The Drowning (56 page)

‘I’m afraid you’ll still have to come with us. You’ll have a chance to present your own explanations a little later,’ said Gösta, ushering Erik towards the exit. Everyone nearby had stopped to stare.

‘I’m telling you that I have to get on that plane!’

‘I understand,’ said Gösta calmly. Then he turned to Martin. ‘Would you mind taking his baggage?’

Martin nodded but swore inwardly. He never got to do the fun stuff.

‘So it was Christian?’ Anna’s mouth fell open in surprise.

‘Yes – and no,’ said Erica. ‘I talked to Thorvald about it, and we’ll never know for sure. But by all indications, that’s what happened.’

‘Christian had a split personality? And his two selves didn’t know about each other?’ Anna sounded sceptical. She’d come right over when Erica phoned after returning from the boathouse. Patrik had to go back to the station, and Erica didn’t want to be alone. Her sister Anna was the only one she wanted to confide in about everything she’d found out.

‘Apparently. Thorvald suspected that Christian must have been schizophrenic. His disease also showed aspects of what’s called dissociative identity disorder. That was what caused the split in his personality. It can stem from an enormous amount of stress, as a way of dealing with reality. And Christian definitely had some terribly traumatic events in his past. First his mother’s death, and the week that he spent with her body. Then what, in my opinion, was outright child abuse, if not psychotic
behaviour at the hands of Iréne Lissander. The way that Christian’s foster parents decided to ignore him after Alice was born must have felt like being abandoned all over again. And so he blamed the baby – he blamed Alice.’

‘And he tried to drown her?’ Anna placed a protective hand on her stomach.

‘Yes. Alice’s father saved her, but she suffered serious brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Mr Lissander decided to protect Christian by never speaking of what happened. He probably thought he was doing the boy a service, but I’m not sure he made the right decision. Imagine growing up knowing that you’d done something like that. The guilt must have been horrendous. The older Christian got, the more aware he became of what he’d done. And his feelings of guilt were probably even greater because Alice loved him.’

‘In spite of what he’d done to her.’

‘She never knew. Nobody knew, except for Ragnar Lissander and Christian.’

‘And then the rape.’

‘Yes. Then the rape,’ said Erica, and she felt her throat close up. She tallied up everything that had happened in Christian’s life, as if it were a mathematical problem that was finally solved. But in reality, it was a tragedy.

The phone rang and she answered.

‘Erica Falck. Yes? No. No, I have no comment. Don’t call me again.’ And she angrily slammed down the phone.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Anna.

‘A newspaper reporter. They wanted me to say something about Christian’s death. The vultures are circling again. And they don’t even know the whole story yet.’ She sighed. ‘Poor, poor Sanna.’

‘But when did Christian get sick?’ Anna was still looking confused, and Erica could understand why. She had asked tons of follow-up questions when she talked to Thorvald, and he had patiently tried to answer all of them.

‘His mother was schizophrenic, and it’s an inherited condition. It often surfaces during the teenage years, and that’s when Christian may have started to notice something was wrong without fully understanding it. A sense of anxiety, dreams, voices, visions – there are many different symptoms. Mr and Mrs Lissander probably never noticed, because he left home right about that time. Or rather, he was chased away.’

‘Chased away?’

‘Yes, that’s what it said in the letter that Christian left in the boathouse. The Lissanders assumed, without even investigating, that Christian was the one who had raped Alice. And he didn’t defend himself. Presumably he felt so guilty because he hadn’t intervened and protected her, that he thought he might as well have done it himself. But that’s just my own speculation,’ said Erica.

‘So they threw him out?’

‘Yes, and at the moment I can’t say how that might have affected his disease. But Patrik should look for some sort of medical case files. If Christian received any type of care or treatment when he arrived in Göteborg, there should be a record somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it.’

Erica paused. It was so hard for her to comprehend everything that Christian must have gone through. And everything he had done.

‘Patrik thinks that the police will reopen the investigation into the murders of the woman that Christian was living with, and her little boy,’ she went on. ‘Considering everything that has now come to light.’

‘Do they think that Christian killed them too? But why?’

‘It’s highly likely that we’ll never know for sure whether he did it,’ said Erica. ‘Or why. If the other part of his personality – the Mermaid, or Alice, whatever you want
to call her – was mad at the Christian part, maybe she couldn’t stand to see him happy. That’s Thorvald’s theory, anyway, and he may be right. Perhaps Christian’s happiness unleashed something. But as I said, I don’t think we’ll ever really know the answer.’

24

In reality she had nothing against either the child or the woman. She didn’t really mean them any harm. Yet she couldn’t allow them to continue to live. They did something that no one had ever done before. They made Christian happy.

He laughed often now. A carefree, hearty laugh that came from his stomach and bubbled upward. She hated that laugh. For her part, she was no longer able to laugh; she was empty and cold inside, dead. He had been dead too, but thanks to the woman and the child, he was now alive.

Sometimes he would watch them in secret. The woman carrying the child in her arms. They would dance, and he would smile when the child laughed. He was happy, but he didn’t deserve it. He’d taken everything from her, lowered her down into the water until her lungs felt like they would burst, until her brain took in no oxygen, and it was as if she were slowly extinguished while the water rose up to cover her face.

Yet in spite of it all she had loved him. He was everything for her. She didn’t care about the others, didn’t care about how they looked at him. For her, he was the nicest and handsomest person on earth. Her hero.

