The Root of Evil

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘I don’t think he puts himself in any sort of light at all,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘I can’t get to grips with him in the slightest.’

  ‘Maybe it’s his intention for us not to do that,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘You reckon?’ asked Astor Nilsson.

  ‘I mean, it’s clearly written as it was happening,’ observed Tallin after a pause. ‘Apart from these commentaries, that is. Well, hopefully we’ll get verification of quite a few things in the course of the day. We already have confirmation that the Malmgrens did stay in that particular place.’

  ‘But he must have done this fair copy,’ Barbarotti pointed out. ‘He wrote it all by hand in 2002, or so he claims. Since then he seems to have typed it up on a computer.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ said Jonnerblad. ‘But I don’t see what difference that makes.’

  ‘Probably none at all,’ said Barbarotti. ‘It would be interesting to know when he did it, that’s all. Was it was five years ago or just before he started killing them?’

  ‘Mhmm, er . . .’ muttered Jonnerblad, leafing through a pile of papers. ‘Well, as I say, there are a lot of issues to discuss. As you’ll all have noted, we’re recording this briefing. It’s important not to overlook any individual question that comes up.’ He indicated the diminutive tape recorder in the middle of the table. ‘Any other comments at this point?’

  ‘Have you been in touch with the French police yet?’ asked Backman.

  ‘We’ve got a call booked with them for this afternoon,’ said Tallin. ‘But any views on the information he gives about himself in these notes? We really don’t find out very much, do we?’

  ‘That’s partly what I was driving at,’ said Barbarotti. ‘He doesn’t tell us anything at all about himself, and I reckon any references like that in his original handwritten notes were removed when he typed them up.’

  ‘Not impossible,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘This Dr L he refers to a few times, how do we go about locating him?’

  ‘I don’t think we’re meant to locate him,’ said Eva Backman. ‘And I still think the fact that our man hides everything, or almost everything, about himself is an indication that he hasn’t taken his own life. If he was dead, it wouldn’t really matter that much, would it?’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t want it all to come out,’ said Sorrysen. ‘After his death, I mean.’

  ‘But he tells the whole story,’ said Backman. ‘He wants to conceal his identity, but I don’t get the impression he’s ashamed of what he’s done. Or feels any sense of remorse. On the contrary, he stands by what he’s done.’

  ‘Except in the case of the girl,’ said Sorrysen.

  ‘Yes, though he’s actually innocent there,’ said Backman. ‘But he’s got to kill these people because of what happened in Brittany five years ago – and he’s got to explain why he’s doing it. That’s why he writes it all down. Isn’t that the key here?’

  ‘Some good points,’ said Jonnerblad. ‘We’ll take them up with our psychiatric expert this afternoon. Backman, have you got that timeline I asked you for?’

  Eva Backman nodded and brought out a sheet of paper. ‘So this refers to his activities in the present, so to speak,’ she explained. ‘We’ve already ascertained that the murders and the letters to Barbarotti aren’t particularly synchronized, and as for the potential role of this Hans Andersson, we still haven’t the foggiest. Shall I go through the whole thing?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Jonnerblad.

  Eva Backman cleared her throat. ‘So, to take the sequence of murders first, it starts with Erik Bergman on 31 July and continues with Anna Eriksson later the same day. Then we have Gunnar Öhrnberg, and we’re not sure about this one, but sometime around 7 August seems reasonable, and lastly Henrik and Katarina Malmgren on the night of 12 August. If we compare those with the times at which Barbarotti’s letters arrived, it’s interesting to note that the famous Dead Man Gunnar letter arrives on Wednesday. It’s postmarked in Gothenburg on the thirteenth, that is, last Monday, and it should have reached Kymlinge on the Tuesday, but I expect we can blame the slight delay on the Post Office.’

  She took a sip of water and went on.

