Lycke Page 21

  She took down the book and went to sit by the bay window. She looked out over the bay, and at the rain, which had picked up and was now lashing against the window, before opening the binder to begin her search. She knew exactly what she was looking for. It was an article she had saved from the year she’d been living in New York, working at CNN. She remembered most of it, but needed the details — needed to have it confirmed.

  The headline read: A mother’s touch.

  That alone made her shudder.

  It was a short article from The Times. Someone had found a dead child in the woods. Three years old. Also a little girl. Buried under leaves and branches deep in the woods. Wrapped in warm blankets and pieces of fabric. It was immediately obvious that it was someone close to her who had done it. The signs were clear.

  Love and guilt.

  The mother had immediately confessed.

  Love and guilt. Contradictory and obvious in equal measure.

  If Ellen remembered correctly, it was typically a female phenomenon. That was what had made her remember it — because it was so unusual.

  It must also be a woman in this case, too. Why hadn’t anyone else seen that? Or perhaps she was simply drunk. And tired.

  She would have to continue with this tomorrow. She needed to look over the case soberly.

  The security intercom buzzed.

  Ellen looked at the clock. Just past one. Who was visiting this late? Must be Philip, she thought, going over to the elevator and pressing on the intercom button.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  She could hear someone panting heavily.

  ‘Hello? Who is it?’ she tried again, feeling the hair on her arms prickling. It sounded like the person was moaning.

  She turned on the screen to the security camera in the entry. She hesitated a moment before looking, afraid of what she would see.

  Looking at the screen, Ellen recoiled.

  Even though his face was hidden under the hood, she could see that it was the same guy who had stolen her bag the day before.

  ‘I can see you — what do you want?!’ she screamed.

  She ran over to the couch and searched among the cushions for her phone. ‘Where the hell is it?’ she gasped, finally finding it on the floor. She ran over to the elevator.

  When she checked the screen again, he was gone.

  She ran over to the window and looked down toward the street, but saw no one.

  Then she entered the number for the police into her phone, but before pressing on the green call button, she stopped herself. He can’t get in, she thought. And what can the police do, really?

  Nothing.

  And Jimmy wouldn’t let her work on the case anymore. She wouldn’t find Lycke’s murderer. Everyone would find out what she had done to her sister.

  Ellen deleted the number from the screen and locked the phone.

  WEDNESDAY, 28 MAY

  ELLEN

  7.00 A.M.

  It was painful overhearing the two teenage girls’ plucky attempts to convince Anette they were over eighteen so they could buy cigarettes.

  Anette seemed amused however, and was dragging it out, leading them on a little.

  ‘Excuse me, are you done?’ Ellen was forced to interrupt. She couldn’t stand listening to them humiliate themselves, and she was soaking wet and just wanted to continue her run. She was hungover, too. Why did she knock back a whole bottle of wine last night?

  ‘Okay now, girls, there’s nothing for you here,’ said Anette, shooing them away with her hands. She was probably worried that Ellen would leave without paying.

  ‘Jeez. How rude.’

  ‘Fucking bitch.’ The girls left, squeezing past Ellen.

  ‘Come back in a few years,’ Anette called after them. ‘It’s crazy how teenagers smoke these days. What’s going on? Seems like it’s popular again. Among young people anyway. Do you know what you can blame that on?’

  Ellen shook her head.

  ‘TV.’ The way she said it, it was like she’d found a cure for cancer or something, while also supposedly putting Ellen in her place for working on TV.

  ‘There’s a lot of smoking on TV shows,’ Anette continued. ‘Well, I’m not against that. I’ll happily sell cigarettes to anyone who wants to pay, but the authorities are so picky. Do you smoke?’

  Ellen shrugged.

  ‘Okay, and what would you like today, Ellen?’ Anette seemed to get the hint. ‘You’re up early. Workout clothes and everything. In this weather?’

  ‘A small coffee, no milk,’ Ellen said, trying to stem the chitchat.

  ‘I see, anything else?’ Anette asked, turning around and setting a cup in the machine.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Ellen looked around the store and glimpsed a newspaper headline.

  MURDER OF GIRL CONFOUNDS

  She picked up a newspaper and browsed through to the pages about the murder. They didn’t seem to have any information about the cause of death.

  ‘Ugh, that’s so awful,’ Anette said, setting the coffee on the counter between them.

  Ellen ignored the comment and handed over the money.

  ‘Oh, what a nice bracelet,’ Anette said, taking Ellen’s hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ellen said, trying to pull her hand back.

  But Anette held on to it and studied the bracelet up close.

  ‘What did it cost?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t really know, it was a present,’ Ellen replied, withdrawing her hand.

  Ellen gulped down the coffee and, as usual, burned her tongue. Swearing, she tossed the cup into one of the rubbish bins outside the newsstand.

  She looked at her watch. Soon, she would be meeting Andreas at the police station to interview police officers who had ‘insight into the investigation’, as they so elegantly put it.

  She put her earbuds in, turned the music up to the highest volume, and started running up Sveavägen toward Sergels Torg. The rain struck her face as she went through the events of yesterday in her head, trying to make sense of the information. She thought about the old article on the three-year-old girl. Love and guilt.

