Two murders, not five. I tried to turn that into a mantra rolling round my head of its own accord. To stop us thinking about the fact that Sara had been accused of five murders and concentrate on the two she was supposed to have committed in the USA. In the end it worked pretty well. Maybe even for Lucy, who hadn’t said anything on the subject of guilt since our chat on the roof terrace.
Our flight to New York took off at quarter to eleven in the morning. I had no trouble leaving the country. Whether that was through sloppiness or naivety I don’t know, but either way, the police hadn’t bothered to seize my passport or block it. We would have a four-hour wait for the connection to Texas. Lucy and I sat in our throne-like seats eating nuts.
‘If the circumstances were different, this could have been a really nice trip,’ Lucy said.
I didn’t reply. The memory of how it had felt to hand Belle over to her grandparents was still far too painful. If I hadn’t known that Boris would be keeping an eye on her, she would have had to come with us to the US. I’d never have left her without being convinced she was safe. I didn’t expect any help from the police.
‘Where are you going?’ Belle’s grandfather had asked when we met at the little harbour where he’d left the motorboat that would take them out to the island.
‘USA,’ I said.
‘How do I reach you?’
‘On the number I gave you yesterday. Or by email.’
He nodded. Out of all Belle’s relatives on her father’s side, her grandfather was the one I liked best. A thoughtful older man who didn’t ask too many questions and who seemed to think it best if people could keep things to themselves.
‘Good luck,’ he said, and shook my hand.
He could see that something had happened, but had the sense not to ask more questions.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And thank you for looking after Belle.’
He rested a hand on her head.
‘You never have to thank us for that. We should be thanking you. Again. For sorting everything back then. That time . . .’
We had talked about it, he and I. He agreed with me. It was a disgrace that Belle’s aunt, his daughter, wouldn’t take her. It would have been great for Belle to grow up with children the same age and two parents. Now she had me instead. Which wasn’t too bad, on the whole, but it could have been better.
Lucy stroked my arm and brought me back to the present.
‘Are you okay, Martin?’
‘No.’
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. My body had been running on adrenalin, and it had exhausted me. I hadn’t set foot in the USA in over two years. I’d sworn never to go back. Yet there I was, sitting in a plane that was roaring across the Atlantic. God alone knew what demons and ghosts from the past the trip was going to wake up.
While a lot of people knew that I had once been a police officer in the USA, not many of them knew how I had ended up there. Not that it was a particularly remarkable story. That was where my dad was from. The man who had once abandoned me and never come back. After high school I took my lovely grades and headed off to Texas to meet him. Maybe I thought he would be able to answer some of my many questions. He had a new family, I found out. He didn’t want to be reminded of crap from the past, and asked me to leave him in peace.
I didn’t. Because I thought that if he was given a bit of time he would regret pushing me away. I was born in the USA, so have American citizenship. My parents met while my dad was an exchange student in Stockholm. When they realised Marianne was pregnant they went to the USA and lived there for two years. All so that I would have the same citizenship as my dad, and to give Marianne a chance to get to know her husband’s home environment.
When I was one year old they decided to move back to Sweden. Marianne set off first with me and all the luggage. My dad was going to follow along later. But he never did. He called Marianne and said he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want her, or me. According to Marianne that’s when her problems started. The drinking and smoking. Everything got better when she met the guy from Sälen who became my sister’s father, but when he walked out as well things fell apart again.
I remember the astonishment I felt when I first arrived in the USA. I had expected to feel at home, to discover that I was much more American than Swedish. That didn’t happen. At first I thought it was because there was something wrong with Houston, where my dad lived. So I tried living in Dallas for a while instead. That didn’t work either, so I went back to Houston. I can’t really remember the details of how I ended up in the police force. It certainly wasn’t something I’d ever thought about back home in Sweden. But suddenly the opportunity presented itself, and I had nothing better planned. The training was only a year and a half, and then I got my first job. I lasted a year before resigning and returning to Sweden after another tragic encounter with my so-called dad.
Twelve years passed before I went back, this time as a well-paid lawyer. My father wasn’t impressed. And that was the last time I saw him. I didn’t miss him before he died, and I haven’t missed him since.
It took less than half an hour for me to fall asleep in my seat on the plane. I slept until we started to come down to land.
Houston was insanely hot. We landed in the afternoon and the sun was frying the tarmac until it went soft. Lucy watched the bags while I sorted out a hire car. You can say what you like about Americans, but they’re good at cars.
‘Did you have to get such a big car?’ Lucy said as we slung our cases in the back.
‘There wasn’t anything else,’ I said.
‘Really?’ Lucy said, getting into the passenger seat of the Lincoln I had hired.
I took several deep breaths of the hot air before getting behind the wheel. It felt very odd to be back. I had always felt that I didn’t just have a problem with my dad but with the USA as a whole. The two of them had blurred to become one and the same thing. Simply by getting on a plane and crossing the Atlantic it felt like I had escalated the conflict.
The engine purred as I drove out of the airport. Motorways as wide as Swedish potato fields opened out as I followed the instructions of the satnav.
