She's Never Coming Back (19 page)

Gösta seldom hit her. He only had to raise his hand. Ylva understood that he did it because it was necessary. To remind her who was in charge.

Marianne was worse, disdainful and patronising.

Sometimes Ylva fantasised that Marianne would die.
That it was just her and Gösta. She wished the plague on Marianne, that she would suffer, not a sudden accident. It would give her great pleasure if it was drawn out.

‘You have to know your place,’ Marianne said time and again.

‘Don’t forget what you are. An outlet for my husband’s bodily fluids. Nothing more.’

The last time she was down in the cellar, she had grinned.

‘I think you’re dreaming about your old life. Yes. I do believe you are. That just shows how stupid you are. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? If you were only half as ugly, it would be bad enough. I’m trying to come up with a word to describe what you are, but I can’t. No, wait, I know. Spent. There you go. You’re spent. Finished. You should think about the rope.’

Ylva tried to remind herself of something she’d heard Christians say. That you chose to believe.

She didn’t believe. Not in the possibility of escape, nor that her old life was waiting for her outside.

To clean the house.

To be allowed to leave the cellar, if only occasionally. The thought made her giddy. It was almost impossible to take in.

Ylva’s stomach was in upheaval.

She wished that Gösta hadn’t said anything, not fed her that false hope.

Sanna watched them, as if she knew that Nour was a threat to her and Mike’s world. But it was confusing for her, because she liked Nour and didn’t know how to deal with the fact that her daddy also seemed to like her.

Sanna and Nour played badminton while Mike tended to the barbecue. Nothing to worry about. It was different later, when all three of them went to Hamnplan in the car to swim. Sanna insisted on sitting in the front as normal.

Mike said that the front seat was actually meant for adults, but Nour quickly and deftly managed to smooth feathers by jumping in the back.

Once they were in the water, Sanna showed all her tricks to Nour. She dived between her father’s legs, jumped from the jetty and did the front crawl. But no matter how hard she tried, her father and Nour somehow seemed to end up beside each other all the time.

After swimming, they drove to Sofiero’s and bought icecream, which they ate on the bench outside the kiosk. Sanna held out her cone so Nour could have a taste.

‘Mm, that’s good,’ Nour said.

‘What have you got?’ Sanna asked.

‘Rum and raisin. Do you want to try?’

Nour held out her cone and Sanna licked it.

‘Ugh. That’s horrible. Tastes like alcohol.’

‘It is alcohol. Rum.’

‘I’m not allowed that.’

‘I think it’s okay,’ Mike said.

‘Children shouldn’t have alcohol,’ Sanna said.

‘No, that’s right,’ Nour replied.

‘Why did you give me some then?’

‘I thought you wanted a taste.’

‘Not alcohol.’

‘It’s not real alcohol,’ Nour explained. ‘The raisins are soaked in rum for the flavour.’

‘It tastes horrible.’

It was no more than that, but it was so pointed that Nour and Mike exchanged glances over her head.

‘Will you drive me home?’ Nour asked.

‘Of course,’ Mike said.

They dropped her off at Bomgränden. Nour stretched over from the back seat and put a hand on Mike’s shoulder.

‘Thank you for a lovely day.’

‘Wait, I’ll get out. We have to say goodbye properly.’

He got out of the car and gave Nour a hug.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

Nour patted him on the chest, bent down and spoke to Sanna.

‘Have fun riding tomorrow. Hope to see you again soon.’

‘Mm.’

In the car on the way home, Sanna asked her father if he was in love with Nour.

‘Why do you ask that?’

Sanna shrugged.

‘It seems like it.’

‘Does it?’

Sanna didn’t answer.

Mike drove home along Drottninggatan and Strandvägen. It was a meditative route that most people from Helsingborg preferred to the motorway by Berga. The sky was immense and open down by the water, whereas the motorway offered only traffic and movement.

Mike remembered the time when Tinkarpsbacken was still cobbled and how the sound changed when the car left the tarmac. Back then the trees in the avenue at the top of the hill were big and solid, the old king’s sheep grazed in the
meadow down by the water and there was a model of a sailing boat with several masts in the window of the red-and-white farmhouse closest to the road. Now the cobbles had been replaced by smooth tarmac, new trees, still pathetically small, had been planted on the avenue, and there was no longer a sailing boat in the farmhouse window.

