The Crow Girl (66 page)

He has to admit that he has no idea, at least not as far as Ulrika Wendin is concerned. Linnea Lundström has obviously said something compromising about Viggo Dürer, but he doesn’t know what it is yet, even if he fears the worst.

‘Fucking kid,’ the prosecutor mutters, thinking about Ulrika Wendin. He knows that the girl has met both Jeanette Kihlberg and Sofia Zetterlund, and has therefore breached their informal contract. The fifty thousand kronor that were supposed to keep her quiet evidently hadn’t been enough.

He must confront Ulrika Wendin and get her to realise what she’s dealing with. He takes his feet off the desk, adjusts his suit and sits up straight in his chair.

One way or another, he needs to silence both Ulrika Wendin and Linnea Lundström.

FORMER SMALL BUSINESSMAN
Ralf Börje Persson, founder of Persson’s Building and Construction Ltd, has been homeless for four years. It all started well, the business was successful, lots of good contracts, new house, new car and even more work. But when competition for jobs got tougher and criminal gangs entered the building trade with cheap, illegal workers from Poland and the Baltic States, it started to go downhill. The pile of unpaid bills kept growing, until the point where it was no longer possible to hold on to the car and the house.

The phone that had once been so busy went silent, and his so-called friends vanished or didn’t want anything to do with him.

One evening, four years ago, Börje went out to the shops and never returned. What was supposed to be a turn around the block had become a walk that still hasn’t ended.

Börje is standing outside the state-run off-licence on Folkungagatan. It’s a few minutes past ten o’clock and in his hand he’s holding a lilac plastic bag containing six export-strength lagers. Norrlands Guld, seven per cent alcohol content. He opens the first can, tells himself this is the last liquid breakfast he’s going to have, and that he’ll get a handle on his life as soon as he gets rid of the shakes. He just needs one can to restore his equilibrium. And he believes that he’s earned a beer. Now that he’s going to start afresh.

The promise is redeemed the moment it is made.

The first thing he’s going to do once he’s finished his beer and life has got a bit simpler is take the metro to police headquarters at Kronoberg and tell them what happened down in the cavern under St Johannes Church.

He hasn’t been able to miss the flyers about the Duchess’s murder, and it’s pretty obvious to him that he was the one who showed the murderer where to go. But could it really have been that pale woman, not much older than his own daughter, who had executed his sister in misfortune in such a bestial way?

The beer is warm, but it does its job, and he drains the can in one long, deep swig.

He walks slowly east, turns into Södermannagatan and continues until he reaches Greta Garbos torg, close to Katarina Södra School. The school that the reclusive actress attended as a child.

There’s a paved circle in the middle of the square, with hornbeams and horse chestnuts planted around the edge of the circle. Ralf Börje Persson finds a bench in the shade, sits down and thinks about what he’s going to say to the police.

No matter how he looks at it, he can’t escape the conclusion that he was the only person to see Fredrika Grünewald’s murderer.

He can describe the coat the woman was wearing. And her dark voice. And the unusual dialect. And the blue eyes that looked so much older.

After reading what the papers have written about the murder, he knows that a Jeanette Kihlberg is leading the investigation, and she’s the one he needs to ask for at reception in the police station. But he’s reluctant. His time on the street has led him to develop severe police paranoia.

Maybe it would be better if he wrote a letter and sent it to the police instead?

He takes out his pocket diary, tears out a blank page and holds it down on the leather cover. He takes a pen out of his coat pocket and thinks about what to write. How should he phrase it, and what are the important facts?

The woman had offered him money as thanks for him showing her the way down into the cavern. When she took out her purse he had seen something that caught his interest, and if he had been a police officer investigating a murder, that particular observation would have been extremely important, for the simple reason that the number of suspects would decrease dramatically.

He writes, explicitly enough so that his meaning won’t be misinterpreted.

Ralf Börje Persson bends over to get another beer out, feels his belt strain against his stomach, reaches out and finally grabs one corner of the plastic bag just as he feels a stabbing pain in his chest.

His eyes flare. He falls from the bench and ends up on his back, with the note still in his hand.

The cold from the ground makes its way to his head, where it meets the warmth of intoxication. He shivers, and then everything explodes. It’s as if a train has driven straight into his head.

ANNETTE LUNDSTRÖM DOESN’T
see through the deception and comes in the following day.

‘Hasn’t the case been closed now that Karl’s dead? And why isn’t Mikkelsen –’

‘I’ll explain,’ Jeanette interrupts. ‘But there’s also something else I want to talk to you about. How do you know Fredrika Grünewald?’ she asks, and watches Annette’s reaction.

Annette Lundström frowns and shakes her head.

‘Fredrika?’ she says, and Jeanette gets the impression that her surprise is genuine. ‘What about her? What’s she got to do with Karl and Linnea?’

Jeanette waits for Annette to go on of her own accord.

‘Well, what can I say? We were in the same class for three years, but we haven’t seen each other since then.’

‘What can you tell me about her?’

‘How do you mean? What she was like at school? But that’s twenty-five years ago.’

‘Try anyway,’ Jeanette prompts.

‘We didn’t really have much to do with each other. We were in different gangs, and Fredrika hung out with the popular girls. The tough crowd, if you know what I mean?’

Jeanette nods to say she understands, and gestures for her to go on.

‘The way I remember it, Fredrika was top dog in a gang of wannabes.’ Annette falls silent and looks thoughtful as Jeanette takes out a notepad.

‘You want to know what I thought about Fredrika Grünewald?’ Annette suddenly snarls. ‘Fredrika was a bitch who always got her way. She had a court of faithful lackeys who always stuck up for her.’ She looks aggressive all of a sudden.