  As she ran into Kungsträdgården, her phone buzzed. She stopped, slightly out of breath.

  It was an email from Ove. That was quick, she thought. His messages came from a different email address every time so no one would be able to trace them. The word he chose was always some type of food so she would know it was from him. Today, he was using an address beginning with ‘paella’. Just as distasteful as it sounded.

  She stood under the blossoming cherry trees in Kungsträdgården. Even though it was cloudy and wet, it was so beautiful. She couldn’t get enough of looking at it. Pink blossoms everywhere. She imagined that this was what it looked like in heaven when you died.

  She tried not to think about the autopsy. How they would have flayed Lycke’s little body to see whether there was redness that didn’t show up on the skin. Taken out the organs and weighed them as if it was a meat deli. Sent them off for analysis. Split her open.

  Ove had summarised the information he thought was interesting:

  The cause of death is suffocation, presumably with a piece of cloth, pillow, or the like. Defensive injuries are lacking on arms, hands, nails, and on the face. Traces of eraser found in both ears.

  The cause of death is intoxication followed by suffocation. Sleeping pills.

  Death occurred sometime on Friday between 6.00 p.m. and 12.00 a.m. She was apparently carried to the site. No human secretions have been found in or on the body.

  That was all.

  So Lycke had not been subjected to violence or sexual assault. She had been given sleeping medication. Probably to make suffocating her easier. That was how Ellen interpreted the information anyway. But you never knew with Ove. There was a lot he could
have chosen not to tell. He couldn’t lie, because then, he knew, their collaboration would be over. But he could spin the information in favour of the police and their investigation.

  But this was something to go on at least.

  ELLEN

  11.00 A.M.

  The meeting would start in an hour, so she had a little time.

  She sat down at her desk, opened a blank Word document, and took out the folder with her notes from the night before. There was so much she wanted to get down, and she started by typing the words that she’d written on the sheet of paper. After that, the words just flowed. Eventually, she had ten whole pages.

  One of her colleagues who also worked on the website — the guy from Norrland that everyone called ‘Web’ — came in right after, pushing the cart full of lunch trays. ‘Catfish is on the menu, served with potato salad,’ he said, smiling broadly, as the fish odour slowly spread through the room, reminding her of a school cafeteria.

  The rest of the group joined them. Everyone took a tray and sat down around the red, oblong table. Including Leif.

  ‘Will you be at the meeting?’ Ellen asked him.

  ‘Yes. Jimmy wants me here. He wants me to keep an eye on all of you,’ he said, grinning.

  What was this about? Did Jimmy intend to let Leif take over? Ellen pushed her tray of food away. She suddenly had no appetite.

  Agatha sat silently and looked around at the others as they ate. Her neon-green glasses were hanging on a cord around her neck. She looked calm and collected. In front of her was a thick pile of papers.

  Jimmy looked serious, too. Ellen wondered what was going on in his head.

  ‘Amazing day, amazing news team, amazing features. But heavy. Really heavy. How do you make the impossible become possible?’ He let his gaze wander around the table. ‘Does anyone know?’

  No one answered.

  ‘Nobody? Come on, what kind of group is this? You take away the “im” and it becomes “possible”. Haven’t you heard that before? The ones who’ve worked here longer than me — that’s a classic Fort Boyard question.’ He paused. ‘Before we go through the Lycke murder, I want to talk with you about a different matter. The comments on Facebook, and on other social media where we have a presence, and on our own website, are getting cruder and cruder. There have been threats made that we have to take seriously.’ Ellen felt his eyes boring into her, underscoring the meaning of his words. ‘The program hosts are targeted most often, of course, but the reporters and others who are often seen onscreen are as well. Ellen, in particular. I want you to know that we’ve filed a police report and are trying to counteract this development.’

  ‘What kind of threats?’ Agatha asked. She barely knew what Facebook was, having never been there, as she put it.

  Before Jimmy even had time to open his mouth, Web answered.

  ‘There are threats of rape, death threats. Someone has put out Ellen’s address and —’

  Jimmy interrupted him. ‘Thanks, that’s enough. We don’t need to go into any details. Now, let’s change the subject. The Lycke murder — Ellen, what’s happening?’

  The Lycke murder. She didn’t like that he’d put like that. It sounded so hard and technical.

  Ellen stood up. Somehow it felt easier that way.

  ‘Andreas and I just came from the police. We’ve done an interview for the evening broadcasts. Andreas will piece it together after lunch.’

  She talked briefly about the cause of death and about the place where Lycke had been found.

  ‘Good,’ Jimmy said, poking at his food with a fork. ‘Is there shellfish in this sauce?’

  Web nodded. ‘I think so. Are you allergic?’

  Jimmy pushed the tray away. ‘No, but I don’t eat shellfish. Anything else?’

