Chapter 67
Liisa
After all these years, I am free. But I don’t feel free.
Fear has wrapped itself around me, squeezing so tightly that it’s hard to breathe.
It feels like I’ve been living underwater and have come up for air in a world I don’t recognise.
The city air feels sharp and dirty, foreign to my lungs.
I had to get away to an open space, to the quiet, where the horses are.
Lincoln is a small city, but it feels loud and chaotic to me.
The drone of aeroplanes flying to the nearby military base.
The music rising from buskers on the city streets.
The soft chatter from people who ask you to give to charity.
Then there’s the restaurants. Students eating junk food in the open air.
Laughing. Shouting. Litter. Traffic building up, halting at the sound of the pedestrian crossing as it beeps that it’s safe to walk.
Everything tears at my insides. I can’t cope with the smells and sounds.
It’s all too full of chaos. There are so many people.
I went looking for the nearest police station after I left the hotel.
But then I remembered Anu talking about the horses on West Common.
I started calling him by his real name sometime after Johanna died, long after he’d shared his secret with me.
I follow my mother to the car, feet tripping over each other as if I’ve forgotten how to walk freely on my own.
I flinch as the man standing at the door raises a hand to guide me inside.
He smiles an apology. I ask if I can sit in the front.
He agrees. My mother gets into the back.
The scent of her perfume takes me to a life long ago, but I can’t bear to look at her.
The woman who forgot about me. How can a mother do that to her child?
I stare at my feet, head down, as I always did when in the car with Anu.
Hands clasped on my lap. No sudden moves.
My hair hanging over my face like a curtain.
“Are you OK?” My mother’s voice is strained.
I won’t—I can’t talk to her anymore. The palms of my hands are clammy, and I can’t stop the tremble in my limbs. I clasp my hands tighter together. I need to sit in peace. She sits back. We drive in silence. I am grateful.
I lower my window as the countryside comes into view and inhale a breath of fresh air.
We reach a wide car park. I glance upwards at the building before me.
The man—I think his name is Mitch—speaks with a kindly voice.
“We’re at the police station, Liisa. You’re safe here.
We can get you some food, a drink . . .” He pauses as the sound of my mother crying softly rises from the back seat.
I sense these are happy tears. Why? She never came for me.
I am taken to a quiet room, with blue sofas and window blinds.
There are cameras in the corners of the ceiling.
My body aches with exhaustion. I haven’t slept properly in weeks.
I recognise the man who comes to greet us.
He whispers something to Mum. Whatever it is, it makes her smile.
I sense a closeness between them, and jealousy harpoons my chest. He is tall and broad and blocks the light from the window as he stands before me.
“You’re her husband,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “You took her away from me.”
His eyebrows rise at the accusation. He seems taken aback. “What? I . . . no—”
“You’re not her husband? Your name isn’t Richard Swann?”
“I am, but . . .”
“You have children?”
Swann appears confused. “Well, yes, but—”
I interrupt him for the second time because I don’t want to hear about their happy family life. “I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to talk to her.” I’m too hurt. Too sad. Too overwhelmed. Every sound of her sobbing is like a splinter pushing into my skin. “Take me to Anu.”
They bring me tea and toast. Mother dabs away her tears.
I sense she is desperate to talk, but knows that I need space.
The other man, Mitch, is younger. Less intrusive.
He tells me that he’s a police detective inspector.
I agree to talk to him. There is another lady, there for my welfare.
My mother is dry washing her hands. She looks like she’s found the last piece of a puzzle, but can’t quite make it fit.
We are left alone, just Mitch and me, and he explains that our interview is being monitored. I don’t think I have a choice, so I let it pass. I’m used to being told what to do. He asks me questions, but I have one, too.
“Where’s Anu?”
He takes his time answering. His eyes are sincere. “There was an incident. Anu died.”
I stare at him as my world moves around me yet again. “He . . . he’s dead?”
He nods. “Yes.”
Heat rises from my chest up to my neck. “How . . . where?”
“In Finland. I can’t go into details about the investigation, I’m afraid.”
I feel dizzy and sick. He asks if I would like a drink of water and hands me the glass. I sip slowly, buying time. There’s a ringing in my ears. Anu can’t be gone. Not yet. I look to the man before me, my eyes puffy from crying as I speak my thoughts aloud.
“What do I do now?”
Mitch leans forward in his seat. “Tell me everything.”
My old self died the day Anu pulled the trigger in the woods.
I lay there, crouched in the snow, believing I’d never see Mama again.
I’ve felt real fear. But I’ve never before experienced loneliness as intense as that day.
I’d always put Mama on a pedestal. She was a superhero in my childish eyes.
That part of me—the part that still believed in her—dissolved in the snow that day.
Anu’s gun wasn’t loaded. He hadn’t had time to do that.
