Jeanette has trouble feeling any sympathy for a man like that.
Feeling rejected is no excuse, she thinks, as she sees ?ke and Alexandra in her mind’s eye. It’s just part of life.
‘Good, then we can put him to one side and get back to the case of the dead boys.’
She opens one of her desk drawers and pulls out a bright pink folder that makes Hurtig chuckle.
She smiles. ‘I’ve learned how to make important things look uninteresting. No one would ever bother to open this.’ She leafs through the documents.
‘There are a few things we need to follow up on,’ she says. ‘Annette and Linnea Lundstr?m. Ulrika Wendin. Kenneth von Kwist.’
‘Ulrika Wendin?’ Hurtig looks surprised.
‘Yes, I don’t think she’s told us everything. We need to go with gut feeling.’
‘And von Kwist?’ Hurtig throws his hands up.
‘There’s something funny about von Kwist and the Lundstr?m family. I don’t know what it is yet, but …’ Jeanette takes a deep breath before she goes on. ‘Then there’s one more name we need to check out.’
‘Who?’
‘Victoria Bergman.’
Hurtig seems taken aback. ‘Victoria Bergman?’
‘Yes. A day or two before Johan went missing I had a visit from a community officer based out in V?rmd?. A G?ran Andersson. I haven’t had time to look into the information he gave me because of all the chaos with Johan, but he told me Victoria Bergman doesn’t exist.’
‘Doesn’t exist? But we spoke to her!’
‘Exactly, but I’ve checked that number again and it’s no longer in use. She’s alive, but using a different name. Something happened twenty years ago and she disappeared off all the registers. Something happened to make Victoria Bergman go underground.’
‘Her dad? He was abusing her.’
‘Yes, it’s probably something to do with him. But something’s telling me that the Bergman line of inquiry isn’t quite dead.’
‘The Bergman line of inquiry? Is there really any connection to our cases?’
‘I’m going by gut feeling again. I can’t help wondering why these two names should show up at virtually the same time. Fate? Coincidence? Not that it matters. There’s some sort of link between our cases and the Bergman and Lundstr?m families. Do you know they both used the same solicitor, had done for years? Viggo Dürer. That can hardly be a coincidence, so I’ve got ?hlund checking Dürer out.’
Jeanette can see that Hurtig appreciates the significance of what she’s saying.
‘Both Bengt Bergman and Karl Lundstr?m abused their own daughters, but also other children as well. You remember Bengt Bergman and the Eritrean kids? A twelve-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy? As usual, Birgitta Bergman gave him an alibi. Same thing with Annette Lundstr?m, always protecting her husband, even if he himself admitted to being involved in the sex trade in children from the Third World.’
‘I get it. There are threads leading somewhere. I suppose the only difference is that Karl Lundstr?m confessed, whereas Bengt Bergman denied the allegations.’
‘Yes. It’s one hell of a tangle of threads, but I think they all come together somewhere. All of this fits, and it fits together with our cases. The whole thing screams cover-up. We’re talking about successful men, Bergman at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and Lundstr?m at Skanska. A lot of money. Shame in their families. And we’re talking about legal cases that were handled badly, and possibly even intentionally mismanaged.’
Hurtig nods.
‘And there are people around these families who don’t exist,’ she goes on. ‘Victoria Bergman doesn’t exist. And a nameless child you can buy on the Net, then castrate and dump in the bushes, a child like that doesn’t exist either.’
‘Are you a conspiracy theorist?’
If there was any sarcasm in Hurtig’s comment, it passed her by completely.
‘No, I’m not. Maybe a holist, if there’s such a word.’
‘Holist?’
‘I believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If we don’t understand the context, we can never understand the details. Don’t you think?’
Hurtig looks thoughtful. ‘Ulrika Wendin. Annette and Linnea Lundstr?m. Viggo Dürer. Victoria Bergman. Where do we start?’
‘I suggest we start with Ulrika Wendin. I’ll call her straight away.’
Assaults on children, she thinks. From beginning to end, everything comes back to those cases. Two children with no identity, the Belarussian boy Yuri Krylov, and Samuel Bai, the former child soldier from Sierra Leone. And three women who were subjected to sexual abuse in their childhoods. Victoria Bergman, Ulrika Wendin and Linnea Lundstr?m.
There’s a knock on the door, and ?hlund comes into the room.
‘That was quick,’ she says, looking at him expectantly.
‘Yes, it was quick because Viggo Dürer’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes, his body was found next to his wife’s after a fire on their yacht two weeks ago. Off Simrishamn.’
‘An accident?’
‘Yes, a leaking gas pipe. The boat went up in a matter of seconds. They didn’t stand a chance.’
?hlund hands her a note with a phone number on it. ‘Call and have a word with the officer in charge of the investigation,’ he says. ‘Gullberg, I think his name was.’
Jeanette dials the number. It’s just as well to get it out of the way at once.
Gullberg turns out to be a talkative, amiable man with a strong Sk?ne accent. He tells her that the coastguard got an emergency call from Viggo Dürer’s phone two weeks ago. According to Dürer, the boat was on fire and he needed help. But when they got there the boat was already fully ablaze and the two bodies pretty much charcoal.
At the small boat marina they found a car registered to Henrietta Dürer, as well as a bag of the pair’s belongings, including identification documents.
‘What finally confirmed that they were the Dürers was their wedding rings.’ Gullberg sounds pleased with himself. ‘With their names and the date engraved on them. Seeing as they didn’t have any family, the bodies were cremated as soon as the coroner was satisfied.’
‘And it was an accident?’ Jeanette asks.
‘Forensics says the fire started in the gas tank. Old boat. Dodgy pipes. We don’t suspect any sort of crime, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ Jeanette says, and ends the call.
Zinkens Bar
WHEN ULRIKA WENDIN walks into the little bar next to the Zinkensdamm sports complex, Jeanette notices at once that the girl has dramatically lost weight. She’s wearing the same top as when they last met, only now it looks like it’s several sizes too big.
Ulrika sits on the chair opposite Jeanette. ‘Fucking buses,’ she says, tossing her bag down. ‘I’ve just spent half an hour with some bastard ticket inspector who wouldn’t accept my ticket. It cost me twelve hundred fucking kronor because some stupid bus driver had the wrong time on his stamp.’