The Crow Girl (89 page)

‘What are you saying? That they forced you to give up your baby?’

I don’t know, Victoria thought.

She had been passive, and probably had to take a share of the blame herself. But her resistance had been almost entirely broken down by then.

‘Pretty much,’ she said after a pause. ‘But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing can be done, not a bloody thing. They’ve got the law on their side and I just want to forget it all. Forget that bloody child.’

All she had wanted was to be allowed to see the baby once more. But they wouldn’t let her, and when she did it anyway, tracking the child down and finding the foster-family, the Swede’s lovely family in their lovely house in Copenhagen, that’s when she dropped it on the floor.

Obviously she wasn’t mature enough to have a baby.

She couldn’t even manage to keep hold of it, and maybe she had actually dropped it on purpose.

Stop it now, stop thinking. But that didn’t work.

The child was all out of proportion, so it leaned to one side when you picked it up and the head was far too big and she was fucking lucky the skull didn’t crack like an egg when it hit the lovely marble floor and didn’t even bleed. Now she had finally proved that she wasn’t capable of taking responsibility for herself and her actions, so of course it was just as well that she’d signed all those papers …

‘Victoria?’ Sofia’s voice sounded distant. ‘Victoria?’ it repeated. ‘How are you feeling?’

She could feel that she was shaking and her cheeks felt hot. At first the whole room seemed very distant, then suddenly very close, as if her eyes were a camera shifting focus from telephoto to wide-screen in no more than a second.

Shit, she thought as she realised she was sitting there crying like a baby, incompetent and inadequate.

I hope you can come to terms with your memories
had been the last thing Sofia said to her, and Victoria didn’t look back as she walked along the path towards the bus stop, with autumn slowly creeping across the trees around her.

Come to terms with my memories? How the hell am I supposed to come to terms with them?

They have to go, and you, Sofia Zetterlund, are going to help me with that. But at the same time I have to forget you, however that’s supposed to happen.

If you only knew what I’ve done.

I’ve stolen your name.

When Victoria filled in the forms applying for a protected identity, she had expected someone else to have responsibility for choosing a new name, that it would somehow be allocated to her along with her new ID number. But on the bottom line of one of the forms there had been three empty boxes where she had to suggest a first name, a surname and a middle name if she wanted one.

Without really thinking about it she had written ‘Sofia’ in the first box, skipped the second because she didn’t know what Sofia’s middle name was, and in the third box she had written ‘Zetterlund’.

Before the clerk had even collected the documents she had started practicing her signature.

Victoria sat down on the bench at the bus stop and waited for the bus that was going to take her into the city, to her new life.

SHE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING
now. The meetings with Sofia and the medical examination at Nacka Hospital.

Her cleansing, her healing process, has moved into yet another phase. She’s starting to get used to her new memories, and no longer reacts to them as strongly.

To the left of the bar’s entrance they find a free table by the window, and as they are about to sit down Jeanette points to a little brass sign on the wall above the table. ‘Maj’s Corner?’

‘Maj Sjöwall,’ Sofia says absent-mindedly. She knows that the author visits the bar almost every day.

The Dutchman who owns the bar with his Swedish wife comes over to the table, welcomes them and hands them the menu.

‘This is your place, so you can decide,’ Jeanette says, smiling.

‘In that case, two pints of Guinness and two Västerbotten cheese pies.’

The owner compliments them on their choice, and while they wait Jeanette tells Sofia that Johan has got himself a girlfriend.

Sofia asks questions, and soon realises that although she’s the one handling the conversation, Victoria is doing the thinking. She doesn’t even need to take part in the conversation, it’s taking care of itself, and it’s a very peculiar, synchronous experience. Like having two brains.

Sofia is talking to Jeanette, and Victoria is thinking about her daughter.

This synchronous state stops abruptly. Sofia is completely focused on Jeanette again, and feels ready to talk about the perpetrator profile. But she makes up her mind to hold back on her theory about castration and cannibalism while they’re eating, and decides to start by talking about shame and the murderer’s desire to be seen.