  ‘Then there’s the communication from Cairo, this recent one. It was sent from Cairo airport on Tuesday, the fourteenth, which means – correct me if I’m wrong here – that our perpetrator either went back to Sweden after he’d killed the Malmgrens on the ferry, or that he posted the Dead Man Gunnar letter before boarding. Personally I incline to the latter, especially as he’s already in Cairo by Tuesday. Are you with me?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘But if he flew direct from Kastrup to Cairo on the Monday, then we’ll have him on the passenger lists. There can’t be that many planes a day.’

  ‘I’m pretty convinced he didn’t fly direct to Cairo,’ said Eva Backman. ‘He went to London or Paris or Frankfurt and bought his ticket for the next leg there.’

  ‘Passport?’ said Sorrysen. ‘He must have shown his passport. Or ID card, anyway.’

  ‘It’s scarcely necessary these days,’ said Tallin. ‘For Cairo, perhaps, but not within the EU.’

  Jonnerblad shook his head. ‘If he’s been carrying this story around with him for five years, then he’s certainly had time to arrange a false passport, too. After all, he got himself a gun without any problem, we know that.’

  ‘Not five years,’ said Barbarotti. ‘This trying to get some money out of them, which he refers to in his next to last commentary . . . that was only six months ago, or that’s what I took him to mean, anyway. Don’t you think it was after that he made his mind up?’

  ‘It seems plausible,’ said Jonnerblad. ‘But that would still have left him plenty of time.’

  ‘Enough, anyway,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I’ve got a completely different question. What are we going to do about releasing the photo to the papers now?’

  Jonnerblad straightened up and put a pen in his breast pocket. ‘Tallin and I have talked about that,’ he said. ‘And we don’t really think this changes anything. The prosecutor feels the same, so we want to give the media the picture this afternoon. We know the pressure it’s going to put on us, but as I see it, it’s still the quickest way we can get him identified.’

  ‘One important aspect,’ put in Tallin, ‘is that these photos are basically the only thing we have that the murderer didn’t supply himself.’

  ‘Significant point,’ repeated Asunander, as unexpectedly as before, and the room fell silent for a second or two. A half-formed thought ran through Barbarotti’s brain, one that somehow seemed familiar and strange at the same time as it flitted out of reach with the speed of a bat. But there was definitely something to it.

  ‘Christ, yes,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘I shall feel bloody sorry for the five hundred poor devils who happen to look like him, but I’m sure we’re right to publish it. If we’re lucky, we’ll have his identity within the week.’

  ‘It would be nice to have his name, at any rate,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Even if we never track him down in person.’

  ‘If it’s possible to find old Nazis after fifty years, it’s more than possible to find quintuple murderers after a month,’ said Astor Nilsson.

  ‘Six,’ said Sorrysen. ‘You forgot one.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Astor Nilsson. ‘Swedish steel found its mark on an old French lady too.’

  ‘But he hasn’t got the girl’s life on his conscience,’ Eva Backman reminded them.

  ‘Not in the same way, it’s true,’ said Tallin. ‘But it’s a horrible story by any standards.’

  They lapsed into silence again. Jonnerblad rustled through his papers and Asunander got up to open the window. ‘Hot,’ he said by way of explanation.

  ‘I wonder whether they were questioned,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Jonnerblad. ‘Who?’

  ‘Our victims. In France, after he left. And whether the police found out the girl had been with them, or not . . . and if they d
id, that would be another reason for interviewing them.’

  ‘We’ll get answers to that this afternoon,’ said Tallin. ‘Or very soon, at any event. Yes, I agree, one wonders whether they really did manage to avoid a visit from the police. Must have had luck on their side, if so.’

  ‘They were actually innocent,’ Astor Nilsson pointed out. ‘We probably shouldn’t forget that.’

  ‘Innocent?’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Of murder, at any rate,’ specified Astor Nilsson. ‘The question of their burden of moral guilt is worth discussing, though.’

  ‘It weighed heavily enough to cost them their lives,’ said Barbarotti. ‘All five of them.’

  ‘In the murderer’s eyes, yes,’ said Tallin. ‘I just hope nobody round this table feels the same way. Or buys into his confessions unquestioningly. It isn’t exactly a normal brain we’re granted access to here, is it?’

