‘What haven’t you told us?’
‘It was so humiliating,’ Ulrika eventually said. ‘They did something that made me lose all feeling below my waist, and when they raped me …’ She fell silent again.
Jeanette jumped in. ‘What?’
Ulrika stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another.
‘It just poured out of me. Shit, I mean. Like a fucking baby.’
Jeanette could see that Ulrika was close to bursting into tears. Her eyes were shining and her voice trembling.
‘It was like some sort of ritual. They were enjoying it. It was so fucking humiliating, I never told the police.’
Ulrika wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket.
‘You mean they drugged you with some sort of anaesthetic?’
‘Yes, something like that.’
She looked at Ulrika’s bruise. From her right eye the almost black broken blood vessels formed a network leading down towards her ear.
Recently beaten by a so-called boyfriend. And raped and humiliated seven years ago by four men – one of them Karl Lundstr?m.
‘Let’s go up to my office, then you can give me a detailed statement.’
Ulrika Wendin nodded.
Anaesthetic? Jeanette thought. No one outside the investigation could know that the bodies of the dead boys contained anaesthetic. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Jeanette felt her pulse rate increase.
Mariatorget – Sofia Zetterlund’s Office
WHEN THE PHONE rang Sofia Zetterlund was deep in thought. The shrill ringing tone almost made her spill her coffee. She had been thinking about Lasse.
‘Jeanette Kihlberg here. Is there any chance you could take an early lunch, to give us a bit longer to talk? I can get some Chinese on the way and see you down at the Zinkensdamm sports complex. Do you like Chinese, by the way?’
Two questions and one presumption, all in the same breath. Jeanette Kihlberg didn’t mince her words.
‘That sounds good. The Olympics are in Beijing this year, and I could use the practice,’ Sofia joked.
Jeanette laughed, and they hung up.
Sofia found it hard to concentrate. Lasse was still on her mind.
She opened the desk drawer and took out his photograph.
Tall and dark, with intense eyes. But what she remembered most clearly were his hands. Even though he worked in an office, it was as if nature had equipped him with a pair of sturdy, gnarled hands made for manual labour.
She was also grateful that she had managed to suppress any sense of missing him and replaced it with ambivalence. He didn’t deserve to be missed.
She recalled what she had said to him in the hotel room in New York before everything collapsed.
I’m giving myself to you, Lasse. You get me, all of me, and I trust you to take care of me.
So naive. She’d never make that mistake again. No one would get that close.
Sofia pulled her jacket on and walked out.
Zinkensdamm Sports Complex
‘AH, SO I can put a face to the voice at last,’ Jeanette Kihlberg said, holding out her hand in greeting.
Smile.
‘Indeed,’ Sofia Zetterlund replied with a smile. The detective was in her forties, and considerably shorter than Sofia had been expecting.
Jeanette turned, and Sofia followed in her lithe, confident steps. They sat down on the big, new concrete stand at the Zinkensdamm sports complex and looked out across the artificial turf.
‘An unusual place for lunch,’ Sofia said.
‘Zinken’s classic territory,’ Jeanette said, returning her smile. ‘It would be hard to find a nicer place. Maybe Kanalplan, I suppose.’
‘Kanalplan?’
‘Yes, Nacka used to play there, back in the day. These days the Hammarby women’s team plays there. Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked, we’d better start. You’ve probably got an appointment booked?’
‘No problem, we can sit here all day if necessary.’
Jeanette concentrated on chewing a chicken wing. ‘Good, this might take a while. Lundstr?m isn’t an easy man to understand. And there are also a number of things that aren’t quite clear in the facts that have emerged.’
Sofia put her bag down on the next seat.
‘Have you managed to find that Wikstr?m, Lundstr?m’s friend in ?nge?’
‘No, I talked to Mikkelsen this morning. There does appear to be an Anders Wikstr?m in ?nge. Or rather an Anders Efraim Wikstr?m. But he’s over eighty and he’s been living in an old people’s home outside Timr? for the past five years. He’s never heard of a Karl Lundstr?m, and can hardly have anything to do with this.’
Sofia wasn’t surprised by what Jeanette had said. It matched what she had thought all along. Anders Wikstr?m was a product of Karl Lundstr?m’s imagination.
‘OK. Anything else you’ve found out?’
Jeanette dropped the last of her food in the bag.
‘Lundstr?m’s got plenty more baggage. Yesterday evening a young woman gave a statement that could be of interest to my case. I can’t say any more at the moment, but there’s a connection to the murders I’m investigating.’
Jeanette lit a cigarette and coughed.
‘God, I really should quit … Would you like one, by the way?’
‘Thanks, I would …’
Jeanette passed her the lighter.
‘Have you asked his wife if she knew about the films?’
Jeanette was silent for a moment before she replied.
‘When Mikkelsen asked her, he only got a very confused reply. She doesn’t know, she can’t remember, she wasn’t there, and so on. She’s lying to protect him. As for Karl Lundstr?m’s story, I’m having trouble getting it to fit together. All that talk about Anders Wikstr?m and the Russian mafia. Mikkelsen thinks it’s all a pack of lies.’
‘I’m not convinced that Karl Lundstr?m is simply lying,’ Sofia said, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I called you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I think it’s more complicated than that.’
‘Really? In what way?’
‘I mean it’s possible that he sometimes tells the truth, but that his imagination takes over. Or rather his delusions, his self-deceptions. He’s done something that is strictly taboo: he’s abused his own daughter.’
‘And you mean he needs to find a way to handle the guilt?’
‘Yes. He’s starting to loathe himself to a point where he feels responsible for a series of other assaults that he never actually committed.’
Sofia blew several smoke rings.
‘During our conversations he addressed the concept of wrong several times, in the context of male attraction to young girls, and it’s clear that he regards that attraction as natural. In order to convince himself beyond any doubt, he has invented a series of events so extreme that they can’t be dismissed.’ Sofia put her cigarette out. ‘How’s Linnea?’
Jeanette looked thoughtful. ‘Apart from what they found on Lundstr?m’s computer, they also found a number of VHS cassettes in the basement.’
‘At their home, you mean?’
‘Yes, and on those cassettes they found not only Lundstr?m’s fingerprints, but Linnea’s as well.’