Jeanette laughs. ‘And talk about anything apart from work. Sounds good. Big hug.’
Not back to my place, Sofia thinks. The apartment is still festooned with all of Victoria’s notes, newspaper articles and scraps of paper.
She needs to take care of that soon. Burn the whole lot.
She puts the biography of Chikatilo aside and gets out the old overview of sadism and sexuality. It’s in surprisingly good condition, which is probably due to the fact that it doesn’t get taken out very often, and she soon realises why. Psychopathia Sexualis is written in old-fashioned, long-winded English that’s very difficult to understand. After half an hour’s reading she decides that the book is entirely useless in most respects, not just because she can’t understand it all, but because its conclusions are obsolete. She herself saw through Freud at the age of seventeen, and ever since then has been sceptical about seeing things in symbolic terms, and about cast-iron theories. She has dismissed all writing about women’s feelings and desires because it has, without exception, been carried out by men. A position that she has never had any reason to reconsider.
On the other hand, she thinks that Freud’s opinions about libido, life instinct and sexual desire are still relevant and interesting. That the libido, alongside aggression, is the strongest urge of humankind.
Attraction, longing, desire and lust, in combination with violence.
Sofia closes the book, gets up and goes over to the bar to pay. She hands the bartender a couple of notes. ‘Who are they?’ she asks, nodding towards the group of Germans.
‘The Germans?’ The bartender laughs. ‘They’re on a pilgrimage, walking in the Great Man’s footsteps. They’re crazy for anecdotes about him.’
‘The Great Man?’
‘Yes. Stieg Larsson, you know?’ The bartender smiles and hands over her change.
As she leaves the Bishop’s Arms she takes out her notepad again. She thinks about Madeleine, and writes a few lines as she walks over the cobbles.
Her writing is almost illegible.
‘Madeleine is her mother’s sister, and her father is also her grandfather, and she has the right to hate them more than anyone. If I didn’t know that I set fire to the house in V?rmd? myself, I’d be inclined to believe that it was Madeleine.’
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
JENS HURTIG IS sitting in a chair on the other side of Jeanette’s desk, following her conversation with the Ukrainian police officer Iwan Lowynsky on speakerphone with growing interest.
Schwarz and ?hlund are listening from the doorway.
‘Where did he disappear?’ Jeanette repeats the question because she didn’t catch the name of the metro station in Kiev where the boy used to hang out, and the place where he was last seen.
‘Syrets. Syrets station. Near Babi Yar. Never mind. I send you details.’
‘Funny.’ Schwarz grins. ‘Went missing from a metro station in one part of the world, found at another. In a slightly worse condition, of course.’
Jeanette’s glare makes Schwarz shut up instantly, and he realises it’s time to retreat.
Hurtig wonders how the hell Schwarz ever got his badge.
‘You said there were two people missing from the Syrets station. Two boys, both child prostitutes. Brothers. Itkul and Karakul Zumbayev. Is that correct?’
‘Correct,’ Lowynsky replies.
A long silence. Hurtig guesses that Jeanette is waiting for a more explicit answer.
‘Karakul is still missing?’ she tries instead.
‘Yes,’ Lowynsky says in reply.
‘And their connections to … Sorry, I didn’t get this down right, Kyso –’
‘Kyzylorda Oblast. Parents are gypsies from region in south Kazakhstan. Brothers born in Romanky outside Kiev. Get it?’
‘Yes …’ Hurtig sees Jeanette frowning as she makes notes.
‘So,’ Lowynsky says, and Hurtig thinks it sounds like he’s yawning. ‘Duty calls. Keep in contact?’
‘Of course. Thank you.’
‘You will have our identikit in two hours. Thank you, Miss Killberg.’
There’s a crackle on the speakerphone as Iwan Lowynsky hangs up.
‘Killberg.’ Hurtig smiles. ‘If he thinks that’s how your name is pronounced, he must think it pretty funny considering what your job is.’
Jeanette doesn’t seem to notice the joke, or else her mind is busy elsewhere. When she’s this focused it can be hard to reach her, he thinks, and looks at the clock. Long past lunchtime. ‘What do you say? Shall we go out and get some food?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, I can’t eat now. But I’d like a walk.’
Five minutes later they’re walking down Bergsgatan towards Kungsholmen Church. Hurtig is shivering, and as he rubs his hands together to get the circulation going he feels old. His body has started to feel the cold in a way it’s never done before, and he knows that the only thing that helps is a really hot shower. But that will have to wait.
Beside the door of the kebab shop stands an old man playing well-known tunes on an untuned violin, and Hurtig is fascinated by how he can manage to keep his fingers warm in the cold. It doesn’t sound any good, but he puts a twenty-krona note in the little paper cup by the man’s feet.
Hurtig goes in and orders a large lamb kebab. ‘Seeing as I can’t think on an empty stomach, unlike you, you can tell me how you believe we ought to proceed.’ He opens the bag, pulls out the foil-wrapped bundle and starts to bite into the pitta bread.
‘There’s one thing that struck me,’ Jeanette begins. ‘And it was actually Schwarz’s moronic comment that made me realise it.’
‘OK, I’m being slow.’
‘The boy vanished from and was found at metro stations. Coincidence, do you think?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’
‘How about this?’ she goes on. ‘The same person who seized the boy in Kiev also dumped him in Stockholm. And I think that person is a seasoned traveller in Eastern Europe, or maybe comes from there. Knows the area. Knows what he’s doing.’
‘How can you be so sure that –’
‘I’m not. I just said I think, not that I know.’
Hurtig bites into the meat. ‘Lowynsky said two gypsy brothers went missing at the same time,’ he says between mouthfuls. ‘One is our boy, and the other is still missing. What do you think about that, then?’
‘I think the other boy is dead too, and is lying somewhere in Stockholm waiting to be found.’
‘You’re probably right,’ he concedes. ‘What about the identikit? Do you think we can expect anything from that?’