Third Voice (4 page)

At least from her perspective.

‘You can sleep in the spare room, the sheets are clean. I think I’m going to go to bed now,’ Maria said.

‘You do that. I’ll clear this up.’

Maria got up and hesitated for a second, wondering whether she should bend down and give Olivia a kiss on the cheek. Olivia Rivera. She decided to stroke her daughter’s cheek instead.

‘
Te
amo
.’

‘Sleep well.’

Maria headed towards the kitchen door. Halfway there she turned around and looked at Olivia.

‘You can empathise with her situation, can’t you?’

Olivia didn’t answer.

‘Goodnight.’

Maria disappeared. Olivia watched her go. She was right. Olivia had empathised with Sandra’s situation ever since she’d seen the thin girl sitting in the ambulance in shock, having just lost her father. And having lost her mother in the tsunami just a few years earlier. Both her parents had died in dramatic circumstances. Like Olivia’s own. She had no difficulty at all imagining being in Sandra’s shoes.

On the contrary.

Even though her own shocks had come one after the other, in a completely different way. But the girl asleep upstairs in her old room would wake up to an orphaned existence and be forced to shape her life alone.

Now you’re being unfair to Arne and Maria, Olivia thought. You did actually grow up with two parents, one of whom is still alive. You were not left empty handed when the shocking news was delivered. Your real parents were not ripped out of your life. You didn’t even know they existed.

Olivia could feel herself flagging, both physically and mentally. The long flight was catching up with her – the tiredness, the tension, and then the tragedy she’d been caught up in. Just when she thought she would sleep a thousand hours and then step back out into the world.

Strong. Ready.

Things were seemingly not going to be that simple.

She pulled her rucksack towards her and opened it. She had wrapped Bosques’ beautiful cigar box in a couple of unwashed T-shirts. She gently picked it up and put it on the kitchen table. She stared at the door and listened.

Silence.

She didn’t want to show it to Maria. Especially not what was inside. It was a very private heirloom that she didn’t intend to share with anyone. She opened the lid and smelled that familiar scent of old cigars again. Carefully she picked up the photograph of Adelita. Under it lay a black lock of hair, tied together with a thin transparent piece of string. Who had kept it? Nils Wendt? When had he got it? When Adelita had travelled to Sweden just before she was murdered there? She placed the lock of hair next to the photograph. At the bottom of the box were a few handwritten letters. She had already looked at them on the plane and realised that her Spanish wasn’t good enough to understand what was written in them. One day she’d get someone to translate them. Not Maria, but Abbas perhaps? He was good at Spanish. Abbas had crossed her mind a couple of
times during her long trip. She liked him, a lot, without really knowing him.

Bosques had liked Abbas too. ‘He’s a man,’ Bosques had said. And Olivia hadn’t thought that sounded silly. She understood exactly what Bosques meant. I’ll call Abbas tomorrow, Olivia thought and looked inside the box again. There was only one thing left in it. A gold brooch. Olivia picked it up and realised it could be opened. She hadn’t seen that on the plane. Carefully she snapped open the top to reveal a small photo graph inside. Of a dark-skinned man. Who was it? His appearance was neither reminiscent of Adelita’s nor her own. He looked a bit like Bosques but she didn’t think any more about that.

She snapped the brooch shut and put it back in the box.

And thought about Sandra again.

The orphaned teenager sleeping in her old room.

The light grey jumper elegantly fitted Abbas’s slim, supple body. He was freshly showered and dressed in brown chinos. His feet moved slowly down the stairs. Frozen in time, he thought. Some of the gently curved stone steps were adorned with beautiful fossils of million-year-old squid. Orthoceratidae. They fascinated him. He carried on going down, a little faster. He was on his way to check the letterbox in the hall. There was an expectant spring in his step: with any luck there would be a thin book with Sufi poetry in there. Ronny Redlös, who ran a shop selling old books, had posted it yesterday, so it should be here today.

Should.

