More Bitter Than Death: A Novel Part 27

"Now. Lie down behind the couch," he orders.

She quickly climbs over the back of the velvet couch and slides down onto the cold floor behind it. She lies down on her side. She can see his feet under the couch as he once again moves toward the front door and opens it.

Tilda thinks she sees a woman. She can't tell for sure, because the legs wearing jeans and rain boots could belong to either a man or a woman, and she can't see any more than that from her hiding spot, but the voice-the voice is a woman's. And there's something familiar about it. The woman speaks quickly, quickly and quietly, and he mumbles something in response now and then.

Then she watches his feet disappear into the kitchen. The woman's legs stay in the front hall, not moving, as if her rain boots were glued to the floor. Cupboards open and close, pots rattle. Then his feet come back, walk to the front door, and stop in front of the rain boots.

"Oh, thank you," the woman's voice says. "How nice of you. See you later, then."

The rain boots turn around and disappear out into the dark. The door shuts again with a bang, but he stays there, taking his time in front of the spy eye, not moving, peering out into the darkness.

Just as he starts to walk back into the room, that shrill sound happens again.

Riiiiiiing.

"s.h.i.+t," he mumbles, then turns and walks back into the entryway.

He opens the door again and Tilda feels a cold gust of wind race across the worn parquet flooring.

"Yes?" he says.

"Uh, yes. One thing. I forgot . . . ," the woman's voice says.

And suddenly Tilda knows whose voice it sounds like: Mama's. It's not that it is Mama's voice, it's just really similar, and suddenly Tilda remembers exactly how Mama sounds and how she smells when Tilda burrows her nose into her side and how soft and warm her stomach is to touch.

Tilda is suddenly filled with a fear that is bigger, much bigger, than her fear of the man in this house. What if Mama is really at the door and Tilda doesn't get to see her? What if Mama came to get her and can't find her? The thought makes Tilda feel sick, makes her heart start pounding hard. It only takes a few seconds for Tilda to make up her mind. Quickly she hauls herself up over the couch, clambers over the stacks of newspapers on the rug, and races to the door.

"Maaama!" she cries.

A shock of cold air hits her. He turns around and she can see that his eyes are wide and his fists are clenched.

"Maaaama!"

A lady with short, gray hair and gla.s.ses is standing outside the door. She's holding a cheese grater in her hand and her mouth is hanging open, as if she were waiting for someone to feed her something. The lady takes a couple of unsteady steps backward, with her mouth still open.

"d.a.m.n it," the man growls, catching Tilda in midstep and shoving her down onto the cold floor so that she feels something sharp against her cheek. "I told you, you brat. I told you, I told you."

Then he turns to the woman at the door, who isn't Tilda's mother after all, just some stupid gray-haired woman she's never seen before.

"Sorry, Gunilla. This isn't . . . ," the man begins.

But it doesn't seem like the woman is listening. She just keeps backing away onto the front porch as if she's seen a ghost. He lets go of Tilda and takes a couple of steps toward the woman, pulls her inside, and closes the door behind her.

"Gunilla, please . . . ," he says, but the woman isn't listening. Tilda can tell that from her eyes, which have gone totally vacant.

"My G.o.d, just what is going on here?" the woman whispers, clutching the grater to her chest like a teddy bear.

Again Tilda tries to make herself as small as possible, like a ball, an invisible ball in the corner. And she stuffs her fingers into her ears and mumbles the rhyme her grandfather taught her: "One two, buckle my shoe, three four, shut the door." But even with her fingers in her ears and repeating the rhyme, she can still hear the thuds and the crunching. She repeats it louder: "Five six, pick up sticks."

Then something cold b.u.mps her leg. She peeks through her fingers, sees a single rubber boot, and when she follows it with her eyes she sees that the lady's leg is still in the boot, that her whole body is stretched out on the floor, flat as a pancake, as if she were tanning at the beach.

VaRMDo.

NOVEMBER.

Aina and I are balancing on the slippery rocks along the bay, huddled to protect ourselves from the wind, looking out over the dark water. The waves have whitecaps.

"Watch out, it's slippery," I warn her. But she doesn't answer, just stuffs her hands further down into the pockets of her parka. Her hair dances around her head in the wind.

We carefully make our way toward the big, flat rock where we usually sit in the summertime to enjoy the sun. That feels like a lifetime ago; there's no hint of the warm, inviting summer sea that was so welcoming to us only a few months ago.

Aina is quiet and sulky. I was surprised but happy when she called and said she wanted to come see me. She used to come all the time, before Markus. Now it almost never happens.

"Elin almost cried on Friday. The office has apparently been receiving so many calls from journalists that the patients can't get through," she says.

"As long as Elin doesn't give them our home numbers, I guess . . . I don't really see why they want to talk to us."

"I do. A mother of three shot to death at a counseling clinic in central Stockholm. That's pretty uncommon. But at least they haven't discovered the possible connection to Susanne's murder. Did the police question you too?" Aina asks, and I can hardly hear her words with the whining of the wind and the roar of the waves.

"Yeah, they questioned everyone. According to Markus, at least."

She smiles quickly, a fleeting, mysterious smile. "What else does he say, your Markus?"

