After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  Muhammad and Albin look uncertain, glance at Vincent as if waiting for orders, and Vincent takes a step forward and picks up the Eiffel Tower.

  It shines dully in the dim light and creaks a little as Vincent holds it by the top and swings it back and forth.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting at home building this shit? Don’t you have anything better to do? Do you miss your mommy? Can’t you hang out with that horny sister of yours?”

  “It’s the Eiffel Tower,” I say quietly.

  Vincent drops the Eiffel Tower on the concrete. It lands with a screech, on its side, slightly bent, but still intact.

  Vincent turns around and nods to Albin. He steps forward and stands uncertainly beside Vincent, flicks his cigarette at an old machine, and clears his throat.

  I feel sorry for Albin.

  Everyone feels sorry for Albin. Not just because he’s an idiot who fails all of his classes, but also because his dad is handicapped. His grandmother took some dangerous medicine when she was pregnant, which caused Albin’s dad to be born without legs.

  I feel sorry for Vincent, too.

  Or Melinda does, anyway. His dad works on an oil rig in the North Sea and almost never comes home.

  I try to think about all of that as Albin stands next to the Eiffel Tower staring vacantly at me. I really try to envision the stumps of his father’s legs and how the wheelchair gets stuck when he tries to drive it over a high threshold.

  But it’s impossible.

  No matter how hard I try I can’t feel sorry for him now. And the fear remains; it’s getting harder and harder to breathe, as if somebody wrapped a rope tightly around me and my lungs are filled with green slime.

  Albin looks questioningly at Vincent.

  Vincent nods, says:

  “Crush that piece of shit!”

  “No,” I scream, and jump up. “No. Nooo!”

  Albin looks at me with a dull expression on his face. Then he shrugs his shoulders, as if it’s just one more of the weird things that Vincent tells him to do every day. Just another order he doesn’t have the energy or will to question.

  Then he lifts his foot and stomps on the Eiffel Tower with his big wet sneakers, like it’s just a spider on the floor of a basement.

  Malin

  The medical examiner, Samira Khan, is so short she barely reaches my chest.

  She greets us all with a handshake.

  Her long, dark hair hangs in a thick braid down her back. She has a plastic apron over her green scrubs, which rustles when she moves. There are gloves and protective glasses on a counter next to her.

  It’s been almost two weeks since our Skype meeting about the skeleton in the cairn.

  Little did we know then that we’d be visiting Samira to discuss another murder. Or that Peter would disappear without a trace.

  Manfred, Svante, and I have driven the 180 kilometers to Solna to meet Samira in person. Andreas is still in Ormberg. He has a meeting with Svante’s colleagues to discuss how best to coordinate our investigations.

  Even if we’re not one hundred percent sure yet that the blood on Hanne’s shoe comes from the murder victim at the cairn, we will move forward on the assumption that it does. This means that Hanne, and perhaps Peter as well, witnessed a woman’s murder, or at least were in the vicinity when the crime was committed.

  Of course, this will have an impact on the investigation into Peter’s disappearance. First, we can assume that he and Hanne disappeared on Friday—on the day the woman was murdered—and that these events are connected.

  Second, we must now assume that he may have been the victim of a crime. The fact that he’s been gone without a trace for six days points toward something other than an accident. If he’d been helpless in the woods with a broken leg, or slipped and drowned in the creek, we would have found him by now.

  Samira pulls on a pair of gloves.

  “How is the search for your colleague going?” she asks, as if reading my thoughts. “Have you found him?”

  “Not yet,” Manfred says.

  Samira snaps her glove in place and wrinkles her forehead.

  “And you think his disappearance might be linked to the murder of this woman?” she asks, and nods at the body lying on the stainless steel autopsy table at the other end of the room.

  “We can place our other colleague, Hanne, at the scene of the murder,” Svante says.

  “Hanne? The woman with memory loss?”

  “Correct,” Svante says.

  Samira readjusts the plastic apron and straightens up a bit.

  “Okay. Shall we begin?”

  We walk toward the stainless steel tables. The female body on the autopsy table is pale and skinny. Long gray hair hangs in locks from her head.

  The body has been neatly sewn up after the autopsy.

  Samira starts rattling off facts. Her voice is quiet and matter-of-fact, committed, but lacking any emotion.

  She must have done this a hundred times.

  “Unknown woman, approximately fifty years old. Height, one hundred and seventy-five centimeters. Weight, fifty-eight kilos…”

  Svante interrupts her:

  “Isn’t that underweight?”

  “No, she has a BMI of just under nineteen. It’s considered normal, though near the bottom of normal range.”

  Svante nods and buries one hand in his big beard, as if he’s searching for something inside.

  I glance at the woman on the autopsy table, but avoid looking at her destroyed face.

  “She was healthy and in good physical condition,” Samira continues. “All internal organs were in good condition. But there is one thing…”

  She glances at her paper and then goes on:

  “You can see a certain amount of muscle hypotrophy—that is, a weakening of the skeletal muscles. It may indicate she had a disease I haven’t been able to detect, or it could mean she was physically inactive. We can say with certainty that she didn’t work out. And there’s another thing.”

