Blood destiny 01 blood.., p.1
For the Dead (Detective Charlie Lager Book 2), page 1
Dedication
For my sisters,
the ones who walk beside me
and the ones who went before
Title Page
LINA BENGTSDOTTER
Translated from the Swedish by
AGNES BROOMÉ
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Prologue
1
2
3
Francesca
4
Gaps in Time
5
6
Francesca
7
8
Francesca
9
Gaps in Time
10
Francesca
11
12
Gaps in Time
13
Francesca
14
15
Francesca
16
Gaps in Time
17
18
Francesca
19
20
Francesca
21
22
Gaps in Time
23
24
Francesca
25
Francesca
26
Gaps in Time
27
Francesca
28
29
Gaps in Time
30
31
Francesca
32
Gaps in Time
33
Francesca
34
35
Gaps in Time
36
Francesca
37
38
39
Francesca
40
41
42
Francesca
43
44
Francesca
45
46
47
48
Francesca
49
50
Francesca
51
52
53
54
55
56
Gaps in Time
57
58
Credits
About the author
Copyright
It is a strange thing to be an unlovable child.
You’re unhappy but also free.
Johanne Lykke Holm, Natten som föregick denna dag
Prologue
A group of boys stood huddled behind the chapel. I approached from the lake; they didn’t notice me until I was much too close. In the faint light from the church, their faces looked weirdly spectral against their black tailcoats. It was the odious little gang with the royal names, Erik, Gustav, Oscar, Magnus and him, Henrik Stiernberg, my sister’s conceited boyfriend.
Henrik was the first to spot me. I must have scared him because he looked terrified when he asked me what the fuck I wanted. I stared at his face for a second, then burst out laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?’ he said. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’
I didn’t reply, because I had no idea why I was laughing or what was wrong with me.
‘Go back to the ball, weirdo,’ Erik said. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be inside, dancing?’
‘My escort’s missing,’ I said.
The moment I said it, my mood shifted; I suddenly felt on the verge of tears. Paul had been gone forever and the autumn ball was pointless without him. He’d promised me both the first and the last dance and the orchestra in the gym was gearing up to play the closing song. Maybe they already had. I don’t know why it made me so sad, because I definitely wasn’t the kind of girl who cared who I danced with, or if I even got to dance at all, but this was Paul.
‘Check his room,’ Erik said. ‘He probably got too hammered and conked out.’
I told them he wasn’t in his room.
‘Well, he’s not here,’ Henrik said, ‘so move along.’
I stayed where I was because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to look. I’d already checked the lake and the Weeping Willow and there was no one at Pine Point. This bench next to the family graves behind the chapel had been my last hope.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Henrik said when I suddenly staggered to one side.
‘I’m … dizzy,’ I said and reached out to lean against a headstone. I misjudged the distance and fell. Sprawled on the ground, I spotted the rose, the one that was the same shade of yellow as my dress and which Paul had been wearing in the breast pocket of his tailcoat.
‘Paul must’ve been here,’ I said, holding the rose up for the boys to see.
‘What are you on about?’ Henrik said. ‘We haven’t seen your little boyfriend.’
It was around that point our stories began to diverge.
1
Charlie tried to make herself comfortable in the tilted-back chair. Eva, the psychologist, was sitting diagonally to her left.
Eva had just gone over the guidelines for their conversations. It was important to start and stop sessions on time, important to be honest if something didn’t feel good, important that Charlie knew everything she said in that room would stay in that room.
Eva’s tone was friendly, but her eyes revealed she could be stern if the need arose. Charlie had looked her up and knew she was a member of the Swedish Psychologists’ Association and had fifteen years of professional experience. That had been Charlie’s first counter-demand when Challe ordered her to see a therapist, that it had to be someone with a proper education, not some smug git with an eight-week diploma in personal development. She didn’t want to waste her time on someone who spouted banalities or talked too much about their own life. Most importantly, though, she wanted to avoid doing it at all, which was why she had postponed this meeting for as long as she could. She’d tried to show Challe she was doing fine, that she was completely capable of taking care of herself and doing her job, but after the events of the summer, she didn’t exactly enjoy her boss’s full confidence.
Either way, there she was, in a strangely constructed chair in Eva’s office. Outside, the leaves of an enormous oak tree glistened gold and orange and rain trickled down the windowpane in tiny rivulets.
‘Tell me why you’re here, Charline,’ Eva said.
‘You can call me Charlie.’
‘What brings you here, Charlie?’
‘My boss. It was an ultimatum. He feels I need help.’
‘I see.’ Eva gave Charlie a probing look; Charlie figured she was making a mental note: Possible lack of self-awareness. ‘Do you agree with him?’