But given the poor reliability of the postal service, it might well take another day. That would be annoying. He had been desperately longing for some spiritual catharsis before his night-shift at the casino. So he hurried on down the stairs.

‘Abbas!’

Abbas stopped. He knew who that voice belonged to. When he turned around, he saw Agnes Ekholm standing at her half-open front door. Her silvery grey wig wasn’t on properly and her tattered dressing gown was wrongly buttoned.

‘Are you going to get the post?’

‘Yes. Should I get yours too?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

Abbas went back up to take the little key from Agnes.

‘I’ll wait here,’ she said.

Abbas nodded and carried on down. He reflected that older people with frail bones and a shaky sense of balance were now forced to go up and down the hard stone staircase to get their post. Often several times a day, because no one knew when the post actually came. All so that postmen no longer needed to put it through their individual doors. It was one of the reasons he disliked the letterboxes being down by the entrance. Another
was that certain people, if so inclined, probably had all the time in the world to steal various bits of personal information and bank details.

The postal service had laid it all out for them.

Abbas opened Agnes’s box first: a thin letter from the Church of Sweden and a postcard that should have gone to her neighbour. His own was rather more well filled. A few letters, an ugly pamphlet from an insurance company and a thick newspaper. His subscription.

But no book.

At least the newspaper had come, he thought, and quickly climbed up the stairs to Agnes’ floor. She looked at him expectantly.

‘There wasn’t much today unfortunately,’ he said.

Agnes took the letter from the Church of Sweden and tried to hide her disappointment.

‘Maybe there’ll be more tomorrow?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Here!’

Agnes passed him a small piece of carrot cake wrapped in a white paper napkin.

‘I didn’t make it today, but…’

Abbas took the piece of cake. It was a ritual. Every time he went to get the post for Agnes, she gave him a piece of her carrot cake. The second time he’d tasted it he realised that it was probably the same cake as last time, a week later. The third time he’d left it in a dog bowl in the stairway one floor up.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘I do hope you’ll enjoy it.’

Abbas nodded again and carried on up the stairs. The cake ended up in the same bowl as the others had. He reached his own front door and opened it while glancing at his letters. Two bills and a pay slip from Casino Cosmopol. He pulled the door closed, put the post on the small table in the hallway and opened up the newspaper he’d collected.

The one he subscribed to.

Before the front page was completely unfolded, he had already taken a few steps into the living room. He stood still. For the first few seconds he read the headlines and scanned the large black and white photograph. He then spent the next few minutes reading the article. For fifteen minutes, he held the newspaper in the same position in front of him, standing on the same spot on the floor, the only difference being that his hands were now trembling and his eyes had stopped reading. He was just holding an object made from paper.

Totally detached.

Suddenly he managed to free himself. He carefully folded up the newspaper and put it on the sleek glass table in front of the sofa, making sure it was in line with the edge of the table. Then he took two steps towards the window and pulled out the thin black pole that he used to adjust his wooden blinds. His gaze wandered through the window and towards the Matteus Church on the other side of the road, staring at it without actually seeing it. Then he closed the blinds and stood still, just staring out in front of him.

The hoover?

Where have I put it?

He walked away from the window and went to get the hoover. It was where it always was. He plugged it into the socket and started hoovering. First methodically, all over the living room floor, under the sofa and the glass table, and then back over the floor again. Eventually he got stuck in one spot. He hoovered the same bit over and over again, back and forth, until cramp set in.

First in his chest, then in his stomach.

He put the hoover down and went into the kitchen. He just about managed to think, ‘Maybe I should paint the walls?’ before he threw up into the sink, repeatedly, until it was just green bile that came up. By the end he was just retching. He hung his head down over the sink, his hands let go of the
worktop, he slowly slid down onto the floor and onto the kitchen rug. He curled up into a foetal position. His eyelids slid shut.

The last thing he saw was the strange, whirring machine in the middle of the living room.

