Christian typed on the keyboard in front of him and the screen flickered to life.
Irene began to feel queasy. They saw a grown man force himself on a small girl from behind as she crouched on all fours. Of course, he didn’t show his face. She was only seven or eight years old. The girl kneeled there, immobile, like an animal about to be slaughtered. Only the man’s sexual movements made her body move. She turned her head and looked straight into the camera.
The realization of the girl’s identity struck Irene like a blow to the head. She had a hard time breathing. Before she had collected herself enough to say anything, Christian stopped the film, reappeared on screen himself, and confirmed what she had known for a few seconds: “The little girl in the picture is Rebecka. The man who is forcing himself on her is her father. The camera operator is her brother, Jacob.”
His face on the screen looked as if it had been carved from stone. His voice was completely toneless.
“Rebecka was eight years old when this film was made. Jacob was fourteen. Both he and his father had been sexually assaulting her for three years, since she was five years old. Sten Schyttelius lost interest when she turned eleven, because she reached puberty early. However, Jacob’s interest didn’t fade: just the opposite. He abused her systematically until he was drafted by the army, way up in northern Sweden. Rebecka had to have an abortion when she was thirteen. Pappa Pastor drilled into her that if she told anyone, God’s wrath would descend on her. She would be breaking the commandment to honor and love your father and mother. That, of course, included her brother as well.”
Christian’s voice, broke from anger or sorrow, but then he started speaking again.
“Rebecka’s mother knew what was going on but didn’t do anything to help her. In her depression, she hid from the truth. And Pappa Pastor didn’t forget to tell Rebecka that if she didn’t cooperate, her poor, sick, frail mother would have to. Little Rebecka was forced to make herself available to the men of the family.”
Without changing his expression, Christian took a drink from his glass. Tonelessly, he said, “Now we come to ‘Pan’s’ contribution. That’s the Internet name he adopted.”
The screen flickered again. This time they saw a white man having sexual intercourse with a small African girl. Her eyes were just as large and afraid as Rebecka’s had been. They were bright from tears, but she wasn’t crying. It was appalling to see the fear and pain in her wide-open eyes. She was very thin; she was perhaps seven years old. They lay in a narrow bed, with only a pillow and a sheet. A mosquito net, glimpsed over the headboard of the bed, had been pulled away so that everything could be filmed.
The film stopped and Christian returned to the screen.
“Pan was Jacob Schyttelius. Rebecka understood right away that Jacob and her father had abused the children they were supposed to be helping when they were in Africa in September touring children’s villages. This film showed up on the pedophile ring’s Web site just a few days after they returned home, and Pan was then accepted into the group.”
He made an ironic grimace, which was replaced by a sorrowful, resigned expression.
“That was the last straw for Rebecka. She became very sick. That was when she was admitted to the hospital for treatment the first time. After that. . nothing was the same as it had been. She couldn’t have sex, she couldn’t even touch me. . she retreated from me. In some periods, she was better and could function but between us. . it didn’t work any more. Of course she loved me. . but I couldn’t reach her any more. She had enough to contend with, dealing with the demons that had come to life when she saw the films. As she described it, I understood that she had managed to repress most of what had happened. She hadn’t wanted to remember, and then she didn’t. But everything rose to the surface after she saw these films. She never told Dr. Fischer what lay behind her illness; he suspected one thing and another.
“Fischer said that I should be patient, but the months passed. Understandably, she didn’t want to go home at Christmas, so she called and said she had the flu. We drove up to Edinburgh, and it went pretty well. But she wanted to return home-to London, that is-again after three days. She couldn’t keep up the appearance of normality. During January and February, she continued to get worse. I realized that she would never recover. That’s when I decided to kill those damn pigs. They deserved it. I took their lives, but they had already taken Rebecka’s. When she was little, they were supposed to protect her from evil, but they were the ones who destroyed her.”
Rebecka was moaning audibly, but Christian seemed not to hear. He stared right into the camera without blinking.
“I decided to kill them. I thought she would get better again if they vanished. That she would feel some sort of. . revenge fulfillment. I didn’t want to travel under my own name, in case some smart cop, like you, came up with the idea of checking the passenger lists for the days in question. So I stole my cousin’s passport when I was at Rosslyn Castle in March. We’re enough alike that I could pass through Customs with it, especially if I put my hair up in a ponytail rather than leaving it down like John Lennon.
“I tried to make it look like a stranger had broken in, so I also took a dagger and a Beretta. They’re hidden in Mamma’s basement, behind the hot-water heater. I decided to do it on a Monday. I planned to create an alibi, with help from the guys in the betting pool. This particular Monday, Rebecka was feeling better and had the energy to do a little work. But she went up to bed at about four o’clock. I packed a regular shoulder bag with my light boots, a pair of thin leather gloves, a small flashlight, a compass, a map of the woods I would have to go through, a toilet bag, a thick sweater, nylon raingear, and plastic covers to pull over my shoes. And the most important thing: the diskette containing the software with which to erase their hard drives. The day before, I reserved a car at Avis at Landvetter via the Internet. I had already ordered the ticket for the evening flight.”
