Some Kind of Peace (17 page)

“I mean, it’s like I’ve always thought that talk about glass ceilings and the old boys’ clubs was nonsense. I’ve always thought it’s only my performance that counts. And now I realize that I was… wrong. The guys overtake me, even though I accomplish more. They play golf with the boss and take saunas with the board and God knows what else.”

Charlotte Mimer is angry. Her jaws are clenched and she squeezes her eyes shut as she talks. Her whole posture signals repressed rage. I have never seen her anger so clearly before. And I don’t know what to say. I assume that she is right. What she is saying is true; women are marginalized. I even see it as a therapist. I see how the problems of young girls are trivialized and neglected. I see the lack of treatment homes for girls. How the schools’ limited resources go toward keeping rowdy boys in line while girls are expected to manage on their own. They are expected to navigate a teenage existence so full of demands and contradictions they’re almost doomed.… Again, I see Sara Matteus’s pale face before me. If someone could have seen Sara earlier. If someone could have helped her when she was a little girl. That’s why I simply nod encouragingly at Charlotte.

“The problem is, I don’t know what I should do.”

Charlotte suddenly looks tired.

“If I start bringing up these issues with my boss, I will be perceived as a troublemaker and can forget about advancing my career. Then I might as well go back to… the call center.”

Her expression indicates that this would be a fate worse than death. Something she doesn’t wish even on her worst enemy. My own expression must betray what I’m thinking, even though I am trained to mask my feelings and opinions, because Charlotte suddenly smiles.

“I know,” she says. “There are worse things than working in a call center.”

That statement is so absurd we both start laughing.

“But…” Charlotte hesitates again. “I mean, I know I ought to do something. I shouldn’t just let this slide. I shouldn’t…”

She seems to be bracing herself. Gathering the courage to formulate something out loud that she previously only dared to think.

“Sometimes it feels as if all this therapy has done me more harm than good.”

Charlotte stares out the window as she says this, and I see that she doesn’t want to look at me. Doesn’t want to meet my eyes.

“Before, everything was okay. Not good, not at all, but it was okay. It was my life. I didn’t reflect so damn much on whether it was good or bad, whether it was right or wrong. I just… just was. The way I was. Now I question everything. My work, my role at the company, my bosses, my femininity, my sexuality.”

She sighs deeply, and I notice that the red patches on her neck are spreading down toward her modest neckline. Her forehead shines with tiny beads of sweat that form an almost invisible membrane over the fine-pored skin.

“And I feel so damn angry, too. Indignant. Almost all the time, actually. Angry and disappointed in myself for letting my life slide out of my hands. Angry at my colleagues. At Mom. At Dad. And at you. I feel so damn mad at you because you’re the one who got this all started.”

She looks at me for a long time in silence, and I try to decipher what I see in her eyes: Is it resignation, or something else? Perhaps it is years of suppressed rage bubbling up like dirty water from an overflowing drain.

It is evening. Summer has finally released its hold, and a light drizzle that a westerly wind is pushing out over the sea sweeps over Stockholm. I’m wrapped in a towel and staring out at the gray sea, sitting on the ugly, lumpy mustard-yellow couch in front of my big French windows. Aina is sitting next to me. We are silent. Our bathing suits are hanging to dry on the flaking white garden furniture outside.

Aina has been staying with me for a week now. I haven’t forgotten that she talked to Sven about my life, but I have forgiven her. Now everything is back to normal. On the surface anyway.

She has come to my rescue, knowing how afraid I am of the dark. She also wants us to swim every day. I know she’s worried that if we don’t do this, I will never dare swim in the bay again. I do as she says but without enthusiasm.

The crime scene technicians and police cars are long gone and there is not a trace of what happened on the shore. Sara’s death left no mark, I think, getting up and starting to turn on all the lights out of habit, because it’s getting dark. Aina positions herself half naked on the rag rug and begins her evening yoga routine.

I am walking to the kitchen to get a glass of wine when suddenly there’s a knock at the door. Who could it be at this hour? I put on Stefan’s old navy blue terry-cloth bathrobe and tentatively go to the front door.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“It’s Markus Stenberg, from the police,” answers a gentle voice.

I pull on the sash at the waist and look back toward Aina, who understands and retreats to the bedroom to put something on. Slowly, I open the door and squint out into the semidarkness. Markus is standing in the rain. His hair is wet and from inside the house I can smell his damp wool sweater.

“I apologize for not calling first, but I would like to talk to you. May I come in?” He looks self-consciously at my bathrobe.

“Sure,” I say, gesturing toward the living room. “Aina and I went swimming.”

“May I sit down?” He points at the couch.

I nod and sit down cross-legged on the rug, because there aren’t any armchairs and I don’t want to sit down right next to him. Aina comes into the room and nods at Markus as she sits down beside me.

Markus clears his throat and looks slightly embarrassed at the sight of the two of us—half-naked women sitting on the floor.

“Sara did not commit suicide,” he begins in his melodic Norrland accent, holding my gaze and running his hand through his short, curly hair.

“We received the medical examiner’s preliminary report today. There was no water in her lungs, which means she ended up in the water when she was already dead. The cuts on her wrists also occurred postmortem. Besides, she was pumped full of sedatives. Benzodiazepines,” he says gloomily. “And alcohol. The body also showed signs of strangulation. Sara was murdered.”

I don’t know what to say. Sara was murdered? Murder seems even more inconceivable than suicide. I want to say something but can’t get the words out.

“But
who
would have murdered her?” Aina asks in my place.

