Without a Trace (7 page)

The lights in the stairwell went on with a humming sound that spread up through the building. She ran up the steps, past the leaded windows looking out onto the courtyard, her heart thudding. Suddenly she was in front of the brass nameplate, shimmering in the glow of the low-energy bulb:

Their surnames, and those of their children. The sight of it always made her pulse quicken. She unlocked the door and stepped into the hall, removed her jacket and kicked off her shoes. ‘Hello, everyone!’

Kalle and Ellen came running out of the living room, gave her a quick hug, then disappeared back to their video game.

Then Jimmy was there, his brown hair on end, wearing an apron and a pair of running shoes, holding a wooden spoon. She put her hands to his face. felt his unshaven cheek under her fingers as she kissed him on the lips. ‘Hello,’ she murmured.

‘Hello, you.’

She pressed up to him.

‘You’ll mess up your clothes,’ he muttered into her mouth. ‘I’ve spilled some sauce on the apron.’ But he put a hand to the base of her spine and drew her to him.

She kissed him again.

‘When’s food ready?’

Jimmy let go of her abruptly. His daughter, Serena, was standing right next to them. Her eyes were cold and black. ‘In a quarter of an hour. Do you want to help Annika lay the table?’

She turned away and went back to her room.

Jimmy disappeared into the kitchen. Annika followed him and put the things she had bought on the way home in the freezer, then laid the table in the dining room, six places.

‘Could you get the water?’ Jimmy said, as he brought in the casserole dish and a frying-pan.

She carried two jugs to the table.

‘Will you call the kids?’ she asked, feeling a pang of cowardice.

Serena and her twin brother Jacob lived with Jimmy all the time. Their mother, Angela Sisulu, worked for the South African government and lived in Johannesburg. She had been awarded her PhD while she was working part-time as a model, and was the cause of Annika’s huge inferiority complex.

Kalle and Ellen came into the dining room, and Kalle hovered close to Annika so he could be next to her. She sat at the table and started to ladle the stew onto the children’s plates. Neither Serena nor Jacob looked at her as they took their seats. Serena identified strongly with her mother: she had the same cornrow plaits, and wore the same colourful cotton blouses. She was chatty and talkative with everyone but Annika. Annika wasn’t allowed to touch her, help with her hair, do her coat up or give her a goodnight hug. Jacob looked a lot like Jimmy, and his hair was an unruly mess, just like his dad’s. He was quieter, more uncertain than his sister and a little easier to reach.

Jimmy sat down opposite Annika and spooned some of the stew onto his own plate. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Good and bad things about today. Kalle, you start.’

Kalle took his time chewing the food in his mouth, then put his knife and fork down. ‘I scored a goal when we played football during the lunch break. But Adam in 5B tackled me and pushed me over in the mud.’

Kalle’s accounts of school life always revolved around his friends and what they had done or not done to him, around arguments and confessions, and how others perceived him.

‘The next Zlatan,’ Jimmy said, giving the boy a high five. ‘Jacob?’

‘We got our maths tests back, and I got them all right. In geography we had to write an essay about the different ways people live and the conditions of life in different parts of the world, but I’d already done that so I was allowed to have a go on Google Earth instead.’

Annika kept her expression neutral: it seemed so odd to hear a ten-year-old express himself like that. He never presented any bad experiences at the dinner table, just validation-seeking successes. He and Jimmy high-fived as well.

Serena dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. ‘We did a dress rehearsal of the musical. Neo hasn’t learned his lines and Liam messed up the guitar part.’ She sighed.

Ellen thought for a moment before she spoke. ‘We had a lovely lunch – pancakes and strawberry jam.’

Ellen rarely had anything negative to report, but Annika was fairly sure that wasn’t because she was fishing for praise. She knew that the glass was half full while Kalle and Serena assumed it would soon be empty.

‘We managed to get a new piece of proposed legislation through Parliament, to increase control of the financial sector,’ Jimmy said. ‘And on the way home I stepped in a puddle and one of my shoes got soaked through.’

Ellen giggled.