She looks around. The tables closest to them are empty, and there’s no one who might overhear their conversation. ‘I think I’ve come up with something about the immigrant boys’ murderer,’ she says, as Jeanette starts to eat. ‘I might be wrong, but I think we might have missed a number of important things about the perpetrator’s psyche.’

Jeanette looks at her with interest. ‘OK?’

‘I think that the combination of castration and embalming is actually entirely in line with the perpetrator’s logic. Through mummification, the young boy’s childhood is permanently preserved for posterity. The murderer sees himself as an artist, and the corpses are his self-portraits. A series of artworks where the motif is his shame about his own sexuality. He wants to show who he is, and the lack of genitals is one way of marking this.’

Sofia considers what she’s just said, and realises that she might have been too categorical.

Him? she thinks. It could also be a her. But it’s easier to talk about a him.

Jeanette puts her knife and fork down, wipes her mouth and looks intently at Sofia. ‘Maybe the murderer wanted the bodies to be found? After all, he hasn’t made much of an effort to hide them. And artists always want attention and appreciation, don’t they? I mean, I used to be married to one.’

She understands me, Sofia thinks, and nods. ‘He wants to put on a show, be seen. And I don’t think he’s finished yet. He won’t stop until he gets caught –’

‘Because that’s what he’s after,’ Jeanette concludes. ‘Subconsciously. He’s got something to tell the world, and in the end he won’t be able to bear doing it in silence.’

‘Something like that,’ Sofia says. ‘And I also think the murderer is documenting what he does.’ She thinks about her own bizarre exhibition space at home in the apartment. ‘Photographs, notes, a compulsive collection. Are you familiar with the concept of
l’homme du petit papier
?’

Jeanette eats some more of the pie while she thinks.

‘Yes, actually,’ she finally says. ‘While I was training I read a Belgian police investigation into a man who murdered his brother. The newspapers called him “
L’homme du petit papier
”, the man with scraps of paper. When the police searched his home they found piles of paper that reached all the way to the ceiling in places.’

Sofia’s mouth feels dry, and she pushes her pie aside, not even half finished. ‘Then you understand what I mean. He’s collecting himself, if I can put it like that.’

‘Yes, something along those lines. Every word, every sentence, every single piece of paper was important to him. I remember that the amount of evidence was so extensive that they could hardly put together a coherent case. Even though everything they needed to convict him was in his little flat, right in front of their eyes.’

Sofia takes a sip of the dark, bitter beer. ‘According to one theory, an unhealthy or stunted libido will express itself through various forms of deviant behaviour. Such as unusual sexual fantasies. If the libido is directed inward, towards the individual himself, it leads to narcissism and –’

‘Stop!’ Jeanette interrupts. ‘I know what libido is, but can you explain in a bit more detail?’

Sofia can feel herself becoming cold and distant. If only Jeanette could understand how hard this is for her. How much it’s taking out of her to talk about someone who enjoys tormenting others, and who can only feel contentment from other people’s mortal terror. What she’s saying isn’t just about other people, it’s also about herself.

About the person she thought she was. About what she herself has suffered.

‘Libido is motivation, what you long for, lust after, what you want. Without it humanity wouldn’t exist. If we didn’t want anything in life we’d just lie down and die.’

Sofia glances at her half-eaten pie. If she’d had a hint of an appetite earlier, it’s completely vanished now. ‘One common belief,’ she goes on mechanically, ‘is that the libido can be disrupted by destructive relationships, particularly with your mother and father during childhood. Just think of all the irrational compulsive disorders, like a fear of germs or manic handwashing. In those cases the most important thing in life, its dream and desire, has become cleanliness.’

Sofia falls silent. Everyone wants to be clean, she thinks. And Victoria has struggled for that all her life.

‘So how do people handle it?’ Jeanette asks, putting a big piece of Västerbotten pie in her mouth. ‘I mean, not everyone becomes a serial killer because they didn’t get along with their parents.’

Victoria smiles at Jeanette’s appetite and likes what she sees: a person with an appetite for more than just food. For knowledge and experiences. An intact person with an undisturbed libido. Someone to be envied.

