Inertia, page 36
‘What?’ Malin asks.
‘Then Susanne is the centre of attention,’ Hanne says and smiles sadly. ‘The sun is shining on her again, just like she described in her diary entries.’
None of us say anything.
‘I think we have to consider the possibility that Susanne was driven by getting more and more followers and likes,’ Hanne says quietly. ‘And that people at home really liked what she had to offer, that her . . . misery sustained them. And in that game, the dance that emerged between her and her followers, a number of people had to pay with their lives.’
A cold chill runs down my spine and I remember Malin’s comment about that group of rubberneckers who were photographing the accident.
What the hell is wrong with people?
Then I think of Afsaneh, who photographed Nadja and posted the pictures on a forum for parents of sick children. And of Martin, Afsaneh’s old colleague, who claimed with absolute certainty that the incidence of narcissistic personality traits had increased exponentially since the 1980s. That people were prepared to do anything for digital validation.
‘What are you saying?’ I ask. ‘Do you think Susanne hurt her son on purpose?’
‘Yes,’ Hanne says calmly. ‘Her son and probably her husband too. And after that she began to seek out new victims. She was the lion and the lamb. She cared for her victims and hurt them too, just like in the poem. It all checks out. And it all began with the cat. That incident planted a seed in her. Then her parents fell ill and died. Perhaps she cared for them too. Perhaps that enhanced these tendencies. Much later her husband became sick and Susanne helped care for him. She was motivated as well as competent, by dint of her degree in pharmacy. And once again she got a lot of validation, from healthcare workers as well as friends, both online and in real life. So she hurt him so she could stay there in the sunshine. I don’t think she meant to kill him but that is what happened.’
‘And then the pattern repeated with her son,’ Malin whispers.
‘Yes,’ Hanne says. ‘With the difference that Susanne had created a blog and accounts on several social media platforms. And the sicker her son is, the more likes and followers she gets. So she takes matters into her own hands. Makes sure he gets a bit worse. We can probably assume he died eventually, as a result of her . . . treatment.’
Hanne pauses.
‘That is so fucking horrible,’ Malin murmurs, buries her head in her hands and lets out a sob.
‘When Jonas died she felt a void so great it couldn’t be contained,’ Hanne continues without taking any note of Malin’s reaction. ‘For reasons we may never know she replaced her son with his home aide. And after that she began to repeat the behaviour.’
‘Hey, look at this!’
She scrolls to a post from seven months ago.
Now the council has decided that we will only get three hours of home help a day. Due to this neither I nor my partner can work full-time anymore. Help us by sending us money via the link below. No contribution is too small! Thanks in advance to all the amazing people who will help us cope!!
‘She asked for money online and defrauded the authorities by cashing in various types of subsidies,’ Hanne murmurs. ‘I guess we will see what kinds of sums were involved, but that may have been an incentive for her to find new boys to play the role of Jonas.’
Malin lifts her head and wipes a few tears off her cheek.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘But what kind of a person does that?’
‘Someone who is disturbed,’ Hanne says calmly, smiles and sips her hot tea. ‘Someone deeply disturbed. She was extremely manipulative too. Lied about almost everything, as I understand it. That indicates that she had antisocial traits.’
None of us say anything. The idea of hurting people, your own child even, in order to achieve online fame is so extreme that it is almost impossible to understand.
‘If you want a diagnosis I can give you one,’ Hanne says and taps her pen lightly against the table.
I nod.
‘Münchausen by proxy,’ she continues, looking pleased. ‘Well, that’s when someone hurts a person, often one’s child, and then seeks help in order to appear as the saviour. The killer is validated by the attention he or she gets. This perpetuates and enhances the pathological behaviour. I imagine this is also true of attention one gets online. Perhaps we have just seen the first case of Münchausen by proxy online, or whatever you would like to call it. But not the last, because we are on our way into a completely new era, that much I know although I am old.’
She pauses and her gaze wanders to the ceiling.
Malin’s phone rings.
‘Sorry,’ she says, gets up and goes into the next room to answer.
‘It is too bad that she died,’ Hanne says, almost to herself. ‘It would have been very interesting to meet her.’
Malin comes back with her phone in her hand.
‘They found another body.’
‘Samuel?’ I say and feel my last hope fade.
But Malin shakes her head.
‘No, this person died many months ago.’
‘Jonas?’
Malin nods.
‘They think so. And guess where they found him?’
I shake my head.
‘Under the fucking rose garden. She buried him under her flower bed, or grew flowers on his grave. Regardless I guess she wanted to keep him close.’
Pernilla
I
have been wandering Marholmen for two days. I have walked along the rocky beaches, climbed the rocks. I have searched among verdant ferns and austere pines. I have looked under firs and fallen trees. Methodically gone over plots and wandered aimlessly in the woods.
But he is nowhere to be found, my Samuel.
The fat police officer, Manfred, was here last night and tried to convince me to go home. He said there was nothing I could do. That they had gone over Marholmen with a fine-toothed comb and that Samuel wasn’t there.
