The Crow Girl (84 page)

‘OK, I haven’t got much time myself,’ Sofia says. ‘Just let me speak, and you can listen while you get on with your work. After all, everyone knows that women have two brains.’

‘OK. Fire away …’

Jeanette opens the folder marked
J. FRIBERG,
and can hear Sofia drawing breath, as if she is filling her lungs with air for a lengthy monologue.

‘Annette Lundström was admitted into the hospital three days ago,’ she says. ‘Acute psychosis, brought on by her daughter Linnea’s suicide. Annette found her hanged in her room in their home in Edsviken. Her nurses told me –’

‘Stop,’ Jeanette says, closing the file instantly. ‘Tell me that again.’

‘Linnea’s dead. Suicide.’ Sofia breathes out.

The Lundström family, wiped out by itself. Jeanette thinks of the last time she saw Annette. A piece of human wreckage. A ghost. And Linnea …

‘Are you still there?’

Jeanette closes her eyes. Linnea’s dead, she thinks. That didn’t have to happen. So fucking unnecessary.

‘I’m listening. Go on.’

‘Annette Lundström managed to get out of Rosenlund Hospital yesterday. When I was on my way back from lunch I found her out in the street, realised she wasn’t too well and took her back to my office. She told me that Viggo Dürer had paid a large sum of money to silence both her and her daughter. That’s why Linnea stopped her sessions with me.’

‘I was afraid of that. Well, at least we’ve got it confirmed.’

‘It looks like an unofficial settlement,’ Sofia goes on. ‘I’d bet that if you were to check Annette Lundström’s bank account, you’d find a few irregularities.’

‘Already done,’ Jeanette says. ‘But we can’t trace the account that the money was transferred from. I’m not surprised by what you’re saying, but I’m genuinely sorry to hear about Linnea.’

And Ulrika, she thinks. What’s happened to her?

Ulrika made a double impression on Jeanette, strong and brittle at the same time. For a moment she wonders if the girl is capable of killing herself. Like Linnea.

‘So …’ Jeanette goes on. ‘We’ve already got what Linnea said in her sessions with you, and her drawings, Karl Lundström’s letter and now what Annette has told you. How is she? Could she be a witness in a trial?’

Sofia snorts. ‘Annette Lundström? God, no. Hardly. Not in her current state. But if the fever subsides, then …’

Jeanette thinks Sofia’s tone sounds rather too playful considering what she’s just said. ‘Fever? What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, psychosis is a fever of the central nervous system. It’s an illness that can break out if there’s a sudden change in a person’s life, and in this instance both Annette’s husband and daughter have died within a short space of time. It’s not unusual for treatment to take ten years.’

‘I see. Did she say anything else?’

‘She said she wanted to go to Karl and Viggo in Polcirkeln, and build a temple. From the look in her eyes, she’s already there. Far off in eternity, if you know what I mean?’

‘Maybe. But that business about Polcirkeln isn’t actually too far from reality.’

‘No?’

‘No. I’ll tell you something you might not know. Polcirkeln is a real place in Lapland. Annette grew up there, and Karl was her cousin. They both belonged to a breakaway sect of Laestadians who called themselves the Psalms of the Lamb. The police received reports of sexual abuse involving the sect. And their lawyer, Viggo Dürer, lived in Vuollerim for a while as well, not far from Polcirkeln.’

‘OK, now it’s my turn to stop you,’ Sofia says. ‘Cousins? Karl and Annette were cousins?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Psalms of the Lamb? Sexual abuse? Was Viggo Dürer involved?’

‘We don’t know. It never went to court. The sect dissolved and everything was forgotten.’

Sofia falls silent, and Jeanette presses the phone closer to her ear. She can hear heavy breathing, close and distant at the same time.

‘It sounds like Annette Lundström wants to return to the past,’ Sofia says, in a darker voice. She laughs.

That voice again, Jeanette thinks. A shift in tone, often followed by a change in Sofia’s personality.

‘How’s the investigation going, anyway?’ Sofia asks.

Jeanette is reminded of how little they’ve spoken to each other recently, and how hectic the past few days have been for her.