‘I miss Mummy,’ Sanna said.

Mike glanced over at his daughter. She was staring straight ahead.

‘I do too,’ he said. ‘I do too.’

‘Karlsson speaking.’

‘Hello. I’d like to remain anonymous.’

The voice belonged to a woman who was determined and yet unsure, given the situation.

‘What’s it concerning?’ Karlsson asked.

‘Ylva Zetterberg.’

‘Who?’

‘The woman from Hittarp who disappeared just over a year ago.’

‘I’m with you,’ Karlsson said. ‘Why do you want to remain anonymous?’

‘Because what I’m about to say is sensitive.’

‘Well, come on then.’

‘Ylva’s husband is seeing another woman.’

Karlsson sat quietly and waited for her to go on, but she said nothing.

‘And …?’ he said in the end.

‘He’s spending a lot of time with one of Ylva’s colleagues.’

‘Right.’

‘A
lot
of time, if you get what I mean.’

‘They’re an item?’ Karlsson prompted.

‘They’re quite open about it, not ashamed. She’s a foreigner.’

‘Well, there you go.’

‘My immediate thought was that they did it together.’

‘Did what?’

‘Got Ylva out of the way.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Like I said, just a thought. But perhaps it’s not that interesting to you that the husband of a missing woman is having a relationship with one of her former colleagues?’

‘All observations are of interest,’ Karlsson said, and
rolled his eyes at Gerda, who had appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised in question. ‘I just don’t quite understand why you think that they have anything to do with Ylva’s disappearance.’

‘Motive,’ the woman said.

‘Motive?’ Karlsson repeated, and at the same time ceased to pay attention to the woman’s ramblings.

‘She stood in the way of their love.’

‘Sounds fascinating,’ Karlsson said. ‘Is there a number I can get you on?’

‘Yes, zero seven three – no, I want to remain anonymous, I said so.’

‘Well, thank you for calling. I promise we’ll follow that up.’

Karlsson put down the phone and looked at his colleague.

‘The wife murderer in Hittarp,’ he said. ‘The man whose wife disappeared.’

‘What did he want?’ Gerda asked.

‘No, no, it was some old cow, probably a neighbour. Apparently he’s porking his wife’s colleague.’

‘Something we should check out?’

‘How, exactly?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Precisely. Is there any fresh coffee?’

Virginia looked out of the kitchen window on to Tennisvägen. She held the teacup up to her mouth and blew. She had done the right thing. It would be wrong not to say anything. Wrong to stay silent. Mike shouldn’t go unpunished.

It was three months since Nour had come over for dinner, two months since the first kiss, and so far they’d only managed to have sex a handful of times. Their initial attempt was more a case of clumsy groping while Sanna slept uneasily in the room next door. The other times had been up in Nour’s flat on Bomgränden, at lunchtime.

This was the first night they had been alone together. Sanna had been packed off to her grandmother’s.

The next day they had a leisurely breakfast before returning to the bedroom and exhausting each other of any energy they had left. Mike was feverish and his muscles ached after the unaccustomed exercise. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so happy. It seemed years ago.

Mike phoned his mother and talked to Sanna. Officially,
he’d been at a work do. He could tell from the way his daughter chatted away that everything was fine. She and Granny had made dinner together and eaten in front of the telly, and Granny had read a whole book to her when she went to bed.

‘… and now we’re going to a ten-kronor shop in Denmark,’ she concluded.

‘So when do you want me to come and pick you up?’

‘Not now. Later.’

‘Okay. Can I speak to Granny?’

Mike agreed a time with his mother, finished the conversation and then turned to Nour.

‘She doesn’t want to come home,’ he told her.

‘Does that mean I can stay?’ Nour asked.

Mike went over and kissed her.

‘Shall we go out?’

‘You mean for a walk?’

Mike nodded eagerly, like a child. Nour pulled her chin in.

‘Is that fitting? Don’t you need to sign the banns first?’

‘Might as well take the bull by the horns.’

‘Are you sure?’

