For The Dead

Book 2: Detective Charlie Lager

by Lina Bengtsdotter

Genres: Mystery; International Crime & Mystery; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

She must find the truth about Francesca. Before the past catches up with her...

AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
Thirty years ago, teenager Paul Bergman was found drowned in Gullspång’s lake, and his best friend Francesca vanished from her home. Paul’s death was ruled a suicide, and Francesca was never found.

A DETECTIVE’S OBSESSION
DI Charlie Lager is still haunted by childhood memories of a strange house and the missing girl who once lived there.

A DEADLY SECRET
Convinced that the original investigation was flawed, Charlie is determined to uncover what really happened all those decades ago. But someone out there is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the truth from coming out…

Release date: September 29, 2020

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

Prologue



A group of boys stood huddled behind the chapel. I approached from the lake; they didn’t notice me until I was much too close. In the faint light from the church, their faces looked weirdly spectral against their black tailcoats. It was the odious little gang with the royal names, Erik, Gustav, Oscar, Magnus and him, Henrik Stiernberg, my sister’s conceited boyfriend.

Henrik was the first to spot me. I must have scared him because he looked terrified when he asked me what the fuck I wanted. I stared at his face for a second, then burst out laughing.

‘What are you laughing at?’ he said. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’

I didn’t reply, because I had no idea why I was laughing or what was wrong with me.

‘Go back to the ball, weirdo,’ Erik said. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be inside, dancing?’

‘My escort’s missing,’ I said.

The moment I said it, my mood shifted; I suddenly felt on the verge of tears. Paul had been gone forever and the autumn ball was pointless without him. He’d promised me both the first and the last dance and the orchestra in the gym was gearing up to play the closing song. Maybe they already had. I don’t know why it made me so sad, because I definitely wasn’t the kind of girl who cared who I danced with, or if I even got to dance at all, but this was Paul.

‘Check his room,’ Erik said. ‘He probably got too hammered and conked out.’

I told them he wasn’t in his room.

‘Well, he’s not here,’ Henrik said, ‘so move along.’

I stayed where I was because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to look. I’d already checked the lake and the Weeping Willow and there was no one at Pine Point. This bench next to the family graves behind the chapel had been my last hope.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Henrik said when I suddenly staggered to one side.

‘I’m … dizzy,’ I said and reached out to lean against a headstone. I misjudged the distance and fell. Sprawled on the ground, I spotted the rose, the one that was the same shade of yellow as my dress and which Paul had been wearing in the breast pocket of his tailcoat.

‘Paul must’ve been here,’ I said, holding the rose up for the boys to see.

‘What are you on about?’ Henrik said. ‘We haven’t seen your little boyfriend.’

It was around that point our stories began to diverge.









1



Charlie tried to make herself comfortable in the tilted-back chair. Eva, the psychologist, was sitting diagonally to her left.

Eva had just gone over the guidelines for their conversations. It was important to start and stop sessions on time, important to be honest if something didn’t feel good, important that Charlie knew everything she said in that room would stay in that room.

Eva’s tone was friendly, but her eyes revealed she could be stern if the need arose. Charlie had looked her up and knew she was a member of the Swedish Psychologists’ Association and had fifteen years of professional experience. That had been Charlie’s first counter-demand when Challe ordered her to see a therapist, that it had to be someone with a proper education, not some smug git with an eight-week diploma in personal development. She didn’t want to waste her time on someone who spouted banalities or talked too much about their own life. Most importantly, though, she wanted to avoid doing it at all, which was why she had postponed this meeting for as long as she could. She’d tried to show Challe she was doing fine, that she was completely capable of taking care of herself and doing her job, but after the events of the summer, she didn’t exactly enjoy her boss’s full confidence.

Either way, there she was, in a strangely constructed chair in Eva’s office. Outside, the leaves of an enormous oak tree glistened gold and orange and rain trickled down the windowpane in tiny rivulets.

‘Tell me why you’re here, Charline,’ Eva said.

‘You can call me Charlie.’

