Ingrid looked at her a long time, but Katarina took no notice of that. She seemed to be in her own thoughts now, looking dreamingly out the living room window into the November darkness. She was a good-looking girl. She was rather tall, straight-backed with a proud posture, and she had long, blonde hair. She was articulate, and her use of language made a reasonably educated impression. Did it really have to turn out this way, thought Ingrid, in a sudden flash of empathy. Then reality came back to her. The pain in her hip could hardly be felt any longer, as long as she lay completely still, but her face ached, her stomach was crying out for something to eat, her mouth and throat for something to drink and then her hands—the pain refused to go away. She felt that she needed to pee again. It had not yet dried completely from the last time before it was time to go again. And on top of everything else, she felt humiliated, deprived of all pride and human dignity, reduced to a miserable little creature, lying there helpless, wetting herself.
* * *
Katarina ate her meatballs and potatoes in silence, and without noticing how they tasted. She was thinking about her mother, whom she had not seen since all this started. Her mother was old—even older than Miss Ingrid—and always had been. In photographs from before Katarina was born, she saw that her mother had always looked like an old lady. She wore peculiar hats and her stiff gray hair tied up in a bun at her neck. Even in pictures that must have been taken during the summer, she was unusually bundled up, with a warm coat, scarf, and heavy winter shoes.
How Katarina had come about was still a deeply buried secret, and no father had ever been mentioned. Her mother raised her on her own, and was very particular about her daughter being clean and neat. That she should carry herself like a little lady and be polite and obedient. She had been too, but still her mother never seemed quite satisfied with her. When Katarina came home from preschool and school, beat up and with her clothes in tatters, she had only been met with curses. Her mother was loving in her own way. Her concerns for Katarina took up most of her time, but signs of endearment were lacking.
Instead, the time was devoted to her so-called upbringing and schoolwork. Katarina’s mother had been as far as you could get from the mothers in the storybooks at the library where she worked, and the mothers she saw in the yard where they lived. She was more like a kind of governess who sat alongside and studied everything Katarina did for the purpose of judging and evaluating. There had been hugs, at bedtime, but they were too hard and always given in connection with some admonition about doing better the next day. Katarina always fell asleep with a sense of failure, that she had done something wrong or incorrect that had to be atoned for. Still, she loved her mother. She loved her more than she had ever loved any other person.
These days her relationship with her mother was different. The transformation had happened almost imperceptibly, and Katarina had no idea what caused this disturbance in the balance of power. Perhaps it was simply old age that softened her mother’s temperament. Whatever it was, she always seemed happy to see her and made an effort to make Katarina feel welcome, even spoiled—something her mother had previously been terrified of—when she came home. Katarina lived with her mother periodically in the apartment in Hallonbergen they had moved to after leaving Katrineholm prior to Katarina’s planned law studies at the University of Stockholm. Her studies had to be interrupted almost before they began, when Katarina was stricken with anxiety, which in turn was followed by one bout of depression after another. Finally, she was hospitalized and spent several years in a mental institution, to which she returned to at more or less regular intervals.
She wondered what her mother would think if she found out what she had done. Katarina had always been careful to keep her mother oblivious to what happened at preschool and school, partly out of concern for her, partly because she suspected it would only have backfired on her. If the children were mean to Katarina, her mother would have assumed that it was self-inflicted, and was due to Katarina not following her mother’s instructions in one way or another. The consequences would have been worse than they already were, with scolding and reprimands concerning what Katarina saw as the lesser problem: torn clothes, scratched knees, and bruises. Katarina shuddered at the thought of how her mother would react if she found out that her nice little girl was a murderer. She would never survive such a thing. She already had a bad heart and such news would surely put her right into the grave.
Yet she was doing it anyway. Even though she knew how the only person who ever cared about her would react, she did it. Her egotism and self-centeredness had gotten the upper hand, as her mother had always feared, and now she was busy doing the most forbidden things, simply to give her own life a little dignity and a measure of excitement—and maybe some enjoyment, too.
She shook off the thought with a little laugh and glanced over at the woman on the couch. Was she peeing again? Maybe she should have let her go to the bathroom anyway, the stench in here would be unbearable if this dragged on. But the humiliation involved when a grown person pees and poohs on herself decided it. If the old lady was going to suffer, then she should do so properly, even if it also created some inconvenience for herself.
She decided to investigate whether there was any alcohol in the house—she had not found any in the kitchen. She opened the door to the basement, turned on the light, and went down a steep, narrow stairway that ended in a little hall. There were three doors. The first led to a storage area, containing an old bicycle and a clothes rack with old men’s and women’s clothes on hangers. The second door led to a small laundry room, with a washing machine, dryer, and an ironing board. The third door concealed a food cellar that was mainly used for jam and jelly jars—it looked like Miss Ingrid made good use of the fruit the garden offered in autumn—but, more importantly, here she found a bottle of port wine that she decided to open.
