by Arne Dahl
She sat in silence. He let her, even though he couldn’t really tell which direction she would take.
Eventually she said: ‘I didn’t make a phone call.’
He let out a deep sigh and pulled two sketches from a folder. He pushed them towards her. One showed a man in a van in Östermalm. The other was from the person who had seen their odd neighbour on the edge of the forest in Märsta.
‘Does either of these drawings look like Charles?’
Nathalie Fredén looked at them and shook her head.
‘Not much,’ she said.
‘OK,’ Berger said, pulling the drawings back. ‘We’re going to take a break now. As soon as I leave the room you’ll be joined by a police artist who will help you to come up with a portrait of Charles Lindbergh. And I want you to think about that phone call, and about anything else that springs to mind when you think about him.’
He looked down at his wrist.
A hole had opened up in the pervasive condensation inside his watch. He could see about a third of the top left quadrant of the face. But no hands.
Time was still unfamiliar to him.
16
Tuesday 27 October, 02.42
Everyone wanted to put as much distance between them and the interview room as possible. They gathered round Berger’s desk in the far corner of the office. Berger and Deer, Allan and Samir. Much as he would have liked to, Berger couldn’t just curl up in a foetal position and try to understand why everything felt so distorted. It had been pretty successful, actually.
The darkness was broken by screen-lit faces. The rain was hammering invisibly but in no way inaudibly against the many windows. It was the middle of the night.
Close to the hour of the wolf.
Samir was fast-forwarding through the recording from the interview room. As he was about to hit play Berger put his hand on Samir’s. He didn’t feel ready, not yet.
Instead Deer said: ‘We’ve found out a number of things. Not least, we have the toxicology analysis from the National Forensic Centre. Ellen Savinger’s blood did indeed contain high quantities of an as yet unidentified blood-thinning substance.’
‘And you had some homework to do, didn’t you, Deer?’
‘I know.’ Deer sighed. ‘Why pump Ellen full of blood thinners? And I can’t come up with any answer except to make her bleed a lot …’
‘And last a long time,’ Berger said. ‘Utter torment. What else?’
‘A whole list. It’s growing all the time. Considering how hard it is to inject Botox to combat the symptoms of migraines, there’s a surprising number of people doing it. And bearing in mind that it’s the middle of the night, we’ve had a surprising number of responses to our enquiries.’
‘Responses to your enquiries about what, exactly?’
‘About female clients in the right age range and in the right time period. We’ve heard back from a few clinics that seem to work nights. They’ve probably outsourced their customer service operations to countries where it isn’t night.’
‘Good,’ Berger said. ‘Although the big question is what we want all that information for.’
‘That’s the big question about all this,’ Allan exclaimed. ‘Aren’t we complicating things unnecessarily?’
‘It’s one line of inquiry,’ Deer said. ‘We need to expand our understanding of who Nathalie Fredén is. The Botox is part of that. The migraines are part of that.’
‘It’s a fuck of a long shot,’ Allan bellowed. ‘Surely it’s obvious what we’re looking at? Occam’s razor, for God’s sake. Cut away all the dead flesh. The simplest solution often turns out to be the right one.’
‘I’m having trouble seeing anything simple here,’ Berger muttered.
‘She’s the murderer, for fuck’s sake!’ Allan roared.
‘To start with you said she was a lunatic, a dead end, a psycho,’ Berger said.
‘And now it turns out instead that she’s a brilliant actor. Who’s playing a lunatic. You ripped her mask off, Sam. You should have kept up the barrage. Blow after blow. She would have collapsed.’
‘If she’d fallen apart I wouldn’t have got anything else out of her at all,’ Berger said. ‘And she was close to collapse at the end. Now we’ve got another chance, and we’re better prepared than ever.’
