The Crow Girl (32 page)

Sofia gets up and goes out into the hall. ‘Shut up and eat,’ she snarls at him, but he doesn’t react and she can’t work out if he heard her or not.

She sees her own face in the mirror above the dresser in the hall. It’s as if one side is paralysed. She doesn’t recognise herself. How old she looks.

‘What the hell?’ she mutters to the reflection, and takes a step closer and smiles, raising a finger to her mouth and touching the front tooth that broke when she tried to hang herself in a hotel room in Copenhagen twenty years ago.

Mimesis.

The relationship between what she sees and what she is is unquestionable.

Now she remembers everything.

Then her mobile rings again.

She looks at the screen.

10.22.

‘Bergman,’ she answers.

‘Victoria Bergman? Bengt Bergman’s daughter?’

She looks back into the living room. The sleeping pills have left Samuel knocked out on the sofa. His eyes are moving slowly even though he’s unconscious.

‘That’s right.’

My father is Bengt Bergman, Sofia Zetterlund thinks.

I am Victoria, Sofia, and everything in between.

A voice she seems to recognise asks her questions about her father and she answers mechanically, but when she hangs up she can’t remember any of what she said.

However, she is perfectly aware that she made a big mistake the time she called home to her mum and dad. They must have kept her number. And now, somehow, it’s ended up with the police.

The number can’t be traced, but she’s still going to have to get rid of the phone.

She clutches the phone and looks at Samuel. So much on his conscience, yet still so innocent, she thinks, then goes over to the bookcase and unfastens the catch holding it in place. As she opens the hidden door she is hit by the stale, fetid air.

Gao is sitting in one corner with his arms around his knees. He squints towards the light forcing its way in through the doorway. Everything is under control, and she goes out, rolls the bookcase back into place and begins to undress. After a quick shower she wraps a large, red towel around her and airs the apartment by opening all the windows for a few minutes. She lights an incense stick, pours a glass of wine and sits down on the sofa next to Samuel. His breathing is deep and regular, and she gently strokes his head.

Of all the terrible things he did as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, he is guilty of none, she thinks. He is a victim.

His intentions had been pure, unblemished by feelings like revenge or jealousy.

Feelings that have been her driving force.

The sun starts to go down, dusk falls outside the windows and the room is bathed in a grey gloom. Samuel moves, yawns and sits up. He looks at her and smiles his dazzling smile. She loosens her towel and moves so she’s sitting in front of him. His eyes move up her calves and in under the towel.

You have freedom of choice now, she thinks. Either you follow your instincts, or you resist.

Your choice.

She returns his smile.

‘What’s this?’ she says, pointing at his necklace. ‘Where did you get that?’

He lights up, takes off the necklace and holds it up in front of him.

‘Evidence of big stuff.’

She pretends to be impressed, and when she leans forward to inspect the necklace more closely she notices that he is looking at her breasts. ‘So, what did you do to deserve something as nice as that?’

Now she leans back and pulls the towel up a bit further so he can see that she isn’t wearing any underwear. He gulps and moves closer to her.

‘Killed a monkey.’

He smiles and puts his hand on her naked thigh.

Because his eyes are focused elsewhere, he doesn’t see her take out the hammer she had hidden under a cushion.

Can you be evil if you don’t feel guilt? she wonders, and brings the hammer down with full force on Samuel’s right eye.

Or are feelings of guilt a precondition for evil?

SOFIA ZETTERLUND HANGS
up and wonders what has happened.

Jeanette said she needed to talk, and it had sounded urgent. She had said some new facts had emerged in the Samuel Bai case.

What does Jeanette need to talk to her about, and could she have found something out?

Had someone seen her with Samuel?

Sofia goes into the living room and checks that the bookcase is in its place. Now there’s only Gao left in there, and he’s no problem.

Back in the hall she checks her make-up before picking up her handbag and heading down to the street. Folkungagatan, four blocks, then the metro. Far too short a walk to have time to think.

To change her mind.

She’s got used to Victoria’s voice, but the headache is still new and grates behind her forehead.

