Chapter 31
Time to go home, Hanna thinks, yawning. It is past eight o’clock, she is the only one left in the station, and Morris must be wondering where she is.
She has spent the last hour reading incoming emails and typing up the interview with Henry Sylvester. She’d thought she was getting somewhere with him, and hadn’t expected him to bring the conversation to such an abrupt end when she felt they were establishing a kind of understanding.
She can’t get her head around the guy, and it was very clear that Daniel doesn’t like him at all.
After checking her notes one last time, she shuts down the computer and fetches her jacket. When her phone rings she answers automatically, without looking to see who it is.
“Hanna Ahlander.”
“Hi, it’s Filip.”
She stands there holding her jacket. Charlotte’s son sounds very down, and just as heartrendingly young as when they met him earlier. Why is he calling her so late? Has something else happened? Shouldn’t he contact his godfather if he needs to talk?
“Hi—how are you?”
“Not great.”
Hanna really does feel sorry for him. He needs to see a psychologist as soon as possible in order to help him process his mother’s death. A murdered relative causes severe trauma. She wishes there were something she could do to make him feel better, but that’s not her job.
“Have you spoken to your father?” she says tentatively.
“No.”
His tone is weary and dismissive. Hanna makes a mental note to double-check that the Stockholm police have been in touch with Mats Rutberg so that at least he’s aware of Charlotte’s death.
Surely he ought to be there for his son in some way.
Filip remains silent.
“Was there something in particular?” Hanna says. “Can I help you?”
“There’s . . . I wanted to ask a question.”
“Ask away.”
“A journalist called me a few minutes ago—from one of the tabloids. She wants to interview me. About Mom.”
Hanna looks up at the ceiling. That sounds like a seriously bad idea. Filip has just lost his mother, and now the papers want to expose his misery to the whole population of Sweden.
“I don’t know what to do,” Filip continues. “The reporter said it would be great if I got to describe Mom in my own words—it would help me to say goodbye.”
Hanna wants to tell him that there is only one reason why the press is chasing him—to sell hard copies of their papers and boost the number of clicks online.
But pointing that out feels too brutal.
“So how do you feel about that?” she says, adopting a more diplomatic approach. “Are you comfortable with the idea of talking publicly about your mom?”
“I think so, but what if I say something stupid? I want to . . . honor her memory.”
“It’s lovely that you’re thinking along those lines.”
Silence again.
“I know Mom loved me,” Filip says eventually, his voice thick with tears. “She just wasn’t very good at . . . showing it.”
“How do you mean?”
“We argued about my future all the time. She wanted me to study, like she’d done. To pursue a career in finance or something equally prestigious, where I could earn a lot of money and have a fancy title.”
Filip’s description of his relationship with his mother sounds all too familiar—an echo of Hanna’s own frustrating discussions with her parents. They have always stressed the importance of getting a “good” job, as a lawyer or a doctor. They have never fully accepted her decision to join the police.
But at least she has Lydia, who always supported her.
Filip seems so alone.
“And what do you want?” Hanna asks. “What do you dream of?”
“Certainly not being like Mom.”
The answer is so raw and honest that Hanna gets a lump in her throat. She sits back down and moves her phone to the other hand.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Mom made a career for herself and earned a lot of money, but she was never around when I was growing up.
I was looked after by a string of childminders, and by the time Mom came home, she was tired and wanted to be left in peace.
I played basketball, and I don’t think she saw more than two or three matches during all those years at high school. ”
Filip takes a deep breath. His voice is steadier when he goes on.
“If Emily and I ever have kids, I want to be at home with them. Have a job where I finish at five o’clock so we can all have dinner together. It might sound terrible, but I don’t want to be like Mom, even if she was hugely successful.”
“And you argued about that?”
“Mm.”
Filip sounds eager now, as if he is desperate to explain why things were so difficult between him and his mother.
“The thing is, it was so important for her to follow in her father’s footsteps.
She talked about him all the time. Even after he died she was still determined to prove herself in his eyes, and as far as she was concerned, it was obvious that I would do the same.
Third generation and all that, if you know what I mean.
” He gives a humorless laugh. “It all went wrong, of course.”
Hanna pictures her own mother. That constantly reproachful expression. All the reprimands over the years. The feeling of never really being able to live up to her parents’ expectations.
“Everyone has to make their own choices,” she says. “Your parents don’t get to determine what you do. It’s your life, not theirs.”
In a way it feels as if she’s talking to herself as much as to Filip. You can’t shape your life according to what other people want. That won’t make anyone happy.
She hears a young woman’s voice in the background. It sounds like Emily—she says they have to go because they’ve booked a table.
“So what do you think I should tell the journalist?” Filip wonders.
Hanna hesitates; she would really like to advise him not to do it. The reporter is probably after a sob story. If Filip does the interview then regrets it, he will feel even worse.
Then again, he’s an adult. He has to make up his own mind.
“Maybe you should wait a little while until you’ve processed what’s happened?” she says with some trepidation. “It can’t be that urgent. But it’s your decision, of course.”