My Markus? I cringe a little at her choice of words but decide not to let it get to me. Sometimes Aina is moody; there's just nothing to be done about it.

"He says they questioned everyone from the office and everyone in the support group. They still don't have a suspect in Susanne's murder, or in Tilda's kidnapping. And Henrik is on the loose. They're not even sure if Hillevi's murder is really connected to Susanne's murder."

"That's all?" Aina asks.

"Yeah, Markus mentioned yesterday that Henrik apparently worked out at the same gym as that guy who raped Malin."

"Interesting. What does that mean?"

"Probably nothing. There aren't that many gyms in Gustavsberg, so it's probably just a coincidence. But that particular gym is notorious. There are apparently a lot of drugs there."

"So?"

"I don't know. That might mean that Henrik had access to drugs too, which could explain his behavior, his aggression. Anyway, what do you think?"

"I don't know," Aina begins hesitantly, "but I've been thinking a lot about what Sirkka said. I can't get it out of my mind."

"Sirkka?"

"Yeah, she actually admitted to us that she basically killed her husband. And that she doesn't feel any guilt about it."

Aina brushes away several damp, blond strands of hair and then turns toward the wind so her hair blows back off her face.

"I guess I haven't really thought about it. She didn't call for help, that's all. And then he died."

Aina smiles wryly. "Come on, now you're being naive, Siri. She knew exactly what she was doing. She killed him and she doesn't feel any guilt over it. Doesn't that bother you?"

I shrug, unsure what to say. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm just wondering. If a person does something like that once, does that mean they'd be capable of doing it again?"

I have no response. Aina turns around and gazes at my little cottage huddled between the rocky sh.o.r.e and the pine trees.

"Should we head back in?" she asks, and I nod.

Slowly we follow the little path back to the house. I'm carrying the big flashlight in my hand, lighting our way so we don't stumble over any tree roots or slip into one of the small hollows filled with wet leaves.

It's warm in the cottage. The woodstove in the living room is crackling, and the faint but unmistakable scent of smoke permeates the air.

"Would you like some tea?" I ask.

"I want wine," she says without looking at me, flopping onto the couch, pulling her legs up toward her body, and wrapping her arms around her knees. I head into the kitchen to see what we have. Not that long ago it would have been unheard-of for me not to have any wine in the house, but to my surprise I determine that we are currently actually totally wineless. The cupboard where I keep the wine is empty.

"Uh," I call from the kitchen, "we're out of wine."

"Do you have any liquor?"

"Liquor? Are you serious?" I ask her.

"I have never been more serious."

I shake my head at her from the doorway and return to the kitchen to look. Liquor has never been my thing, but maybe Markus brought a few bottles over? I find a blue bottle of gin under the kitchen sink.

"I have gin. What do you want with it? I don't have any tonic."

"Nothing."

Aina is obviously a little off right now, I think, as I pour her a half gla.s.s of the clear liquid. The alcohol fumes make my stomach tighten, and right away there's that familiar feeling of nausea. I support myself on the edge of the sink and turn my face to the side to escape the smell.

Aina whispers a thank you and downs half of it in one gulp.

"Carl-Johan is married," she blurts out, then looks at me. Suddenly I understand why she's here, why she's been so sullen, why she needs the gin.

"Married, can you believe it? That's really the last thing I would have expected. I was so focused on whether or not I could commit emotionally to just one guy. I totally a.s.sumed he wanted to be with me. They always do. I'm the one who leaves them. You know?"

"Yeah, I know," I say. Because over the years as man after man has paraded through Aina's life, it's always ended the same way. She always leaves them.

"And now that I . . . the first time I've ever felt like I was ready to-"

She can't say the word, but I nod quietly at her. Her jaw is clenched and a deep wrinkle has appeared between her eyebrows.

"How did you find out?" I ask her.

"She called. His G.o.dd.a.m.n wife just up and called me."

"His wife? How did she get your number?"

"Oh, Siri, it's so simple I can hardly stand to tell you. She went through his text messages and found my messages. Evidently he hadn't had the sense to erase them. Then she called me."

"Oh my G.o.d. What did she say?"

Aina wipes a tear from her cheek. "She was totally calm, like she was calling to order a taxi, or food from a restaurant, or something. She said it wasn't the first time, that he'd done this before, that he's an addict . . . a s.e.x addict. That he used her. And me. She said I shouldn't be sad, that I'd get over it, and that I could call her if I wanted to talk. The whole thing was very . . . civilized, in a weird way. I didn't believe her at first, so I called Carl-Johan. And he admitted it just like that. They have two kids. And a house in Malarhojden."

I contemplate Aina's news in silence. I think about how love isn't always a beautiful, light feeling; sometimes it's a vicious beast: eternally on the prowl, always hungry, lurking at the edge of our existence, ready to take us down.

No love without suffering. One person always wants more. One is always disappointed. There is always this pain, I think.

There is never balance.

That night Aina sleeps in my bed and Markus sleeps on the couch.

I can tell from her troubled breathing that she's not sleeping. Outside, the autumn wind chases leaves around the house. Rain drums on the roof.

I take her hand in the darkness and squeeze it. It's damp and cold. She squeezes back.

When I wake up Aina is gone. Her side of the bed is empty.