Her insecurity increases the closer she gets to police headquarters, but it’s as if Victoria is pushing her forward. Telling her what to do.

One foot at a time. One in front of the other. Repeat. Pedestrian crossing. Stop. Look left, then right, then left again.

Sofia Zetterlund tells the receptionist who she is and, after a brief security check, is allowed through to the lifts.

Open the door. Go straight ahead.

After a couple of minutes waiting she is fetched by a beaming Jeanette.

‘Great that you could come so quickly,’ she says when they are alone in the lift. ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I was so pleased to have a reason to call you.’

Sofia feels uncertain. She doesn’t know how to react.

Inside her head two voices are competing for her attention. One is telling her to give Jeanette a hug and tell her who she really is. Give up, the voice says. Put an end to this. See the fact that you’ve met Jeanette as a sign.

No, no, no! Not yet. You can’t trust her. She’s like all the others, she’ll betray you as soon as you reveal your weakness.

‘There’s been a lot going on …’ Jeanette looks at Sofia. ‘We’re under pressure from all sides, and this business with Samuel is just getting weirder and weirder. But we can talk about that later. Coffee?’

They each get a cup from the machine, then head down a long corridor together until they reach the right door.

‘Well, this is me,’ Jeanette says.

The room is small, full of files and piles of paper. In the narrow window a dried-out plant is drooping next to a photograph of a man and a boy. Sofia realises they must be Åke and Johan.

‘Do you remember if Samuel told you he got beaten up? About a year ago?’

Remember the details, Sofia.

Sofia thinks. ‘Yes, he said he’d been attacked somewhere near Ölandsgatan –’

‘Close to Monument,’ Jeanette fills in. ‘He was beaten up in the Monument block. The same place he was later found hanged.’

‘Yes, maybe it is. I remember him saying that one of the men who attacked him had snakes tattooed on his arms.’

‘Not snakes. Spiderwebs.’ Jeanette tosses her empty cup in the bin. ‘The guy was a neo-Nazi in his teens, and in those circles it’s a status symbol to have spiderwebs on your elbows. It’s supposed to mean that you’ve killed someone, although in his case I seriously doubt that. But that’s not really relevant.’

Jeanette gets up and opens the window.

They can hear children playing in Kronoberg Park.

In her mind’s eye Sofia can see Gao mercilessly attacking Samuel, who had been far too badly hurt to put up any resistance. Samuel had staggered around and only made feeble attempts to shield himself from Gao’s kicks and punches.

Sofia looks out of the window and considers how the blood loss from his crushed eye eventually led to him losing consciousness. He must have realised that that was as good as dying.

The moment he passed out the insane creature facing him would jump on him and tear him to pieces. He had seen it happen back home in Sierra Leone, and knew this was a cat-and-mouse game with a predetermined outcome.

The phone on the desk rings, and Jeanette apologises before answering.

‘Sure, she’s sitting right next to me, we’ll be there as soon as we can.’

Jeanette hangs up and looks intently at Sofia.

‘The man with the spiderweb tattoos is Petter Christoffersson, and we’ve got him in the building. He’s being held for grievous bodily harm, and seems to think he can bargain with us by revealing something. He’s probably seen too many bad American films and thinks it works the same way here.’

Sofia’s head is spinning and she’s starting to sweat.

‘I was thinking you could come with me and listen to him. He says he’s got something to say about Samuel. He reckons he saw him the day before he was found dead. Outside McDonald’s at Medborgarplatsen, with a woman. Apparently he knows who the woman is, and …’ Jeanette falls silent. ‘Well, you get it.’

Sofia thinks how easily Gao dismembered the little boy they found by the side of the road out in Svartsjölandet.

While Jeanette had been visiting her, Gao had been smashing his skull to pieces with a hammer. Later they had thrown the fragments of bone away, along with the remnants of a roast chicken.

Lie. Make something up. Go on the offensive.

‘Well, I’m not sure that would be appropriate. I don’t know if it’s really allowed … But sure, I’ll come along.’

Sofia sees that Jeanette is watching her reaction carefully. It’s as if she’s testing her.

‘You’re right. It isn’t allowed. But you could sit outside and watch. Listen to what he has to say.’

