THE SUN IS peeping through the breaking clouds, and Jeanette gets up from her desk. She looks out through the window, gazing across the rooftops of Kungsholmen, and takes a deep breath. She fills her lungs and then lets the air out in a deep, liberating sigh.
Hannah ?stlund and Jessica Friberg, she thinks. Schoolmates of Charlotte Silfverberg, Fredrika Grünewald, Henrietta Dürer, Annette Lundstr?m and Victoria Bergman at Sigtuna College for the Humanities.
You always get caught by the past.
As she had guessed they would be, Hannah ?stlund and Jessica Friberg are both missing, and after she presented her evidence to Prosecutor von Kwist, he agreed to issue a warrant for their arrests. Suspected on reasonable grounds of the murder of Fredrika Grünewald. As far as the murder of P-O Silfverberg is concerned, the evidence is less compelling. Suspected on good grounds.
It is now a matter of waiting, watching events develop and biding her time.
The big question is still the motive. Why? Is it really something so simple as revenge?
Jeanette has her theory about cause and effect ready, but the problem is that when she tries to formulate how it all fits together, the whole thing seems completely unlikely.
Could they have murdered the Bergmans and the Dürers as well? Caused those fires?
What about Karl Lundstr?m?
But if so, why would they want those deaths to look like accidents?
She’s interrupted by the internal phone ringing, and she turns round, leans across the desk and presses the button to answer.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s me,’ Jens Hurtig says. ‘Come to my office if you want to see something interesting.’
Hurtig’s door is open, and when she goes in she sees that both ?hlund and Schwarz are there as well. They look at her, and Schwarz grins and shakes his head.
‘Listen to this,’ ?hlund says, pointing at Hurtig.
Jeanette forces her way between them, pulls up a chair and sits down. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Polcirkeln,’ he begins. ‘Nattavaara parish registry. Annette Lundstr?m, née Lundstr?m, and Karl Lundstr?m. They’re cousins.’
‘Cousins?’ Jeanette doesn’t quite understand.
‘Yes, cousins,’ he repeats. ‘Born three hundred metres apart. Karl and Annette’s fathers are brothers. Two houses in a village in Lapland named after the Arctic Circle. Exciting, isn’t it?’
Jeanette isn’t sure that ‘exciting’ is the right word. ‘Unexpected, perhaps,’ she replies.
‘It gets better.’
It looks to Jeanette as though Hurtig’s about to laugh.
‘The lawyer, Viggo Dürer, used to live in Voullerim. That’s just thirty or forty kilometres from Polcirkeln. That’s no distance up there. Thirty kilometres and you’re practically neighbours. And I can tell you something about the village of Polcirkeln.’
‘And this bit’s really funny,’ Schwarz interjects.
Hurtig gestures to him to keep quiet. ‘In the eighties a story got into the papers. About a sect, with branches all over northern Lapland and Norrbotten, with its headquarters in Polcirkeln. A bunch of Laestadians who’d lost it big time. You might have heard of the Korpela movement?’
‘No, I can’t say that I have, but I presume you have.’
‘From the thirties,’ Hurtig says. ‘A doomsday cult in eastern Norrbotten. Prophecies of the end of the world and a ship of silver that would collect the faithful. They spent their time having orgies that, according to biblical quotations, meant they were affirming the child inside them, they played leapfrog on the roads, went around naked and so on. One hundred and eighteen people were interrogated and forty-five were fined, and some were charged with sexual activity with minors.’
‘And what happened in Polcirkeln?’
‘Something similar. It started with a report to the police about a movement calling themselves the Psalms of the Lamb. The complaint was about the sexual abuse of children, but the problem was that it was anonymous. Annette and Karl Lundstr?m were named, as well as their parents, but nothing could be proved. The police investigation was dropped.’
‘Jesus,’ Jeanette says.
‘I know. Annette Lundstr?m was only thirteen years old. Karl was nineteen. Their parents were in their fifties.’
‘What happened after that?’
‘Nothing, really. The story about the sect faded away. Karl and Annette moved south and got married a few years later. Karl took over his dad’s construction company, bought a share of a larger construction syndicate, and then became managing director of a company in Ume?. After that the family moved around the country, wherever Karl was sent for work. When Linnea was born they were living in Sk?ne, but of course you already know that.’
‘And Viggo Dürer?’
‘His name appears in one of the articles. He was working in a sawmill and spoke to the paper. I quote: “The Lundstr?m family is innocent. The Psalms of the Lamb never existed, it’s just something you journalists made up.”’
‘Why was he interviewed? Was he one of the people named in the police complaint?’
‘No. But I imagine he wanted to get in the papers as much as he could. He was probably already ambitious, even then.’
Jeanette thinks about Annette Lundstr?m.
Born in an isolated village up in Norrland. Possibly involved as a child in a sect in which sexual abuse of children took place. Married to her cousin Karl. The sexual abuse continues, spreading like poison through the generations. Families fracture. Implode. They wipe themselves out.
‘Are you ready for more?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ve checked Annette Lundstr?m’s bank account, and …’ Hurtig pauses for a moment before going on. ‘You always say you should act on gut feeling, so I did, and it turns out that someone recently paid half a million kronor into her account.’
Shit, Jeanette thinks. Someone really wants to hush up what happened to Linnea.
Judas money.
Johan Printz V?g – a Suburb
ULRIKA WENDIN SWITCHES her mobile off and heads down into the metro at Skanstull. She feels relieved that the secretary rather than Sofia Zetterlund herself had answered when she called to say she wasn’t going to come any more.
Ulrika Wendin is ashamed that she has allowed herself to be silenced.
Fifty thousand isn’t a lot of money, but she’s been able to pay the rent for the next six months, and buy herself a new laptop.
At the barrier to the metro she sticks her foot far enough under the metal bar to activate the sensor so she can pull the turnstile towards her and slip through.
Von Kwist had sounded upset that she had been to see Sofia. Probably worried that the conversational therapy would reveal what Viggo Dürer and Karl Lundstr?m had done to her.
Ulrika Wendin thinks about Jeanette Kihlberg, who had seemed OK despite being a cop.
Should she have told her everything?
No. She doesn’t feel up to going through it all again, and besides, she doubts anyone would believe her. Much better to keep quiet, because if you stick your chin out you’re likely to get punched.