Missing (7 page)

S
he arrived at Stockholm Central at 12.35. The Grand Hotel murder was definitely not in the news that day. The posters ran an animal welfare story, which had raised a storm of public indignation. After a few years in Sweden, a chimpanzee had been sold to a zoo in Thailand, where he had been confined in an unsuitable cage that was apparently far too small.

Leaving the station, she walked on past the Culture Centre at Sergel Square, where she usually spent many hours going through the newspapers in the reading room. She didn't feel like reading the papers. Never cared much for monkeys. She could do with a no-news day and above all no Grand Hotel murder stories.

Even so, she suddenly found herself sitting on a bench on the Ström Quay, her back to the water and her eyes fixed on the façade of the Grand Hotel just opposite. The cordons had gone. A limousine had drawn up in front of the main entrance and the chauffeur was chatting
with the door porter. It was looking exactly as it had three days ago when she had innocently stepped inside.

‘Hey, what's this? Sitting here contemplating your sins?'

She jumped, as if struck. It was just Heino, who had crept up behind her. He had brought all his worldly goods along, mostly plastic carrier bags full of empty cans. She knew that somewhere underneath the load was a rust-coloured hooded pram, because she had been around when he nicked it. Now only the wheels were showing.

‘Christ, you really scared me!'

He grinned and sat down next to her. The odour of ingrained dirt immediately overwhelmed every other smell. She backed off as little as possible, in case he would notice.

Heino was looking at the Grand Hotel.

‘Did you do it?'

Sibylla glanced at him, surprised at how fast the rumour had done the rounds. Heino wasn't the newspaper-reading type.

‘No, I didn't.'

Heino nodded. He clearly felt that the subject had been exhausted.

‘Got anything then?'

She shook her head.

‘Nothing to drink. Fancy a fresh roll?'

He rubbed his filthy palms together, smiling happily.

‘Now you're talking. A nice, fresh roll is a thing of beauty.'

She rooted around in her rucksack for her cache of breakfast rolls and gave him one. He ate greedily. The few teeth left in his mouth were struggling bravely with the roll.

‘Great stuff. A chaser would be something else, though.'

She smiled, wishing she had any kind of drink for him. Preferably alcoholic.

Two smartly dressed ladies were approaching, leading a small dog kitted out in a tartan coat. It looked like a large pampered rat. Catching sight of Heino, one of them started whispering to her companion and both speeded up. Heino had been watching them and, just as they were passing, he rose and leaned towards them.

‘Good afternoon, ladies. Would you be wanting a bite?'

He was holding his half-eaten roll in his hand, politely presenting it to them. They walked past without a word, obviously eager to get out of harm's way without humiliating themselves by breaking into a run.

Sibylla was smiling broadly as Heino settled back on the bench.

‘Watch out,' he shouted after them. ‘A rat's coming after you!'

The ladies walked very fast all the way to the main stairs of the National Museum, stopping
only when they got there to check that no one was pursuing them. They were talking agitatedly. When a police car came driving across Skepp Bridge, the ladies' body language told Sibylla that they were going to hail the police. Her heart was beating faster.

‘Listen, Heino, please do something for me.'

The police car had pulled in to the kerb now. The two women were talking and pointing towards their bench.

‘If the pigs come here, you don't know me.'

Heino looked at her. The police car started up.

‘Don't I know you? Sure I do. You're Sibylla, Queen of Småland.'

‘Please, Heino. Not now. Please. You don't know me.'

The police car pulled in near their bench. Two uniformed police climbed out, a man and a woman. They left the engine running. Heino stared at them, stuffing the last piece of roll into his mouth.

‘Hi, Heino. Did you annoy the ladies over there?'

Heino turned to look at the ladies. They were still standing at the entrance of the National Museum. Sibylla was peering into her rucksack, hoping to avoid police scrutiny.

‘Me? No, I'm just quietly eating my roll.'

To prove his point he opened his mouth wide, displaying what was in it.

