her some breathing space.’

  ‘She replied by text? Breathing space?’

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Just wait a moment, Diny. I’ll be there soon.’