Authors: Hans Koppel
Well rested, happy and ready for work. Almost a bit horny, now that she thought about it. Maybe Anna would surprise her husband this evening. He deserved it.
She had worked efficiently all morning, cleared all the things pending from her desk, written half a dozen photo captions for a feature that was set and ready, gone through all the mail in her intray and booked two photo shoots.
Her phone rang and she lifted the receiver without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Anna.’
‘Hello, it’s Ditte.’
‘Hi, Ditte. How are you? Has Mum left?’
‘What do you mean?’
It took a while to sort things out. Kathrine hadn’t been to visit Ditte. Nor had there been any agreement that she would.
‘Where has she been then?’ Anna wondered.
‘Has she met a man?’ Ditte asked, delighted.
‘I don’t think so. She would never have kept that secret.’
‘Well, could you maybe ask her to phone me when she has the time?’
‘Yes, of course. I will. Bye.’
Anna put down the receiver and stared straight ahead. Had her mother wanted to surprise Ditte with a spontaneous visit? Could something have happened to her on the way? She dialled her mother’s number again. After the fourth ring, it switched to voicemail.
‘Ditte called,’ Anna said. ‘Where are you? Has something happened? Please give me a ring.’
Trude saw the worry in her face.
‘When did you last hear from her?’
‘Yesterday,’ Anna told her. ‘She sent me a text to say she was going to visit a friend in Denmark. But she’s not there and her friend says that they hadn’t arranged anything.’
‘Oops,’ Sissela joined in and raised her eyebrows in the usual manner.
The most likely explanation was that Kathrine had met a man, which was what Ditte had suggested, but Anna didn’t appreciate them questioning her disquiet. Especially not Sissela, who just wanted attention.
Anna rang the hospital in Helsingborg. No Kathrine Hansson had been admitted. The main hospital in Copenhagen gave the same answer. They were even kind enough to check the central register. No, no Swedish woman of that name had been admitted.
She got up and put on her coat.
‘Maybe it’s best if I pop over to her flat. Check that nothing’s happened.’
‘Take my car,’ Trude said, and threw her the key.
Anna caught it.
‘Thank you.’
Anna rang the bell and listened for any movement. She stood there with the key at the ready, but didn’t want to just barge in. No steps to be heard on the other side, so she opened the door.
‘Mum?’
She closed it behind her. The morning papers were lying on the floor.
Anna walked through the flat. The kitchen, bathroom, knocked tentatively on the closed bedroom door.
If her mother was lying in there with a man, it was only fair that she should give her a chance to say something first. Those self-chosen snatched moments, Anna thought to herself. As a teenager, lying there touching each other with the constant fear of being discovered by well-meaning but curious parents. Now her mother was in the same embarrassing situation. Anna could hear her own excuses already:
I was worried. You know that I don’t begrudge you the company, I was just worried that something had happened because you weren’t answering your phone
…
Maybe he was married. Which was why Kathrine didn’t want to burden her daughter with her secret.
Anna opened the door to the bedroom and poked her head round. The bed was empty and tidily made. If her mother had met someone she was at his place. Anna got out her phone and tried again. And again the call went to voicemail after four rings. She couldn’t face leaving another message.
She found a pen in the cupboard over the sink and used one of the Asian takeaway menus that was attached to the fridge with a magnet.
Hi Mum,
she wrote on the back,
where are you? Getting a bit worried. Please call me as soon as you see this. Kisses from Anna
.
She drove back to the office with a nagging doubt. She spoke to her mother almost every day. Why would she suddenly be so secretive?
They bloody well needed security on the northside with all those posh people. Kent only had to turn his back and they were out there filling the skip with their fucking furniture and stuff. He had a mind to haul out the sofa and desk and wooden chairs and bin liners and leave it all on the pavement. Because they’d certainly kick up a fuss then.
Why couldn’t they hire a trailer and take their rubbish to the tip themselves? That’s what they did on the southside. Big difference from the north. Weird bunch of people. Probably why they were so rich, never paid for anything themselves. Fucking tax dodgers, the lot of them.
He got out his mobile and phoned.
‘Hiya, Kent here. Just wondered if you could maybe come and pick up the skip you delivered yesterday… Yep, it’s full already… No, you can just dump it all in the incinerator… And I’d like a new one, please. With security cameras and electric fencing. Not before tomorrow? Okey-dokes, at least I know. Thanks.’
A passer-by craned his neck to see if there was anything of interest in the skip. Kent glared at him and the young man scurried on.
Fuck, if they weren’t putting their shit in, they were looking to see what they could take out.
Like rats they were, Kent mused, no better.
‘Have you still not heard anything?’
Anna shook her head. Magnus pulled his chin in.
‘Strange. And she said she was going to see Ditte?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could she be with anyone else?’
‘No, I’ve phoned everyone.’
‘Do you think something’s happened?’
‘I’ve called the hospitals. And the newspaper was on the floor, so she wasn’t home last night.’
‘Hmmm,’ Magnus insinuated.
Anna half-smiled.
‘I just don’t understand why she’d keep it a secret.’
