You're Mine Now (20 page)

Magnus phoned. And even though he mostly talked about Kathrine’s disappearance, Anna could hear it in his voice, the injured martyr, the only faithful person in a world of cheats.

‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘What did the police say?’

‘I’ve just spoken to them. They’ve requested the phone log so they can see where she’s been.’

‘Good,’ Magnus said.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ Anna whispered, with a tremble in her voice.

‘Maybe the phone wasn’t working,’ Magnus suggested. ‘So she went to Väla to buy a new one and dumped the old one…’

‘… in a rubbish bin?’ Anna snorted. ‘She said that she was going to Ditte’s. Why would she lie about that?’

Magnus breathed slowly.

‘You said that she’d phoned the national registry.’

‘Yes.’

‘They have information about where people live, what their parents are called, if they’re married. Maybe she’s gone to search out the guy’s father.’

Anna heard the pause. She couldn’t work out whether her husband wanted to avoid the issue or draw attention to it.

‘Or maybe someone nicked or found the phone,’ he continued. ‘And then saw that it had that search app on it and got rid of it as quickly as possible.’

‘Magnus.’

‘I’m trying to be constructive. We mustn’t always think the worst, even though that might be harder from now on.’

‘Darling, I’m so sorry. If there was anything I could do to… Total madness, I don’t know what got into me. It won’t happen again. I promise.’

‘Be careful what you promise.’

Anna said nothing.

‘Well,’ Magnus concluded, ‘the main thing is that we find your mother. We can deal with the rest later.’

‘I’ll phone as soon as I hear anything.’

‘Outgoing call to Anna’s mobile, two seconds, Drottninggatan 11.47.’

‘Two seconds?’ Karlsson exclaimed, half-lying on his chair as normal, with his hands folded on his belly.

‘The answerphone kicked in and she hung up,’ Gerda explained, and carried on. ‘Outgoing call to Anna’s direct line at work, thirty-three seconds. Drottninggatan 11.48.’

‘Thirty-three seconds? But Anna didn’t talk to her mother, did she?’

‘She was transferred to the main switchboard.’

‘Okay,’ Karlsson nodded to himself.

‘Missed call from
Family Journal
12.33, also received at Drottninggatan. Text message sent at 13.04: “In Denmark with Ditte, will call tomorrow”
.
Sent from Drottninggatan. Text message received from Anna 13.07: “Copenhagen? Again? Have fun, say hello”. Text message sent 13.10: “Thank you, will do”.’

‘All from Drottninggatan.’

‘Yep. After that, the Danish friend tried to get hold of Kathrine through the afternoon and evening. As did the daughter, repeatedly. And the phone was lying in a rubbish bin outside Ikea the whole time. A wonder that the battery lasted as long as it did.’

‘But Kathrine sent all the text messages from Erik Månsson’s flat?’ Karlsson asked.

Gerda nodded.

‘After the thirty-three-second call, she didn’t talk to anyone, only sent and received text messages.’

They sat in silence for a long time.

‘Could Erik Månsson have sent the texts from Kathrine’s phone?’ Gerda asked, eventually.

‘But he wouldn’t know who Ditte was, would he?’ Karlsson said, as he spun halfway round on his chair and looked out over the main road into Helsingborg from the north, and the local newspaper’s building on the other side of the road that resembled a gull.

‘Maybe he went through everything on Kathrine’s mobile, found a long conversation and guessed that they were friends and that they usually met in Denmark,’ Gerda said.

‘Sounds a bit far-fetched,’ Karlsson objected. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘It fits timewise. Kathrine goes to Erik’s flat, they have an argument about the dirty film, things get out of control.’

‘And afterwards he sits down, cool as a cucumber, and answers a text message received on her mobile phone?’ Karlsson was sceptical. ‘Before going up to Väla and dumping the phone? No, no. And where’s the body? What’s he done with it?’

‘It stank of chlorine,’ Gerda said.

‘Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure there’s a natural explanation. Didn’t he say he’d been bleaching clothes? Gerda, please, don’t always think the worst of people. Just because he’s a pervert and a pornographer doesn’t mean to say he’s a butcher.’

Little by little, Karlsson had slipped further down in his chair. His behind was now more or less hanging off the seat. He yawned indifferently and sat up.

‘If the guy had done the dirty he would hardly have told us that Anna’s mother had been there.’

Gerda shrugged.

‘No,’ Karlsson said, in a grown-up manner. ‘The lady has slipped off with a man for a couple of days. She lost her mobile and so can’t contact her daughter. Someone found the phone, picked it up, then regretted it and dumped in the nearest rubbish bin. Does he have a record?’