That he was gone.
And when he said it I could no longer control myself. The tears gushed out of me and I collapsed next to my car. Felt the rough grass against my cheek and the coldness emanating from the ground, like a portent of the grief to come.
I couldn’t explain to him, actually I didn’t even try to explain why I wanted to stay here on Marholmen.
What would I have said?
That Samuel is my child? That I have carried him in my body, but that despite that I have let him down more times than I can count?
No.
So I went home. Showered. Tried to eat something.
I made the mistake of turning on the TV too. They were talking about the murders and about Samuel. And they interviewed Bianca Diaz, the girlfriend of one of the victims. Something about the young pregnant woman’s restrained despair woke me out of my own grief and compelled me to act. I know only too well how hard it is to raise a child alone.
I found her on the internet and drove out to her apartment in Jordbro. Hung the duffle bag full of money on her door, rang the bell and then hurried out.
I suppose I was paying penance, as if that would give me Samuel back.
Then I returned to Marholmen, because what is there for me at home without my child?
I close my eyes and open the wafer chocolate bar in my pocket. Break off a piece and put it in my mouth. Peek through the half-open door at the blackbird sitting in the cage in the grass next to the car. The wind catches a piece of the torn-up newspaper that covers the floor of the cage. Flaps it against the bars, where it gets stuck.
He’s not a chick anymore, but an almost full-grown bird that shouldn’t be imprisoned in a cage. I know Samuel would have wanted to be the one to let him out. But now that he can’t I want to do him the favour.
I look up at the house that Rachel rented from the old lighthouse keeper’s daughter who lived here her whole life. It lies quiet and still behind the blue-and-white crime scene tape.
‘Where did you go, Samuel?’ I whisper, slamming the car door. Then I take the birdcage in my hand and begin walking down the gravel path and think of the strange dream I had last night.
I dreamed of the wise king Solomon in the Book of Kings, the one who was going to settle the dispute between the two women who both claimed the right to the same child.
Solomon asks for a sword, and when it has been fetched he says:
‘Cut the living child in half and give the women half each.’
In the dream the women were Rachel and I, the child was Samuel.
Once again I think this cannot be true. He cannot be gone.
Two days. Nobody can survive for that long in the water, Manfred said.
But what if she didn’t throw him in the water?
Then we would have found him.
Manfred’s words echo in my ears.
*
Dusk lowers itself over the island, but the real darkness is still in its infancy, waiting patiently for summer to retreat and make way for autumn. The sky lies heavy above, bruised in shades of blue and purple. Mosquitoes and gnats buzz around me, but I wave them away. Distractedly scratch the bites I have already got and look in between the copper-glowing, scaly trunks of the pines. The ditch is frothy with cow parsley and here and there the yellow flowers of St John’s wort glow.
It is so beautiful it makes my heart ache.
The scent of Labrador tea and yellow bedstraw – lady’s bedstraw – permeates the air.
I think of Father, who knew everything about flora and fauna. He never wanted to call the plant by that name, our lady, the real Virgin Mary, lay on a bed of straw, not yellow bedstraw.
That was just something that ignorant peasants had come up with.
This will do, I think, placing the cage on the ground. Open the little door and wait for the blackbird to fly out.
But it just sits there, still and looking at me with its little yellow-rimmed button eyes.
In the end I put my hand in the cage and push it out.
‘There you go, good bird. Now fly!’
The blackbird hops out but then sits next to the high grass by the side of the road. I step toward it to force it to fly away and enjoy all of this freedom. The summer, the woods, the cool evening air.
Life, that is so short and unpredictable.
The blackbird flies up, passes in front of my face and lands on a branch just a few yards from me. Then it turns to me. Cocks its little head and looks at me again.
‘Samuel should see you now!’ I say out loud.
And at that moment.
At that moment it hits me that he really is gone. That Samuel will never come back again and that the fat police officer was right.
My body contracts in a spasm, forces me onto my knees and presses my forehead against the gravel. My body drains me of tears and forces me into submission. And I let it happen. I shout out my pain, on my knees on the roadway, as if I were a woman in labour.
After a while the tears dry up and my breath calms down. I become aware of the forest sounds again; hear the birds sing, the wind whispering and rustling the canopies. The creaking and squawking from a heavy branch somewhere above me. The rattle of a woodpecker working his way into a tree trunk.
Just as I am about to get up, brush the gravel off my dirty dress that smells of sweat, I see the blackbird again.
It is sitting next to the shoulder of the road.
But I see something else too – wedged between two rocks next to the blackbird.
I take a few steps, squat down, reach out my hand and grasp the blue glass bead between my thumb and my index finger.
I look around. Scan the long shadows, search among dry leaves and rocks.
But all I see is the gravelly, light brown roadway disappearing in among the pines.
Then I sense something very small, but intensely red, in the middle of the road, a few yards further down. I gasp for air, run there, sink into a squat and pick up yet another glass bead. Turn it over and see a letter.
‘M’
The tears come again, but this time they are tears of joy.
