Third Voice (15 page)

But there wasn’t much point. Olivia and Claire both realised that life would flow out of Hilda long before that. They held the woman’s hands in the dark and saw her frail body slowly stop fighting, her breathing slowly wane and her head bend down to the floor. Seconds later Olivia felt the old woman’s hand clasp her own so hard that she felt like screaming and then it went limp.

Hilda was dead.

Olivia sat down on the floor with her back to the bed. Claire had felt for a pulse and noted the time and a few other details. Then she gently brushed the old woman’s eyelids shut and neatened her hair, pulled out a cloth from her pocket and wiped away the blood on Hilda’s face.

‘She probably cut her forehead when she fell out of bed,’ she said quietly.

Olivia nodded. She was shaken. It was the first time she’d seen a person die. A person whose hand she held at the moment of death, a complete stranger. She looked around the room, the walls were bare. There was a framed photograph on a shelf next to the bed.

Of a dog.

That was all.

‘Could you help me?’

Claire had got up and stood behind Hilda’s head.

‘Take hold of her calves,’ she said.

They were going to lift Hilda up onto the bed. Olivia held her legs and Claire held her under her shoulders. Olivia prepared to lift a human body and was shocked. The body hardly weighed anything at all, it was like lifting a white robe, as though death had taken away all her weight. Carefully they placed Hilda on the bed.

‘Thank you,’ said Claire.

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the dead woman. Olivia could see how incredibly moved she was. Filled with sadness, her hand became moist as she wiped her eyes. Olivia
sat down in an armchair. The silence was different in here. It had been frightening out there, not in here.

‘It’s just hopeless…’

Claire spoke down to the frail body, not looking at Olivia. Her voice was controlled, but resigned, as though she was confirming a recurring tragedy. Olivia sat in silence. She felt there was more to come.

‘We struggle on until we reach breaking point, and this still happens. Over and over again. We don’t have time to be where we need to be, we don’t have time to do what we know we should, it’s just hopeless…’

Claire turned to Olivia.

‘I came in to see her a couple of hours ago, and then she was just lying in her bed as normal, breathing, and I talked to her a bit and told her that I had to go and check on a couple of other rooms and deal with the food and work on some supply orders. She was to press the emergency button if she needed anything. But she didn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘She couldn’t reach it. It had slid down behind the edge of the bed. If I’d popped in earlier I’d have seen it, but I had all that other stuff to do and I’m on my own here today. What could I do?’

Olivia didn’t have an answer. She didn’t work here. But she understood that Claire was shaken by what had happened and that she needed to talk about it.

‘What do you mean by “over and over again”?’ she said. ‘Has this happened to you before?’

‘Several times, unfortunately.’

Claire looked at Olivia.

‘Thanks for your help, by the way. My name is Claire Tingman.’

‘Olivia Rivera. I’m a friend of the Sahlmann family. Torsten Sahlmann died here a while ago, am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘His son Bengt was very upset about his death.’

‘I know. And with reason.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened?’

‘Torsten had a stroke during the night, and the person on night duty was busy with other stuff and she wasn’t able to keep an eye on things properly, so he wasn’t found until the morning and by that time it was too late.’

‘So he could have been saved if they’d found him earlier?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like Hilda?’

‘I don’t know. But this kind of thing happens all the time. A couple of weeks ago we had a diabetic woman who didn’t get her insulin on time – it wasn’t recorded in the notes when the support staff took over. She almost died too.’

‘But that’s terrible.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why is it like this, then?’

Olivia saw that Claire was hesitating.

‘Because we’re constantly short staffed,’ she said. ‘Because half of us are underqualified. Because of the need to make savings everywhere. Because there’s no proper planning, no one knows what anyone else is doing, everyone needs to be everywhere. Several of the elderly people have got terrible bedsores and last summer we found fly larvae in a sore on an old man’s back. It was disgusting.’

Claire turned her head away slightly, as though the memory of it was still troubling her.