‘I probably shouldn’t say any more over the phone.’ It would be better to tell her everything when they meet face-to-face. ‘Listen …’ Jeanette tries. ‘Maybe we could –’

‘I know what you’re about to say. You want to see me, and I want to see you as well. But not today. Could you come and pick me up from the practice tomorrow afternoon?’

Jeanette smiles. That was a long time coming, she thinks. ‘That suits me fine. I couldn’t do tonight anyway, because I want to see Johan before he goes off to London with Åke. I –’

‘Look, I’ve got to go now,’ Sofia interrupts. ‘I’ve got a client in five minutes, and you said you were pretty busy. We can deal with the rest tomorrow. OK?’

‘OK. But –’ The line goes dead.

Jeanette feels empty, as if all the energy has drained out of her. If only Sofia weren’t so difficult, so unpredictable, she thinks.

She feels dizzy all of a sudden, her pulse is racing, and she has to rest her hands on the top of her desk.

Take it easy now. Breathe … Go home. You’re stressed out. Pack it in for the day.

No. First lunch with Åke, then out to Johan Printz väg in Hammarby to find out what’s happened to Ulrika Wendin.

She sits down again and looks at the mess on her desk as she takes deep, slow breaths. The evidence against Hannah Östlund and Jessica Friberg. The photographs that confirm the women’s guilt. Case closed and Billing happy.

But there’s definitely something not quite right.

SOFIA FEELS EXHAUSTED
after her conversation with Jeanette. She’s sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of white wine, even though she knows she ought to be at the practice to see a client.

Getting to know yourself isn’t that different from getting to know other people, she reflects. It takes time, and there’s always something you don’t understand, something that slips through your fingers. Something contradictory.

It’s been that way with Victoria for a long time.

But Sofia feels that she’s made a lot of progress in recent days. While she still has trouble controlling Victoria, they’ve started to get closer to each other.

It had been Sofia who had called Jeanette, but Victoria who ended the call, and she can remember every word that was spoken. That isn’t usually the case.

Victoria had lied to Jeanette, saying she was at the practice waiting for a client, and Sofia was one hundred per cent aware of the lie, and even encouraged it.

It had been their shared lie, not just Victoria’s.

In fact she also remembers parts of the previous day’s events at the Clarion Hotel, for the hour or so when Victoria had taken over. Obviously she remembers Carolina Glanz turning up, and what happened afterwards, but she can also remember fragments of the conversation Victoria had with the German businessman, and has a reasonably clear image of what he looked like, how he moved.

This is a positive development, and it helps her understand what might have happened with her memory lapses recently. When she wakes up in bed in the morning with muddy boots and has no idea what she’s been doing during the night.

She’s starting to get an idea of why Victoria has spent countless evenings and nights getting drunk and picking up men in bars. She thinks it’s got something to do with liberation.

In spite of everything, she, Sofia Zetterlund, has been the leading personality for almost twenty years now, and she has a feeling that Victoria is trying to make her presence known through her misbehaviour. Trying to shake Sofia up a bit and remind her that she exists, and that her will and her feelings are just as important as Sofia’s.

She drinks the last of the wine, gets up and moves her chair closer to the stove before turning on the exhaust fan and lighting a cigarette. Victoria wouldn’t have done that, she thinks. She’d have smoked at the table and drunk three glasses of wine instead of one. Red, rather than white.

I am someone Victoria invented, she thinks. In other words, nothing started with me, I’m just a means of survival, a way of being normal, like everyone else. A way of suppressing the memories of abuse. But it didn’t last.

When she’s been at her worst, she has imagined the kitchen as an autopsy lab, and that all the bottles and jars contained formalin, glycerine and potassium acetate, substances used for embalming. Where she’s previously seen surgical instruments used for dissection she now sees a perfectly ordinary toolbox half open in the cleaning cupboard, with a hacksaw blade sticking up next to the shaft of a small hammer.

The smoke swirls up towards the filter and she can make out the blades of the fan behind it. She looks up under the extractor hood and sees a faintly vibrating shimmer of shadows from the spinning fan blades. Like the prelude to an epileptic migraine.

Struer, she thinks.

There were big fans in the cellar under Viggo Dürer’s house in Jutland, equipment meant to dry out pig meat, and sometimes the dull rumble down there had kept her awake all night and given her a headache. The door to the cellar had always been kept shut.

