The Long Shadow (43 page)

She seemed so grown-up. ‘And now you think she’s got in touch?’ Annika said.

Polly nodded. ‘Do you want anything? I can go and get it.’

Annika took out her purse and handed Polly a hundred-kronor note. ‘Just a glass of water for me, please.’

The girl went off to the counter, which was actually a
rusty metal table. Annika watched her. She must be sixteen, maybe seventeen, but seemed older. She returned with a glass of water, ice and lemon, and a cup of green tea for herself. She looked rather apologetic. ‘I know it was a bit silly of me,’ she said. ‘What I said last time.’

Annika arched an eyebrow.

‘When I asked if you thought there was email in Heaven. Of course there isn’t, I know that. I suppose I was just hoping …’ She struggled onto a stool. She wasn’t particularly tall, about the same height as Annika. ‘This time I know it’s for real. Suz is alive,’ she said, calm and focused.

‘Have you got your computer with you?’ Annika asked.

Polly pulled a laptop out of her rucksack. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a student council meeting.’

She started the laptop up, logged in, did a bit of clicking, then turned the screen towards Annika. It was covered with a picture of a smiling, black-haired girl hugging a chestnut horse. ‘There’s free Wi-Fi here,’ Polly said. ‘Hang on, I’ll log in.’

‘That’s a lovely picture of Suzette,’ Annika said.

‘The horse’s name is Sultan – he was her favourite. The riding-school’s sold him now.’

The screen flickered and a hotmail page appeared below Windows Live. A banner at the top advertised some science magazine. Immediately below that, on the right-hand side, she saw the email address for Gunnar Larsson. The darker blue marker on the left was highlighting ‘sent’. There were two messages. They had been sent to Polly’s yahoo address, the first at the end of March, and the second at 14.37 the previous day, 13 June.

‘So this is Gunnar Larsson’s email account,’ Annika
said. ‘The one you and Suzette set up to send dirty messages to girls in your class.’

Polly nodded. ‘We deleted all the messages after Gunnar left,’ she said, shamefaced.

‘But you kept the account?’

‘We didn’t know how to close it down.’

Annika clicked on the first message, from March.

Empty.

Then she clicked on the one from the day before.

Hi Polly, you cant tell anyone about this email. You cant say anything to mum and DEFINITELY NOT the police. Theres no internet at the farm so i havent been able to email. Im at an internet cafe now. They dont know where i am, and Fatima would be furious if she knew I was writing.

Im with Amira. Ive been here since new year. Ive got my own horse called Larache. Hes lovely, a mix of English and Arabian thoroughbred. Is Adde with anyone else? Dont tell Adde ive been in touch. You can answer this but I dont know when ill read it. We only go places like Asilah, but not very often.

Big hug from suz

Annika read the message twice. Evidently it had been written on a fairly basic keyboard, without any Swedish characters. Asilah sounded like a place … It seemed vaguely familiar. Where had she heard its name before?

‘Do you think it’s genuine?’ she asked. ‘Is this how Suzette usually expresses herself?’

Polly took a sip of her green tea and nodded. ‘She always writes
big hug
, and Suz with a small s.’

‘Who are the people she mentions? Fatima, Amira and Adde?’

A shadow passed quickly over Polly’s face, unless Annika was imagining it.

‘Amira’s Suz’s best friend. That’s what she used to say, as if those of us here at home didn’t count. I think Fatima’s her mother. Adde is Suz’s boyfriend. Well, maybe not boyfriend, they weren’t really together. It was mostly that Suz had a crush on him. Adde’s always got loads of girls …’

‘What about Amira?’ Annika asked. ‘How come she’s Suz’s best friend?’

‘Her summer friend. Suz spent a lot of time on their farm when she was little. They’re the same age.’

‘Where? In Spain?’

Polly shook her head. ‘Morocco. They’ve got a farm there.’

‘Do you know where it is? The place she mentions, Asilah?’

Polly shrugged and pushed her cup aside.

‘But how do they talk to each other?’ Annika asked. ‘They speak French and Arabic in Morocco, and Suzette couldn’t really speak English, could she?’

Polly looked indignant. ‘Of course she can speak English.’

‘Does she speak English with Amira?’

Polly shook her head and turned the laptop round to face her.

‘Swedish, obviously.’

