This is followed by several lines that are illegible, then a large, dark red stain that Sofia presumes is red wine. She looks up at Linnea again and raises a questioning eyebrow.
‘I know,’ the girl says. ‘It’s a bit weird – he was probably drunk.’
Just like Socrates, I’m a criminal accused of corrupting youth. But of course he was a pederast, and perhaps his accusers were right? The state praises its gods and the rest of us are accused of worshipping demons.
Socrates was just like me! Are we wrong? Everything is in this book! By the way, do you know what happened in Kristianstad when you were little? Viggo and Henrietta? It’s in this book!
Viggo and Henrietta Dürer, Sofia thinks. Annette Lundstr?m mentioned the Dürers, and Viggo was in Linnea’s drawings.
Sofia recognises Karl Lundstr?m’s ambivalent attitude to right and wrong from her conversation with him in Huddinge, and the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. She continues reading, although the letter unsettles her.
The great sleep. And blindness. Annette is blind and Henrietta was blind, as befits girls from Sigtuna College.
She realises that Henrietta Dürer had been in the same class as Annette Lundstr?m. She too had worn a pig’s mask, grunting and laughing. She had been called something different then, something common, Andersson, Johansson? But she had been one of them, masked and blind.
And she had married Viggo Dürer.
This is too much. Sofia feels her stomach clench.
Linnea interrupts her thoughts. ‘Dad said you understood him. I think he’s talking about someone like you in the letter, a Pythia, as he puts it … Mind you, he does sound very odd.’
‘What’s the book he’s referring to?’
Linnea sighs again. ‘I don’t know … He read so much. But he often talked about a book called Pythia’s Instructions.’
‘Pythia’s Instructions?’
‘Yes, although he never showed it to me.’
In less than a week she’s met two young women whose lives have been ruined by one and the same man. Even if Karl Lundstr?m is dead, she’s going to see that his victims get justice.
What is weakness? Being a victim? A woman? Exploited?
No, weakness is not turning that to your advantage.
‘I can help you remember,’ she says.
Linnea looks at her. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I know so.’
Sofia opens her desk drawer and takes out the pictures that Linnea drew when she was five, nine and ten years old.
St Johannes Cavern – Crime Scene
THE SWEDISH ORDER of St Johannes has been active since the twelfth century, under the motto ‘In aid of the poor and the sick’. It is therefore providential that the caverns beneath St Johannes Church on Norrmalm in Stockholm should be used as a place of refuge for the impoverished and outcast.
The banner of the Order of St Johannes is depicted on the entrance to the cavern, an inverted knight’s coat of arms in the form of a white cross on a red background, put there by someone wanting to declare that anyone might feel safe here, no matter who they are. It is, however, not a logical act of providence but, rather, a mocking inversion of it when the message of safety occasionally doesn’t ring true, and in this instance a cry for help echoes between the walls down in the crypts.
Jeanette Kihlberg is woken by her phone at half past six in the morning, and Police Commissioner Dennis Billing orders her to get into the city as soon as possible, because a woman has been found murdered in the caverns below St Johannes Church.
She quickly scribbles a note to Johan and leaves it on the kitchen table along with a hundred-krona note, before quietly slipping out and getting in the car.
She calls Jens Hurtig. He’s already had a call from central command and should be there in fifteen minutes, traffic permitting. According to what Hurtig has heard, the atmosphere down in the caverns resembles a lynch mob, so they arrange to meet outside.
A lorry with a flat tyre in the S?derleden Tunnel means that the traffic is at a standstill. She realises she’s going to be late and calls Hurtig to tell him to go in before she gets there.
On the Central Bridge the traffic starts to move again.
There are three police vans, blue lights flashing, and a dozen officers are busy trying to secure the entrance to the caverns.
As Jeanette goes over towards ?hlund, she catches sight of Schwarz a bit further away in front of a heavy metal door. ‘How’s it going?’ She has to shout to make herself heard.
‘Total chaos.’ ?hlund throws his arms out. ‘We’ve emptied the whole place of people, almost fifty of them in total. As you can see …’ He gestures with his hand. ‘What the hell, they’ve got nowhere else to go, have they?’
‘Have you called the City Mission?’ Jeanette steps aside to let through an officer on his way to deal with one of the most aggressive protesters.
‘Of course, but they’re full and can’t help us right now.’
?hlund waits for her to speak, and Jeanette thinks for a moment before going on.
‘OK. Order a local transport bus to come over here as soon as possible. They can warm up in there and we’ll be able to talk to any of them who’ve got anything to say. But I’m assuming most of them aren’t feeling too cooperative. They usually aren’t.’
?hlund nods and pulls out his radio.
‘I’ll go down and see what’s happened. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they can go back inside.’
Jeanette goes over to the metal door, where Schwarz stops her and gives her a white breathing mask.
‘I think you’ll want this.’
He wrinkles his nose.
The stench really is unbearable, and Jeanette pulls the rubber bands behind her ears and checks that the mask is sitting tightly over her nose before she goes down into the darkness.
The large cavern is bathed in the sharp glow of floodlights, and there’s a rumble from the generator powering them.
Jeanette stops and looks out across the bizarre underground society.
A shanty town, like something out of the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Homes made out of rubbish and things found in the street. Some had been constructed with a fair degree of skill and an eye for aesthetics. Others were just childish dens. In spite of the muddle, there is a sense of order about the whole thing.
An underlying desire for structure.
Hurtig is standing some twenty metres away and waves her over. She makes her way carefully through the heaps of sleeping bags, bin bags, boxes and clothes. Beside one of the tents is a small shelf full of books. A paper sign says that the books are free to be borrowed, as long as they are brought back.
She knows that the prejudice about homeless people not being intellectual or interested in culture is unfounded. The step that leads down here is probably no greater than a bit of bad luck, some unpaid bills or a bout of depression.
Hurtig is standing by a tent made of large plastic bags. In front of the entrance hangs a shabby blue blanket, and she can see that there’s someone lying inside.