Stilton had gained weight. It was largely muscle. Most of his body had withered away during the years he’d lived on streets, his collarbones serving as a bony hanger for a sack of skin. He’d put a stop to that. Slowly but surely, he had restored his worn body, exercising, taking care of himself, and all the saggy skin had filled out again. Now he was almost back to his former self.

Physically.

He ran a hand over his head. His long straggly hair had been cropped and replaced with a blond crew cut with streaks of grey running through it. A white scar in the corner of his mouth shone through the thin stubble, reminding him of the young lad he once was, just before he turned twenty. A young Swede of few words on a Norwegian oilrig, an oilrig that had suddenly exploded and unleashed full-scale panic in all but him, the Swede, who’d dragged a couple of colleagues from the distorted steel inferno with a muted contempt for death and saved their lives. A year later he had submitted his application to the Police Academy in Stockholm.

He carried a blue Adidas bag in his hand and headed down from Hornsgatan towards Långholmen. He walked quickly to keep warm. It was that inspiring time of year when the colour scheme delighted with different shades of grey. He buttoned his brown leather jacket right up under his chin. It was still a bit too big, but did the job in the icy cold winds. He’d inherited it from his grandfather, a tough old seal hunter on the island of Rödlöga whose shoulders were as wide as a doorframe.

He’d never match that.

But his grandfather was dead and the jacket was his and he wore it as well as he could.

He reached into the inside pocket, took out his mobile and tapped in a number. It didn’t ring for long.

‘Luna.’

‘Hi again, it’s Tom Stilton.’

‘Yes?’

‘I was just wondering if I could come over.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

Stilton ended the call and pulled out the piece of paper that he’d found stapled to an old oak tree on the edge of the Långholmen Park. He read the text again.

‘
Sara la Kali.
’

Why not, he thought.

Luna pulled a wire brush over one of the iron ribs on the front deck. The rust came and went. It came when she didn’t notice it and went again when she paid attention. What a Sisyphean task, she thought. The barge had been built in 1932, and although it was in good condition, it required constant maintenance. She stood up and glanced over at the Pålsund Bridge. A lone figure carrying a blue bag was making his way over the bridge, the wind forcing him to lean forwards slightly as he walked. It’s probably him, she thought. He’d called twice in quick succession and now he was on his way here. What an efficient man. Luna liked that. She put down the brush and flicked her thick mane of blonde hair with her somewhat grubby hand just as the man looked over at the barge. Luna waved at him. She didn’t really know how to begin – probably best just to be upfront about it. It was the first time she was doing this and she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation.

The man was soon at the gangway, a rather primitive construction made from wood and tar. He crossed over it in four steps and stood still on the deck.

Luna stepped forward.

‘Hi. Luna Johansson.’

‘Tom Stilton.’

He’s tall, she thought. She was six foot and this man was clearly taller, this man with a deep voice, worn face and a nice brown leather jacket. She was dressed in a pair of dirty green dungarees. Did he look a little dangerous? Maybe that was a good thing. There had been an attempted break-in a week ago and it could happen again.

‘Is this your boat?’ Stilton asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you live here alone?’

Luna had thought that she would be the one asking questions, but OK.

‘Yes.’

‘Can we take a look inside the cabin?’

‘In a sec. Do you have any references?’

‘I was homeless for five years, getting by selling
Situation Stockholm
, and this past year I’ve been living on Rödlöga.’

‘Are those your references?’

‘Are you worried about the rent?’

‘No. I’ll take an advance on that. Do you have a job?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What did you do before you were homeless?’

‘I was a police officer. At the National Crime Squad.’

This man was either a compulsive liar or very strange. Luna hadn’t quite made up her mind when Stilton said: ‘I come from a family of seal hunters.’

He was strange.

‘The cabin is this way,’ said Luna.

She gestured behind her and expected the man to go first. He thought otherwise, so there were a few seconds of nervous silence before Luna turned around and headed towards the stern.

Stilton followed her.

