Go home and eat alone.
When the waiter notices her she orders a glass of red wine. One of their finest.
Victoria Bergman raises the glass to her lips.
Go home.
The Sleepwalker is gone and she looks around.
One of the men at the bar turns round to stare out of the large glass window overlooking the Skanstull Bridge. She looks at him. He has a bloated, vacant expression.
She makes eye contact almost immediately. But it’s too soon to act. She must have patience, make them wait. That enhances the experience. She wants to make them explode. See them lying on their backs, exhausted and defenceless.
But he mustn’t be too drunk, and the man at the bar is anything but sober, his face wet with sweat in the glow of the lights on the shelves behind the bar, and he’s unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie because the alcohol has made his throat swell.
He’s of no interest, and she looks away.
Five minutes later her glass is empty and she discreetly signals for a refill. As the waiter serves her the room gets noisier. A group of men in suits sit down on the sofas to her left. A total of thirteen men in expensive suits, and a woman in a Versace dress.
She shuts her eyes and listens to their loud conversation.
After a few minutes she knows that twelve of the suits are Germans, probably from the north of Germany, maybe Hamburg. The dress is their Swedish hostess, and her poor, broken German comes from Gothenburg. The last of the suits hasn’t said a word yet, and when she opens her eyes she’s curious about him.
He’s sitting on the armchair closest to her, and is the youngest member of the group. He looks shy when he smiles and is probably the one whom his colleagues give an encouraging slap on the back to if he ever disappears to his room with female company. Between twenty-five and thirty, and not too handsome. The handsome ones aren’t as good in bed, because they generally assume their looks mean they don’t have to try. But it really doesn’t matter how good they are, because it isn’t the act itself that she enjoys.
It takes her less than five minutes to entice him to her table, order fresh drinks and get him to relax.
He orders a dark beer, and she has a third glass of wine.
‘Ich bezahle die n?chste Runde,’ she says. She’ll get the next round, because she’s not an escort girl.
His shyness soon vanishes and his smile is relaxed as he talks about his work and the conference in Stockholm, how important it is to network in his business, and obviously there’s a hint at how much he earns. The human male has no glorious display of feathers to act as bait. He uses money instead.
His money is visible in his suit, his shirt and tie; it’s there in his aftershave and it shines from his shoes and tiepin. Yet he still has to imply that he has an expensive car in the garage and a well-stocked investment portfolio. The only thing he doesn’t mention is that he has a wife and children at home in the villa outside Hamburg, but that’s not too hard to work out, seeing as he’s wearing a wedding ring and accidentally revealed a photograph of two little girls when he opened his wallet.
He’ll do, she thinks.
She does it to get close to them. For a brief period she can be their wives, daughters and lovers. All at the same time. Then they disappear out of her life.
It’s the emptiness afterwards that’s nicest.
Victoria Bergman puts her hand on the man’s thigh and whispers something in his ear. He nods, and looks simultaneously uncertain and expectant. She’s just about to tell him that there’s nothing to worry about when she feels a hand on her shoulder.
‘Sofia?’
She starts and her body becomes inexplicably heavy, but she doesn’t turn round.
Her eyes are still focused on the young man’s face, but it looks blurred all of a sudden.
His features are merging together, her head is spinning, and for a moment it feels like the world is rotating an extra turn.
She wakes very quickly, and when she looks up there’s a stranger in a suit sitting beside her. She realises that she’s got her hand on his thigh and quickly jerks it away.
‘Sorry, I –’
‘Sofia Zetterlund?’ the voice repeats behind her.
She recognises it, but is still surprised to find that it belongs to one of her former clients.
Hundudden – Island of Djurg?rden
FROM THE WINDOWS in the stairwell of the building opposite they have a good view into the apartment. Hurtig and Jeanette quickly realise that the five-room apartment on Biblioteksgatan registered to Viggo Dürer’s company has been completely cleaned out.
On the way to Dürer’s property in Norra Djurg?rden Jeanette has a feeling that they’re going to find the same thing there – nothing. The forest gets thicker and the buildings sparser.
Shadows are soon descending around them, it’s starting to feel chilly and Jeanette asks Hurtig to turn the heating up. It feels like they’re driving through a tunnel of black pine trees, and Jeanette is surprised that there are places like this so close to the city. She is being lulled into a meditative calm that’s abruptly interrupted when her mobile rings. It’s ?hlund.
‘I’ve checked hotels in and around Stockholm,’ he says.
‘And?’
‘There are seven guests with the first name Madeleine, but no Madeleine Silfverberg. I checked them out anyway, just in case. If she’s using a false identity, she might have chosen to keep her first name. That’s fairly common. And she might be married, of course. We don’t really know anything about her.’
Jeanette agrees. ‘Good thinking. Have you found anything interesting?’
‘I don’t know. We can definitely write off six of them – I’ve managed to get hold of them – but the seventh is missing. Her name’s Madeleine Duchamp, and she booked in using a French driving licence.’
Jeanette perks up. A French driving licence?
‘She checked out of Sj?fartshotellet, down near Slussen, earlier today.’
‘OK.’ She calms down slightly. Even if Madeleine has lived in the south of France for the past few years, according to their information she’s still a Danish citizen. ‘I want you to go to the hotel and talk to the staff. Find out anything you can, but try to get a description, above everything else.’
They end the call, and Hurtig looks at her inquisitively. ‘Is it still worth a try, do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘But I don’t want to miss anything.’
Hurtig nods and slows down as the road curves once more. ‘Here it is,’ he says, turning off onto a narrow gravel track.
The forest is dense and seems to surround the property.
They get out of the car and find themselves standing in front of a metal gate more than two and a half metres tall. ‘Can you climb?’ Hurtig sighs. ‘Or shall we try to find a way through the undergrowth?’