IT HAD HURT. She knew it would. She had heard it through the walls. But she didn’t know it would hurt so badly.
One of the grown-ups had told her to follow him into the dark storeroom. There he had tied her hands behind her back and forced her head forward. With a sharp piece of glass he carved her new name on her neck. It said KER. From now on that was what she would be called, that was who she would become and remain so forever. While the man with the ugly scar gave her an injection, he had conveyed to her that she would never be hurt again, nothing would happen to her now. At the same time that the sense of calm spread through her body, a strength also grew within her. She didn’t feel fear any longer. She felt powerful. Undefeatable. Immortal.
The grown-ups let her stay in the storeroom with her hands tied so that she wouldn’t touch her wound until it had healed. When she was finally let out, she felt weak and cold and had no appetite.
The girl tried to see the carved letters in a mirror but she couldn’t. She put her hand on the back of her neck. It stung; the skin was still sensitive. A scab had formed and the girl couldn’t help fingering it, but then it started to bleed. She was angry with herself and tried to stop the bleeding by applying pressure with the sleeve of her sweater. But the red stains on the cloth grew larger each time she pressed it against her neck.
She looked at her arm in front of her. The stains were large and she turned on the tap and held her arm under it to try to get rid of the blood. But it didn’t help, it only got worse. Now the sleeve was bloody and wet.
She leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. The glow from the round lamp was weak and there were dead flies inside the glass globe. How would they punish her now? She wasn’t meant to touch her neck. That’s what they had said. The wound had to heal completely. If you touched it, it would look much worse. Ugly.
She slid down to the floor with her back against the wall. The break was soon over; she couldn’t stay much longer in the toilet. How long had she been on the island? A month? Perhaps several months. The trees had at any rate lost all their leaves. She had thought that the golden-brown leaves were so lovely. At home she had never seen a tree that changed color like that. Every time she stood to attention in the yard, she wished she could cast herself into the piles of golden leaves. But she never could. She was only allowed to fight. All the time. Against the wiry boy Minos. And even against Danilo. He was bigger and stronger than she, so she hadn’t been any match for him. He tried not to hit her too hard, but eventually he had to. If you didn’t fight, you got beaten, beaten a lot, so Danilo hit her. At first he tried to be careful, a light thump and a slap. But then the man with the ugly scar had lifted him up so violently by his hair that he pulled some clumps out.
She had tried to defend herself; she had attacked Danilo with kicks and blows, but nothing helped. In the end Danilo had punched her so hard with his fist that he split her lip. It was swollen for three days. Then it was time for the next fight. This time she was pitted against another boy who was one year younger than her. When he deliberately aimed a blow at her painful lip, she became furious and slammed the boy on his ear so hard that he collapsed onto the floor. She kept on kicking and punching him until the man with the scar stopped her. Then he smiled. He pointed at his eyes, his throat and his crotch.
“Eye, throat, crotch,” he had said. Nothing else.
The girl heard the bell ring. It was time for the next lesson.
She wrung out her wet sleeve as tightly as she could. The water dripped onto the floor and formed a little puddle. She stretched out her hand to rip off some paper and wiped up the water. Then she got up and flushed the paper down the dirty toilet.
She rolled up her sleeve a little to hide the bloody stains, unlocked the door and went out.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
PETER RAMSTEDT SOUNDED grumpy when Henrik Levin phoned. His lawyerly voice was sharp and direct. Twice he repeated that he absolutely didn’t have time to be present at a new interview with Kerstin Juhlén and especially not at this afternoon at the time the chief inspector had proposed.
“Since my client is particularly anxious that I be with her and I am at the moment in court, it would be more suitable if we come in this evening or tomorrow morning,” said Ramstedt.
“No,” said Henrik.
“I beg your pardon?”
“No,” said Henrik. “It is not suitable this evening or tomorrow morning. I don’t know if you realize it, but we are in the middle of a murder investigation and we need to talk to Kerstin Juhlén now.”
There was silence at the other end. Then the lawyer’s voice could be heard again. He spoke extremely slowly and resolutely.
“And I don’t know if you realize it, but as her legal representative I must be present.”
“Fine, in that case you both better be here at eleven this morning.”
Henrik ended the call.
*
At two minutes to eleven the lawyer came into the interview room to join Kerstin and the others. His face was bright red. He put his briefcase on the floor with a deliberate thud and sat down next to Kerstin. He gave Henrik and Jana an arrogant smile, put his cell phone in the pocket of his striped jacket. Then the interview began.
Henrik started by asking some direct simple questions about Hans Juhlén’s financial situation, which Kerstin answered in a soft voice. But when he moved on to more specific details, she hardly had anything to say.
“Like I told you, I didn’t have access to all of my husband’s accounts and have no idea of the balance and thus could not say how much was in them.” But she did say that his salary was transferred to a joint checking account and the payments on the mortgage and other maintenance costs came from that.
Hans had taken upon himself the responsibility for their financial situation as it was his salary that paid for their keep.
“He was the one who took care of everything,” said Kerstin.
“As I understand, financially as a couple you were quite well-off?” said Henrik.
“Yes, very.”
“But you said he wasn’t one to waste money?”
“That’s right.”
“Was that why he didn’t help his brother with money?”
“Has Lasse said that? That he didn’t get any money from Hans?” Kerstin’s voice had changed. The tone was high.
Henrik didn’t answer. He stared at her pink T-shirt. The elastic of the round collar had loosened a little and a loose thread hung down from a sleeve. He had the urge to reach across the table and pull it out. How could she leave the thread hanging there, he wondered.
“He did get money from Hans,” said Kerstin. “Far too much money. Hans wanted to help him but Lasse gambled it all away. Hans didn’t want Simon to be affected, so in an attempt to help his young nephew, he transferred money directly into an account in Simon’s name. But since Lasse was his legal guardian, he simply withdrew the money from the boy’s account and lost it all on the horses. Of course my husband got angry and stopped sending any more. Perhaps that wasn’t the best thing for the boy, but what could he do?”
“According to Lasse, it was you who stopped the payments,” said Henrik.
“No, he got that wrong.”
Kerstin put her thumb up to her mouth and started to bite a raw cuticle.
“He didn’t receive any money recently, then?” said Henrik.
“No, not for the past year.”
Henrik pondered this, then looked at Kerstin again.
“We’re going to check into your accounts,” he said.
“Why?” Kerstin met Henrik’s gaze and continued biting her cuticle.
“To verify that what you’ve said is correct.”
“You need permission,” said Ramstedt, who had now leaned over the table.
“We’ve already arranged that,” said Jana briefly and held out the signed search warrant.