That’s how it should be, she thinks. The memories should come naturally, when I’m not making an effort.

It’s like holding on to a slippery bar of soap. It works if you’re relaxed, but if you squeeze too tight you lose it.

Relax, she thinks. Don’t try to remember, just let it happen.

HURTIG PICKS JEANETTE
up outside the Västermalm shopping centre. She opens the door and jumps into the passenger seat.

Hurtig turns into St Eriksgatan. ‘So it was Ulrika Wendin’s grandmother who called you?’

‘Yes. She’s been trying to get hold of Ulrika, without any luck,’ Jeanette says. ‘She’ll be waiting for us outside the apartment with the keys.’

Something’s happened to the girl, she thinks. Take it easy. Don’t assume the worst until we know more. Ulrika might simply have met a guy, fallen in love and spent a few days in bed with him.

‘How did lunch go?’ Hurtig asks.

To start with, Åke had wanted to talk about Johan and how he was living now.

He had looked thinner than she remembered, he’d let his cropped hair grow out, and she reluctantly had to admit to herself that she missed him. Maybe you became blind to each other over time? Start to see only the problems rather than the things you once liked?

But then Åke went on to boast about his success and how much having Alexandra Kowalska as his agent had meant for him.

After that he took out the divorce forms.

Already signed, the same signature he used on his paintings, and she reacted with a short but intense feeling of disappointment.

Not because this great step was on the verge of being taken, but because he was the one taking the initiative. Because he got there first.

She was quite relieved when lunch was over and they went their separate ways.

When she’d left Åke she had called Johan and they’d agreed to have an evening in front of the television watching films and football at home in Enskede. A match on television could hardly compete with seeing a Premier League derby live, but Johan had actually sounded happy when she made the suggestion. She glances at her watch. She really mustn’t make him wait for her this time.

‘You seem a bit distracted,’ Hurtig says. ‘I asked how lunch was.’

Jeanette is woken from her thoughts. ‘Oh, we mainly talked about practical matters. About the divorce and so on.’

They’re driving past the Thorildsplan station and Jeanette spares a thought for the first dead boy. That feels so long ago. As if years have passed since the mummified corpse was found in the bushes just twenty metres away from them.

‘By the way …’ Jeanette says as they pull out onto the Essinge motorway, heading south. ‘I’ve got some sad news for you. Linnea Lundström is dead. Suicide. She hanged herself at home.’

They say nothing more during the drive, and as they pull into the car park outside Ulrika Wendin’s apartment Hurtig breaks the silence. ‘My sister hanged herself as well. Ten years ago. She was only nineteen.’

Jeanette doesn’t know what to say. What is there to say?

‘I …’ She’s reminded once again of how little she knows about her colleague.

‘It’s OK,’ he says, and his forced smile is gone now. ‘It’s shit, but you learn to live with it. We did what we could. It’s been worse for Mum and Dad.’

‘I … I’m really sorry. I had no idea. Do you want to talk about it?’

He shakes his head. ‘To be honest … no.’

She nods. ‘OK. But just say if you do. I’m here.’

A short, slim woman is standing smoking beside the door, looking around as if she’s waiting for someone.

They walk up to the waiting woman, who, quite rightly, turns out to be Ulrika Wendin’s grandmother. She’s got bleached blonde hair and introduces herself as Kickan.

They go through the front door and up the stairs. Outside the door to the apartment the woman pulls out a key ring and Jeanette remembers the last time she was here.

She had talked to Ulrika about the rape Karl Lundström subjected her to, and the memory fills her with sadness. If there’s any kind of poetic justice, things will turn out OK for the girl in the end. But Jeanette has her doubts.

Kickan Wendin puts the key in the lock, turns it twice to the left and opens the door.

In Hannah Östlund’s home in Fagerstrand the stench had come from two dead dogs.

The smell here is, if possible, even worse.

‘What’s happened?’ Kickan Wendin looks anxiously at Hurtig, then Jeanette, and makes a move to step inside the hall, but Jeanette stops her.

‘It’s probably best if we wait outside,’ she says as she gestures to Hurtig to go in and take a look around.

The woman looks shaken. ‘But what’s that terrible smell?’