Babylon (21 page)

‘Earth to Seja.’ Hanna rapped on the table.

‘I was just thinking about what you said, about kids. But I didn’t get anywhere.’

‘You mean you don’t know if you want to have kids with Christian?’

‘No, but then at the same time I don’t know how it would feel if I did know. What the difference would be. I mean, I know how I feel about him. I know I want to be with him.’

Seja stared into the cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘And what about him – what does he want?’

‘That’s the problem – it’s so bloody difficult to know! Sometimes I get the impression he’s afraid because he thinks . . . I want more than he does. That I want the whole package, but I’m playing a strategic game and biding my time – which is true in a way. But it’s as though he’s lumping me in with all the other women he’s known and assuming he knows what I want without asking.’

‘That doesn’t sound great.’

‘No, but . . . I don’t know what I mean. Sometimes it’s just so hard to talk. It’s as if he’s not there. He shuts down as soon as he thinks it might get difficult, and he acts . . .’

She scratched furiously at a bite on her ankle; the skin grew flaky and red. ‘Like I said. He acts as though he already knows what I’m thinking, what I’m going to do, and he forgets to listen. Anyway, I really must go.’ Seja got to her feet. ‘Come over soon with Markus.’

Hanna followed her into the hallway with the cardigan Seja had left behind on the sofa.

‘OK, or I can come out during the day when Markus is at preschool. It’s nice to meet up without him sometimes. Although it might be the day after tomorrow, I’ve got to go to the advice bureau.’

‘Advice bureau?’

‘For single parents in custody disputes, that kind of thing. But after that . . . Oh no. I’m going to the doctor on Friday.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll get out to Stenared one of these days.’

‘Are you ill?’

‘I just need to extend my sick leave, particularly with all this stuff that’s going on with Peter.’

Seja nodded and refrained from commenting on the fact that Hanna had been off sick ever since they had got back in touch, except for a very brief period. Sometimes it was because she was in pain somewhere or other, sometimes she thought she was susceptible to stress. Sometimes
Hanna insisted on her right to concentrate on being a parent, particularly as she was bringing up Markus alone. Seja was aware that new regulations had made it more difficult to avoid work, so it was lucky she had
such a good doctor
. And the more time that passed, the more convincing Hanna’s argument that she was unfit to work became.

Seja really wanted to understand. But she had grown up believing that no one was above paying their own way. She might have hated that attitude, but it was ingrained in her, and it kept her on the straight and narrow, made her determined to be a useful member of society, to grit her teeth and battle on just like everyone else. The fact that Hanna chose to play the martyr to avoid getting to grips with her life was hard to accept.

I know nothing, Seja reminded herself, and it was a relief to let go of her irritation. I don’t actually know what Hanna’s reasons are, and we have no right to sit in judgement unless we do.

Hanna passed her the cardigan. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

By the time the door closed, Hanna had disappeared into the apartment.

She’s funny about goodbyes, Seja thought as she walked down the stairs, even casual ones. As if every small goodbye reminds her of a big one.

The darkness had seemed more intense looking out from the inside. In fact, only a grey-blue shadow fell on the empty street.

It was only when she turned off the main road that the car crept into the sort of blackness that never exists in the city. It was some time now since her fear of the dark went away.

She parked by the mailboxes. The slam of the car door echoed desolately in the silence. She was used to that too, and the thick trunks of the fir trees on either side of the gravel track; she knew there was life beyond them, other people. The Melkerssons. She had trained herself to think that way during those first trembling months alone in the cottage: there is nothing evil here. There is only good in this place.

It might sound stupid, but it had worked.

The warmth of the moss was evaporating in the cooling night air, which was noticeable as a faint dampness on her hands. Where the forest opened up, the night sky was visible high above the trees; there was no moon, just a summer twilight. She could make out both the cottage and the stable.

It took Lukas a while to register the sound of the grass rustling beneath her trainers; Seja had almost reached the door by the time he whinnied.

