The Crow Girl (101 page)

She remembers putting her finger on them, laughing and asking why they were called dingles.

Victoria’s legs are shaking as the woman turns into Klippgatan and starts walking towards Sofia Church. That familiar rear view, the rounded hips, the tight bun and the rolling gait.

She takes a few steps in the same direction, but her legs can hardly bear her.

The magazines sticking out of the woman’s bag are
All Year Round
and
Saxon’s Weekly,
and Victoria knows that they will spend a few days on the coffee table until they’ve been read. Then they’ll be demoted to the toilet, where they’ll stay until the crosswords are finished.

You don’t exist, she thinks. You’re a product of my imagination. Get lost.

She can still feel the heat of the fire on her face, hear the beams crunch and crackle before they finally crash down into the basement. Bengt and Birgitta Bergman are buried in the Woodland Cemetery in a casket of dark red cherrywood. At least they ought to be.

At the bottom of the first flight of steps the woman stops beside a rubbish bin, hunts through the contents and pulls out a beer can, which she triumphantly puts in her bag to reclaim the deposit on. As Victoria gets closer she can see that the woman’s brown wool suit is dirty and worn, and that her shoes are filthy and scuffed.

Then the old woman laboriously begins to climb the steps on Klippgatan, leaning against the handrail. Just like the stairs at home. The ones she cleaned and cleaned, without it ever making any difference.

Victoria follows her. Grabs onto the cold handrail and is transported back in time. ‘We have to talk,’ she says. ‘You can’t just go without explaining what’s going on. You’re dead. Don’t you get it?’

The woman turns round.

It isn’t her. Of course it isn’t.

The woman looks at her warily for a moment, then turns back and continues up the steps to the path through the little park at the top.

Victoria is left there alone, but just a few metres away, at the bottom of the steps, is someone who’s as alone as she is.

A PHONE CALL
from hell reaches Prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist as he’s standing with a glass of champagne in his hand outside the restaurant of police headquarters talking to the female national police chief about the importance of cutting back your geraniums at exactly the right time.

The prosecutor knows nothing about plants, but over the years he’s learned that the art of conversation is to ask questions first and then transform the information received into general and uncontroversial statements of fact. Some people would call it empty chatter, but von Kwist believes it to be a social gift.

When his phone rings he excuses himself, puts his glass down and moves away. Before he answers he has already decided that when he gets back to the police chief he is going to say that February is a good month to prune your houseplants, but that he’ll say this with a degree of caution.

He sees on the screen that it’s Jeanette Kihlberg, and a lump appears in his stomach. He doesn’t like getting calls from her. Whenever she calls it means trouble.

‘Yes?’ he says, hoping it won’t take long.

‘We need to put out a national alert for Viggo Dürer,’ Jeanette says without any introductory pleasantries, which annoys him. Surely it’s only good manners to say who you are before getting to the point? The prosecutor also realises that his hopes of getting back to the party quickly and picking up the interesting conversation about plants are about to be dashed.

‘We believe that Dürer’s alive, and I want to issue a warrant for his arrest,’ she goes on. ‘Top priority. Airports, ferries, border posts –’

‘Stop, stop, hold your horses,’ he interrupts, playing dumb. ‘Who is this? I don’t recognise the number.’

Damn, he thinks. Viggo Dürer’s alive.

That could explain the attack outside the ice bar. The prosecutor touches his still-aching jaw.

‘It’s me, Kihlberg. I’ve just left Dürer’s house on Djurgården, I’m on my way back into the city.’

‘So whose body was found in the boat?’

‘That hasn’t been ascertained yet, but I think it might be Anders Wikström.’

‘And who the hell might that be?’

‘You ought to know that. His name cropped up in the Karl Lundström case.’

Jeanette Kihlberg pauses, and he sees an opportunity to put the brakes on the conversation. ‘So …’ he says, as slowly as he can. ‘On what grounds, Detective Superintendent, do you wish to take such a drastic measure as invoking paragraph seven of chapter twenty-four of the Judicial Procedure Act? The second clause? There isn’t a possibility that you’re being overhasty once again?’

