Betrayal

When the outer doors to Götgatan 76 slid aside and let her in, it was a quarter past nine. Through the glass of the double doors she saw that the foyer of the Tax Office was already full of people, but she was in no hurry. She had three days to find out what she needed to know; they wouldn’t be back until Wednesday.

She had never been here before, but where else than at the Tax Office would it be possible to get hold of someone’s tax reference? If she had that, she imagined that everything else would go more smoothly. There was Kerstin’s revelation about something troublesome in Linda’s past. A piece of information that might be both interesting and useful.

A white notice was taped up on the glass door: ‘Please take a number for the desired category.’

Desired category. It was probably better if she didn’t say.

There were four alternatives: tax questions, overseas, national registration, birth certificates.

National registration sounded good. She pressed a button for a number slip and sat down on one of the many chairs; there were fifteen numbers ahead of her. She looked around. To her left there were four computers set up, and she got up to take a closer look. Maybe it was some sort of self-service; it would be best if she didn’t have to talk to anyone. One of the computers was free, so she pulled out the chair and sat down. To her left sat a middle-aged man in a checked suit over a sloppily buttoned shirt. Papers spread out on the desk beside him. He looked as if he knew his way around.

‘Excuse me.’

He stopped and looked at her.

‘If I have a name and address, can I find the social security number on this machine?’

He nodded.

‘Go into the main register. Under the start menu.’

‘Thanks.’

She followed the instructions and a dialogue box came up with three choices.

Physical woman. Physical man. Legal entity.

Even though ‘physical woman‘ made her furious, she realised that was the category she had to search. She typed in Linda Persson and the address she had given on the day-care list: Duvnäsgatan 14, 116 34 Stockholm.

The computer searched and got a hit.

740317-2402.

Hallelujah. They would be celebrating her birthday during their little love getaway too.

Well, make sure you do celebrate.

She wrote down the number, clicked on Clear and returned to her chair to wait.

‘I would like to know where this person was born. Seventy-four, zero three, seventeen, twenty-four, zero two.’

The woman behind the window keyed it into her computer.

‘A Linda Persson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jönköping.’

The screen was at an angle so she couldn’t read it.

‘What else does it say?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘You couldn’t give me a printout, could you?’

‘Of course.’

A printer at the woman’s side spat out a sheet of paper. Eva accepted it through the open slot in the window. She thanked the woman and got up, reading.

‘740317-2402, K, PHOTO (6401 V3.34), Linda Ingrid Persson.’

A bunch of indecipherable abbreviations and then more social security numbers and names. Biological mother and father with complete names and social security numbers and then one more. ‘670724-3556 Hellström, Stefan Richard. Type S.’

The woman in the window was looking for her next client but Eva got there first.

‘Excuse me for asking, but what does “Type S” mean?’

‘Spouse.’

A revelation that left her speechless for a moment.

‘So you mean this person is married?’

The woman stuck out her hand for the paper and read.

‘No, civil status D, divorced since 2001.’

She took in the information, tried to decide what it meant, whether it presented any useful possibilities. They were linked together like one big family, whether those involved liked it or not. Some divorced, some still married.

‘Could I get a printout of this social security number as well? Sixty-seven, zero seven, twenty-four, thirty-five, fifty-six.’

The woman typed and another sheet of paper was handed over. Without reading it Eva headed towards the exit.

On the way out through the automatic doors she thought she had received good value for the time spent.

She brewed herself a cup of coffee and even whisked some hot milk into it before she sat down at the desk in his office. He had cleaned up well after himself, not one paper was lying about. She found some notes with scribbled telephone numbers, but since he had left them for her to see she knew they were useless.

Anyway, she no longer needed his help.

She unfolded the paper with the information on Linda’s former husband. Residence address in Varberg. Biological parents’ names and social security number, the father with a DE, and a new date following the social security number. She picked up the attached sheet with explanations of the abbreviations and saw that it meant Deceased. Under the parents was Linda’s name and the S for spouse and the same date for the divorce as on her printout. And then under her, Hellström, Johanna Rebecca. 930428-0318. DE 010715.

A child that had died. The divorce only a few months later. Linda’s former husband had lost a child right before they got divorced.

She stood up, feeling bad. The ache in her chest again, started as always by guilty feelings about Axel. The thought of their inability to give him a good start in life. Wondering whether something might happen to him. How would she be able to survive? She had sometimes wondered whether anyone would dare have a child if they fully understood in advance what it involved. To want the very, very best but always believe that you’re not doing enough.

The nervousness and the guilty conscience were a constant companion to the absolutely unconditional love. She was thankful that she hadn’t known ahead of time. Axel was the greatest thing in her life; his birth had changed everything, given life new dimensions. She had learned never again to want to put herself in first place, always to be willing to subordinate herself. That is precisely what he had taught her. And yet she spent most of the hours of the day somewhere else, away from him. Despite the fact that over these past six years she’d realised how fast time passed.