He drank greedily from his glass. The drink was amber-colored. A whisky? Maybe St. Clair’s.
“I was at Shakespeare’s early, just before five thirty. I spoke for a long time with Steven, the owner, so he would remember that I had been there. The other guys dropped in around six, and we drank beer and discussed the week’s tips. I treated everyone to a round of whisky. At six thirty, I mumbled to Vincent that I was expecting an important phone call and had to go home. It was noisy and crowded around the bar, and I don’t think anyone noticed that I left a little earlier than usual. I raced home and grabbed the bag. It took barely a minute. Then I rushed down to Bayswater Road and hailed a taxi. We drove to Paddington, and there I took the train to Heathrow. At five minutes past seven, I picked up my ticket and boarded as the last passenger. I took my shoulder bag on board as hand luggage. Then I had to grab it and make sure I was the first person off the plane so I wouldn’t lose time. The car was ready at Avis and I had taken care of all of the paperwork via the Internet. It is barely a fifteen-minute drive from the airport to the cottage.”
He took another mouthful from the glass and continued. “I had already decided on where I would park the car. In reality, finding the trail in the dark was a bit more difficult than I had expected, but at last I managed. Then I took off my coat and put on the sweater and the boots, and the rainsuit over them. The hood made it less likely that anyone would recognize me and decreased the risk that I would leave any hair I might shed. I put the gloves and plastic covers in my pockets, with the flashlight, compass, and map. I’m used to moving in the woods, but it was pretty difficult to make my way to the cottage.
“Luck was on my side: Jacob hadn’t come home yet. If he had been there, I had planned on killing him with an axe from the shed. There had been one in the chopping block when we were there in July, and it was still there. I put on my gloves and brought it in with me but as I said, I didn’t need to use it. I returned it to the block afterward. Since he wasn’t home, it was just a matter of opening the door with the key from under the flowerpot, putting on t
he shoe covers, pulling out the rifle, and loading it. Then I inserted the disk-formatting software and started running it. While it was running, Jacob came home. He opened the door and stepped into the hall, and I shot him.”
Rebecka started moaning again. Christian didn’t seem to notice. His expression was rigid, his voice a monotone, as he described the crimes in detail and at length. Neither Irene nor Glen had changed their positions during the whole time the computer had been on. They still stood, bent slightly forward. Now Irene felt that she needed to sit. She pulled an office chair toward her and sank onto it.
Christian had fortified himself with another swallow from the glass and was ready to continue. “I had plenty of time to erase his hard drive completely. I also found several diskettes and a few videocassettes in the hiding place behind the panel. I put them in a plastic bag and found charcoal and lighter fluid under the patio, which I took with me. I knew that there would be cassettes and diskettes at Pappa Pastor’s as well. Everything had to be burned, since there might be more tapes with Rebecka on them.
“In that secret space I also found a book about Satanism. Then I had an idea. Rebecka had told me how her father and brother had searched for Satanists on the Internet. With respect to what these two gentlemen had been doing, I thought it appropriate to mark their computers. So I dipped a pastry brush from the kitchen drawer in Jacob’s blood and drew a pentagram on the screen. And that’s why I turned the crucifix in the bedroom upside-down when-”
He stopped to finish his drink, then filled it up again.
“I made my way through the woods to the house, even though it was difficult. Along the way, I planted some fibers from the scarf that my cousin had so graciously bestowed on me as a Christmas present. I wanted to implicate him, in case the airplane passenger list was followed up. I wanted it to seem that he had been there; to confuse matters.
“The rectory was dark when I got there. The key was still lying under the pot, and after putting on the shoe protectors and gloves, I went in and sneaked into the bedroom. Both of them were sleeping. First I shot the pastor, and then his wife. They never woke up.
“I erased the hard drives and took all the diskettes and videotapes I could find. There were lots of disks, but only three cassettes. Because I had drawn a pentagram on Jacob’s computer, I drew one here as well. But I used both the mother’s and the father’s blood. It felt. . appropriate. They were both responsible.
“Well, then I went back through the woods again. Oh yes, I burned the videotapes and diskettes. And the rainsuit and gloves and shoe covers. I kept the plastic bag to put my dirty boots in when I got back to the car, so that I wouldn’t soil the inside of my carry-on bag. I packed my sweater in the bag, and I put on my coat again and the clean shoes that I had left in the car. I drove out to the airport, went into the bathroom, washed up and shaved. No one could tell that I had just murdered three people. The plane left at seven twenty Swedish time, and it landed at eight twenty English time. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, because I wasn’t tired. Rather, I was elated. I’ve never regretted that I shot those bastards, but sometimes I wonder if it was worth it. . ”
He turned his head in Rebecka’s direction. Not a sound could be heard from her.
“She understood right away that I had killed them. But she didn’t want to talk about it. She feels that it was her fault they died, that she shouldn’t have told me about what she had suffered. They had managed to break her and brainwash her.”
He laughed a short joyless laugh and took another swallow of whisky.
“Now you know everything. I’ve rigged both of these computers. Everything will be erased from them. There will be no way to rebuild them. You two report what I’ve said. Rebecka and I have made up our minds. There’s no future for us. We’ve come to the end.”
