The flat smelled of garlic when I got home. Belle came rushing out and threw her arms round me. The plaster on her arm hit my neck hard. The spring in her little legs would probably carry her all the way to gymnastics gold at the Olympics if I could only get my act together to sign her up for classes.
‘Daddy, we did sculpture today. Come and look!’
She let go of my neck and promptly fell on the floor. She leapt to her feet again and pulled at my hand.
Before the kidnapping she never called me anything but Martin. Now she only said Daddy. A tiny part of me thought that was wrong. For the same reason it had always been wrong: she already had a daddy. A dead one, admittedly, but one who was still more authentic than I was.
Lucy was standing in the kitchen peeling prawns. Her face lit up when she saw me, then darkened again when she saw my worried expression.
‘What’s happened?’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ I said.
It wasn’t altogether obvious that I was going to tell Lucy what had happened. But, on the other hand, there was no one else I could share my anxieties with.
Belle’s creations were lined up on the kitchen table. Three little brown clay figures that looked a bit like Gollum.
‘They’re great,’ I said.
To start with, all the crap Belle dragged home from preschool with her used to drive me mad, but over the years I’ve learned to appreciate it. All the drawings, stone trolls and bits of plastic tat were at least proof that she was doing something each day. I liked that.
My shirt was sticking to my back. The air was humid and oppressive. Grey clouds were gathering in the sky.
‘There’s going to be a storm,’ Lucy said.
‘Rain,’ Belle said.
‘And probably some thunder and lightning,’ I said.
Belle turned pale so quickly that I didn’t register it at first.
‘No lightning,’ she whispered. ‘No lightning.’
Tears as big as blueberries were rolling down her cheeks. She’s terrified of storms. I tell myself that it must be something to do with the plane crash that snuffed out her parents’ lives. There was a ferocious storm that night. But Belle could hardly know that. And she wasn’t on that plane.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘No lightning.’
As if I had the slightest control over the weather.
Gently I lifted Belle up in my arms. Once again she wrapped her arms round my neck, holding so tight that I almost couldn’t breathe.
‘There was loads of lightning,’ she said. ‘Loads.’
I stroked her back.
‘When, sweetheart?’
She was breathing very close to my ear.
‘When I was sleeping at Grandma and Granddad’s. They said it was nothing to worry about. But I was ever so scared.’
I froze mid-movement. Up until that moment Belle hadn’t said a word about what had happened before or during her kidnapping. We had assumed she couldn’t remember anything because she was sedated. Now, out of the blue, she was talking about thunder and lightning. What else could she remember?
From the corner of my eye I could see Lucy staring at us. I prayed silently that Belle wouldn’t notice how agitated we were that she was talking. If she did, there was a risk that she would simply clam up again.
‘Do you remember talking to anyone else apart from Grandma and Granddad?’ I said.
Belle didn’t answer. We sat down to eat, but it was impossible to get anything into her. Her eyes kept roaming over the large windows facing the terrace and the dark, stormy sky beyond. When thunder rumbled in the distance and the first raindrops started to hit the glass, I got up quickly from my chair.
‘Come on, Belle,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and read a story.’
We went and sat on her bed. I closed the window and pulled the blind down. The room became dark and I took out a torch. Belle was delighted, and held it perfectly still while I read. Two books later she was fast asleep, safe from the storm, resting limply against my chest.
I stroked her hair and tried to make some sort of sense of what she had said. There had been thunder. Grandma and Granddad had said it was nothing to worry about. There was no more to it than that. No matter how much I wished there was.
‘A flat for guests?’
Lucy looked as confused as I had been when I told her what I’d found out on my visit to my former shag’s flat.
I nodded solemnly. After mulling things over for a few hours I was now sure: there was something funny about Veronica.
We were sitting under the roof out on the terrace, watching the flashes of lightning chase each other across the sky.
‘Why . . . I mean, how did you find that out? Why did you go round to see her?’
I have certain rules that govern my life. One is that I never lie when asked a direct question. Especially not when it’s Lucy asking it, and all the more so if what she wants to know about is my sex-life. But this time I wasn’t sure if I should stick to the truth. I didn’t think I should. It was better to lie.
‘I can’t explain,’ I said. ‘It was a . . . an impulse. I wanted to check out everyone I’ve met over the past few weeks.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean.’
Lucy looked away.