‘Hang on,’ Annika said. ‘Can I forward this to my own email?’

Polly hesitated. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I promised to tell you if she got in touch. I have to go now.’

‘They speak Swedish to each other? How come?’

‘Amira’s half Swedish, isn’t she? Her dad’s from Sweden. Her surname’s Lindholm.’

All the noise around Annika faded. ‘Lindholm?’ she
said. ‘Her dad’s surname is Lindholm? Do you know what his first name is?’

Polly put her laptop back in her rucksack and shrugged again. ‘No idea. I don’t think he lives on the farm.’

‘Could his name be David? Do you know if he was a policeman?’

The girl was pulling her rucksack back on now. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

‘Of course you can,’ Annika said.

‘Don’t say anything about this to anyone. Promise.’

Annika looked at the serious young woman with the blonde hair, so different from the heavily made-up, black-haired girl on Facebook. ‘I won’t say anything,’ she said. ‘And I won’t write anything either. I promise.’

They shook hands, then Polly disappeared out of the door.

Annika gave her two minutes, then followed her. She left the noise of the hellish café behind her with a sigh of relief.

Suzette was alive; she was on a farm somewhere in the Moroccan countryside, where there was a girl of the same age whose surname was Lindholm.

She stopped on the street, fished out her mobile, called International Directory Enquiries and asked to be put through to the Swedish Embassy in Rabat, Morocco.

An automated answerphone message clicked in. A long harangue in French mostly explained the opening hours for the visa section, and telephone times for other business. Annika had trouble keeping up – her French was almost as bad as her Spanish – but it was already too late to get any information that day. She’d have to try again tomorrow.

She looked towards Kungsholmen. She ought to go back to the paper and tell them that Filip Andersson
wasn’t talking. People were sweeping past her, bumping into her, catching her bag, standing on her toes, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying to lunch or the dry-cleaner or a meeting. Buses squealed and cars splashed through muddy puddles.

She looked towards Hamngatan. Writing up that worthless press conference would take thirty seconds. She raised her mobile and dialled Julia Lindholm’s home number on Bondegatan.

She and Alexander were in, and Annika was more than welcome to pay them a visit.

Their flat was on the third floor of a rather dull 1960s block. The stairwell was dark and smelt musty. The only thing that looked new was the sign saying LINDHOLM on the letterbox. The police must have smashed the old one when they broke into the flat after David was murdered, Annika thought.

She rang the bell and heard a distant ding-dong echo on the other side of the wall.

‘Welcome,’ Julia said, throwing the door wide. ‘How lovely of you to come and see us! Isn’t it, Alexander?’

The boy, who had grown at a phenomenal rate during the spring, was standing in the doorway to his room. He didn’t answer.

Annika dropped her bag in the hall and hung her jacket on a hook. Then she went over to Alexander and crouched beside him. ‘Hello, Alexander,’ she said. ‘Is it nice being able to play in your own room again?’

He went into it and closed the door.

‘He’ll start back at his old nursery school next week,’ Julia said. ‘The therapists have decided he’s ready. Have you been here before?’

Annika shook her head.

‘There’s not much to see, but my parents have redecorated and made it nice while Alexander and I were at Lejongården. This is the kitchen.’

She gestured towards a very ordinary sixties-style kitchen with painted cupboards and a scratched stainless-steel worktop.

‘It suits the building well,’ Annika said.

‘Yes, doesn’t it? I really like it. And here’s the living room …’

It had oak parquet-flooring, a television and windows facing in two directions. ‘We haven’t got a balcony,’ Julia said, ‘which is a bit of a shame. It’s really the only thing I wish was different. My bedroom …’ She opened the door to the room where her husband had been murdered. The bed was neatly made. The curtains were open. If David had done errands for the Mafia in return for money, he hadn’t spent it on his home, Annika thought.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Julia said. ‘How can I sleep in here?’

Annika took a deep breath and was about to protest, but breathed out instead.

‘He’s gone, but we’re still here. There’s no way round that,’ Julia said. ‘Have you had lunch?’

Annika shook her head. ‘I was thinking of doing meatballs and mashed potato. Frozen meatballs and instant mash, but it does the job. Would you like some?’

‘Thanks, yes.’

They went back out into the hall. Annika could hear banging from inside Alexander’s room.

