Missing (4 page)

O
f all the bloody awful fucking things to happen. He had seemed so perfect.

Her first reaction almost immediately gave way to the realisation that this time she'd really caught it. Obviously the police would be especially interested in the woman Grundberg had picked up, fed and then, always the gentleman, fixed a hotel room for as well.

It was pretty certain she was the mysterious woman the police were looking for. Worse, in the circumstances, no one would care to help her just for the asking, that much was certain too. Her first feeling was rage and she marched straight into the garage shop to pull a paper from the stand. The centrefold headline left no room for doubt.

MURDERER MUTILATED VICTIM
.

Three words in heavy black type. Below, a full-page photograph of Jörgen Grundberg smiling broadly at the camera.

Unnamed sources alleged that the murderer had sliced open the dead man's torso and removed unspecified internal organs. The police admitted that some kind of religious symbol had been left at the scene of the crime, suggesting a ritual act of slaughter.

‘Gruesome stuff, isn't it?'

Sibylla looked up. The man behind the counter nodded towards the paper.

‘That's eight kronor for the paper, then. Is that all?'

She hesitated, fingering the coins in her pocket. Eight kronor was a lot to spend, just for a newspaper.

‘A can of paraffin too, please.'

The man pointed for her to help herself from the right shelf. After paying, there were only nineteen kronor left in her purse.

Back at the allotments, Hjelm was no longer to be seen. She closed the door behind her and settled down with the paper. Reading the first four lines was enough to convince her that she was the wanted woman.

Who, the paper was asking, was Jörgen Grundberg's mysterious female companion, who had dined with him in the Grand's French restaurant? How had she managed to vanish in the morning, slipping unseen past the police cordons? The public was encouraged to contact the police headquarters with any information
that might have a bearing on the case. The number to ring was displayed in large print.

She felt queasy. Seconds later she realised why. She was under threat.

What was she to do? The simplest answer was to ring that police number and explain the situation, insisting that she was innocent. The drawback was that she would have to let them know her personal details, including her ID number. A single computer check would tell them that she hardly had an official existence. This would instantly make them curious about her, the last thing she needed. Being left alone to mind her own business was all she ever wanted. She'd managed to do just that for fifteen years now. No one had chased her.

Of course she'd committed lots of minor illegal acts, misdemeanours that never harmed anyone poor or needy. She was not at all wicked but still, there were many things she'd rather not have the police look into. Living outside the margins of the normally acceptable for so long had shaped her. She was no longer in the system.

Being an outcast was part of how she lived, who she was. That she should be allowed to survive on her own terms seemed a small thing to ask, but she knew the media would turn the story of her life into something she couldn't endure. Not that she was proud of what she'd done so far, but anyone who tried
interfering and laying down the law could go to hell.

No stranger would ever really understand why her life had turned out the way it had. Too bad if she'd been born with a silver spoon in her mouth. What had happened, had happened.

‘H
enry, I just can't take her with me. You know what it was like last time!'

Beatrice Forsenström was preparing for her annual visit to her mother and two aunts. Henry Forsenström didn't have much time for these ladies and the feeling was mutual. Beatrice went to see them on her own.

Sibylla had speculated about the possibility that once upon a time her mother really must have married her father for love because Beatrice's parents had been so opposed to the marriage. Beatrice's family was upper-class. Her parents, Mr and Mrs Hall, surveying the world from inside their huge apartment in Stockholm's prestigious Östermalm district, had dismissed the son of Forsenström's Foundry as ‘not really one of us'. When anyone wanted to marry into the Hall family ‘a good family background' was what really counted. ‘New money' was automatically suspect.

Besides, what would a Hall girl do, buried in Hultaryd? No one had ever heard of this one-horse place somewhere in the Småland
uplands. Still, it's your funeral, my dear, just don't come complaining to us afterwards.

Sibylla had picked this up gradually, listening to her mother's conversations with Granny at mealtimes. Apparently, Granny was also displeased at how long it had taken Beatrice and her husband to produce children. Displeased, though not at all surprised. What can you expect? Beatrice had been all of thirty-six when Sibylla was born.

Sibylla's grandmother had a finely honed ability to make herself understood, a skill relying entirely on insinuations and covert accusations. Her daughter had inherited it in full. As a grown-up, Sibylla had sometimes wondered if she too carried the same dissembling gene.

At that time, she had been a teenager and hiding halfway up the stairs to listen to what her parents were saying about going to see Granny.

‘Her cousins simply can't understand what she's talking about half the time. They make fun of her. I shouldn't expose her to that.'

Henry Forsenström said nothing. Perhaps he was just looking through some of his documents. ‘Her accent is even coarser than some of the working-class children here, you know.'

Her father sighed audibly, but must have felt he should comment.

‘What's wrong wi' that. She's born 'n' bred in these parts after all.'

Henry Forsenström's version of the local dialect showed no regard for proper speech. Beatrice didn't answer at once. Although Sibylla couldn't see her, she felt she knew exactly what her mother's face looked like.