‘What brings you here, Charlie?’

‘My boss. It was an ultimatum. He feels I need help.’

‘I see.’ Eva gave Charlie a probing look; Charlie figured she was making a mental note: Possible lack of self-awareness. ‘Do you agree with him?’

‘About needing help?’

‘Yes.’

‘I guess so, but I might not have come if it weren’t for the fact that I want to keep my job.’

‘Can you tell me a bit about yourself, in general terms. I know what you do for a living but that’s about it.’

‘What more do you need to know?’ Charlie said.

Eva smiled and said a person is more than just their job. Maybe Charlie could just give a brief description of herself.

‘Sure,’ Charlie said. ‘I like to …’ She paused. What did she like? Reading, drinking, being alone. She couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound depressing off the top of her head. ‘I like to read.’

When she realised Eva was waiting for more, she had an urge to add she loved working out as well, but what was the point of lying about something like that?

‘Have you been to therapy before?’ Eva said after a while.

‘Yes, a handful of sessions as an adult and a longer period of counselling as a teenager. My mother died when I was fourteen.’

‘That’s a difficult age to lose a parent.’

Charlie nodded.

‘And your father?’

‘Unknown.’

‘I see.’

‘What was your relationship with your mother like?’

‘It was …’ Charlie didn’t know what to say. Complicated? ‘My mother was unique.’

‘In what way?’

‘I suppose she wasn’t like other mothers. I guess you might say I’m fighting hard not to become her.’

‘That’s natural, though, don’t you think?’ Eva said. ‘Wanting to avoid repeating your parents’ mistakes? But if your aim is to avoid being your mother, you’re still using her as your reference point. You may not be able to step out of her shadow until you start acting without reference to her.’

‘Sure.’

‘We can come back to that. Right now, I want you to talk a bit about why your boss gave you an ultimatum. Why he is requiring you to see a therapist.’

Charlie suddenly heard Betty’s voice in her head. That thing she used to say when she was having a down period: I feel like the undertow’s pulling me down. If I lie still and think about it, I’ll sink. It’s best not to think, not to talk. It only makes things worse.’

‘I imagine it’s because of my drinking,’ Charlie says. ‘Sometimes I drink a bit too much. And the reason I’m here now is that until recently, I was able to keep it under control, drinking only when I was off-duty and never even the day before work, at least not in any significant quantities, but these days I find myself having a few drinks even if I’m working the next day, so I guess there must have been alcohol on my breath. Challe, my boss, has an incredible sense of smell.’

‘Maybe you’re lucky he does,’ Eva said. ‘I mean, because it induced you to seek professional help while there’s still time.’

‘How can you be so sure there’s still time?’ Charlie demanded.

‘You’re aware of and open about your problem. That’s a pretty good place to start.’

‘I’ve been aware of it for a long time, but that hasn’t meant I’ve been able to do anything about it, so I don’t know if that’s true.’

‘I thought you just told me you’ve been able to keep it under control?’

‘There have been times when I lost control,’ Charlie said.

‘But now you’re here.’

‘Yes, now I’m here.’

A few minutes of trivial small talk followed. Then silence fell. Charlie studied the paintings behind Eva. Framed pictures that looked like … Rorschach tests, Charlie suddenly realised. She tried to see patterns in the blots as a way to gauge her mental health, but was interrupted by Eva, who wanted to know more about her job.

Charlie told her about what she did as a detective working for the National Operations Department, about how she and her colleagues were dispatched to assist local law enforcement with particularly difficult cases across the country.

‘And what does the rest of your life look like?’ Eva asked.

‘Single, no children,’ Charlie replied.

‘And if we go back to your drinking,’ Eva said, without commenting on her lack of partner. ‘How long has it been a problem?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose it depends on who you ask.’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘Ever since I had my first drink I’ve really liked alcohol, and I’ve always had more of it than the people around me. The one-glass-only mentality is incomprehensible to me. But I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic just because I drink more than other people. I suppose sometimes I drink a lot, but there are calmer periods, too.’

