Jeanette saw that he was seriously upset now.
‘I have work to do, you know,’ he went on, throwing his arms out. ‘God, you’re suffocating.’
Jeanette could feel herself getting angry. ‘So do something about it then!’ she yelled. ‘Get yourself a proper job instead of lazing about at home!’
‘What are you fighting about?’ Johan was standing in the doorway. He was dressed, but his hair was still wet. Jeanette could see how sad he was.
‘We’re not fighting.’ ?ke went over to the coffee machine. ‘Your mum and I were just talking.’
‘It didn’t sound like it.’ Johan turned to go back to his room.
‘Come and sit down, Johan.’ Jeanette let out a heavy sigh and glanced at her watch. ‘Dad and I are sorry we missed the match yesterday. I see you won. Congratulations!’ Jeanette held up the paper and pointed to the picture.
‘Oh,’ Johan said, and sighed, sitting down at the breakfast table.
‘You know,’ Jeanette began, ‘we’ve both got a lot on our minds at the moment, your dad and I, with work and …’ She started to make a sandwich as she searched for words that weren’t there. They had let him down, and there were no good excuses.
She put the sandwich in front of Johan, who looked at it with distaste.
‘Everyone else’s parents were there, and they all have jobs as well.’
Jeanette looked at ?ke for some support, but he was still standing and looking out the window.
Unconditional love, she thought. She was the one who was supposed to be the bearer of that, but without noticing it she had somehow shifted the burden to her son’s shoulders.
‘But you know,’ she said, giving Johan a beseeching look, ‘Mum goes out catching bad guys so you and your friends and their parents can sleep soundly at night.’
Johan glared at her, and in his eyes was a flash of fury that she’d never seen before.
‘You’ve been telling me that since I was five years old!’ he yelled, getting up from the table. ‘I’m not a bloody child any more!’
The door to Johan’s room slammed.
Jeanette sat with her cup of coffee between her hands. It was warm. The only thing that was warm at that moment.
‘How did it come to this?’
?ke turned and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I can’t remember it being any other way,’ he said, and looked away, then glanced back at her. ‘I’m going to start the washing machine.’
He turned his back on her and walked out.
Jeanette buried her face in her hands. Tears were burning behind her eyelids. She could feel the ground giving way beneath her feet. Everything she had taken for granted was being shaken to its foundations. Who was she really, without them?
She pulled herself together, went out into the hall, grabbed her jacket and left without saying goodbye. They didn’t want her there.
She got in the car and drove off to what was left of her life.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
WHILE SHE WAS waiting to get hold of von Kwist she read everything she could find about anaesthetics in general, and Xylocain in particular.
At half past ten she finally managed to reach the prosecutor by phone.
‘Why are you so insistent?’ he began. ‘As far as I’m aware, you’ve got nothing to do with that case. It’s one of Mikkelsen’s, isn’t it?’
Jeanette felt herself getting annoyed at his authoritarian tone.
‘Yes, that’s true, but there are a number of things I’d like to get clear. Things he said in his interviews that I’ve been wondering about.’
‘I see – like what?’
‘The most important is that he claims to know how to go about buying a child. A child that no one would miss, which you can later pay to get rid of. Then there’s a couple of other things I’d like to get clear with him.’
‘Such as?’
‘The dead boys had been castrated, and their bodies contain an anaesthetic used by dentists. Karl Lundstr?m has fairly extreme views about castration, and, as I’m sure you’re aware, his wife is a dentist. In short, I believe he’s of interest to my investigation.’
‘Excuse me …’ Von Kwist cleared his throat. ‘But I think it sounds very hazy. Nothing concrete. And there’s also something you don’t know.’ He fell silent.
‘Really? What is it I don’t know?’
‘That he was under the influence of strong medication during those interviews.’
‘OK, but surely that doesn’t explain –’
‘My dear,’ he interrupted her, ‘you don’t know which medication we’re talking about.’
The prosecutor’s patronising arrogance made her boil with rage, but she realised she had to keep her cool.
‘No, that’s true. Which medication are we talking about?’
She heard him rustle some papers.
‘Does the name Xanor ring any bells?’
Jeanette thought.
‘No, I can’t say –’
‘I thought as much. Because if it did you wouldn’t be taking Lundstr?m’s claims seriously.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Xanor is the same drug that made Thomas Quick confess to pretty much every murder that’s ever been committed. If they’d asked him, he’d probably have taken responsibility for Palme’s murder and the Kennedy assassination as well. Maybe even the Rwandan genocide.’ Von Kwist chuckled at his own joke.
‘So you mean –’
‘That there’s no point in you taking this any further. Let me put it this way: I forbid you to take this any further.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘Of course I can. I’ve already spoken to Billing.’
Jeanette was shaking with anger. If it hadn’t been for the prosecutor’s arrogant tone, she might have been able to accept his decision, but right now it just strengthened her determination to defy him. She didn’t care how many drugs Lundstr?m was on, what he had said was far too interesting to dismiss.
She wasn’t about to give up.
Mariatorget – Sofia Zetterlund’s Office
THUNDER-BLACK RAIN was pattering on the copper roof of the München Brewery, and every now and then the water of Riddarfj?rden Bay was lit up by sharp lightning.
Sofia’s headache had got worse, and she went into the toilets, rinsed her face and took three aspirin. She hoped that would be enough to get a bit of strength back.
She unlocked the cupboard under her desk, took out the file on Karl Lundstr?m, and read it through to refresh her memory.
Her recommendation was based on the fact that nothing had emerged during their conversations that would justify secure psychiatric care. She had explained her decision by saying that Karl Lundstr?m’s opinions were based on ideological conviction, and that as a result she recommended prison.
That was unlikely, however.
Every indication was that the district court would decide to put Karl Lundstr?m in a mental health facility. Because he had been under the influence of Xanor in his interviews and during their sessions in Huddinge, her conclusions weren’t regarded as valid for the basis of a court judgment.