Allan straightened up and said with the full force of his baritone: ‘For God’s sake, there is no Charles Lindbergh. She made him up. She’s sitting there having fun. This crime isn’t in the past. She didn’t do it. She’s still doing it. Usually you find yourself interviewing a suspect when the crime has already been committed. Afterwards. Not this time. This is extremely rare. The crime is happening, this very moment. You’re sitting there questioning her while she’s still committing it. Every second she drags things out means another perverse little bit of sexual gratification for that bitch, and more torment for Ellen Savinger, as well as yet another gob of saliva right in our faces.’
‘So now we really do have Sweden’s first serial killer in that interview room?’
‘Call her whatever the hell you want to. Go up on the roof and scream “serial killer” right across Kungsholmen, across the whole city, I don’t care. You were too soft, Sam.’
‘Last time I was too pushy. Now I’m too soft. You’re a hard boss to please, Allan.’
‘I’m going to the toilet,’ Allan said and turned away abruptly.
They watched as he was quickly swallowed by the darkness.
‘He has a point,’ Deer said.
‘I know,’ Berger muttered. ‘Have you got anything else?’
‘We know who she bought the bike from. Syl got hold of a register of serial numbers. Something called Wiborg Supplies Ltd. No idea what that is. Anonymous client, 24 May, three years ago.
‘OK. Hmm,’ Berger said. ‘Sold new?’
‘Yes. No trace of the serial number since then.’
‘That rings some sort of bell. Wiborg?’
‘Isn’t that a town in Denmark?’ Deer said.
Berger felt himself frowning. ‘Go ahead, Samir.’
The recording of the interview began to play.
‘The name Charles comes up almost immediately,’ Samir said, pointing at the screen.
‘A lot of different sides to Charles Lindbergh,’ Berger said, asking Samir to pause. ‘She’s showing off again. Pretentiously showing off, Deer. Facts: first to fly across the Atlantic. His son was kidnapped and murdered. Said to have been a Nazi at the start of the war. A notorious womaniser. The kidnap and murder of his son is presumably the most pertinent.’
‘I don’t think that means a great deal,’ Deer said. ‘Go on.’
Samir started the film again. Something unidentifiable fell from his beard as he scratched it. ‘Childhood. Some peculiar reactions there.’
‘Where exactly?’ Berger asked.
‘There,’ Samir said. ‘“Betrayal.”’
‘That look,’ Deer said. ‘She’s really staring at you, as if she wants to emphasise the betrayal.’
‘Which seemed out of place at the time,’ Berger said. ‘What do you think about her reaction to the bullying hypothesis? There?’
‘Growing disinterest,’ Deer said. ‘It was hot, then it went cold.’
‘Strange,’ Berger said simply.
He could have said much more. Unfortunately he couldn’t put it into words.
‘But there’s one more thing,’ Samir said.
‘The most peculiar,’ Deer said.
The film reached the class photograph, Berger’s comments on the gap around the ten-year-old Nathalie. Then he said: ‘You were ten years old, Nathalie. What had happened to you to make them think you were disgusting?’
And Fredén said very sharply: ‘You know exactly what happened.’
Samir paused.
‘What’s going on here?’ Deer mused.
‘It’s like you were there in Umeå all those years ago,’ Samir said.
‘What do you mean?’ Berger said.
‘It just felt so … personal,’ Samir said.
‘I agree,’ Berger said. ‘And I’ve never even been to sodding Umeå.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Deer said. ‘It means something else.’
‘And it’s driving me mad,’ Berger said.
The trio stared for a while at the dead screen.
Then Berger said: ‘Run that sequence again.’
‘You were ten years old, Nathalie. What had happened to you to make them think you were disgusting?’
And then Fredén’s sharp retort: ‘You know exactly what happened.’
Samir paused again.
‘Bloody hell,’ Berger said, let out a deep sigh. ‘Keep going.’
Now his on-screen self was talking about returning to the world outside after twenty years in the clinic. He moved on to the inheritance, her inheritance from her grandfather. The reaction: ‘But you said I didn’t have a bank account.’
‘If she is playing a role,’ Deer said, ‘then this is where she falls out of character.’
The film kept rolling.
‘Fast-forward,’ Berger said.