‘And the uptick that led to this meeting, when did it start?’

‘I honestly don’t remember exactly, but I went back to Gullspång, the town I grew up in, a few months ago. It’s a small town in Västergötland,’ she added when Eva looked nonplussed. ‘I lived there until my mum died. That’s when I moved to Stockholm.’

‘Did you have family here?’

‘No, I ended up in foster care.’

‘What was that like?’

Charlie didn’t know how to respond. What was there really to say about her life in the small terraced house in Huddinge? She pictured the garden, the raked gravel path, the flowerbeds where everything grew in neat rows and the tiny apple tree that never bore fruit. She thought about her first meeting with her foster parents Bengt and Lena and their daughter, Lisen, how the three of them had stiffly welcomed her into their clinically clean house. On the surface, her new family was exactly what she’d used to wish for whenever Betty went off the rails: calm, orderly people with regular sleep schedules, sit-down family meals and a mother who packed gym bags and cooked traditional food and didn’t have mental breakdowns. Lena never once curled up on the sofa for days, desperate to shut out any trace of sound and light. She never threw parties and invited people she didn’t know. Charlie thought about her room in the terraced house, the laundered sheets, the smell of soap and roses. I want you to feel at home, Lena had told her that first night. I really hope you will feel at home here, Charline, and that you and Lisen will be like sisters.

But Charlie had never felt at home in the house in Huddinge and she and Lisen had never become anything like sisters.

Eva cleared her throat.

‘It was functional,’ Charlie said, ‘my foster family. Everything was neat and orderly and I was able to focus on school.’

‘That’s good,’ Eva said, ‘but back to when this period started. You went to Gullspång at the start of the summer. How come?’

‘It was for work; a young girl had disappeared, Annabelle Roos, you might have read about it in the papers.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘We went down there to help the local police and as it turns out, being back was pretty rough, much worse than I’d thought it’d be.’

‘In what way?’

‘It stirred up a lot of memories and I was …’

Charlie saw Annabelle’s thin body being pulled out of the black waters of the Gullspång River, saw Betty’s boyfriend, Mattias, disappear into the same black depths two decades earlier, saw two little girls with a crying toddler between them, even further back in time, long before she was born.

‘You were what?’ Eva said, leaning forward in her chair.

‘I suppose you might say I got personally involved in the case, to some degree. And I made a mistake down there and was suspended and that obviously affected me as well. When I returned to Stockholm, I thought everything would go back to normal, but it didn’t. It got worse.’

‘What got worse?’

‘My anxiety, the futility of it all, my sleeping problems. I have a hard time falling asleep and once I do, I have bad dreams.’

‘Describe them.’

‘My dreams?’

‘Yes.’

‘They started when I got back from Gullspång, but then they were slowly going away, until I started working on this case that’s getting to me more than I’d like to admit.’

Eva asked what kind of case it was and Charlie told her about the two young women from Estonia, the ones who had been found murdered and dumped in a wooded area in the suburbs. One of them had a three-year-old daughter, a hollow-eyed, hungry girl who had been locked alone in a flat for at least two days. The daughter still hadn’t said a word, even though it had been two weeks since they found her.

Eva said she wasn’t surprised Charlie felt affected by it, that an abandoned child would make most people feel the same way. But the little girl was okay, wasn’t she?

‘She’s alive,’ Charlie said. ‘But that’s about it. Last night, I dreamt she was my child, that I was her mother. I wanted to run home and rescue her, but I couldn’t, because I was dead. And then, in my next dream, I was the child and, well, you get it.’

‘Are you on any kind of medication?’ Eva asked without commenting on her dreams.

‘Sertraline,’ Charlie said, ‘one hundred milligrams.’ She didn’t mention that she sometimes complemented the sertraline with oxazepam or sleeping pills or both.

‘Nothing else?’ Eva said.

Charlie shook her head.

‘Are you aware nightmares are a common side effect of sertraline?’

Charlie nodded. She knew that, but since she’d been on sertraline for years, she felt it was unlikely to be related.

