The Crow Girl (81 page)

This is going too quickly for him. ‘Madeleine? That seems a bit far-fetched.’

‘Maybe it is.’

Jeanette gets out her phone as Hurtig passes beneath the Essinge motorway and heads towards Lindhagensplan. She asks Åhlund to get lists of people staying at the main hotels, then she pauses, takes out a pen and writes something down before ending the call. The conversation is over in less than a minute.

‘Åhlund says Dürer owned three properties in Stockholm. An apartment on Ölandsgatan that has already been sold. Another one on Biblioteksgatan, and a villa out in Norra Djurgården. I think we should check them out once we’ve spoken to Charlotte Silfverberg.’ She looks down at her notes. ‘Hundudden – do you know where that is?’

Always boats, he thinks. ‘Yes, there’s a small marina out there. Fairly exclusive, I believe … Hang on, did you say Ölandsgatan? That’s the Monument block, isn’t it, where Samuel Bai was found dead?’

‘Not much we can do about that one. After Dürer’s death the apartment was renovated and then sold. We’ll have to check out Biblioteksgatan and Hundudden.’

Just as they’re getting out of the car, the door to the building opens and Charlotte Silfverberg emerges with a small suitcase in her hand.

The woman’s body language and the look on her face scream hostility.

‘Are you going somewhere?’ Jeanette gestures towards the case.

‘Just a cruise to Åland, nothing special,’ Charlotte Silfverberg says with forced laughter. ‘I need to get away and think about something else. It’s a cultural trip, you have some wine and listen to an expert talk about their work. This evening it’s Lasse Hallström. He’s one of my favourite directors.’

Still smug and arrogant, Hurtig thinks. Not even the murder of her husband has changed her. How do people like that even exist?

‘This is about P-O,’ Jeanette says. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t do this out in the street. Shall we go back up to the flat?’ Jeanette gestures towards the door.

‘Here on the street will do fine.’ Charlotte Silfverberg purses her lips and puts her suitcase down on the pavement. ‘What do you want?’

Jeanette tells her what they found out at Hannah Östlund’s home.

The woman listens intently in silence, doesn’t ask a single question, and, when Jeanette has finished, her response is immediate. ‘OK, great, so now we know who did it.’

Hurtig is taken aback by the emotionless statement, and sees Jeanette react as well.

‘Not that I know anything about police work,’ Charlotte goes on, fixing her eyes on Hurtig and holding his gaze a fraction too long before turning towards Jeanette. ‘But it seems to me as if you’ve been almost incredibly lucky to be able to solve this so quickly. Or am I wrong?’

Hurtig can see that Jeanette is bubbling with rage and knows that she’s counting to ten.

The woman smiles maliciously. ‘And lucky for me that Hannah and Jessica killed themselves,’ she says. ‘Otherwise they’d probably have tried to kill me as well. Maybe it was me they were really after, not P-O?’

Now he can feel his own temperature rising. ‘That might be your opinion,’ he says. ‘But I must say I really can’t understand it. What could they possibly have against such a charming, sensitive person as you?’

Jeanette stares at him, and he understands he’s crossed the line.

The woman’s eyes flash. ‘Sarcasm really doesn’t suit you. Hannah and Jessica were crazy, even as teenagers. When they chose to shut themselves away, I suppose their madness had the space to blossom.’

He realises that there’s nothing else to say. Seeing as the perpetrators are dead, the case will be closed. Even though Jeanette still seems to have her doubts, he thinks.

‘Well, thank you,’ Jeanette says.

Charlotte Silfverberg nods and picks up her suitcase. ‘Here’s my taxi, so perhaps we can put an end to our little chat now.’ She waves at the car as it drives up and pulls over to the kerb.

Hurtig opens the back door, and, as the woman gets in, he can’t resist.

‘Say hi to Lasse,’ he says, before closing the door.

That’s the last time they see Charlotte Silfverberg. Twelve hours later she’ll be fighting for her life in the chill waters of the Åland Sea.

SOFIA ZETTERLUND IS
about to set off into her labyrinth again.

She picks up the receiver to call Jeanette, but changes her mind and puts it down again. Linnea is dead, she thinks. A feeling of despair washes over her. She needs to take the rest of the day off.