But he had betrayed her. Allowed them to take her, violate her, and hit her until the bones in her face were broken. He had allowed her to lie there, staring up at the starry sky with her legs apart. And then he had fled.

Now she no longer loved him, and no one else would be allowed to love him either. Just as he would not be allowed to love anyone. Not the way he loved the woman in the blue dress, and the child, who wasn’t even his.

He wasn’t at home right now. As usual, the door wasn’t locked. The woman was careless. He was always scolding her about it, telling her that she should lock the door, that they never knew who might try to get in.

Cautiously she pressed down on the handle and opened the door. She heard the woman humming in the kitchen. A splashing sound came from the bathroom. The child was sitting in the tub, which meant the woman would be going into the bathroom at any minute. She was careful about such things. Never leaving the child alone in the bath for very long.

She went into the bathroom. The boy’s face lit up like a sun when he saw her.

‘Shhh,’ she said, opening her eyes wide as if it were a game. The child laughed. As she listened for approaching footsteps, she went over to the tub and stared down at the naked child. It wasn’t the boy’s fault, but he made Christian happy. And that was something she couldn’t allow.

She took the child by the arms and lifted him up a bit so she could lay him down on his back in the tub. The boy was still laughing. Happy and secure in the belief that nothing bad could happen in the world. When the water closed over his face he stopped laughing and starting flailing his arms and legs about. But it wasn’t difficult to hold the child down. She simply put one hand on his chest and pressed lightly. The child flailed harder and harder until his movements began to taper off, and then he lay still.

Now she heard the woman’s footsteps. She looked down at the child. He looked so calm and peaceful lying there. She stood up with her back against the wall, just to the right of the door opening. The woman came into the bathroom. When she saw the child, she stopped abruptly. Then she screamed and rushed forward.

It was almost as easy as it had been with the child. Silently she slipped forward and grabbed the neck of the woman, who was leaning over the edge of the tub. She used her own weight to hold the woman’s head underwater. It took less time than expected.

She didn’t look back as she left. Merely felt a sense of satisfaction spreading through her body. Christian was not going to be happy any more.

Patrik was looking at the drawings. And all of a sudden he understood. The big figure and the small one – Christian and Alice. And in one of the drawings the black figures that were so much darker than the rest.

Christian had taken the guilt on to his own shoulders. Patrik had just talked with Ragnar, who had confirmed it. When Alice came home that night, he and his wife assumed that it was Christian who had raped her. They were awakened by a scream, and when they got out of bed to find out what was going on, they found Alice lying on the floor in the front hall. She was wearing only a skirt, and her face was bloody and swollen. When they rushed over to her, she said only one word.

‘Christian,’ she whispered.

Iréne rushed upstairs to his room and yanked him out of bed. She smelled the booze on him and immediately drew her own conclusions. To be fair, Ragnar had thought the same thing, although he did have some doubt. Maybe that was why he kept sending Alice’s drawings to Christian. Because he’d never been certain about what actually happened.

Gösta and Martin had managed to nab Erik before he got on the plane. Patrik had just received a report, telling
him that they were on their way back from Landvetter. That was always something. Later they would have to see what was legally possible, so many years after the fact. At least Kenneth was not going to keep silent any more; Erica was convinced of that. And if nothing else, Erik had a lot of explaining to do with regard to his financial dealings. He’d probably end up behind bars, at least for a while. But considering the circumstances, that seemed like small comfort.

‘The newspapers have started ringing!’ Mellberg came rushing in, beaming like a sun. ‘It’s about to get very lively around here. Great publicity for the station.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Patrik, still looking at the drawings.

‘We did a really good job on this case, Hedström! I have to admit it. It took us a while, but once we picked up the pace and did some good old-fashioned police work, the path was clear.’

‘Right,’ said Patrik. Today he didn’t even have the energy to feel annoyed by Mellberg. He rubbed his hand over his chest. It still hurt. He must have banged himself harder than he thought when he fell off the ladder.

‘It’s probably best that I go back to my office,’ said Mellberg. ‘A reporter from
Aftonbladet
just phoned, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody from
Expressen
calls too.’

‘Hmm,’ said Patrik as he kept rubbing his chest. Damn, it hurt. Maybe the pain would ease up if he moved a bit. He got up and went into the kitchen. How typical. Whenever he wanted a cup of coffee, the pot was empty.

Paula came in. ‘We’ve finished over there. I’m completely speechless. I would never have suspected any of this.’

‘I guess not,’ said Patrik. He realized how unkind that sounded, but he was so tired. He didn’t feel like talking about the case, didn’t want to think about Alice and
Christian, or about a little boy who kept vigil over his dead mother’s body as it rotted in the summer heat.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the coffee machine, he put in several scoops. How many was that? Two or three? He couldn’t remember. He tried to concentrate, but the next scoopful landed outside the machine. He put the scoop in the package of ground coffee to take out some more, but a sharp pain in his chest made him gasp for air.

‘Patrik, what’s the matter? Patrik?’ He heard Paula’s voice, but it was coming from far, far away. He ignored it, wanting to finish putting more coffee in the machine, but his hand refused to obey. He saw a flash of light before his eyes, and the pain in his chest was suddenly a thousand times worse. He managed to think that something was wrong, that something was about to happen.

Then everything went black.

‘Did he send the threatening letters to himself?’ Anna asked, shifting position a little. The baby was pressing on her bladder, and she actually needed to pee, but she couldn’t tear herself away.

‘Yes, and to the others too,’ said Erica. ‘We don’t know whether Magnus got any. Most likely not.’