The Disappeared aka Guardian Angels

27

Spencer Lagergren was more worried than he was prepared to admit. All weekend this business with Tova Eriksson had been playing on his mind, wearing him down. Fredrika had noticed the change, but said nothing. Perhaps she was too busy making up for all the hours she had been away from Saga during the week.

He knew he ought to talk to her, tell her what had happened. Instead he kept quiet, hoping it would all blow over soon, and then he would be able to give her a less dramatic version of the whole story. This was beginning to seem more unrealistic with every passing day.

He had called the police in Uppsala on Saturday morning while Fredrika was in the shower, and his worst fears had been confirmed. A formal complaint had been made. The prosecutor had not yet decided whether to instigate a preliminary investigation, but the complaint in itself brought Spencer out in a cold sweat, and he had immediately decided to contact his solicitor on Monday.

It was Monday now, and Fredrika had gone to work. Saga had fallen asleep after breakfast, and the apartment felt silent and empty. Spencer was sitting alone at the kitchen table with the telephone in his hand. His solicitor, who was also a childhood friend, had been very helpful during the divorce proceedings. He thought he had done a good job of extricating himself from his former life, and Uno, his solicitor, had agreed.

To hell with it, he needed help and Uno was the only person he could turn to. His friend answered almost immediately, and was pleased to hear Spencer’s voice.

‘It’s been a long time – how’s life now you’re a dad?’

He was laughing as he spoke; Uno was one of the few people who had had no hesitation in telling Spencer what he thought of the new life he had chosen.

‘You’re going to have a child? At the age of sixty? With a woman who’s thirty-five? You’re out of your bloody mind.’

Spencer had appreciated his honesty, and had wished that more people were like Uno. Honesty was beyond price in any relationship. He hoped Uno would be straight with him now.

In a voice thick with emotion, he explained that fatherhood was wonderful, but that other parts of his life weren’t going quite so well. Uno remained silent as Spencer told him what had happened. When Spencer stopped speaking, his solicitor remained worryingly quiet for a moment.

‘Spencer, between you and me, is there any truth whatsoever in her accusations?’

Was there? He wavered, thinking about that damned hug.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Absolutely none.’

‘That’s even more worrying, in a way. What does she want? Is there any chance that you’ve upset her without realising it?’

Spencer hesitated. Remembered the day she brought a cake in and he went for coffee.

‘I think I might have rejected her without being aware of it at the time.’

‘So you suspect she was interested in you?’

‘I didn’t see it at the time, but with hindsight I think that was probably the case.’

Uno didn’t reply; it sounded as if he was tapping away at his computer keyboard.

‘What do you think?’ Spencer asked eventually.

‘I think you’ve got problems. Big problems.’

The Lions’ Den was available for the Monday-morning briefing, which meant that order was restored. At least for Fredrika Bergman: she liked routine, and had taken a dislike to the temporary meeting room.

Alex looked brighter and fresher than he had done for a long time. Fredrika remembered her promise to keep an eye on him; so far he hadn’t shown any sign of putting a foot wrong.

Fredrika herself wasn’t sure how she felt about being back at work. The weekend with Saga had made her question her decision to return – she missed being with her daughter.

‘Let’s make a start,’ Alex said, interrupting her thoughts.

He nodded to Peder to close the door. Peder also looked rested. Both men must have had a quiet weekend. For his part, Alex confirmed this when he spoke.

‘I did a few hours’ work on Saturday, then I was away for the rest of the weekend. I know that some of you were busy conducting interviews and monitoring Håkan Nilsson’s phone calls; anything to report?’

One of the additional investigators who had been brought in spoke up.

‘Only that Nilsson’s phone is bloody quiet.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s virtually nothing going on; there are no calls to monitor. Either he knows we’re listening, or he hasn’t got any friends.’

‘Or both,’ said Peder.

‘What about the surveillance?’ Alex asked.

‘He left his apartment once during the weekend, and that was to do some shopping.’

Alex looked at his team.

‘Remind me why we don’t believe Håkan Nilsson is our killer.’

Peder and Fredrika began to speak at the same time, and Alex nodded to Peder to continue.

‘First of all, there’s the MO. Because he was so fond of Rebecca, it seems unlikely that he would do such terrible things to her body after killing her. Second, he has an alibi. We’ve spoken to other people who attended the mentors’ event, and they confirm that they saw him during the course of the evening. Several of them recall that he was the one who contacted the police to report Rebecca missing.’

‘The mentors’ event was held not far from the place where we assume she disappeared,’ Alex reminded them. ‘If he was gone for an hour, it would have given him enough time to deal with Rebecca. I mean, he didn’t necessarily have to do everything at the same time.’

‘You mean she was kidnapped first, then murdered later? That’s a possibility, of course.’

Alex scratched his forehead.

‘Did Håkan have a mentor? If not, why was he at the party?’

‘He was there to help out,’ Peder replied. ‘He didn’t have a mentor.’

‘That’s right, I remember now,’ Alex said.

‘And who backs up his alibi?’ Fredrika wanted to know.

‘Countless students and other people who were at the party. Håkan had a number of duties that evening; among other things he was responsible for the technology, making sure the business representatives could give their presentations.’

Peder rested his elbows on the table, supporting his head on his hands.

‘I think we have to accept that Håkan Nilsson is out of the picture,’ he said.

‘I think you’re right,’ Alex agreed. ‘Unless of course, someone was helping him, but that doesn’t sound credible.’

‘I checked the records from the previous investigation,’ Fredrika said. ‘When Rebecca disappeared, you interviewed Valter Lund, her mentor, only once. Why was that?’

‘Because we had no reason to speak to him again. Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t think he was paid very much attention, under the circumstances. And you don’t seem to have asked any questions about his relationship with Rebecca.’

Peder turned to face her.

‘Are you suggesting Valter Lund could have been her boyfriend?’

‘Well, we don’t know, do we? On Friday, I spoke to the president of the students’ union who used to run the mentoring programme. He said that Rebecca had told him she saw Valter Lund only on the odd occasion, but according to the notes in her diary, they saw each other rather more often. I’ve asked Ellen to run the same checks on Valter Lund as she’s already run on everyone else in the previous investigation; I’m hoping to hear back from her this morning.’

She could see that her comments had riled Alex.

‘There was nothing to indicate that they were in a relationship. Nothing.’

She could also see that the thought alarmed him. Could the murderer have been right there under their noses from day one?

‘Is there anything else apart from the fact that they seem to have met up more frequently than they told other people?’ Peder asked, looking extremely sceptical.

‘At the moment, nothing at all,’ Fredrika said. ‘But it won’t do any harm to check. The union president said that Valter Lund is religious, and that he went along to see Rebecca’s church choir. If she thought he was the father of her child, she might have been afraid that he would want to keep the child – that he would be totally opposed to abortion.’

Alex looked at his scarred hands, recalling why he had sustained serious burns.

‘We all remember the Lilian Sebastiansson case in the summer of 2007. Are we dealing with the same thing this time? Unwanted children?’

‘No chance,’ said Peder. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘I agree,’ said Fredrika. ‘But that could be one element in the case.’

‘So what about the man?’ Peder said. ‘The man who was buried thirty years ago? Who the hell is he?’

Alex looked despondent.

‘I’ve spoken to the pathologist and a number of other people. We’re beginning to wonder whether he might have been a foreign national, or someone who was never reported missing in Sweden for other reasons.’

‘A homeless person?’ Fredrika suggested.

‘That’s one possibility. There must be a reason why he isn’t on our database of missing persons. No man of his age and height who has disappeared in the last twenty-five to thirty years fits.’

‘If he is a homeless person who was chosen at random by our perpetrator, then we’re looking for a really sick bastard,’ Peder said. ‘That means Rebecca’s murder could also be completely random.’

Fredrika’s lips narrowed to a thin line.

‘There’s a connection,’ she said. ‘There’s no chance that these murders aren’t linked in some way.’

‘I agree with you,’ said Alex. ‘How old is Valter Lund, by the way?’

‘About forty-five.’

‘So from a purely theoretical point of view, he could have killed both of them.’

‘I didn’t see anything about his alibi; was he at the mentors’ party too?’

‘I can’t remember; check it out.’

Alex looked at his watch.

‘Let’s move on. Fredrika, report back when you’ve heard from Ellen. Look into Lund’s background. Find out where he grew up and what he was doing before he embarked on his career.’

He turned to Peder.

‘Can you check on Gustav Sjöö’s alibi, once and for all? I’m going to try and find out who Rebecca turned to when she got tired of Sjöö and was looking for a new supervisor. She seems to have been very committed to her dissertation; both her mother and Sjöö have made that point. Sjöö even said it was more like a police investigation.’

Fredrika looked up from her notebook.

‘I’ve collected all the material relating to Rebecca’s dissertation that was in her aunt’s garage, and I’m happy to go through it, but I’ve got one more thing to take care of this morning, if you remember.’

Alex smiled.

‘Daniella, the ex-girlfriend. Go and see her right away.’

Peder was curious.

‘What’s going on with the ex?’

‘We think she was the one who uploaded the pictures of Rebecca onto that website.’

The sun was in the sky and spring was in the air. Fredrika stopped on the pavement outside HQ and turned her face up to the warmth. She stood there drinking it in for several minutes before she walked over to the car. She was alone this time; she didn’t see any need to take a colleague with her.

She called home. She wanted to hear that everything was all right, but she sensed a fresh underlying tension in Spencer’s voice.

They ended the conversation with mutual reassurances that everything was fine. Fredrika felt a knot in her stomach, an unease that she couldn’t shake off. Her face was tight after her spell in the sun, and her scalp itched.

Talk to me, tell me what’s happened.

When she arrived at Daniella’s apartment block she was in a bad mood before she even got out of the car. She hurtled up the stairs and hammered on the door.

She heard shuffling steps on the other side of the door; she wanted it to open immediately. Which it did.

‘You again?’

The voice was weary, but her eyes sharpened when she saw Fredrika’s determined expression.

‘May I come in?’ said Fredrika, stepping over the threshold.

As before, Daniella made her way into the kitchen. Fredrika followed, stopping to look at the photographs of Daniella’s brother. She was absolutely certain. It was the same boy she had recognised in the pictures of Rebecca.

They sat down at the kitchen table. Fredrika opened her handbag and took out the nude pictures of Rebecca. Without saying a word, she placed them in front of Daniella, who looked at them and recoiled.

‘Where did you get these?’

‘On the Internet. On a website called “Dreams Come True”.’

Daniella swallowed.

‘You took them, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

Daniella picked up the printouts, gazing at them one by one. She cleared her throat.

‘She didn’t know I had them. I took them when she was asleep.’

‘So I see.’

Her tone was more acidic than she had intended.

‘I didn’t mean any harm. She looked so beautiful lying there; I just wanted a picture of her.’

‘And how did they end up on the Internet?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh, come on!’

Daniella was distraught.

‘It’s true! I don’t know!’

‘You’re not seriously telling me that someone got into your apartment, stole these photos and put them on a sex website? Do me a favour.’

She raised her voice, feeling the surge of adrenalin. Daniella had chosen the wrong day to mess with Fredrika. But Daniella stood her ground, her voice thick with tears.

‘I’m telling you, I don’t know how they got there. I took them, but I would never have done such a thing. Why would I?’

‘I think you were furious, Daniella. I think you were absolutely bloody livid. That makes a person do stupid things – me included. When Rebecca didn’t get in touch, you thought she’d just decided to go away. So in order to get your revenge, you uploaded a profile on the Internet. Then you realised something must have happened, and you felt guilty and took them down.’

Daniella was shaking; her chin had begun to quiver.

‘You don’t understand jack shit, do you?’

Fredrika took a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. She was getting nowhere fast.

‘OK, help me out here. Who else had the photos?’

‘Nobody!’

‘In which case, you have to understand that…’

‘Hang on, Håkan Nilsson had them.’

Fredrika was taken aback.

‘Håkan Nilsson?’

Daniella looked down at the table.

‘Rebecca was so sick of him following her around. And he hated me. Said horrible things to me when I turned up at parties and he was there. I sent the pictures to him to get my revenge.’

‘When was this?’

‘The week she disappeared; a day or two beforehand.’

Daniella started to cry.

‘I wanted to make him jealous, I wanted him to see that she was happier with me than with him.’

Bloody hell. Håkan Nilsson again.

‘Have you still got the email, Daniella?’

