Families are terrible things. I even hate the word. Family members are the only people we don’t choose for ourselves. And they’re the only people we are expected to love, and – on top of all the other crap – actually spend time with. Even if we don’t have anything in common. Even if we don’t like each other.
I’ve never felt so alienated from the whole concept of family as that day when I sat drinking coffee in a café in Houston – and, completely out of the blue, saw my brother standing less than four metres away. I knew that was who he was. Because he was a carbon copy of the father we shared. I couldn’t stop my eyes from roaming. They settled on Simon, who was absorbed in his work behind the counter. He didn’t look anything like the man who had been my father. Nor had Tony. They must have taken after their mother. I drank my coffee. Looked up again. And found myself gazing straight into Vincent’s dark eyes.
The charade was over. Neither of us said anything. But my senses have never been more receptive to impressions than they were at that moment. There wasn’t a single change in colour, a single detail, a single sound or a single smell that I didn’t register. I soaked it all up, and I can remember all of it. From the corner of my eye I saw that Simon’s pattern of movement had changed. He’d stopped when he caught sight of me and his brother.
‘Vincent?’ he said.
No one seemed to react. The customers went on placing their orders, the staff went on serving them. But not Simon. And not Vincent. And not me.
‘Vincent?’ Simon repeated.
He was the younger brother, that was all too obvious. The one who didn’t know how to deal with problems he was faced with. The one who always turned to his older brother for advice.
‘It’s okay,’ Vincent said. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
He didn’t take his eyes off me for a second.
‘Okay,’ Simon said, still unsure of what he was expected to do.
‘But not here,’ Vincent said, and now he was talking to me.
I didn’t move from my chair, with my elbows on the table and the mug of coffee in my hand. I should have been scared, but that and every other emotion was consumed by the overwhelming sense of surprise. At once, every word that Simon had uttered made sense.
Their family didn’t want anything to do with me.
It was no more complicated than that. And it needn’t have become any more complicated, because I didn’t want anything to do with them either. Was I going to have to die for such a simple reason? I couldn’t understand how that could be the case.
During the time I lived in Texas I had met my father a handful of times. He never invited me home. I had dug out his address for myself and seen where he lived. I slid past his house countless times, and knew I’d seen family members come and go. An angry woman and young men of my own age. He’d worked hard, my dad. Had four sons with two different women in the space of five years. His new family had been a fact even by the time my mother left the USA. But we didn’t realise that until much later. During our few meetings he led me to understand that his new woman had known about me and Marianne all along. The reason why she still decided to make a go of their relationship was that Dad had promised that we – my mother and I – would soon be out of his life. Which of course turned out to be true.
‘I didn’t know who you were,’ I said to Vincent. ‘I didn’t know Tony was my brother.’
I still didn’t understand the ramifications of that. What did they hold me responsible for? What did they think I had done to my brother that was so unforgivable? After all, it was Vincent and his brothers and mother who had drawn the winning ticket. They’d had a father who was present in their family as a father and husband.
‘Not here, I said,’ Vincent said. ‘We were supposed to meet later. Couldn’t you wait?’
I chose not to answer his question. I assumed he was armed, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to shoot me in the head in front of all the customers, that much was certain.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
He nodded to get me to stand up. I did so slowly, leaving the coffee on the table.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘Outside,’ he said.
He indicated that I should walk out of the café ahead of him. The pavement was now in the shade, and that was the only good thing about the situation I found myself in.
We stopped a short distance apart. Not far, but not close enough to be able to touch each other. If I stretched out my hand I wouldn’t quite have reached him.
‘It’s seven o’clock now,’ Vincent said. ‘I suggest you go and have a nice meal, then we’ll meet as planned at nine o’clock.’
‘No,’ I said.
I didn’t like the way he said I should ‘go and have a nice meal’. As if he was offering me a last meal.
Vincent’s eyes flashed.
‘Are you so fucking stupid that you still think you have a choice?’
There were more answers to that question than he could possibly count.
‘Yes, I’m afraid I probably am,’ I said.
Vincent snorted with derision.
‘You must have had a really shit mother. So little love and respect you feel for your own family.’
He crossed a boundary there. The fact that I think Marianne was a fucking useless mother was one thing. Other people thinking it is another matter altogether. If it weren’t for the anxiety his second sentence prompted, I’d probably have gone on the attack. But I managed to stay calm enough to respond rationally. What did he mean by ‘my own family’? He could hardly mean himself and Simon. So presumably he meant Belle and Lucy.
Was he threatening them?
It sounded like it.
‘There’s not much you can teach me about love and respect,’ I said.