Nor had he pulled the trigger to frighten me.
I saw the surprise register in his eyes when the gun didn’t go off.
It gave him enough time to cool down. To emerge from the rage that controlled his movements and warped his thoughts.
He dragged me inside, my horse nothing but a speck on the horizon.
He asked me why I did it and, through a haze of snot and tears, I blurted out everything.
I confessed that I’d written the note and told him I’d wanted to escape.
I don’t know why I blurted it all out when I should have been thinking about my precious horse.
But I was in shock, and everything fell away.
The strangest thing happened that day. Anu looked around the cabin as if seeing it with new eyes.
He gazed at the shoddy furniture that was falling apart.
At the smoke-stained walls and the cracks in the floors.
He said if I wanted to leave, then we’d leave.
I think he feared what he might do if we stayed there any longer.
He said there was nothing holding us there.
Then he promised to bring me to England and reunite me with my mother.
After everything he’d told me about her, his words didn’t feel real.
All he asked for was my loyalty, because people wouldn’t understand.
That night we stayed up for hours discussing our escape plan.
He told me Johanna had a sister named Katariina.
The thought of someone else knowing about us shocked me to the core.
Anu didn’t like being asked questions, but he said they weren’t close.
Johanna went to see Katariina a few months before she died and told her everything.
“And she didn’t call the police?” was all I could think of to say.
Anu had shaken his head. “What would be the point?” he’d replied. “It was too late by then.”
He said that Katariina had contacts. That she’d promised to help us move away.
It would take time, but it would be the best thing all round.
I cried with relief. I sobbed for my beautiful horse, which I would never see again.
My bedroom door was unlocked. I had no reason to run.
But I should have known that Anu was only doing it for himself.
The next day we were on the road. He was only running because he was scared someone would find the note.
We rented a room in Helsinki while Anu sorted everything out.
Johanna had left him money. He told me not to worry about things.
It took him twelve weeks to sort out my passport.
I never left the flat during that time. I used to hear him on the phone, talking to Katariina.
I tried asking about Johanna’s home life; I itched with curiosity and a need to understand what drove her.
But Anu said that Johanna was just like everyone else.
That sometimes people took what they wanted because it felt good.
I didn’t like the way he looked at me when he said that, and it brought my questions to an end.
After all my years in captivity, the airport terrified me.
Being surrounded by so many people left me unable to speak.
Anu bought me headphones and told airline staff I was autistic.
We rented a flat in Lincoln. Two weeks later he sat me down and said that Mama had moved away.
He made me hope that I’d see her, bought my compliance with a promise to keep trying to find her.
But it was lies, all of it. Because that’s what Mitch is telling me.
He said Mama never gave up. Mitch asks if Anu hurt me.
I can’t bear to talk about the time he tried to make me his “wife.” It didn’t work out long-term.
If I was able to do everything he wanted, maybe he wouldn’t have gone out looking for other girls.
I cleaned and cooked while Anu worked as a delivery driver for cash in hand.
I liked keeping busy. We settled into a routine.
I didn’t know about the other girls until much later on. By then, it was too late.
Mitch makes notes as he slowly prises all of this from me. I haven’t told him everything. I don’t know who I can trust, and Anu’s hold is still strong.
Hours have passed. He stops to give me a breather.
I’ve asked for some time alone. I still feel distant from myself.
I know that Mother is watching. I’m too ashamed to speak any more.
Too scared to open my mouth. It’s like there are four different people nudging each other for space in my brain.
Liisa from Porvoo; she’s scared and wants her grandma.
Then there’s the girl in the rundown cabin whose mother didn’t come for her.
There’s the person who hated Mikael and Johanna.
Then there’s the woman who felt sorry for Anu, who needed him—the person who is so mixed up in the head that she wants to see him one more time. I am all of these things.
Anu said that he’d come back for me. I waited. Hours passed, then days, living on my nerves. He left me in the hotel, with no money and no food. He didn’t have Kukka, my beautiful horse, to manipulate me with; he had something else. Something so strong that I was forced to do anything he asked.
I nibbled on the hotel’s Lotus biscuits, every mouthful turning to dust in my mouth.
Made tea and coffee until the little plastic cartons of milk ran out.
Took some more from the cart in the hall when the maid wasn’t looking.
Then the time came to check out. I waited until the last possible moment, paralysed by fear.
I had no choice but to leave. I knew in my heart that Anu was either arrested or dead.
I never imagined that he would abandon me.
I can’t believe that he’s gone. I press my hand to my stomach, willing the nausea to settle.
I’m used to rules. Orders. Consequences.
But now there’s nothing and that terrifies me, because now I don’t know what to do.
I’ve got another secret, and it’s tearing me apart.
I can’t keep it in, but who can I trust?