Sticky chocolate cake, she thinks, hearing her mother’s voice.
Two eggs, two hundred and fifty grams of sugar, four tablespoons of cocoa, two teaspoons of vanilla sugar, one hundred grams of butter, one hundred and fifty grams of flour and half a teaspoon of salt.
‘Sorry I’m a bit late, it’s been a hell of a day.’
‘That’s OK,’ she says, pulling away from the embrace.
Reality comes back, her field of vision expands and her hearing returns to normal, while at the same time her pulse rate drops. Sofia looks at the receptionist. ‘I’m going now. See you tomorrow,’ she says, leading Jeanette towards the door. They go out to the lobby and into the lift.
As the door closes and the lift begins to move downward Jeanette takes a step towards her, cups her face in both hands and kisses her.
At first Sofia stiffens, taken aback, but gradually feels a sense of calm spreading out as her body softens, and she shuts her eyes and returns the kiss. For a moment everything stops. Sofia’s head is completely silent, and the way she feels as the lift finally comes to a stop and their lips part might best be described as happiness.
What’s happening? she thinks.
Everything is going so fast.
First she was sitting at her desk, then she went through Samuel Bai’s records, and after that Ann-Britt said he only came to see her three times. And then Jeanette arrived, and kissed her.
She looks at the time. An hour?
She thinks back and quickly realises that there’s a gap in her memory. The past hour feels like it’s been on fast-forward, and Jeanette’s kiss seems to have acted like the stop button. Sofia is breathing calmly again now.
Three times? she thinks, but knows that that’s right.
She has clear memories of three sessions with Samuel Bai.
No more.
The other memories are false, and are mixed up with the time she spent working for UNICEF in Sierra Leone. Everything is becoming clearer, and she gives Jeanette a smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve come.’
Their walk to the other side of S?dermalm resembles the Sleepwalker’s route. A semicircular detour, Swedenborgsgatan to S?dra station, then down to Ringv?gen, past the Clarion Hotel, turning north into Renstiernas gata towards the hills of Vita bergen.
Jeanette’s voice whispering in her ear, her arm around her waist and a light kiss on her neck. The warmth of her breath.
‘Things are starting to move at work,’ she goes on. ‘The boy we found at Thorildsplan has been identified. His name is Itkul, and he’s one of two brothers who’ve been missing for some time.’
The calmness Sofia feels is very pleasant. She’s fragile, open to everything being said to her, prepared for the possibility that Victoria might react, but she feels calm at the prospect.
It’s time to lower her guard and just let everything happen.
‘And the other brother?’ Sofia asks, even though she’s sure the boy is dead.
‘His name is Karakul, still missing.’
‘Sounds like human trafficking,’ she says.
‘The brothers were working as prostitutes.’ Jeanette sighs and falls silent, but Sofia has no problem realising what she means. She can see the chain of events as clearly as if it had been spelled out to her.
The arm around her waist again, and the warmth of Jeanette’s breath once more. ‘We’ve got an identikit,’ she says. ‘But I’m not expecting much. The witness is an eight-year-old girl who’s blind in one eye, and as far as the face in the picture is concerned, it’s – how can I put it – neutral? I can’t even see it in my mind’s eye now, even though I’ve spent half the afternoon staring at it.’
Sofia nods. She’s never had a face in mind while she’s been working on the perpetrator profile. But a blank slate. This type of murderer is faceless until they get caught, and then they look like anyone at all, like an ordinary man in the street.
‘And then there’s Karl Lundstr?m and Per-Ola Silfverberg,’ Jeanette goes on. ‘We know who killed them. Their names were Hannah ?stlund and Jessica Friberg. They were also responsible for killing the homeless woman in the cavern. They’ve committed suicide, you’ll probably see it in the papers soon. Almost everyone involved was at boarding school in Sigtuna.’
Sofia replies to Jeanette, but doesn’t hear what she says. Possibly something along the lines of not being surprised. But she is.
Hannah and Jessica? Sofia thinks. She knows she ought to be reacting more strongly than she is, but she feels nothing but emptiness, and that’s because it can’t be right. Victoria knows Hannah and Jessica, and they’re not murderers. They’re apathetic little girls who like dogs, and Jeanette’s got it all wrong, but she can’t tell her that, not yet.
‘How can you be so sure it was those two?’
Sofia imagines she can see a hint of doubt in Jeanette’s eyes. ‘Several reasons. Among other things we’ve got a picture of Hannah ?stlund killing Fredrika Grünewald. She’s got a very specific distinguishing feature. She’s missing her right ring finger.’
Sofia knows that’s true. Hannah was bitten by a dog and had to have her finger amputated.
Nonetheless … Jeanette’s explanation sounds a bit too rehearsed.
Now Sofia takes the initiative for a kiss. They stop in a doorway on Bondegatan and Jeanette’s arms slip under Sofia’s coat.
They stay in the doorway for a while, wrapped up in the warmth of their embrace.
Physical closeness can be so liberating. Five minutes in which thoughts drift apart, only to collect themselves into a new, clearer structure afterwards.
‘Come on,’ Jeanette eventually says. ‘I’m hungry, I didn’t have any lunch.’
Jeanette gives Sofia a serious look as she opens the door to the bar. ‘Charlotte Silfverberg has committed suicide,’ she says. ‘Several people saw her jump from a Finland ferry late in the evening of the day before yesterday. It feels like everyone involved in this story ends up dead before their time. There’s only Annette Lundstr?m left, and we both know what sort of state she’s in.’
As they step inside the glazed porch, Sofia isn’t thinking about Annette or Charlotte.
She’s thinking about Madeleine.
Jeanette interrupts her thoughts. ‘What’s annoying me most about all this,’ she says as she takes her jacket off, ‘is that I never got to meet Victoria Bergman.’
Sofia can feel her skin tighten and shrink.
‘Although I did talk to her once, funnily enough.’
Hello, my name’s Jeanette Kihlberg, I’m calling from the Stockholm police. I’ve actually been given this phone number by your father’s lawyer, who’s wondering if you’d be able to act as a character witness for your father in a forthcoming trial.
‘What’s funny about that?’ Sofia says.
‘She was given a protected identity and disappeared off all official registers. But at least I got the chance to meet her former psychologist.’