It’s often said that grown men like to do things together. That we find loneliness harder than women. Didrik and I left his wonderful garden and walked down to the shore. And there we took a walk. Like two people who didn’t want to be alone.
‘Sara came round to our house,’ Didrik said. ‘Back when everything was just starting, after my colleagues and I had been contacted by the Americans and we’d held our first interview with her. It was evening, and it was raining. She banged so hard on the door that I thought she was going to break it in. When I opened it she was standing there on the step with the boy’s hand in hers. “I’m going to end up in prison,” she said. “And someone has to look after my son.” ’
‘Pretty epic,’ I said.
Didrik went on: ‘That sort of move isn’t exactly common. There was also one rather sensitive detail that I had thus far managed to keep hidden from my esteemed colleagues.’
‘That Sebbe and Mio went to the same preschool.’
‘Exactly. Rebecca did most of the dropping off and picking up in Flemingsberg, but I went a few times. We’d bumped into Sara, even though our children weren’t in the same class. It’s a ruddy big preschool, loads of kids. Mio and Sebbe were the same age, but in different groups. We thought that was a shame, because Sebbe used to talk about Mio at home. They used to play together when all the children were outside. We tried to invite Sara and Mio round to ours several times, but it was always so hard to pin her down. There was work and studying and laundry and God knows what else.’
‘Her life was chaotic?’
‘No, more just unfocused. We understood that something wasn’t right, but to be honest our guesses came nowhere close to the truth, I can tell you.’
My feet sank into the sand. It was getting harder and harder to walk.
‘The truth, you say,’ I said.
‘Yes. Do you think you know anything about that?’
‘I’m pretty sure I do, so I’d have to say yes.’
Didrik brushed his rather too long fringe from his eyes. That’s one downside of having a fancy haircut based on the idea of it always being exactly the right length. It loses its elegance after just a week or so.
‘So, tell me,’ Didrik said. ‘Tell me how far you’ve got.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t. I had to swear not to reveal anything to the police. I don’t think the person who extracted that promise would care to differentiate between talking to the police and what I’m doing now.’
‘Interesting. Who did you make such a stupid promise to?’
His voice was calmer now, his earlier agitation had almost literally blown away.
‘It’s rather in the nature of the beast that I can’t reveal that either.’
Didrik sighed.
‘Let me guess. Lucifer?’
I stopped. Didrik nodded and carried on walking. I hurried after him.
‘If you know who Lucifer is, then you also know that Sara didn’t commit those murders.’
‘Of course,’ Didrik said.
‘So why not reveal what he’s been doing? Is it because of Mio? If only you’d left me alone and hadn’t tried to frame me for those murders. Then you’d have had the case solved. You’d . . .’
‘Yeah, why not keep telling me what else I could have done? You fucking idiot. What makes you think that you and I are in fundamentally different positions, and that I don’t know what you know?’
I couldn’t walk another metre. Like a child, I sat down on my backside in the sand.
Didrik followed my example, but far more smoothly than I had just done. That was always one of the differences between us. He wasn’t just elegant on the surface like I was. Didrik was the real deal. Stylish, down to his very marrow.
‘Let’s take it from the start,’ I said. ‘Sara came to see you after that first interview. She knew she was going to be found guilty of murder and she wanted to find a solution for Mio. Is that how I should understand what you’re saying?’
‘Yes. I assumed she came to see me because I was in the police, because Rebecca and I had been kind to her, and because I conducted that first interview with her. She realised I was going to be along for the rest of the ride as well. She believed that Rebecca and I would be both willing and in a position to help her son.’
‘So you said straight away that you and Rebecca could take him? How noble.’
‘It’s difficult to summarise the story so long afterwards. Sara had no idea of the position we were in, that Sebbe wasn’t well and that we were fighting tooth and nail to get him treated. She stayed with us until early the next morning, talking and talking. I told her she was foolish to be so frightened. If she was innocent, she wouldn’t be convicted. The story she told us, dear God, I’d never heard anything like it.’
‘But you believed her?’
‘No, I didn’t. But I realised that she was very, very upset. I even toyed with the idea that she might be guilty. That that was why she had come to see me, so that afterwards, if the evidence changed, she’d be able to say: “I told you this would happen.” Then everything unfolded horribly quickly. Overnight there was suddenly a mountain of evidence, and at the same time she made her confession. She was charged and remanded in custody, and Mio was placed with foster parents.’
