To his right is a small window with the curtains drawn, and in the background the edge of a forest. It looks to Jeanette like a perfectly ordinary holiday snap. But there’s something about it that she recognises.
She lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out through the gap in the small side window, nervously tapping the cigarette with one finger even though there’s no ash to knock off.
‘I think I saw it on one of Lundstr?m’s videos,’ she says.
They’re interrupted when the door opens and Schwarz comes flying in, closely followed by ?hlund. They’re both drenched. The water from Schwarz’s cropped head forms a small pool on the floor.
‘Christ, it’s coming down,’ ?hlund says, tossing his wet coat over an empty chair and squatting down while Schwarz leans against the wall and looks around the room.
‘So what have you got?’ Jeanette asks.
?hlund tells them that among Hannah ?stlund’s possessions was a deed of gift declaring that Hannah was assuming ownership of a house in the village of ?nge, south of Arjeplog in Lapland.
‘And that’s not all,’ ?hlund goes on. ‘Hannah ?stlund in turn donated the house to Sihtunum i Diasporan. For the foundation “to use as necessary,” I think it said.’
‘Why didn’t we see it when we went through the foundation’s assets?’ Hurtig asks.
‘Probably because it was never legally ratified. According to the land registry it’s still in Hannah ?stlund’s name.’
‘So who gave the house to Hannah in the first place?’ Jeanette asks eagerly, getting the feeling that things were really moving now.
‘His name was Anders Wikstr?m,’ Schwarz says.
Jeanette walks round the desk and goes to stand by the window. ‘The same Wikstr?m who took part in raping Ulrika,’ she says, lighting another cigarette.
What was wrong with all those men? she wonders, aware that she’ll probably never get an answer to that.
‘So what’s the connection between Anders Wikstr?m and Karl Lundstr?m?’ Schwarz asks.
Hurtig explains how it all fits together. ‘Lundstr?m said they recorded one of the films in Wikstr?m’s cottage in ?nge, outside Sundsvall, because that’s where Wikstr?m lived. But there’s evidently another ?nge, in Lapland.’
Only now does Jeanette realise what it was that she recognised. The curtains, she thinks, picking up the photograph they found at Dürer’s home once more.
‘Do you see?’ she says, pointing animatedly at the picture. ‘In the window behind Dürer?’
‘Red curtains with white flowers,’ ?hlund says.
Jeanette gets her phone out and dials the prosecutor’s number. ‘I’ll call von Kwist and arrange transport to Lapland. I just hope we aren’t too late.’ Her thoughts go to Ulrika, and she prays that she’s still alive.
Arlanda Airport
THERE ARE STILL two hours to go before the plane takes off when Madeleine completes her electronic check-in and heads towards the security control. She’s travelling light and the only things the customs officers have to check are her handbag and cobalt-blue coat. She’s forced to abandon her cup of ice before she gets to the desk.
Frozen water can be explosive, she thinks as she tips out the last pieces of ice. In some ways that’s true.
She closes her eyes as she passes through the metal detector. For some reason the magnetic field always affects her and the scar at the back of her head tingles. Sometimes it even gives her a headache.
She gets her bag and coat off the conveyor belt and goes into the departure hall. Large groups of people unsettle her. Too many faces, too many possible life stories, and the people are all so tragically unaware of their own vulnerability. She speeds up and heads directly to passport control.
As she waits in the queue her headache arrives. The magnetic field has done its thing and she reaches for a pill from her bag and swallows it as she runs her fingers over the scar beneath her hair.
The border police officer examines her papers, a French passport in the name of Duchamp and a one-way ticket to Kiev, Ukraine. He scarcely looks at her before handing the documents back. She notes the time and checks the screens. The departure looks like it’s going to be on time, in ninety minutes, and she settles down to wait in a corner at the back of the lounge.
After Kiev and her appointment at Babi Yar she’s going to leave everything behind her. Her agreement with Viggo is the conclusion to it all. Now that Victoria Bergman has gone for good, there’s nothing left to do.
She’s tired, terribly tired, and the sound of all the voices is horribly irritating. An unholy mix of banal conversations and noisy arguments that only make her headache worse.
She tries to listen to the noise without hearing individual words and sentences. But it doesn’t work, there are always voices that take over.
She gets her mobile out of her bag, puts on the headphones and selects the radio option. She tunes into a frequency with nothing but static. A low, soothing hiss, and now she can hear herself think.
I’m down at the beach at Ven? Bay, collecting stones, she thinks.
The sound of the sea and the wind is mine alone. I’m ten years old and I’m wearing a red jacket, red trousers and white wellington boots.
The hissing in her headphones is the sea, and her thoughts drift off. The ?land Sea a few days ago.
The woman who called herself my mother couldn’t bear the shame, she thinks. I showed her pictures of her just standing by and watching without doing anything.
Pictures of children screaming in pain, pictures of children who don’t understand what’s happening, pictures of me, ten years old, naked on a blanket on the beach.
She couldn’t bear it, and took her shame with her down into the depths.
There’s a sudden change in the static and Madeleine remembers the faint sound of a motorway somewhere in the background. A smell of shampoo and fresh sheets. She shuts her eyes and lets the images come. The room is white and she is small, just a few days old, lying in someone’s arms. Women in neatly pressed white uniforms, some with masks over their mouths. She’s warm, full, content. She feels safe and doesn’t want to be anywhere but there, with her ear against a chest that rises and falls in time with her own breathing.
Two hearts beating the same pulse.
A hand stroking her belly, it tickles, and when she opens her eyes she sees a mouth in which one of the front teeth is chipped.
Martin
THE WATER WAS lapping under the jetty and he curled up close to Victoria. He didn’t understand how she could be so warm even though she was only wearing underpants.
‘You’re my little boy,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘What are you thinking?’