‘Do you remember their names, these lackeys?’

‘They came and went, but the most faithful were probably Henrietta and Charlotte.’

Still looking down at the pad, Jeanette asks, as if in passing, ‘You mentioned that Fredrika was a bitch. What do you mean by that?’

Annette doesn’t move a muscle. ‘I can’t think of anything specific, but they were horrible, everyone was terrified of ending up the butt of their pranks.’

‘Pranks? That doesn’t sound terribly serious to me.’

‘No, most of the time it probably wasn’t. There was really only one time when they badly crossed the line.’

‘What happened?’

‘There were two or three new girls who were going to be initiated, but it got out of hand.’ Annette Lundström falls silent, looks out of the window and adjusts her hair. ‘Why are you asking all these questions about Fredrika?’

‘Because she’s dead, murdered, and we need to build up a picture of her life.’

Annette Lundström looks thoroughly bewildered. ‘Murdered? But that’s awful! Who’d do something like that?’ she says, as simultaneously a note of hesitancy creeps into her eyes.

Jeanette gets a definite impression that Annette knows more than she’s letting on.

‘You said it once got out of hand … What exactly happened?’

‘It was terrible, and it should never have been hushed up. But as I understand it, Fredrika’s father was a good friend of the headmistress, as well as one of the largest donors to the school. I presume that was why.’ Annette Lundström sighs. ‘But of course you know that already?’

‘Of course,’ Jeanette lies. ‘But I’d still be grateful if you could tell me what happened. If you feel up to it, I mean.’ Jeanette leans across her desk and switches on the tape recorder.

Annette’s story is a tale of humiliation. Of young girls goading one another to do things they would never have done otherwise. During the first week of the new school year Fredrika Grünewald and her acolytes had identified three girls who would have to undergo a particularly disgusting initiation ceremony. Dressed up in dark capes and wearing home-made pig masks, they had taken the three girls down to a tool shed and poured ice-cold water over them.

‘What happened after that was entirely Fredrika Grünewald’s idea.’

‘And what did happen after that?’

Annette Lundström’s voice is trembling. ‘They were forced to eat dog shit.’

Jeanette feels completely empty.

That single word. She feels her brain crash and then reboot.

Dog shit.

Charlotte Silfverberg hadn’t said a word about that. But perhaps that wasn’t so strange.

‘Tell me more. I’m listening.’

‘Well, there isn’t really much more. Two of the girls fainted, but the third apparently ate it and threw up.’

Annette Lundström goes on, and Jeanette listens with distaste.

Victoria Bergman, she thinks. And two as-yet-unidentified girls.

‘Fredrika Grünewald, Henrietta Nordlund and Charlotte Hansson were the ones who got blamed for it all.’ She lets out a deep sigh. ‘But there were more girls involved.’

‘Did you say that Charlotte’s surname was Hansson?’

‘Yes. But she’s not called that now. She got married fifteen, twenty years ago …’ The woman’s voice trails off.

‘Yes?’

‘She got married to Silfverberg, that man who was found murdered. That was so terrible –’

‘And Henrietta?’ Jeanette interrupts, to stop having to go into a specific case.

The answer comes quickly, as if in passing. ‘She married a man named Viggo Dürer,’ Annette Lundström says.

Two pieces of news for the price of one, Jeanette thinks.

Dürer again. So Henrietta was his wife. And now the Dürers are both dead.

Possibly murdered, even if the forensic examination of their burned-out boat suggested it was an accident.

The pieces are starting to fall into place as the image clears.

Jeanette is certain that Per-Ola Silfverberg’s and Fredrika Grünewald’s murderer is somewhere in the constellation of people that has now been expanded by another two names, and she looks down at her notepad.

‘Do you remember the names of the girls who were the victims?’

‘No, sorry … It’s all so long ago.’

‘OK … Well, I think we’re done here,’ Jeanette says. ‘Unless there’s anything you’d like to add?’

The woman shakes her head and stands up.

‘Get in touch if you remember anything else about the two girls.’

Annette Lundström leaves with a worried look on her face. Jeanette once again feels that she knows more than she’s letting on.

Jeanette is switching off the tape recorder when the door opens and Hurtig pops his head in. ‘Am I disturbing you?’ He looks serious.

‘Not at all.’ Jeanette turns her chair to face him.

‘How important is the last witness in a murder investigation?’ he asks rhetorically.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Börje Persson, the man who was seen down in the cavern before Fredrika Grünewald was murdered, is dead.’

‘What?’

‘Heart attack this morning. We got a call from Södermalm Hospital when they realised there was an alert out for him. Apparently he had a note in his hand, so I sent Åhlund and Schwarz to fetch it. They’ve just got back.’

Hurtig puts a page torn from a pocket diary in front of her.

The handwriting is neat.

TO FORGIVE IS
a big thing, she thinks. But to understand without forgiving is so much bigger.

When you don’t just see why, but can also understand the whole sequence of events that leads up to a final sick act, it makes you feel giddy. Some call it inherited sin, others predestination, but really it’s just ice-cold, unsentimental causality.

An avalanche after a shout, or the rings on water after a tossed stone. A taut piece of wire across the darkest part of a cycle path, or a hasty word and a punch in the heat of the moment.

Sometimes it’s a considered and conscious act, where the consequences are merely one consideration and satisfaction of desire another.

In the emotionless state where empathy is just a word, seven letters with no content, you start to approach evil.

You abdicate from all humanity and become a wild animal. Your tone of voice darkens, the way you move changes and the look in your eyes becomes dead.