He fell silent.
‘Tell me how you went from thinking Sara was lying to believing her, and then also taking responsibility for her son.’
Didrik swallowed.
‘That . . . that may not have been entirely voluntary,’ he said. ‘Not to start with. Look, Rebecca and I have never been able to have children. We used to dream of having four kids, but we weren’t able to have a single one. It took years to adopt Sebbe. We both turned forty a couple of years ago. If we’d wanted to adopt another child, we were starting to run out of time. Early last year we tried to get going with another adoption application. But then that fucking report of abuse appeared out of nowhere just a month or so later. I feel nothing but contempt towards an awful lot of people involved in that. The preschool staff who wouldn’t listen, the doctors who didn’t take us seriously when we asked for help. Because of course we knew we hadn’t hit Sebbe, that there was something else wrong. He was tired, in pain, and there were those marks on his skin that the preschool staff said were bruises. But the weeks passed and we didn’t get any help. It was a seriously fucking thin silver lining when the doctors here in Denmark told us that there had never been any “in time” for Sebbe. We might have been able to get a few more months with him, but there was never any chance of anything better than that.’
Didrik stopped to catch his breath, take a pause in the story of how his life fell apart.
‘Sara came and asked for help just after we found out that Sebbe was sick. I didn’t believe her. Not until she was remanded in custody, and there was another knock on our door.’
‘Jenny or Bobby came to see you,’ I said.
‘Wrong. Lucifer.’
It was like falling through ice and finding yourself in astonishingly cold water.
‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘I can’t believe that. Lucifer would never come in person. He’d send an envoy.’
‘You’d think so. But not on that occasion. I don’t have much reason to think that I misunderstood something as important as that. But I did make the mistake of reacting the same way as you at first. Seeing as he was armed, I had to let him in. He was standing on the front step with a gun in his hand. I was alone in the house. We sat down in the living room. He explained how he wanted everything to play out, and warned me against involving my colleagues in what I had heard and what was coming my way. It was Sara who led him to me. She didn’t realise how closely he was watching her at the time. After that first interview with the police she never took another step without being watched.’
‘What exactly did Lucifer want?’
‘For me to take care of Mio.’
‘But . . .’
‘I refused, said it couldn’t happen the way he wanted. He’d worked out that it would be impossible to take Mio back to the USA, and was therefore asking for my help. First I was to abduct him. Then hide him. And then, once everything had calmed down, fly to the States with him and hand him over to Lucifer.’
‘You refused, of course?’
‘Obviously. I pointed out that it was impossible to travel anywhere with a child who was the subject of a nationwide search. But as you know by now, not much is voluntary when it comes to Lucifer. He thought Mio could travel on Sebbe’s passport, more or less the way people-traffickers work. You travel using the passport of someone you resemble. When I said I wasn’t going to cooperate with him, he asked me where Rebecca and Sebbe were. I said something vague, like “Out doing something”. In actual fact they were at the doctor’s. Lucifer grinned and said, “Call them”. So I did.’
Dark clouds were rolling towards us from the sea. There was rain on the way, possibly even a storm. I was freezing, but couldn’t have cared less.
‘They didn’t answer,’ I said quietly.
‘Oh, but they did. Rebecca was crying like a child and Sebbe was screaming in the background. Lucifer took the phone from me and told me he’d be back in three days. By then I needed to decide what I was going to do, whether I was going to cooperate or not. If not, Rebecca and Sebbe would die. And if I accepted, I would get them back the same day. I was utterly fucking terrified. I demanded their immediate return, said he could have everything he wanted. He refused to negotiate. I would be without my family for three days, no more, no less. It was a complete nightmare. I had the sense that he was absolutely everywhere, that he knew everyone. Obviously I know what you’re supposed to do if you’re blackmailed. Always, always contact the police. But that simply wasn’t possible. Because I knew he wasn’t messing about. If it came to it, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to murder my wife and child. And he’d get away with it. I realised that from what Sara had told me. Not that I ever shared her story with anyone else.’
Didrik’s eyes were dark as he looked at me.
