The Crow Girl (62 page)

They look at each other across the desk, and Jeanette recognises Hurtig’s sudden helplessness all too well.

‘We can’t give up, Jens,’ she says, trying to sound consoling, but hearing how trite it sounds.

He straightens and attempts a smile.

‘Let’s sum up what we’ve got,’ Jeanette says. ‘Two people have been killed. P-O Silfverberg and Fredrika Grünewald. Their murders are unusually brutal. Charlotte Silfverberg was in the same class as Grünewald, and the world is small enough for us to assume that we’re dealing with a double murderer. Possibly in both senses.’

Hurtig looks doubtful. ‘You say “possibly”. How confident are you that we’re dealing with two killers? Do you mean we should assume that?’

‘No, but we should bear it in mind as we work. You remember what Charlotte Silfverberg said about the humiliation ritual at boarding school?’

He looks out the window, and a subdued smile spreads over his face as he realises what Jeanette means. ‘I get it. The two other girls who went through that, the ones who disappeared. Silfverberg couldn’t remember their names.’

‘I want you to contact the school in Sigtuna and ask them to send their registers. Ideally their school yearbooks as well, if that’s possible. We’ve got a number of names that might be of interest. Fredrika Grünewald and Charlotte Silfverberg. Their friend, Henrietta Nordlund. But I’m still most curious about our missing Victoria Bergman. What does she look like? Haven’t you wondered that as well?’

‘Yep,’ he says, but Jeanette can see that he hasn’t.

‘There’s another factor we ought to consider before we continue, but that’s not something we’ll be dealing with in today’s meeting, if you get my meaning?’ Hurtig looks interested again and he gestures for her to go on. ‘We’ve got Bengt Bergman, Viggo Dürer and Karl Lundström. Considering that the three of them, and Per-Ola Silfverberg as well, were all involved in the foundation Sihtunum i Diasporan, maybe that’s got something to do with all this. And Billing told me something interesting over lunch. Our former commissioner, Gert Berglind, knew Karl Lundström.’

Hurtig perks up properly now. ‘What do you mean? They saw each other socially?’

‘Yes, and not just that. They knew each other through a foundation. Any idiot can work out which foundation that might be. Quite a can of worms, this, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes. Bloody hell!’ The committed Hurtig is back, and Jeanette smiles in welcome.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’ve noticed you’ve had something on your mind, and I don’t think it’s just work worrying you. Has anything happened?’

‘It’s Dad again. Looks like he’s going to have even more trouble with his carving and fiddle playing from now on.’

Oh no, Jeanette thinks.

‘I’ll keep it short, since we’ve got a lot to do. But to start with he was given the wrong medication after the accident with the saw. The good news is that the hospital’s accepted liability, so he’s going to get compensation, but the bad news is that he got gangrene and his fingers have to be amputated. And he also managed to get hit in the head by a Ferrari GF.’

Jeanette is just gaping.

‘I can see you don’t know what a Ferrari GF is. It’s Dad’s ride-on mower, pretty big.’

If it hadn’t been for the smile on Hurtig’s face, Jeanette would have imagined something terrible.

‘What happened?’

‘Well … He was trying to free some branches that had caught in the blades, jacked the machine up on a wooden stake, crawled underneath to get a better look, then of course the stake snapped. Their old neighbour had to sew his head up after Mum had shaved his hair off. Fifteen stitches, right on top of his head.’

Jeanette can’t speak, all she can think of are two names, Jacques Tati and Carl Gunnar Papphammar.

‘He’s always OK.’ Hurtig waves his hand dismissively. ‘What do you think I should do after I’ve spoken to Sigtuna College? There are a few hours to go before the case meeting.’

‘Fredrika Grünewald. Check out her story. Start with why she ended up on the street and then try to work backwards. Preferably with as many names as possible. We’re working on revenge as the motive, and we need to track down people she knew. People she managed to upset, or might otherwise be thought to have a few bones unpicked with her.’

‘I dare say people like her probably have enemies scattered around all over the place. Upper class, crooked deals, deception, sham companies. Walking over dead bodies and selling their friends to get a good deal.’

