After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  We were silent for a while, until Andreas said we should go back. I noticed once more that Malin was annoyed by him.

  It can’t be my imagination.

  No, I don’t think she likes him.

  ORMBERG, NOVEMBER 23

  It’s 3:05 A.M.

  I’m sitting in a small chair, staring out the window. Puddles are growing larger on the uneven asphalt. Small, dirt-brown ponds that the clouds wrung out. They glow under the lights of the parking lot. The only car outside is ours.

  I don’t even know if there are any other guests here.

  Beyond the parking lot: only darkness. No animals, no people, no cars passing by.

  Manfred’s staying at a hotel in Vingåker. He probably has the right idea. Our hotel is in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Ormberg and Vingåker.

  I woke up with strange palpitations. I couldn’t figure out why. Then realized it was terror, because I didn’t know where I was.

  My first impulse: to wake up Peter. Shake him and ask where we are. Why we’re lying in this strange bed.

  But I calmed down, realized that was the last thing I should do.

  P absolutely cannot find out!

  I concentrated on trying to remember. Got only as far as Ilulissat: the icebergs, the cold, clear air. The silky feeling that everything was perfect.

  I never should have left Greenland. I was strong there.

  I slid out of bed with my diary. I sat down in the chair and read. Waited for the text to provoke something, a flow of images and memories.

  But not this time.

  It was like reading a book for the first time. As if I hadn’t experienced any of it, as if it were someone else.

  Am I becoming someone else? Is that what this is? Or is it an isolated incident, an anomaly, the result of overexertion?

  I couldn’t sleep. Read about the investigation instead.

  The police initially believed that the Ormberg Girl’s death was accidental, perhaps a traffic accident, which someone tried to cover up by burying the body. But when the girl couldn’t be identified, they changed their minds.

  If somebody had been injured in an accident, that person would be missed—but there are no missing children in the area. Not in any neighboring towns either.

  The girl isn’t from Ormberg. And this was no accident.

  I put the book on my lap and look at the Eiffel Tower. It shines dully in the light of the desk lamp.

  Cold spreads from my stomach to my chest. What Hanne writes isn’t exactly news to me, but it still makes me feel ill to think of that little girl buried in the cairn.

  It’s hard to understand that Hanne wrote this less than two weeks ago. That she sat in that old grocery store talking about the Ormberg Girl with her colleagues. With Malin, whom I know, even if I don’t know her well. She’s a lot older than me, but I know what she looks like and where her mom lives.

  Hanne’s story has affected me somehow. I don’t really know why, but my life doesn’t feel quite so hopeless anymore. Vincent and his buddies are just pathetic idiots, and though The Sickness is truly terrible, it’s not as awful as what happened to the Ormberg Girl.

  Or what happened to Mom.

  The Sickness isn’t cancer or dementia, but I still wish it would go away.

  I reach for my phone to google the word “anomaly.”

  Malin

  I don’t really know what I was thinking when I agreed to work on this investigation. It didn’t really occur to me that it would mean moving home again—moving in with my mother—even if only for a short period.

  But what’s the alternative? The hotel in Vingåker?

  No.

  It would have crushed Mom. And that’s the last thing I want to do. I love her. And in a strange way, I love Ormberg, too, even if I never want to live here again. The forests are magnificent, and the summers are magical—a pastoral idyll of red cottages, dark woods, and the shiny, warm water of Långsjön Lake.

  And yet, I want to leave.

  I can’t handle all Mom’s questions, can’t stand the worry in her eyes every time we talk about my job.

  And it’s sad to see how the property has deteriorated.

  I don’t think anything’s been done to the house since Dad died just over three years ago. Paint’s peeling off outside, the window casing is hanging loose, and the yard’s turned into a jungle. A drainpipe fell off, and it’s still lying in the high grass, like a snake in the undergrowth, ready to strike as you pass by.

  And then there’s the barn.

  The barn is full of Dad’s old stuff. He never threw anything away. He collected everything from old home appliances to transistor radios, moth-eaten clothes, tires, broken instruments, old cross-country skis, cans of paint, and every edition of the Swedish Tourist Association’s yearbook dating back to 1969. He even died carrying an old washing machine out to the barn—his heart just gave out. When Mom found him in the grass, he was still holding on to the old Electrolux, as if he were shipwrecked and the machine were his lifeboat.

  Mom hasn’t been able to get rid of any of the old junk stacked in the barn. It’s a lifetime of rubbish, and when I go inside it’s like watching an old movie. All my memories come rushing back: When I see my old bike I can still feel the pain in my wrist from driving into a ditch near the ironworks, and when I smell the fabric of the tent, I remember having sex for the first time in my sleeping bag. Feel Kenny’s warmth, the scent and cold of the ground beneath the thin camping pad.

  And there’s the washing machine.

  Mom never threw it away. She just parked it next to all the other junk in the red barn.

  My sexual awakening sits next to my father’s death.