Daniella went and fetched her laptop; she came back and opened it up. The sun was reflected in the screen. She turned it around so that Fredrika could see, then opened the email program and searched for the message she had sent to Håkan.

‘Here.’

And there it was, a short message:

‘Have a good look, Håkan. Have you ever seen Rebecca as relaxed as this when she’s been with you? I thought not. And guess what? She never will be. Never.’

28

He had actually intended to leave during the night, but the darkness frightened him and he was far too tired to make the effort to go. Håkan fell asleep on top of the bedclothes, his arms wrapped around the photograph album. He didn’t wake until seven, when he heard the noise of the bin wagon out in the street.

Those fucking nude pictures.

How he hated the fat cow who had sent them to him. Not because he had had to look at them, but because she had taken them. Violated his lovely Rebecca as she slept.

He stayed away from the windows, certain that the police were out there keeping him under surveillance. He put the television on while he had breakfast and got dressed: kids’ programmes, devoid of both meaning and content.

He remembered being alone at home with his father once when he was a little boy. They had eaten ice cream and watched TV for hours. Håkan had been allowed to sit on his father’s knee, and they had ordered pizza. When his mother got home, she ruined everything. Called Håkan’s father irresponsible, screamed that he was spoiling their son.

‘You make me look worthless,’ she had said.

Not true, Håkan had thought. His mother could do that perfectly well all by herself.

He had spent less and less time with his father, who was away for long periods and could not be contacted. Håkan would stand at the kitchen window looking out for him for hours and hours. Sooner or later he would turn up, with a deep furrow in his brow, but always pleased to see his son.

As Håkan grew up he began to understand how serious the situation was. His mother was in the process of driving his father away forever. Håkan couldn’t think of anything worse. The days in school were endless. When they were finally over, he would run all the way home.

And one day everything was over.

His father was hanging from the ceiling hook in the hallway. With his strong hands he had relieved the light of its duties as a source of illumination, and had hanged himself with a rope attached to the hook. Håkan saw him the second he opened the door. He had never screamed more loudly in his entire life.

What would he have done without Rebecca then, when he lost his reason and wanted to kill his mother?

Håkan placed the album in his bag with the rest of the things he had decided to take and fastened the bag carefully. If he went out the back way, the police wouldn’t see him leaving the building.

29

The woman on the switchboard at the University of Uppsala informed Peder Rydh that Professor Spencer Lagergren was on leave for an unspecified period of time, and could therefore not be reached by telephone at the moment. She did not have access to the professor’s mobile number, but there was a possibility that he would still be checking his emails.

Peder typed a short message and sent it to the email address he had been given. Almost immediately he received an automatic reply informing him that Spencer Lagergren was unavailable, and that it might be some time before he was able to respond to the message.

He had more success through directory enquiries. He found a Spencer Lagergren who lived in Uppsala, and made a note of his mobile number. Less than a minute later he was able to speak to him.

Peder introduced himself and explained why he was calling.

‘I’m currently working on the investigation into the death of Rebecca Trolle. Do you have time for a brief chat?’

He could hear the hesitation in the other man’s voice.

‘I suppose so. What’s this about?’

‘It’s to do with a conference that took place in Västerås in the spring of 2007. I would really like to meet up with you, but as I understand it you live in Uppsala. I don’t suppose you happen to be coming into Stockholm either today or tomorrow?’

Silence.

‘I’m on paternity leave at the moment; I’d really prefer to clear this up over the phone.’

Paternity leave. Peder struggled to hide his surprise. He hadn’t checked on Spencer Lagergren’s age yet, but thought he sounded too old to be at home with a baby. On the other hand, Fredrika Bergman had somehow persuaded her other half to stay at home with their daughter, and he was getting on a bit.

‘I understand,’ Peder replied. ‘In that case I’ll run through my questions now, and if anything else comes up I’ll be in touch again.’

‘Fine.’

Peder peered at his notes.

‘So we’re looking at a conference in Västerås at the end of March 2007. Do you remember whether you were there?’

He heard the professor clear his throat.

‘Yes, I do remember. I gave a talk.’

‘Interesting,’ Peder said, without meaning it. ‘Do you remember roughly how the conference programme looked?’

Spencer Lagergren laughed.

‘Yes and no. One conference is much like another. Were you thinking of anything in particular?’

Peder suddenly felt unsure of himself. Was this really something that should be dealt with over the phone?

Sod it, Gustav Sjöö is of no interest in our investigation anyway.

‘Do you remember whether you met a man by the name of Gustav Sjöö?’

‘Gustav Sjöö? From the University of Stockholm?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I definitely remember him. He gave a very good lecture on the contribution of modern crime fiction to Swedish literature as a whole.’

‘Did you speak to him during the course of the evening?’

He was trying to sound relaxed, but the reason behind his question was all too apparent.

‘I’m sorry, but what is this about?’

‘It’s about the fact that Gustav Sjöö has stated that you can confirm that he did not leave the conference in Västerås once the working day was over, and that you and he chatted before dinner.’

He could hear the professor breathing at the other end of the line.

‘Now you come to mention it, I do remember us having quite a long chat during pre-dinner drinks. I usually try to avoid that kind of thing, but Sjöö had raised several important points during his lecture, and I wanted to discuss them with him.’

‘Do you remember what time this was?’

‘Not off the top of my head. Between seven and eight.’

And there was the confirmation. Gustav Sjöö had been in Västerås when Rebecca disappeared, and couldn’t possibly be the killer they were looking for. Now it was just a matter of checking that the distinguished Professor Lagergren wasn’t hiding some terrible secret, but that seemed unlikely. At the end of the day, the professor was just a university lecturer on paternity leave.

Alex was lost in thought when the phone rang.

Diana.

Her voice aroused so many conflicting emotions that Alex considered putting the phone down immediately. He ought to say something, explain that he didn’t have time to talk. Which was true.

But he wanted to.

Her tone was apologetic. She didn’t want to be a nuisance, but she was wondering how the investigation was going. Had anything new happened over the weekend?

He tried to be evasive; he didn’t want to make any promises.

‘Valter Lund,’ he said in spite of himself.

‘Her mentor?’

‘Do you remember if they met up often?’

‘No, I don’t think they did.’

He knew she was curious: Why was Alex asking about Valter Lund? Was he involved? Then again, he had asked about so many different people by this stage that it was difficult for her to follow the way the police were thinking.

‘Thanks for Friday, by the way.’

He said it so abruptly that he almost interrupted her mid-sentence.

‘No, thank you – I’m glad you came.’

Me too.

He hesitated, unsure of what to say next.

‘You know you can ring me any time.’

‘Will you come over again soon?’

A knock on the open door of his office made Alex look up. Fredrika was standing there with her coat on. Her cheeks were rosy, her expression eager.

‘Unfortunately, I have to speak to a colleague right now; I’ll be in touch.’

Not a lie, but cowardly all the same. Had he always been like that?

‘What is it?’ he said to Fredrika.

‘It wasn’t Daniella who uploaded those pictures of Rebecca. It was Håkan Nilsson. I’m absolutely certain.’

‘Well I’ll be…’

Peder appeared behind Fredrika.

‘In that case, let’s bring him in. For real, this time. He’s lied his way throughout the whole bloody case; he’s given us nothing. Enough is enough.’

Alex nodded.

‘I’ll speak to the prosecutor, then we’ll ask surveillance to pick him up.’

Fredrika was still standing there, looking unsure of herself.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Håkan Nilsson. And the case. A few hours ago, we were convinced it wasn’t him. And now…’

‘And now we still don’t think it was him. But we think he might have been involved. That he’s withholding further information.’

‘In that case, I agree,’ Fredrika said. ‘We need to search his apartment too.’

‘Of course. I’ll mention it to the prosecutor.

Fredrika went to her office, and just as Alex picked up the phone to call the prosecutor, Ellen Lind appeared.

‘I checked out those initials you sent me on Friday.’

Alex looked slightly puzzled.

‘You asked me to find out whether any of the staff in the Department of the History of Literature at Uppsala University had the same initials as the people we hadn’t managed to identify in Rebecca’s diary.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I got a match with SL. There’s a Spencer Lagergren in the department, but he’s on leave at the moment.’

Alex put down the phone.

‘Spencer Lagergren. Why do I recognise that name?’

‘He’s already in the investigation log,’ Ellen said. ‘When Gustav Sjöö was interviewed, he said that Spencer Lagergren could confirm his alibi.’

‘Which means that Spencer Lagergren also has an alibi for the night Rebecca went missing,’

‘Have a word with Peder,’ Ellen said. ‘I think he was intending to ring Spencer Lagergren this morning.’

‘I’ll just give the prosecutor a call first.’

The only negative point about the good weather was that it destroyed Peder’s focus when it came to his job. Police work was best carried out in the fog or rain. A beautiful sunny day took away his sharpness.

Fredrika had returned from her visit to Rebecca Trolle’s ex-girlfriend with some interesting news, which meant that Håkan Nilsson was once again relevant to the investigation. He was an unlikely perpetrator, but he didn’t appear to be entirely innocent either.

The surveillance team reported that Håkan had not been seen leaving his apartment that morning. Because they were monitoring his phone, they had heard him ring work and call in sick. Peder couldn’t explain why, but he felt uneasy. Håkan had any number of good reasons to call in sick, but Peder still thought something else was going on.

He shook off his misgivings and moved on to a routine check on Spencer Lagergren. He opened the police address database and entered the professor’s name. If he could get a personal ID number the check would only take a couple of minutes, and he wouldn’t need to ask Ellen for help.

There was only one Spencer Lagergren, but contrary to what directory enquiries had told him, this Spencer Lagergren was registered at an address in Vasastan in Stockholm, not in Uppsala. Peder frowned and made a note of his ID number.

I would really like to meet up with you, but as I understand it you live in Uppsala. I don’t suppose you happen to be coming into Stockholm either today or tomorrow?

Why hadn’t he said that he lived in Stockholm? Perhaps he was lying about the child as well. The database showed that this wasn’t the case: Spencer Lagergren did indeed have a child – a daughter just under one year old, by the name of Saga.

Peder stared at the screen. Saga. Like Fredrika’s daughter. He took a deep breath. Clicked on the child’s name. Mother and legal guardian: Fredrika Bergman. Father and legal guardian: Spencer Lagergren.

His heart was pounding, his pulse rate increasing.

What the hell was going on here? Why hadn’t Fredrika said anything?

He stopped himself.

She hadn’t known. Nobody in the team had actually mentioned Spencer Lagergren’s name.

Peder buried his face in his hands, overcome with embarrassment. Admittedly it was very odd that nobody on the team knew the name of the man Fredrika was living with, but it was even more odd that Peder had called Spencer without checking on his background in advance. Sloppy. Spencer must have wondered what the hell Fredrika’s colleagues were up to.

‘Bloody unprofessional,’ Peder muttered to himself.

His mobile rang, and Peder was relieved to see that it was Jimmy.

‘You answered!’

It was very easy to win Brownie points in Jimmy’s limited world, where his brother Peder was king, and beyond reproach. Even when he let Jimmy down.

‘Of course I answered – you called me, didn’t you?’

Jimmy’s clear laugh echoed down the phone.

They talked for a while. Jimmy had been out for a walk with someone who had a dog. They had made biscuits in the assisted living complex, and Jimmy had taken one of the biscuits for the dog.

Peder felt a stab of sorrow. In just a few years, his own sons would have passed their uncle in terms of development.

‘The weekend was good,’ Jimmy said.

He was referring to Saturday, which he had spent with Peder and his family. It had been more than just dinner; Jimmy had wanted to be picked up at lunchtime.

‘It was,’ Peder replied.

‘Can we do it again next weekend?’

‘Maybe. If not, I’ll see you soon.’

When Jimmy had rung off, Peder felt the emptiness grow in his breast. The therapist had told him he had to accept Jimmy as a source of joy; he couldn’t go on grieving for everything his brother was missing out on. He couldn’t spend his life feeling guilty because he had become an adult while Jimmy remained a child.

It didn’t matter how many times Peder heard those words; he would always feel a pang of guilt.

Alex walked in and interrupted his brooding.

‘Spencer Lagergren,’ he said.

Peder groaned.

‘Look, I’m really sorry I stuffed up, Alex. I had no idea he was Fredrika’s… boyfriend.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Alex closed the door.

‘What did you say? What are you talking about?’

‘He’s Fredrika’s partner. The father of her child.’

He pointed to the computer.

