The Disappeared (39 page)

He needed a passport so that he was ready to leave the country.

He hardly dared to think about what that mistake had cost him, and it wasn’t much of a defence to state that he had applied for a new passport because he was suspected of a completely different crime: murder.

It was after nine o’clock when he was taken to an interview room. The custody officer informed him that it was the Stockholm police rather than Uppsala who wanted to speak to him. Spencer was only too well aware of the reason for this.

The officer from Stockholm introduced herself as Cecilia Torsson. A colleague from Uppsala was also present. Spencer felt that Cecilia Torsson came over as almost a caricature copper. The handshake was a parody of a normal handshake: far too firm, far too long. If her plan was to gain respect, she was distinctly wide of the mark. Her voice was loud, and she emphasised every word as if she thought he had severe hearing difficulties. In a different context her behaviour would have made Spencer smile. Now he just found it upsetting.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ said Cecilia Torsson. ‘How did you know her?’

‘I didn’t know her at all.’

‘Are you sure?’

Spencer breathed in, then out. Was he sure?

His memories of the spring when Rebecca Trolle went missing were relatively clear. He had had quite a lot to do as far as work was concerned, and he and Fredrika were seeing each other with increasing frequency. At home, the silence had been dense, the distance between him and Eva immense. As a consequence he had spent more and more time at work, more and more time away from home, even more evenings in the apartment in Östermalm with Fredrika.

That spring might well have been one of the best in his adult life.

But did Rebecca Trolle fit in somewhere? Had she passed through his life that spring, so fleetingly that he didn’t remember it when he looked back? He searched his memory, feeling that there were events he ought to be able to recall.

‘She called me once.’

He was surprised to hear his own voice.

‘She called you once?’

Cecilia Torsson leaned forward across the desk. Spencer nodded; it was all coming back to him now.

‘I had a message from the switchboard saying that a girl by that name had tried to get hold of me, but she didn’t ring again. That must have been in March or April.’

‘Didn’t you react when she disappeared?’

‘Why would I do that? I mean, I remember the newspapers ran stories about her disappearance, but to be honest I wasn’t sure if it was the same girl who had called me, even if the name was a little unusual.’

Cecilia Torsson looked as if she accepted his argument.

‘She didn’t leave a message asking you to call her back?’

‘No, I was just told that she had rung, and that she would try again. It was to do with a dissertation she was working on.’

More memories came to the surface.

‘I remember thinking I didn’t really have time for her. It’s not unusual for students to ring up asking for help.’

Spencer shrugged.

‘But I rarely have the time. Unfortunately.’

‘I understand,’ Cecilia said.

She turned the page in her notebook.

‘The Guardian Angels,’ she said.

The words were as much of a shock as if the ceiling had collapsed. He hadn’t heard those words for a long, long time.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You were a member of that particular film club?’

‘I was.’

Spencer was on full alert; he had no idea where the conversation was going.

‘Could you tell me a little more about it?’

Spencer folded his arms, trying hard to think back to a time that was so many years ago. What was there to tell? Four adults, three men and one woman, who regularly got together to watch films, then went for something to eat and drink and wrote poisonous reviews.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘Why? What have The Guardian Angels got to do with all this?’

‘We think there might be a connection between the film club and the murder of Rebecca Trolle.’

The laughter came from nowhere. Spencer pulled himself up short when he saw the expression on Cecilia Torsson’s face.

‘But for goodness’ sake, that film club has been defunct for over thirty years. You must see how unreasonable it would be for . . .’

‘If you could just answer my questions, we’ll both get out of here a lot sooner. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to explain why the film club is of interest to us, but we would be very grateful for any information you can provide.’

Her tone was almost pleading by the end, as if she was hoping that Spencer would produce a magic wand and transform the entire investigation in a trice.