And now Henrik intended to see to it that she lost half of what was left. Force her to be an every-other-week mother without giving her the slightest opportunity to choose for herself.

She went to the kitchen and drank some water and then sat down in front of the computer again.

She logged in and clicked onto Google’s search site. Searched for Linda’s name and got 1,390 hits. She skipped over all the doctoral candidates at the institute of geotechnics and other home pages that definitely had nothing to do with the Linda she was after, but finally had to give up. She added ‘+Varberg’, which gave her information on the results in women’s football in division 2 and a complete employee database of the Swedish Municipality Association; neither of those seemed especially relevant. Adding ‘+Jönköping’ produced equally uninteresting results. Linda’s exhusband’s name had some hits on lists of results in orienteering competitions, and one hit on a car rental company in Skellefteå, neither of which filled her with much enthusiasm.

She picked up her coffee cup and went into the living room, looking out at the garden through the picture window. How would it feel to keep living here alone with Axel? Would she be able to cope with doing everything herself? And then the next question, more of a realisation: would there actually be any big difference?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move in the corner of the yard, close to where the common began. The deer were certainly getting bolder. Soon she would have to start locking the doors to keep them out of the house.

She walked by the dishwasher on her way back and put in her empty coffee cup, then went and sat at the computer again and read one more time the names on the two printouts from the Tax Authority.

Hellström, Johanna Rebecca.

Eight years and three months she had lived.

She had a bright idea and typed in ‘+Varberg’.

One hit.

Evening News: ‘Father accuses ex-wife of daughter’s death.’

She raised her eyes and stared out the window in front of her.

Then she returned to the screen and clicked on the link to the article.

A photo of a gravestone and a man standing in front of it with his back to the camera.

Our beloved daughter

Rebecca Hellström * 1993 † 2001

And then the caption: ‘She’s lying.’ The father of drowning victim Rebecca Hellström is full of sorrow and bitterness. ‘I know that the accident could have been prevented.’

She raised her eyes and stared out the window again. She tried to identify what she was feeling. She had found what she was looking for – no, more than that – but instead of celebrating she was briefly able to take a step back from all the blackness inside her and observe herself sitting in front of the computer. As if a remnant of the old Eva deep inside demanded to make herself heard, tried to warn her.

Think carefully now.

She looked at the screen again.

If you make your bed, you’ll have to lie in it.

She got up and went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, then closed it again without remembering what she was looking for.

Then she picked up the cordless phone from the kitchen counter and called Enquiries.

‘I’m looking for the number of Varberg District Court. Could you please connect me.’

The sound of keys clacking and then the ringing tones.

‘Varberg District Court, Marie-Louise Johannes-son.’

‘Hello, my name is Eva. I’d like to check on the verdict in a trial that took place in November of 2001.’

‘What’s the case number?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll need that to be able to find the court disposition.’

‘How would I find it?’

‘What type of case was it?’

‘A drowning accident. An eight-year-old girl who drowned, and the woman accused was married to the father.’

‘Oh, that one. She was acquitted, I can remember that verdict without a case number.’

‘Never mind, then. So she was acquitted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

She put down the phone on the counter and opened the refrigerator one more time without knowing why, closed it and met Axel’s gaze from the photo that was hung up with one of his refrigerator magnets made of magic clay. She remembered that he said it was supposed to be a dinosaur, and it did look like one.

Blue, innocent eyes that believed everything they saw.

Convinced that everyone was good and utterly trusting that they meant what they said. Such as his beloved day-care teacher. Whom he trusted blindly and who looked after his welfare in the daytime but who in actuality was about to destroy his world.

The probability that Henrik was right now planning to make her Axel’s new part-time mother effectively slammed the door on the soul-searching that had suddenly overcome her. Never in her life! It wasn’t enough that he was going to rob her of half of Axel’s childhood without her having the least say in the matter; on top of all that she would be forced to agree to let Axel live every other week under the same roof as her. Never! If Henrik intended to live with that woman, then by God she would get sole custody.

Was there any parent who would want to turn over responsibility for their child to such a person? Would the other parents in the day-care group think it was suitable to have a teacher who was accused of causing the death of an eight-year-old because she would rather talk on the phone?

She realised that this was an interesting thought, and something that she ought to explore.

With her gaze fixed on Axel’s eyes she made her decision.

Made her choice.

All she had to do was write the name ‘Linda’ as a note of explanation at the top of the paper when she printed out the article. Then she stuffed it in an anonymous envelope, looked at the day-care list, and addressed it to Simon’s already enraged mother.