We were going to be staying at the Hilton in downtown Houston. Houston is a huge city. The city centre is fairly compact, but if you want to move around you need a car, or you have to use an awful lot of taxis. I could remember exactly where my dad lived but had no intention of going anywhere near that district unless I had to. His wife probably still lived in the house. Where the children were – my half-siblings – I had no idea. The years had passed and they would be grown up now. I had never felt anything for them, and they had never tried to contact me. Like fuck was blood thicker than water.
‘Do you think the police know we’ve left yet?’ Lucy said.
I had switched my old mobile back on. It was important that the police could contact me, so it didn’t look like I was trying to hide.
‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I did my best to shake off anyone watching me before we left, so they ought to be wondering where we’ve got to by now, if nothing else.’
I was keen to avoid a situation in which the Swedish police contacted their American counterparts to warn them. I wanted to talk to the police in both Houston and Galveston, and it was important that those conversations were not spoiled by the fact that I had become the subject of a murder investigation.
The Hilton Hotel looked just like the pictures. Cold and sterile. Professional staff, just the right amount of smarminess. A bottle of chilled champagne and a bowl of fruit were waiting on the coffee table of our mini-suite.
‘Nice,’ Lucy said, picking up the bottle.
I had earned most of my money from shares, stock options, derivatives and God knows what else. As a lawyer I am well paid, and believe it is therefore my duty to make my assets grow. Lucy doesn’t feel the same way, and thus has less money than me. She hates stocks and shares, and always thinks she’s being taken for a ride before any deal has been reached. She doesn’t listen to me, and nor should she. I’d never want to take responsibility for any losses that might ensue.
Nothing makes you feel shittier than flying. We tore our clothes off and went and stood in the shower. I had sex with Lucy against a cold tiled wall. It wasn’t one of our better fucks, but probably one of the most needed. I had suggested having sex on the flight from New York to Houston, but Lucy said no.
‘You can get fined for that,’ she said.
‘If that’s your only objection, I think we should go to the toilet right now,’ I said, unbuckling my seatbelt.
Lucy sighed and didn’t move a muscle. And I decided not to raise the subject again.
After the shower, when Lucy was drying her hair, my mobile rang.
I froze in the middle of what I was doing.
The police, of course. Already.
Bloody hell.
‘Martin Benner,’ I said when I answered.
First there was silence, then, sure enough, I heard Didrik Stihl’s voice.
‘Didrik here, how are things?’
I never answer that sort of question.
He waited for a moment before he went on.
‘Okay, I was just calling to say you can come and get your car.’
Bonus points to the police. They had lost track of me and were therefore offering me the chance to get my dearest possession back again. They must have broken into a cold sweat when they couldn’t trace either me or my mobile.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s good of you.’
‘When will you be picking it up? Just so I let the guys in the garage know.’
I laughed.
‘I’ll call in sometime next week.’
I could hear how upset Didrik was from his breathing.
‘Martin, for God’s sake, what are you up to now?’
‘Nothing for you to worry about. Just let me know if you want me to come in for more questioning. I can be there within twenty-four hours.’
Didrik let out a low groan.
‘You’re in the States, aren’t you?’
I didn’t answer.
Lucy came out from the bathroom naked. She looked at me anxiously.
‘Thanks for calling, Didrik. Speak to you soon.’
‘You fucking lunatic, you’re in Texas, aren’t you?’
‘Why are you asking questions I know you can get the answers to from your marvellous surveillance technology? Look after yourself now, I’m going out to get something to eat with Lucy.’
Didrik sighed.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he said.
Then, and not before, anger flared up inside me. Who was Didrik to say something like that to a man in my position? If he’d done his job properly in the first place, this whole story would have been very different.
I realised that I had new problems to deal with, much sooner than I had hoped. There was a distinct risk that it would now be much harder for Lucy and I to talk to the detectives the way we’d planned. So I broke one of my own cardinal rules. I lied. To gain time and to keep Didrik’s pulse down at a level I could handle.
‘You’re right,’ I said, managing to make my voice tremble. ‘I’m in Texas. To bury my brother. Okay?’
Lucy stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ Didrik said when he had recovered. ‘I didn’t know you had a brother. But . . . I presume he’s your father’s son? Or was?’
‘That’s right,’ I said, with my heart thudding so hard with shame that it must have been visible through my chest. ‘Dad’s youngest. It’s not easy to have a relationship with a brother who grew up on the other side of the Atlantic, but I did my best. And now he’s not here any more. Don’t worry, as soon as he’s in the ground Lucy and I will head back to Stockholm.’
I could see Didrik before me, the way he nodded thoughtfully when he hears something that makes sense.
‘That’s good, Martin. The fact that you answered your phone really tells me all I needed to know. That you haven’t gone on the run. Sorry to bother you. We’ll speak soon.’
I ended the call and put the phone down, then met Lucy’s gaze.
‘Problems?’ she said.
‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ I said.
We didn’t speak as we dressed. That very evening we were due to meet the sheriff Eivor had spoken about in such glowing terms. Sheriff Esteban Stiller. I’d managed to get hold of him and had spoken to him over the phone. Even though I was cagey about the details, it hadn’t taken long for him to agree to a meeting.
The appointment to see the sheriff was like an oasis in the desert. God help him if he couldn’t provide us with some useful information. Because time was running out for me much faster than I could ever have imagined.