‘Just as well. Keep eating, Heino.'

Heino shut his mouth, muttering crossly to himself.

‘Easy for you to say.'

Then he carried on chewing. Sibylla was taking an intelligent interest in a side-pocket on her rucksack.

‘Now, has he been bothering you at all?'

Sibylla realised the policeman was talking to her. She looked up, rubbing her eyes as if a piece of grit was troubling her.

‘Who, me? No, not at all.'

She opened another side-pocket and started rummaging again.

‘I'd never bother queens. Specially not the Queen of Småland,' Heino said earnestly.

Sibylla closed her eyes, but kept fiddling with the rucksack. One more side-pocket to investigate.

‘I like that, Heino. That's the ticket.'

The woman constable was trying to round off their chat. To her relief, Sibylla could hear them both walk away and open the car door. Glancing at them, she saw the male PC still holding the door handle.

‘What's your problem? Why are you spying on honest citizens peacefully eating their stuff? So the old hags are out walking their rat and start making a fuss, taking offence at nothing whatever – is that my fault?'

‘Shut up,' Sibylla hissed.

Heino was becoming heated. The police stopped in their tracks.

‘Let me tell you something you don't know, right? Like, you might just have been of some use if you'd turned up here on the twenty-third of September, in the year of eighteen hundred and eighty-five.'

The policeman was approaching now, but the woman stayed in the passenger seat of the car. Sibylla began closing the various compartments of her rucksack. Time to beat it.

Heino rose, pointing towards the Grand Hotel.

‘That's where she was standing, on the Grand's balcony.'

Sibylla stopped to listen.

‘Down here it was packed with people, all the way across to the Kung Garden. They were waiting for her to sing.'

Now Sibylla and the policeman were both staring at him. The policeman was curious.

‘Who was singing from the balcony?'

Heino sighed and shrugged, spreading his dirty palms.

‘Don't you know anything? Christina Nilsson, that's who. The Nightingale from Småland.'

Heino stopped dramatically. The policewoman began to get impatient. She lowered the car window to shout at her colleague.

‘Janne, come on!'

‘Hang on a minute.'

Heino nodded, totally in control.

‘More than forty thousand were crammed into central Stockholm, wanting to hear her sing. This place was black with people. Folks were clambering up lamp-posts, standing on top of carriages, wherever. In dead silence. Do you know, her singing was heard all the way to Skepp Bridge. Get it? Those days, people knew how to keep their mouths shut.'

‘Janne! I'm waiting!'

Heino had caught the policeman's attention completely. All Sibylla could do was sit tight, letting it happen. She glanced towards the National Museum. Heino lifted his arm and raised a finger in the air. The movement sent another wave of foul smell wafting from his worn coat. Sibylla concentrated on holding her breath.

‘The moment she'd finished singing they all started applauding like lunatics. Then somebody shouted that the scaffolding around the Palmgren Mansion was coming down. They were building there at the time. First the crowd got worried, then it panicked. Sixteen females and two little kids died after being trampled underfoot. Another hundred or so were taken to hospital.'

Heino nodded again.

‘You lot should've been around then, they might have lived longer if you had. Doing your policing thing properly, instead of getting at me. I'm just eating my roll.'

The policeman called Janne was beaming at him.

‘Right you are. Interesting story, Heino. Take care now.'

This time he managed to get into the car and drive away before Heino thought of something else to say. Sibylla kept staring at him, shaking her head.

‘How did you know all that?'

Heino snorted.

‘Education. Have you heard of it? I may smell like shit, but I've got an education.'

He rose, swinging his loaded pram round in readiness for raiding the Kung Garden rubbish-bins.

‘Thanks for the roll.'

Sibylla smiled wanly and Heino left while she was still looking at the balcony where Christina Nilsson had been standing, one hundred and fifteen years ago. Nowadays there wasn't a hope of hearing someone sing above the incessant roar of the traffic. Turning her head, she was just in time to see Heino disappear after crossing Kung Garden Street. She felt a fleeting impulse to run after him. It would be good not to be alone, just for a while longer. But it was no use.