‘I don’t like Freud, but I agree with what he says about sublimation.’ Victoria notices the quizzical look on Jeanette’s face and explains: ‘That’s a defence mechanism where repressed needs find expression through creativity and artistic activity and …’

She loses her train of thought when Jeanette bursts out laughing, turns round, and points at the brass sign above her seat. ‘So you, or Freud, mean that someone who’s written a book about inhuman murders could have become a serial killer instead?’

Victoria joins in with her laughter, and they look into each other’s eyes. They stay like that, in the depths of recognition, while their laughter slowly fades away and is replaced by wonder. ‘Go on,’ Jeanette says once they’ve calmed down and the moment is over.

‘It’s probably easiest if I read from my notes,’ Sofia says. ‘And you can just ask if you want me to elaborate on anything.’ Jeanette nods, still with a smile on her lips.

‘The perpetrator is in many respects still a child,’ Sofia begins. ‘His gender identity may be uncertain, and he is probably impotent, in the clinical sense. Impotent literally means “without power”, and this individual has thought of himself as powerless since he was a child. He may have been the butt of jokes, someone other people laughed at, an outsider. In his isolation he has constructed an image of himself as a genius, and it is this that other people can’t handle. He believes he is meant to become something big. He is driven by a desire for revenge, but when that day never comes he begins to feel physically sick at the sight of the world around him living and loving. He finds this incomprehensible. Because of course he is the genius. And his frustration spills over into anger. Sooner or later he discovers that violence turns him on, and he gets sexually excited by seeing another person’s powerlessness. The same powerlessness that he himself feels, which may in turn lead to him killing.’ Sofia puts her notepad down. ‘So, boss, any questions?’

Jeanette says nothing, and is just staring blankly ahead of her. ‘You’ve done your homework,’ she eventually says. ‘The boss is happy. Very happy.’

JEANETTE IS FEELING
slightly drunk. After the food they had another two beers, and it was her idea for them to continue their walk before catching a taxi home.

‘Ugh, I woke up here once when I was fourteen. The old Maria Centre.’

Jeanette points at the entrance to the Maria Treatment Centre, and remembers how she had been picked up from there one sunny summer’s morning by her father, who had been anything but pleased to find his beloved daughter a complete wreck and covered in vomit. The night before, she and some friends had been celebrating the start of the summer holidays by drinking a whole bottle of Kir, with predictably disastrous consequences.

‘And there I was thinking you were a good little girl,’ Sofia says, stroking her cheek teasingly.

Her touch makes Jeanette feel warm, and she wants to get home as soon as possible. ‘I was, as well. Until I met you. Shall we give up and get a taxi?’

Sofia nods, and Jeanette notices that she seems serious and thoughtful again.

‘There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about,’ Sofia says while Jeanette looks around for a taxi. ‘After you found Samuel Bai, you came to my practice to ask some questions about him, didn’t you?’

Jeanette can see a free taxi further down the street. ‘Of course, you’d met him a few times, hadn’t you? Three sessions, I think you said.’ Jeanette turns round, and sees Sofia start. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Can you remember if you told me how you found Samuel? I mean, if you revealed any details that I couldn’t have found out otherwise?’

‘I told you everything. Such as the fact that someone had struck him in the eye. If memory serves, it was his right eye.’ She steps out into the road to wave down the taxi, which pulls up at the kerb.

When she turns back towards Sofia she sees that she’s gone completely pale. Jeanette opens the taxi door and leans in.

‘Just a moment, please,’ she says to the driver. ‘We’re heading out to Gamla Enskede. Can you give us a couple of minutes? Please, start the metre running.’

She takes Sofia under the arm and leads her a few steps away from the car. She can feel that Sofia is shaking, as if she were freezing. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s OK,’ Sofia says quickly. ‘But I’d like you to repeat everything you told me about Samuel.’

Jeanette can see that for some reason this is extremely important. It had been the second time she’d met Sofia, and she had been attracted to her even then. Her memory of what she said is crystal clear.