There was a time when I thought you had to love your family. Now I know that that isn’t the case. I choose to see that as both a blessing and a potential threat. A blessing because it means that I don’t have to see my mother more than is necessary. And a threat because it could mean that Belle will leave me as soon as she gets the chance. In spite of my limited parenting skills, the fact remains: I have no fucking idea what would be left of me if anyone or anything took Belle away from me.
I went back to see Marion Tell a few hours later. She was home, just as the old neighbour had said. Marion didn’t look like anyone else in her family. With her dazzling white teeth and perfect bob, she looked like the complete antithesis of everything her mother’s appearance suggested. Jeanette had said that her daughter was too grand to want to see her and Bobby. I’d say she was too smart. Few things create deeper divisions than an uneven distribution of intelligence and talent.
It was obvious that the neighbour had talked to her. She didn’t look happy when I rang the bell and she opened the door.
‘I thought I made it clear to you that I didn’t want to answer any questions,’ she said.
She was attractive, in that way that only women who work in the arts are. Cool and slender. For some reason I found myself getting annoyed by her arrogance. The fact that I was so ridiculously tired probably helped. My short but memorable discussion with Lucy on the terrace hadn’t improved matters. It irritated me that she knew about Veronica. Even though we had both agreed on the rules of the game, I had a feeling that they only applied with certain reservations. We were allowed to have sex with other people, but only if the other person never found out. Because we still had expectations of each other, regardless. I of Lucy, and she of me. And in my current situation I couldn’t afford to lose her.
I took a step closer to Marion.
‘I think you should listen very carefully to what I’ve got to say,’ I said. ‘A couple of weeks ago a man came to my office. He said his name was Bobby, and he said he was Sara Tell’s brother. He had with him a train ticket that he said proved his sister had an alibi for at least one of the five murders she confessed to. On Friday someone else came to see me. Sara’s friend Jenny. She told me the story behind the train ticket, thereby confirming her sister’s alibi.’
‘Fascinating,’ Marion said.
‘Shut up, I’m not finished,’ I said. ‘The night before last Jenny was murdered. She was run down outside her hotel. By my car.’
If I hadn’t had Marion’s attention before that, I did now.
She looked at me without saying anything.
‘The problem for the person who stole – or perhaps I should say borrowed – my car was that I spent the entire night in hospital. It would be hard to find a better alibi, don’t you think? Well, I’m afraid that’s not enough for me. Someone is so upset by my investigation into your sister’s case that the person in question is trying to frame me for a murder I didn’t commit. It’s only a matter of time before they realise that I’m not going to be locked up or charged with that crime.’
‘And you think the murderer will make another attempt to get at you?’ Marion said slowly.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ I said. ‘All I know is that someone is going to a lot of fucking effort to cover up whatever it was that made your sister confess to five murders she hadn’t committed. Even if you’ve distanced yourself from your family, and even if Sara is dead, I think you have a duty to do whatever you can to see that she gets justice.’
Everything I was saying was obvious. At least to my mind. Rhetoric is best when you keep it simple.
Marion reacted furiously.
‘Who are you to come to my home and lecture me about my family?’ she said, her eyes flaring with anger and something that looked like grief. ‘I was sixteen years old when I left home. Otherwise I’d have died there. Do you get that? Died! Sara and Bobby chose to stay. The weak, pathetic idiots.’
She paused for breath.
I took the chance to invite myself in.
‘Are we really going to have this conversation on the doorstep?’ I said.
There was a risk that she’d respond by slamming the door in my face. But she didn’t.
‘Come in,’ she said.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. We stood there in the hall. Evidently that was as far as she was going to allow me. I looked at her as she stood there with her arms folded. Her neighbour had said that she’d spent the day in the country. With her long white trousers and dark blue blouse she looked more like she’d been to a gallery or a smart wine-bar.
‘You think your brother and sister got what they deserved?’ I said. ‘Because they weren’t strong enough to break away at the same age you did?’
Marion shook her head.
‘They were like two baby birds, waiting desperately for me to go back and take them away from there. How would that have worked? Neither of them was disciplined enough to hold down a job. Not to mention education. While I was working my arse off to get perfect grades, Sara and Bobby did all they could to sabotage their own futures.’
‘You’re the eldest?’
‘Yes.’
‘That usually entails a degree of responsibility.’
‘Sure. But that responsibility doesn’t extend beyond helping people to help themselves.’
I realised that in many ways, Marion was a copy of me. Just like I had, she had done all she could to turn out different to her parents, and had realised that would only happen if she made different choices in life. Trying hard at school was one such choice.
Knowledge is power. Power is freedom. Freedom is everything.
Our eyes met in tacit understanding. I could see she had recognised that we were the same sort, she and I.
‘How do you think I can help?’ she said.
‘Bobby tried to get his sister off with the police and her lawyers. What were your thoughts about that?’
‘You mean did I think she was innocent?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
Her reply came quickly. I blinked in surprise.
‘No?’
‘No.’
Silence.
‘You think Sara murdered five people?’ I said.
‘I’m not a lawyer,’ Marion said. ‘And I’m not a police officer. But I knew Sara. If you ask me if I think she was sufficiently damaged and crazy to kill other people, I’m afraid I have to say yes to that question. But as to what the actual evidence says about the matter of guilt, you’ll have to ask someone else.’
Shaken, I tried to find the words to express what I wanted to say.
‘As I understand it, Bobby believed the exact opposite on both of the matters you’ve just indirectly referred to,’ I said. ‘He didn’t think Sara was capable of murder, and he thought the evidence was too weak.’
