Then the other boy sits on top of him and starts punching him.
Jeanette is feeling sick and freezes the picture. Organised dogfights, she thinks. Had Ivo been right from the very start?
‘Christ,’ she says to Hurtig with a sigh. ‘Is he beating the other boy to death?’
Hurtig looks at her intently, but says nothing.
She fast-forwards instead, which makes is slightly easier to bear the abuse that follows.
After a couple of minutes she punches the stop button and returns to normal speed again. To her relief she sees that the boy on the ground is still alive; his chest is moving up and down as he breathes. The other boy gets up and stands in the middle of the filthy floor of the pen. Then he walks towards the camera, and just before he disappears out of view he gives it a quick smile. She quickly rewinds a few frames, and freezes the image once more, in the middle of the boy’s smile.
‘Do you see that?’ she says.
‘I see it,’ Hurtig replies quietly. ‘He’s proud.’
She lets the film run again, but nothing more happens apart from the child in Charlotte Silfverberg’s lap starting to wriggle, and just as she starts to comfort the child the film stops.
Philosophy, Jeanette thinks. Just as with the film from Sigtuna College, the sexual elements are incomprehensible to her, and she wonders if this is really all about sexuality.
Who could get turned on by this?
‘Can you manage any more?’ she asks Hurtig.
‘To be honest … I don’t know.’ He looks tired and demoralised.
They’re interrupted by a quick knock at the door, and Kevin comes in with some sheets of paper in his hand. ‘How are you getting on?’ he asks. ‘Have you seen the film on the farm?’
‘Yes,’ Jeanette replies, then falls silent because she doesn’t know what she can say about what she’s just watched.
‘The rest of the material on ?stlund’s computer is more obvious child pornography,’ Kevin says, and Jeanette decides instantly that those films will have to wait. That’s a case for National Crime. She’s got what she needed. Evidence of the sect’s existence, and that Ulrika Wendin’s story was true. Maybe she’ll also be able to find out who was sitting in the corner during the rape.
‘Would you be able to help me compare this profile with the man in the hotel room?’ she asks, rewinding the film to the part where the man in profile is visible.
‘Sure.’ With a few quick movements Kevin brings up the two sequences alongside each other on the screen. There’s no doubt that it’s the same man.
‘How did you do with the registration numbers?’ She can hear how agitated her voice sounds.
He nods. ‘Printouts from the vehicle registry from the time when the recording was made.’
Jeanette looks at the list of names to whom the cars were registered. She’s aware that it might contain innocent people who just happened to be staying the night at the hotel where the recording was made. But when she sees the names beside the various registration numbers, she realises that she’s looking at a list of the men who raped Ulrika Wendin. A list of names as guilty as the row of spectators in the film they just watched of the pigpen at the farm.
The names on the list are all followed by dates of birth and ID numbers:
BENGT BERGMAN
KARL LUNDSTR?M
ANDERS WIKSTR?M
CARSTEN M?LLER
VIGGO DüRER
Just as Jeanette opens her mouth to read the list out to Hurtig, her mobile phone starts to vibrate in her inside pocket.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
JENS HURTIG CAN tell from Jeanette’s terse responses and facial expression that Ivo Andri? had something very important to say.
‘The same person that dumped the boy in Norra Hammarbyhamnen was in Ulrika Wendin’s flat,’ Jeanette says, putting her mobile back in her inside pocket. ‘The fingerprints from the tape match some that Ivo found on Ulrika’s fridge. And it’s probably someone who’s been treated for cancer.’
‘Cancer?’ Hurtig says. ‘How does that work?’
‘Chemotherapeutic drugs, cell poisons, can have side effects in the form of anaemia, hair loss or depleted bone marrow, for instance, but certain drugs can also lead to inflammation of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, as well as the toes and fingers. The side effects can lead to bleeding and the loss of skin from the fingers, and that’s what Ivo thinks happened in this case.’
‘OK. So he suspects that the person who tied the bag over the boy has been treated for cancer. How sure is he?’
‘Ivo’s compared pictures of the side effects with our prints, and he says he’s ninety per cent sure, maybe ninety-five.’
‘That’s a lot to take in all at once,’ Hurtig says. ‘National alert for Ulrika Wendin, then?’
Jeanette nods. The look on her washed-out face gives Hurtig a lump in his stomach, because he can see that she likes the girl.
He turns his head to study the printout in Jeanette’s hand. ‘So, those are the men who were at the hotel when Ulrika Wendin was raped,’ he says. ‘Bengt Bergman, Karl Lundstr?m, and …’ He leans closer to get a better look. ‘Viggo Dürer?’
‘That bastard keeps popping up. He’s been at the edge of the picture the whole time, and now literally in those depraved films.’
‘And he’s dead, along with Bergman and Lundstr?m. What about the other names, then? Anyone we know? Anders Wikstr?m and Carsten M?ller?’
‘Don’t you remember? Karl Lundstr?m mentioned an Anders Wikstr?m who had a cottage in ?nge. When he was first questioned, the bastard said that one of the films he had on his computer had been filmed there.’
Hurtig remembers now. Someone named Anders Wikstr?m had cropped up early on in the investigation into Karl Lundstr?m. But the only Wikstr?m they had found in ?nge had been a senile old man who had been written off immediately.
‘But that line of inquiry was dismissed by Mikkelsen,’ he points out.
‘Yes, it was.’ Jeanette looks thoughtful. ‘But Anders Wikstr?m exists, and now we’ve got his ID number.’
‘And Carsten M?ller?’
‘No idea.’ She gets her mobile out again, taps in a number and puts the phone to her ear. ‘?hlund? Put out a national alert for Ulrika Wendin at once, then I’d like you to check something for me. No, two things, actually …’ Hurtig hears her repeat the names and ID numbers of Anders Wikstr?m and Carsten M?ller.
Jeanette is as terse with ?hlund as she had been with Ivo Andri?. Hurtig watches as she quickly makes notes on the printout containing the names of the men who raped Ulrika Wendin and the registration numbers of their cars. A few minutes pass with Jeanette issuing curt orders, and Hurtig realises that ?hlund is working hard at the other end of the line.