Part 23 (1/2)
Something has changed between us. Markus has grown calmer, less obstinate, maybe because he feels more secure. And when he's calmer, I don't feel as claustrophobic. It's so simple, and yet so hard. I shake my head and put away the last of the groceries. Markus sits down at the kitchen table and puts his head in his hands. He looks worried.
”How much do you know about kids? About child psychology, I mean?” he asks. He has turned his face toward me and I see that he hasn't shaved and that his eyes are bloodshot. I know that he's been working more than usual lately. He's tangentially involved in the Susanne Olsson murder investigation, but mostly he's working on two rapes that took place in h.e.l.lasgrden. I know they were unusually brutal and there is some suspicion of a serial rapist, and I know the investigation is weighing on him.
”Kids? Are you worried about my ability to raise a child? Do you think I'm going to be a lousy mother?”
”This isn't about you at all, honey,” he replies. His smile is weary, and even though I know he's kidding, I feel guilty. ”You know that little girl, Tilda? She's living full-time with her dad now. She used to spend every other weekend with him and the rest of her time with Susanne. Anyway, the father says Tilda almost never speaks. At all. She just draws. She hasn't mentioned her mother since the murder, hasn't asked, hasn't wondered. It's as if she just shut down, and he has no idea how to get her to open up again.”
”Is she in therapy? Is she seeing a psychologist?”
I think about that little girl who hid under the dining table for several hours as her mother lay dead beside her on the kitchen floor, and about what Markus told me before about the police's questioning session with her.
”Yeah, she's meeting with some psychologist from Pediatric Psychiatric Services. But I don't know what they're doing with her. I'm sure you would know better.”
”I have no idea, actually. I've never worked with traumatized children. They might be helping her to express herself, draw, paint . . . uh, I don't know.”
When it comes to treating children who have witnessed acts of violence, my expertise is extremely limited. Suddenly I remember a lecture from my undergrad days by a blond woman with big silver hoop earrings and a beautiful pashmina shawl who talked about working with refugee children at a camp north of Stockholm, how they had the children draw pictures of soldiers and then rip them up.
”Whatever became of the robbery homicide theory, anyway?” I ask.
”They still think it might be a robbery homicide. That would be so . . . simple, actually. It seems so awfully unnecessary.”
”And Henrik, where does he fit in, as the robber, or what?” I ask, watching Markus make a face and roll his eyes.
”I don't believe that robbery homicide business, okay? It just seems wrong. So much anger. They questioned that guy who was handing out flyers, the one who found her. And he did actually steal her wallet, so that makes him a suspect. But, my G.o.d, a sixteen-year-old who had absolutely no relations.h.i.+p with the woman? No, I don't buy it. And Henrik is still missing. The profiler we brought in thinks he's mostly a danger to himself, is afraid he'll commit suicide if he realizes what he did. As if that would help. His ex, Kattis, calls several times a day. She's scared to death that he's going to come after her and she's still completely convinced that he killed Susanne Olsson as well. That's what she says anyway.”
Markus looks dejected and exhausted, but I see rage in him as well, an emotion Markus almost never shows.
”And what about this stuff with Malin?” I ask.
He shakes his head and says, ”That would be a weird coincidence, wouldn't it? For her to be placed in the same support group as Henrik's ex-girlfriend? I mean, if it is a coincidence. But I think it is, because the murderer was almost certainly a man and, besides, Malin has an alibi. She was running some half marathon in Skne the day Susanne was murdered.”
”So it's just a coincidence?”
”What do I know? I mean, Gustavsberg isn't that big. And they aren't too far apart in age; it really isn't totally unbelievable for it to just be coincidental.”
Markus shrugs and ma.s.sages his temples. ”This whole investigation is just such a mess,” he continues. ”The press is slaughtering us for not arresting Henrik right away. Everyone has an opinion about what happened and they all want to share it publicly. And everyone is pretty much a.s.suming we're worthless.”
We stand there side by side in that little kitchen, with Markus tired and angry, and me worried. I think about Henrik's confused, violent behavior. The idea that he's out there somewhere-hiding, biding his time-frightens me, even though I realize that Markus is right. Henrik probably is mostly a danger to himself.
Then Markus's cell rings. I feel a rush of resentment. We were supposed to spend the evening together. The call probably means that Markus will have to go somewhere, maybe question a witness, maybe a potential suspect. He answers curtly, says hmm and nods before hanging up. He seems irritated, upset by the information he's received. He moves into the living room, turns on his laptop, which is on the little desk by the window, and types something. Seconds later a new web page opens in his browser and I see the black headlines on the Aftonbladet home page: ”Will She Catch Her Momma's Killer? The Police's New Witness in the Olsson Murder: Tilda, Age 5.”
Patrik's tears stream down his red, splotchy cheeks like rivers, forming wet stains on his worn skinny jeans. All the hopes, all the confidence he felt the last time we met, gone like the autumn leaves around my cottage. The way he bends his long body down over the yellow cracks in the linoleum floor, defeated and broken. By life, by love.
As powerless as usual, I slide the Kleenex box across the table and start trying to sort things out.
”She left,” he says. ”I think she's sleeping with someone else. That no-good useless b.i.t.c.h.” His voice is as limp as his body.
”Okay, from the beginning now. What happened?” I ask.
He sighs and then flops back in my armchair like someone with a fever, as if he didn't have the strength to sit up straight, every muscle exhausted to the breaking point.
”The day before yesterday, totally unbelievable! When I got home she, she . . . was packing, just like that. And then she just walked out, left me and the kids. Just like that. G.o.dd.a.m.n it-”
His bony body shakes.
”What did she say?”
”I. Hate. Her,” he screams, and I know why. It hurts when someone you love disappears. I really feel for him. I wish I could take that skinny man, that bearded boy, into my arms and just cradle him.
But that's not appropriate, of course.
He's the client, I'm the therapist.
Our roles are clearly delineated: he sits in one armchair, I in the other.
He cries and I pa.s.s him the Kleenex.
He pays and I listen.
”Okay, okay, okay,” he says. ”This is what she said: I helped her, isn't that great? She's strong again, blah blah blah. A bunch of bulls.h.i.+t, if you ask me. Now she realizes that she doesn't love me. And now she's strong enough to leave me. Thanks to my support. Thanks, thanks a lot!”
He wipes his face with the Kleenex, cleaning snot from his lip and chin, wads the wet tissue up into a ball that he tosses at the wastepaper basket. He misses and it lands with a dull squish on my clinically clean floor.
Neither of us responds.
”Besides, it's totally illogical. I'm the one who should leave her. I'm the one who had to earn all the money, take care of the kids while she was having . . . anxiety, lying on the couch, eating. Like a stupid, fat cow. On drugs. If anyone was going to leave, it should've been me, not her. It's not . . . fair.”
”And how did it make you feel when she said she wanted to split up?”
”If you ever ask anything as stupid as that again, I'm going to get up and walk out of here. Do you understand me?” Patrik snarls between his teeth. But it's an empty threat. He sighs and looks up at the ceiling.
”Okay, okay. It feels like I'm dying. It feels like I'm dying and she stole my life. I mean, we have a life together, two children. How could she? It's wrong. It's . . . it goes against nature. A mother shouldn't just leave her children.”
Aina and Sven are arguing outside my office. Aina's voice is shrill, Sven's m.u.f.fled, insistent, not backing down.
”Like your mother did? I mean, she abandoned you too in a way,” I say.