‘Can’t it just have been a coincidence?’ she said after a while. ‘Maybe she allowed herself to be picked up for the simple reason that she thought you were hot. Maybe she was in the city for a course, or was visiting a friend and had just borrowed the flat. Who knows, maybe she lives in a completely different part of Sweden.’
‘That thought occurred to me too,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t explain why her mobile number no longer works.’
‘Did she say what her surname was?’
‘Don’t remember. I might not have been told.’
‘Martin, for God’s sake.’
‘What? Do you know the surnames of all your fucks?’
Lucy became serious.
‘Yes.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. And to be perfectly honest, I think that would apply to most normal people. You know who you sleep with. Or else you don’t sleep with them.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet. I didn’t agree with her in principle, but that discussion could wait.
‘Did she say what she did for a living?’ Lucy said.
Another question I couldn’t answer with any confidence.
‘She said she was an accountant.’
‘How dull.’
I laughed, loud and unforced.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s what I thought.’
Lucy sighed.
‘So what’s to say she was lying, really? Maybe she is an accountant. Maybe she did borrow the flat from a friend who lives in the building. There are hundreds of reasons why someone might need temporary accommodation. Getting a new bathroom put in, something like that.’
‘How do you explain the phone number, then?’
Lucy said nothing.
The wind turned and the rain started to push us back towards the wall, almost scornfully. In the end we were pressed up against the window.
‘By the way, how did you get on investigating the staff at the preschool? Did you get hold of any passport photos?’
‘I’ve got their names and details in my handbag. I’ll be getting their passport photographs tomorrow. I’m not sure I’d call it investigating, though. I doubt we’ll be able to do much with what I managed to find out.’
I didn’t feel up to looking at Lucy’s findings. That would have to wait until the following day, when I could see the passport photos as well. I had other things to think about.
‘Her phone number,’ I said. ‘If I can get an explanation of why that’s changed, I’m prepared to buy the rest of it.’
Lucy pulled her feet up onto her chair.
‘Who knew you were going to the Press Club that evening? That was where you met her, wasn’t it?’
I nodded quickly. She was asking an extremely pertinent question. If I didn’t meet Veronica by chance, she must have known I was going to be there at that time.
‘Only you and Didrik,’ I said.
Lucy said nothing at first.
‘Only me and Didrik,’ she repeated after a while.
A flash of anxiety made my stomach clench. Madeleine’s question from lunchtime echoed in my head.
Who else has access to your car apart from Lucy?
I shivered involuntarily. Of course my car wasn’t involved. And of course Lucy wasn’t caught up in everything that had happened.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
New thoughts appeared. They set off quickly towards fresh targets, a long way away from Lucy.
‘Didrik,’ I said quietly.
Lucy started.
‘Surely he can’t be involved in whatever it is we think is going on?’
I shook my head.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I really don’t think so. If that was the case, Didrik and his colleagues would have been keeping an eye on me before Bobby and Jenny died. Anyway, it just doesn’t make any sense. The police simply don’t work that way. Honey-traps only happen in films.’
‘Honey-traps?’
‘Pretty women enticing men and sleeping with them to get information.’
Lucy pulled a cardigan over her shoulders.
‘Right,’ she said.
‘Come on, Lucy. We’ve always . . .’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’
Of course she knew. Lucy wasn’t stupid; she knew why I’d tried to contact Veronica again. There was a rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning went on striking randomly selected patches of ground.
‘He teased me,’ I said quietly.
‘Who did?’
‘Didrik.’
‘When?’
‘When I was flirting with her. Well, maybe not teased. Pulled my leg. He mostly just sounded jealous.’
Didrik has a lot of talents, but was he a good actor? I wasn’t sure. The idea that he could have set up a honey-trap at the Press Club was laughable. But on the other hand – if that was the case – he was hardly the only person to have surprised me in recent weeks. That is the downside of knowing an awful lot of people very superficially: you can soon end up feeling alone and uncertain.
‘What was she like to talk to?’ Lucy said. ‘Did she ask a lot of questions?’
I shook my head. Lucy would have hit me if she knew the images that popped into my head when I thought of Veronica. Warm bodies, sweat and breasts that were far too large. Hers, not mine.
‘Not that I remember.’
‘So what would be the point of meeting you?’ Lucy said. ‘What did you have that she wanted, if not information?’
I closed my eyes. What did I have with me that evening at the Press Club that she might have wanted, and couldn’t get hold of any other way?
I opened my eyes again.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Not yet. But trust me – it won’t be long before we get to the bottom of this.’