‘The dismemberment that followed isn’t the usual sort, cutting the body up so it’s easier to move. It looks like it took place in the bathroom.’
Ivo Andri? describes the order in which the body was most probably dismembered, and how the perpetrator arranged the pieces in the apartment. And how the apartment had been thoroughly searched throughout the night and that morning for other evidence. The U-bends in the bathroom pipes had been examined, along with the drains and the grille in the floor.
‘It’s worth noting that the thighs were skilfully cut away from the hip bone with just a few cuts, and the same skill was used to cut the lower legs free from the knee ligaments.’
Ivo falls silent, and Jeanette concludes by asking two open questions, not really directing them at anyone.
‘So what does the dismemberment of the body say about the killer’s state of mind? And is he going to do it again?’
Jeanette looks at each of them in turn. Meets their gaze.
They sit in silence in the airless conference room, united by impotence.
Klara Sj? – Public Prosecution Authority
IN SPITE OF its name, Klara sj? is no lake, just a dirty patch of water, useless for fishing and bathing.
There’s an extensive network of drains running into it, and the industry in the area and the traffic on Klarastrandsleden have led to serious pollution in the form of high levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, metals and tar. It’s practically impossible to see clearly through it to any depth, just like the Public Prosecution Authority nearby.
Kenneth von Kwist leafs through the photographs of Per-Ola Silfverberg.
This is just too much, he thinks. I can’t handle any more.
If it weren’t for Viggo Dürer, he would be sitting here nice and quietly, counting down the days to his retirement.
First Karl Lundstr?m, then Bengt Bergman and now P-O Silfverberg. All introduced to him by Viggo Dürer, not that the prosecutor had ever regarded them as his friends. He had merely been acquainted with them.
Was that enough for a curious journalist? Or a pedantic detective like Jeanette Kihlberg?
From personal experience he knows that the only people you can be sure of are those who are utterly selfish. They always follow a set pattern, and you know exactly what they’re going to do. That’s also the reason why they’re the only people you can deceive successfully.
But when you run into someone like Jeanette Kihlberg, someone with an underlying sense of justice, the situation is less easy to predict.
So he can’t try to shut Kihlberg up in the usual way. He’ll simply have to make sure she never gets access to the material he’s sitting on, and he knows that what he’s about to do is criminal.
From the bottom drawer in his desk he takes out a thirteen-year-old file and switches on the document shredder. It rumbles into life, and before he begins to feed the papers into it he reads what Per-Ola Silfverberg’s Danish defence lawyer had claimed:
There are numerous allegations, the time and location of which are unspecified, which makes them particularly difficult to disprove. Fundamentally, the entire case rests on what the girl has said, and the extent to which her story is credible.
He slowly feeds the page into the shredder. There’s a whirring sound, and out come tiny, illegible strips.
Next page.
The other evidence presented in this case can neither strengthen nor weaken the credibility of what the girl has said. When questioned she has described certain acts that Per-Ola Silfverberg is claimed to have subjected her to. However, she has been unable to complete the interviews. As a result, her claims have only been able to be presented through the video recording of the police interview with the girl.
More paper, more strips.
Regarding the video interview, the defence believes that the principal interviewer asked leading questions and steered the girl towards specific answers. The girl also had a motive for claiming that Per-Ola Silfverberg committed these acts. If she could prove that Per-Ola Silfverberg was the cause of her mental illness, she would be allowed to leave her foster home and move back home to Sweden.
Home to Sweden, Prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist thinks, switching off the shredder.
Stockholm, 1988
THERE’S NO GOOD reason to begin again, he had said. You’ve always belonged to me, and you always will. She felt as if she were two people.
One who liked him, and one who hated him.
The silence feels like a vacuum.
He breathes loudly and heavily through his nose all the way to Nacka, and that sound absorbs her completely.
When they reach the hospital he switches off the engine.
‘Well, then,’ he says, and Victoria gets out of the car. The door shuts with a muffled thud, and she knows he’s going to sit there in the silence that follows.
She also knows that he’s going to stay there so there’s no need for her to keep looking round to make sure that the distance between them is actually growing. Her footsteps get lighter and lighter with every metre she puts between them. Her lungs expand, and she fills them with air that’s so unlike the air around him. So fresh.
Without him I wouldn’t be ill, she thinks.
Without him she would be nothing, she knows, but she avoids thinking that thought to its conclusion.
The therapist she sees is past retirement age, but still working.
Sixty-six years old, as wise as her years. To begin with progress had been sluggish, but after just a few sessions Victoria had found it easier to open up.
As she steps into the clinic the eyes are the first thing Victoria sees.
They’re what she longs for most. She can land safely in them.
The woman’s eyes help Victoria to understand herself. They’re ancient, they’ve seen everything and they’re trustworthy. They don’t panic, and they don’t tell her she’s crazy, but nor do they tell her she’s right, or that they understand her.
The woman’s eyes don’t mess around.
That’s why she can look into them and feel calm.
‘When was the last time you felt really good?’ She opens each meeting with a question that she can then use as a base for the entire session.
‘The last time I ironed Dad’s shirts he said they were perfect.’ Victoria smiles because she knows that there wasn’t a single crease on them, and that the collars were starched just enough.
Those eyes give her their complete attention, they’re there just for her.
‘And if you had to choose one thing that you would do for the rest of your life, would it be ironing shirts?’
‘No, definitely not!’ Victoria exclaims. ‘Ironing shirts is really boring.’ And suddenly she realises what she’s said, why she said it, and how it ought to be. ‘Sometimes I rearrange his desk and drawers,’ she goes on, getting carried away, ‘to see if he notices anything when he comes home. He hardly ever does.’
‘How are your studies going?’ the old woman interrupts without giving any sign of having noticed Victoria’s answer.
‘OK.’ Victoria shrugs.
‘What mark did you get for your latest assignment?’