He can hear her drawing breath, and he’s amused by the certainty that she’s about to explode. He continues, even more slowly, as he sees Dennis Billing get out of a taxi and walk in through the main entrance. ‘I mean, over the years you and I have had a number of dealings with each other, and, if we’re being completely frank, Detective Superintendent, there’s been more than one occasion when you’ve lacked sufficient evidence for your assertions and have had to take a couple of trips to Canossa.’ He’s on the point of saying ‘my dear’, but stops himself. To his surprise, he hears Jeanette laugh.

‘Very funny, Kenneth,’ she says, and he feels disappointed that she hasn’t flown into a rage and let rip with the torrent of feminist drivel he was expecting.

Before he manages to think of a suitable riposte, Jeanette goes on without any audible sign of excitement. ‘Beneath Dürer’s garage we’ve discovered things that would make your favourite murderer Thomas Quick green with envy. But unlike that case, we’re on firm ground, if you understand what I mean? I’m talking body parts, torture instruments and equipment for a hell of a lot of medical experiments. And from what I could see, Dürer isn’t just guilty of one or two murders. You’re more likely to have to count them by the dozen, then round the total up. There’s no doubt at all in my mind that we’ve got the right man. He’s documented everything. The whole lot.’

His head is spinning. ‘Can you repeat that?’

Prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist takes a deep breath and tries to think of relevant questions, suitable legal objections, significant contradictions in her analysis of the situation, whatever the hell might justify his desire to postpone issuing a warrant for Dürer’s arrest.

But his head is empty.

It’s as if someone has built a firewall between his brain and his larynx. He knows what he wants to say, but his mouth won’t move. His entire army of brain cells has mutinied and is refusing to obey orders, and with the phone pressed to his ear all he can do is listen to the pious, conceited Jeanette Kihlberg in silence. She’s like a spot on your arse, he thinks. And what the hell has Dürer been up to?

Body parts? he wonders.

The prosecutor’s chain of associations is as short as it is logical, but his new medication, together with the alcohol, makes it easier for him to suppress that particular thought. His intoxication is helping him not to lose his mind completely, but he’s starting to feel distinctly nauseous.

‘Ivo Andrić is still out there with forensics. I’ve cordoned off the immediate vicinity and given orders for radio silence. All communication is to be conducted via personal phones rather than an open line. I’ve also imposed a complete ban on talking about what we’ve found to anyone not directly involved, because I don’t want the papers there at such a sensitive time. There aren’t any close neighbours, but anyone living nearby is probably wondering why there’s so much traffic. But there’s nothing we can do about that.’

She pauses, and von Kwist clenches his fist in his pocket and prays that she’s finished at last, that everything’s going to be nice and quiet and he can get back to others at the party. After all, he only wants to be happy, drink some free wine and eat canapés with his colleagues.

Please, let it end soon, he begs of the God he turned his back on at fifteen after a heated argument with his confirmation priest and to whom he has never returned. But whoever he is praying to is either holding a grudge, deaf or simply not there, because Jeanette Kihlberg continues. The prosecutor’s legs are now feeling so weak that he doubts they can hold him much longer, so he grabs the nearest chair and sits down.

‘Look, I’m convinced that putting out a national alarm for Viggo Dürer is an absolute necessity,’ Jeanette goes on. ‘I want your consent, but because I can hear that you’re at a party and presumably can’t get away easily, we’ll have to leave the paperwork till later. You’ve either got to trust me, or explain to my boss tomorrow morning why the national alarm was delayed so long. It’s your choice, basically.’

Finally she stops, and he hears the sound of a car braking hard, then her colleague Jens Hurtig swearing.

‘And there’s no doubt at all that it’s Dürer?’ The prosecutor has regained the power of speech after a short rest on the chair, and he still wants to believe in the possibility that someone else might be responsible, but her answer is immediate and is, even for anyone doubtful, difficult to misinterpret.

‘No,’ she says, and Prosecutor von Kwist realises that he is about to embark on his very own walk to Canossa.