‘About needing help?’
‘Yes.’
‘I guess so, but I might not have come if it weren’t for the fact that I want to keep my job.’
‘Can you tell me a bit about yourself, in general terms. I know what you do for a living but that’s about it.’
‘What more do you need to know?’ Charlie said.
Eva smiled and said a person is more than just their job. Maybe Charlie could just give a brief description of herself.
‘Sure,’ Charlie said. ‘I like to …’ She paused. What did she like? Reading, drinking, being alone. She couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound depressing off the top of her head. ‘I like to read.’
When she realised Eva was waiting for more, she had an urge to add she loved working out as well, but what was the point of lying about something like that?
‘Have you been to therapy before?’ Eva said after a while.
‘Yes, a handful of sessions as an adult and a longer period of counselling as a teenager. My mother died when I was fourteen.’
‘That’s a difficult age to lose a parent.’
Charlie nodded.
‘And your father?’
‘Unknown.’
‘I see.’
‘What was your relationship with your mother like?’
‘It was …’ Charlie didn’t know what to say. Complicated? ‘My mother was unique.’
‘In what way?’
‘I suppose she wasn’t like other mothers. I guess you might say I’m fighting hard not to become her.’
‘That’s natural, though, don’t you think?’ Eva said. ‘Wanting to avoid repeating your parents’ mistakes? But if your aim is to avoid being your mother, you’re still using her as your reference point. You may not be able to step out of her shadow until you start acting without reference to her.’
‘Sure.’
‘We can come back to that. Right now, I want you to talk a bit about why your boss gave you an ultimatum. Why he is requiring you to see a therapist.’
Charlie suddenly heard Betty’s voice in her head. That thing she used to say when she was having a down period: I feel like the undertow’s pulling me down. If I lie still and think about it, I’ll sink. It’s best not to think, not to talk. It only makes things worse.’
‘I imagine it’s because of my drinking,’ Charlie says. ‘Sometimes I drink a bit too much. And the reason I’m here now is that until recently, I was able to keep it under control, drinking only when I was off-duty and never even the day before work, at least not in any significant quantities, but these days I find myself having a few drinks even if I’m working the next day, so I guess there must have been alcohol on my breath. Challe, my boss, has an incredible sense of smell.’
‘Maybe you’re lucky he does,’ Eva said. ‘I mean, because it induced you to seek professional help while there’s still time.’
‘How can you be so sure there’s still time?’ Charlie demanded.
‘You’re aware of and open about your problem. That’s a pretty good place to start.’
‘I’ve been aware of it for a long time, but that hasn’t meant I’ve been able to do anything about it, so I don’t know if that’s true.’
‘I thought you just told me you’ve been able to keep it under control?’
‘There have been times when I lost control,’ Charlie said.
‘But now you’re here.’
‘Yes, now I’m here.’
A few minutes of trivial small talk followed. Then silence fell. Charlie studied the paintings behind Eva. Framed pictures that looked like … Rorschach tests, Charlie suddenly realised. She tried to see patterns in the blots as a way to gauge her mental health, but was interrupted by Eva, who wanted to know more about her job.
Charlie told her about what she did as a detective working for the National Operations Department, about how she and her colleagues were dispatched to assist local law enforcement with particularly difficult cases across the country.
‘And what does the rest of your life look like?’ Eva asked.
‘Single, no children,’ Charlie replied.
‘And if we go back to your drinking,’ Eva said, without commenting on her lack of partner. ‘How long has it been a problem?’
‘I’m not sure. I suppose it depends on who you ask.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘Ever since I had my first drink I’ve really liked alcohol, and I’ve always had more of it than the people around me. The one-glass-only mentality is incomprehensible to me. But I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic just because I drink more than other people. I suppose sometimes I drink a lot, but there are calmer periods, too.’
‘And the uptick that led to this meeting, when did it start?’
‘I honestly don’t remember exactly, but I went back to Gullspång, the town I grew up in, a few months ago. It’s a small town in Västergötland,’ she added when Eva looked nonplussed. ‘I lived there until my mum died. That’s when I moved to Stockholm.’
‘Did you have family here?’
‘No, I ended up in foster care.’
‘What was that like?’