He studied the woman in front of him. She was tall, quite broad shouldered and although her overalls didn’t reveal much about her frame, he got the feeling that she was in good shape.
When she tossed her head her blonde hair fell over onto one of her shoulders, partially revealing her neck. Not much, but enough for Stilton to see a tattoo snaking its way up to her ear.

‘So here it is.’

Luna moved away so that Stilton could take a step forward. He looked in and saw a wall-mounted bunk, a square table under a small round porthole, wooden bulkheads, nothing more.

‘It’s the largest cabin on here,’ she said. ‘Seven square metres.’

The cells at Kumla Prison are ten, Stilton thought.

‘Looks good,’ he said. ‘Can I lock this?’

Stilton nodded towards the cabin door.

‘No, but I can put a bolt on the door if you want.’

‘Yes, please. Where do you sleep?’

‘At the other end. My cabin has a lock.’

Stilton didn’t really know how to react to that and then Luna said: ‘You have access to the shower, lounge and kitchen. There’s only one fridge. You can use the two bottom shelves. We share the loo.’

‘OK. Three thousand a month?’

‘Well, yes, in principle.’

Stilton peered at Luna.

‘I’d consider reducing the rent in lieu of some renovation work on the boat.’

Stilton nodded. He was no handyman: he was busy enough fixing himself. But the offer was OK.

‘Will there be a contract?’ he asked.

‘Do we need one?’

‘You’re taking a month’s payment in advance. How do I know that the boat will still be here in a week?’

‘You don’t.’

‘No. So…?’

‘What difference would a contract make?’

‘Bugger all.’

‘Yep, so you may as well trust that I’m not going to screw you over.’

‘Apparently so.’

Stilton felt himself getting defensive and he didn’t enjoy being in this position. One of his major assets as an interrogator had been his ability to steer the dialogue in the direction he wanted until interviewees were pushed into a verbal corner that they could not escape.

Luna had certainly not ended up in that corner.

‘When do you want to move in?’ she asked.

‘Now, if that’s all right.’

Luna looked at his blue bag.

‘I have another bag at a friend’s house.’

‘What about the rent?’

Stilton pulled out a black wallet from his inside pocket, opened it and took out three thousand-kronor notes. There were a few more in there. Four months ago he’d sold a piece of land out on Rödlöga to an eager stockbroker from Gothenburg. His grandparents were probably turning in their graves when the sale went through, but Stilton needed money and it was his inheritance. He now had a pretty decent amount of money sitting in a savings account at Swedbank.

‘Thanks.’

Luna took the notes from him.

Stilton went into the cabin and pulled the door closed.

There was a lot that was different about this day. The sun, for example, was shining. And it hadn’t been for the past week. Now it had crept over the rooftops just to show it was still there. Soon it would soon be descending again.

But nevertheless.

The beams of sunlight shone into Maria’s kitchen, casting a warm yellowy glow over the room. Things were different there too. Maria had been called to the Svea Court of Appeal to assist a colleague and neither of the people sitting at the
kitchen table lived in the house. One of them was a daughter who’d flown the nest and was thinking about changing her surname, and the other was Sandra, the girl who had found her father hanging from the ceiling by a tow rope less than eighteen hours ago. She had woken late. Her face bore clear traces of shock and nightmares, but above all she seemed to have woken up to the realisation that she no longer had parents.

Olivia saw this realisation in her face as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. She gave Sandra a long, long hug. Silently. A few minutes later, she felt her thin jumper was soaked with Sandra’s tears. After a while Sandra freed herself from Olivia’s hug and asked to use the toilet. Olivia showed her where it was. Meanwhile she laid out whatever she could find in Maria’s fridge and before long they were each sitting with a bowl of cereal in front of them. Not many words had been exchanged across the table. Olivia waited. Sandra moved her spoon around the bowl.

‘Has Charlotte been in touch?’ she asked.

‘Yes, she’s on her way. She’s landing in half an hour and she’s coming straight here.’

‘Did you get the computer?’

‘It wasn’t there.’