They get up and go out into the corridor.

The interview room is on the floor below, and Jeanette shows Sofia into a small room alongside. They can see through a window into the interview room, where Petter Christoffersson is leaning back in a chair, seeming fairly relaxed. Sofia looks at his tattoos and remembers.

It’s him.

The last time she saw him he was wearing a T-shirt with two Swedish flags across the chest. He delivered the building material for the room she constructed behind the bookcase. Polystyrene, planks, nails, glue, a tarpaulin and duct tape.

How could she be the victim of such a ridiculous coincidence? She feels sweat trickling down her back.

‘One-way mirror.’ Jeanette points at the window. ‘You can see him, but he can’t see you.’

Sofia feels in the pocket of her coat, finds a paper napkin and wipes her clammy hands. She isn’t feeling well.

Her shoes are chafing, and her throat feels tight.

‘Are you OK, Sofia?’ Jeanette is looking at her.

‘I feel horribly ill all of a sudden. It feels like I’m going to be sick.’

Jeanette looks concerned. ‘Do you want to go back to my office?’

Sofia nods.

She goes back out into the corridor.

She’s made it.

Back in Jeanette’s office she goes over to the bookcase and almost immediately finds a thick folder labelled
THORILDSPLAN – UNKNOWN.
After a bit more searching she finds the others:
SVARTSJöLANDET – YURI KRYLOV
and
DANVIKSTULL – UNKNOWN.

She turns round and looks at the messy desk. Beside the phone is a stack of CDs, and when she picks them up she sees that they are recordings of interviews.

She looks through them without really registering what the labels say, but when she reaches the last disc she suddenly stiffens.

At first she thinks she’s seen it wrong, but when she checks again she finds a disc marked
BENGT BERGMAN.

Quickly she looks for the stack of blank CDs that she assumes ought to be here somewhere, and finds it on top of the bookcase, next to a glass jar of rubber bands and paper clips.

She goes round the desk, sits down in front of the computer, then inserts the original disc and the blank one, and when the computer asks if she wants to copy the contents, she clicks yes.

The seconds grind past, and she thinks about how she and Gao drove Samuel’s body to Mikael’s building in the Monument block.

How they carried him up to the attic, and how their work united them as they strung the body up from the ceiling.

After less than two minutes the computer spits out both discs, and she puts the original back where she found it. She puts the copy in her handbag.

Sofia sits down and picks up a newspaper.

It had been Gao who found the acid, and emptied the bucket over Samuel’s face.

Jeanette comes back ten minutes later. Sofia is reading an old copy of
Swedish Police
.

‘Anything interesting?’ she wonders, looking thoughtful.

It’s as if Jeanette is looking at Sofia with a new awareness, and she feels her insecurity returning.

‘I was going to do the crossword,’ Sofia replies, ‘but I couldn’t find one, so I looked at the pictures instead. How did you get on with Spider-Man? Did you find out anything interesting?’

Jeanette is still looking thoughtful.

‘How long have you lived in Borgmästargatan?’ she suddenly says, and Sofia starts.

‘Since ’95 … I’ve lived there thirteen years. God, time really does fly.’

‘Have you noticed anything odd while you’ve been there? Especially in the last six months?’

It’s like this is an interrogation and she’s suspected of something.

‘How do you mean, odd?’ Sofia gulps. ‘I mean, we’re talking about Södermalm, with all that implies in terms of drunks, fights, weirdos talking to themselves, vandalised cars, and –’

‘Missing boys –’

‘Yes, that too. And dead boys in attics. So you’ll probably have to be a bit more precise if I’m going to be able to tell you anything interesting.’

Sofia feels Victoria taking over. The lies pop up by themselves, without her having to think about them. The whole thing is an act, and she knows her role by heart.

‘Petter Christoffersson was at Fredell’s Building Supplies out in Sickla working last winter. He says he remembers driving a load of insulation material to an apartment on Södermalm just after New Year. He doesn’t remember exactly where, but it was somewhere in the area of SoFo. He claims that the woman they delivered the supplies to was the same woman Samuel was with the day before his body was found.’