‘Unless I’ve mixed him up with another Spencer, but I really don’t think I have. I just called him. Before I checked who he was. He must think we’re a right load of clowns.’

Alex sat down.

‘I knew I recognised the name Spencer,’ he said. ‘The thing is, Fredrika isn’t as open as the rest of us. She doesn’t even have a photograph of him on her desk. Which isn’t all that strange, when you think about it. After all, he was married to another woman, more or less right up until Fredrika gave birth to their child. And she hasn’t been in work since then. All I knew was that he was a professor.’

He looked at Peder.

‘Rebecca contacted Spencer Lagergren when she wasn’t happy with Gustav Sjöö.’

‘Was he her new supervisor?’ Peder asked, sounding surprised.

‘So it seems.’

Peder shuffled uncomfortably.

‘Perhaps that’s not so strange. Sjöö knew Lagergren; perhaps he recommended him.’

‘In which case he should have mentioned that when we interviewed him.’

‘He did say that Lagergren could confirm his alibi. And it doesn’t really matter whether Rebecca found Lagergren herself, or through Sjöö.’

‘According to Spencer Lagergren’s profile on the university website, the main focus of his research has been prominent Swedish women writers who have been active during the past fifty years.’

‘Like the subject of Rebecca’s dissertation – Thea Aldrin.’

‘Exactly.’

Alex bit his lip.

‘Bloody hell, why does he have to be Fredrika’s partner? Then again, that’s irrelevant as far as the case goes. If we need his help, we have to ask for it.’

‘What do you want to talk to him about?’

‘I want to know whether he and Rebecca ever met, if he noticed anything he would like to share with us. The same questions we’ve asked everybody else who had any contact with Rebecca during the last part of her life.’

Peder looked out of the window.

‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

Alex smoothed down the crease in his trousers.

‘No. We’ll inform Fredrika that her partner has cropped up in the investigation.’

He fell silent, and Peder sensed there was something else on his mind.

‘I’m just wondering why he didn’t come forward in the first place. Rebecca’s name has been all over the news since Wednesday. He must have realised that the police would want to speak to him. That we would have wanted to speak to him when she disappeared two years ago, in fact.’

There was another pause. Peder scratched his arm.

‘Perhaps they never met, in which case there was nothing to tell.’

‘He was in her diary, Peder.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. She might have had her eye on him as a possible replacement for Gustav Sjöö, but then she disappeared before they started working together – so there’s nothing he feels he ought to pass on to the police.’

Alex spread his arms wide.

‘I’m sure you’re right. But we still need to talk to him. I assume there’s nothing on him in our records?’

‘I haven’t had time to check yet,’ Peder admitted. ‘I’ll do it right now.’

Alex stayed where he was as Peder opened the police intranet and did a multiple search of all records. There was a match in criminal records; Spencer had several fines for speeding.

‘Nothing serious,’ Peder murmured.

Alex stood up and looked at Peder’s screen over his shoulder.

There was a match in the database of those currently under suspicion of a criminal offence.

They both saw it at the same time.

The colour drained from their faces as they read the complaint.

‘Fuck,’ Alex whispered. ‘I’ll ring the Uppsala police straight away.’

30

Peder’s door slammed, and a second later, Fredrika saw Alex walk quickly past her office. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground and didn’t look in her direction. Had something happened?

She wondered whether to go and ask Peder, but dismissed the idea. To her relief, he hadn’t got annoyed when she followed up Rebecca’s appearance on the website, and then Rebecca’s dissertation. They were working well together; a situation which would have been unthinkable when she first joined the team.

Valter Lund, the businessman who had been Rebecca’s mentor, would have to be looked at. And then there was the material relating to Rebecca’s dissertation, which Fredrika had brought from the aunt’s garage. She decided to tackle that first.

Fredrika didn’t quite know where to begin. Both Diana Trolle and Gustav Sjöö had made it clear that Rebecca had spent too much time on her dissertation, and had got far too involved in her topic in the end. In fact, she didn’t get it finished. The dissertation should have been handed in in January 2007, but Rebecca wasn’t satisfied, and was aiming to submit it later, during the spring term.

How come? The subject had been the life and work of a writer who was almost seventy years old. Thea Aldrin hadn’t been a hot topic of conversation for decades. And even when her case had been in the news, no one had really been talking in terms of guilt or innocence. Thea Aldrin was guilty of the crimes for which she had been convicted; the evidence was almost ridiculously convincing.

But Rebecca had thought differently, according to her mother and her supervisor. She had insisted that Thea was innocent of the murder of her ex-husband. How could she have reached such a conclusion?

Fredrika started to go through the articles Rebecca had photocopied, trying to familiarise herself with Thea Aldrin’s background. Rebecca had been meticulous, seeking out older articles as well. Virtually every newspaper in Sweden had followed Thea’s trial, telling her story over and over again.

The court case formed a kind of bizarre finale to years of remarkable episodes in Thea’s life, Fredrika discovered. It began when she gained success as an author. Some people were horrified by her status as a single mother, because no one seemed to know who the child’s father was, and because Thea hadn’t even been married. Should parents really be giving their children books by a woman like this?

The answer to the question was clearly yes – Thea’s books had sold in large numbers, not only in Sweden but also on the international market. Some cynics maintained that Thea should have had more sense, and published her books under a pseudonym instead so that her private life wouldn’t have affected her success.

Rebecca had gathered together a large collection of articles. A person who was unfamiliar with the topic would have found it difficult to produce a time line, but Fredrika had a certain amount of basic knowledge to help her. She knew that there were certain critics who never gave up in their efforts to destroy once and for all the image of Thea Aldrin as an independent woman with a child and a career.

In 1976, just such an opportunity arose. A small and relatively new publisher brought out the books Mercury and Asteroid, two short works with the sole aim of provoking debate, apparently. Extremely heated debate. In more recent times, only Brett Easton Ellis had aroused a similar outcry with American Psycho. The stories in Mercury and Asteroid contained sequences of exaggerated and violent pornography which always ended in murder. They also contained deeply unpleasant murders of women in a variety of sexual contexts.

Fredrika hadn’t read the books herself, but she had always wondered why it was rumoured that Thea Aldrin had written them. The publisher behind the books, Box, refused to comment.

The rumours about Thea’s involvement might well have died away, but for the fact that her son disappeared in 1980.

The boy seemed to have been something of a sore point in Thea’s life even when he was a child. She had given very few interviews, and had consistently refused to discuss her private life. She protected her son as fiercely as a lioness. There was only one photograph of the boy when he was little, taken at the premiere of a British film in Stockholm, according to the article. The year was 1969, and the boy was five years old. His hands were pushed deep in his pockets, and he was staring into the camera with a defiant expression. Fredrika leaned forward to look more closely at the picture. It was a poor copy, and the image wasn’t very sharp. It looked as if Thea and the boy were standing in the foyer of the cinema, with people crowding around them. She read:

‘Thea Aldrin is a rare guest at film premieres, but this evening she has brought her son Johan along. The author has a keen interest in film, and is a member of the exclusive film club known as The Guardian Angels, which meets on a regular basis to watch and discuss both new and old films.’

The Guardian Angels.

Fredrika immediately thought of the floppy disks she had found in the garage. One of them had been labelled with those very words: The Guardian Angels. She must remember to hand them over to the IT boys.

She concentrated on the article again. The slightly blurred caption below the picture read:

‘Thea and Johan Aldrin. Morgan Axberger, who is also a member of The Guardian Angels, can be seen in the background.’

Morgan Axberger, former vice president of Axbergers, where Valter Lund worked, and now chairman of the board. She could picture Morgan Axberger today – he was a man who personified the concept of power in every way. Tall and imposing, exuding authority. He had inherited his father’s empire in the 1970s, and had ruled it with an iron hand ever since. In spite of the fact that he had recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, no one was expecting him to retire. Nor was it clear who would take over from him in the future, because there were no heirs.

Rebecca must have wanted to meet Morgan Axberger to talk about the film club. Fredrika dug out the copy of Rebecca’s diary that Peder had given her; she leafed through it without coming across Axberger’s name. However, he was one of the most influential people in Swedish industry, so it would probably have been difficult to arrange a meeting with him. Then again, with Valter Lund as her mentor, it shouldn’t have been impossible. Feeling frustrated, Fredrika put the question to the back of her mind and decided to take a break.

She found the floppy disks she had brought from the garage and headed for the IT department. In the corridor, she met Peder, who gave a start when he caught sight of her.

‘Hi, there.’

She laughed.

‘Hi there.’

He stopped.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing – it’s just the way you said, “Hi, there.” It’s not your usual greeting.’

Peder shrugged, looking as if he was forcing himself to smile at her. Then he walked away.

Something was wrong, she could feel it, but curiosity with regard to what she might find on the disks overshadowed everything else.

The IT department was almost empty; the only person available to help her was one of the admin staff.

‘So you want to know what’s on these disks?’

‘Please. And if there isn’t too much on there, I’d like a printout straight away.’

‘OK, let’s see what we can do.’

Fredrika hurried back to her office. Her intention was to try to work fewer hours per day than she had done in the first week – if that was possible while she was working on the Rebecca Trolle case.

Alex and Peder were in Alex’s office when she went past. They were talking quietly, their expressions tense. She stopped in the doorway, wondering what was going on. Alex saw her first.

‘We’ve heard from surveillance. About Håkan Nilsson.’

She waited. ‘Oh?’

Peder couldn’t look at her; he appeared to be reading the sheet of paper in his hand with immense concentration.

‘He’s disappeared. They rang the bell several times, and eventually they went in. The apartment was empty.’

‘He got away even though we had surveillance outside his door?’

‘So it seems. There’s a door at the back of the building; apparently we weren’t watching that one.’

Fredrika could see that Alex was annoyed and stressed. But there was something else. Peder still hadn’t looked up from his sheet of paper.

‘I’ll follow up that other point we discussed,’ he said, and left the room.

Fredrika watched him go.

‘What do we do now?’

‘We’ll put out a call for him. The prosecutor has given us permission to search his apartment; Peder’s going over there as soon as he’s dealt with another matter.’

Another matter. Fredrika felt as if she had been pushed aside for no good reason.

‘What are you working on?’ Alex asked.

‘I’m reading through Rebecca’s dissertation notes and trying to get an idea of what she found out that…’

‘Excellent,’ Alex interrupted her.

He went and sat behind his desk, turning his attention to the computer screen.

‘Was there anything else?’

The tone of voice was new. Not unpleasant, but not exactly inviting.

‘No, I don’t think so. Oh, yes.’

He looked at her.

‘Valter Lund, Rebecca’s mentor. I still haven’t heard back from Ellen.’

‘Did you look him up on the electoral register?’

She had completely forgotten about that.

‘No, but I’ll do it straight away.’

He gave a brief nod, focused on the screen once more. As she was leaving the room, she heard him say:

‘Would you mind closing the door behind you? I’ve got a few calls to make.’

The situation that had arisen was completely alien to Alex. Spencer Lagergren’s unexpected appearance in the investigation was delicate to say the least. And unwelcome. Alex had made an initial decision not to pass on the information to anyone at all.

‘Anything we find out stays between you and me,’ he had said to Peder. ‘If it’s obvious that Lagergren has nothing to do with the case, then I want to establish that as soon as possible. Don’t make any notes in the general log for the time being. I’ll take the responsibility for making sure the right people upstairs are informed if necessary.’

Peder hadn’t raised any objections, but Alex could see that he was less than comfortable with the arrangement.

The telephone rang. It was the officer in charge of excavating the site in Midsommarkransen.

‘We’ve found something.’

His voice was hoarse with tension, as if he’d known all along that there was something else waiting to be discovered in that accursed plot. Alex clutched the receiver tightly.

‘Male or female?’

‘Neither. Some objects. A gold watch. And an axe and a knife.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘We think there’s an inscription on the back of the watch, but we can’t make out what it says.’

Alex swallowed.

‘Send it straight over to forensics. It might help us to identify the man we found last week.’

Last week.

After more days than Alex had the strength to count, they still had no idea who the dead man was, in spite of the fact that Alex had set himself the goal of identifying the body before the weekend was over.

‘We’ve already sent the watch. And the axe and the knife.’

Alex thanked his colleague for the information, wondering what the new discoveries might mean. He couldn’t explain why, but he was convinced that the watch was linked to the unidentified man rather than to Rebecca. It should take them a step closer to solving the case. And a step further away from the grave. It was almost a week since Rebecca had been found, and the police were still digging. If they didn’t find anything else, they would stop the following evening.