She changes into a little black dress, a long grey coat and the high-heeled shoes that are far too small for her and chafe her heels. She finishes putting on her make-up, nods a silent goodbye to the receptionist and heads out into Swedenborgsgatan.

She’s sleepwalking as she turns onto Ringvägen, heading towards the Clarion Hotel down at Skanstull. ‘You bastards,’ she mutters as the sound of her heels on the pavement is muffled by the haze of the dream and gets softer and softer.

Soon the Sleepwalker doesn’t hear the cars passing her, doesn’t see the people.

She nods to the doorman at the entrance to the hotel and goes inside. The bar is at the far end of the building, and she sits down at a table and waits.

Go home, she thinks. Sofia Zetterlund has gone home. No, she’s gone to the supermarket on Folkungagatan to buy groceries, then she’s going to go home and make dinner.

Go home and eat alone.

When the waiter notices her she orders a glass of red wine. One of their finest.

Victoria Bergman raises the glass to her lips.

Go home.

The Sleepwalker is gone and she looks around.

One of the men at the bar turns round to stare out of the large glass window overlooking the Skanstull Bridge. She looks at him. He has a bloated, vacant expression.

She makes eye contact almost immediately. But it’s too soon to act. She must have patience, make them wait. That enhances the experience. She wants to make them explode. See them lying on their backs, exhausted and defenceless.

But he mustn’t be too drunk, and the man at the bar is anything but sober, his face wet with sweat in the glow of the lights on the shelves behind the bar, and he’s unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie because the alcohol has made his throat swell.

He’s of no interest, and she looks away.

Five minutes later her glass is empty and she discreetly signals for a refill. As the waiter serves her the room gets noisier. A group of men in suits sit down on the sofas to her left. A total of thirteen men in expensive suits, and a woman in a Versace dress.

She shuts her eyes and listens to their loud conversation.

After a few minutes she knows that twelve of the suits are Germans, probably from the north of Germany, maybe Hamburg. The dress is their Swedish hostess, and her poor, broken German comes from Gothenburg. The last of the suits hasn’t said a word yet, and when she opens her eyes she’s curious about him.

He’s sitting on the armchair closest to her, and is the youngest member of the group. He looks shy when he smiles and is probably the one whom his colleagues give an encouraging slap on the back to if he ever disappears to his room with female company. Between twenty-five and thirty, and not too handsome. The handsome ones aren’t as good in bed, because they generally assume their looks mean they don’t have to try. But it really doesn’t matter how good they are, because it isn’t the act itself that she enjoys.

It takes her less than five minutes to entice him to her table, order fresh drinks and get him to relax.

He orders a dark beer, and she has a third glass of wine.

‘Ich bezahle die nächste Runde,’
she says. She’ll get the next round, because she’s not an escort girl.

His shyness soon vanishes and his smile is relaxed as he talks about his work and the conference in Stockholm, how important it is to network in his business, and obviously there’s a hint at how much he earns. The human male has no glorious display of feathers to act as bait. He uses money instead.

His money is visible in his suit, his shirt and tie; it’s there in his aftershave and it shines from his shoes and tiepin. Yet he still has to imply that he has an expensive car in the garage and a well-stocked investment portfolio. The only thing he doesn’t mention is that he has a wife and children at home in the villa outside Hamburg, but that’s not too hard to work out, seeing as he’s wearing a wedding ring and accidentally revealed a photograph of two little girls when he opened his wallet.

He’ll do, she thinks.

She does it to get close to them. For a brief period she can be their wives, daughters and lovers. All at the same time. Then they disappear out of her life.

It’s the emptiness afterwards that’s nicest.

Victoria Bergman puts her hand on the man’s thigh and whispers something in his ear. He nods, and looks simultaneously uncertain and expectant. She’s just about to tell him that there’s nothing to worry about when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

‘Sofia?’

She starts and her body becomes inexplicably heavy, but she doesn’t turn round.

Her eyes are still focused on the young man’s face, but it looks blurred all of a sudden.

His features are merging together, her head is spinning, and for a moment it feels like the world is rotating an extra turn.