‘You’re so prejudiced, Jens. Anyway, I know you’re a socialist.’ She laughs loudly and gets up to leave.

‘Communist,’ Hurtig says.

‘What?’

‘I mean, I’m a communist. There’s a hell of a difference.’

CAN BE TOUCHED
and you have to watch out for strangers’ hands, or hands that offer money to be allowed to touch. The only hands that are allowed to touch Gao Lian are the fair woman’s.

She combs his hair, which has grown long. He thinks it’s also got lighter, and maybe that’s because he’s spent so much time in the dark. As if the memory of light has been stored in his head and coloured his hair like rays of sunlight.

Right now it’s completely white in the room, and his eyes are having trouble seeing. She’s left the door open and brought in a bowl of water to wash him, and he’s enjoying her touch.

As she’s drying him there’s a ringing sound from the hall.

Hands plunder if you’re not on your guard, and she’s taught him to have complete control over them. Everything they do must have a meaning.

He trains his hands by drawing.

If he can capture the world and take it inside him and then let it out again through his hands, he need never fear anything again. Then he will have the power to change the world.

Feet go to forbidden places. He knows that, because he left her once to look around the city outside the room. That had been wrong, and he realises that now. There is nothing out there that is good. The world outside his room is evil, and that’s why she protects him from it.

The city had seemed so clean and beautiful, but now he knows that beneath the ground and the water there are the remains of millennia of human cadavers, and that inside the buildings and inside the living there is only death.

If the heart gets sick the whole body gets sick and you die.

Gao Lian from Wuhan thinks about the blackness in people’s hearts. He knows that evil manifests itself there as a black stain, and that there are seven ways into the heart.

First two ways, then two more ways and finally three ways.

Two, two, three. The same year the city he was born in, Wuhan, was founded. The year 223.

The first way to the black stain is from the tongue, which lies and slanders, and the second is through the eyes, which see what is forbidden.

The third way is through the ears, which listen to lies, and the fourth is through the stomach, which digests the lies.

The fifth is through the impure parts, which let themselves be touched, the sixth through the hands, which plunder, and the seventh through the feet, which go to forbidden places.

It is said that at the moment of death a person sees all that is in their heart, and Gao wonders what he will see.

Birds, perhaps.

A hand offering comfort.

He draws and writes. Piling paper on top of paper. The work makes him calm, and he forgets his fear of the black stain.

The ringing sound echoes again.

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
somehow, Jeanette Kihlberg thinks as she takes the lift down to the garage beneath police headquarters to get in the car and drive home. Even if her day’s work is over, she can’t stop thinking about all the peculiarities and strange coincidences.

Two girls, Madeleine Silfverberg and Linnea Lundström. Their fathers, Per-Ola Silfverberg and Karl Lundström. Both suspected paedophiles. Lundström also suspected of the rape of Ulrika Wendin. And the paedophile’s wife, Charlotte Silfverberg, and the murdered Fredrika Grünewald went to school together in Sigtuna.

She drives towards the exit and waves at the guard. He waves back and raises the barrier. The strong sunlight dazzles her and for a moment she can’t see anything.

The same lawyer, Viggo Dürer, who also had Bengt Bergman as a client. And Bergman’s missing daughter, Victoria, had been at Sigtuna.

Then there was the deceased police commissioner, Gert Berglind, who had conducted interviews with both Silfverberg and Lundström. All of them involved in the same foundation. Prosecutor von Kwist? No, Jeanette thinks, he isn’t involved. He’s just a useful idiot.

Per-Ola Silfverberg and Fredrika Grünewald murdered. Possibly by the same person.

Karl Lundström dying in the hospital. Bengt Bergman dying in a fire with his wife, just like Viggo.

Accidents? Yes, according to the police investigations.

But Jeanette has her doubts. Someone means these people ill, and it’s got something to do with that foundation.

As she pulls up outside the house and gets out, Jeanette realises that she needs help. She feels a pressing need to talk to someone she trusts, someone she can be open and personal with. Sofia is the only person who meets those criteria.

A breeze is blowing the leaves of the large birch tree and sweeping along the wall of the house. It’s an unreliable, damp wind, and Jeanette takes a deep breath. Please, no more rain, she thinks, looking at the red, exhaust-fume evening sky over to the west.

