THURSDAY
‘What are we going to do?’ Lucy asked when I told her about Elias.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Not call the police?’
‘And say what? That a burglar I hired has found a body?’
She fell silent. We drank some more wine and then went to bed.
‘What was he doing in Rakel’s house?’ Lucy said once the lights were out.
‘Don’t know.’
‘They knew each other from before.’
‘Mmm. But that was a very long time ago.’
‘Do you think she killed him?’
‘I ought to be shouting “Absolutely!”, but it doesn’t feel right.’
‘I can understand that. It must be difficult, knowing you’ve slept with someone who’s capable of murder.’
I let Lucy have the last word that night. She deserved it. I went out like a light and slept like Sleeping Beauty. I can’t explain why. Maybe it was sheer exhaustion. Or shock. Or the relief that came from finally telling someone – Lucy – what happened in Texas. Only God (and possibly the Devil) knows how much I wanted to keep digging into what Bobby’s girlfriend had told me. But that was impossible. Unless I wanted to risk Belle and Lucy’s lives, and quite possibly my own. Besides, I had another reality that demanded all of my attention. A reality in which people I’d met turned up in empty houses with their throats cut.
I slept so soundly I didn’t even hear when Belle woke up in the middle of the night, upset. Lucy told me about it in the morning.
‘But it was okay,’ she said. ‘She went back to sleep.’
How would I have coped without Lucy? I thought about what I’d realised when we were in Texas. That Lucy wanted children. There was no space in my life just then for that thought. I had my hands full trying to keep the child I’d inherited alive.
As we ate breakfast I looked through the newspapers on my laptop. Not a word about a man being found with his throat cut in Solna. Lucy was reading over my shoulder.
‘Maybe she hasn’t got home and found him yet,’ she muttered in my ear.
As if we could take it for granted that Rakel wasn’t involved in the murder.
We glanced at Belle. She was busy trying to feed porridge to her doll and wasn’t listening to us.
I shook my head.
We had to stop being stupid. Clearly it wasn’t a coincidence that Elias was in her house. It was a horribly uncomfortable thought, but no less true because of that.
Lucy drove Belle to preschool. I rode my bike to the office. I scoured the online papers once more. There still wasn’t anything. The anxiety was making me feel restless. It was only a matter of time before the body was found. And then the police would start looking for potential perpetrators.
Do you realise you slept with a murderer? a ghostly voice whispered in my head.
The big question was whether I was going to be blamed for what had happened. Again.
Frustrated, I called Elias’s girlfriend.
‘How was last night?’ I said. ‘Have you heard from Elias?’
Terrible but necessary questions.
‘Not a word,’ Elias’s girlfriend said. ‘I’m going crazy with worry.’
So was I, not because Elias was missing, but because I knew he was dead.
I tried to figure out how Marie had been able to find Elias, in full view, in an apparently empty house. Who had left him there? People hide bodies – they don’t leave them splayed out in the living room. All I felt like doing was going out to Solna to take another look at the house. But I knew that was impossible. I had already been seen in the neighbourhood, and that was bad enough. Going back again and stomping about the garden would be as good as going to the police and confessing to the murder. No one would believe I was innocent once Elias was found.
If he’s actually still in the house.
I couldn’t bear it. In desperation, I called Boris to ask him to send Marie or someone else to Solna. He didn’t answer. I drummed impatiently on the shiny desktop with my fingers. I was being driven mad.
Then I remembered Lucy’s material about the preschool staff. I dug the envelope out of my briefcase. I’d put it in there when I left the office the previous day. My fingers felt clumsy as I opened it and pulled out the bundle of papers. Lucy had been ambitious. Using the material from the police she had managed to identify all the members of staff and had found out where they were today. No one had moved away from the area, but a number had left the preschool and were now employed elsewhere. I worked my way diligently through the pile of passport photographs. There was no picture of Mio. Of course. Sara must have taken a conscious decision not to apply for a passport for her son. To stop him being taken out of the country.
I tried to guess who the mysterious Susanne might be, but it was impossible. She could have been any one of the women staring blankly back at me from the photocopies.