‘He’s decided to build a flying saucer,’ Julia said. ‘The therapists say I should let him do what he wants.’

Annika sat down at the kitchen table while Julia got out a packet of powdered potato and a bag of meatballs.
‘How’s he getting on?’ Annika asked.

Julia took a while to answer. ‘He isn’t the same boy as before, although I don’t really know what I was expecting. After all, he was a whole year younger then.’ She stopped, holding a spatula in front of her face. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘It doesn’t really matter. I’m just so grateful that I’ve got him back.’ She went back to the meatballs. They were soon sizzling in a frying-pan with some melted margarine. The sound was soothing and homely, the kitchen freshly painted and tidy, and Julia was humming bits of an unidentifiable song.

This ought to feel nice, Annika thought, but something about it jars. The irregular banging sounds coming from the boy’s room, perhaps, or possibly the Spartan furnishings. Maybe it was just the echo of all David’s lies. He had never been under cover on the Costa del Sol. But there was no such thing as ghosts.

‘How are you managing financially?’ she asked, trying not to sound too intrusive.

‘The flat’s freehold, and we inherited that, but there were no savings. David had life insurance, payable to those he left behind, and that’s me, Alexander and Hannelore, of course. It was actually quite a lot of money, so that’s what we’re living off at the moment.’

‘What do you think you might do? Go back to the police?’

Julia shook her head. ‘I want to study architecture. If I’m careful, the insurance money will last until I graduate.’ She measured some water into a saucepan and put it on the stove.

‘Can I ask you something else?’ Annika said. ‘Do you know if David had any connection to Morocco?’

Julia looked up at her in surprise. ‘Morocco? No, none at all. Why would he have?’

‘He never mentioned Morocco? Or if he knew anyone there?’

‘Why do you ask?’

Annika took her time answering. ‘He might have relatives there.’

Julia got the butter out of the fridge and a whisk from the cutlery drawer, poured some milk into a mug, added a large knob of butter and put it into the microwave, set it to two minutes and pressed start. ‘The only time he ever mentioned Morocco was when he talked about his stepfather, Torsten. He disappeared in Morocco when David was in his late teens.’

Annika sat still, searching her memory. Julia had said something about the missing stepfather on some earlier occasion. ‘Did he ever find out what happened to him?’

Julia got out three plates, glasses and cutlery. ‘I don’t think he ever really got over it. They were very close. He never knew his own father, so Torsten meant a great deal to him.’ She stopped. ‘It was the winter before David applied to Police Academy,’ she said.

Annika took the plates and laid the table. ‘When you lived in Estepona, could David have gone to Morocco to look for Torsten?’

‘No,’ Julia said. ‘It was all such a long time ago. I can’t imagine that he did.’

The microwave bleeped three times. The milk was hot, the butter melted. The water was boiling on the stove and Julia poured the potato powder into the buttery milk and stirred it energetically with the whisk. ‘Alexander! Lunch is ready!’

He emerged from his room at once and stopped in front of Annika. ‘You’re in my place,’ he said. His voice was surprisingly low-pitched, not at all as Annika remembered it from that night in the forest all that time ago.

‘You can sit here, Alexander,’ Julia said, pointing to the place at the end of the table.

The child’s face contorted into a grimace and he howled. He collapsed, his upper body jerking, his hands and feet banging the floor, as he screamed. Annika backed away in horror. Julia seemed neither surprised nor concerned, just picked him up and rocked him in her arms until the tantrum had passed. ‘Today you can sit in this seat,’ she said, putting him on the chair at the end of the table.

He fired a hostile glare at Annika, then grabbed his knife and fork and set about the meatballs. ‘Ketchup?’ he asked, between mouthfuls.

‘Not today,’ Julia said.

Annika ate in silence. Sure, her children were angry sometimes, but she’d never seen anything like that in such a small child.

‘Can I get down now?’ he said, when he’d finished.

‘Say thank you for the food and clear your plate away,’ Julia said.

‘Thanks for the food,’ he said, then leaped off the chair, picked up his glass, cutlery and plate in a somewhat unsteady grasp, then took them to the draining-board.

He left the kitchen without a backward glance, went into his room and shut the door.

‘The seven years I spent as a beat officer make it easier,’ Julia said, with a sad smile. ‘Coffee?’