Katarina went back to the main floor and took a piece of stemware out of the cabinet. As she stepped over the threshold to the living room, she noticed the stench of urine coming at her from the couch. She turned on her heels with a contemptuous snort and carefully cracked open the outside door before she pulled on winter boots and coat and went out. She closed the door quietly behind her and carefully walked down the steps and around the end of the house. Here she found a small white iron bench standing in the darkness, hidden from the exterior lighting by the wall of the house. She sat down, enclosed in the dense November darkness, and an ice-cold breeze rushed past her face. It was completely quiet around her, and all that was heard was the distant roar of cars on Nynäsvägen.
She tore loose the foil from the bottle, unscrewed the cork, and poured a generous dash for herself. Then she brought the glass to her lips and took a deep gulp of the sweet wine. The strong liquid warmed her chest and clouds of steam came out of her mouth when she exhaled.
“Cheers to us, Miss Ingrid,” said Katarina. “And cheers to all of you, Hans, Ann-Kristin, Lise-Lott, and Carina.”
She turned her eyes to the starless evening sky and raised her glass.
MONDAY EVENING
WHEN THE ATTORNEY FINALLY arrived, Sjöberg led him determinedly through the corridors to the man being held, who had now been brought back from jail to the interview room. Two black eyes had begun to appear and his nose was swollen. Sjöberg knew what had happened, but did not comment on it.
After Sjöberg summarized the situation for the newly hired attorney, the interview resumed, and this time Sandén and Sjöberg showed an even more aggressive attitude toward the suspect.
“We know you did it,” Sjöberg opened, his eyes dark with conviction and in a threatening voice that was more likely evidence of his own worry regarding the results of the fingerprint analysis than aversion to the accused.
“We have your footprints in the garden, and in a trial that will probably be enough for a conviction,” Sandén lied, but the attorney was alert.
“And the fingerprints?” he asked. “Is the analysis of the fingerprints done?”
Thomas exchanged a hasty glance with the attorney, who nodded to him to answer the policeman’s questions. He looked Sjöberg right in the eyes and Sjöberg thought, to his surprise, he looked completely sincere when he answered.
“I don’t know if I’m capable of such strong feelings. Hans Vannerberg did bad things to me, but I don’t want anyone to die. I want people to see me, but at the same time, I do everything not to be seen. No one has seen me since I was a kid, and then they saw me because I was so ugly, so different. I didn’t want to be, so for that reason I make myself invisible. I saw Hans Vannerberg, but I didn’t want him to see me. I followed him to see what things are like for a really happy person. I did not want to kill Hans Vannerberg. I wanted to be Hans Vannerberg.”
Sjöberg was astounded by the sudden profusion of words, but Sandén did not let himself be taken by surprise.
“And yet you killed him just the same!” he exclaimed.
“I did not kill him, I just followed him. But there may be others he treated the same way as me, who maybe turned out different than I have.”
“How, for example?” Sandén continued, in the same aggressive tone.
Thomas sat quietly for a few moments and then answered thoughtfully.
“I think if you have a more aggressive disposition and are subjected to the same treatment as me while you’re growing up, maybe the humiliation takes other expressions as an adult than it has for me.”
“What kind of treatment and humiliation are we talking about here?” asked Sandén.
“Hans Vannerberg was a bully,” Thomas answered calmly. “He was a mean kid and truly sadistic. What he subjected me to during that year in preschool was pure torture. In his case, it was mostly a matter of physical abuse. He hit me almost every day and encouraged the other kids to do the same. He was tough, strong and good-looking It was no problem for him to get the other kids to go along with him on just about anything. They tied me up to a light pole and threw rocks at me, spit on me, and banged my head against the pole. They tore my clothes, smeared dog poop on my face, hid my shoes so I had to go home barefoot in the winter, locked me in the trash room, made fun of me, laughed at me, stole other kids’ things and put them in my pockets, shoved me, tripped me, hit me. And the teacher did nothing. Pretended she didn’t see. If you’re strong, you swallow it and go on through life with your self-confidence intact. If you’re weak, you become lonely and afraid. I think there may also be a third way. You can go beyond what’s normal, beyond what’s healthy, and create a separate image of the world for yourself. An image you don’t share with anyone else.”
Sjöberg could not help being moved by the strange man’s story. He could picture one of his own children, six-year-old Sara, sitting tied up to a light pole with the mob over her. He presumably would have taken matters into his own hands and fought back, but what would Sara have done if no one saw and no one knew? Sandén sat silently and Sjöberg assumed that similar thoughts were stirring in his mind, too.
“And which route did you take, Thomas?” Sjöberg asked finally.
“Unfortunately, I’m the weak type,” Thomas answered.
“You don’t give a particularly weak impression when you’re telling us this.”
“I’ve never told anyone this before. Maybe I should have a long time ago, but I’ve never had anyone to talk to. This is my story, and I’ve carried it with me my whole life. It feels good to tell it to someone.”
