‘What was it you said?’ She sits down on the edge of the bath.
He takes a deep breath and she realises he’s been crying. ‘She’s weird,’ he says quietly.
‘Weird? Who is?’
‘Sofia.’ Johan looks away.
‘Sofia? What made you think of her?’
‘Nothing particular, but she got so weird,’ he goes on. ‘When we were up there on Free Fall she started screaming at me, calling me Martin … And then when the ride was over she just walked away. I tried to follow her but I guess I was following the wrong person. That’s the last thing I remember.’
She hugs him hard, then they both start to cry at the same time.
Edsviken – Lundstr?m House
THE SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON sun is sinking behind the large turn-of-the-century villa, tucked away down by the water. A narrow gravel drive lined with maple trees leads down to the house and Sofia Zetterlund parks her car in the turning circle, switches off the engine and looks out through the windscreen. The sky is steel grey and the rain that has been pouring down has eased slightly.
So this is where the Lundstr?m family lives?
A short distance away she can see a boathouse through the trees. There’s another building on the plot, and a swimming pool protected by a high fence. The house looks deserted, as if no one had ever moved into it. She gets out of the car, walks across the gravel towards the house, and as she walks up the broad stone steps to the front door the light in the hall goes on, the door opens and a short, slender woman wrapped in a dark blanket appears in the doorway.
‘Come in and lock the door behind you,’ Annette Lundstr?m says.
Sofia shuts the door behind her and Annette Lundstr?m sways through the hall and turns off to the left. There are stacks of big moving boxes everywhere.
Annette Lundstr?m is forty years old, but looks closer to sixty. Her hair is a mess and she seems tired as she slumps onto a sofa covered with clothes.
‘Take a seat,’ she says in a low voice, gesturing towards an armchair on the other side of the coffee table.
The room is cold, and Sofia realises that the heating has been turned off already.
She considers the Lundstr?m family’s situation. Arrest for incest, paedophilia and child pornography, followed by attempted suicide. The daughter is in the custody of social services.
Sofia looks at the woman in front of her. She had probably been beautiful once, but that was before.
‘Do you want coffee?’ Annette reaches for the half-full carafe on the table.
‘Yes, please, that would be good.’
‘You can get a cup from the box on the floor.’
Sofia bends over. In a box under the table there’s a jumble of badly packed crockery. She finds a chipped mug and lets Annette fill it for her.
The coffee is barely drinkable. Completely cold.
Sofia pretends it’s OK, takes a few sips and puts the mug down on the table.
‘Why did you want to see me?’
Annette coughs and pulls the blanket tighter around her.
‘As I told you on the phone … I want to talk about Karl and Linnea. And I want to plead with you.’
‘Plead?’
‘It’s like this …’ Annette’s eyes become sharper. ‘I know how forensic psychiatry works. Not even death negates your oath of confidentiality. So it’s no use asking you what you and Karl talked about. But there’s one thing I’ve been wondering about. He said something to me after your meeting, that you understood him. That you understood his … well, his problem.’
Sofia shudders. There’s a raw chill in the house.
‘I’ve never understood his problem,’ Annette goes on. ‘And now he’s dead, so I don’t have to protect him any more. But I don’t understand. I thought it only happened once. In Kristianstad, when Linnea was three. It was a mistake, and I know he told you about it. The fact that he watched those disgusting films is one thing, I might have been able to handle that. But not that he and Linnea … I mean, Linnea liked him. How could you understand his problem?’
Sofia feels Victoria’s presence. Annette Lundstr?m irritates her.
I know you’re there, Victoria, Sofia thinks. But I’ll deal with this myself.
‘I’ve seen it before,’ she eventually says. ‘Plenty of times. But you’re probably drawing too many conclusions from what he said. I only met him a couple of times, and he was fairly unbalanced at the time. Linnea is more important now. How is she?’
There’s one big difference between Annette Lundstr?m and Birgitta Bergman. Victoria’s mother was fat, and this woman is so thin she’s almost disappeared. Her skin has eaten its way into her bones, and soon there won’t be anything left.
She’ll just fade away and die.
But there’s something familiar about her. Sofia rarely forgets a face, and is suddenly sure she’s seen Annette Lundstr?m before.
Her eyes are fixed again. ‘Well … they’ve taken her away from me, she’s in the Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry unit at Danderyd. She hardly acknowledges me, and I’m not told anything. Can’t you ask to see her? You must have contacts?’
‘I can’t just walk in and ask to speak to her,’ Sofia says. ‘The only way I could see her is if she wants to, and I can’t honestly see how that would happen.’
‘I can talk to the people in the unit,’ Annette says.
Sofia sees that she’s serious.
‘There was something else …’ Annette goes on. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’ She pulls out some yellowing sheets of paper. ‘I’ve never understood these.’
She puts three drawings on the table.
All three are drawn in crayon and signed ‘Linnea’ in childish writing.
Linnea five years old, Linnea nine years old and Linnea ten years old.
Sofia picks up one of the drawings.
It’s by Linnea, aged five, but with the number revised, and it’s a picture of a blonde girl standing in the foreground next to a large dog. Out of the dog’s mouth hangs a huge tongue that Linnea had covered with dots. Taste buds, Sofia thinks. In the background there’s a big house, and something that looks like a little fountain. A long chain leads away from the dog, and Sofia notes how carefully the girl has drawn the links, which get smaller and smaller until they disappear behind a tree.
Linnea had written something next to the tree, but Sofia can’t read what it says.
From these characters an arrow points at the tree, behind which a man with a bent back and glasses is peering out with a smile.
In one of the windows of the house there’s a figure looking out on the garden. Long hair, a happy mouth and a sweet little nose. Although the rest of the drawing is painstakingly detailed, Linnea hasn’t given the figure any eyes.
Bearing in mind the picture Sofia has of the Lundstr?m family, it isn’t hard to work out that the figure in the window is Annette Lundstr?m.
Annette Lundstr?m, who didn’t see. Who didn’t want to see.
Taking that as the starting point, the scene in the garden becomes more interesting.