  His pen tapped the Mousterlin document, lying in front of him on the table.

  ‘No,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’d been expecting something pretty disgusting but this . . . well, in a way it’s almost worse. So . . . so sad, too.’

  Barbarotti glanced automatically at the sad-looking Inspector Sorrysen, and recalled that he’d been the one to pick up on a first little clue to lead them to France. The shade of blue paint on that litter bin.

  It felt like a hundred years ago. He realized that in actual fact it was only about a fortnight.

  ‘What’s our approach?’ he asked. ‘Are we sending anyone down there?’

  ‘It’s not out of the question,’ said Jonnerblad. ‘Not out of the question at all.’

  The latter part of the morning briefing played out in the minor key of the remaining unanswered questions, and Inspectors Barbarotti and Backman made time to slip away to the King’s Grill in their lunch hour. They felt in need of a bit of traditional home cooking after all the takeaway frankfurters and instant mash.

  ‘What did you mean by sad?’ he asked, once they each had the dish of the day in front of them: horseradish pike with melted butter and boiled potatoes.

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ she asked in surprise. ‘That it’s sad?’

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ said Barbarotti. ‘At least where the girl and her grandmother are concerned.’

  ‘But I think there’s a sort of sadness about the perpetrator himself, too,’ said Backman. ‘The whole thing’s so . . .’

  She hesitated.

  ‘So . . . what?’

  ‘So horribly random. It need never have happened. A little girl’s hand slipped out of his grasp and seven people lost their lives for it.’

  Barbarotti pondered. ‘Eight, if he’s also taken his own.’

  ‘And do you think he has?’ asked Backman.

  ‘No,’ said Barbarotti. ‘For some reason I doubt it, actually. Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘OK,’ said Backman. ‘I don’t think he’s dead either. But who is he?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Does he have any kind of profession? How’s he been living for these five years since it happened . . . since he was sitting in that motorway cafe? And where?’

  ‘What was he doing before all this?’ put in Barbarotti.

  ‘That, too. He walks and writes and talks about Dr L. I’ve stared at that picture of him when they’re all sitting at the restaurant, and maybe it’s that very day that he writes about? When they’d just met – what was the place called?’

  ‘Bénodet,’ said Barbarotti. ‘The old harbour in Bénodet.’

  ‘That was it. He looks so . . . well, so ordinary.’

  Barbarotti nodded. ‘I think so too. But then he does write that his inner life isn’t visible in his outward appearance. He smiles and smiles, smiles and smiles, I think that’s Hamlet actually . . . he must be pretty well educated, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eva Backman, and stared into mid-air for a few seconds, as if trying to capture some entirely new thought. But apparently she failed, because she shook her head and put down her knife and fork. ‘Yes, that’s the impression I get. It’s like Astor Nilsson said, these notes have a definite literary touch. But where did he come from originally? Was he really in some kind of psychiatric care? He’s hitching a lift on the motorway outside Lille, and then . . .’

  ‘And after that he’s at this place in Brittany for a couple of weeks,’ supplied Barbarotti. ‘But then he’s gone again.’

  ‘Heading south.’

  ‘Heading south, yes.’

  Silence again. It occurred to Barbarotti that he ought to have brought his list of questions along today, the one he’d drawn up when he was reading the Mousterlin document for the second time. To provide a bit of structure; it felt in a way as if they were just repeating the same questions and the same surprised reactions over again.

  But the list was on his desk back home in Baldersgatan.

  ‘His wife?’ said Backman. ‘What do you think about her? He writes that she died a few years back. But she and Dr L are the only people from his past that he mentions. Aren’t they?’

  ‘Correct,’ said Barbarotti. ‘We basically know nothing about him as he is today, but if we find him . . . well, you bet we’ll get it all out of him. By the end, we’ll have his first teacher’s name and know what shoe size his disabled cousin in Bengtfors takes. And they’ll all tell their stories in Expressen.’