‘I don’t know. You were going to check.’

‘Was I?’ Karlsson retorted. ‘It was you who was going to do that, we agreed.’

‘I contacted the operator, you were going to look through the databases.’

Karlsson waved his hand in front of him before turning on the computer.

‘Well, well, let’s not get too hung up about that. Now, let’s see what we’ve got.’

He typed in the information, called up a personal ID number which he then fed into a search of the police records. Erik Månsson was mentioned in a report about his mother’s suicide. Karlsson skimmed quickly through the report and then suddenly froze.

‘Come over here,’ he said, without taking his eyes from the screen.

Gerda got up and walked round the desk.

‘What?’

‘Look,’ he said, and pointed at a photograph. ‘Erik’s mother. Who hanged herself from the banister at home.’

‘She looks just like…’

‘Like Anna, precisely.’

Karlsson reached for the phone and rang the officer who had written the report.

‘The son’s name has popped up in connection with something else,’ he said, once he’d explained who he was and why he had called.

He listened for a while.

‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ he said, put the phone down and turned to Gerda. ‘He’s going to call back.’

They both stared at the phone until it finally started to ring.

‘Karlsson.’

Five minutes later he finished the call. Gerda waited in anticipation. The single-syllable words that came from Karlsson’s lips during the conversation bore witness to the fact that Stockholm Police had a story to tell.

‘Oi, oi, oi,’ Karlsson said, rubbing his nose.

Gerda was sitting on the edge of his chair.

‘What?’

Karlsson pointed at the phone.

‘Nice guy. Probably wasn’t a Stockholmer.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That our friend the pornographer was a mother-fucker as well, if the rumours are true. He was also convinced that Erik murdered his mother. But it was impossible to prove.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yep, that certainly changes things.’

‘So, what are we going to do?’

Karlsson clasped his hands over his stomach and twiddled his thumbs while he thought.

‘I think we’ll get a little help from our four-legged friends.’

‘I understand. No, I’ll come. As soon as I can.’

When Anna put the phone down, she could feel Sissela and Trude’s eyes on her.

‘They’re going to take the dogs in,’ she said. ‘I have to get something that smells of Mum.’

Anna collapsed on the floor, her hands shaking. The editorial team were quick on their feet. Sissela commandeered the rescue and ordered someone to fetch some water.

‘Oh, love, don’t think the worst. We don’t know anything yet.’

Trude and Sissela helped her up on to the chair. The water arrived and was handed to Sissela, who gave it to Anna. In the office, even compassion was hierarchical.

‘I have to go,’ Anna said, lowering the glass from her lips. ‘I have to go to my mum’s and get a top or a jacket or something.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ Trude offered.

Anna reached over to put the glass down on her desk. Her arm wasn’t long enough. A resourceful person from layout took the glass from her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said, and laughed with embarrassment when she realised how much drama her collapse had caused.

Sissela put an arm round her.

‘Please, don’t be sorry. Don’t worry. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Just you wait, the police will find her.’

Anna got up, looked at the dozen or so concerned colleagues who had gathered round her.

‘Thank you.’

Trude took her by the arm and Anna let herself be steered out to the car.

‘The advertising guy at Mölle,’ Anna said, as Trude pulled out into the traffic. ‘We slept together.’

‘I know,’ Trude said.

Anna stared at her.

‘I went to knock on his door,’ Trude said. ‘You weren’t exactly being quiet. Made me quite envious. Just a good thing that Sissela wasn’t on the same floor. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.’

‘It’s him,’ Anna said, now looking straight ahead.

Trude didn’t understand what she meant.

‘Him what?’

‘He’s killed Mum.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We had sex together several times. In his flat. He made a video. I told Mum. I think she went there to talk to him. Mum thinks you can talk everyone round, she doesn’t believe that anyone is evil.’

Anna turned towards Trude again.

‘I know that it’s him,’ she said.

‘Have you spoken to him?’

Anna wasn’t listening.

‘He stalked me. This will just go on and on. He won’t stop. I’ve only told part of it to Magnus, not everything. If you saw the video… I’m never like that with Magnus, nowhere near.’

Trude changed gear and then reached her arm out to Anna. She took hold of her hand.

‘It might not be as bad as you think. Do you hear me?’

Erik drove back along the coast, he was in no rush. He made a point of following the gentle flow of traffic, slowing down for the speed bumps and flower boxes, keeping within the speed limit. Even though he didn’t need to. Nor did he need to sit behind the wheel like some chauffeur, for that matter. Wrong from start to finish.

