‘Karl and Viggo. And P-O and Gert.’
The men, in other words, he thinks. ‘But Karl, P-O, Viggo and Gert are all dead.’
Shit, why did I say that? he thinks the moment he says it.
Annette Lundstr?m looks utterly confused. ‘Stop it. Why are you teasing me? I don’t think this conversation is fun any more. You can go now.’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I was wrong. I’ll go very shortly, but there’s one thing I’ve been wondering about. Of course Viggo was –’ He breaks off. Think before you speak. Play it her way. ‘Of course Viggo is a good person, and I’ve heard that he helps poor children to have a better life in Sweden, that he finds adoptive families for them. Is that right?’
The woman frowns. ‘Well, of course it is. Haven’t I already said that? I told that other police officer, that Sofia what’s-her-name. Viggo was so kind to those children.’
A lot of information, Hurtig thinks. He makes notes as she talks, and a bizarre world is starting to take shape on his pad. He doesn’t yet know if what he’s looking at is real or just the world view of someone suffering from psychosis, but he’s going to have plenty to talk to Jeanette about, because he can see patterns in what Annette Lundstr?m is saying, even if she’s confusing basics concepts like time and space.
She’s talking about Sihtunum i Diasporan, the foundation that Viggo Dürer, Karl Lundstr?m and Bengt Bergman were all involved in. It all sounds so nice, the way Annette describes it. The adopted children got along so well in Sweden, and the project abroad helped so many poor people.
‘Do you know Victoria’s father, Bengt Bergman?’
‘No,’ she replies. ‘He helped Karl, P-O, Gert and Viggo to fund the foundation, but I’ve never met him.’
Another direct answer, and a correct one at that. OK, he thinks. Just one more question.
‘Pythia’s instructions. What does that mean?’
Once again the woman looks uncomprehending. ‘Don’t you know? Your colleague asked about that as well, that Sofia I spoke to a few days ago.’
‘No, I don’t actually know. But I’ve heard that it’s a book. Have you read it?’
She looks bemused again. ‘No, of course I haven’t.’
‘Why not?’
The emptiness returns to the woman’s eyes.
‘I’ve never seen a book with that title. Pythia’s instructions are the original words, they’re ancient and must never be questioned.’
She falls silent and looks down at the floor.
As Hurtig leaves Rosenlund Hospital behind him and pulls out onto Ringv?gen, his thoughts slowly begin to settle into a pattern that makes sense.
Pythia’s instructions, he thinks. Something exclusively for the men. Rules and truths that they invented for their own purposes. The term that best seems to describe it is ‘brainwashing’.
He’s sure that Jeanette will have something to say about all this, and as he stops at a traffic light he wonders how she’s getting on. When she called to say that she was going to take a look at Lundstr?m’s films, he had wished he could have been there to support her. He knows she’s tough, but how tough do you have to be not to end up a complete wreck?
Twenty minutes later, when he opens the door of the room in National Crime where Jeanette is sitting, the answer to his question is etched on her face.
Sunflower Nursing Home
VICTORIA BERGMAN IS writing frenetically. Line after line about her daughter, Madeleine, while Sofia Zetterlund sits beside her and listens to the rasp of the pen.
Her cataract-stricken eyes can’t see, but they’re staring at Victoria.
‘I understand that you’re not finished with yourself yet,’ the old woman says.
Victoria isn’t listening to her, but after a while she stops writing, looks at the notepad, and circles a few key sentences before she puts her pen down.
CAPSULOTOMY HAD OPPOSITE EFFECT.
SUICIDAL BEHAVIOUR – COMPLETE LACK OF IMPULSE CONTROL.
MANIC IDEAS TAINTED BY RITUAL.
Then she looks up at Sofia, who holds out a trembling, wrinkled hand. She takes it, and soon feels a sense of calm return.
‘I’m worried about you,’ Sofia says quietly. ‘They haven’t gone yet, have they?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Crow Girl and the others.’
Victoria swallows. ‘No … Not Crow Girl, and maybe not the Sleepwalker. But all the others have gone. She helped me with that.’
‘She?’
‘Yes … I’ve been seeing a psychotherapist for a while. She’s been helping me with my problems.’
I’ve helped myself, Victoria thinks. The Sleepwalker has helped me.
‘Really? A psychologist?’
‘Hmm … She’s a lot like you, actually. But obviously she doesn’t have your long experience.’
Sofia Zetterlund smiles enigmatically, squeezes Victoria’s hand a bit tighter before letting go of it, then picks up the pack of cigarettes again. ‘Let’s have another one each. After that I daren’t have any more. The manager is a hard woman, even if she must have a good heart somewhere.’
A good heart? Who has a good heart?
‘Victoria, you wrote to me a few years ago and told me you were working as a psychologist. Are you still doing that?’
No one has a good heart. The ground in all human hearts is more or less stony.
‘Sort of.’
Sofia seems happy with the answer, lights her cigarette and hands one to Victoria. ‘Well, then,’ she says. ‘You’ve made an old woman very happy, but rather tired, and I don’t think I can do anything more at the moment. I lose my focus and start to forget, and then I get sleepy. But the new pills they’ve put me on are better, and I’m much brighter than I was when that police officer came to ask about you.’
Victoria says nothing.
‘I was more muddled then,’ Sofia goes on. ‘But to be honest, not as muddled as that policewoman probably thought. Sometimes it’s useful being this old, you can pull out a bit of dementia whenever you need to. Except when I’m muddled for real, of course. Obviously it’s hard to pretend when you don’t need to.’
‘What were they doing here?’ Victoria asks.
Sofia blows another smoke ring over the table. ‘They were looking for you, of course. The one who was here was named Jeanette Kihlberg. I promised I’d ask you to contact her if I heard from you.’
‘OK, I’ll do that.’
‘Good …’ Sofia smiles weakly and sinks into her chair.
Nowhere
HER BODY IS just a few centimetres from the ceiling, and she’s looking down on herself, at the girl who’s tied up, thirsty and starving in a coffin under the ground.
She has a narrow tube in her mouth and they’re feeding her the bitter, dry sludge she was given before. Food that just makes her weaker, an anti-food. Nuts and seeds, and something that tastes like resin, but she doesn’t know what it is.
But she no longer cares. She feels light and happy.