Journalists from all over the country were breathing down their necks. Why were they still digging? Alex had finally judged that the situation was untenable, and had accepted that the police needed to issue a statement. He didn’t want to hold a press conference until they had something to say, but a few lines were required to settle their curiosity. And to avoid encouraging the ghost stories that were growing in the shadow of the continued silence on the part of the police.

He glanced at the headlines in today’s papers:

POLICE FEAR MASS GRAVE

ENDLESS NIGHTMARE: DESPERATE POLICE CONTINUE TO DIG

One of the articles speculated that the area around the grave was cursed, and that people had gone out into the forest, never to return. There were no concrete examples, merely wild rumours and allegations.

Rubbish, to put it simply.

There was a knock on his door.

‘Come in.’

The door opened and Peder slid in. Closed the door behind him. This was something new for both of them. The only person who liked to work with her door closed was Fredrika, and at the moment it was wide open.

‘Have you spoken to the police in Uppsala yet?’

Alex shook his head.

‘I haven’t had time. Other things keep getting in the way.’

He told Peder about the new discoveries, and Peder listened with keen interest.

‘An axe and a knife. I wonder what they were used for?’

‘If it hadn’t been for the chainsaw, I might have had a suggestion.’ Alex said.

Peder let out a guffaw, but fell silent when he realised it wasn’t really appropriate to burst out laughing.

‘I called Spencer Lagergren’s head of department,’ he said. ‘I wanted to get the university’s point of view. He promised everything would remain confidential.’

‘Did you tell him why you were calling?’

‘I kept it vague to say the least; I didn’t want to tell him the real reason.’

‘Good. What did he say?’

‘What we already knew. That a student had reported Lagergren for sexual harassment, and that she had decided to go to the police.’

‘But why? I thought that kind of thing would be sorted out within the university.’

‘The girl who reported him had produced incriminating emails that Lagergren had allegedly sent her. They contained indirect threats, and it was these threats that made the university authorities react.’

Alex sighed, gazing towards the window. Another lovely day. Not that he would get much chance to appreciate it.

‘Did the head of department think Lagergren was guilty?’

‘He wished the emails hadn’t existed; they made it more difficult to explain things away. The university was accustomed to angry students, but this was something different. In his opinion.’

‘Could anyone else have sent the emails?’

Peder leafed through his notebook.

‘From a purely theoretical point of view, yes. But he didn’t think that was the case.’

Peder took a deep breath.

‘The fact that Spencer Lagergren is now living with one of his former students doesn’t exactly help.’

Alex was annoyed.

‘Bollocks. It’s ridiculous to regard his relationship with Fredrika as something frivolous.’

‘I totally agree,’ Peder said. ‘But to be honest, I had no idea they’d been together for such a long time. Over ten years, according to the head of department. Apparently, she used to attend conferences with Lagergren. He was married then, Alex. I’m not casting aspersions on Fredrika, but how do we know if she was the only one he was seeing?’

‘Would it matter if there were others?’

‘Not if they were all happy with the situation. But he might have exploited his position in order to seduce female students in the past. And taken it badly if they turned him down.’

Alex’s eyes were itching, as if listening to what Peder had to say had produced an allergic reaction.

‘Go and search Håkan Nilsson’s place, then I’d like you to drive over to Uppsala. Turn over a few stones, have a chat with the local police. Get a feel for the situation and report back to me before the end of the day. In the meantime I’ll try to find out if there’s any reason to think that Spencer Lagergren ever met Rebecca. Then we’ll decide how to proceed.’

‘OK.’

Peder would have to move fast in order to get everything done. As he was about to leave the room, Alex said:

‘I still want to keep this between the two of us, Peder. For Fredrika’s sake.’

31

This wasn’t going to end well. The certainty covered her skin like a painful sheen. Malena Bremberg had switched off her mobile, hoping that would keep her persecutor at bay. And yet the gesture seemed pointless. There was nothing she could do to make her life good once more.

She could hardly remember how it had all begun. It was as if all her problems appeared overnight, as if she had had no control over them right from the start. She had believed they had met by chance; it was only with hindsight that she realised that was not the case. Nothing that had happened between them was chance; everything had been planned.

He often came back to the assertion that they needed one another. For different reasons, admittedly, but the important thing was their mutual dependency. She had defied him only once. That was enough for her to learn the lesson that his rules took precedence. And that was when he had made the film.

The film.

Waves of terror washed over her, made her want to climb the walls of her apartment. He had hinted that he watched it occasionally. That he enjoyed it. She hated him for that. Hated and feared him, two concepts that lay very close to one another, as she had learned.

Malena didn’t know how she was going to pass the time. She had already worked several extra shifts, and her supervisor at the care home had explained, very kindly, that she didn’t want her working more than necessary.

‘I mean, you’ve got to find time for your studies as well.’

How could she explain? She hadn’t been to a single lecture since Rebecca Trolle was found. And she wasn’t going to sit the exam on Friday. What did it matter if she did it next term instead? She already had far more serious problems.

She remembered the moment when she first realised things weren’t right. She was staying over at his place; they had just turned off the lights and were settling down to go to sleep.

‘Thea Aldrin – she’s a patient in the care home where you work, isn’t she?’

She wasn’t really allowed to give out that kind of information, but it sounded as if he already knew that the notorious writer was a resident at the home, so she saw no reason to deny it.

‘Yes, she’s been there for a few years now.’

‘Is she nice?’

‘I don’t know. Nobody knows whether she’s nice or not.’

‘So she’s still not speaking?’

At that point, she had hesitated. Should she be talking about Thea’s silence?

‘Yes, she hasn’t said a word in ages.’

He had turned to face her, gazing at her in the darkness.

‘Does she get many visitors?’

That was the line she couldn’t cross. She didn’t say anything.

‘Well?’

‘I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to discuss the affairs of individual residents with outsiders.’

She had heard the sound of his heavy breathing. Felt him stiffen, then relax.

‘Think twice before you defy me, Malena. Just so you know.’

Then he had fallen silent and turned his back on her in bed. She hadn’t slept a wink that night. And she had never stayed the night with him again. It was as if she suddenly sobered up and saw him for what he was from then on. He wasn’t an exciting fling, just a considerably older man who helped himself to parts of her life that she would rather give to someone else.

But by then it was already too late.

What annoyed her was the fact that she still didn’t get it. Why was a man like him interested in Thea Aldrin’s visitors?

32

There was no real indication that Håkan Nilsson was intending to be away for long. He had left food in the fridge, and hadn’t taken out the rubbish. The bed was made, the blinds open. An unwashed coffee cup stood on the kitchen table.

Peder and his colleagues went through the whole apartment systematically. They opened drawers and cupboards, spread newspaper on the floor and tipped out the rubbish. Any information about where he might have gone would have been welcome. There was nothing to suggest that he had been forced to leave.

‘Do we have any idea what time he took off?’ Peder asked.

‘No, unfortunately.’

Nobody actually said it, but they all felt embarrassed that Håkan Nilsson had simply managed to walk out of his apartment when there was a surveillance team sitting in a car outside. When they had known that there was a back door, but hadn’t put an officer there.

‘He hasn’t exactly emptied his wardrobe,’ a colleague called out from the bedroom.

‘No?’

‘It doesn’t look that way.’

Peder passed a notice board in the hallway, which also seemed to function as a work station. There were letters from his bank and his insurance company, and a number of bills. Håkan had dated the bills in ink, presumably to indicate when they had been paid. He was an orderly person. Peder leafed through the papers, unsure what he was looking for. One of the bills was for a newspaper subscription, another for books he had ordered. A third was for insurance on a boat.

Peder frowned. Interesting – Håkan Nilsson had access to a boat.

‘How do you find out if someone owns a boat, and if so where it’s moored?’ he asked a colleague who happened to have a boat himself.

‘The insurance company should be able to confirm ownership, but they probably won’t know where it’s kept. You’d have to ring around various boat clubs and ask.’

He glanced at the bill in Peder’s hand.

‘That tells you what type it is.’

He pointed. Ryds hajen. Five metres long. Evinrude outboard motor, fifty horsepower.

‘Not exactly a luxury yacht,’ Peder said. ‘What the hell is a Ryds hajen?’

‘A real diamond,’ his colleague replied. ‘A seventies model, I should think. Hard top and a cockpit. Two berths.’

‘So you can sleep on board?’

‘Absolutely.’

But not at the moment, Peder thought. It was still below minus ten at night. You didn’t go and sleep on a little pleasure boat when it was that cold. Unless you were desperate, of course. Which they could assume that Håkan was.

‘Has the season already started?’

‘No. The clubs usually start putting their boats in the water from the first of May onwards.’

‘So we can assume that this boat is still ashore somewhere?’

His colleague shook his head.

‘We can’t assume anything. He might have put it in the water himself, even if it’s against the rules of his club. If he even belongs to a boat club, of course.’

Håkan’s desk was small, surrounded by tall bookshelves. Peder examined the spines of the books and discovered a row of files towards the bottom, neatly marked with the year: 1998, onwards. Peder pulled out the current file: 2009.

Håkan was well organised, and the contents were filed under different headings, separated by coloured dividers: ‘Telephone’, ‘Apartment’, ‘Internet’, ‘Guarantees’. And right at the back: ‘Boat’.

Peder quickly turned to the relevant section, and found all the information he could have wished for. The boat belonged to St Erik’s boat club, which was opposite Karlberg. As far as Peder could tell, Håkan had recently paid for another year’s membership.

Feeling stressed, he closed the file. Alex would have to ask someone else to follow up that particular lead; he needed to get to Uppsala.

Every fibre of Alex’s being wanted to walk down the corridor and knock on Fredrika’s door, sit down opposite her and explain what had happened, so that she was fully informed and up to speed with everything that he and Peder knew. From a purely emotional point of view, he felt it was the right thing to do. But reason was saying something else. There was a minute risk that Spencer Lagergren could be mixed up in the murder of Rebecca Trolle. And there was an even smaller risk that Fredrika knew about her partner’s involvement and had decided to keep quiet. This meant that Fredrika had to be kept out of the loop when it came to the lead Alex and Peder were currently following up, so that no one could come along afterwards and claim that the matter had not been handled correctly.

Alex had gone back to the material from the original investigation, looking for traces of Spencer. He had discovered that Rebecca had called the switchboard at Uppsala University on several occasions; the last time was the day before she disappeared. And according to her diary, she had a preliminary meeting booked in with Spencer two days later. Or at least the initials ‘SL’ appeared in the diary, with ‘unconfirmed’ after them. Alex was almost certain this was Spencer Lagergren.

The diary was a dubious source of information. There was always a danger that they were misinterpreting the brief notes. And who knew how many other meetings Rebecca might have had, without jotting them down in her diary? Or which meetings she might have cancelled without crossing them out?

Dubious or not, it was all they had.

Alex opened the investigation log and searched for the few short lines that had led him to start looking into the issue of Rebecca’s supervisor in the first place. One of her fellow students had hinted that Rebecca was so dissatisfied with Gustav Sjöö that she had turned to a new supervisor. At Uppsala.

He called her; he didn’t bother with the formalities. All he wanted was the answer to a few simple questions.

‘Frida.’

‘It’s Alex Recht from the police. Am I disturbing you?’

No, he wasn’t. He could tell from her voice that the call had made her nervous. He quickly explained that he knew she had spoken to one of his colleagues last week, and hoped she wouldn’t mind answering one or two more questions. She hesitated; she had already told the police everything she could remember.

‘This other supervisor that Rebecca contacted – you still don’t remember his name?’

‘No, unfortunately. I’m really sorry I can’t be of more help.’

‘That’s fine.’

But you could at least try. Everyone remembers something.

‘Do you remember whether Rebecca mentioned this person by name?’

He could hear Frida breathing at the other end of the line. He wondered why people breathed differently when they were thinking hard about something.

‘I think so. But I don’t know what his name was, just that it was a bit odd. Gilbert, something like that.’

‘Spencer?’

‘Yes!’

Relief in her voice; at last she remembered and could help.

‘His name was Spencer, and his surname ended with “gren”.’

Alex looked at the picture of Spencer Lagergren that he had printed off from the university website. Strong, distinctive features. Thick, silver-grey hair. Eyes as sharp as an eagle’s. Was this what a murderer who dismembered his victim looked like?