‘Those days without Rebecca and Sebbe were the longest in my life. When Lucifer called to ask what I wanted to do, I would have given him anything. I shouted down the phone that I’d do everything he wanted if I could just have Rebecca and Sebbe back. They were dumped at a rest area on the motorway just north of Stockholm. Rebecca couldn’t walk. She’d been beaten black and blue. I took her to A&E and said she’d been attacked in the city. But of course the doctors could see that some of the injuries were several days old. So they reported me for abuse. There was an investigation, but it was dropped. Rebecca said she’d fallen down the stairs. Caught her hand in the car door. Got attacked in the street. By then we’d already started planning our move to Denmark. It was only a matter of weeks before we were off; having cash from the sale of the house worked miracles. In Sweden, Sara’s case rumbled on. Under any other circumstances I’d have abandoned work and taken some time off to be with my family. But after Lucifer’s visit I didn’t dare to; I needed to keep an eye on how Sara’s case developed. I didn’t know she was planning to run. She called me from a phone that came up as unidentified: it later turned out to be a pay-as-you-go mobile. “Can you take Mio?” she sobbed. “You have to take him! To stop his father finding him.” ’
The memories seemed to overwhelm Didrik, and he started to cry. I hadn’t had any idea that he had also been accused of wife-beating.
‘She didn’t know Lucifer had contacted you?’ I said, astonished at what I was hearing.
‘No, and I spared her from that. I said she had to hand herself in to the police, but obviously she wasn’t interested in doing that. Her life was over, finished. The only thing she wanted, all she needed to know, was that Mio would be safe. So I gave her my word. I promised to do my best.’
‘I heard that Sara’s friend Jenny had travelled to Sweden to look after Mio,’ I said.
‘That may be so, but if she did it was without Sara’s knowledge.’
‘As I understand it, it was a plan they’d come up with together.’
‘I’m not sure I can believe that.’
So Lucifer’s envoy had filled my head with shit when he called to give me the task of finding Mio. Not that there was anything odd about that, seeing as he’d lied about everything else.
‘Okay, so you promised to do your best. Together with Rakel?’
He looked surprised when I mentioned Rakel’s name.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was a friend of Sara’s, and it was Sara’s idea that she should help. After she abducted Mio she looked after him for a few days. I think she wanted him for herself. But that was never an option. She wouldn’t have been able to protect him.’
I remembered my own encounters with Rakel. Remembered the sex.
‘She was a very loyal friend to Sara, that Rakel,’ I said.
‘You have your weaknesses,’ Didrik said.
‘Were you worried the stuff about the Porsche wouldn’t be enough? Was that why you needed my DNA?’
I refused to say the word sperm. Refused.
‘The first time it was just about finding out how much you knew,’ Didrik said. ‘Rakel was already up to her eyes in shit – it didn’t take much to persuade her to do what she had to do. But things had changed before the second time you met a few days later. Basically, it was absolutely vital that you got caught. So getting hold of some of your DNA was a good idea.’
Madness, I thought. As well as repugnant.
‘And you had to drag Herman into this mess as well?’
‘Herman is a man with very few friends. Rakel needed somewhere else to stay, and his little summer cottage was ideal. At first we thought we’d be able to hide Mio there when the time came, but that plan soon fell apart. Herman wanted the house back so he could sell it.’
‘So Rakel got the terraced house in Solna instead?’
‘I don’t know about “got”. She was already looking for a place when she was staying out in Årsta havsbad. A summer cottage with so-called “summer water” and a chemical toilet is hardly a permanent solution, after all.’
I changed tack.
‘You snatched Mio the same day Sara disappeared,’ I said.
Didrik nodded.
‘That wasn’t the plan, originally, but all the commotion meant that it was a good opportunity. That was a terrible, terrible day.’
Didrik rubbed his chin with his hand. It started to rain and we stood up. We were walking into the wind as we headed back towards Didrik’s house.
‘And then Sebbe died,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘And Mio became Sebbe? Because no one would notice if you replaced one black kid with another?’
Didrik snorted.
‘Of course they would. That was why we had to stay here, where no one knows us. Mio needed a new identity, so he assumed Sebbe’s. That was the simplest solution.’
I didn’t buy that. There was something Didrik wasn’t telling me.
‘But didn’t Sebbe have grandparents who’d want to see their grandson regularly?’ I said. ‘Or other relatives?’
‘I haven’t actually had any contact with my parents since I inherited my grandmother’s amazing house,’ Didrik said. ‘Rebecca’s father is dead, and her mum had a stroke just over a year ago. She hasn’t been right since then. We’ve both got brothers and sisters, but we fell out with them, partly on purpose, when we moved to Denmark. They seriously thought we should give up the dream of saving Sebbe. Because of course the doctors were all saying it was hopeless, so we were only prolonging his suffering by trying to find new solutions abroad.’