  Samira takes a step toward the woman’s head, extends her hand, and parts the woman’s lips.

  It makes a smacking sound, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “The teeth are in very poor condition. She had widespread periodontitis, many cavities, and has lost several teeth. There are a couple of old fillings on the premolars—that is, the front molars in the lower jaw. They appear to be made of gold alloy. The forensic odontologist hasn’t looked at them yet, but I don’t think they were made in Sweden. Look at this.”

  Samira’s voice is calm, her words exact and her approach deliberately pedagogical—yet I find it difficult to take in what she’s saying. And I’m even less capable of looking at the woman’s face.

  “Interesting,” Manfred says, and it sounds like he means it.

  Svante makes an affirmative sound next to him.

  “Is it common for people to have these kinds of problems with their teeth?” Manfred asks.

  Samira nods.

  “It’s not uncommon. The most common cause is odontophobia—that is, when you’re afraid to go to the dentist. We also see teeth decay like this among addicts and the mentally ill.”

  Manfred and Svante mumble something, both bent over the autopsy table.

  “But there’s nothing to indicate she was an addict,” Samira continues. “She has no visible scars or wounds from injection needles. Also, I’ve received some of the tox screen back. Blood and urine were negative for…Wait a second.”

  Samira glances at some papers lying on a counter next to the autopsy table and continues:

  “No trace of antipsychotics, zolpidem, benzodiazepines, or γ-Hydroxybutyric acid, also known as GHB. But I’m still waiting on the results of a few more tests.”

  Samira falls silent, takes a step to the side, and meets my eyes. The
n wrinkles her forehead.

  “Are you okay over there? Do you need to sit down?”

  Manfred and Svante turn around and examine me without a word.

  “It’s fine,” I lie, and force a smile.

  Samira nods briefly, bends over the body on the table, and continues.

  “She’s given birth to at least one child—you can see that in the pelvis.”

  “Only one?” Svante says.

  Samira smiles coolly.

  “It’s impossible to see that. All I can say is that she has given birth at least once.”

  An idea occurs to me, and I step over next to Manfred, near the woman’s head.

  “You mentioned that the fillings in the woman’s teeth could have been done abroad,” I say, and meet Samira’s dark eyes.

  “That could be the case, yes. And, of course, her dental problems could be because she had no access to modern dental care. She might be a refugee, for example. For instance, I don’t think that dental care works particularly well in Syria.”

  Samira makes a sad grimace, tilts her head slightly, and places her fingers gently on the woman’s arms. The gesture contains a tenderness that surprises me.

  “But she appears to be European,” Samira says. “The current armed conflict lies outside Europe.”

  The room is silent. Manfred clears his throat.

  “Should we look a little closer at her injuries?” he asks, and points to the bullet hole in her chest.

  * * *

  —

  I share a car with Manfred on my way back to Ormberg. Svante, who’s headed to Örebro, had taken his own car.

  “Do you think she’s an immigrant?” Manfred asks as he exits off the E4 highway.

  I stare out the window and think.

  “The girl in the cairn, Nermina Malkoc, lived at the refugee camp in Ormberg. Both were found in the same place. Both shot. Both missing shoes. And just like in the early nineties, when Nermina was murdered, the TrikåKungen is being used as housing for asylum seekers. I’m just wondering if it’s a coincidence.”

  “You mean someone’s running around killing refugees? You think we may be dealing with a racist?”

  I shrug my shoulders and look out at the outlines of high-rise buildings set against a darkening sky.

  “Who knows.”

  Manfred nods.

  “You and Andreas should go talk to the person in charge of the refugee camp tomorrow. Surely they’ll know if someone went missing.”

  * * *

  —

  Andreas raises his hand in greeting when we get back to the office. Then starts to complain about the journalists who’ve been camped outside in their cars all day.

  I look at him sitting there alone at the table.

  Hanne’s and Peter’s chairs stand gapingly empty.

  Even though the table’s far from roomy, we haven’t removed any of their papers or other things. Instead, they sit like a silent, but stubborn, reminder of what happened—Peter’s tobacco, his notebook of scribbled notes; Hanne’s tube of hand cream.

  Manfred gives a brief report on our meeting with the medical examiner. I hang up my jacket and sit down opposite Andreas without meeting his gaze. Then I start going through my emails.

  Max calls a few minutes later. Andreas looks at me searchingly as I answer my phone. I go out into the old store area for some privacy.

  I stand staring out the dirty window behind what used to be the checkout counter, scrape my foot a little in the dust on the floor. It leaves deep marks, and I get a glimpse of the mustard-colored tiles beneath the dust. Outside, it’s already dark and large snowflakes wind down from a black sky.

  In less than a month it’ll be Christmas.

  I hope we find Peter safe and sound and solve these murders by then. And I hope I’m far away from Ormberg.

  Max is doing well.