She stayed where she was. The hullabaloo about the murder was not yet past its peak. Better keep herself to herself.

As usual.

A
fter that first trip in his car she stopped by the YPSMS house to see Mick practically every afternoon, their times together growing steadily longer. In the end she jettisoned the idea of going for a walk and simply went straight there. She met the other YPSMS members, who were all guys, the same age as Mick, same style. For the first time she felt accepted into a group. Because she was with Mick she was OK, no further qualifications needed. They even seemed indifferent to the fact that she was Forsenström's daughter.

Still, being alone with him in the workshop was the nicest thing about coming there, mainly because Mick seemed much more relaxed when it was just the two of them. He happily taught her all he knew about engines and cars. Sometimes he would take her for a drive and, when he was in a really good mood, leave her at the wheel on quiet forest roads. The first time, he told her to sit in his lap while she practised the controls. She felt his thighs under her own and his stomach against her bottom.
Her whole body seemed to respond strangely to these contacts. She felt hot and tense. Then she became very aware of his hands over hers on the steering wheel.

When she came home after that trip she wrote his name under the seat of the chair in her room. He was her secret. This secret seemed to confer a miraculous strength on her, which must have showed somehow. Maybe because she didn't bother listening any more, the name-calling in school troubled her less and her daily routine became more bearable.

The whole day would pass in the expectation of seeing him again. She wanted to smell him, stand next to him as he was bending over the innards of the car to show her something. She was full of admiration for his grasp of every detail and loved seeing his hands move knowingly among the parts of the engine.

She longed to be in the same room. With him, close to him.

After the summer holidays she began upper school and had to travel to Vetlanda. Her own choice would have been the course in Mechanical Engineering, but she had enough sense not to mention this to anyone but Mick. Dropping even the tiniest hint to her mother would have been rash. Mrs Forsenström felt that the three-year Economics course was suitable for preparing Sibylla to pull her weight in
the family firm. Also, it was an option with a bit of class.

Of course, she did exactly what her mother wanted.

On days when Mick had an errand into town, he picked her up after school. She hid until she missed the school bus. A couple of blocks away from school the De Soto would be waiting for her, a sight that always filled her with eagerness and pride. Blissfully leaning back into the seat, she would be driven the forty kilometres back to Hultaryd.

Never to her home, not even within sight of it.

Once during one of these school runs, he turned off the main road and drove along a forest track not far from Vetlanda. She looked at him, but he kept his eyes on the road. Neither of them spoke.

Inside, she knew what would happen. She had been expecting it. He stopped the car, they got out and then stood there facing each other for a moment.

She came towards him full of trust, feeling that she belonged to him. She was his chosen one.

He had spread out the brown checked blanket for them to lie on. Gently, he pushed into her.

She was his alone. And he was hers.

She was watching his face out of the corner of her eye, amazed at the pleasure she was able
to give him. He was absorbed in her. His whole mind was focused on her, his body intent on hers. He gave himself to her.

Two of them, locked together. She would do everything for just seconds of such closeness. Anything.

The fried potatoes were expanding into an unmanageable lump in her mouth. Her parents were chewing in silence.

It was pure anguish, waiting for the eruption of anger.

She couldn't swallow.

There were two forks in her hand. No, three. The table was moving up and down. She had to swallow. But the fear in her stomach wanted to come back up.

Swallow. For God's sake, swallow. Don't make it any worse than it is.

Forgive me. Please forgive me. Tell me what I must do to be forgiven. Don't keep me waiting, please.

I'll do anything to be forgiven.

Anything at all.

Beatrice Forsenström put down her knife and fork. She still avoided looking at Sibylla as she opened the abyss with a simple statement.

‘Sibylla, I understand you're riding about in somebody's dreadful old car.'