In the emotionless state where empathy is just a word, seven letters with no content, you start to approach evil.
You abdicate from all humanity and become a wild animal. Your tone of voice darkens, the way you move changes and the look in your eyes becomes dead.
She goes into the bathroom and gets the box of sedatives from the cabinet, takes two paroxetine and swallows them down with a quick jerk of her head. It’ll soon be over. Viggo Dürer is dead and Jeanette Kihlberg knows that Victoria Bergman is a murderer.
‘No, she doesn’t know that,’ she says in a loud voice. ‘And Victoria Bergman doesn’t exist.’ But there’s no point pretending. The voice is there, and it’s stronger than ever.
She goes back into the living room, then the kitchen. Her vision is shimmering, like at the start of a migraine.
The red lamp is glowing, to indicate that the little machine is recording.
She holds the recorder in front of her, hands trembling; she’s wet with sweat it’s as if she’s outside of her body, looking at herself sitting at the table.
Sofia feels she’s in two places at the same time.
She’s standing beside the table, and she’s inside the girl’s head. The voice is dark and monotonous and it echoes inside her and simultaneously bounces off the walls of the kitchen.
When she was trying to understand Victoria Bergman, the recorded monologues had functioned as catalysts, but now the reverse is true.
Her memories include explanations and answers. They are a manual, a guide to life.
Sofia is interrupted by a loud noise from the street, and the voice vanishes. She feels like she’s just woken up, switches off the recorder and looks around.
There’s an empty blister pack of paroxetine crumpled up on the table and the floor is filthy, covered with muddy footprints. She gets up and goes out into the hall, where she finds her shoes damp and dirty with soil and grass.
So she’s been out again.
Back in the kitchen she sees that someone, presumably her, has laid the table for five people, and notices that she’s also put names by their places.
She leans over the table and reads the cards. To her left Solace will be sitting next to Hannah, and on the other side Sofia and Jessica will be sitting next to each other. She has put Victoria at the head of the table.
Hannah and Jessica? she thinks. What are they doing here? Hannah and Jessica, whom she hasn’t seen since she left them on the train from Paris more than twenty years ago.
Sofia sinks down onto the floor and discovers that she’s holding a black marker in her hand. She puts it aside and looks up at the white ceiling. Vaguely she hears the phone ring out in the hall, but she’s not going to answer and shuts her eyes.
The final thing she does before the roaring in her head drowns out all other sounds is to switch the tape recorder on again.
Then darkness and silence. The roaring stops, and she’s calm and can rest while the pills start to work.
She sinks deeper into sleep, and Victoria’s memories come back to her in rolling waves, first as sounds and smells, then as images.
The last thing she sees before her consciousness finally goes out is a girl in a red jacket standing on a beach in Denmark, and only now does she realise who the girl is.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
‘THE MURDERER’S MISSING her right ring finger,’ Jeanette repeats, sending a silent, posthumous call of thanks to the man named Ralf B?rje Persson.
‘Not entirely insignificant.’ Hurtig grins.
‘It’s just tragic that one of our best leads comes from a witness we can’t talk to,’ Jeanette says. ‘Billing’s given me a gang from the police academy who are going through the class registers from Sigtuna, from all years. They’ve already started calling former pupils and staff, and there are three names that I’m particularly keen to see pop up over the course of the evening.’
‘I get it – you mean the victims of that initiation ritual. Victoria Bergman and the other two who disappeared?’
‘Exactly. And there’s one other phone call that needs to be made. The most important one, so I’m leaving that to you, Hurtig.’ She hands him the phone. ‘The person you need to call used to be the school’s headmistress. She’s retired these days and lives in Uppsala. She was evidently aware of what happened, and was actively involved in hushing it up. She’ll be able to give us the names, at least, and if she can’t remember them she can help us find their records. Make the call, I’m wiped out and my blood sugar’s crashed, so I’m going down to the cafeteria for coffee and something sweet. Do you want anything?’
‘No thanks.’ Hurtig laughs. ‘You never let up. I’ll call the head, you go and get some coffee.’
She gets back to her office just as Hurtig hangs up.
‘Well? How did it go? What did she say?’
‘The girls’ names were Hannah ?stlund and Jessica Friberg. We’ll be getting their personal details sometime this evening.’
‘Good work, Hurtig. Do you think any of them’s missing a ring finger?’
‘Friberg, ?stlund or Bergman? Why not Madeleine Silfverberg?’
Jeanette looks at him with amusement. ‘She may have a motive for her foster-father, but I can’t see any direct connection to Fredrika Grünewald.’
‘OK. But that’s not enough. Anything else?’
‘Henrietta Nordlund married the lawyer, Viggo Dürer.’
Hurtig says nothing, just nods thoughtfully.
‘And, last but not least … During the initiation ritual in Sigtuna, Hannah ?stlund, Jessica Friberg and Victoria Bergman were served dog shit by Fredrika Grünewald. Need I say more?’
He breathes out and looks suddenly very tired. ‘No thanks, that’s enough for now.’
It doesn’t matter how exhausted he is, she thinks. He’s never going to give up.
‘How’s your dad getting on?’
‘Dad?’ Hurtig rubs his eyes and looks amused. ‘They’ve amputated several fingers from his right hand, and now he’s being treated with leeches.’
‘Leeches?’
‘Yes, they stop the blood coagulating after amputations. And they actually managed to save one of his fingers. Can you guess which one?’
Hurtig grins and yawns at the same time, before pre-empting her and answering his own question.
‘His right ring finger.’
Gamla Enskede – Kihlberg House
WHEN JEANETTE KIHLBERG gets home she’s so wiped out that she doesn’t even notice the smell of cooking from the kitchen at first.
Hannah and Jessica, she thinks. Two shy girls that nobody remembers terribly well.
Tomorrow, if the school yearbooks arrive as promised, at least she’ll be able to put a face to Victoria Bergman. The girl with the highest marks in every subject but behaviour.