  Really well, actually. He was praised by his boss for his contribution to the settlement of a complicated personal injury case. A fifty-year-old woman with an alleged whiplash injury has been suing the insurance company Max works at and, thanks to his efforts, the company won’t have to pay anything for her injury.

  “It’s amazing—she won’t get a single krona,” he says with barely concealed pride.

  Yes, he uses those precise words.

  Something bothers me vaguely about his lengthy monologue. I don’t think it’s the fact that the poor injured woman didn’t get any money, but more that he’s so long-winded and tedious about it. I’ve never found listening to him talk about his job very interesting. And besides, he doesn’t ask me a single question about myself.

  Mom’s words pop into my head out of nowhere:

  Do you really love him?

  It makes me even more annoyed, though, with Mom now. She thinks she knows what’s best for me, even though she never managed to escape this backwater. Even though she still lives in the house she grew up in, socializes with the same people she did as a child.

  Max finishes up by saying he can’t see me this weekend, he has to work, and I tell him that’s fine, I have to stay in Ormberg because of the investigation.

  “Oh, okay” is all he says, still not asking me how I am.

  When I hang up, I feel inexplicably uneasy. As if I just had an insight, but can’t quite formulate it for myself.

  Then I realize what it is.

  I don’t want to go to Stockholm this weekend. I don’t feel like sitting in front of Max’s new flat screen listening to him talk about his job. I have no desire to eat entrecote or drink two and a half glasses of red wine. I don’t want to sleep with him in his big, expensive bed with its double mattresses stuffed with horsehair and its linen backrest that perfectly matches the bedspread.

  What’s wrong with me?

  I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and now it’s as if it’s no longer important to me.

  * * *

  —

  “Everything all right?” Andreas asks, and raises his eyebrows slightly when I sit down.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I say, and hear how curt I sound.

  Manfred clears his throat.

  “Shall we review the tips our colleagues received about Peter’s disappearance or do you have anything else you need to do first?”

  He meets my eyes. He looks tired. His eyes are red and his large frame is hunched over in the chair like an old sack of potatoes.

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  Manfred flips through the papers on the table.

  “A total of four tips, three of which were anonymous. The first is from one Ragnhild Sahlén, who lives next to the old TrikåKungen factory, where they house the asylum seekers.”

  Andreas lifts his eyes and looks straight at me.

  “Isn’t she the one who…”

  “Yes,” I say. “The old biddy who reported the stolen bicycle.”

  Manfred looks confused.

  “Did I miss something?” he asks, and grabs a pen as if intending to take notes.

  “Absolutely not,” I say. “Ragnhild Sahlén came here one day trying to report a theft. She was convinced that one of the men from the refugee camp had nicked a bicycle.”

  “Then she has to go to Vingåker,” Manfred says. “We don’t have time for that kind of thing.”

  “That’s what I told her,” I say. “What did she say when she called?”

  Manfred moves the pen along the paper as he reads.

  “She said she heard one of the refugees scream ‘Allahu Akbar’ the night Peter and Hanne disappeared. According to her…”

  Manfred pauses and rubs his eyes before continuing:

  “She thinks he was somehow involved in Peter’s disappearance and that’s why he screamed like that.”

  “You’re kidding?” Andreas says, picking up his
tobacco container and putting a wad in his mouth.

  “Unfortunately not,” Manfred says. “Can we ignore this tip?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  Manfred continues:

  “In fact, all three of our anonymous tips are about the refugee camp. One person claims he saw two dark-skinned men carrying a rolled-up rug into the factory building the night Peter disappeared and the unknown woman was murdered. A rug big enough to hold a human body.”

  Manfred makes air quotes when he says “human body” and then continues:

  “And one woman says she saw three young dark-skinned men heading into the forest that day near the church. Three men who, according to her, looked threatening.”

  “How did she draw that conclusion?” Andreas says. “That they were threatening, I mean.”

  “She didn’t say.” Manfred sighs. “Finally, one man called to report that something was burning on the grounds of the camp on Saturday. He believes they were perhaps burning a body.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Andreas says. “Burning a body? Because he saw some smoke? What is it with this fucking place?”

  We all fall silent for a moment, and I feel my irritation return. I feel a sudden need to defend the people of Ormberg, who Andreas apparently thinks so little of, even though he himself was born and raised not so far from here.

  “The fact is,” I say, “that if you go out to the cottages and actually talk to people—I mean, really take the time to sit down and listen to them—you’d understand why they call in with tips like this.”

  “Is that so?” Andreas sounds doubtful.

  “Ormberg is a small community,” I continue as calmly as I can, though my cheeks feel hot. “For some reason, the county government has decided to place a hundred Arabs in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the people who live here. A hundred people who come from countries with completely different values. Who have gone through war and torture and misery. And here they get all the help they need: a roof over their heads, food, money, and education. You have to understand that people around here haven’t had it easy. The population numbers have dropped. All the factories have shut down and moved to Asia. The post office closed; the daycare closed. Even this fucking grocery store went bust.”