  ‘The police are focusing on the location where she was found and are proceeding from there,’ Ellen said. ‘They’re knocking on doors and checking discrepancies, questioning everyone in the vicinity. They’re holding further interviews with the parents to see whether they can provide additional information. The police seem to be fumbling around blindly. The crime scene hasn’t really produced anything. There are no traces to go on. No witnesses. Interviews are also being conducted with relatives and others who’ve had contact with Lycke. That takes time. The police are searching for a man with a history of sexual offences who happened to be in the same place at the same time as Lycke. So they still think this is something sexual, even though there’s nothing that indicates that Lycke was sexually assaulted. I don’t get how they think. It’s as if they’re fixated on that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But it feels too conventional.’ Ellen took a deep breath before she continued. ‘I think they’re on the wrong track. I think it’s a woman.’

  ‘A woman? Of course you do. Yet another little hobby project,’ Leif said, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Yes, a woman,’ she persisted, ignoring the gibe.

  She told them about the American case where they’d found a girl murdered, how she’d been found wrapped in blankets, and how it had turned out to be the mother who had killed her. She also told them about the case where the mother left behind a mitten, drawing a parallel to Lycke’s backpack being found.

  ‘Think of the headlines, if it were a woman,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘But aren’t female murderers extremely uncommon?’

  ‘Well, one out of ten murderers is a woman. Since 1990, approximately seven children per year are killed by their parents in Sweden, and the mother is the perpetrator in half the cases. Women who kill other people’s children are so uncommon that there are hardly any statistics — and what ones there are, we remember well. Far too well. The German woman in Arboga, for example. So, it could be someone in the family.’

  ‘The mother, do you think?’ Agatha asked.

  ‘Having gone through the interview reports from the custody dispute, there’s a lot to indicate that something isn’t quite right with her.’

  ‘Yes, I skimmed through those documents, too. The dad doesn’t seem completely okay, either, if we’re going down that road,’ Agatha said.

  ‘Absolutely. But I still think that there’s a lot that indicates that it’s a woman. A woman, for example, often subjects the victim to excessive violence, with a lot of stabs or blows. In Lycke’s case, the dose of sleeping medication was unusually large and that might also be seen as excessive.’

  ‘Yes, or ignorance,’ Agatha added.

  ‘But I don’t understand — what’s the motive?’ Web asked.

  ‘I read about another case,’ Ellen continued, ‘in which a child was murdered by his own father after strong pressure from his girlfriend, who thought the kid stood in the way of their relationship. Prior to that, the girlfriend had forced the father to have a paternity test, just like Lycke’s stepmother forced Harald to do, according to the divorce settlement.’

  ‘The stepmother, then. This just gets better and better,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Yes, maybe, but Lycke’s mother has suffered from post-partum depression, a kind of mental illness that’s also common among female perpetrators.’

  ‘Nah, now you’re really reaching. Can’t anyone stop her?’ Leif said.

  ‘I still don’t understand why someone in the family would want to murder Lycke,’ said Agatha.

  ‘Maybe Lycke stood in the way of their relationship. Jealousy.’

  Leif shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it. I think you’re fishing. We’ll follow the direction taken by the police department.’

  ‘Wait, Leif,’ Jimmy said. ‘Absolutely, we’ll follow in the police department’s footsteps until we know more — but, Ellen, I still want you to check up on this. Maybe there’s something to it.’

  ‘What drives a woman to kill?’ Agatha asked.

  ‘Jealousy, hate, and self
ishness. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Do you know that jealousy is strongest when between mother and daughter?’

  Now Agatha shook her head. She clearly didn’t like what she was hearing — either because she didn’t believe what Ellen was saying or because it had made her think of her own daughter.

  ‘Yes, yes, but why aren’t the police on the same track? Isn’t there something that maybe you’re missing?’

  ‘Because it’s so abnormal. Statistics lead them to think something else. The police think it’s a man because it usually is. They can’t think outside the box, but we’ve known that for a long time. The police are only searching for evidence that supports their own theories, and they’ve been focusing on paedophiles the whole time. Instead of looking at the facts, they see what they want to see.’

  ‘Well put. We’ll end there for the time being. What angle are we running this evening?’ Jimmy said.

  Agatha reported on the material she’d gathered from the local news offices about how candles were being lit for Lycke all over the country.

  Jimmy nodded, but didn’t look entirely satisfied. ‘A real Play School–type story again, but, okay, we’ll go with it, and hopefully more will come in. What is there on Flashback?’

  ‘Nothing, really.’

  ‘Ann, have you gotten an answer regarding the speed camera?’ Ellen asked.

  Agatha shook her head. ‘No, not yet, but I was able to find out where that blanket came from.’

  ELLEN

  12.30 P.M.

  After the meeting, Ellen went into one of the editing rooms.

  Agatha had found out that the pattern was from a fleece blanket that was being sold at all well-stocked ICA supermarkets with a ‘Buy 2 for 1, only 99 kronor’ offer. So every other person in the country could have one of these blankets. Or two.

  She wrote grooming? down on a slip of paper. The police had confiscated Lycke’s dad’s old computer — maybe they’d found something?

  She picked up the phone and called Ove.

  ‘I don’t understand, why do you think this is a sex crime? According to the autopsy, there were no signs of sexual assault.’