‘Do you know if they met up?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t. I know she wanted to see him because she needed help with her dissertation, but I’m not sure if they managed to arrange it. I do remember something else, although I’ve no idea if it’s relevant to your investigation.’

Alex felt his expectations increase.

‘Tell me.’

‘She’d come across the professor’s name in a different context while she was working on her dissertation.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m not sure how, but she was hoping he’d be doubly useful.’

Alex thanked her for the information, cursing the fact that they didn’t seem able to establish whether Spencer and Rebecca had met without asking Spencer himself. He wanted to avoid a formal interview with him at all costs, because that would mean informing Fredrika.

She had to be told in any case. Not telling her that Spencer now figured in the investigation was untenable. And morally wrong. And illegal. If Spencer Lagergren emerged as a possible suspect, Fredrika would have to be removed from the case.

She would never accept that under any circumstances.

He felt a surge of sorrow and rage. The weekend’s fishing trip seemed light years away, and it had been tainted by Torbjörn’s account of his obsession with the Thea Aldrin case. He was still visiting a woman who was over seventy years old, waiting for her to confess to the murder of her son. That had to be against the rules.

He stood up and marched along to see Ellen Lind.

‘Have you got a list of Håkan Nilsson’s relatives?’

‘Here.’

She handed him a list that contained fewer names than the fingers on one hand.

‘Is this a joke?’

‘His father is dead, and so are both sets of grandparents. His only living relatives are his mother, a maternal aunt and two cousins.’

The list was too sad to comment on. How could a young man in his prime have so few close relatives?

‘By the way, I called the university to ask about Håkan Nilsson’s studies.’

‘Yes?’

‘That girl who came in with her mother, the one you interviewed about who started the rumours about Rebecca Trolle? She said he’d found the website when he was writing his dissertation on the new laws regarding prostitution.’

‘Correct,’ said Alex.

‘Well, she was lying. Or Håkan was lying.’

Alex looked at her.

‘Lying about what?’

‘It was probably him. He never wrote a dissertation; he dropped out when he still had a year to go.’

‘He never graduated?’

‘No.’

How was this possible? Alex wondered. How could someone who had been a central figure in the case from day one still manage to surprise them? Over and over again? Without being the guilty party?

With a sense that time was running out for her, Fredrika carried on ploughing through Rebecca’s notes. The fact that she didn’t have a copy of the dissertation to refer to made the work difficult; she hoped it was a temporary problem, and that the IT team would be able to provide her with the material she so badly needed by the end of the day.

Thea Aldrin’s life was never the same after the two scandalous books were published in 1976. There were constant rumours. In spite of the fact that no one knew for certain, the rumour became the truth as far as the general public were concerned: Thea had written those disgusting books, proving once and for all what a disturbed person she was. The books were the reason why she had chosen to live an isolated life, and why she didn’t want to meet her readers.

‘That’s why she can’t look children in the eye,’ one article stated in 1977, a year after publication.

Someone reported the matter to the police, but it led nowhere.

Obviously.

Fredrika dug out the picture of Thea and her son Johan at the film premiere. He had disappeared in 1980: He had never been found, and no one had heard from him. Where had he gone? If he hadn’t been so young at the time, Fredrika might have thought he was the one sharing a grave with Rebecca in Midsommarkransen.

Rebecca had also gathered articles relating to the search for Johan, which had covered the length and breadth of the country. To begin with, everyone was behind their favourite writer, but when a fresh rumour began to circulate, they took a step back. Thea had killed the boy. Still more press coverage followed in the wake of this vicious rumour. Once again, there was speculation as to why Thea Aldrin had chosen to live alone. What secret was she hiding that meant she wouldn’t let any man get near her? Something must be weighing so heavily on her conscience that it had driven her to insanity.

Fredrika was getting more and more annoyed. Where did all this gossip come from? First of all about Mercury and Asteroid, then about the disappearance of her son. The relentless hate campaign seemed to have pushed Thea over the edge, because a year later she stabbed her ex-boyfriend to death – he was the man she claimed was the father of her child. The newspapers inaccurately referred to him as her ex-husband, even though they hadn’t been married.

There was nothing to explain why he had suddenly turned up on Thea’s doorstep. No one and nothing spoke up in her defence. She chose not to appeal against her life sentence, and allowed herself to be taken to prison in handcuffs as the TV cameras rolled.

It wasn’t difficult to see why Rebecca had become interested in Thea’s life. But a large piece of the puzzle was missing, the piece that would explain how interest had turned into obsession. How Rebecca had come to the conclusion that Thea was innocent of the murder of her ex.

What did you find out, that I can’t see, Rebecca?

A call from IT informed her that the printouts from the floppy disks were ready. Fredrika almost ran to collect them.

She was surprised and disappointed when she was given a pile of paper that was significantly smaller than she had expected.

‘That’s all there was,’ the girl explained.

Fredrika flicked through the sheets.

‘Which pages came from which disk?’

‘The top three came from the one labelled “The Guardian Angels”, and the rest from the one labelled “Dissertation”.’

It looked like a half-finished outline. Better than nothing, Fredrika told herself.

On the way back, Alex called her into his office.

‘We need to speak to Håkan Nilsson’s relatives about where he might have gone. There aren’t many of them, unfortunately; could you possibly ring his mother and one of his cousins? I’ve asked Cecilia Torsson to call the other two.’

He handed Fredrika a note with the details on it. His thoughts were elsewhere, and he didn’t even look at her as she left.

Fredrika sat down at her desk and decided to satisfy her immediate curiosity by looking at the printouts from ‘The Guardian Angels’ disk. The three pages consisted of a description of the composition of the group, and why it had once been the subject of considerable interest. The number of members had always been limited, as if to intensify the air of mystery that already surrounded the little group.

Thea Aldrin was the only woman.

Morgan Axberger.

A man Fredrika had never heard of.

And – later, when one of the others left the group – Spencer Lagergren.

It couldn’t be true. It mustn’t be true.

Fredrika felt the colour drain from her face. In 1972, a new member joined the film club known as The Guardian Angels: Spencer Lagergren, a young PhD student and specialist in the history of literature.

Spencer. Again.

Fuck.

She forced herself to think clearly, trying to see a logical explanation for the fact that he had once again been mentioned in Rebecca’s notes. The police had obviously missed something when Rebecca disappeared. She hadn’t seen Spencer’s name anywhere until she picked up the material from the garage.

Fredrika was about to push the document to one side when she noticed a word that Rebecca had jotted down right at the bottom of the last page, followed by a question mark. She read the word over and over again, feeling her blood pressure drop.

Just one word, but it was enough to make her heart stop.

S n u f f?

33

The one thing with which Diana Trolle was unable to come to terms was her daughter’s pregnancy. She thought she would be able to live with the rest of it in time, to reconcile herself.

But she couldn’t deal with the thought that she had misjudged the level of trust Rebecca had had in her. Diana had been under the illusion that she and her daughter had shared everything. Things had always been different with her son; he chose to confide in his father. Diana had never questioned this; she had simply accepted it as the natural order.

She and the children’s father had realised at an early stage that they were not meant for one another. While other couples gradually grew apart, Diana and her ex-husband discovered that they had never really been close enough. The split was far from dramatic: one day her ex-husband moved out and took their son with him. He rented a place not far away and lived there until the children started high school, then he moved to Gothenburg. They saw each other less and less often.

Rebecca had always occupied a special place in Diana’s heart. Not a better place than the one reserved for her son, but somehow more important. People say that every parent has a particularly strong bond with their first-born, and for Diana, this was an absolute truth. The daughter she had once carried was special, a perfect mosaic of qualities and characteristics inherited from her parents, mixed with her own unique personality. This applied to both the physical and the spiritual elements.

The night she was born, Diana and Rebecca’s father had stood gazing at the child as she slept.

‘She looks like both of us,’ Diana had said.

‘She’s an individual.’

‘It doesn’t do any harm to have an inheritance.’

How those words had hurt her over the past two years, when Diana suddenly discovered that was all she had left. During the first twenty-four hours of the search, she had managed to remain calm. She had phoned her ex and explained what had happened, told him there was no need to come to Stockholm. Rebecca would soon be back.

The following morning he was on her doorstep. He stayed for ninety days. Slept on her sofa and wept in her arms when the pain got too much for him.

Ninety days. That was how long the search for their daughter had remained active. After that, there was a change. When Diana went to see Alex Recht at police HQ, she could feel that things were different. There were fewer officers still searching. Far fewer. Alex placed his big hands on her shoulders and said:

‘We’ll never stop looking. But we have to accept that the chances of finding her alive are now minimal. At least the police have to take that view.’

The consequences of his comments were implicit: he had to re-prioritise the deployment of his staff. He would be leading a new team.

‘I don’t care whether you find her alive; I just want to know what’s happened to her,’ Diana said.

After that, her ex-husband had gone back to Gothenburg. His new wife couldn’t cope without him any longer. It was summer, and it had rained every single day. Diana was glued to the television when six-year-old Lilian Sebastiansson vanished from a train. She felt for the child’s mother, who was a single mum, and wished her well. By the time the summer drew to a close, Diana had fallen apart. For the first time in her life, she didn’t know how she could ever be whole again. She didn’t want to be whole again. As long as her daughter was missing, she had no reason to feel at peace.

With the autumn came a return to everyday life. The knowledge that her daughter would have wanted her mother to go on living carried Diana through the days. She began painting more, spending time with her son. The memory of Rebecca didn’t fade for a second. Her face was the last thing Diana saw when she closed her eyes and fell asleep at night, and the first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning. The child she had given life to might have disappeared, but the memories remained, as Diana and her son frequently reminded one another.

She’s here, even though we can’t see her.

Rebecca was dead. Diana had known that when that hellish summer with all its rain came along. The only thing she couldn’t understand was why her daughter couldn’t be found. Where was she?

In the ground.

Someone had given Rebecca a grave without telling her family. Diana wanted to go there, to Midsommarkransen. Stand at the edge of the grave and look down into the hole that some unknown person had dug. Alex had advised her against it, told her it would be best to wait until the police had finished their work.

Alex.

Who had led the search for her daughter and identified her with the help of a piece of jewellery. She liked him. She had liked him two years ago, when Rebecca went missing. She knew he had sorrows of his own. It didn’t feel right to compare her pain with his; she could see that he was suffering, but didn’t know how to ease his torment.

Or how he might be able to help her.

Diana burst into tears. How could her daughter have been pregnant, and never said a word? For several months!

I thought we had no secrets from one another.

Alex wasn’t saying much about the way the police were thinking. Rebecca’s pregnancy was one of several important lines of inquiry. Diana couldn’t understand how there could be a number of different leads.

She called her son, hoping she wasn’t disturbing him.

‘Of course not, Mum.’

She had to smile.

‘That’s what the police say when I ring them.’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Was there something in particular, or did you just want a chat?’

He was so like his father, always wanting to know how things stood.

‘Both.’

She hesitated before going on.

‘I want you to be absolutely straight with me. Are you sure you didn’t know Rebecca was pregnant?’

‘For God’s sake, Mum, you’ve asked me that a hundred times, and every time I tell you…’

‘… that you didn’t know. I’m sorry to keep asking, it’s just that I’m finding it so difficult – so difficult – to cope with the thought that she never mentioned it to either of us.’

Damn, she couldn’t stop herself from crying.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘You have to accept that she had secrets, Mum.’

‘But why keep that a secret?’

‘I suppose she was intending to have a termination.’

‘All the more reason to tell me. I wouldn’t have judged her, she knew that.’

Her son said nothing; he couldn’t deal with his mother’s grief as well as his own.

‘What about that Valter Lund?’ he said eventually.

‘Her mentor?’

Diana could hear the surprise in her voice.

‘But he was much older than her. Are you saying he might have been the father?’

‘There was something odd about all that, Mum. He came to church once to hear her sing.’

‘Wasn’t he religious?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything? He was there, Mum. He sat right at the front, staring at her.’

‘You were there too?’

‘Yes, and I know what I saw.’

Diana allowed her son’s words to sink in. Alex wasn’t prepared to say whether the police had found the father of Rebecca’s child. Could it be Valter Lund? That would explain Rebecca’s silence. And Alex’s.

34

At first, it looked as if Valter Lund had never existed. The high-flying financier who shot across the company directors’ sky like a comet had no past.

‘Why does it look like this?’ Fredrika asked Ellen as they attempted to map out his life together.