‘I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,’ he said, hoping he sounded honest. ‘I was the last person to be chosen as a member of the group before it was dissolved. Morgan Axberger and I knew each other from an evening class in French that we had both attended in the mid-’60s. That was before he became a high-flyer; he spent all his time smoking, drinking and writing poetry.’

The memory made him smile.

‘After that, things moved quickly for Morgan. He became a different person when he realised he could shoot up the corporate ladder in record time. But he still had an interest in film, and in the early ’70s we bumped into one another at an art exhibition. He told me about the film club – I’d already seen articles about it in the newspapers, of course – and hinted that there was an opening if I wanted to join. Naturally, I said yes.’

‘Tell me about the other members. Are you still in touch with them?’

‘No, not at all,’ Spencer replied. ‘After Thea Aldrin ended up in prison and Elias Hjort moved abroad, that left just Morgan and me. And we had very little in common, I must say. It was only natural that we stopped seeing each other.’

Spencer thought for a moment.

‘The film club was dissolved around 1975–6. I never really understood why, but that’s what happened. By the time Thea Aldrin was charged with murder, the film club hadn’t met for several years.’

Cecilia Torsson looked interested.

‘Could there have been disagreements you were unaware of?’

‘It’s possible, of course, but I don’t know what they could have been about. If you speak to Morgan Axberger or Elias Hjort, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you more. Thea could tell you plenty as well, of course, but if what it says in the papers is true, she hasn’t spoken since she went to prison.’

‘How did the other members of the group react? To the fact that she’d murdered her husband, I mean?’

Not at all, Spencer thought. He hadn’t seen Morgan or Elias after Thea was arrested. He remembered ringing Morgan to talk it over. Morgan, who had known Thea’s ex, had been shocked and refused to discuss what had happened.

‘We had virtually no contact at all by then,’ Spencer said. ‘I was the youngest of the four, and I hadn’t been a member from the start. I didn’t know Thea’s ex, or anything about their relationship. But obviously I was horrified when I found out what she’d done.’

‘So you never questioned her guilt?’

Spencer shrugged.

‘She confessed.’

The air in the room was stale, the walls grubby. How much longer would he have to sit here talking about things he hadn’t done, hadn’t been involved in?

‘There were rumours that Thea Aldrin was the author of
Mercury
and
Asteroid.
Was that the case?’

‘Not as far as I knew. We discussed the matter, of course, but not in any detail. It was just a piece of particularly nasty gossip, nothing else.’

He felt a sudden spurt of anger at all the attempts that had been made to ruin Thea’s reputation. It had been sheer persecution, as if some powerful force was secretly working to destroy everything she had achieved. Spencer hadn’t understood the background at the time, and he didn’t understand it now.

‘Her son went missing,’ Cecilia said. ‘Do you remember anything about that?’

‘Of course,’ Spencer replied. ‘You could say that was the beginning of the end for her. She never got over the loss, and who can blame her? Although by that time the film club had already broken up, and I hardly ever saw her.’

‘But there were more rumours; people said she’d killed her son as well.’

Spencer shook his head.

‘It was absolutely bloody ridiculous. The boy disappeared and didn’t come back. I have no idea what happened to him, of course, but I think I can say with some certainty that his own mother didn’t kill him.’

The watch on Cecilia Torsson’s wrist flashed as it caught the light on the ceiling.

‘So what do you think happened to him?’

Spencer no longer needed to make an effort to recall the events of all those years ago. He remembered exactly what he had thought when the boy went missing.

‘Thea rarely mentioned her son or her relationship with him, but I know they quarrelled quite a lot. He kept asking where his father had gone, and he didn’t treat her with the respect she wanted from him.’

The words stuck in his throat; for some reason, they were more difficult to get out than they had been at the time.

‘OK, they quarrelled,’ Cecilia said. ‘And?’

‘And I think he ran away from home. That’s what I’ve always thought. He was a very enterprising young man.’

‘You think he ran away and had some kind of accident, which is why he’s never been found?’