She unlocked the cottage, reached in and switched on the outside lights before going out to give him his evening feed.

29

Gothenburg

Behind Linnéplatsen a group of early risers had laid out colourful mats to practise some martial art. It was going to be another warm day. The first rays of sun filtered through the leaves. The patrol car cruised among dog-walkers and joggers; there was no rush. The woman who rang in had explained that she was a trained nurse and that the man was dead. He was also hidden from public view.

‘I should think he’s been dead a while.’

When she was asked about the location, she wasn’t quite as clear. ‘Opposite the pond, the little pond, and that play area . . .’

‘Plikta?’

‘That might be the name of it. There’s a kind of hill . . . he’s lying on a stone bench.’

They parked at the bottom of Pliktabacken. In the play area a mother was robotically pushing her child on a swing; she looked as if she had her eyes closed, or perhaps she was squinting in the sun.

‘I’ve spent a fair amount of time here,’ said Markus Ekvall, whose sons had now reached school age. He pointed to the sandpit, which was usually teeming with children and their parents, but not at this early hour. His colleague nodded without interest; he didn’t have children. Instead his attention was fixed on a person halfway up the slope, which was used as a sledge run in the winter. She raised a hand and pulled her thin trench coat more tightly around her body.

‘How’s it going?’

The woman didn’t respond to his less than successful opening remark. She was far too caught up in what had just happened; she was pale, and swallowed with some effort.

‘How are you?’ Ekvall tried again.

‘OK.’

She seemed to relax.

‘What were you doing up the hill?’ his colleague asked, less gently.

‘I . . . I . . .’

It was as though she had forgotten everything that happened before she saw the dead body. That could be the case: a traumatic experience can form a clear division between then and now.

‘I was out for a walk, I usually go for a walk in the mornings before work.’

‘OK.’ Ekvall nodded, his expression kind. ‘So shall we take a look?’

The sound of a waterfall grew louder as they approached the brow of the hill: water cascaded down the other side from a pond carved from rough stone blocks. Perhaps it flowed into the duck pond down below, but Ekvall couldn’t work out where the source might be. Nor could he name the rare fir with thick needles that formed the grotto-like enclosure, along with an impressively tall and mature bank of rhododendrons.

The man was lying face down. The back of his head was a tangled mess above the hood of his jacket. His upper body had slumped forward from a sitting position, his feet firmly planted on the ground.

‘Overdose,’ Ekvall’s colleague said confidently, nodding towards the man’s rolled-up sleeve, the needle still inserted just above the wrist.

‘How could you be certain he was dead and not just unconscious?’

Ekvall turned to the nurse, who was holding back; she didn’t look very well.

‘I felt his pulse,’ she said quietly, and looked away.

His colleague nodded with satisfaction:
Brave girl
.

‘Well, there’s not much more to say. Poor sod,’ he said, suitably subdued. ‘Shall we turn him over, just to be on the safe side?’

They took a firm hold of the dead man to turn him onto his back, but the stiff body tipped over the edge of the bench and almost fell on the ground. They were taken aback by the sight of his face.

‘Bloody hell, he’s taken some beating,’ said Ekvall. He keyed a number into his phone and moved away slightly in order to talk.

The man’s glassy eyes were proof enough, but still Ekvall cupped a hand in front of the battered face to check for any signs of breathing, placed two fingers against the purple throat, then shook his head.

Shortly afterwards, two more cars pulled up at the bottom of the hill. A man carrying a medical bag got out of one, and a young, dark-skinned man in a red sweater got out of the other.

Ekvall’s colleague kept talking as they waited for the doctor to confirm the obvious, and for someone to acknowledge that their task was done.

‘Violent Crimes will want to look at those strangulation marks.’

Ekvall nodded. It wasn’t long before the guy in the red sweater came towards them, holding up his ID. Was he from the Violent Crimes squad?

‘OK, we’ll take it from here.’

If he was, they were bloody quick off the mark. Ekvall’s colleague straightened up and went to meet him.