He took the road through the mock-timber idyll of Viken, drove through Domsten’s sad streets slow as a Sunday driver on a rich man’s safari, accelerated a touch in the forest up towards Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle before turning off by the old windmill on to the northern approach to Hittarp.

Erik Månsson wasn’t just anybody. He couldn’t be expected to play by the same rules as everyone else. What his mother had said was true. He was a pharaoh, a ruler destined for greater things. Not just to flog fish in a supermarket, not waste time with a bunch of old advertising has-beens who called themselves creatives. There was a meaning and a purpose. What he and his mother had had was neither sordid nor wrong. It was part of the plan, she had schooled him.

He made his way down to the water, parked by the sandbank and went for a walk. Along the water’s edge through the sparse pine trees to the castle that reminded him of Manderley in Hitchcock’s film
Rebecca
. That’s where he should have lived, instead of being boxed in in a studio flat in the centre.

Erik went up the slope, wading through a thick blanket of beech leaves that hadn’t yet started to decay. He entered the woods that were so full of promise, walked beneath the vault of tree tops that were hundreds of years old.

Kathrine made no difference. Whether she existed or not was of no significance. She was irrelevant to what happened next. Hedda was the one who was important. Without her, the husband would soon be ditched. And Erik wasn’t guessing that, he knew. Fact.

Ten-year-old Hedda was the only reason that Anna stuck with her uninteresting husband. Without the girl, Anna would leave him.

Erik made his way back to the car, shivered off the raw air that had got in under his coat, and set off towards Laröd school.

Anna and Trude took a top and a coat from Kathrine’s flat and then drove to the police station.

The woman in reception had been informed of Anna’s imminent arrival and let them go up before she phoned to say they were there. Anna and Trude stepped out of the lift on the third floor and headed towards Karlsson’s office. The door was open and voices could be heard inside. When Anna appeared in the doorway, they all fell silent. There was no doubt that they were discussing Kathrine’s disappearance. Anna made her way into the room and handed the clothes to Karlsson.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and took them.

‘Do you know any more?’ Anna asked.

‘Nothing substantial. We’ll do a search with the dogs based on the last known positions of her mobile phone.’

‘Väla?’

‘I’ll contact you as soon as I know anything new.’

Anna turned towards the other policemen in the room, her face crumpled. She had a thousand questions, but didn’t know how to formulate a single one.

‘I’ll drive you home now,’ Trude said, taking her by the arm.

Anna twisted herself free.

‘Is it him?’ she cried. ‘Tell me if it’s him. I thought it was over. When the bus went past the other day and I saw him loading removal boxes into his car. I was so glad, thought it was over. That you had frightened him off.’

She was shaking. Her face was trembling and her mouth twisted.

Trude put an arm round her.

‘Come on, we’re leaving,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you home and stay with you until Magnus gets back.’

Anna nodded gratefully and let herself be led out.

Börje attached the skip to the hook and took out the remote control. He lifted it carefully so the contents wouldn’t fall out. Kent stood beside him and watched.

‘So,’ he said, ‘straight to the new incinerator in Filborna then?’

‘Naah, it’s not ready yet.’

‘So on to the tip then?’

‘Yep.’

The skip was manoeuvred carefully over towards the back of the flatbed truck. The angle revealed what was inside.

‘When will we get a new one?’ Kent asked.

‘As soon as I’ve emptied this one. I’ll be back within the hour.’

‘Good.’

Börje looked at the waste.

‘You sure it’s all good for incineration? Those plastic bags, what’s in them?’

‘Haven’t a fucking clue. Asbestos and plutonium, probably. If it was only us who threw things in, then I wouldn’t have to ring you all the time. Why? Does it really make any difference?’

Börje shrugged.

‘Not really, but obviously it’s not so good if it’s impregnated wood or some other evil.’

‘What do you want me to do? I haven’t got time to go through all the crap that people dump in there. I’d put up a fence but there’s no room.’

‘No, no,’ Börje placated him. ‘Just saying.’

The skip lifted from the ground and lurched heavily. One of the refuse bags rolled down. Kent stepped forwards.

‘Forget it,’ Börje said. ‘It’s not a problem.’

‘Might as well check.’

Kent took a knife out of the pocket on the side of his trousers, leaned over the side and made a slash. Something white, he couldn’t make out what. He made another cut at a ninety-degree angle to the first. Still couldn’t see. He put his fingers in and tugged at the plastic. Then he pulled out an arm, which he dropped as if it had burned him. He backed away instinctively, looked at his hands and swallowed hard.

‘I think I have to wash my hands,’ he said, and threw up on the asphalt.