‘Because he didn’t come to Sweden until 1986. He’s been a Swedish citizen since the beginning of the nineties; started his first company the year he arrived.’

Fascinated, Fredrika carried on leafing through the documents.

‘What an amazing story. It looks as if what people say about him really is true; he came from nowhere and broke through with a force that would have frightened Thor himself.’

‘Who?’

Fredrika smiled.

‘Thor, the Norse god. The guy with the hammer.’

Ellen laughed.

‘Is he in our records?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Shame.’

Ellen bit her lower lip.

‘I don’t know if this is of any interest, but…’

Fredrika turned to look at Ellen, the papers sliding out of her hands.

‘What?’

‘Carl, my partner, he works with Valter Lund occasionally. And he’s told me a bit about his life. His private life, I mean.’

‘Go on.’

Ellen sat down. Fredrika noticed that she was wearing a loose top yet again. Was she pregnant? It wasn’t out of the question; Ellen was under forty.

‘Well, Carl said that Valter Lund always attended functions and work-related events alone. Without exception. And of course that led to a certain amount of speculation about his sexual orientation.’

Fredrika’s hopes began to fade. If Valter Lund was gay, he was hardly likely to have had a relationship with Rebecca. But Ellen hadn’t finished.

‘But then he turned up at one dinner with a much younger woman on his arm. It only happened once, but it was enough to start a fresh rumour. People said he was only interested in women half his age.’

‘If it only happened once, it seems a bit rash to draw such a conclusion,’ Fredrika said. ‘Perhaps the girl was his niece, or some other relative?’

Ellen shook her head decisively.

‘That was the whole point. She wasn’t a relative; he introduced her as “a young woman who has yet to find her true path in life”.’

‘And you think this might have been Rebecca Trolle?’

‘When Valter Lund’s name cropped up in the investigation, I remembered Carl telling me about that girl. I mentioned it to him, and he’s absolutely certain it was Rebecca.’

Fredrika took out her copy of Rebecca’s diary.

‘Does he remember the date?’

‘Not the exact date, but it was around the beginning of February 2007.’

Fredrika flicked through week after week in the relevant month. Plenty of meetings, but nothing with the initials ‘VL’.

‘Maybe there’s nothing odd about it,’ she said. ‘After all, he was her mentor; perhaps he was just being kind and inviting her to a dinner. We’ll ask Diana; she might have heard Rebecca mention it even though it isn’t in her diary.’

Ellen pursed her lips.

‘Feel free to speak to her mother, but I’m absolutely certain there was something dodgy about it.’

‘Because?’

‘Because the dinner was in Copenhagen. How many other mentors invited their students to spend a weekend in a luxury hotel in Denmark’s capital city?’

The gold watch that had been dug up in Midsommarkransen gleamed in Alex’s hand.

‘Carry me. Your Helena’

He had read the inscription on the back of the watch several times. Simple words, worth their weight in gold.

How many watches like this could there be? Not many. It should have been all they needed to identify the man in the grave. Who was he, this man who had lain in the ground for decades without being missed by anyone?

It just couldn’t be true.

No one disappears without being missed by a single person. No one.

Alex held on tightly to the watch. He had asked one of his colleagues to try to trace its origins, as far back as possible.

‘Try jewellers and specialist watch makers. Find out when it was made, where it might have been bought.’

The officer in question was given a series of pictures to take with him; Alex hoped he would be back soon. If the watch couldn’t help them, he had already decided to turn to the media. He would publish pictures of the watch and pray that someone recognised it. Preferably this afternoon.

Forensics called about the axe and the knife; there were very old traces of blood on both. It was unlikely that the blood had come from either Rebecca Trolle or the unidentified man, but it was impossible be sure. Alex shuddered at the thought of having yet another dead person to deal with.

He glanced at his watch. Peder should be in Uppsala by now; he was going to speak to the local police to find out what they knew. He was also intending to visit Spencer Lagergren’s ex-wife, who still lived in Uppsala; Lagergren had been living with her when Rebecca disappeared.

Alex went back to the lists of Rebecca Trolle’s telephone activity, which didn’t directly link her to Lagergren; all they had were the calls to the university switchboard. Which proved absolutely nothing.

Nor had it been possible to trace any emails from Rebecca to Spencer, at least not from her account. That was no guarantee that messages hadn’t been sent, of course, just that they hadn’t been traced.

But if they had spoken on the phone only infrequently, and hadn’t exchanged emails, how had they been in touch? The conclusion could well be that they hadn’t been in touch, and that Spencer Lagergren had no place in the investigation.

Alex sent up a silent prayer that this would turn out to be the case.

The image of Gustav Sjöö emerged from the shadows of his mind: the supervisor who had named Spencer Lagergren as the witness who could confirm that he had not left the conference in Västerås, and who therefore could not be involved in the murder of Rebecca Trolle. A witness who was now accused of having sexually harassed a female student, just like Sjöö.

What if they knew one another?

The thought was intriguing. What if the two of them had worked together, each providing the other with an alibi to protect them? Their profiles were very similar: two men in their sixties, recently divorced, subsequently finding it difficult to maintain appropriate relationships with young women.

Peder called.

‘I’ve spoken to our Uppsala colleagues about Lagergren.’

His voice was tense; it sounded as if he was making the call outdoors.

‘What did they say?’

‘That a Tova Eriksson has made the accusation. She claims that Lagergren used his position of power as her supervisor to force her to provide sexual favours. And when he didn’t get what he wanted, she says he scuppered her dissertation.’

‘Fuck.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure that everything is as it seems, Alex.’

Peder sounded anxious, his voice peppered with uncertainty.

‘This isn’t like the accusations against Gustav Sjöö.’

‘No?’

‘The women who complained about Sjöö had attended lectures given by him on a small number of occasions. They had no real “relationship” with him. In Lagergren’s case, the girl was in a position of dependency, in a way. The accusations come from a young student who was given a poor grade by her supervisor. She didn’t make any kind of complaint before he failed her dissertation.’

‘So you think she made the whole thing up?’

‘I’m saying that she might well have a reason to make up something like this so that she would appear in a better light. If you see what I mean.’

Alex could see exactly what he meant. Spencer Lagergren had made the mistake of rejecting a student who had hoped to gain a better grade by getting close to her supervisor.

‘She was the one who came on to him, rather than the other way around,’ Alex said.

‘That’s what I think,’ Peder said. ‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’

Alex sensed trouble ahead.

‘So we should be able to eliminate him from our inquiries?’

‘Definitely. But Lagergren is still going to have serious problems.’

‘How come?’

‘Tova Eriksson’s father was the local councillor in Uppsala; he died a few years ago. Apparently, he was a close friend of the local chief of police, and Tova Eriksson took her complaint straight to the top. He’s taken a personal interest in the case; he sees it as an opportunity to raise his profile in equality issues. Unless Lagergren can come up with a bloody good explanation for all this, he doesn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance.’

Alex heard what Peder said, and understood all too well how things were likely to go for Spencer Lagergren. However, it wasn’t their problem. If the opportunity arose, he would try to have a word with Fredrika.

‘So your conclusion is that we don’t think this has anything to do with Rebecca?’ Alex said.

‘Correct. But I thought I might as well have word with Lagergren’s ex-wife anyway, since I’m here. I forgot to look up her address: Could you do that for me?’

‘Of course, hang on a second.’

Alex put down the phone and opened the internal address database. He couldn’t remember the name of the ex-wife, so he looked up Spencer Lagergren. He was currently registered at an address in Vasastan in Stockholm, and before that…

At an address in Östermalm.

A few more clicks of the mouse. He could hear Peder’s voice on the other end of the phone, but ignored it.

Eventually, he picked up the receiver.

‘Listen to this. Until April last year, Lagergren was registered at an address in Uppsala, where he lived with his wife. Do you know where he moved to after that?’

‘No – he was in hospital, wasn’t he? After that car accident Fredrika told us about.’

‘He was indeed, but his first change of address was a place in Östermalm. On Ulrikagatan. Close to Radiohuset, which was the last place where Rebecca was seen. Just a few streets away from Gustav Sjöö.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Peder asked. ‘Rebecca had already been missing for a year by then.’

‘He’s owned the apartment for several years. It used to belong to his father.’

Peder was lost for words. Alex waited for his reaction.

‘Bloody Radiohuset,’ Peder said eventually. ‘It just keeps on coming up.’

‘And here we are again. But we do know that Rebecca was looking for a new supervisor. One of her fellow students has confirmed that she had decided to get in touch with Professor Spencer Lagergren. And that same Spencer Lagergren lived very close to the spot where she was last seen. It’s not in Spencer’s favour that he didn’t correct you on the phone when you referred to the fact that he lived in Uppsala. And he never got in touch with the police while Rebecca was missing, even though he must have realised that we wanted to speak to everyone who had been in contact with her.’

‘But had he been in contact with her?’ said Peder, who still had his doubts. ‘We don’t know that.’

‘Not for certain, but there’s a great deal to suggest that he had. Rebecca called Uppsala several times, and she has no other links to the university. She had written “SL” in her diary. And she had mentioned him to a friend, said she was going to get in touch with him.’

He heard Peder sigh.

‘There’s no way round it – we need to speak to him.’

‘You’re right. But have a chat with his ex-wife first of all. Her name is Eva.’

It took Peder less than ten minutes to drive from police HQ in Uppsala to the address where Spencer Lagergren had lived with his wife. It was an attractive house not far from Luthagsesplanaden. Only after he had rung the bell did it occur to him that Eva Lagergren might not be at home.

He rang once, twice. Ylva would have loved this house. She was keener on the idea of a garden than he was. She wanted to watch things grow, pick her own fruit and flowers. Peder couldn’t see how that would be possible. As long as they stayed in the apartment they could afford to live in central Stockholm, but if they bought a house they would have to move further out, to the suburbs. Over Peder’s dead body.

The door opened; Peder was stunned. Had Fredrika met her partner’s ex? If Ylva was half as beautiful at sixty, Peder would be thanking his lucky stars.

Eva Lagergren was strikingly attractive. There was nothing artificial about her appearance. She was well preserved, no more and no less. And beautifully dressed.

‘Yes?’

She smiled as she spoke, no doubt aware of the effect she had on men.

Peder smiled back.

‘Peder Rydh, police. I’d like to talk to you about a couple of things.’

She stepped aside to let him in. He had left his jacket and sweater in the car; he liked to feel the caress of the spring sunshine on his arms. As he walked into Eva Lagergren’s home, the fact that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt felt completely wrong. She wasn’t just well dressed, she was dressed up. As if she were expecting a visitor. He asked the question as she showed him into a spacious lounge.

‘Am I disturbing you? Are you expecting visitors?’

‘No, no. I usually work at home in the mornings, then I go into the office after lunch. It’s a routine I’ve developed since I’ve been alone.’

For the past year, Peder thought.

They sat down and she asked if he would like something to drink. He declined; he wanted to keep the meeting as brief as possible. He found it difficult to find the words to explain what he wanted.

‘I’m here to ask a few questions about a matter that concerns your ex-husband, Spencer. And I would appreciate it if anything I say remains between the two of us.’

He couldn’t interpret her expression; her face gave away nothing. It frightened him. They couldn’t afford to make any mistakes in this case.

‘You’re here to talk about Spencer? Do go on. This should be interesting.’

There was no trace of irony in her voice. He cleared his throat.

‘Two years ago, a girl called Rebecca Trolle went missing.’

‘The one whose body you’ve just found?’

‘That’s right. We were wondering if she had had any contact with Spencer. Does that ring any bells with you?’

Why the hell would it?

As the words left his mouth he could hear how ridiculous they sounded.

‘Spencer and I never discussed who we were seeing.’

He stared at her, unable to grasp what she had said.

‘No… but…’

‘Listen to me, my friend. Spencer and I had a clear agreement which allowed us considerable freedom within our marriage. But for obvious reasons we never discussed the way in which we chose to use that freedom.’

It was a long time since Peder had felt so stupid.

‘I think we might have crossed wires here,’ he said. ‘I wanted to know whether Spencer had acted as her supervisor, or as a sounding board.’

‘How should I know? You’ll have to ask his colleagues about that.’

‘Of course,’ Peder said hurriedly. ‘But I wondered if he had ever mentioned Rebecca’s name at home, or…’

‘Never.’

Peder looked up as a movement at the window behind Eva Lagergren caught his eye.

‘There’s a man in your garden.’