‘No,’ said Spencer. ‘I think he left with the intention of never coming back. And I think he’s still alive.’

52

The place was crawling with police. Thea Aldrin sat in her room watching them from her window, struck dumb with horror.

How could it have happened again?

How could the events that had taken place in the ’60s still be claiming victims? Because Thea had no doubt about the fate that had befallen the boy who had been standing in the flowerbed outside her window. Nor had she been capable of preventing it.

Boy wasn’t really the right word. He was a man, but it was obvious almost straight away that there was something not quite right about him. The look in his eyes would haunt Thea for the rest of her life: a grotesque mixture of pleading and incomprehension that almost made her stop breathing.

There was a time when she had believed she would enjoy a rich and happy life. A time when she and Manfred had fallen in love, when they made their co-habitation into a political issue and refused to get married, even when she became pregnant. She had never felt that Manfred found it difficult to cope with her success. Quite the opposite, in fact: he had praised her to the skies with deep sincerity.

But none of the things she had taken for granted had been true, and none of the things she had held sacred had remained untouched. She could still recall the fear that had made her chew her own tongue as she watched the images flickering on the screen. And the powerlessness that followed when she confronted him.

‘It’s not real, for fuck’s sake!’ he had bellowed.

As far as Thea was concerned, that was of minor importance. She didn’t want to be anywhere near a man with desires of that kind. Nor did she want him anywhere near her unborn child.

He had been so easy to drive away, and she had always taken that as an indication that the film was in fact genuine. That a murder really had been committed. In her parents’ summerhouse, which she had visited countless times. With fear clutching at her throat, she had tried to find proof of what had happened there. She found nothing. And yet she knew that they had been there, that they had destroyed everything. Manfred and someone else, someone who was holding the camera. It wasn’t until several years later she found out who that someone was.

If only she hadn’t given up the film on the night he moved out. That was the price she had to pay: Manfred refused to leave without the film.

‘I don’t trust you,’ he had said. ‘If you’re sick enough to believe the film is real, then I don’t know what to think of you any more.’

So she had given him the film and assumed she had seen the last of him. Perhaps she should have realised what a terrible error of judgement that was. Everything that followed was undoubtedly a consequence of the first catastrophe. But she couldn’t have known how badly things would turn out. If she had had any idea, she would have acted differently a long time ago.

Many things frightened her as she sat there alone in self-imposed silence. Had anyone heard what had happened in her room yesterday evening? Had anyone seen the boy disappear? And, almost more significantly, had anyone heard Thea speak?

53

There was no time for rest or recuperation. Peder Rydh decided not to go home and sleep as Alex had suggested. Instead he drove around the streets yet again, then went back to the assisted living complex.

He remembered his brother’s earlier phone call with absolute clarity.

It’s a man. He’s looking in through the window. He’s got his back to me.

The police had already left when Peder got back to the complex; there was no reason for them to stay. He went to see the manageress and asked to her to let him into Jimmy’s room. She couldn’t stop apologising.

‘I don’t understand how this could have happened,’ she said as she led the way down the corridor.

She looked and sounded as if she had been crying. Peder didn’t care. He didn’t understand why she was apologising; she hadn’t been on duty when Jimmy disappeared.

‘One minute he was here, the next he was gone.’

Peder didn’t answer; he just walked past her into Jimmy’s room. Everything was as it should be, just as it had been when Peder was there in the morning. The bed with the quilt their grandmother had made, the bookshelves full of cars, pictures and books.

The staff had called Peder and his parents as soon as they realised Jimmy was missing. It was hard to know how long he had been gone; no one had seen him since the afternoon. There was nothing particularly unusual about that; Jimmy liked spending time on his own. Sometimes he didn’t bother coming to supper, but stayed in his room instead.

‘We found out he wasn’t there when we knocked to see if he’d started getting ready for bed. Otherwise, he stays up till all hours, as you know.’