Samir clicked ahead until Deer put her hand on his. The film slowed to normal speed and Nathalie Fredén said: ‘I don’t remember. Closer to Stockholm.’
Berger said: ‘Try to remember. It’s important.’
After an unusually long pause Nathalie Fredén said: ‘Sollentuna.’
‘How are we getting on with Sollentuna?’ Berger asked, speaking over the recording.
‘Nothing yet,’ Deer said. ‘Syl’s working on it. If a fifteen-year-old girl disappeared there she’ll find it.’
‘If that’s true, then I managed to miss it. It must be hidden behind something else. Look for other crimes in Helenelund the summer before last.’
‘That’s a pretty wide search, I promise you. But what struck me most about that was your in-depth knowledge of Sollentuna.’
Deer pointed at the screen. Berger was just saying: ‘Stupvägen. The shopping centre at Helenelund. That fits with the car park under the blocks of flats.’
Berger nodded. ‘I grew up there.’
Then Allan returned, smelling of smoke. Berger had just been thinking to himself that it was remarkable Allan had never smoked a single cigarette in his life. He chuckled as he detected a smell of wet fabric alongside the smoke. In all likelihood Allan hadn’t been to the toilet at all, but on one of Police Headquarters’ smoking balconies. He was soaked.
Berger saw a pool of water start to form around Allan’s beautifully polished shoes, and something fell into place inside him.
When you’re out in the rain you get wet.
He took out his mobile phone and swiped to find the most recent photograph. Nathalie Fredén standing inside the front door of her flat on Vidargatan, having just switched the light on. And the floor around her feet was completely dry. Not a single raindrop shimmered on her off-white raincoat. It was completely dry.
Micrometeorology.
‘OK,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘My turn to go to the toilet.’
He left the office and hurried down the stairs and along the deserted corridors. After a few more sets of stairs and corridors he reached the media room and stormed through it. He yanked open one of the inner doors.
Syl looked up from her computer screens with her thin hair sticking up above a pair of bloodshot eyes and said, actually sounding surprised: ‘Sambo? Aren’t you in the interview room?’
‘Later,’ Berger said. The office chair next to Syl had been reclined as far as it would go, and on it was a Winnie-the-Pooh pillow and duvet. A small head with thin, mousy hair stuck out from the gap between them. The little panting breaths had a dampening effect on Berger’s agitated state.
‘My daughter, Moira,’ Syl said, smiling a smile that Berger had never seen before. ‘I had to bring her in with me; there’s been a hell of a lot of overtime lately.’
‘I didn’t even know you were married,’ Berger whispered, bewildered.
‘Is that obligatory?’ Syl said with a wry smile. ‘You and Freja were never married, were you?’
Berger looked at the peacefully sleeping child and couldn’t help smiling softly. Whoever the father was, his genes hadn’t stood a chance. Moira was the spitting image of her mother, Sylvia Andersson.
‘But Syl,’ Berger exclaimed. ‘How old is she?’
‘Five,’ Syl said. ‘Don’t tell Allan.’
‘The day I start gossiping to Allan you’ll know I’m just seconds away from smelling burning hair,’ Berger said. ‘She’s beautiful, take good care of her.’
Syl looked at him for a moment. Something like sympathy appeared on her face. It disappeared as she said: ‘What did you want, Sambo?’
‘Yes, what did I want?’ Berger said, unable to take his eyes off Moira. ‘Oh yes, have you checked out Wiborg Supplies?’
‘I think Maja’s doing that. But where the bike was bought is hardly that big a deal …’
‘It’s just that Wiborg sounds familiar somehow. It’s not ringing any bells?’
Syl slowly shook her head.
‘Can you do an anonymous search?’ Berger said.
Syl looked distinctly disapproving. ‘What did we agree when I helped you dig out the investigations into Julia and Jonna?’
‘That it was the last time you’d do anything illicit for me. But I also happen to know that not only can you do it, but you also find it quite exciting.’
‘It’s risky …’
‘Do it. I’ll take any flak.’