‘He’s a friend. He can wait.’

She gave a wry smile that made him blush.

A friend? Who was younger than Peder?

One thing was perfectly clear: neither Spencer nor Eva Lagergren went for partners of their own age.

‘Do you remember a conference in Västerås in 2007? It was held in the spring, in March.’

She frowned, thinking back.

‘Not off the top of my head. We both did an unusual amount of travelling that spring. Spencer had a lot of conferences to attend; I don’t remember all of them.’

Peder smiled and got to his feet.

‘In that case, I won’t keep you any longer.’

‘No problem.’

They walked towards the door. All the walls were painted white, and were adorned with large works of art.

‘Just one more thing,’ he said.

She was listening.

‘During all the years you were married to Spencer, did you ever hear of any problems between him and his female students?’

‘Are you talking about sexual harassment on his part?’

Peder was embarrassed yet again.

She shook her head firmly.

‘Never. Spencer wouldn’t do such a thing. He doesn’t need to, neither to maintain his position of power nor to boost his ego.’

Straight answers were liberating. Peder thanked her for her time and reminded her not to mention his visit to anyone else.

As he was reversing out of the drive he saw the young man who had been standing in the garden walk up to the door and ring the bell. He was carrying a bunch of flowers. Peder couldn’t help feeling a stab of envy.

35

The textbook lay open in front of Malena Bremberg, but she couldn’t see a word. She just wanted the day to pass quickly, wanted the week that lay ahead to disappear. She didn’t want to do this any more. Life had lost its lustre since he called. She didn’t know what he wanted, and she hated Thea Aldrin, who understood perfectly but refused to say what she knew. If he called again Malena would force Thea to speak. Whatever it took.

The phone rang after lunch. It had rung in the morning as well, just after she had switched it back on, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to pick up. If it was him this time, calling from an unfamiliar number, she would hang up. But it wasn’t him. It was a wrong number.

A wrong number. And yet her heart was pounding as if she’d run ten kilometres.

She closed her eyes, resting her head in her hands. How much longer could she carry on? How much longer could she go on behaving in such a peculiar way before her friends started asking if she was OK? Before her family reacted?

Her father’s gaze was always the most difficult when it came to defending herself. He always wanted to know how she was feeling, if everything was as it should be. There had been many times when she had been at rock bottom; broken years lay piled up behind her, and she hated the thought that she might be heading down a blind alley, in spite of the fact that she had fought so hard and come so far.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

If it all went wrong this time, she would be lost. She would never have the strength to start all over again.

36

It was almost three o’clock, and Spencer Lagergren was desperate for Fredrika to walk through the door. Saga had a temperature, and had been grizzling all day. His hip and leg were aching more than usual, and when Saga fell asleep after lunch, he went for a lie down. The double bed felt horribly empty without Fredrika by his side. What would happen when he had to retire? He wouldn’t go willingly, but one of these days they would force him out. Would he end up spending all day alone? Waiting for Saga to come home from school, for Fredrika to come home from work?

His solicitor had advised him to wait; the police might not decide to proceed with Tova Eriksson’s accusations. But Spencer’s gut feeling was telling him something different. He was facing a problem that could spell professional ruin. Everything he had worked for could easily be destroyed. The very thought filled Spencer with panic.

The solicitor had read his mind.

‘Under no circumstances are you to contact the girl who reported you.’

‘But I have to speak to her; I have to find out why she’s so angry.’

‘We already know that. You rejected her, and she couldn’t deal with it.’

‘Do we know that for sure?’

‘Trust me, there’s not a shadow of doubt.’

All this brooding was driving him mad. He had to tell Fredrika soon, or he wouldn’t be able to cope.

His thoughts turned to the conversation he had had with one of Fredrika’s colleagues earlier that day. A very odd conversation indeed. Didn’t her colleagues know who she lived with? Didn’t she have any photographs of her family? Didn’t she talk about him and Saga? He should have offered to go down to the station, but he just couldn’t do it. The direction the call had taken had also made him nervous. Fredrika had asked if he knew Rebecca Trolle, the student whose dismembered body had been found recently. And Spencer had said no. Then her colleague rang in relation to the same case, but with a different question. Gustav Sjöö had stated that Spencer could confirm his alibi, which was correct. But why hadn’t Gustav called to warn him that the police would be in touch?

Spencer knew about Gustav’s position. The accusations had come as no surprise. After Gustav’s wife left him, he had developed a deep contempt for women. He couldn’t bear to see women in positions of power, women making decisions. That kind of sickness got into your soul. Spencer knew that, which was why he was keen to avoid ending up in a similar situation.

He had just fallen asleep when the telephone rang.

The voice on the other end was the one he knew best of all, but he realised he hadn’t heard it for many months.

‘Hello, Spencer; it’s Eva.’

Eva. A warm feeling spread through his chest, and he could do nothing about it. Her voice had always made him go weak at the knees, through all those years. Melodious and strong. Feminine, but never powerless.

‘How are things?’

He sat on the edge of the bed, misery surging through his body.

Bad. Things were bad. Even worse than the last time he had spoken to her.

‘Fine. I’m on paternity leave.’

He heard her laughing quietly.

‘I tried you at work and they said you were at home with your daughter. Unbelievable.’

He had to smile in the midst of all the gloom. From her perspective he was of course a lunatic who had become a parent just as he was approaching retirement age. At the same time, he felt anxious. He didn’t like the fact that she had called him at work.

‘Why did you want to speak to me?’

She stopped laughing, as the rain stops pitter-pattering on the surface of a puddle.

‘The police were here today.’

He closed his eyes.

‘Eva, listen to me. All that business about the student who made a complaint against me is groundless. Entirely groundless.’

Why the hell had they gone to see his ex-wife? To find out about his bad points?

‘A student has made a complaint against you?’

Her tone of voice was light; she had never taken things too seriously. Not until the day she realised he was intending to move out.

‘That certainly explains a few things.’

Confusion was making his head spin.

‘Wasn’t that why the police came to see you?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

He could hear something rattling; he thought it might be the English tea trolley she had bought when they were living in London. It was her most prized possession.

‘They were asking questions about that girl whose body was found in Stockholm. Rebecca Trolle.’

Spencer held his breath.

Rebecca Trolle. Again.

‘What?’

‘Peder Rydh, the detective who was here, asked if I’d ever heard you mention Rebecca Trolle.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said no, of course. What did you think I’d say?’

She sounded annoyed; she was always quick to take offence. She went on:

‘Anyway, he was talking about a conference in Västerås.’

‘Back in 2007.’

‘Exactly. I told him I didn’t remember it.’

But Spencer did.

It had been excellent in every way. At first, he had intended to ask Fredrika to go with him, but then he had decided against it. He had felt it was unnecessary to cajole her into going to conferences with him, making their relationship stronger than it was.

Sjöö. That was why the police had called – to check Sjöö’s alibi.

‘Did he ask about anything else?’

‘Whether you’d ever had any problems with female students. I said you hadn’t.’

Spencer lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Are you still there?’ Eva asked.

‘Yes, I’m here.’

His heart was beating fast, pounding against his ribs as if it was trying to escape from his body. Now more than ever, he regretted the fact that he hadn’t talked to Fredrika right from the start. He had thought that the police had contacted Eva to talk about Tova Eriksson’s complaint, but this was much worse.

He was a suspect in a murder case.

There wasn’t much to report back to Alex. Fredrika had spoken to Håkan Nilsson’s mother and cousin, but neither of them had heard from him, and they had no idea where he was.

‘He can’t have vanished off the face of the earth,’ Alex said. ‘He’s hiding somewhere.’

Earlier, he had asked Cecilia Torsson to check up on Håkan’s boat. She came to see him while Fredrika was in his office. The two women exchanged a look, acknowledged each other silently. They weren’t exactly best friends, but as long as they could work together Alex didn’t care. He had two murders on his desk, which meant he had far more important things to think about.

‘Håkan Nilsson emailed the chairman of the boat club over the weekend,’ Cecilia said. ‘He asked for permission to put his boat in the water earlier than the other members; he said he was thinking of selling it, so he wanted it in the water.’

‘Her,’ Alex said.

‘Sorry?’

‘You don’t say “it” when you’re referring to boats, you say “she” or “her”.’

Cecilia looked at him without speaking.

‘Could he have slipped out of his apartment over the weekend without our knowing about it?’ Fredrika wondered.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Alex. ‘I wish I could say no, but for obvious reasons, I can’t.’

‘The boat club chairman visited the yard on Sunday, and Håkan’s boat was still ashore then.’

Alex let out a whistle.

‘In which case he must have put her in the water today. Call the coastguard right away.’

‘Why the coastguard?’ Fredrika said. ‘Isn’t it more likely that he’s still on Lake Mälaren? Call the harbourmaster’s office instead; they’re bound to remember if they’ve seen a small boat heading out to sea this early in the year.’

Alex asked Cecilia to check.

‘I don’t understand Håkan Nilsson,’ he said when Cecilia had gone. ‘He’s been here no fewer than three times, and not once has he voluntarily offered us any information; we’ve had to drag it out of him. The fact that he’d had sex with Rebecca. That he was the one who spread the rumour about Rebecca selling sex over the Internet.’

‘And that he was the one who uploaded her profile onto the website,’ Fredrika added. ‘Although it’s hardly surprising that he didn’t tell us any of those things – not if he’s actually involved in the murder.’

‘And that’s where we come unstuck. Because we don’t think he’s the killer who dismembered her body with a chainsaw.’

Fredrika sat down. Her boss looked less tired; still far from rested, but a little bit brighter.

‘So what do we think?’

Alex leaned back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling.

‘We think he’s hiding something.’

He straightened up.

‘Why do we keep seeing Håkan, and not the killer? Time and time again he pops up like a bloody Jack-in-the-box. And always when we’ve just decided that he’s of no interest.’

Fredrika crossed her legs.

‘His alibi,’ she said.

‘Watertight.’

There was a draught from the open window. Alex got up and closed it, then sat down and leaned across the desk.

‘By the way, what did you find among Rebecca’s stuff in the garage? Anything interesting?’

Fredrika felt herself stiffen.

Spencer. I found the father of my child.

‘Yes and no. I found her dissertation, or parts of it. And tons of material about Thea Aldrin. What they say is true: Rebecca seems to have spent an enormous amount of time on her dissertation.’

‘But does it have anything to do with the murder?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Fredrika replied. ‘But I found a link to Morgan Axberger, the man who runs Axbergers.’

‘Oh?’

‘Morgan Axberger used to spend time with Thea Aldrin. They were both members of the same film club, The Guardian Angels.’

‘Were they indeed!’

Fredrika nodded.

‘Axberger’s name is one of the first you come across if you start digging in Thea’s past. Rebecca might have met up with him, even though we don’t know anything about it.’

Alex’s expression was clouded with doubt.

‘Morgan Axberger is a seventy-year-old billionaire, Fredrika. In what way would he be of interest in a case like this?’

She looked down at the floor first of all, then out of the window. The final word in Rebecca Trolle’s notes echoed through her mind.

Snuff.

‘You were the one who said we had to keep all lines of inquiry open,’ she countered. ‘Morgan Axberger is one of a small number of people with a solid link to Thea, and Rebecca had a connection with him via Lund. I don’t think he’s involved, but he could be interesting for other reasons. Regardless of the fact that he’s one of Sweden’s leading businessmen. Even if he never met Rebecca, he might be able to help us understand the mystery of Thea Aldrin.’

It was obvious that Alex had his doubts.

‘It’s not that I’m afraid to take him on,’ he said. ‘But we have to prioritise.’

‘I agree. And I’m certainly not saying that he’s our most important lead. Valter Lund, on the other hand… I really think we should bring him in.’

Alex looked as if he wanted to laugh. The media would go mad if the police picked up both Valter Lund and Morgan Axberger.

‘I just want to go over a few basic facts that we need to bear in mind,’ Fredrika said.

She told Alex what Ellen had said: that Valter Lund had taken Rebecca to a dinner in Copenhagen.

Alex held up his hand.

‘We need to speak to Diana Trolle about this; I’m sure she’ll remember if her daughter went away for a weekend with her mentor.’

‘Would you like me to ring her?’

Alex coughed and looked down at the desk.

‘No, I’ll call her myself.’

He looked up again. Fredrika could see that her words had made him think. She didn’t really want any more questions about all this, but Alex asked anyway.

‘Who else was a member of this film club?’

My Spencer.