The only one I recognised was Rakel Minnhagen.
‘Veronica,’ I said quietly. ‘What the hell do you want with me?’
Lucy had checked all the staff on the national population database, including Rakel Minnhagen. The fact that she was currently registered as living in Solna was nothing new. But she had been registered at an address in Årsta havsbad the previous year. That information made me frown. Partly because she had been registered there for less than three months in late summer and autumn. And partly because Årsta havsbad primarily consisted of summer cottages that lacked running water and drains. The house she had lived in was on Arkitektvägen. My frown grew deeper. Surely I’d been to a party out in Årsta havsbad? Something like a decade, a century ago – I couldn’t remember.
I called Lucy.
‘Have you ever been to a party in Årsta havsbad with me?’ I said.
Lucy might well have wondered why I was calling to ask such an odd question. But she didn’t. We’d stopped reacting whenever the other did or said peculiar things.
‘Not that I can remember,’ she said. ‘Actually, yes. Wasn’t that where that awful friend of yours from university had a crayfish party? When all the guests were promised proper beds and you and I ended up sleeping in a hammock?’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
It had been a terrible party. Of all the awful university friends I’ve got, there was none more awful than the guy Lucy was referring to: Herman Nilson. A stuck-up wanker who went on to become a very successful property lawyer. But the world needs people like that as well.
Lucy arrived at the office a little while later. She did the same as me – started by looking through the online papers.
‘Still nothing,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said stiffly.
I was terrified of Elias being found. Terrified of what that would mean for me.
Rakel Minnhagen. Could she really be behind all this? And, if so, was she alone? I didn’t think that very likely. There were plenty more loose ends to look into. I had found the person who abducted Mio. I had found her home. But there was no Mio there. Only a dead Elias.
I didn’t have much more to go on than the address in Årsta havsbad. I tried to work out why I was getting so hung up on that. Just because I’d once been to a party there, nine years ago (we’d figured out when it was). Without further ado I contacted the Land Registry and asked who owned the property where Rakel Minnhagen had been registered. The clerk rattled off a man’s name that I didn’t recognise.
‘He acquired the property last December,’ the clerk said.
‘Can you see who owned it before him?’ I said.
‘Of course. The previous owner was a Herman Nilson.’
I sat for a long time in silence behind my desk. What did it mean that Rakel Minnhagen had been registered – and therefore possibly lived – at an address belonging to someone I had been at university with? Someone who had never been a particularly close friend, and whom I hadn’t seen or heard from in years. I had a nagging feeling that the answer was right in front of my nose. There was something I wasn’t seeing. Something I had missed. Something big.
Then my phone rang again. I didn’t recognise the number and didn’t feel like answering at first. Then it occurred to me that I could hardly get any more surprises on one and the same day.
‘Martin Benner,’ I said.
‘This is Jocke from the garage. I just wanted to check when you were thinking of coming to get your car.’
I coughed and tried to make my voice sound humble and authoritative at the same time.
‘It’s good that you’ve called. I’m afraid things have got a bit hectic here. Could the Porsche stay with you until, say, Monday next week?’
I didn’t want to see the car. Didn’t want it anywhere near me.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No, that doesn’t work. It’s against our policy. Cars that have been fixed have to be collected. It’s to do with the insurance.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Obviously I’ll be happy to pay for any extra expense. If you could just look after . . .’
‘You clearly don’t get it. I can’t help you. Can you come this afternoon?’
Only very rarely does one thing go to hell at a time. Usually it’s like playing a malicious game of dominoes. If one of them falls, the rest follow. As long as they’re standing close enough to each other.
‘I won’t forget this,’ I said, making my voice sound as unfriendly as I could. ‘I don’t expect this sort of behaviour from a company like yours.’
‘Nor we of a customer like you,’ said the guy calling himself Jocke. ‘The police have been here.’
I stiffened.
‘Did they take the car away?’
‘What? No, I’d have told you that at the start. But it was all extremely unpleasant. There were other customers in the vicinity and they looked most put out. The sooner you come and collect your Porsche the better.’