The house is deserted and empty. On the kitchen table is a note from Johan telling her that he’ll be spending the night at David’s because they’re planning to have a LAN party.

A LAN party? she thinks, fairly sure that he’s explained what that means to her at some point. Is she such a bad mother that she doesn’t even keep up to date with her son’s leisure interests? Presumably it’s something to do with computers.

She gets the phone and dials Sofia Zetterlund’s number. It rings almost ten times before Sofia answers. Her voice sounds hoarse and strained.

‘Have you got time for a chat?’

Sofia doesn’t answer immediately. Then she clears her throat. ‘I don’t know. Is it important?’

Jeanette isn’t sure she’s picked the right time to call, but decides to adopt a gentle tone in an effort to soften her up. ‘Hard to say how important it is.’ She laughs. ‘Åke and Johan, as usual. Just stuff. I could do with someone to talk to, that’s all … It was good to see you last time, by the way. How are you getting on with you-know-what?’

‘I-know-what? What do you mean?’

It sounds like Sofia is giggling, but Jeanette thinks she must have heard wrong. ‘You know, what we talked about at my house last time. The perpetrator profile.’

No response. Jeanette thinks it sounds like Sofia is dragging a chair across the floor. Then the sound of a glass being put down on a table.

‘Hello?’ she says tentatively. ‘Are you still there?’

A few more seconds of silence follow before Sofia answers. Her voice is much closer now and Jeanette can hear her breathing.

Sofia is talking faster.

‘In less than a minute you’ve asked four questions,’ she begins. ‘Have you got time for a chat? How are you getting on with you-know-what? Hello? Are you still there?’ Sofia sighs, then goes on. ‘Here come the answers: I don’t know. I haven’t started yet. Hello yourself. I’m still here, where else would I be?’

She’s just teasing me, Jeanette thinks. ‘Do you want to meet up?’

‘Yes, I want to. I just need to sort this out. How about tomorrow evening?’

‘Yes, that would be great.’

Once they’ve hung up Jeanette goes into the kitchen and gets a beer from the fridge. She goes into the living room and sits down on the sofa and opens the bottle with her cigarette lighter.

She already knew that Sofia was a complicated person, but this is something else. Once again, Jeanette is forced to admit that she has an unhealthy fascination with Sofia Zetterlund.

It’s going to take time to get to know you, Sofia, Jeanette thinks, taking a deep swig of beer.

But I’m damn well going to give it a try.

JEANETTE MEETS JOHAN
in the doorway the next evening. He’s going to be spending the night at a friend’s again, to play video games and watch films. She tells him not to stay up too late.

He takes his bike and walks down the gravel path. When he disappears round the corner she goes inside, and from the living room window she sees him jump on the bicycle and head off down the road.

Jeanette breathes a deep sigh of relief. Finally alone.

She feels happy, and when she thinks about the fact that Sofia is coming over, she feels expectant.

She goes into the kitchen and pours herself a small whisky. She lets the yellow liquid wash over her tongue and burn her gullet. Feels the warming sensation in her chest.

After a shower she wraps herself in a big towel and looks at herself in the mirror. She opens the bathroom cabinet and takes out her make-up bag, which is covered by a thin layer of dust.

Cautiously she highlights her eyebrows. The lipstick is trickier. A smudge of bright scarlet ends up too high and she wipes it off with her towel and starts again. When she’s done she presses her lips together on a sheet of toilet paper. She carefully smooths out her skirt and strokes her hips. This is her evening.

Sofia looks shocked, and then bursts out laughing. ‘Are you serious?’

They’re sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table and Jeanette has just opened a bottle of wine. She can still taste the sweet whisky on her tongue.

‘Martin? I called him Martin?’ Sofia looks amused at first, but her smile soon dies. ‘A panic attack,’ she says. ‘The same thing that happened to Johan, I imagine. He had a panic attack when he saw you get hit on the head with a bottle down below.’

‘A trauma, you mean? But how would that explain the gap in his memory?’

‘Traumas give people memory lapses. And the lapse usually includes the moments before the trauma occurred.’