Markus shrugs. “There are so many reasons to kill someone,” he says, sounding exhausted.

The comment sounds misplaced coming from such a young man.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how little a human life is worth to some people. In any case, are you aware of someone who threatened Sara in some way?”

I shake my head. “Absolutely not!”

“Did she have any enemies? For example, any jealous ex-boyfriends?”

I shake my head again, slower this time, searching my memory for some clue as to why anyone would want to kill Sara, but I cannot remember anything important.

“She had a new boyfriend, an older man. Sara was confused by their relationship, he gave her lots of attention but didn’t want to”—I pause and feel as though I am betraying Sara’s confidence, but continue anyway—“he didn’t want to have sex with her.”

“Was she afraid of him? Did she feel threatened?”

“No, I think she just felt confused.”

“Do you know who he is, what his name is?”

I try to remember whether Sara had mentioned a name, whether she said anything that might reveal her boyfriend’s identity.

“I have no idea, you’ll have to ask her friends. Maybe they know more than me.”

Markus looks searchingly at me. He doesn’t take his eyes off me.

“Could Sara’s murder have anything… to do with you, Siri?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, baffled.

“In the suicide note, which we now must assume was written by someone other than Sara, there is quite a lot of criticism against you. Besides, Sara was found alongside your pier. One possibility,
among many
,” he emphasizes, “is that someone carried out the murder, at least in part, to get at you somehow.”

He makes this last statement sound like a question.

I am speechless, struck mute by shock. That Sara died because someone wanted to harm me seems awful and is, if possible, even worse than the notion that Sara took her own life.

“But who would want to kill someone to get at
me
?”

Aina looks just as perplexed but says nothing.

“Think about it, Siri. Is there anyone who might want to hurt you?”

I try to think, but all I see is Sara’s skinny dead body floating in the water beside the pier.

“No one,” I say. “
No one
would want to hurt me.”

Markus sighs and tries again. “Siri, has anything strange happened recently? Have you received any threatening telephone calls, have you been involved in an accident, a lovers’ quarrel, trouble at work?”

Markus’s voice fades when he notices my face.

“A number of things have happened,” I say hesitantly.

I’m not sure whether I should mention the anonymous letter and come across as silly, but I decide it’s best to bring it up.

“I got a strange letter,” I say faintly, getting up to retrieve the gray envelope.

I hand it to Markus and sit down again. Aina looks at me questioningly while Markus calmly studies the envelope and photo.

“I’ll keep this,” he says, not revealing what he is thinking. “Anything else?”

“No, but I must admit that I’ve felt like I was being watched here at home during the summer.”

“What do you mean, watched? Did you see anyone?”

I shake my head. “No, I guess it’s more like a feeling.” I look apologetically at Markus. “I’m sorry, I can’t prove it.”

In front of me I see the power switch and the wet footprint on the floor. I start to tell Markus in detail about my theories that someone was in the house while I was asleep. He looks skeptical, runs his hand through his shiny damp blond hair, but doesn’t say anything to indicate he doesn’t believe me. He changes the subject and returns to the letter.

“Who would send you such a letter?”

I remain silent a long while and stare out through my dark windows. The sea is no longer visible. At a distance I see something that must be navigation lights. I hear nothing aside from the wind, which seems to have increased in strength.

“I don’t know.
No one
. Someone who wants to mess with me. Make me think I have a secret admirer…”

I pause. Privately, I have played with the thought that maybe Sven sent the photo to annoy me, but now the whole thing seems absurd.

“
No one
,” I answer again, more convinced this time.

Silence again. Nothing but the wind dancing in the crowns of the trees and the waves crashing against the cliffs can be heard. Aina looks at me. I can’t read her expression, and I know she is going to demand an explanation as soon as Markus leaves. I want him to stay. I feel strangely attracted to him. The calm he seems to spread around him. His respectful attitude toward Sara. The fact that he listens to what I say, takes it seriously, and doesn’t treat me like a complete idiot.

Aina clears her throat. “You ought to tell him, Siri. Tell him about… when the police caught you.”

Markus looks at me but does not look particularly surprised.

“You mean the DUI,” he says lightly.

“How do you know about that?” I am confused.

Markus shrugs. “It’s my job to know that sort of thing.”

“Okay, well, I got a call that evening. Someone called me and said that Aina was at Stockholm South Hospital and that I needed to come at once. I got in the car. Right away. I know it was stupid, but I really thought Aina was dying and there’s no way to get a taxi out here.”

“That’s easy to confirm. We can check whether anyone called you that night and, if so, where the call came from.”

He makes a note, gets up, and I assume he is about to leave, but he stops and turns toward Aina and me.

“Yes, one more thing. What kind of job did Sara have?”

“She was unemployed,” I answer, without going into the details of her complicated arrangements with various employers.

“Apparently she wore rather expensive clothes.”

“I think that guy she met gave her money.”

“The guy whose name you don’t know?”

“The guy whose name I don’t know.” I nod, looking out my dark windows again.

Markus has no more questions. We exchange a few pleasantries about how nice it is to live close to nature as I follow him to the door. Before he steps out into the dense darkness, he turns toward me one more time. For a brief moment I think he’s about to caress my cheek. I close my eyes but no fingers touch my face and I am ashamed of imagining things about this guy, who is not only a policeman, but much too young for me. Ten years younger. At least.

Just a kid.

He takes out his card, turns it over, and jots down some numbers on the back.

“These are my numbers. On the back is my private cell number. You can call anytime. If you think of something or have anything to say that you think may add to the investigation. Anything at all. Anytime at all.”