Sandra looked up from the bowl.

‘In the office?’

‘No, I looked everywhere. Could he have taken it to work?’

‘I don’t know. He tends to keep it at home.’

‘OK. I can have a look at his work. What kind of computer is it?’

‘A MacBook Pro. It’s quite new. I put a little sticker on the inside, a pink heart… Why did he do it?’

‘Who?’

‘My dad!’

‘Commit suicide?’

‘Yes!?’

Sandra was suddenly staring straight into Olivia’s eyes. As if she thought that Olivia would have an answer.

‘I have no idea.’

‘But why do people commit suicide?’

Olivia saw that Sandra was steeling herself to talk, to put the horror into words, to try to comprehend the incomprehensible. A father taking his own life. Without any kind of warning, leaving his only child an orphan.

‘I don’t know, Sandra. I never knew your father. Was he sad about something?’

Olivia heard how foolish that sounded: ‘sad about something’. She wasn’t speaking to a child. Sandra was a teenager, about to enter adulthood in a way that no one should have to.

She deserved more respect.

Olivia pulled her chair towards Sandra.

‘Sandra… there are a thousand reasons why people commit suicide, but there is one thing that you can exclude. He did not take his life because of you. I don’t know why he did it, maybe the police investigation will tell us: there might be financial reasons or it might be something to do with your mother. I mean, she died…’

‘He’d got over my mum’s death. We both had. Once, about six months after she died, he came into my room and talked about his grief, how he was sometimes so sad that he didn’t know whether he could carry on living if it wasn’t for me. We held each other and got through it.’

This corroborated what Olivia’s intuition had told her. Sandra wasn’t a child.

‘Having said that, he was very sad about what happened with my grandfather,’ Sandra said.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died a while ago. He was living in an old people’s home and died there. Dad said that they hadn’t taken proper care of him and that made him very sad. He didn’t really show it, but I saw it in his eyes.’

‘Was your grandfather old?’

‘He was eighty-three, and he was quite ill. We knew that he was going to die soon, so it wasn’t that…’

Sandra ate a spoonful of cereal. Olivia saw her hand shaking. I hope that Charlotte is a good person, she thought, who knows how to deal with Sandra. She should be, her sister died in the tsunami, so she’s faced crises of her own.

But you never know.

‘Where’s your father?’

Sandra spoke as she pushed her bowl away. Olivia was completely unprepared.

‘He died a few years ago. From cancer.’

‘Well, at least you still have your mum.’

‘Yes.’

Olivia could have ended the conversation there, with a half-truth. But she didn’t want that. She didn’t know how close she would get to Sandra in the future and she didn’t want her to stumble upon the real truth at a later date. She didn’t want to do what others had done to her.

So she started telling her what had happened.

It took quite a while. It was not a straightforward story. But when she’d finally recounted all the tragic things that had happened to her and her various parents, and answered several of Sandra’s questions, Sandra looked at her and said.

‘Poor you.’

As though it was Olivia who needed comforting.

The young women went out through the gate of the terraced house in Rotebro, off to collect Sandra’s scooter. The feeble November sunshine barely managed to dry up the small puddles on the road. It was pretty cold, but the wind was not nearly as severe as the night before. They walked quite slowly. From a distance they could have been mistaken for best friends, or sisters, one a little older than the other. They were neither, but
the hours in Maria’s kitchen had created a connection between them, as though they shared the same fate.

Which they did to some extent.

Sandra’s mind was still filled with Olivia’s account of brutal murders and painful betrayals, allowing her to repress her own anguish.

For the moment anyway.

Very different thoughts were running through Olivia’s head. When they reached the underpass, she remembered what she’d wanted to ask.

‘Do you know someone called Alex Popovic?’

‘Not very well. I know who he is, one of Dad’s friends, a journalist. Why do you ask?’

‘He called your house when I was there looking for the computer.’

‘What did he want?’

‘I don’t know, I ended the call pretty quickly.’

‘Did you tell him about my dad?’