My energy returns when I understand what I need to do, I begin to look along the road.
I find more beads. A blue one, a yellow one, a brown one. They appear to be scattered at regular intervals along the side of the road. Almost as if they were placed there on purpose.
I cup my hand and hold it up. Move the beads around with my index finger to form the word. ‘MUMMY’.
‘Samuel,’ I whisper. ‘I’m coming!’
I keep looking for the small glass beads, find another three, but then there are no more.
Right when I am about to give up I see the small path veering off to the left.
The light is dim under the large trees, so I pull out my phone, turn the torch on and shine it in among the branches. An enormous pine partially obscures my view, but behind its needle-less pinafore I glimpse some kind of ruin, almost completely overgrown by saplings and bushes.
I duck, bend under the dry branches and walk toward the dilapidated building. Halfway there I stop, bend over and pick up a white bead gleaming on the bed of dry pine needles and moss. Then I stand up and look around.
The door to the collapsed building is askew and the plants form a green wall in front of the bared bricks.
‘Samuel?’ I whisper.
But all I can hear is the low rustle of the canopies and the mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
I sweep the phone torch around me.
To the right of the ruin there is an old well and next to it . . .
Wait a minute.
A fresh twig with drooping leaves sticks out, squeezed between the well and the lid, as if someone had recently opened the well and the branch had got stuck there when it was closed.
I go over to the well and bend down. Next to the rough stone there is something orange. The small item glistens in the light from my phone.
It is a ladybird. Or rather, an enamel earring shaped like a little ladybird.
I put the beads and the earring in my pocket and pull tentatively at the rusted handle on the old lid. It is heavy and I need to use all of my body weight to move it.
The lid gives off a scraping noise and moves a few inches to the right.
I let go and gasp for breath. Pant and brace against the well.
It is heavy, really heavy.
A second later I hear it.
A knocking sounds from the well makes me jump. I scream, but then there is a spark of hope inside my chest.
I knock so hard on the lid of the well that my knuckles start to bleed.
Knock-knock-knock
I grab on to the rusted handle again. Pull until I black out. I pull and pull and all I can think is that I need to remove the lid. That I have to open this hellhole before it is too late.
Each time I lean back and brace with my legs the lid moves a few inches. In the end a crescent of darkness gapes at me from the underground.
I pick up my phone and shine the flashlight into the black hole.
And there he is.
My child.
He looks straight up at me and blinks several times.
Under him there is a body lowered into the water. The surface is partially covered with some sort of plant with tiny, tiny green leaves, but I can see a hand stick out in one spot.
‘I knew you would come,’ Samuel says.
Manfred
Three weeks later
I
t is night. A light blue summer night.
But the hospital is awake, as always.
A low clatter from the corridor, muffled voices from the nurses’ office. An alarm beeping somewhere.
Nadja is sleeping.
I am holding her little hand in mine. The same hand that slid out of my grip, lubricated with butter.
Her face is wet from tears, it takes me a few moments to realise they are my tears, not Nadja’s.
The nurse, who enters our room, laughs a little, and tousles Afsaneh’s hair.
‘Go home now,’ she says. ‘It’s late.’
I look at the clock, confirm that it’s already morning and that she is right. I have a meeting with Letit at the station at nine o’clock and should try to get some sleep.
We have grown close, those of us on the investigative team. Even Letit, who was such a curmudgeon in the beginning, has softened and become social. He whistles on his way to the coffee machine, holds doors open and hasn’t uttered a single sexist or homophobic insult in weeks. He has even cut his toenails and stopped wearing that terrible string vest.
It almost makes me wonder if he’s gone and fallen in love. And the fact is that Malin told me that she suspects he is dating one of the witnesses in our investigation, Stina Svensson, the manager at the shop where Pernilla Stenberg works and thus a highly unsuitable match for our good Letit.
But I’m not going to point that out to him.
I’m just glad to have Nadja back. And that Pernilla Stenberg found her son alive, against all odds.
Samuel was badly injured and dehydrated after lying in the well for two days. Apparently, he survived by licking the wet concrete walls, sitting on the dead drug lord.
He hovered between life and death for several days, but we now know that he will make it, that he will fully recover. Physically at least. I don’t even dare imagine what he might see in his dreams at night.
‘Sleep for a few hours!’ the nurse says. ‘You need it. After all, tomorrow you get to bring your daughter home.’
Afsaneh nods and I reluctantly let go of Nadja’s small, damp hand.
We leave the hospital together.
Outside the entrance the humid night air hits me like a wall. My tears begin to flow again and I let out a small sob. There’s a stabbing pain in my knee but I couldn’t care less.
Three women in green surgical scrubs are standing by the wall. They smoke in silence and stare down at their phones. A man comes walking from over by the car park. He is pushing a pram with one hand. The child is moaning and squirming like a snake, but the man is focusing his full attention on the phone in his other hand. The pram slips off track and one front wheel rolls off the kerb. The child jolts and screams. The man straightens the pram out without taking his eyes off the screen on his phone for a moment.