Thomas looked at the two policemen and at the attorney, and suddenly felt embarrassed when he realized that he had exposed himself to strangers. Certainly they looked at him with the same feeling as everyone else: contempt. He sensed the color rise in his face again, and in shame he bowed his head so they wouldn’t see him.
But Sjöberg saw him. He saw a small, scared, and lonely person who, for a few minutes, had cracked open his soul, and he did not intend to let it shut again. He felt both warm and completely ice-cold inside at the same time, and he suddenly recalled that they were actually pursuing a serial killer. What if the blushing man with the injured face sitting before him, with his shoulders hunched as a shield against the evil eyes and harsh words of his surroundings, was really telling the truth? What if there was another person who had experienced the same terrors as him, suffered the same torments as him, but who reacted differently? Could it be that something, despite the time that had passed, awakened the same memories to life in two different people with similar experiences from a preschool long ago? The same memories, but different emotions. Could it really be that way?
Sjöberg felt instinctively that the man was telling the truth. At the same time, experience and the footprints in Ingrid Olsson’s yard spoke volumes. Was this only a strange coincidence? The fingerprints were undeniably not Thomas Karlsson’s, and it struck him that, in reality, this was what spoke volumes.
Suddenly something Thomas Karlsson had said several hours earlier popped up in his memory: “I was afraid that something would happen to her.” And what was it Lennart Josefsson, Ingrid Olsson’s neighbor, had said? Something about a strange woman entering the old lady’s gate.
Sjöberg leaped up from the chair, which fell backward and landed with a crash on the floor. The three men stared at him in surprise, but there was no time for explanations now.
“Make sure he’s taken back to the jail, then come up to my office, and do it fast!”
Sjöberg shouted the order to Sandén as he rushed out of the interview room. Sandén did not have time to reflect on the situation—instead, he phoned reception and asked Lotten to immediately send a constable to the interview room. The constable was there in less than a minute, and Sandén ordered her to bring Thomas Karlsson back to the jail, after which he, too, ran up the stairs to the corridor where his and his immediate associates’ offices were located. There was Sjöberg, handing out instructions to Eriksson and Hamad, and ordering them to take their service pistols along.
Less than five minutes later, the four police officers were in a car en route across the Skanstull Bridge with the sirens on. Sjöberg had also requested reinforcements, so other cars were en route in the same direction. Hamad was driving the unmarked car, Sjöberg alongside, and Eriksson and Sandén in the back seat.
“What actually happened during the questioning?” asked Hamad.
“He said right from the start that he was worried about Ingrid Olsson,” Sjöberg answered doggedly. “But we didn’t believe him. Then he consistently denied all the accusations, and even though Lennart Josefsson called and said that he had seen a strange woman go into Ingrid Olsson’s house, we took no action. This may cost us dearly.”
“But it must be him,” said Hamad. “Of course it’s him!”
“That may be, but my gut instinct tells me Thomas Karlsson is telling the truth. We can’t afford to take any chances anyway, and we should have thought of this before. Now it may be too late.”
“But why is he after Ingrid Olsson?” Hamad continued, still not really clear about the situation.
“She,” said Sjöberg. “I think it’s a she. And that Ingrid Olsson has committed a deadly sin.”
* * *
Hadar Rosén’s office was within walking distance of the police station, although on the other side of the Hammarby canal. Petra Westman drove there, however, with the intention of heading home when the meeting was over.
Basically she thought very highly of Rosén. He was an intelligent man who, despite being ultimately responsible for many of the investigations they worked on, did not get on a high horse. At their meetings, h
e mostly listened and let Sjöberg pull the strings. In exceptional cases he might have a diverging opinion, but they always came to an agreement in the end. However, he was a man with great authority, which in most other cases did not scare her. But Hadar Rosén, with his tall, always serious appearance, made her feel like a little schoolgirl. Not many people had that effect on Petra Westman’s emotional state, and she did not like it. Especially not now, when her future was in his hands. It was with a strong feeling of discomfort that she knocked on the prosecutor’s door.
“Yes!” he grunted from within, and Petra did not know whether that meant she should identify herself or just go in.
After some hesitation, she chose the latter. He was pecking at his computer without looking up, and Petra convinced herself that the natural thing for her to do in this situation was to sit down in one of the visitor’s chairs and patiently wait until the prosecutor finished what he was doing.
When at last he caught her eye, it was with an expression that revealed nothing. He stood up, went around to her side of the desk and looked down at her a few moments without saying anything. She had never felt so little in her entire life. Finally, he spoke.
“Yesterday afternoon Peder Fryhk was arrested, suspected on reasonable grounds of the rape of a twenty-three-year-old woman in Malmö in 1997, and a thirty-eight-year-old woman in Gothenburg in 2002.”
Petra’s heart skipped a beat.
“The detention hearing will take place on Wednesday and the degree of suspicion will then have been raised to suspected on probable grounds. DNA samples from Fryhk have been compared with those found in connection with the two rapes and shown to match.”
Petra let out a sigh of relief. The prosecutor continued in the same factual tone of voice.
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