‘Anyway, I think she'd better stay here this time … Besides, I'd have a chance to get out on my own for a change. Mummy mentioned a premiere at the opera on Friday – they're doing
La Traviata
.'

‘You do as you think best, of course.'

Sibylla had never again been allowed to travel with her mother to Stockholm. The next time she arrived in the capital, it was under quite different circumstances.

W
hen she woke the following morning, her body was telling her that all was not well. The little shed made her feel trapped. The paraffin heater had cut out and the air was cold. Her throat didn't feel quite as rough as it had, thank God. The night before it felt like a really bad throat infection, the kind you might need to take penicillin for. It's tricky to persuade a doctor to see you without being a registered patient and now it would be worse still, because she was presumably a wanted person.

She was hungry and ate the last piece of bread. There was nothing to drink because she'd finished the Coke at supper last night. She ate the tomato and the apple as well. Then she started packing her things.

She put away the iron candlestick and the fruit-bowl, stacked the cushions and finally looked around to check she hadn't forgotten anything. Swinging her rucksack onto her shoulder, with one hand on the door handle, she suddenly hesitated. It was a long time since she'd felt fearful.

Her rucksack was slipping off her shoulders. She shut the door again.

Bloody hell. Stay cool.

But she sank down on one of the kitchen chairs, leaning her head in her hands. As a rule, crying was not something she did because she knew only too well how pointless it was. For as long as she was left in peace to do her own thing, she normally never wanted to cry anyway. There was only one cause of grief that might still surface, although hidden so deep down in her mind that she only rarely became aware of the pain.

Her conscious thought was almost always focused on food for the day and sleeping quarters for the night ahead. Everything else was secondary.

She had her savings, too.

She put her hand to her chest, where the sacred 29,385 kronor were tucked away inside a safe purse, hanging on a strap round her neck underneath her clothes.

Soon she would have enough saved up. With this money she would finally reach the goal she had fought hard to achieve. Her decision to live differently one day had been utterly sincere and thinking about it had buoyed her up during the last five years. She wanted to change. Instead of always moving on, she wanted a country cottage to live in. It would be her home, where she could peacefully lead her life in her own
way. Maybe she would grow vegetables, maybe keep some hens. Draw water from her own well. She didn't dream of comfort, just four walls that were hers alone.

Peace and quiet.

She had investigated and found that about 40,000 kronor would be enough, if you were prepared to live without electricity and running water in unglamorous countryside, somewhere obscure. That was exactly what she wanted. In the far north her kind of place might be even cheaper, but the thought of the long hard winters frightened her. She would keep struggling for a little longer instead.

During the last five years she'd put away as much as she possibly could of the monthly alms from her mother. Once in that purse the money simply didn't exist any more, no matter how cold or hungry she was.

Just a few more years and then she'd have enough …

She put the notes down on the table in front of her, arranging them in a star pattern. She always went to the bank to exchange the money she received for new crisp notes.

Notes that her mother had never touched.

After a while, looking at her money made her feel better again. It usually cheered her up. The next stage in recovering her fighting spirit would be a visit to an estate agent to keep informed about movements in house prices.

She gathered up her money, put it safely back in the purse, pushed the chair neatly back in place at the table and locked the door behind her. Her steps were lighter now.

She got as far as Ringen. A glance at one of the posters on the newspaper kiosk made her sense of calm evaporate. Now her problems were no longer about surviving for another day.

Now she was on the run.

WOMAN CHARGED WITH
BUTCHERY MURDER
.

That was the headline. There was a picture of a woman with a caption underneath naming her: Sibylla Forsenström, 32 years old.

‘Dear Sibylla, don't look so sour. Please try to smile at least.'

Obedient as she was back then, she had tried. The effect was ghastly. Whatever she might have looked like seconds earlier, it couldn't have been worse than this. Even her mother presumably thought so, because she'd hidden the picture away until now. Curling tongs had been applied to her fringe, symmetrically on either side of the central parting, and the tips of the curls plastered against her temples. Her eyes had that unmistakable cowed look.

She was feeling nauseous now. Nineteen kronor left. The paper cost eight.

She could feel the sick taste in her mouth. It came from deep down in her stomach, where some part of her had already taken in what her brain was still refusing to analyse.

They were going to take control over her. Again.

She felt as if she was being suffocated. It was a familiar, frightening sensation that came back from the past to take her over. A hostile spirit was emerging from a hiding-place where it had been waiting and watching. It was ready for her now. In spite of all her efforts, she had failed to exorcise it after all.

Anybody who fancied reading all about her in the paper could go right ahead. What had they all been saying back then? Silly-billy Sibylla. Something odd about that girl. Always reckoned she'd go downhill.

She clenched her fist in her pocket.

Was it her fault that she didn't fit in? She had never been one of them, but managed all the same. What more could they ask? She was a survivor, a survivor
in spite of everything
.

Now they would take her apart again, seeing her strength as madness and her unconditional existence as a loner's misery. They were poised to crush her plans to build a life of her own.

She wasn't going to let them, no way – not now.