  Eva Backman laughed. ‘Yes, I expect so. The picture of a murderer, it’s . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The most titillating thing imaginable, basically. And incidentally, it’s been that way for hundreds of years, no, thousands, and it’s still just the same today. Women are going to fall in love with him, just like they did with Clark Olofsson and Hannibal Lecter . . . one wonders why.’

  ‘Isn’t that why you’re a police officer?’ asked Barbarotti. ‘So you get to meet that sort of individual and have your darker urges naturally satisfied?’

  ‘The hell it is,’ observed Eva Backman soberly. ‘You’ve put your foot in it there, constable. Have you got another appointment with Olltman coming up, while we’re on that subject?’

  ‘I think she’s declared me fit,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But I’d better check.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Well, half-time’s nearly up, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Yep, better get back,’ said Barbarotti.

  33

  The forensic psychiatrist was called Klasson and was a woman of forty-five. She and Lillieskog had been working well together for several years, she told them, but she doubted either of them would have a great deal to contribute to this case.

  She had read all the material, nonetheless, especially the Mousterlin notes, and was prepared to offer a tentative analysis of the man they were hunting for.

  Empathy deficit disorder was the first thing she wanted to put her finger on. His way of expressing himself about the people he went on to kill indicated that. The comments he had added later revealed an individual who found it hard to understand other people’s feelings. And the murder of the girl’s grandmother pointed to a pronounced lack of emotion in the perpetrator. He did not express any regret or remorse for his act, seeing it simply as ‘a logical consequence’, quoted Klasson.

  ‘But he shows some feeling for the girl,’ Backman pointed out.

  ‘He does,’ said Klasson. ‘Very strong feelings, in fact, but it’s interesting to note how he refers to them. He says she’s “eating into” him, if I’m not mistaken. It’s a process he doesn’t seem to understand; it’s beyond his control in the same way that all feelings seem to be external to him. He isn’t really in contact with them.’

  ‘It’s his feelings for the girl that trigger everything,’ prompted Lillieskog. ‘Eventually. Perhaps we could say that his emotional life is out of balance?’

  ‘A pretty typical disorder,’ Klasson went on. ‘Over-reactions and under-reactions. But I really do want to stress that we’ve remarkably little to go on in this
case. The account he’s left us with is extremely well written, in fact he seems to have the makings of an author. Which consequently means he gives us the image of himself that he wants us to have, of course. Not that he ever idealizes his image, I don’t mean that. But I still think he writes with some kind of honest intent. He wants to tell this story and explain why he – as he sees it – has been forced to kill these five people.’

  ‘So why does he stay with them, when he dislikes them so much?’ Sorrysen asked. ‘I find it hard to get my head round that.’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Klasson. ‘But he’s clearly used to not belonging anywhere, and indeed he tells us that at the outset. In his very first sentence. We’re certainly dealing with a very lonely person, I think I can say that with confidence.’

  ‘So it’s not possible to make a psychiatric diagnosis of him on the basis of what he tells us?’ asked Tallin.

  ‘No,’ said Klasson. ‘We can speculate in various ways. He’s obviously had contact with mental health services, perhaps even spent time in some institution or other. But I couldn’t really guess what his medical notes say.’

  ‘You’re more used to diagnosing people face to face?’ asked Astor Nilsson.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Klasson, and allowed herself a fleeting smile. ‘Profiling is Lillieskog’s territory, but we do collaborate, as I said.’

  Lillieskog nodded. ‘You always have to adjust the profile once you find the person behind the mask,’ he said. ‘And you often learn something new at that stage. One thing that brought me up short when I read his account was his wife. He mentions her twice, but only in the briefest of terms. We learn that she died. Five years before this Brittany interlude, as far as we can judge. How did she die? Is there some kind of trauma here? She can’t have been all that old, after all, perhaps no more than twenty-five? There could be an accident involved, or something even worse lurking there.’

  ‘Even worse?’ queried Astor Nilsson.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I get this uneasy feeling whenever he mentions his wife. Could that have been where it all started?’