It was almost a pleasure to focus on the mystery. It was the first time in weeks she was on the same wavelength as her husband and could tell him what was on her mind.
‘Has she been internet dating?’ Magnus asked.
‘Not that I know of…’
‘But?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘So long not as she’s not met some nutter.’
Anna gave her husband an anxious look.
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘Why would she meet anyone like that?’
Magnus shrugged.
‘There’s a lot of strange people out there, that’s all.’
‘Stop. Can’t you see you’re making me nervous?’
Anna turned away. Magnus reached out.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What time is it?’ Anna said, and looked at her watch. Quarter past five. ‘I think I’m going to go to the police. Just to be sure. She’s been gone more than twenty-four hours now.’
‘Isn’t that a bit extreme?’
‘Maybe, but I don’t care. You stay here until Hedda gets home.’
Karlsson lounged on his swivel chair and played with a ballpoint pen. Had he made a mistake, big-hearted and generous as he was? It was certainly starting to look like it. The woman who had said she was being stalked by the young film enthusiast was back at the station with another problem. This time it was her mother who had disappeared.
Karlsson was beginning to get the picture: a lonely woman who needed attention. He would have her here constantly if he didn’t say something sharpish.
‘My mother…’ Anna started.
‘Your mother,’ Karlsson repeated, and felt vaguely guilty when he thought of the young man he’d almost scared to death yesterday morning.
‘… she’s disappeared.’
‘Disappeared,’ Karlsson said, and comforted himself with the fact that a bloke who made his own porn on the sly was perhaps not someone you would call normal.
‘She said that she was going to visit a friend in Denmark, but she never went.’
‘Oh, so she didn’t go, no.’
‘No, and the newspaper was lying on the floor, so she obviously hadn’t been home last night. And I’ve phoned round all the hospitals here and in Denmark.’
‘There you go. And Bergman?’
Anna looked at him blankly.
‘Your film director,’ the detective inspector explained, and thought to himself that perhaps they were both mad.
Birds of a feather and peas in a pod and all that.
‘I’m so grateful I haven’t heard anything from him. But this is about my mother.’
‘So you said.’
‘She’s not answering the phone.’
‘Really?’ Karlsson nodded.
‘Mum always answers when I ring,’ Anna insisted. ‘And if she can’t answer right away, she calls me back.’
‘That kind of mother.’
Anna sent him a puzzled look.
‘Do you think I’m making this up to get attention?’
Karlsson stopped playing with the pen, sat upright and grabbed hold of the edge of the desk. Without lifting his posterior, he pulled himself towards the desk.
He woke the computer to life and put on his glasses.
‘Name, address and ID number,’ he said.
Anna gave him the information and he typed them into the computer with his index fingers. Every tap on the keyboard followed by an inspection of the screen. It took a while, but he got there in the end.
‘Is she senile?’
‘Why would she be?’
‘Lots of old people who disappear are senile.’
‘My mother is clear as a bell. Have you not been listening? Something has happened. Could you perhaps try to locate her mobile phone?’
‘Do you know how helpful it actually is trying to position a phone in a city?’
‘No, how would I know that? And Helsingborg is hardly a city.’
‘Whatever – it’s no help at all. We get an angle from one of the masts, plus or minus thirty degrees, at a distance of up to two kilometres. So we’re talking about quite a wedge of cake. Seventy-five per cent of all senile people are found within a radius of —’
‘My mother is not senile.’
Karlsson wasn’t listening.
‘Everything outside that radius is called The Rest of the World. We use an American system, MSO, management search system. We nearly always send the dogs in first. If that doesn’t work, then we might do a group mailing to all the newspaper delivery folks, and security firms and other people who are out and about. In that way, we get help from the local community, you see. Positioning is just a waste of resources, really.’
‘Is Granny missing?’ Hedda asked.
She was standing by the sink, eating an orange.
‘No, no, of course she’s not,’ Anna said, sending Magnus an irritated glance because he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut, as they’d agreed. ‘We just haven’t heard from her. Obviously she’s somewhere.’
‘Why don’t you check her phone?’ Hedda suggested.
‘She’s not answering. I’ve phoned her several times.’
‘On the computer, I mean. She’s got one of those apps. If you lose your phone or it’s stolen, you can just check on the computer where it is.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Hedda groaned because her mother was so slow. She rinsed her hands, then went to get her computer. She typed in a website address, while Anna and Magnus looked on, impressed.
‘What’s her number?’
Anna rattled it off and Hedda’s fingers danced over the keyboard.
‘The password is you and me, Mum.’
‘Does no one use Magnus?’ Magnus bleated.
‘Mine is “poo”,’ Anna informed them.
‘Not good,’ Hedda said. ‘Loads of people have that.’
She pointed at the screen. A blue flashing bubble appeared on the map. Anna looked at Magnus.
‘What on earth is she doing there?’
The mobile phone was somewhere outside Ikea at Väla shopping centre. It hadn’t moved at all. The blue bubble was still in exactly the same position. Anna was holding the computer.
‘It must be in one of the cars,’ she said. ‘Hedda, you stay here. If the bubble moves, let us know.’
Her daughter nodded obligingly.