‘But she confessed.’
Marion shrugged her shoulders.
‘People sometimes take responsibility for crimes they haven’t committed,’ I said.
‘A lot of things happen,’ Marion said. ‘And they all happened to Sara.’
‘I haven’t been able to find any indication that Sara was charged with any violent offences before,’ I said.
‘Because she never was,’ Marion said. ‘Sara got away with an awful lot of things.’
‘Did you say that to the police?’ I said.
‘That Sara had been physically violent before? No, I didn’t.’
I couldn’t help feeling sceptical about what she was saying. Up to that moment I had been prepared to see Sara Tell as a victim: a victim of a conspiracy and of threats that were so unpleasant that she was prepared to shoulder Job’s yoke without the slightest resistance.
‘I can’t get this to make sense,’ I said. ‘You say you left your childhood home when you were sixteen. You abandoned your brother and sister. But you still think you know them pretty well.’
Marion’s hall was gloomy. I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t see her face properly. I couldn’t see her reaction to what I’d said.
‘Families are like chewing gum,’ she said. ‘You can go as far away as you like, but once it’s stuck to your shoe you can never get rid of it. We saw each other from time to time, obviously. When Sara finally started to talk about moving away from Stockholm I felt happy for her. She made one attempt to leave home after she finished school, but that went wrong. She was subletting a flat but didn’t keep up with the rent. She had something like five jobs in the space of a year, but she kept getting fired. How anyone could have employed her as an au pair is beyond me. She was the least together person on the planet.’
Marion sighed. I was close to doing the same. Exhaustion hit me like a hammer-blow in the back. I had to go home and get to bed. Two sleepless nights were too much for anyone.
‘Who was Sara violent towards?’ I said.
Marion looked away. It’s odd – family betrayal always hurts, even long after the relationships that held things together have broken.
‘A lot of people,’ Marion said. ‘Before she moved to the States, anyway. She took a wrong turn, so to speak. Started hanging out with a gang of real hooligans who used to get their kicks beating people up. I know drugs were involved as well. I never understood how Sara never got caught. The others in the gang did, one after the other. But Sara and Ed seemed to be made of Teflon. Nothing ever stuck to them.’
This was new. I thought back to the pictures of Sara I had seen in the papers. The murderer with the pretty face and academic glasses. Actually rather similar to her big sister, I realised now that I was looking at Marion. But how could no one have known? How could Sara’s past as a gangster have gone completely unnoticed by police and media?
‘So Sara’s ex, Ed, was an active member of the same gang?’ I said.
‘I’m pretty sure that was how they met,’ Marion said.
‘Did you ever meet him? Ed?’
‘Only once. He seemed genuinely sick. A truly disturbed individual. Used to beat Sara black and blue. Which was kind of good in a way. It was his fists that gave her the push she needed to take off to the States.’
I couldn’t really accept the point of Marion’s argument. There was nothing positive about a girl being abused by her boyfriend and running all the way to Texas.
‘Was Ed smart too, or just sick?’
I was reluctant to use the same expression as Marion, but did so anyway. You have to be careful about saying people are mentally ill.
Marion laughed.
‘I wouldn’t say he was smart. More lazy and lethargic.’
‘When Sara moved back home from Texas, do you know if she still had trouble with him then?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. But we had very sporadic contact at the time, me and Sara. Especially after I found out she was pregnant.’
‘You didn’t think she should be a mother?’
‘Are you kidding? I thought it was terrible. I don’t know how many times I stood with the phone in my hand, thinking about phoning Social Services.’
She fell silent, as if she felt she had said too much.
‘Who was Mio’s father?’ I said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Ed?’
‘I said I don’t know.’
‘But Mio was living with foster parents while Sara was in custody?’
‘Yes.’
My chest muscles stiffened as I held my breath. For a fraction of a second I was transported three years back in time. I could see myself standing with the phone in my hand, being told the news. That Belle would be placed in a foster home in Skövde. My throat stung as I breathed out.
You can let down your adult siblings. But little children? No, you can’t abandon them. Not if you have the chance to do the right thing. And I thought I could see that Marion had had the chance.
‘You never considered looking after Mio yourself?’ I said.
‘Not for a moment. I don’t take responsibility for other people’s mistakes. Especially not if they last a lifetime.’
Human beings can be so incredibly different.
The air in the whitewashed hall ran out. I needed to get out of there, fast.
‘Thanks for your time,’ I said, reaching for the door handle. ‘By the way, you haven’t heard from Bobby recently?’
‘No, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’
I was starting to get seriously tired of the unembarrassed way she kept marking the distance between her and her family. The door opened and cool air from the stairwell slipped into the hall.
‘Can you think of any good explanation as to why Bobby never turned to the media for help with Sara’s case?’ I said. ‘He went to the police and her lawyer, but never to the papers.’
‘Because Sara asked him not to. He came and asked if I could present the family’s case to the mass media. Probably because I was the only one of us who looked remotely presentable. But I refused, of course. Later on he texted to say that it didn’t matter anyway. Sara had forbidden him from carrying on his campaign to get her exonerated.’
I supposed that would do as an explanation. With a short nod I thanked her again and left the flat.
Marion followed me.
‘I can tell you think I’m a bad person,’ she said. ‘But I’m not. I’m just the sort of person who tries to do the right thing for myself.’
I was already halfway down the stairs.
‘Sometimes the best thing you can do is to try to do the right thing for other people,’ I said.
Then I turned and walked away.