‘In that case you have my consent to take whatever measures you think necessary.’ He falls silent and tries to think of a remark that will restore his authority and suppress his fear that he’s going to end up in the most terrible mess. ‘Even if you want to, can you at least wait a while before getting Dürer added to the FBI’s most wanted list?’ That’s the best he can come up with on the spur of the moment, but he’s not happy with it. He realises that it didn’t hit home the way he hoped it would.

Dennis Billing is coming towards him with two glasses of sparkling wine, and the prosecutor gets ready to end this dreadful conversation.

But he doesn’t know what to say. It feels like he’s caught in a trap. The more he struggles to get free, the more stuck he gets.

‘I’ll leave the FBI till tomorrow,’ Jeanette Kihlberg says. ‘He’ll probably end up on their list anyway, whether you like it or not.’ He hears her draw breath and sigh theatrically. ‘And as far as Henry IV’s walk to Canossa is concerned,’ she says, in a tone of voice matching his earlier overemphatic and slow delivery, ‘I believe that recent research has shown it to be a masterstroke on Henry’s part, and that he came out of it better than the corrupt Pope Gregory. Correct me if I’m wrong. After all, you’re the historian, and I’m just a silly woman.’

He hears the phone click. When Jeanette’s boss, Dennis Billing, slaps him on the back and hands him a glass of wine, he’s bubbling with suppressed rage.

Who the hell is she suggesting is corrupt?

THE MYTH OF
Oedipus is one of the oldest stories of revenge.

When Oedipus came to Pythia as a child, she foresaw that he would kill his father, the king of Thebes, and then marry his mother. To escape this fate the boy’s parents decided to have him killed. But the man who was charged with carrying out the murder took pity on the child and chose instead to raise him as his own son. Unaware of the prophecy, Oedipus went on to kill his father and marry his mother, the dowager queen.

Murder. Betrayal. Revenge.

Everything is cyclical.

The Bergman family is a snake swallowing its own tail, and Madeleine doesn’t want to be part of this vicious circle any more.

At Gröna Lund, Madeleine had found Victoria Bergman by chance, and because she believed that the boy holding her mother’s hand was her half-brother, she had acted on impulse, too hastily.

This time she has found her by the Skanstull Bridge, where Viggo had seen her before, but couldn’t bring herself to go up to her.

Now Madeleine is standing at the Klippgatan stairs, having followed the little blue car deeper into Södermalm.

She looks at the woman who is her mother on the other side of the street.

Victoria Bergman.

She’s huddled up, and looks like she’s freezing.

Madeleine gets out of the car, hurries across the road, and is just ten metres behind her when she reaches the pavement. She feels inside her jacket pocket. The revolver is cold, metallic.

Loaded with six bullets. Implacable and merciless, with one crystal-clear purpose.

The key to her freedom.

A man closes the boot of his car and Victoria Bergman jumps, clearly frightened by the noise. Then the door of the shop on the corner opens. An old woman comes out and stops outside the door, fumbles with her bag, then sets off towards the steps leading up to the church.

The woman who is her mother follows the old woman.

Tragicomic.

Everyone is following everyone else, and Madeleine realises that she herself has always walked behind someone, been a few steps after them, living each moment too late. She has always found herself staring at someone else’s back, but when she catches up with them and kills them she still hasn’t been able to leave them behind. They are never behind her, they are always in front of her, or on the periphery, like hazy, disturbing faces without meaning.

Madeleine can see that Victoria Bergman is suffering from chafed heels, just like her.

She’s limping as if she were walking on glass, and Madeleine gets a glimpse of how she herself is going to look in twenty years. Her body thin and brittle. Never relaxed. Restless, aimless wandering through life.

What if they hadn’t taken me away from you? Madeleine thinks. What would have happened then?

No P-O. No Charlotte.

Would she have had a better life?

The woman who is her mother says something to the old woman, who is now halfway up the flight of steps. But Madeleine can’t hear any words, just her own memories.

Charlotte lying to the psychiatrist at University Hospital in Copenhagen, and then shouting at her in the hospital car park.

Charlotte snapping that she’s a horrible, unwanted child and that Charlotte’s life was ruined the day she came to them.