The Crow Girl (61 page)

Charlotte Silfverberg nods.

‘And on one occasion you subjected three girls to a highly degrading initiation ritual. On Fredrika’s orders?’

‘Yes.’

Jeanette looks at Charlotte Silfverberg and sees something that could be called shame. The woman is ashamed. ‘Do you remember the girls’ names?’

‘Two of them left the school, so I never got to know them.’

‘What about the third one? The one who stayed?’

‘Yes, I remember her fairly well. She acted as if nothing had happened. She was cold as ice, and if you went past her in the corridor she almost looked a bit proud. After what happened, no one ever did anything to her. We left her alone.’ Charlotte Silfverberg falls silent.

‘What was the girl’s name?’ Jeanette closes her notepad and gets ready to go home at last.

‘Victoria Bergman,’ Charlotte Silfverberg says.

Hurtig groans as if he’s just been thumped in the stomach, and Jeanette feels like her heart has skipped a beat. She drops her notepad on the floor.

CHANCE IS A
negligible factor when it comes to serious crimes. A fact with which Jeanette Kihlberg is well acquainted after years of complex murder cases.

When Charlotte Silfverberg said that she had been at school with Victoria, the daughter of the rapist Bengt Bergman, Jeanette realised it couldn’t be a coincidence.

Hurtig says goodbye outside the home of the Silfverberg family and starts walking towards Sista Styverns trappor, to go down the steps back to the city centre. She gets into the car, and before she starts the engine she sends Johan a text saying that she’ll be home in fifteen minutes.

In the car on the way home Jeanette thinks about the strange conversation she had with Victoria Bergman a few weeks ago. She had called Victoria in the hope that she might be able to help with the investigation into the dead boys, seeing as her father had featured in a number of other cases involving the rape and sexual exploitation of children. But Victoria had been dismissive, and said she hadn’t had any contact with her parents for twenty years.

Jeanette remembers that Victoria had left a strong impression of bitterness and said that her father had abused her as well. One thing is very clear. They need to get hold of her.

The rain has set in, visibility is poor, and as she passes Blåsut there are three cars by the side of the road. One is badly buckled, and Jeanette assumes they’ve run into one another. The emergency services are already there, along with a police car with its warning lights flashing. A colleague from the traffic unit is directing the traffic, which slows as it funnels into just one lane, and she realises she’s going to be at least twenty minutes late.

What am I going to do with Johan? she thinks. Maybe it’s time to contact the psychiatry unit after all?

And why hasn’t Åke been in touch? Maybe he could take some of the responsibility for a while? But as usual, he’s busy living his dreams and has no time for anyone but himself.

Never being good enough, she thinks, as the traffic grinds to a complete halt, fifty metres from the intersection for Gamla Enskede.

They don’t have divorce papers yet, but maybe they should take the plunge? They would still have six months before they had to decide for good.

They can always change their minds.

If their separation leads to divorce, as everything seems to suggest, how are they going to be there for Johan?

Perhaps the lunch queue in the cafeteria of police headquarters isn’t the best place to raise the matter, but since Jeanette knows how hard it is to get hold of Police Commissioner Dennis Billing she seizes the opportunity.

‘What’s your impression of your predecessor, Gert Berglind?’

‘Practical Pig,’ he says after a pause, turning his back on her and piling a ladleful of mashed potatoes onto his plate. She waits for him to go on, but when nothing more comes she taps him on the shoulder.

‘Practical Pig? What do you mean by that?’

Dennis Billing continues compiling his lunch. Meatballs, cream sauce, salt gherkin and, finally, a spoonful of lingonberry jam. ‘More of an academic than a police officer,’ he goes on. ‘Between the two of us, he was a bad boss who was rarely there when you needed him. Committees here, there and everywhere, and all those lectures.’

‘Lectures?’

He clears his throat. ‘Precisely. Shall we sit down?’

He chooses a table at the far end of the room, and Jeanette realises that for some reason the commissioner would rather talk in private.

‘He was active in the Rotary Club and a whole load of foundations,’ he says between mouthfuls. ‘He was a Good Templar, religious, not to say exaggeratedly pious. He lectured all over the country on ethical questions. I heard him talk a couple of times, and I have to admit that he was engaging, even if what he said was mostly clichés. But maybe that’s how it works? People just want confirmation of what they already know.’ He grins, and even if Jeanette finds his cynical tone off-putting she feels inclined to agree with him.

‘You mentioned foundations? Do you remember which ones?’

Billing shakes his head as he rolls a meatball back and forth between the sauce and the jam. ‘Something religious, I seem to recall. His kindly manner was legendary, but between us I can say that he probably wasn’t as pious as he liked to make out.’

Jeanette pricks up her ears. ‘OK. I’m listening.’

Dennis Billing puts his knife and fork down and takes a sip of his low-alcohol beer. ‘I’m telling you this in confidence, and I don’t want you blowing it out of proportion, even though I have a feeling you’re going to since you haven’t let go of Karl Lundström yet. That’s fine, as long as your work doesn’t suffer, but I’ll have to put my foot down pretty hard if I discover that you’re up to something behind my back.’

Jeanette smiles. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got more than enough on my hands right now. But what does Berglind have to do with Lundström?’

‘He knew him,’ Billing says. ‘They had dealings with each other through one of Berglind’s foundations, and I know they saw each other several times a year at meetings down in Denmark.’

Jeanette feels her pulse quicken. If they’re talking about the foundation she’s got in mind, maybe they’re on to something.

‘In hindsight,’ Billing goes on, ‘now that we know what sort of things Lundström was into, I think that perhaps the rumours that circulated about Berglind had a grain of truth in them.’

‘Rumours?’ Jeanette is trying to keep her questions as brief as possible, because she’s worried that her voice might betray her excitement.