30

Gothenburg

Karin Beckman hadn’t chosen the colour of the walls: they were pale green. Institutional green. The furniture was lined up against the walls any old how. Piles of cardboard boxes in the bedroom overlooking the garden contained her winter clothes and shoes. The only room she had put any effort into was the children’s room. As soon as they had moved in, she had arranged Barbie dolls, cuddly toys and books on the shelves, unpacked the pink night lights and put Disney posters on the walls.

The living room was dominated by a flashy imitation leather sofa, not her own bright-red corduroy suite, which she had left behind. As
soon as she found somewhere permanent to live, she would go and get it. She was the one who’d paid for it, after all.

As far as she knew, Göran was intending to stay on in the house. He had inherited it when he was young; the mortgage had been paid off, so he had only the day-to-day running costs to contend with. When property prices started to rise, he talked about selling up and buying a place in town to free some capital. But he would probably never get around to it. That house was everything he owned, his security and his lifeline, and he had been extremely protective of it in the marriage settlement. At the time, the terms had seemed fair. With hindsight, and bearing in mind that they had children, Beckman wondered whether she shouldn’t have fought for a better deal.

She had sold her rented apartment in Guldheden many years ago. As she remembered it, she had given notice in happy times, without a second thought. Julia was growing inside her, and it was obvious that their growing family should live in the terraced house in Fiskebäck. The two-bed apartment she was now renting on Doktor Westrings gata felt cramped and dusty in comparison with Göran’s house. She was no longer close to the harbour, no longer in an area filled with playgrounds, where people were comfortably well off – but not excessively so. Fiskebäck’s little red and blue cubes, with their gardens and rockeries, were the picture of security and family life.

And now she was sitting in a sub-let, with most of her possessions either in storage or piled in boxes around her. The young girl from whom she was renting was a student in Kalmar, and wouldn’t need the apartment again until the following January. Karin Beckman had no intention of staying that long. This was a very temporary solution.
One thing at a time
she told herself.

And Göran hadn’t been in touch except to speak to the children.

Beckman was ashamed of how jealous she felt when she heard her eldest chatting quietly on the phone, even though she wanted nothing more than for the girls to have a good relationship with their father.

And it had been her decision to leave. But oh, how she wished she had
someone
to talk to like that, the unconditional love of another person, someone who didn’t judge or condemn but merely understood.

Beckman was still worried that she might have made the wrong decision. That she would discover, too late, that that was how just life
was: the nagging, the oppressive silences, the frustration at being misunderstood or not understood at all, both parties feeling hurt, the clumsy gestures towards reconciliation, the monotony when tenderness and friction were absent. These days she could hardly remember what she had hoped for from marriage. Perhaps she had imagined something like a parent’s unconditional love, or the perfect echo of a twin soul. How else could she explain the roots of the discontent that had spread as the years went by?

No, she didn’t want that toxic life back, but she wanted something in its place. Something more than this empty feeling.

‘Mum . . .’

She was interrupted by Sigrid, who was only half-awake, and she realised she had been standing there frozen in mid-movement for some time.

The child exuded the delicious, familiar smell of sleep and baby soap. Beckman buried her nose in Sigrid’s curls, which were damp from dreams. Her pyjama-clad body was soft and pliable; when the child had just woken up there was none of the stroppiness that normally characterised the age she had reached.

‘You’re up early, poppet,’ Beckman murmured into her curls. ‘Are you going to sit with Mummy for a while before you get dressed?’

Sigrid nodded thoughtfully, playing with her hair, which was still thin. As Beckman poured herself a cup of coffee, the child allowed herself to be picked up and she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her adorable chubby fists. Then she spotted the mobile on the table and reached for it.

‘No, poppet,’ Beckman said. ‘That’s Mummy’s work phone. It’ll break if you play with it.’

As usual she was amazed at the depth of resolve contained in her daughter’s small body. She moved the phone out of reach, but retribution was as immediate as it was inevitable. Sigrid’s scream made her eardrums quiver.