‘I’m always almost in tears when I go home at the end of my shift,’ she said. ‘It’s like they don’t get that it’s human beings we’re dealing with here, as though it was some kind of final storage place for people who are going to die.’

‘“They”?’

‘The people running the home. It’s only about cutting costs and making money. And about…’

Claire stopped abruptly. There was a clacking sound of hard heels in the corridor.

‘You probably ought to leave now.’

Olivia stood up. She met a woman with short blonde hair in the doorway. She was dressed in a stiff beige coat and was on her way into the room. She was startled. Olivia walked past her out into the corridor. The woman walked into the room and pulled the door shut. Olivia heard muffled voices inside. A couple of minutes later, the door opened and the woman came out again. She took a couple of steps towards Olivia and reached out her hand.

‘Hi. Rakel Welin.’

‘Olivia Rivera. Who are you?’

‘I am the director of Silvergården. Do you have family here?’

‘No.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘I’ve just helped one of your employees with a dying woman in there. Apparently there’s no one else here.’

‘Well, I’ll have to ask you to leave now.’

‘Why?’

Rakel Welin was rather taken aback.

‘Because this is a private nursing home. We can’t have unauthorised persons running around here.’

‘I’m a friend of the Sahlmann family.’

‘They no longer have a relative here.’

The women looked at each other. Welin gestured towards the exit. Olivia didn’t move.

‘How do I get in touch with the company running Silvergården?’ she said.

‘Are you going to leave or do I have to call the police?’

‘And why would you do that? Because I saw what happened in there?’

‘That has nothing to do with outsiders.’

‘Except that you let an old woman, who could have been saved, die.’

‘Are you going to leave?’

‘Are you trying to cover up what happened?’

Rakel Welin looked at Olivia and got out a mobile. Olivia turned around and walked towards the door. Halfway there she stopped. Claire was standing in the doorway behind Welin. Their eyes met. Olivia went out through the glass door. Just before it slammed shut, the white cat scurried out after her.

It had probably caught sight of Rakel Welin.

She gripped the steering wheel. The roads were slippery, but more than that, she was extremely upset. The windscreen wipers were flapping to and fro all the way home – she hadn’t even realised it wasn’t raining.

It hadn’t been raining at all.

She was still upset when she got into her flat, both by the experience with Hilda and the meeting with Rakel Welin, but more than anything about what Claire Tingman had told her, about how things were at Silvergården. She suspected that there was a great deal that was covered up out there. She threw her jacket down in the hallway and felt she needed a really hot bath and a cup of tea. Sadly the bath option was no-go as she didn’t have a bathtub and a hot shower just wasn’t the same. But hot tea was no problem. She put the water on, changed into some comfier clothes, got her laptop and turned it on.

Her feet were tapping the floor, waiting for the screen to load.

By the time it did, the water was boiling. She pulled the saucepan towards her. As she poured the hot liquid she noticed that her hand was shaking slightly. The hand that Hilda had squeezed the moment she died. It was almost as if she could still feel it. And it would be a long time before that feeling went away, she knew that.

Likewise the shock of that weightless body.

She started by googling Silvergården.

Before long she’d found some sort of ownership structure. The home was ultimately owned by a venture capital firm called
Albion. She looked at Albion’s website for Silvergården. It was a visual masterpiece, both in terms of design and readability, with a rousing appeal:

They didn’t mention the fly larvae, Olivia thought to herself. But that probably wouldn’t sell quite as well.

Two cups of tea later she closed down her laptop and thought about Claire Tingman. She would probably never come forward publicly, but she was there. If need be, maybe Olivia could get her to talk.

Then the doorbell rang.

Olivia jumped and looked at the clock. It was only just gone eight o’clock. She had thought it was the middle of the night. Perhaps it was Mette Olsäter coming to offer a grovelling apology.

It wasn’t.

It was an Olsäter, but not Mette. It was Mårten.

‘Hello?! Come in!’