Eva folded her hands around her knee.

‘This mistake you mentioned,’ she continued, ‘I would like to talk some more about that.’

Charlie thought about that night at the pub for a minute. The liquorice shots, the wine, the beer, Johan. Her decision to dig up everything she could about him after she got back to Stockholm had been foolish. If you wanted to move on, you had to put a lid on things and leave them well enough alone, she knew that, but instead, she’d left no rock unturned. It had started with her wanting to find out where he lived, to check if he was married, if everything he’d said about being Betty’s boyfriend’s son was really true. It seemed to be.

‘Charlie?’ Eva was looking at her.

‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

‘I asked you to tell me about that mistake you mentioned.’

‘Right. I actually don’t remember all of what happened, but in a nutshell, I had too much to drink and took a journalist back to my room. The next day, privileged information was printed in the papers. I wasn’t the leak, though everyone obviously thought I was. And, well, it was a problem, to put it mildly.’

Eva said nothing for a minute, as if waiting for Charlie to continue. Then she asked: ‘Do you think you would’ve spent the night with this man if you’d been sober?’

‘God, no!’

‘Why not?’

Charlie didn’t quite know how to answer that, so she told it like it was, that she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d gone to bed with a man sober. And was there something wrong with that?

‘What do you think?’ Eva retorted.

‘I obviously think that particular instance was ill-advised, but in other contexts, I mean, when I’m not working? Do you think one-night stands are wrong?’

‘Is what I think important to you?’

Charlie said it wasn’t, but that was a lie, because if there was one thing she despised, it was judgemental people.

‘Either way, it’s not for me to say,’ Eva said. ‘But I will tell you that using sex to feel better might not be entirely constructive.’

‘It’s better than alcohol, though, right?’

‘As far as I understand, you use both.’

Charlie sighed and looked out the window, watching a blackbird fly past.

‘I’m not saying it’s wrong to have sex with strangers. I’m just saying you should think about why you do. What you hope to achieve by it.’

‘Isn’t it enough that it makes me feel better? Does there have to be a deeper purpose? Why can’t people just do what makes them feel good?’

‘I suppose they can. But maybe what makes you feel good in the moment isn’t what makes you feel good in the long run.’

Charlie nodded. Sad, but true.

‘I mean, a drug addict feels good getting high,’ Eva continued, ‘but that doesn’t mean …’

‘Yeah, I get it.’

Charlie was starting to regret demanding a trained psychologist. It would have been easier to see a happy-go-lucky life coach who’d tell her about new kinds of yoga and meditation. If she was serious about wanting help, she was going to have to dig deep and she didn’t know if she was up for it. She was so tired.

‘Going back to your mother,’ Eva said. ‘What was she like?’

‘She was … different.’

Charlie glanced at her watch. Not that it mattered how much time was left, she wouldn’t be able to describe Betty if she had a lifetime. Betty had been so full of contradictions and contrasts, of darkness and light, drive and apathy. Back when Charlie studied psychology, she’d tried to find a diagnosis that fit her, but none of them had felt spot on. It was as though all descriptors were too narrow to encompass Betty Lager.









2



Half an hour until the morning meeting. Plenty of time to get there from Eva’s office.

The rain had stopped and the air was crisp. Autumn was Charlie’s favourite season. The season of decay, Betty used to call it. Betty, who would grow anxious before they’d even made it to midsummer, as soon as the cherry blossoms fell. But to Charlie, autumn was a time of rebirth, a promise of routines, order. She loved the smell of rosehip and new books; they reminded her of school starting again after the endless, unpredictable summer holiday. But this autumn had been different. It was as though she was just pretending to care about the world around her, pretending to work, pretending to participate in conversations, pretending to live, while, paradoxically, everything also seemed portentous and frightening somehow. The other day, she had seriously considered hanging a blanket over her bedroom window to block out the light seeping in through the gaps in the blind. The thought alone had scared her. She mustn’t become like Betty. Never like Betty.