  The first time I brought Max to Ormberg I felt so ashamed. Even felt ashamed of my shame. I find Mom somewhat annoying, but I love her, and really there’s nothing in Ormberg or my upbringing to be ashamed of. But Ormberg is everything I don’t want: It’s sparsely populated, unemployed, elderly. It’s crumbling houses, yards littered with junk cars and rusty bathtubs that cows drink out of. And above all it’s people who won’t let go of the dream of what was.

  I want so much more than that.

  Max and Mom got along immediately, which didn’t surprise me. Max is very socially gifted when he wants to be. He has the ability to ingratiate himself with people, make them feel comfortable, get them to babble on about themselves, even when they don’t really have much to say.

  He would have made a damn fine police officer.

  But that’s definitely something I don’t want—a relationship with another cop. In fact, Max thinks I should go to law school when I move to Stockholm, and I think I will.

  Apparently, he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with a cop, either.

  I park the car outside the old grocery store. A thin layer of snow covers the ground. Everything is white, and the reflection of the sunshine off the snow makes me squint. The chill nips at my cheeks. Small clouds chase each other across a mostly clear blue sky, and the wind makes the new snow dance along the ground.

  It’s Tuesday, and Peter will soon have been missing for four days.

  I picture that friendly, trim police officer, with his grayish blond hair. His checkered flannel shirt, and his gaze that never gave an inch, no matter whom he was speaking to.

  After he disappeared, we put the investigation into the Ormberg Girl aside. A murder that happened more than twenty years ago can wait a few more days.

  Even though the local police are responsible for investigating Peter’s disappearance, we’ve done everything we can to help. We joined the human search chain, met the task force leader several times, and searched Peter’s and Hanne’s papers for clues that might reveal what happened Friday evening.

  We haven’t found a thing.

  Ma
ybe that’s a clue—maybe Hanne and Peter were up to something they wanted to keep from the rest of us for some reason.

  Andreas waves to me as I enter. The remains of his saffron bun lie on the table. He’s leaning back on his chair with his feet on the table. He’s taken off his shoes, of course, but still. This is an office, an improvised one, but still a workplace, not his fucking living room. He has one arm draped over the back of the chair next to him, and he’s holding his tobacco container in the other hand.

  I detest men who chew tobacco.

  “Hi there,” he says, smiling widely so that a bit of tobacco peeks out from under his upper lip.

  “Hi,” I say, shrugging off my goose down jacket.

  We don’t get further than that before there’s a knock. The door opens and a slim woman in her seventies comes into the room. Her thick gray hair sticks out like sheep’s wool all over her head, and her enormous glasses fog up immediately as she enters the warm room.

  Ragnhild Sahlén.

  Ragnhild lives on the other side of the field, near the old TrikåKungen factory, which now houses asylum seekers. And right next to the green house where Kenny used to live.

  As usual when I think of my former boyfriend, my stomach twists uneasily. We were together from the time I was fifteen until that rainy night in October 2011. I was seventeen and not at all mature enough to handle something like that.

  But could you ever be?

  “Hello, Ragnhild,” I say.

  Ragnhild takes off her glasses and rubs them on her shirt, which sticks out from beneath her coat.

  Before retiring, she worked as a middle school teacher in Vingåker. In her old age she’s become involved with the local heritage association, which consists of three old people from Ormberg. I don’t really know what they do, but from what I understand they’re very committed to preserving the ironworks—they want to renovate it and open a museum there, and they’re constantly battling the county to get more money for the project.

  “Malin. Dear girl. It’s been ages.”

  “It’s been two years,” I clarify.

  “You should come home more often,” she mutters, and puts on her glasses again. “Seems like the old place needs some repairs.”

  Do I look like a fucking carpenter? I want to ask her. But of course I don’t, because it’s not the house she’s talking about, it’s my mother. What she’s trying to say is that Mom needs me. And maybe she’s right, but the last thing I need is to rot away in Ormberg.

  “What can we help you with?” Andreas asks, his feet still on the table.

  “I’m here to report a robbery,” Ragnhild says, stiffening her back a little.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but we’re working on an investigation into the murder of the Ormberg Girl. You’ll have to go to Vingåker to report that. If they’re open—”

  “I’ve never heard such nonsense,” Ragnhild interrupts me. “Why in the world would you dig up that old story? It won’t lead to anything. But here I am, a person in need of real help, and I have to go to Vingåker. Does that sound fair to you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, doing my best to sound understanding though I really just want her to leave.

  Ragnhild doesn’t answer, just gets a thoughtful, almost sneaky, look on her face, as if trying to figure out how to neutralize my arguments.

  “What happened?” Andreas asks, and I want to give him a hard kick on the thigh, but I’m too far away.

  “It’s one of those immigrants staying at refugee housing. A young man. A Muslim. I saw him riding a stolen bike. One of those racing bikes, like they use in the Tour de France.”

  The idea of Ragnhild watching the Tour de France is so absurd I can’t help but smile.

  “So you saw this guy steal a bike?” Andreas asks, still not seeming to understand that Ragnhild will never let go of us if we entertain her complaints. She is a force of nature—much stronger and more persistent than superglue. We’ll end up spending the rest of our time here running after lost cats and graffiti artists.