She wakes very quickly, and when she looks up there’s a stranger in a suit sitting beside her. She realises that she’s got her hand on his thigh and quickly jerks it away.

‘Sorry, I –’

‘Sofia Zetterlund?’ the voice repeats behind her.

She recognises it, but is still surprised to find that it belongs to one of her former clients.

FROM THE WINDOWS
in the stairwell of the building opposite they have a good view into the apartment. Hurtig and Jeanette quickly realise that the five-room apartment on Biblioteksgatan registered to Viggo Dürer’s company has been completely cleaned out.

On the way to Dürer’s property in Norra Djurgården Jeanette has a feeling that they’re going to find the same thing there – nothing. The forest gets thicker and the buildings sparser.

Shadows are soon descending around them, it’s starting to feel chilly and Jeanette asks Hurtig to turn the heating up. It feels like they’re driving through a tunnel of black pine trees, and Jeanette is surprised that there are places like this so close to the city. She is being lulled into a meditative calm that’s abruptly interrupted when her mobile rings. It’s Åhlund.

‘I’ve checked hotels in and around Stockholm,’ he says.

‘And?’

‘There are seven guests with the first name Madeleine, but no Madeleine Silfverberg. I checked them out anyway, just in case. If she’s using a false identity, she might have chosen to keep her first name. That’s fairly common. And she might be married, of course. We don’t really know anything about her.’

Jeanette agrees. ‘Good thinking. Have you found anything interesting?’

‘I don’t know. We can definitely write off six of them – I’ve managed to get hold of them – but the seventh is missing. Her name’s Madeleine Duchamp, and she booked in using a French driving licence.’

Jeanette perks up. A French driving licence?

‘She checked out of Sjöfartshotellet, down near Slussen, earlier today.’

‘OK.’ She calms down slightly. Even if Madeleine has lived in the south of France for the past few years, according to their information she’s still a Danish citizen. ‘I want you to go to the hotel and talk to the staff. Find out anything you can, but try to get a description, above everything else.’

They end the call, and Hurtig looks at her inquisitively. ‘Is it still worth a try, do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘But I don’t want to miss anything.’

Hurtig nods and slows down as the road curves once more. ‘Here it is,’ he says, turning off onto a narrow gravel track.

The forest is dense and seems to surround the property.

They get out of the car and find themselves standing in front of a metal gate more than two and a half metres tall. ‘Can you climb?’ Hurtig sighs. ‘Or shall we try to find a way through the undergrowth?’

‘We could always try the doorbell,’ she says, pointing at the entry-phone beside the gate.

Hurtig rings three times without getting an answer, then turns towards Jeanette. She thinks he looks a bit deflated.

‘We climb over,’ she decides, and puts her torch in her mouth so she has both hands free. She scrambles up nimbly, swings over the spiked iron railings at the top and lands softly on the gravel drive on the other side.

Hurtig has a harder time, but is soon standing beside her with a smile on his face and a long tear in his jacket. ‘Damn, I didn’t know you could climb like that.’ He seems to have livened up, and she smiles back at him.

The drive leads up to a large, grey, two-storey stone house, probably built at the turn of the last century and renovated relatively recently. Next to two tall, dark pine trees to the left of the house there’s an outbuilding, a garage, also built of grey stone but about a hundred years later.

Jeanette switches on her torch and notes that the grass in the large plot is tall, and that in spite of the renovations everything looks unkempt, an impression reinforced by the fact that the fruit has been left to rot on a number of apple trees, bathing the garden in a sweet, musty smell.

The house is dark, and they realise at once that there’s no one home. Through the window in the front door they can see a little blue flashing light, a sign that the burglar alarm is switched on.

Jeanette crouches down in front of the garage. ‘Wheel tracks,’ she says. ‘Relatively fresh.’ The grit in front of the garage is almost dry, protected by the branches of the trees above. The drive is covered with pine needles and the tyre tracks are clearly visible.

Hurtig puts his hands in his jacket pockets and shivers. ‘Come on, let’s take a look inside the house.’

They walk around the villa, but it looks just as abandoned as Dürer’s apartment in the city. Jeanette peers in through a window. At least there’s furniture here, she thinks, as she sees a couple of sofas, a table and a piano. All covered by a thick layer of dust.