When her air begins to run out she swims on and, as she approaches the edge of the pool, she sees that the girl has put her legs in the water. Victoria bobs up beside her and is met by the blinding sun. The girl is sitting on the steps and smiling with the sun behind her.
‘Like fish,’ she says, pointing at Victoria, who laughs back.
‘Come in as well. We can say I made you do it.’
It doesn’t take long to persuade her, but she refuses to swim in just her pants and bra like Victoria.
‘Well, you need to take your sandals off, and you can put this on.’ She tosses her the thin vest she was wearing before she got in.
As the girl takes off her dress and puts on the vest, Victoria sees that she has several large bruises on her stomach and at the base of her spine. The feeling that washes over her is very odd.
The first thing she feels is rage at what he’s done, then relief that it wasn’t her that got beaten.
Then comes a creeping sense of shame, along with a new feeling she’s never experienced before. She feels shame at being her father’s daughter, but at the same time there’s something that makes her lose any desire to teach the girl to swim.
She looks at the slender figure smiling as she stands at the edge of the pool in a vest that’s far too big for her. Her own vest, with the crest of Sigtuna College on it.
She feels suddenly sick when she sees the girl wearing her own clothes, getting into the shallow end of the pool. Victoria tries to see what it is that he sees in the girl. She’s beautiful and unspoiled, she’s younger and she probably doesn’t say no to him like Victoria has started to do.
Who the hell are you, thinking you can take my place? she thinks.
‘Come over here.’ Victoria tries to sound friendly, but she can hear that her voice makes it sound more like an order.
A memory comes into her mind. A little boy whom she loved, but who let her down and then drowned. How easy it would be, she thinks.
‘Let yourself fall forward in the water, and I’ll hold you from underneath.’
Victoria goes and stands next to the girl, who hesitates. ‘Come on, don’t be scared. I’ll hold you.’
She slips gently into the water.
She feels as light as a small child in Victoria’s arms.
The girl moves her arms and legs according to the instructions, but when Victoria lets go of her she stops swimming at once and starts to flail about instead. Victoria gets annoyed each time this happens, but puts up with it, slowly but surely steering the girl into deeper water.
She won’t be able to reach the bottom here, Victoria thinks as she holds her head up by treading water.
She lets go.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
‘SIHTUNUM I DIASPORAN? What does that mean?’ Jens Hurtig looks inquisitively at Jeanette Kihlberg.
‘It’s runic Swedish for Sigtuna, and classical Greek for living in exile. So, basically, it means Sigtuna in exile, and it’s a foundation made up of people who used to live in Sigtuna. The common denominator seems to be that the members all have, or had, some connection to the boarding school there.’
‘The boarding school? The one Jan Guillou was at?’
‘No, not that one. This one’s where the king went to school. Sigtuna College for the Humanities is the largest and most prestigious boarding school in Sweden. Olof Palme went there, along with Povel Ramel and Peter and Marcus Wallenberg, if those names mean anything?’ Jeanette grins, and Hurtig smiles back.
He closes the door and sits down on the other side of the desk. ‘So are you saying the king supports this foundation, then?’
‘No, the names of the members aren’t that well known, but I’m sure you’ll recognise at least three of them.’
Hurtig lets out a whistle when Jeanette shows him the list of donors.
‘Dürer, Lundstr?m and Bergman are said to have donated large sums of money to the foundation since the mid-seventies,’ Jeanette goes on. ‘But there’s no record of the foundation in local council records, which is odd seeing as it’s active in Sweden.’
‘Anything else?’
‘They used to own a property in Denmark, but that’s been sold off. The only asset of any value was a motor yacht, the Gilah. The boat that Dürer and his wife were on when they died.’
‘Interesting. What does it say in the description of the foundation’s activities?’
Jeanette pulls out a sheet of paper and reads from it: ‘“The foundation’s goals are to combat poverty and promote children’s living conditions in all corners of the world.”’
‘A paedophile who helps children, then?’
‘Two paedophiles, at least. The list contains twenty names, and we know for sure that two are paedophiles. Bergman and Lundstr?m. That’s ten per cent. The other names aren’t known to me, apart from Dürer, who acted as the lawyer for both men. But more than two of them might be of interest. If you get my meaning?’
‘I get it. Anything else?’
‘Nothing we don’t already know.’ Jeanette leans across the desk and lowers her voice. ‘Hurtig, you’re better at computers than I am. Do you think it would be possible to trace whoever posted this on Flashback? Could you do that?’
Hurtig smiles but doesn’t answer her question. ‘Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I’m better than you at computers.’
‘No, not because you’re a man,’ she says. ‘Because you’re younger than me, and you still play bloody computer games.’
Hurtig looks taken aback. ‘Computer games? I wouldn’t say –’
‘Rubbish. Whenever we’re out in the city you always linger by the windows of the game shops, and you’ve got calluses on your fingertips, sometimes even blisters. Once when we were having lunch you said the guy making the pizzas looked like your character in GTA. You’re a games addict, Hurtig. No question.’
‘OK, but …’ He looks hesitant. ‘Tracing the poster? Isn’t that data infringement?’
‘No one need know anything. If we get an IP address, we might be able to get a name. Maybe that will take us forward, maybe not. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it. We’re not going to harass anyone, we’re not going to spy on them or keep a record of their opinion. All I want is a name.’
‘OK, I’ll give it a try,’ Hurtig goes on. ‘If it doesn’t work, I might know someone who can help.’
‘Great. Then there’s the list of donors. Check them out while you’re at it, and I’ll try to get hold of Victoria Bergman.’
Once Hurtig has left the room she looks up Victoria Bergman in the police database, but, as expected, draws a blank.
There are two Victoria Bergmans on file, but neither of them is the right age to match the Victoria who was at Sigtuna.
The next step is the population database, and Jeanette logs in to the tax authority’s register of all living Swedish citizens.
There are thirty-two different Victoria Bergmans.