He walked out, taking one last look at Moira’s peacefully sleeping form. He went and got his car from the deserted police garage and drove through the black, rain-drenched city. He reached Vidargatan, and double-parked as close as he could. To save getting wet.
As if that were possible.
It was just after three o’clock when he entered the stairwell, turned the lights on and climbed the stairs. The door was sealed with police tape. He looked at it for a moment; there was no sign that it had been touched, let alone broken. He tore it off, picked the lock, stepped inside and stopped in the darkness behind the door, caught his breath.
Yes, he could tell. Someone had been there. But that wasn’t enough, obviously.
He switched his torch on and shone it over the walls of the small hallway. Now that he knew what he was looking for it was easy enough to find. It hadn’t been there the last time he was in the flat.
The centimetre-wide hole just above the door to the kitchen seemed to radiate a sort of luminous darkness. A few tiny grains of white lay on the threshold. Berger crouched down and ascertained that it was plaster. He found a stool and climbed on top of it. Poked the hole.
Yes, there had almost certainly been a camera there. A microscopic camera.
He climbed down and went into the kitchen. There were barely any yellow leaves left on the big aspen tree in the courtyard, but even so their rustling seemed to drown out the rain. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked out into the hall, trying to process the fact that it was only a few hours since he had last sat there. It felt like a lifetime ago.
OK, think. Think, at last. Undisturbed.
In the solitude that he knew he always needed.
Nathalie Fredén was dry when she walked through the door. She couldn’t have come from the street. She must have come from somewhere inside the building. She must have been sitting somewhere in the building waiting until – via the hidden camera – she saw the police enter her flat. Then she headed towards it and was seen through the windows of the stairwell by the surveillance officers in their car. She could have been operating on her own at that point.
But not now that the camera had been removed.
That had been done by someone else.
Someone who had presumably been waiting with her in another flat.
Where they could well have had a third guest.
Ellen Savinger.
But why would Nathalie Fredén hand herself ov
er to the police? Why would she walk straight into the trap?
In a nutshell: what did Charles or Erik or the Scum have in mind by sacrificing his slave?
A sacrifice which had been planned for more than two years.
There was clearly something that didn’t make sense.
And Sam Berger couldn’t figure it out.
Was he being selectively blind? Was he stuck in a corner, unable to see a truth that was obvious from every other angle?
He stood up. Lit his way to the front door. Went out into the stairwell again. Found the glowing red switch. Went down the stairs. Stopped in front of the list of residents. He read the names, nothing that stood out. There were ten fairly common Swedish surnames, and one of them concealed the flat where that bastard and Fredén had sat and waited, just a few metres away, just a few hours ago.
If Berger had been firing on all cylinders they would have had the bastard, all wrapped up in a box.
Literally.
Of course there was a slim chance that he was still there, that he was still in one of the flats, just a few metres away from Berger. At that very moment. But it wasn’t very likely. Obviously Berger would see to it that all the flats were searched as soon as possible, but the bastard was probably gone. Leaving just a faint but lingering laugh.
Why had he thrown Nathalie Fredén to the wolves?
Berger aimed his mobile phone at the list of names and took a picture. It suddenly started to sound like a piglet being ritually slaughtered.
He quickly silenced the ring tone and was about to whisper back to Deer, who had presumably begun to suspect that he wasn’t in the toilet after all. But then he saw that it was an unknown number beginning 0915. Before he got the door open and threw himself out into Vidargatan he also noticed that the time was now 3.27. The hour of the wolf, and the rain was still tipping down relentlessly.
‘Yes,’ he answered, pulling his jacket collar up. ‘Sam Berger.’
‘I’m sorry to call at such an unusual hour,’ said a female, elderly voice in a northern accent.
‘Who is this?’ Berger asked.
‘They said it was urgent, and I never sleep very well after three in the morning anyway.’
‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘Yes, sorry,’ the tremulous voice said. ‘My name is Britt-Marie Bengtsson. I’m calling from Bastuträsk.’