Charlie pulled out her phone to check if Susanne had called back. She hadn’t. When Charlie was going back to Stockholm, after the Gullspång case was wrapped up, they’d promised to keep in touch and meet up again soon. In the weeks that followed, Susanne had called almost every night when she took her dog out. They’d talked about her marriage, which was rockier than ever, and all the things that hadn’t turned out the way they’d thought they would. But a while ago, Susanne had stopped taking Charlie’s calls, sending only brief texts saying she was fine, just a bit overwhelmed, when Charlie asked if something had happened.

Charlie listened to the phone ring and hung up the moment the call went to voicemail, thinking that perhaps she ought to respect the fact that Susanne wanted to be left alone.



Kristina, the receptionist, was back from her vacation abroad; even though she’d talked about little else for weeks before she went, Charlie couldn’t remember where she’d been. But apparently she was back, standing by the coffee machine in the kitchen by the conference room, telling everyone what a wonderful time she’d had, the balmy air, the warm sea, the pool. Going had been a matter of survival, she said, because the Swedish summer had been miserable, aside from that one heatwave in June, but she’d been stuck at work then. And after that … summer had never really got going properly.

Charlie tried to recall the summer. She hadn’t given the weather so much as a passing thought. The few days she’d been off work after coming back from Gullspång, she’d spent large parts of asleep.

Kristina said she was already dreaming about next summer.

‘I’m not,’ Charlie replied and took a cinnamon bun from the plate on the table.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes. I don’t like summer or being off work or holidays or anything like that. I don’t even like to travel,’ she added. Then she wished she hadn’t, because she knew all too well discussing her idiosyncrasies with Kristina was a waste of time. When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? How many times had she got stuck in interminable arguments about the most insignificant details simply because she was annoyed about something or even just bored. Safe topics of conversation with Kristina included recipes, weather and property prices. Things that were concrete, simple and normal.

‘That’s actually kind of sad,’ Kristina said, ‘not liking summer.’

‘What’s sad about it? Given as how there are three other seasons, living only for summer seems even sadder. And if overcast days make you upset, well, then how often do you really get to be happy; since greatest possible happiness seems to be your goal?

Kristina stared at her blankly.

‘Jesus,’ she said after a pause. ‘I hardly think me being unhappy about the weather and the season is cause for you to get so angry.

‘I’m not angry, I just didn’t appreciate you calling me sad.’

‘I never called you sad.’

Hugo entered the room. Kristina lit up.

‘Looks like you’ve had some sun,’ he said.

He smiled at Kristina and gave Charlie a curt nod.

Kristina forgot about Charlie and once more launched into a paean about the heat, the surroundings, the daytrips. Then she suddenly stopped herself and congratulated Hugo, saying a little bird had told her.

‘Thanks,’ Hugo said. ‘I’m really chuffed about it.’

He glanced at Charlie.

‘Did you hear, Charlie?’ Kristina said. ‘Did you hear someone’s going to be a daddy soon?’

‘No, but I’m hearing it now.’ Charlie turned to Hugo and put on as big a smile as she could muster. ‘That’s exciting. I’m so pleased for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Hugo replied and flushed.

At least he has the decency to be embarrassed, Charlie thought to herself. That’s something, at least.

‘So how’s Anna doing?’ Kristina went on, oblivious to the tension in the room.

‘She’s actually been rather poorly,’ Hugo replied. ‘But I think she’s turned a corner now, thankfully.’

‘Aren’t you staying for the meeting?’ Kristina said when Charlie got up and moved towards the door.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t start for another three minutes.’

Charlie went to the bathroom and ran ice cold water over her wrists. It was something Betty had taught her. When your blood boils and your head’s burning, ice cold water’s what you need. Hold your wrists like this, no, don’t pull them out, soon, you won’t feel a thing, you’ll be numb. Keep them there, sweetheart. Endure. There, feel that? Can you feel it all just going away?