Mårten gave Olivia a warm hug and stepped into the flat. He’d never been there before.

‘Is this the flat you’re renting from your cousin?’

‘Yes.’

Mårten had a look around, which did not take long as it was a one-bedroom flat.

‘A real bachelor’s pad.’

‘Stupid expression.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Would you like some tea?’

‘I never drink tea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I think it’s watery.’

‘I don’t have any red wine.’

Mårten smiled. There was always wine on offer when they had dinner out in Kummelnäs.

‘I’ll make do with you,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

Mårten and Olivia had developed a special relationship of their own. Mårten had been the one taking care of her when her whole world was crumbling down around her, he’d been the one stitching together her broken mind and keeping her on her feet during the last part of her police training. And he had been the one to support her decision to travel to Mexico.

So he could drink whatever he liked as far as she was concerned.

‘Are you finding this thing with Mette and me difficult?’ Olivia asked as they sat down at the kitchen table. She wanted to get it out of the way so they could talk about more enjoyable things.

‘Yes.’

‘I think she should ring and apologise.’

‘So do I.’

‘But she won’t.’

‘No,’ said Mårten.

‘So?’

‘I just don’t want you to do anything silly.’

‘Because I’m angry at her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Well yes, why would you do that?’

Mårten gave her a look of amusement. He’d got to know Olivia pretty well by now and he knew that she was just as stubborn as his wife. Neither of them would take the first step. But he also knew what a stern warning Mette had been given at her most recent health check-up.

Olivia didn’t know that.

And so she didn’t know that Mette needed all the stress relief she could get at the moment. An emotional conflict with Olivia was not what she needed. But Mårten had no intention of talking about that.

Not now.

That’s not why he was here.

‘Was that why you came here? To make sure that I wasn’t going to do something “silly”?’ Olivia asked.

‘No. I came here for my own sake. Yours and mine. Mette and I have been very symbiotic on many levels, you’ve probably noticed that, but I’m not Mette. Your conflict with Mette has nothing to do with our relationship. It’s ours, no matter what happens. I just want you to know that.’

Olivia reached out her hand and put it on Mårten’s. A living hand, she thought.

‘I know that,’ she said.

‘Good.’

They looked at each other, kindly. Then Olivia pulled her hand away.

‘So have you heard anything from Abbas?’ she asked. ‘I’ve tried to call.’

‘He’s gone to Marseille. With Tom.’

‘What’s doing there?’

‘Dunno. At worst he’ll get dragged into something that isn’t very nice.’

‘Dangerous?’

‘Might be.’

‘Good job he has the tramp with him, then.’

Olivia immediately heard how childish it sounded and made a gesture. Mårten gave her a little smile.

‘That’ll sort itself out.’

Olivia shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t particularly interested in sorting things out with Tom Stilton, so she said: ‘Do you know a company called Albion?’

‘A venture capital firm. Yes. Why?’

‘Do you have a moment?’

‘Absolutely.’

Olivia gave a brief account of her experience out at Silvergården a few hours earlier and Mårten noticed how shaken she was.

And upset.

He shared her sentiments, in general. He hated venture capitalists. Mårten had a solid history in various left-wing movements. He’d dropped some of his ideological beliefs over the years, but his basic feelings would never go away.

‘Profits in the welfare sector are problematic,’ he said. ‘There are vultures who are just looking to rob taxpayers of money, and there are ambitious and dedicated people who want to run businesses in a more personal and innovative way than municipalities and county councils are able to do. It’s a hard balancing act.’

‘Silvergården is run by vultures.’

‘You know that?’

‘I’m assuming that’s the case based on what happened today and what that woman out there told me.’

‘Yes, but at the same time it would be tremendously counterproductive if Albion consciously mismanaged its business: it’s against the fundamental ideas of venture capitalism.’

‘Which are?’

‘To take over companies, make them extremely profitable and then sell them at a big profit. That’s not really possible if they run an organisation into the ground.’