Annika wasn’t sure if she approved of Jimmy’s bureaucratic accounts of government work at the dinner table. Maybe it was good for the children to become acquainted with the vocabulary so they grasped that working life was complicated and full of responsibility, but there was also the possibility that it would make them arrogant. She didn’t know which was more likely.

Jimmy looked at her encouragingly. She put down her knife and fork. ‘The good thing is that I got a new work colleague today. He’s a young man who’s going to be doing practical experience on the paper over the summer, and I’m going to be his supervisor. The bad bit was getting stuck in a traffic jam inside a tunnel for almost an hour.’

‘You sound like you’re a lorry driver,’ Serena muttered.

To her dismay, Annika’s eyes filled with tears. Why did the girl have to be so unkind to her?

‘Annika got some ice-cream on the way home,’ Jimmy said. ‘Would anyone like any?’

‘
Yeees!
’ Kalle, Ellen and Jacob cried.

Serena tossed her hair back. ‘No, thanks.’

Annika cleared the table while Kalle got the ice-cream out of the freezer.

Once the sprinkles, the caramel sauce and the Belgian strawberries were on the table, Serena changed her mind and helped herself to a big dishful.

After dinner Jimmy disappeared into the combined office and library. Ellen and Annika filled the dishwasher. The other children slumped in front of the television.

‘Aren’t we supposed to be with Daddy this week?’ Ellen said, as she put the forks in their own compartment in the cutlery tray.

Annika wiped the worktop. ‘Yes, you are, but Daddy isn’t feeling very well, and he’s got such a lot to do at work …’

‘Don’t you and Jimmy have a lot to do at work?’

Annika put the dishcloth down, sat on a chair at the kitchen table and pulled her daughter onto her lap. ‘I’m just pleased I get to have you with me,’ she whispered, kissing Ellen’s ear.

‘Can’t you move home again? To Daddy?’

Annika’s arms stiffened. ‘Daddy and I don’t love each other any more. I live here now, with Jimmy.’

‘But Daddy loves you. He said so.’

She put the child down. ‘Thanks for helping,’ she said. ‘Off you go and play now.’

She was left sitting in the kitchen, alone.

*

I still don’t understand where they come from, how they can be so complete, so contained. Sometimes I can see myself in them, and maybe Ingemar, but they’re unique. The combination of potential inherited traits is exactly the same in all three of them but they’re still so different. You can’t even see that they’re related.

They’re part of me. I created, carried and gave birth to them, but ever since they began to breathe they’ve been entirely themselves. I’m replaceable, just like their father. The thought makes me feel breathless. Could I live without them?

*

The man shifted position among the low fir-trees at the edge of the forest. There were still forensics officers working inside the house. At least three, possibly four, he could see their shadows move behind the net curtains. He actually felt great respect for the methodical way they went about their work, the pride they took in it. By extension, it was a reflection of the value of his own contribution, and their regard for his professionalism.

He was patient. There was no hurry. Sooner or later she would appear. As he waited he focused on his breathing. He liked to live each moment consciously, and breathing anchored him in the here and now.

But in his mind he wasn’t there at all.

He was in a restaurant in Stockholm. He had invited a work colleague to dinner and was discussing the purchase of some forest in Hälsingland. They had come to the conclusion that the amount of timber available was considerably higher than the survey had indicated – it had probably been carried out during the winter, the depth of the snow not taken into account.

He moved deeper among the trees.

He was aware that he was leaving footprints in the soft snow, but the cheap trainers he was wearing could never be traced back to him, or to his mirror-image. He would get rid of them as soon as he left Solsidan.

He looked upwards, peering through the branches of the firs. The rain had stopped, but the wind was tugging at the branches, and dark clouds were scudding across the sky. He regretted not being able to hear the rustling of the treetops. Tomorrow would be another cold, wet day. That would make things more difficult, considering what he was probably going to have to do. Not insurmountable, just slightly more complicated.

But he wasn’t the sort of person to dwell on negatives. He saw possibilities where other people focused on problems. Maybe she was on her way. Maybe she was just waiting for the forensics team to pack up and leave. He was patient. There was no hurry. He saw one of the forensics officers inside the house straighten his back and yawn.

Maybe it was almost time.

Sooner or later she would come.