Billing nods. ‘It was whispered that he hired prostitutes, and several female colleagues complained of sexual advances, harassment, basically. But nothing ever came of it, and then he suddenly died. Heart attack, fancy funeral, and all of a sudden he was a hero. He got the credit for coming to grips with racism and sexism within the force, although you and I both know perfectly well that’s rubbish.’

Jeanette nods back. She finds herself liking Billing. They’ve never spoken this openly to each other before. ‘Did they socialise privately as well? Berglind and Lundström, I mean.’

‘I was coming to that … Berglind had a photograph on the bulletin board in his office that vanished a few days before Lundström was questioned about the rape in that hotel. What was the girl’s name? Wedin?’

‘Wendin. Ulrika Wendin.’

‘That was it. It was a snapshot of Berglind and Lundström, each holding up a massive fish. When I pointed out that it was inappropriate for him to question the girl, he claimed he had only a passing acquaintance with Lundström. He was biased, and he knew it, but he did all he could to hide it. The holiday photo went up in smoke, and all of a sudden Lundström was just a passing acquaintance.’

The foundation, she thinks. It had to be the same foundation that Lundström, Dürer and Bergman financed. Sihtunum i Diasporan.

FREDRIKA GRÜNEWALD WAS
killed by someone she knew, Jeanette Kihlberg thinks. At least that’s the hypothesis we need to work from.

The woman’s body hadn’t shown any indication at all that she had tried to defend herself, and her meagre home had been as tidy as could be expected. The murder hadn’t been preceded by a fight, and Fredrika Grünewald must therefore have let her murderer in, and then been overpowered. Grünewald was also in poor physical shape. Even if she had only been forty years old, the last ten years on the streets had left their mark.

According to Ivo Andrić, her liver was in such a poor condition that she probably had no more than two years left to live, so the killer had gone to a lot of trouble for nothing.

But if Hurtig was right, and the act was motivated by revenge, then the primary aim hadn’t been to murder her, but to humiliate and torment her. And in that respect the perpetrator had been one hundred per cent successful.

The preliminary results suggested that she had taken between thirty and sixty minutes to die. In the end the piano wire had cut so deeply into her throat that her head was only connected to her body by her vertebrae and a few sinews.

They had also found traces of glue around her mouth, and Ivo Andrić guessed they were from ordinary duct tape. That would explain why no one heard any screaming or shouting.

The pathologist had also made a number of interesting observations concerning the procedure. Ivo Andrić believed there was an anomaly in the way the murder had been carried out.

Jeanette pulls out the post-mortem report and reads:

Madeleine Silfverberg, Jeanette thinks, but was she strong enough, and why would she attack Fredrika Grünewald?

Two people?

Jeanette Kihlberg leafs through the witness statements she’s been sent. The interviews with the people in the cavern beneath St Johannes Church hadn’t been particularly easy to conduct. There weren’t many who wanted to talk, and – out of those who were willing – most had to be regarded as less than credible because of drug and alcohol abuse or mental illness.

The only thing Jeanette thinks is worth following up is the fact that several witnesses claimed to have seen a man named Börje come down into the cavern with an unknown woman. There was an alert out for Börje, but there were no results yet.

As far as the woman was concerned, the witnesses were very vague. One said she was wearing some sort of covering over her head, while others mentioned both fair and dark hair. According to the combined statements, her age was somewhere between twenty and forty-five, and the same variation applied to height and build.

A woman? Jeanette thinks. That seems unlikely. She’s never come across a woman who carried out this sort of premeditated, brutal murder before.

Two killers? A woman with a man helping her?

Jeanette regards that as a much better explanation. But she’s convinced that this Börje wasn’t involved. He has been a well-known resident of the crypt for several years, and isn’t a violent man, according to the witnesses.

As Jeanette walks along the corridor to Hurtig’s office she asks herself a rhetorical question.

Are we dealing with the same murderer as in the case of the dismembered financier, Silfverberg?

Not impossible, she concludes, and goes in without knocking.

Hurtig is standing by the window, looking thoughtful. He turns round, walks behind the desk and sits down heavily in his chair.

‘I forgot to say thanks for your help with that game,’ she says, smiling at him. ‘Johan’s delighted.’

They look at each other in silence.

‘What did Denmark have to say?’ she finally asks. ‘About Madeleine Silfverberg, I mean.’

‘My Danish isn’t great.’ He smiles. ‘I spoke to a doctor at the treatment home she was placed in, and throughout all the years she was being treated she maintained that P-O Silfverberg had sexually assaulted her. She also claimed there were other men involved, and that it all happened with her mother Charlotte’s blessing.’

‘But no one believed her?’

‘No, she was thought to be psychotic and severely delusional, and was under heavy medication.’

‘Is she still there?’

‘No, she was discharged two years ago and, according to their records, moved to France.’ He looks through his papers. ‘To a place called Blaron. I’ve put Schwarz and Åhlund on it, but I think we can forget her.’

‘Maybe, but I still think we ought to check her out.’

‘Especially if she’s ambidextrous.’

‘Yes, what was all that about? Why haven’t you ever mentioned it before?’

Hurtig grins. ‘I was born left-handed, and I was the only one in the school. The other kids teased me and said I was handicapped. So I learned to use my right hand instead, and as a result I can use both.’

Jeanette thinks about all the unguarded things she’s ever said, unaware of what consequences they may have had. She nods. ‘But, to go back to Madeleine Silfverberg, did you ask the doctor if he thought she could be violent?’

‘Of course, but he said the only person she ever harmed at the hospital was herself.’

‘Yes, they usually do that.’ Jeanette sighs, thinking of Ulrika Wendin and Linnea Lundström.

‘God, I’m starting to get sick of all the fucking shit we have to dig through.’