Linda, As in the Linda Murder

86

The fact that Lisa Mattei sat in on Anna Holt’s fourth interview with Månsson was no coincidence. Holt was thinking of starting to twist the arm of their perpetrator, and needed Mattei there to ease the pain and make it less obvious to him. Mattei’s friendly manner, her gentle appearance, her innocent exterior, made her entirely uninteresting to Månsson as a woman, and absolutely perfect for Holt.

‘Yesterday you mentioned that Linda had written about the two of you in her journal.’

‘Yes?’ Månsson said with a wary look in his eyes.

‘There’s an exception to every rule,’ Holt said. ‘I know you and Linda usually had vanilla sex with each other, but what about the times when you didn’t? The times when you played sex games, when you experimented with each other? I want you to tell me about that, and I don’t think you’ll find it very difficult.’

‘No,’ Månsson said. ‘Why should it be? It was really nothing special. Just the sort of thing that perfectly normal people have done at least once when they’re having sex.’

But it evidently wasn’t entirely straightforward, since it took almost two hours for Anna Holt to get him to admit that on several occasions he had tied Linda’s hands while he had sex with her. And it had been a long journey for his and Linda’s sexual relationship as well, if he was to be believed.

Linda wasn’t particularly experienced. Before she slept with Bengt Månsson the first time she had had four sexual partners. The very first time had been when she was fourteen years old, and she hadn’t even been especially drunk. Just wanted to get it over and done with. All her previous partners had been the same age as her. She had never had an orgasm with any of them. But she did when she masturbated, the first time when she was sixteen, and carefully followed the instructions of the country’s most famous sex therapist in a column in the Sunday supplement of the big evening paper. All of this she had told Bengt Månsson. The first proper lover in her life.

With Månsson she had always had an orgasm. Usually more than one each time they had sex. Only the second time they were together she had an orgasm from ordinary intercourse. Which was usually the hardest thing for most women, especially at the start, and that was when he made his discovery.

‘I realized that she liked it when I held her tight when she was about to come,’ Månsson said.

The first few times that was as far as things went. Then Linda herself had come up with the idea, without actually saying anything about it. She had been lying on her back on his bed. They had already had sex once. He was caressing and stroking her. Suddenly she had taken the cord of his dressing-gown and handed it to him, then held both her hands out in front of her, palms together. Very carefully he had tied them together, then tied her hands above her head to the top of the bed. In complete silence, in complete understanding, and with complete trust from Linda. And suddenly her lover, Bengt Månsson, had two hands free at the crucial moment.

‘Obviously it makes a difference. If you’re going to have an orgasm, then it’s all about stimulation, physical and mental.’

Tied her up? Certainly. Hit her? Never. Tortured her without hitting her? Never. Not even harsh language, according to Månsson. Linda didn’t like it, and she would lose interest. The path she enjoyed travelling was silent, enclosed, secret intimacy between just the two of them.

‘Uncomplicated sex, basically,’ Månsson said. ‘If you do something you like, but don’t dare to talk about it, then it wasn’t really you who did it.’

‘What do you think, then, Lisa?’ Holt asked after the interview.

‘Sigh,’ Mattei said. ‘Why ask someone who’s practically a virgin about this sort of thing? Why do you think so many perfectly normal women run after dominant men? And almost always end up in bed with someone like Månsson. Anyway, Månsson’s no man. He’s probably not even human.’

‘So what is he, then?’ Holt asked.

‘Some sort of sexual instrumentalist, if you ask me. I mean... how cool is it to hear that physical and mental stimulation are both important when you’re having sex? How inexperienced do you have to be to realize that that’s exactly what he’s doing? And how turned on would you be when you realized that was what he was doing?’

‘Doesn’t sound much like fun,’ Holt agreed.

‘The interesting thing, if you ask me, and the only reason we’re sitting in there listening to him at all, is what happens inside his head when he finds himself in a situation that he almost never ends up in, because almost all the girls have done exactly what he wanted the whole time.’

‘And what situation is that?’

‘When he’s already frustrated right from the start. When he has just one thought in his head. Come and go, as so many blokes so romantically describe it. When the person he’s with sees through him and refuses to join in. And when he realizes that she’s seen through him. When he ends up feeling ridiculous.’

‘And in that situation Bengt Månsson isn’t much fun to be around any more.’

‘And that’s the situation where he strangles Linda Wallin, and he’ll never admit that.’

‘Not even to himself?’

‘Not even to you or me,’ Mattei said.

‘Have you got any tips?’ Holt asked.

‘Rip him to shreds,’ Mattei said with a gentle smile. ‘Not because it’ll make him confess, but because I’d like to see you do it. I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a self-obsessed, long-winded and cretinous murderer before.’