Charlie closed her eyes, tried to make it all go away, tried to think of nothing at all, just a white room, white floor, white ceiling, white, windowless walls. But Hugo’s wife’s face kept popping up, her hands on her belly, Hugo’s protective arm around her shoulders, his joy at the unborn child.

Charlie had last slept with Hugo less than a month ago. He’d turned up in her regular bar, standing there with a stupid grin on his face, pretending his presence there was sheer coincidence. When he wanted to have a drink with her, she’d told him no, that they were done with each other, but he’d insisted. Surely, they could have one little drink and talk about what had been. Charlie had eventually agreed, but only to the drink, she’d told him, not the trip down memory lane; she had no desire to reminisce about their affair. She already knew everything she needed to: that Hugo was a lying coward who thought far too highly of himself. She knew, but her heart seemed not to care. Charlie was often told she was a rational person, but as far as Hugo was concerned, her intellect was no match for her lust; all she’d wanted to do while they sat there with their Long Island Ice Teas was to take him home and have sex with him all night long. Which was why, after the third drink, she’d done just that.

Just be happy he’s not yours, Charline. What good is a dishonest man to you? Why moon after a man with no conscience?

Charlie opened her eyes. She didn’t want Hugo. She’d thought she wanted him because she’d convinced herself he was someone he wasn’t, that there was depth to him. But he was just …

He’s just an ordinary man, sweetheart. Don’t waste your time.

Someone tried the bathroom door.

‘Sorry,’ she heard Anders’ voice say. ‘I didn’t realise it was occupied.’

Charlie turned off the taps. Dabbed her wet fingers under her eyes, wiped her hands with toilet paper and opened the door.

‘Are you okay?’ Anders asked.

‘Sure, just have a bit of a cold.’

‘Want to go for a drink after work? We haven’t been out together in ages.’

‘Eight months,’ Charlie said.

‘Has it really been that long?’ Anders frowned as though he didn’t believe her. ‘I suppose that’s right, actually. Because I didn’t go out at all the last month before Sam was born and since then I’ve … I haven’t been out once since.’

‘Maria’s not going to let you out of her sight,’ Charlie said with a smile.

‘I actually have a mind of my own.’

‘Alright then, great. We’ll go for a drink after work.’

‘I just have to call Maria to doublecheck,’ Anders said.

‘Fine,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll see how it works out.’









3



When the morning meeting was over, Challe asked Charlie for a quick word in his office. She followed him in and closed the door behind her.

‘I’ve reviewed everyone’s overtime and annual leave,’ Challe said, sitting down behind his desk.

‘And?’ Charlie said.

‘And I wasn’t surprised to find that you’ve taken less leave than anyone else.’

‘Okay.’

‘Are you ever going to use your leave?’

‘I took two weeks in July.’

‘You took a week and a half,’ Challe corrected her, ‘and not even one week the summer before that.’

‘Sure, but I’m in the middle of an important investigation right now.’

‘All investigations are important,’ Challe replied. ‘There’s always work to do.’

Charlie knew where the conversation was going; soon, he would point out that no one was served by her becoming personally involved in her case. He’d seen the pattern, he’d told her the last time the subject came up; he’d noticed that cases involving vulnerable young women tended to make her overly invested, which in turn meant she risked running herself into the ground and no one, not the victims, not their loved ones and not she herself, was helped by that.

Charlie recalled the pictures of the women’s naked bodies; the eyes of the three-year-old found alive in the flat. How was she supposed not to become emotionally involved?

‘I’m not saying you have to take time off this minute, Charlie. I just think you, like everyone else, need periods of recuperation from time to time.’

Charlie said that was true, but that recuperation might mean different things to different people.

Challe agreed, but it was nevertheless his job to put his foot down when he felt his staff needed rest. Because no one is indispensable. The cemeteries of the world were proof of that.

Charlie didn’t smile at the stupid saying. Instead she asked if their conversation had anything to do with what had happened the previous summer.

‘It has to do with a lot of things,’ Challe said. ‘The events down in Gullspång, your partying and the fact that you look exhausted. I’ve seen too many ambitious people burn out in this line of work and I can. . .