The meeting room was at the end of the corridor on the eighth floor. Nina stepped through the door at nine o’clock sharp, not sure whether she should have been a little early or a few minutes late. The room was large and light, with windows on both sides, and was crowded with furniture. Straight ahead, a blank wall acted as a huge noticeboard. It was covered with information about ongoing cases she knew nothing about, one of them apparently called PLAYA.

The others had already arrived, three of them – evidently the recently convened investigative team. Commissioner Q was one of them, today dressed in a pink Hawaiian shirt. A large man, with a bald head and serious sideburns, introduced himself to her as Johansson, the group’s secretary. He looked mournful. Nina shook his hand. The Barbie doll from yesterday, who had supplied her with a passcard and a computer and had shown her to her desk, was also there. Her name was Lamia Regnard, and she worked as an investigator and researcher. Her face was lit up like a sunrise.

‘Have you had coffee?’ Q asked, passing Nina a mug. She took it and sat down. The others were at neighbouring desks, surrounded by pads and sheets of paper, which they leafed through and read as they drank from similar mugs. Lamia was staring intently at a laptop.

‘Why do you think Turkey are going to win?’ she asked. ‘They haven’t won since Sertab represented them in 2003.’

‘It’s the final on Saturday,’ Johansson explained, glancing at Nina.

The Eurovision Song Contest.

He handed out copies of the forensic report from the crime scene, then leafed back through his notepad. Nina looked through the seven-page report, trying to block out Lamia’s singing.

‘Who wants to start?’ Q asked, leaning back in his desk chair.

Lamia put down her mug and pushed back her laptop. She adjusted her hair, then began to speak from memory.

‘We’ve had a reply from the mobile operator. According to them, it was the wife, Nora Lerberg, who alerted the emergency services. The trace indicates that she was in the vicinity of Solsidan station at the time. That’s about four hundred metres from the house.’

Nina’s mind instantly flew back to the crime scene, and she saw Solsidan from above, the house at the end of the narrow road, the forest, the footpaths. That was where the wife had called from. Why? Why did she go to the station before sounding the alarm? It must have taken something like five minutes – five minutes that might have been critically important. She must have had an extremely good reason. Clearly she wanted to stay out of the way. Unless she’d thought he was dead.

‘Is there a recording of the call?’ Q asked.

Lamia poured herself some more coffee from a flask. ‘It wasn’t a call – she sent a text message.’

Nina opened her mouth to protest: it wasn’t possible to text the emergency services.

Lamia went on: ‘You can do that if you register your number in advance on the internet. Nora Lerberg registered both her mobile phones about six months ago.’ She gabbled off the numbers.

Johansson was writing quickly. Nina wondered why the woman had memorized them.

‘Why does she have two mobiles?’ Q asked.

Lamia fiddled with her hair.

‘I’ve got two as well,’ Johansson said. ‘One for work, and a private one.’

‘What did the text message say?’ Q asked.

Lamia tilted her head to one side. ‘Help. And then the address.’

‘And Nora Lerberg hasn’t turned up overnight?’

‘Negative.’

‘What do we know about her?’

‘Nora Maria Andersson Lerberg, born on the ninth of September, twenty-seven this year, married to Ingemar for eight years. Gave up studying economics at Stockholm University. Housewife.’

Why would she have a work mobile if she was a housewife? Nina wondered.

‘Okay,’ Q said. ‘Obvious possibilities. Is she dead? Injured? Could the perpetrators have taken her with them? Has there been any sort of ransom demand?’

Lamia shook her head.

‘What about the children?’

‘They’ve been with their aunt, Kristine Lerberg, since Thursday. Ingemar’s sister lives at Grusvägen fifteen in Vikingshill.’

‘Okay. We’ll be treating Nora Lerberg’s disappearance as a separate investigation from now on. Can you put out an alert, Lamia?’

She nodded, blonde curls bouncing. She pulled her laptop towards her and began to feed the command into the system. ‘The risk factor is high,’ she said, still typing. ‘Hospitals and mortuaries were checked yesterday. Nora Lerberg’s computer and one of her mobiles were still in the house. The computer’s with forensics, and we’ve requested the call histories of both mobiles.’