Charlie didn’t know how to respond. What was there really to say about her life in the small terraced house in Huddinge? She pictured the garden, the raked gravel path, the flowerbeds where everything grew in neat rows and the tiny apple tree that never bore fruit. She thought about her first meeting with her foster parents Bengt and Lena and their daughter, Lisen, how the three of them had stiffly welcomed her into their clinically clean house. On the surface, her new family was exactly what she’d used to wish for whenever Betty went off the rails: calm, orderly people with regular sleep schedules, sit-down family meals and a mother who packed gym bags and cooked traditional food and didn’t have mental breakdowns. Lena never once curled up on the sofa for days, desperate to shut out any trace of sound and light. She never threw parties and invited people she didn’t know. Charlie thought about her room in the terraced house, the laundered sheets, the smell of soap and roses. I want you to feel at home, Lena had told her that first night. I really hope you will feel at home here, Charline, and that you and Lisen will be like sisters.
But Charlie had never felt at home in the house in Huddinge and she and Lisen had never become anything like sisters.
Eva cleared her throat.
‘It was functional,’ Charlie said, ‘my foster family. Everything was neat and orderly and I was able to focus on school.’
‘That’s good,’ Eva said, ‘but back to when this period started. You went to Gullspång at the start of the summer. How come?’
‘It was for work; a young girl had disappeared, Annabelle Roos, you might have read about it in the papers.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘We went down there to help the local police and as it turns out, being back was pretty rough, much worse than I’d thought it’d be.’
‘In what way?’
‘It stirred up a lot of memories and I was …’
Charlie saw Annabelle’s thin body being pulled out of the black waters of the Gullspång River, saw Betty’s boyfriend, Mattias, disappear into the same black depths two decades earlier, saw two little girls with a crying toddler between them, even further back in time, long before she was born.
‘You were what?’ Eva said, leaning forward in her chair.
‘I suppose you might say I got personally involved in the case, to some degree. And I made a mistake down there and was suspended and that obviously affected me as well. When I returned to Stockholm, I thought everything would go back to normal, but it didn’t. It got worse.’
‘What got worse?’
‘My anxiety, the futility of it all, my sleeping problems. I have a hard time falling asleep and once I do, I have bad dreams.’
‘Describe them.’
‘My dreams?’
‘Yes.’
‘They started when I got back from Gullspång, but then they were slowly going away, until I started working on this case that’s getting to me more than I’d like to admit.’
Eva asked what kind of case it was and Charlie told her about the two young women from Estonia, the ones who had been found murdered and dumped in a wooded area in the suburbs. One of them had a three-year-old daughter, a hollow-eyed, hungry girl who had been locked alone in a flat for at least two days. The daughter still hadn’t said a word, even though it had been two weeks since they found her.
Eva said she wasn’t surprised Charlie felt affected by it, that an abandoned child would make most people feel the same way. But the little girl was okay, wasn’t she?
‘She’s alive,’ Charlie said. ‘But that’s about it. Last night, I dreamt she was my child, that I was her mother. I wanted to run home and rescue her, but I couldn’t, because I was dead. And then, in my next dream, I was the child and, well, you get it.’
‘Are you on any kind of medication?’ Eva asked without commenting on her dreams.
‘Sertraline,’ Charlie said, ‘one hundred milligrams.’ She didn’t mention that she sometimes complemented the sertraline with oxazepam or sleeping pills or both.
‘Nothing else?’ Eva said.
Charlie shook her head.
‘Are you aware nightmares are a common side effect of sertraline?’
Charlie nodded. She knew that, but since she’d been on sertraline for years, she felt it was unlikely to be related.
Eva folded her hands around her knee.
‘This mistake you mentioned,’ she continued, ‘I would like to talk some more about that.’
Charlie thought about that night at the pub for a minute. The liquorice shots, the wine, the beer, Johan. Her decision to dig up everything she could about him after she got back to Stockholm had been foolish. If you wanted to move on, you had to put a lid on things and leave them well enough alone, she knew that, but instead, she’d left no rock unturned. It had started with her wanting to find out where he lived, to check if he was married, if everything he’d said about being Betty’s boyfriend’s son was really true. It seemed to be.
‘Charlie?’ Eva was looking at her.
‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’
‘I asked you to tell me about that mistake you mentioned.’
‘Right. I actually don’t remember all of what happened, but in a nutshell, I had too much to drink and took a journalist back to my room. The next day, privileged information was printed in the papers. I wasn’t the leak, though everyone obviously thought I was. And, well, it was a problem, to put it mildly.’
Eva said nothing for a minute, as if waiting for Charlie to continue. Then she asked: ‘Do you think you would’ve spent the night with this man if you’d been sober?’
‘God, no!’
‘Why not?’
Charlie didn’t quite know how to answer that, so she told it like it was, that she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d gone to bed with a man sober. And was there something wrong with that?
‘What do you think?’ Eva retorted.
‘I obviously think that particular instance was ill-advised, but in other contexts, I mean, when I’m not working? Do you think one-night stands are wrong?’
‘Is what I think important to you?’
