If only Billing had given her enough money to get a decent perpetrator profile drawn up four months ago, when they found the first two bodies, she wouldn’t have had to organise one on her own.
Now Sofia would have to do the work without payment or recognition, and Jeanette finds that embarrassing. She decides not to put any pressure on Sofia, and give her all the time she needs.
She thinks about what determines the value of a human life. Is it the number of mourners at the funeral, the financial value of the estate, or the media interest in the death? The social influence of the deceased? Their country of origin or skin colour? Or the sum of police resources allocated to a murder investigation?
She knows that the cost of investigating the death of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh had risen to fifteen million kronor by the time the Court of Appeal upheld Mijailo Mijailovi?’s sentence for her murder, and she knows that it was widely regarded within the police as cheap in comparison to the three hundred and fifty million that Prime Minister Olof Palme’s death had cost the public so far.
Vita Bergen – Sofia Zetterlund’s Apartment
WHEN SOFIA ZETTERLUND wakes up her body feels sore, as if she’s run miles in her sleep, and she gets up and goes into the bathroom.
I look terrible, she thinks when she sees her face in the mirror above the sink.
Her hair is a mess, and she forgot to remove her make-up before going to bed. The smeared mascara looks like she’s got black eyes, and her lipstick is a pink smear across her chin.
What actually happened yesterday?
She wipes her face, turns and pulls the shower curtain aside. The bath is full to the brim with water. There’s an empty wine bottle at the bottom, and the label floating on the surface tells her it’s the expensive bottle of Rioja from the drinks cabinet.
I’m not the one who drinks, she thinks. Victoria is.
What else, apart from a few bottles of wine and a bath? Did I go out last night?
She opens the door and looks into the hall. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But when she goes into the kitchen she sees a plastic bag in front of the cupboard under the sink, and even before she bends over and unties it, she realises it doesn’t contain rubbish.
All the clothes are soaking wet as she pulls them from the bag.
Her black knitted top, a black vest and her dark grey sweatpants. With a deep sigh of resignation she spreads them on the kitchen floor and examines them more closely.
They’re not dirty, but they smell musty. That’s probably because they’ve been in the bag all night, and she wrings the top out above the sink.
The water is dirty brown, and when she tastes it she can detect a hint of salt, but it’s impossible to tell if the taste comes from sweat on the top itself, or from salt water outside somewhere.
She realises that she’s not going to work out what she was doing last night for the time being, gathers the clothes together, and hangs them up to dry in the bathroom before pulling the plug from the bath and taking care of the wine bottle.
Then she goes back into her bedroom, opens the blinds and glances at the clock radio. Quarter to eight. No rush. Ten minutes in the shower, another ten in front of the mirror, then a taxi to the practice. First client at nine o’clock.
Linnea Lundstr?m is coming at one o’clock, she remembers. But who is she seeing before that? She isn’t sure.
She closes the window and takes a deep breath.
This can’t go on. I can’t carry on like this. Victoria has to go.
Half an hour later Sofia Zetterlund is sitting in a taxi, checking her face in the rear-view mirror as the car rolls down Borgm?stargatan.
She’s happy with what she sees. Her mask is in place, but inside she’s shaking.
The difference now is that she’s aware of the gaps in her memory. Before, the gaps were such a natural part of her that her brain didn’t register them. They simply didn’t exist. Now they’re there like worrying black holes in her life.
She knows she has to learn to handle this. She has to learn to function again, and she has to get to know Victoria Bergman. The child she once was. The grown woman she later became, hidden from the world, and herself.
The memories of Victoria’s life, her childhood in the Bergman family, aren’t arranged like an archive of photographs where you just have to open a box, pick out a folder with a particular date or event on it, then look at the pictures. Memories of her childhood appear haphazardly, creeping up on her when she least expects it. Sometimes they pop up without external stimulus, but on other occasions an object or a conversation can throw her back in time.
In Annette Lundstr?m’s thin face Sofia had seen a girl from Victoria Bergman’s first year in Sigtuna. A girl two years older than Victoria, one of the ones who whispered about her, casting sly glances at her in the school corridors.
She’s sure Annette Lundstr?m remembers what happened in the tool shed. That she had laughed at her. And she’s just as sure that Annette has no idea that the woman she has just employed for therapy sessions with her daughter is the same woman she once laughed at.
She’s about to do Annette a favour. Helping her daughter to get over a trauma. The same trauma she herself is going through, and one she knows can’t be erased.
Yet she still clings to the hope that it might be possible, that she won’t have to confront those memories and regard them as her own. Her brain has tried to spare her that by not even letting her be aware of them. But it hasn’t helped. Without memories she is just a shell.
And it’s not getting any better. It’s just getting worse.
No matter how she looks at it, the only solution is for Victoria Bergman and Sofia Zetterlund to be integrated into a single consciousness with access to the thoughts and memories of both personalities.
She also realises that this is impossible so long as Victoria keeps pushing her away, and even loathes the part of her that is Sofia Zetterlund. And Sofia herself is resistant to the idea of reconciling herself to the violent things Victoria has done. They are two people without a common denominator.
Apart from the fact that they share a body.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
‘YOU’VE GOT A visitor,’ Hurtig calls to Jeanette the moment she emerges from the lift. ‘Charlotte Silfverberg is sitting in your office. Do you want me to sit in?’
‘No, I can handle it.’ Jeanette waves him off, then continues along the corridor and finds the door to her room open.
Charlotte Silfverberg is standing with her back to the door, looking out of the window.
‘Hello.’ Jeanette walks in and goes over to her desk. ‘I’m glad you’ve come. I was thinking of contacting you. How are you doing?’
Charlotte Silfverberg turns round but doesn’t move from the window. She doesn’t answer.
Jeanette can see that the woman looks unsettled. ‘Sit down, if you’d like to.’
‘That’s OK, I’d rather stand. I won’t be long.’
‘So … Was there anything particular you wanted to talk about? If not, I’ve got a few things I’d like to ask you.’