‘We can discuss that later. Nine o’clock. Where Pastor Parson was buried. Exactly as planned.’
‘I said no,’ I said.
‘Then Lucy and Belle will die. Your choice.’
And with that I knew for sure. Any last fragile doubts that Vincent might not be Lucifer but one of his agents vanished. Vincent was Lucifer. An ordinary middle-class American who had done reasonably well for himself in the police force, someone who didn’t stand out in any way. But, more than anything, Lucifer was my own brother.
‘You’re thinking of killing your own niece,’ I said. ‘You fucking bastard, who the hell are you to lecture me about family love?’
‘Unless I’ve been wrongly informed, Belle isn’t my niece. She’s yours. And I’m not related to your sister at all. Or am I wrong?’
‘That depends how you define parenthood,’ I said, feeling my courage waver. ‘Belle has been my daughter since she was a baby. She has no parents apart from me.’
Vincent laughed.
‘Poor kid,’ he said.
Then he became serious again.
‘We’ll meet at nine o’clock,’ he said. ‘Don’t be late.’
He turned to go.
‘I said no,’ I said in a raised voice.
My words made a few other people on the pavement react. As did Vincent. He froze mid-stride. He turned round slowly.
‘You wouldn’t dare behave like that unless you thought Lucy and Belle were okay,’ he said. ‘So let me simplify things for you: I know exactly where they are. And I can kill them both in less than – let’s say – ten minutes.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said.
‘It’s the truth,’ he said.
Then he took out his mobile and called someone who answered remarkably quickly.
‘Where are you?’ I heard him say.
My stomach contracted with fear.
‘You just got there? I see, that’s useful. And you’re . . .? What was her name? I see, excellent. Madeleine Rossander’s house. Belle is wearing her pink jacket and is asleep. Lucy is carrying her from the car.’
The ground opened up beneath my feet and I fell.
Vincent watched me with intense interest. He put the phone back in his trouser pocket again.
‘You know what? Why not call and warn your loved ones?’ he said. ‘It’s great when people try to escape into the darkness.’
I didn’t answer. It was night in Sweden. Lucy, probably exhausted, was carrying Belle from the car, fumbling with the keys and going to ground in Madeleine Rossander’s summer cottage. With the enemy right outside.
This was way beyond fucked up.
Vincent tilted his head to one side.
‘So we’ll meet at nine o’clock, as arranged?’
I nodded. Beaten and defeated, beyond salvation.
I said: ‘And then you’ll leave Lucy and Belle alone? If you get me instead?’
He said: ‘Of course.’
That did it. I was going to die, and Belle and Lucy would be allowed to live. The realisation left me feeling numb.
Of course.
Vincent sounded genuinely surprised when he answered my question. As if he couldn’t understand how I could think he was going to deceive me about a thing like that. What they say is true. There’s a gentleman hidden inside every bastard.
He turned round one last time before we went our separate ways.
‘By the way, don’t even think about calling your friend Didrik, or anyone else.’
He didn’t have to worry about that.
‘Of course not,’ I said.
‘Especially not Didrik. Because you won’t get any joy from him.’
I’d realised that.
‘Thanks, I already know that,’ I said.
His eyes darkened.
‘So you already know?’
‘What?’
‘That he’s dead.’
I didn’t know where to turn. Death was everywhere. I managed to think that I must have been followed when I drove from Stockholm to Malmö. That Vincent had found out that Didrik and I were plotting against him.
Vincent was Lucifer.
Lucifer was my own brother.
‘He died in a car crash.’
‘Really?’
I didn’t know what to say. There are an infinite number of ways you can kill a person.
But then Vincent said: ‘It pained me to hear that. He deserved a better fate.’
‘So you didn’t kill him?’
The words came out by themselves, I couldn’t stop them, still less take them back.
‘No, certainly not. I had other plans for him. He and Rebecca died instantly. A tragedy for all concerned. And evidently you still trusted him, in spite of everything he’d done to you?’
That last sentence made me blink.
‘I don’t know that I’d call it trust,’ I said. ‘I—’
‘You thought you had a deal. Sadly Didrik couldn’t handle the pressure. He realised, of course, that I’d find out sooner or later, so he called and told me everything. That you’d showed up and had found Mio. Sad, isn’t it?’
Sad was the word.
He put on a pair of sunglasses and brushed something from the sleeve of his jacket. He was evidently about to go. I had one more question I wanted an answer to.
‘What about Mio?’ I said. ‘What happened to him?’
Vincent fixed his gaze on something far behind me.
‘That seems to be the eternal question, doesn’t it? What happened to Mio?’
Then he turned and walked away.