‘Nobody whose name I recognised. But I’ll look into it, as well as following up everything else.’

She paused and looked at Alex.

‘And what about you? Have you and Peder come up with anything new?’

Alex hesitated for such a long time that she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

‘No, nothing,’ he said eventually.

She had a feeling that he was lying too.

37

The decision was made before Alex had even finished thinking the thought. He would ring Diana Trolle and see where the conversation led.

‘There’s something we need to discuss,’ he said.

‘Is it about Rebecca?’

Wasn’t everything? Alex was surprised; wondering if she thought he’d rung for some other reason.

‘Yes, and people we think might have been around her before she disappeared.’

Why did he always put it that way? He always said, ‘before she disappeared’ rather than ‘before she died’. Because it was the most accurate? The pathologist had been unable to say how long she had lived – if she had lived – after the evening when she went missing. Perhaps the murderer had killed her immediately. But he could just as easily have kept her prisoner for several days. Or weeks. They didn’t know for sure. And unless the murderer told them himself, they would never know.

‘Would you like to come over?’

No I bloody wouldn’t

Her gentle voice aroused a forbidden longing.

‘Yes, if that’s OK.’

‘If you’re here at six thirty I can offer you dinner.’

A pulse throbbed at his temple. His gaze fell on the pictures of Lena.

It’s too soon, he thought. I can’t.

‘It’s just dinner, Alex.’

As if she could read his mind.

He hurried along to Peder’s office when he had ended the call and decided to accept Diana’s invitation.

‘You haven’t said anything to Fredrika about Lagergren, have you?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Peder. ‘How did it go with Håkan Nilsson?’

‘He hasn’t passed through the lock, so he’s still on Lake Mälaren. We’ve put out a call, so let’s hope we hear something tomorrow. The fine weather is very tempting; a lot of people have decided to put their boats in the water a little earlier than usual this year. He might be difficult to find.’

Alex looked searchingly at Peder when he had finished speaking.

‘Isn’t it time you went home?’

‘I won’t be long; I’ve still got one or two things left to do. What about you?’

‘I’m going soon. I’m just waiting to hear about that gold watch that was found in the grave.’

He heard a voice behind him:

‘I’m back.’

He turned around and saw the officer he had sent to visit various jewellers and watchmakers. He felt like glancing at the time, making the point that it had taken too long to find the answers.

‘This model was introduced on the Swedish market in 1979; it was known as “The Father” when it came out. It never caught on, and was sold in only a small number of shops in Stockholm and the rest of the country.’

Alex was disappointed.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘Not quite.’

His colleague looked triumphant, as if he were celebrating a major success.

‘I must have visited twenty shops, but there were only two where the owner had been in the game long enough to recognise the model. And one of them was absolutely certain that he had sold this particular watch once upon a time.’

‘Seriously?’

Peder looked dubious.

The other officer nodded firmly.

‘He had no doubts whatsoever. It’s the inscription on the back; he remembers it well. The name Helena struck a chord because his wife is also called Helena.’

Alex was very interested.

‘What else did he say?’

‘He sold the watch to a woman towards the end of 1979; it was the year he and his wife had a child. She brought it back three days later, because it had stopped working. The watchmaker repaired it, and by way of recompense he took it round to her apartment in person when it was ready.’

It took a second before Alex and Peder grasped the significance of what he was saying.

‘She lived on Sturegatan, next door to the watchmaker.’

He handed over his notes to Alex.

‘We don’t have a surname for this woman?’

‘No, but since we have an address and a first name, it shouldn’t be difficult to find her. Unless of course she’s left the country, or died.’

Alex clutched the piece of paper.

‘We’ll find her.’

He wasn’t himself at all. Fredrika could see the change, but she couldn’t understand it. Eventually, she had to put her fears into words.

‘It’s nothing,’ Spencer said. ‘I’ve just been feeling a bit under the weather this last week or so.’

Fredrika shook her head slowly.

‘You’re lying to me.’

A simple statement of fact.

He looked at her.

‘I have never lied to you. If you’re referring to my past, I didn’t lie.’

‘You’re lying now, Spencer. This is not about you feeling under the weather for the past week; this is about something else altogether.’

He was unable to absorb the calmness in her voice. He became restless and couldn’t remain sitting on the sofa beside her. When he got up, she could see that he was finding it difficult to stand.

‘Is your leg worse? Or is it your hip?’

‘Neither, I’m just a bit stiff.’

Another lie. And she knew she didn’t want to hear any more.

‘We’re not going to bed until you tell me what’s happened.’

They rarely raised their voices when they had a disagreement, but this time a combination of frustration and sorrow meant she couldn’t help it.

‘You haven’t told me the real reason why you wanted to start your paternity leave so suddenly.’

He looked at her, his eyes full of something that resembled sorrow and anger.

‘You haven’t told me everything either.’

Fredrika recoiled as the accusation flew at her.

‘Me? Darling Spencer, I have nothing to tell you that you don’t already know.’

She saw that he didn’t know what to think. What the hell was going on?

‘Eva called me today.’

He tried to sound nonchalant, but failed.

‘Is this about Eva?’

‘She sends best wishes.’

She could feel his rage filling the room, but had no idea where it was coming from.

‘How nice. Is she OK?’

He snorted and turned away. He moved over to the window, leaning on his stick, and stood there with his back to her.

‘What did she want?’

He didn’t reply.

Fredrika tried to remain calm, tried to remember if they had ever had an argument like this before. But there was nothing to remember. Their relationship wouldn’t have survived so many years if they hadn’t been able to talk to each other. They had always sensed which words the other person needed to hear, which phrases fitted a particular situation.

But this was something new and alien. It was obvious that Spencer was facing some kind of crisis, and that something had happened during the day to exacerbate things. And yet he chose to remain silent, to shut her out. As if he were beyond redemption.

She felt a mixture of fear and despair.

‘You have to tell me, Spencer. What’s going on?’

He half turned and she could see every facial muscle tense, his jaws working.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not a bloody thing.’

Peder stayed on at work for a while. It appeared that Fredrika had inadvertently saved her partner by arousing interest in Valter Lund.

First of all, he read through the log; then, Alex’s notes.

Unlikely though it seemed, there were certain indications to suggest that Rebecca and Lund might have had a deeper relationship than the team had originally realised. Than anyone had realised. Alex had said he was going to speak to Rebecca’s mother that evening. Peder had thought that sounded odd, but hadn’t said anything. Why would Alex be ringing Diana Trolle during the evening? Did they know each other outside work?

He glanced at his watch, aware that he ought to go home.

Jimmy called, and was thrilled that Peder had actually answered the phone twice in one day.

His voice brought Peder peace of mind, temporarily at least. Nobody was better than Jimmy at making a difficult situation seem simple. When Peder heard him speak, he could see his brother the way he had been as a child: strong and stubborn, with Peder always one step behind, frightened and unsure of himself. The memories of his brother’s accident would never completely leave him. At any point during the day, he could summon up the image of Jimmy swinging higher and higher until it looked as if the swing might loop right around the frame, and Jimmy suddenly slipped and was flying through the air. Like a bird, Peder had thought. Until Jimmy’s body crashed to the ground, his head making contact with the hard surface of a rock.

Perhaps it was this experience that had sent him off balance when Ylva became depressed. It was as if he were programmed to believe that there was only one possible outcome to a serious illness, and so he had let her down, abused her trust.

But she had taken him back. He would never leave her again.

Jimmy lowered his voice.

‘There’s somebody standing outside,’ he said.

Peder wasn’t really listening.

‘Well, you’d better let him in. Or her.’

‘It’s a man. He’s looking in through the window.’

Peder put down the document he was reading.

‘He’s looking in through your window?’

‘No, somebody else’s.’

Should he take this seriously? Sometimes Jimmy’s perception of what was happening around him was less reliable than that of a child. He saw what he wanted to see, and drew conclusions that amused him.

‘What does he look like, this man who’s looking in through the window?’

‘I don’t know; he’s got his back to me.’

Peder knew the layout where Jimmy lived: there were several low buildings in an enclosed area, with a beautiful park at the back. Mångården assisted-living complex shared the facilities with the care home, and Jimmy’s window looked out onto one of the blocks that belonged to the care home. Peder tried to work out what his brother might be seeing. Some lovesick old man trying to catch a glimpse of a lady he’d fallen for during a game of bingo?

‘Does he look old?’

‘Not really.’

Peder had had reservations about the assisted living complex when Jimmy moved there after leaving school. He hadn’t wanted his brother living next door to some old people’s home. But their parents had insisted: it was good for Jimmy to live in a calm environment, without lots of hustle and bustle.

‘It doesn’t matter how much you want it to happen,’ his mother had said. ‘Jimmy is never going to be like you. He doesn’t fit in in the city, and that’s the end of the matter.’

As time went by, Peder realised that Jimmy was in exactly the right place. The world over there was small enough to allow Jimmy to feel big, and that was worth a great deal.

‘He’s turned around,’ Jimmy whispered.

Fear in his voice.

‘He’s looking at me.’

The fear spread to Peder.

‘For God’s sake Jimmy, get away from the window. Now!’

He heard Jimmy’s running footsteps, then the voice of a woman in the background, one of the care assistants at the complex.

‘What are you up to now, Jimmy?’

Peder sighed. Another storm in a teacup. He ended the call and put down the phone.

He turned his attention back to the investigation. Fredrika had highlighted a link between Morgan Axberger and Thea Aldrin, through a film club that had been active since the 1970s. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Valter Lund worked for Axbergers, Morgan Axberger would have been of no interest whatsoever.

And perhaps that was still the case.

Peder didn’t really think the film club was of any significance, but it was still worth checking out. Fredrika had said it was big news at the time, so it must be possible to find it on the Internet. He typed in the name of the club, The Guardian Angels, and got far too many hits. He tried The Guardian Angels and Thea Aldrin; fewer hits this time. He found both articles and pictures; he wouldn’t have time to go through them all. After a quick overview of the available material, he looked at some of the photographs. Like Fredrika, he recognised neither names nor faces, apart from Thea Aldrin and Morgan Axberger.

One last click, one last picture.

And there was something completely unexpected.

A photograph of Spencer Lagergren, with his name in the caption underneath. Linked to both Thea Aldrin and Morgan Axberger.

Peder sat in front of his computer for a long time, trying to digest what he had seen. One thought kept coming back:

There wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that Fredrika hadn’t found the same information.

INTERVIEW WITH ALEX RECHT, 03-05-2009, 10.00 (tape recording)

Present: Urban S, Roger M (interrogators one and two). Alex Recht (witness).

Urban: So you sent Peder Rydh to see Spencer Lagergren’s ex-wife in Uppsala?

Alex: Yes.

Urban: Was that a wise move?

Alex: At the time, I decided that the most important thing was to establish whether or not Spencer Lagergren had any place in the investigation. That was why we contacted his ex-wife.

Roger: Is it normal for a murderer to confide in his nearest and dearest that he’s planning to kill someone?

Alex: I refuse to answer questions of that nature.

Roger: You are required to answer all our questions.

(Silence.)

Urban: Why wasn’t Fredrika Bergman informed immediately?

Alex: We felt it was completely unnecessary to drag her into things before we knew what we were dealing with.

Roger: And Diana Trolle?

Alex: What’s she got to do with Spencer Lagergren?

Roger: I’m not talking about a connection between Spencer and Diana, I’m talking about your relationship with her.

Alex: I have no intention of making any bloody comment whatsoever about Diana. That’s not why I’m here.

Urban: You’re absolutely right, Recht. You’re here because you were in charge of an investigation that ended in disaster. And our job is to try to understand how that happened. OK?

(Silence.)

Roger: We realise that it must have been very difficult for you, Alex. Rebecca Trolle was your first serious case after Lena’s death.

Alex: Don’t you dare bring Lena into this.

Urban: We are merely stating facts. Trying to help you. You had more suspects than you could shake a stick at, and suddenly the partner of one of your colleagues pops up in the investigation. Just when you’d found the solicitor’s watch. Of course you were under pressure.

Alex: We didn’t know it was the solicitor’s watch at that stage.

Roger: What did you actually know?

Alex: We knew that Rebecca was pregnant when she died. That she didn’t disappear voluntarily. That she was murdered and her body was dismembered by someone who had murdered thirty years ago.

Roger: So what happened next?

Alex: I had another call from the grave site. I thought they were ringing to tell me they were going to stop digging, but they had other news.