‘Do you know where she is today?’ Jeanette goes on. ‘And can you describe Madeleine? Does she have any distinguishing features?’
The woman shakes her head. ‘I presume she’s still in Denmark. When we went our separate ways she was taken into care by social services and placed in a children’s psychiatric clinic.’
Charlotte Silfverberg suddenly looks very tired, and Jeanette can’t help wondering if she’s about to cry. But she collects herself and goes on. ‘She has blue eyes, and fair hair. Unless she’s dyed it, of course. She was very pretty as a child, and she might well have become a beautiful young woman. But of course I don’t know …’
‘No distinguishing features?’
The woman looks up. ‘She was ambidextrous.’
Hurtig lets out a laugh. ‘So am I.’
‘Jimi Hendrix was the same, so is Shigeru Miyamoto.’
‘Shigeru Miyamoto?’
‘Video game genius at Nintendo,’ Hurtig explains. ‘The man behind Donkey Kong, among others.’
Jeanette brushes aside these irrelevant details. ‘So Madeleine could use both hands equally well?’
‘Of course,’ Charlotte Silfverberg replies. ‘She would often sit and draw with her left hand while she was writing with her right.’
Jeanette thinks about what Ivo Andri? had said about Per-Ola Silfverberg’s stabbing. That the distribution of the blows suggested it had been carried out by two people.
One right-handed, the other left-handed. Two people, each with their own knowledge of anatomy.
Hurtig looks at Jeanette and she knows him well enough to see that he’s wondering if it’s time to show Charlotte the card. Jeanette nods discreetly and he puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a small plastic evidence bag.
‘Does this mean anything to you?’ He pushes the bag over towards Charlotte Silfverberg, who looks uncomprehendingly at the little card inside it. On the front is a picture of three little pigs, and beneath them the words ‘CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BIG DAY!’
‘What’s this?’ She picks up the bag, turns the card over and looks at the back. First she seems surprised, then she laughs. ‘Where did you get hold of this?’
She puts the card back on the table, and all three of them stare at the photograph attached to the back of it.
Jeanette points to the photo. ‘What’s this photograph of?’
‘That’s me – when I graduated from school. Everyone leaving had pictures of themselves, and we swapped them with each other.’ Charlotte Silfverberg smiles in recognition at the picture of herself, and Jeanette thinks she looks nostalgic.
‘Can you tell us something about the school you attended – I mean, your high school?’
‘Sigtuna?’ she says. ‘What do you mean? What could Sigtuna have to do with P-O’s murder? And where did you get that card from?’ She frowns and looks first at Jeanette, then at Hurtig. ‘That is why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course, but for a number of reasons we’d like to hear about your time in Sigtuna.’ Jeanette tries to make eye contact with the woman, but she’s still facing Hurtig.
‘I’m not deaf!’ Charlotte Silfverberg raises her voice, and now turns towards Jeanette and looks her deep in the eye. ‘And I’m not an idiot either! So if you want me to tell you anything about my schooldays, you’re going to have to clarify to me what you want to hear, and why you want to hear it.’
‘Sorry, I’ll explain.’ Jeanette glances at Hurtig for help, but he just stares up at the ceiling with a look of scorn. Jeanette knows what he’s thinking. Fucking bitch.
Jeanette takes a deep breath. ‘It’s just a way for us to find out a number of things we’re wondering about.’ She pauses. ‘We’re investigating another murder, this time a woman who I’m afraid has turned out to have a connection to you. That’s why we need to know a bit about your time at Sigtuna. She’s a former classmate of yours. Fredrika Grünewald. Do you remember her?’
‘Fredrika’s dead?’ Charlotte Silfverberg looks genuinely shaken.
‘Yes, and there are certain indications that suggest we may be dealing with the same murderer. That card was next to her body.’
Charlotte Silfverberg sighs deeply and adjusts the tablecloth. ‘One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she wasn’t a nice person, Fredrika. You could see that even then.’
‘How do you mean?’ Hurtig leans forward again and puts his hands on his knees. ‘Why wasn’t she a nice person?’
Charlotte Silfverberg shakes her head. ‘Fredrika is without doubt the most repulsive person I’ve ever encountered, and I honestly can’t say that I’m going to mourn her death. Rather the opposite, if anything.’
Charlotte Silfverberg falls silent as her words echo between the freshly painted walls.
What sort of person is she? Jeanette thinks. Why is she so full of hate?
The three of them sit in silence, and Jeanette looks around the spacious living room. Silfverberg’s blood is hidden by a millimetre-thick layer of the shade of paint known as ‘Stockholm white’.
Hurtig clears his throat. ‘Tell us about it.’
Charlotte Silfverberg talks about her time at Sigtuna College, and both Jeanette and Hurtig let her speak without interruption.
She strikes Jeanette as genuine. She doesn’t hide the fact that she was one of Fredrika’s underlings. Helping to bully students and teachers alike.
They listen to Charlotte Silfverberg for more than half an hour, and at the end Jeanette leans forward and reads from her notes. ‘If I were to summarise what you’ve just said, you remember Fredrika as a devious person. She got the rest of you to do things you didn’t really want to do. You and Henrietta Nordlund were her closest friends. Is that right?’
Charlotte Silfverberg nods.
‘And on one occasion you subjected three girls to a highly degrading initiation ritual. On Fredrika’s orders?’
‘Yes.’
Jeanette looks at Charlotte Silfverberg and sees something that could be called shame. The woman is ashamed. ‘Do you remember the girls’ names?’
‘Two of them left the school, so I never got to know them.’
‘What about the third one? The one who stayed?’
‘Yes, I remember her fairly well. She acted as if nothing had happened. She was cold as ice, and if you went past her in the corridor she almost looked a bit proud. After what happened, no one ever did anything to her. We left her alone.’ Charlotte Silfverberg falls silent.
‘What was the girl’s name?’ Jeanette closes her notepad and gets ready to go home at last.
‘Victoria Bergman,’ Charlotte Silfverberg says.
Hurtig groans as if he’s just been thumped in the stomach, and Jeanette feels like her heart has skipped a beat. She drops her notepad on the floor.
Sista Styverns Trappor – a Neighbourhood
CHANCE IS A negligible factor when it comes to serious crimes. A fact with which Jeanette Kihlberg is well acquainted after years of complex murder cases.