‘Siblings can be bastards,’ I said helpfully, even though I had never thought of my sister in those terms. Her husband was a different story, though.
‘True,’ Didrik said.
But I still didn’t understand.
‘Why turn Mio into Sebbe? I mean, you knew – still know – that Lucifer will demand to have him back. Is he going to – and I’m sorry for the choice of words – die again? Really? Wouldn’t it have been easier to give him a different name? Besides, here in Denmark Sebbe is officially dead.’
‘You’ve got a lot of questions,’ Didrik said. ‘Rebecca and Sebbe are registered at an address in Malmö, mostly to keep the Danish authorities and Stockholm Council off our backs. You see, Sebbe isn’t officially dead in either Denmark or Sweden. He died at home, here in Ebeltoft, and we never registered his death. We told the hospital in Copenhagen that we’d taken him home to Sweden once it was clear that their treatment wasn’t helping him. And we told the hospital in Stockholm that Sebbe was still being treated in Denmark. But we stayed here and let him die in his new home. That was the only way for Mio to assume his identity. By keeping Sebbe’s death a secret.’
As a plan it was so full of holes that it could have capsized at any moment. All the same, it evidently hadn’t done so. Didrik carried on with life in Stockholm while Rebecca lived in Denmark as a full-time mum, initially to a dying child, then to a child who had made a miraculous recovery.
‘Doesn’t Mio suffer from epilepsy?’ I said.
‘Yes. We’ve found a doctor here who prescribes his medication. It’s pretty straightforward.’
I stopped. The rain stung my face. I needed to gather my thoughts. Didrik’s torrent of words and information contained something that had passed me by completely.
Something crucial.
Didrik had taken Mio because Lucifer forced him to.
So why the hell had I been told to find the missing child?
‘Lucifer,’ I said hoarsely. ‘It sounds like you’ve had plenty of contact with him.’
‘More than I’d like.’
‘So he knows where you live? He knows where Mio is?’
‘Yes.’
I shook my head. This was a whole new level of madness. It didn’t make sense. It mustn’t make sense.
‘You’re going to have to hand him back,’ I said.
‘No, Martin, we’re not going to do that. We’ve bought our freedom.’
‘How the fuck have you done that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Didrik looked out over the sea. His face was pale and taut.
‘I picked up Mio in Stockholm one week before Sebbe died,’ he said. ‘Seven days from hell. By then we’d left Copenhagen and moved into this house. We hid Mio and Sebbe from the outside world. I can’t even begin to describe how lonely Mio must have felt then. Because of course Rebecca and I were fully occupied with Sebbe. It was terrible. Terrible! We sat up all night after Sebbe died, talking about what to do. You have no idea . . . you can’t even begin to imagine . . . the extent of the self-loathing . . . and the grief . . . nothing but absolute blackness. And, in the midst of all that: Mio. It . . . it was Lucifer who forced us to give him Sebbe’s identity. To make it easier to move him, so to speak. In spite of all the new problems that caused. We relented, after a lot of anguish. Today I’m quite pleased it turned out that way. It was an opportunity that was never going to come again, if I can put it like that.’
So Lucifer was the brains behind the idea of turning Mio into Sebbe. I should have realised.
Over the previous few weeks I had told anyone who was prepared to listen that I didn’t know Didrik very well. I barely knew his son’s name, I’d never been to his home. But the word ‘know’ has many meanings. I thought I knew Didrik in the sense that he was predictable. Now I knew that wasn’t the case. There were so many aspects of his story that I wanted to talk about that I hardly knew where to start.
‘Where did you bury him?’
Didrik shivered when he replied.
‘In the garden. Under the apple tree,’ he said.
His voice was only a whisper away from cracking.
I didn’t want to hear any more. It was the notion of it being ‘an opportunity’ that was the problem. I had missed something in Didrik’s story. Something he had already said. ‘We’re not going to hand him back.’
‘Lucifer was in no rush to have Mio,’ Didrik said. ‘Not at first. Several months passed, and spring came. Then he began to get impatient, and wanted his son. I kept coming up with objections, said I couldn’t travel to the USA just then. And then, thanks to you, we got an opportunity to keep Mio.’
‘How?’
‘I agreed to give Lucifer something he wanted more than his son.’
‘And what the fuck might that be?’
Didrik turned his head and looked at me.
‘You, Martin. He wants you.’