  Ragnhild takes off her giant glasses again, rubs her eyes, and shifts her weight nervously from one foot to the other. Small puddles of snow spread beneath her boots.

  “No, I said I saw him with a stolen bike,” she says.

  “And who owned the bike?” Andreas says, and reaches for his notepad.

  “How should I know that?”

  Ragnhild’s throat is becoming red and splotchy.

  Andreas pauses and looks confused.

  “Then how do you know it was stolen?” he asks. “If you didn’t recognize the bike and didn’t see him steal it.”

  Ragnhild squeezes her glasses hard in her hand and clears her throat.

  “It goes without saying. Those people couldn’t afford racing bikes. He must have stolen it. And if the county paid for that fancy bike, then I plan to sue them—that’s my money they stole. I’ve paid taxes my whole life. Do you know what a bike like that costs? I know, because Siv’s daughter has one and it cost twenty thousand kronor.”

  Andreas and I exchange a look.

  “Like I said, Ragnhild,” I say. “I’m very sorry, but we have a lot to do. You’ll have to talk to the police in Vingåker if you want to make a report.”

  It takes another ten minutes to get rid of Ragnhild. As she leaves, she slams the door behind her so hard that something falls to the floor in the old store area.

  Neither of us goes to investigate what it is.

  “What a bitch!” Andreas says, emphasizing every word.

  I shrug.

  “Ragnhild is…Ragnhild.”

  “I’m not saying she’s not right,” he continues, drumming his pen on the table.

  “Sure. Even Ragnhild is capable of being right. Sometimes.”

  “We have quite a lot of problems with one of the refugee residencies outside Örebro,” Andreas says. “But mostly threats and fights. Nobody gets along, that sort of thing.”

  “You’d think they’d try a little harder,” I say. “Since we let them come here. Even if they went through tough stuff and all that. Because they did, of course. I know that.”

  I think about what I’ve seen on the news. Images of bombs falling on Aleppo and children washing up dead on Mediterranean beaches. It makes me feel so bad I turn it off. No one should have to leave their home because of war and starvation, especially not little children. But at the same time we can’t take in everyone. We’re just a small country, and we’re a hell of a long way from those conflicts.

  Besides, they’d probably feel better in a place with a culture more like their own. Sweden is a developed and equitable country. Women have the same rights as men. Just the thought of somebody trying to force me into a burka pisses me off.

  And if our country has to take them: Why Ormberg, why this small, remote town, with so many problems of its own? Why not a bigger city, with good infrastructure and jobs?

  Some other place.

  “What are you thinking about?” Andreas asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Nothing. Any news on Peter?”

  Andreas shakes his head sadly.

  “No. I just talked to Svante. It’s as if he’s gone up in smoke. Two-day search and the only thing they found is a…fucking sequin.”

  We both fall silent, and Peter’s face appears before me again.

  They’re an odd couple, Peter and Hanne. Not just because she’s older. Hanne seems to be the one in charge, even though she doesn’t say much. Peter follows her around like an obedient dog.

  He seems very attached to her. Nothing he says exactly, but it’s still obvious. The way he puts his jacket over her shoulders when it’s cold in the office. How he goes to Vingåker to buy that tea she likes. How his eyes follow her when she moves around the room.

  Yes, I’m sure he love
s her.

  “What do you think of what she had written on her hand?” Andreas asks.

  I shrug and try to sort my thoughts. Concentrate on the ink numbers on Hanne’s injured hand.

  “Maybe it’s part of a phone number. Or a code of some kind. Something she didn’t want to forget, but couldn’t or didn’t want to write in her book.”

  “GPS coordinates?” Andreas suggests.

  “No, that doesn’t make sense. Not for anywhere in Södermanland anyway. I checked.”

  Andreas flips through his notebook.

  “Svante finally got the information from the cell phone operators,” he says. “Neither Peter nor Hanne went to Katrineholm on Friday night, despite what they told you. Or at least their phones stayed here in Ormberg. Hanne’s phone made contact with the tower next to the highway Friday night, around seven o’clock. It’s been quiet since then. And Peter’s phone made contact with the same tower around eight. I don’t know how to interpret that, but I don’t think they left Ormberg. And I’ve gone through their call records and text messages over the last few days. You can check, too, but I couldn’t find anything strange. And Peter’s bank card hasn’t been used since Friday.”

  “So what were they doing in the woods?” I ask.

  “Yes, what the hell were they doing in the woods? I also talked to the technicians. There was actually some kind of print in the field near where Hanne was found. Someone had tramped around through the mud in high heels. Right where they found that sequin.”

  “So she was right, the woman who found Hanne,” I say. “There was another woman there, in a sequin dress and high heels.”

  “Seems likely. But it doesn’t help us now. There are too many unanswered questions. Where did Hanne and Peter go? Where is Peter now? Who was the woman in the dress? What was she doing in the woods? And where in the hell is Peter’s car?”

  We fall silent for a while, united in almost palpable frustration.