He disappeared from the picture. A shot was heard and then, a few seconds later, another one.
Irene and Glen sat as though made of stone, watching the neat bookshelf and the upper part of a black armchair. The screen went black and the computer shut down.
Neither spoke for a long time. In the end, Glen stretched out his hand and turned off his tape player.
“Lucky I had this with me. Everything he said is on this tape.”
Chapter 20
THE TECHNICIANS HAD MANAGED to trace Lefévre’s cell-phone call to Mayfair, to the area around Berkeley Square. They couldn’t pinpoint it more exactly. At first, Irene had speculated that Rebecka and Christian might be in Fischer’s office, but that location was too distant.
“Has any Mayfair address come up during the investigation?” she asked.
Glen shook his head.
They were still in Lefévre’s office, trying to figure out where to start searching.
“That bookshelf was well-stocked and made of a light type of wood,” said Glen.
“Could you read any of the titles?” Irene asked.
“No. The distance was too great.”
They had tried to start the computer again, but it appeared to be completely dead. Glen called a computer expert at the Metropolitan Police, who patiently guided their attempts to restart it. When all attempts had failed, the expert concluded, “He must have placed a bomb in it.”
“A bomb!” Glen exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, not that kind of bomb. I mean a computer virus which erases all information on the hard drive. It can lie dormant, to be activated at a later time or on a certain occasion or command. The computer cannot be started again. Or, technically, the computer itself is not damaged and can easily be started up from a different disk but everything on its internal hard disk is gone forever.”
“So there’s nothing to do then?” Glen asked.
“Nothing.”
Dejected and at a loss, Glen looked at Irene. “What do we do?”
“Try and get hold of Andrew St. Clair. He might know where Christian is.”
She was interrupted by Glen’s cell phone ringing.
His expression brightened as a voice on the other end spoke. He waved at Irene to come closer and said, “Good evening, Mr. St. Clair. Yes, we’ve been trying to reach you all evening. . via the local police in Edinburgh. . I understand. Yes. . there are very sorrowful circumstances that have made it necessary.”
Calmly and methodically, Glen gave an account of the afternoon’s and evening’s events. At first, St. Clair refused to believe his story. When Glen came to the end and reported the two shots, Andrew was silent for a long time.
When his voice was heard again, it shook. “You say that the phone call came from the area around Berkeley Square. I still have my apartment in London. It’s located on Hill Street, which leads into Berkeley Square.”
“Could Christian get into your apartment?”
“Yes. He has a key.”
THE SCENE that met them and the technicians from the Metropolitan Police at the apartment was expected, but unbelievably tragic.
Rebecka sat, leaning back, in a high-backed white leather armchair. Her eyes were closed. Just above the bridge of her nose, there was a black hole between her eyes. The backrest behind her was drenched in blood.
Christian sat on the floor in front of her, his head resting on her lap. He had shot himself in the classical way, through the temple.
The gun was a Magnum, and the large-caliber bullets had been deadly, tearing away portions of their skulls on exiting.
For an instant, Irene had a vision of the ending of a Greek tragedy, or maybe a variant Romeo and Juliet. But here it had been neither a strict father nor an old family feud that had thwarted the young lovers, but rather crimes committed long ago, which had led to new crimes. It was difficult to tell who the victims were and who the criminals in this story.
The apartment, a trendy loft with an open floor plan, was located at the top of an old Victorian house. Everything was unbelievably expensive, both in terms of materials and craftsmanship. The decor was extremely modern, with a lot of stainless steel, light natural wood
, and a black and white color scheme. It was in striking contrast to the museum in Scotland that Andrew St. Clair nowadays called home, thought Irene.
The chair Rebecka sat in was turned toward a square stove with glass doors in all directions, standing in the middle of the floor. A large sofa and four armchairs covered in white leather were gathered around it. On the floor was the largest Oriental rug Irene had ever seen. Aside from two colorful paintings, the rug provided the only spot of color in the room, glowing in ruby red and steel blue. The paintings seemed to have been painted by the same artist. One was completely red, the other blue. Irene immediately associated them with Rebecka and Christian’s front doors on Ossington Street. Both canvases had been slashed. On the red one, there was a tear in the middle; on the blue one, it was in the lower right-hand corner. Irene recognized the style of a painting she had seen at the Tate Modern, but she couldn’t recall the Italian artist’s name.
Andrew’s work corner, under one of the sloping windows, was the size of Irene’s living room. Two computer desk tables stood at an angle to each other, a computer on each table. Desk chairs in black leather, small comfortable armchairs on wheels, stood in front of each computer. The wall behind the desks was covered by a built-in bookshelf made of light birch, like the computer tables. A webcam was mounted on one computer, the one that faced the wall lined with books.
An opening in the wall of bookshelves led to a short corridor with two doors. A large bedroom lay behind one of them; behind the other was a bathroom tiled in Mediterranean blue. Irene noted the Jacuzzi, meant for several people.
She returned to the main room and found Glen in front of the computer. His efforts to start it up were in vain. It was just as unwilling as the one they had given up on in Lefévre’s computer office.
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