Mike grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the hall.

‘Come on.’

They walked side by side without holding hands. They obviously weren’t out to exercise, but they didn’t amble either; they strolled at a pace that might have suited a couple exercising an old dog.

When they reached the woods they kissed with such passion that neither of them could help laughing afterwards. They took each other by the hand, found a comfortable hold and carried on walking under the almost church-like green vault of beech trees towards Kulla Gunnarstorp. Once they had passed the ranger’s red cottage and the fields opened out on both sides of the path, they let go of each other’s hands.

‘Does it feel inappropriate?’ Nour asked.

‘How do you mean?’

She shrugged.

‘Maybe you feel that you ought to wear black for a bit longer.’

Mike shot her a swift look.

‘She’s not coming back,’ he said.

They continued on along the path. Horses grazed in the fields and a southerly breeze whipped up white crests out on the sound.

‘You’re actually not really my type,’ Nour said. ‘I never
thought of you in this way before, when you were Ylva’s husband. Now I just want to throw you over my shoulder, jump over the electric fence and have sex with you in that field. And I wouldn’t give a toss if the whole town was standing round watching.’

Mike cupped her face with his hands and kissed her gently. He let his arms slip down her spine and held her tight. They stood in the middle of the path, their bodies swaying together. An elderly couple approached them from the north, but Mike didn’t jump back. It wasn’t until he saw who they were that he carefully disengaged himself.

‘This is Nour,’ Mike said. ‘And this is Gösta and Marianne, they live opposite me on Sundsliden.’

They shook hands.

‘Where’s your daughter?’ Marianne asked.

‘Sanna?’ Mike said. ‘She’s in Denmark with her grandmother. They were going to some ten-kronor shop.’

Marianne was confused.

‘Everything costs ten kronor,’ Mike said. ‘Or twenty. Inflation has caught up with the concept.’

Marianne gave an understanding nod. As if shopping was a suitable pastime for a girl of Sanna’s age. Mike and
Nour said goodbye to the couple and carried on towards the castle.

‘Gösta’s the person I’ve been seeing,’ Mike explained. ‘The psychiatrist I told you about. Without him, I would never be where I am now.’

Mike was on his way to the hospital for another appointment with Gösta. It felt good. He knew already that he would feel even stronger when he left in a couple of hours’ time. Gösta made him believe in life, made him believe that anything was possible.

It was of course a fleeting feeling that quickly faded and was swept away by the grey hard toil of everyday life, but with each visit, Mike inched his way up out of the darkest depths.

They didn’t meet as often these days. Gösta reckoned there were others who needed his help more.

‘Given what you’ve been through, you do seem remarkably well,’ he had said before cancelling their regular appointments and starting to book Mike in for occasional sessions.

Now they only met every third or fourth week, and sometimes they spent the whole session just chatting, rather than delving into dark and troubling thoughts.

Mike was full of admiration for Gösta. Quite apart from his professional skills and the way he so wisely stepped back from life’s worries, he was also a great example. Gösta had lost his daughter, survived his only child. Annika, as she had been called, would have been the same age as Ylva if she’d been alive. If either of them had been alive.

Mike had thought about it a lot. It must be unbearable to outlive your child. He couldn’t imagine life without Sanna, refused to, and so pushed aside any such thoughts before they took root.

For twenty years, Gösta had struggled on, gone to work, listened to people’s problems, tried to find solutions. He had never given in, become mean and bitter. Gösta and his wife had stuck together, supported each other and miraculously managed to carry on.

The Florida pensioners.

Mike wondered whether moving here had also been a way
to move on, to start afresh. It seemed strange that they’d waited twenty years before doing it, but perhaps they hadn’t been able to leave until now. Houses and streets held great importance. Presumably they had felt they needed to stay until the memories faded and they were able to deal with them.

Annika had been sixteen when she died. Sixteen. She’d had her whole life in front of her.

Mike felt ashamed. He had thought he had a monopoly on suffering, had sat there wallowing, taking up space, almost bullish in his self-pity. Even though he knew that everyone had their dramas, that you only needed to scratch the surface with your fingernail.

And Gösta’s loss was greater than Mike’s.