“She didn’t open the door when we were there.”
“Is that against the rules?”
Technically, it is, thought Aneta.
“Is she very scared of Hans Forsblad?”
Signe gave another start.
“What can you do about it if she is?”
“We can do a lot,” said Aneta. “I mean it.”
“Like what?”
“Put a restraining order on him,” she said, and she could tell how weak that sounded. “We can make a short- term decision on it and then hand it over to the prosecutor. We can bring him in for questioning. We’ve actually decided to do that.”
“Questioning? What does that involve?”
“That we can take him in and question him about his threats.”
“And then what? What happens then?”
“I don’t-”
“Then you let him go, don’t you? You talk to him and then that’s it.”
“He might not dare to-”
“Dare to visit Anette again? If you can call it that. Is that what you think? What the police think? That it’s enough to write up some papers that say he can’t see her, and that somehow you’ll scare him by talking to him? You don’t know him.”
She was expressing genuine frustration, there was no doubt about that.
But there was also something else.
In the background there was something else. It wasn’t just about the man, about Hans Forsblad. Aneta could feel that, see that.
“That’s exactly why,” she answered. “To see what he’s like.”
“I can tell you that here and now,” said Signe. “He is dangerous. He doesn’t give up. He is obsessed, or whatever you call it. He doesn’t want to accept that Anette doesn’t want to live with him. Doesn’t want to accept it. Do you understand? He can’t get it into his head!” She turned out toward the sea again, as though to gather her strength; she made a motion. “It’s like he’s completely crazy.”
“Why haven’t you contacted the police?” asked Aneta.
Signe didn’t seem to be listening, and Aneta repeated the question.
“I don’t know.”
She hasn’t mentioned that her husband called me, thought Aneta. Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe that’s not what this is about.
“Were you afraid to?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t want… it doesn’t matter… it could…”
Aneta tried to put together the pieces of what Signe Lindsten said. It was her job, a part of it, these broken sentences that people spoke out of fear, panic, sometimes with ulterior motives, sometimes out of sorrow, out of schadenfreude, in the effort to come up with the most believable lie. Splintered words that were barely coherent, and she had to unite those words, make them coherent so that she understood, so that someone understood.
Most of the time it was like this. Ragged words spoken by a frightened person.
22
It was so good at first,” said Signe Lindsten.
Something happened to her face when she said it. As though the memory lifted her features, as though happy memories could smooth out faces. First comes the sun and then comes the rain and all that crap. Every cloud has a silver lining. All of that. Aneta couldn’t see any of those clouds outside because everything was clouds over the bay and the cliffs and the sand and the shore; no silver linings anywhere, only a flash of light here and there in the middle of the mass of stone.
“He seemed so nice,” said Signe.
I hate that word, thought Aneta. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a false word. Look what happened here.
“It usually starts like that,” said Aneta.
“I have a wedding picture,” said Signe. “I don’t have it here.”
“Does Anette have any siblings?”
“No.”
She thought of the man who had claimed to be Anette’s brother. One of the thieves. Who was he? And his “dad”? I haven’t asked Anette’s mom.
She described what they looked like to Signe, who said, “What on earth?”
“Didn’t your husband tell you about this?”
“No…”
“Doesn’t that surprise you?”
“It does, yes, but he probably didn’t want to worry me.”
“Has he told Anette?”
“How should I know? If he had, I would have known about it too, right?”
Good. She gets it.
“Have you seen any injuries on Anette?”
Signe didn’t answer.
The only one who can be let in is the one who causes the fear. It’s a paradox. There’s always hope that it will get better and that all the fear will go away, and the only one who can make it stop is him, the one who was so damn nice at first, if only he has this one last chance one more time, and sometimes he gets it, and after that it might all be over.
Death might be the only thing left. She had seen it. I’ve seen what that last chance can lead to. Sometimes there doesn’t even need to be a last chance. She saw Signe Lindsten’s tormented face. It told her that this would end but that it would not end well.
Away with that thought. This case will be solved. I’m standing here, right?
“You don’t need to be afraid, Mrs. Lindsten.”
“You can call me Signe.”
“You don’t need to be afraid to tell me how it is, Signe, or how it was.”
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord let his face shine over you. May the Lord have mercy on you. Did she need mercy, the woman before her? What kind of mercy? The Lord’s mercy? Aneta suddenly thought of her father. The man of many gods, at least sometimes. Had she asked him about the concept of mercy in his world? She would call him and try to talk on the hopeless telephone lines to inner Africa. Soon satellite telephones would be the only solution, the only thing that worked in the interior. Swipe one from the storeroom, Fredrik had said.
Signe Lindsten was just about to say something when they heard a car outside. Aneta saw that the woman recognized the sound. Her face didn’t change much. Her expression was the same when they heard a man’s voice in the hall.
She didn’t light up. His face doesn’t shine over her, thought Aneta.
He came into the kitchen.