Anna and Magnus got out of the car. They looked around uncertainly before starting to walk between the cars and peer in through the windows.
A father came out of Ikea. He was pushing an overfull trolley while his five-year-old son was eating a hotdog. The father stopped, let go of the shopping trolley and pulled a serviette out of his jacket pocket. He wet it with his tongue.
‘Don’t you feel sticky?’ he said, in irritation. ‘Come here, let me…’
He wiped around the boy’s mouth.
‘Please try to get it in your mouth, not just on your cheeks.’
He threw the serviette into a rubbish bin and carried on towards his car, loaded his purchases into the back and strapped his son into the back seat.
‘Don’t drop anything now.’
Anna turned back to her daughter with a questioning look as the car drove away. Anna shook her head. The blue bubble was still there.
‘It has to be in one of the cars,’ Magnus said. ‘Where else could it be?’
The confidence with which he said it made Anna think laterally. If it wasn’t in one of the cars, where could it be? She went down on her hands and knees and peered under the cars. But all she saw was rubbish from a nearby hamburger chain. She got up again, looked slowly round as if she were a periscope.
She went over to the rubbish bin, lifted the lid and rummaged around in the discarded paper plates, paper cups and scrunched-up serviettes. The phone was lying at the bottom of it all.
‘I’ve found it,’ she cried, and held it up triumphantly.
They drove home via Ödåkra and Allerum. As the sky darkened, the headlights swept over forest and fields, avenues, houses and farms. In the passenger seat, a faint blue light shone from Kathrine’s mobile phone. Anna scrolled through the list of missed calls. Most of them were from her, three from Ditte and one from another friend. The last dialled call was to Anna and she was also the recipient of the last text message.
‘What was it doing in the bin?’ Hedda asked.
Hedda’s question made Anna’s skin crawl.
‘You steal a mobile because you want it,’ her daughter continued. ‘Why put it in the bin then?’
‘Can you be quiet, sweetheart? I want to listen to Granny’s voicemail.’
She heard her own voice, then Ditte’s, then her own again, several times. No one else had left a message. Anna went back to the list of recently dialled numbers. The last two were to Anna’s mobile and her direct line at work. The day before that, her mother had spoken to two Stockholm numbers that Anna didn’t recognise, for three and nine minutes respectively.
‘You’ll have to contact the police,’ Magnus said.
‘Darling.’
She sent him a stern look.
Too late.
‘What?’ Hedda piped up from the back seat.
‘Nothing, sweetheart.’
‘Has something happened to Granny?’
‘I don’t think so, I’m sure there’s an explanation.’
‘Why are you going to talk to the police then?’
‘Just to be on the safe side. Oh, is that the time? Straight to bed when we get home. Did you have anything to eat before we went out?’
‘Yes.’
Hedda looked out of the window. Anna stretched back her hand and patted her on the knee.
‘Clever of you to find Granny’s phone.’
‘It was you who found it.’
‘Thanks to you. I had no idea there were apps like that. Hedda, are you crying?’
Anna looked up the Stockholm numbers on the computer. They were both at the same address in Huddinge. She went out into the garden to phone. The noise of the waves down in the sound was almost like traffic. Lars Johansson didn’t answer and Barbro answered Major Erik Wellin’s phone with the same name. She sounded quite old.
‘Yes, hello, my name is Anna Stenberg. I’m sorry to be calling you so late, but it’s important and I hope you can help.’
‘I’m not going to buy anything.’
‘And I’m not trying to sell you anything. I’m Kathrine Hansson’s daughter.’
‘Sorry, who?’
‘Kathrine Hansson.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name.’
Anna broke out into a sudden sweat. Was her mother having an affair with the major? And his wife had no idea? No, that would be some farce at the theatre.
‘My mother has disappeared and I’m sitting here with her phone. Apparently she called this number on Monday and talked to someone for nine minutes, shortly after six in the evening.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Nine minutes is quite a long time. Might she have talked to… anyone else?’
‘No, I’m the only one on this number. My husband died a while ago. But wait a moment, now that you say that, someone did call to ask about Anneli, yes, that’s right.’
‘Anneli?’
‘A neighbour. She’s dead now. I didn’t quite understand the connection, something to do with her son, I think.’
‘Her son?’
Magnus opened the terrace door and looked out. Anna held up her hand to show she didn’t want to be disturbed.
‘Sorry, I’m not quite with you.’
‘A big, grown man still living at home with his mother. Though, who knows, maybe he looked after her. Someone who commits suicide can hardly be of sound mind. The police asked lots of questions, they certainly did.’
‘What was the son called?’
‘Erik. Erik Månsson.’
Anna couldn’t get out a word. Magnus took it to mean he could say something.
‘Hedda wants you to come.’
‘Was there anything else?’
‘No, thank you,’ Anna said and hung up.
She stayed standing where she was with the phone in her hand. Her mother had been making enquiries about Erik Månsson. And now she’d disappeared. And Erik Månsson had stopped terrorising her. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
‘Has anything happened?’ Magnus asked, anxiously.
Anna looked at her husband.
‘Darling, we have to talk.’