The Disappeared aka Guardian Angels

49

In the world of fairy tales, the bond between brothers was sacred. Peder Rydh’s mother had never let him forget that. His childhood was enveloped in warm memories of Peder and Jimmy sitting on her knee while she read them story after story about young boys battling everything from dragons to illness. Only when Peder was older did he realise that her words of wisdom were meant for him. It was Peder, not Jimmy, who would grow up and become the stronger one. The one who protected, took responsibility.

The evening when Peder heard that his brother was missing, everything came crashing down. Not during the first few hours, but later. As time passed, as darkness fell over the city, as it became clear that Jimmy hadn’t just gone off on one of his usual tours of the complex and happened to end up in the wrong block. When everyone realised that Jimmy was actually missing, the ground beneath Peder’s feet opened up and he plunged into an abyss he hadn’t even known existed.

He didn’t realise what had happened to him until later, when it was all over and nothing could be undone. Ylva saw it right from the start, and did everything in her power to save him. Without success. She had never been more powerless in her entire life.

After the initial call from the assisted-living complex, Ylva rang her mother and asked her to come and look after the boys. She and Peder went over to the complex and searched the area, along with the staff and Peder’s parents. They called Jimmy’s name over and over again. Peder felt as if their shouts were embedded in his brain, a recurring echo that just wouldn’t go away. Then he called the police and reported his brother missing.

Peder knew all too well how this worked. Police resources were not unlimited; it was always a question of priorities. When someone rang and said that his brother, an adult with learning difficulties, was missing from a gated complex on the outskirts of town, other cases would be regarded as more urgent. That was how he would have reacted, and that was how his colleagues reacted.

‘We’ll find him before the night is over,’ said the officer who was first on the scene.

How could he have known right from the start? Peder asked himself later. How come his heart had been screaming with fear all the time, even though Jimmy had gone missing before, and always turned up safe and sound?

‘Is he in the habit of going off on his own?’ his colleague asked.

Not often. It did happen, but it was rare. On one particularly harrowing occasion, Jimmy had managed to catch a bus into the city centre, and had been found on Sergels torg, where he was happily smoking a cigarette that a group of junkies had given him.

Peder had nearly blown it that time; the anxiety that had been building up during the hours while Jimmy was missing had culminated in a blind rage, and he had beaten up one of the junkies. He would never have survived an investigation by internal affairs if the guy had reported him. But he hadn’t, and after a few months the memory of the incident began to fade.

When morning came, Jimmy was still missing. The sunlight hurt Peder’s eyes. In the darkness, he had felt protected, but now there was nothing but pure fear.

‘We need to go home and sleep for a few hours,’ Ylva said as they drove back into the car park at the Mångården complex after driving around, up and down one street after another, searching for Jimmy. Their eyes had scanned the area like laser beams, desperate for Jimmy to appear.

She stroked Peder’s back, but he pulled away.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘We’re no use right now,’ she said. ‘We’re both completely exhausted. It’s better to let the police keep looking.’

‘I am the police, in case you’ve forgotten.’

Ylva didn’t say anything.

‘We’ll find him, you know. It’s only a question of time before he turns up.’

But other images filled Peder’s head. Some people disappeared and never came back. Rebecca Trolle. Elias Hjort. The unknown woman who had lain in the ground for forty years. He felt as if his chest would explode with panic. The mere thought of life without Jimmy was unbearable.

Please God, give me a grave to visit.

Ylva shifted by his side.

‘I have to go home. Get some sleep. I’ll call work and tell them I won’t be in today.’

Peder looked out of the car window.

‘I think it would be best if you stayed at home,’ he said. ‘Jimmy might decide to go round to our place, and there has to be someone there that he knows.’

They both knew it was impossible for Jimmy to get to their apartment under his own steam. But hope is the last thing we give up, so Ylva raised no objections to Peder’s suggestion.

‘Will you be back later?’

‘I’ll call you.’

His tone was brusque, his gaze fixed on some distant point. She gently caressed his cheek. Peder hardly felt it. Nothing existed but the search for his brother.

The bed had never felt as big as it did now. Fredrika woke with the feeling that she hadn’t slept a wink. Her body felt heavy and weary. She rolled over, stroking the empty space where Spencer ought to be. The hot tears were unstoppable. She suddenly thought back to her encounter with Tova Eriksson, and pulled the covers up over her head. Had she irrevocably destroyed something by going to see the girl who was literally responsible for having Spencer locked up? She remembered Alex’s words and warnings; she knew she had been wrong to ignore them.

She raised her head from the pillow and wiped away the tears. There was no room for a mental collapse right now. She had to keep going, for the sake of Saga and Spencer if nothing else.

It was six o’clock. The day lay before her like a deserted motorway. Should she go to work? Or – to put it more accurately – could she bear to stay at home? The answer to that question was no. She had to go back to work, keep an eye on the efforts that were being made to ascertain whether Spencer had a part to play in a murder investigation. And she had to do her best to get the Uppsala police to release him.

But why the hell had he applied for a new passport?

When Spencer was arrested, he had been unaware that Tova had raised the stakes and accused him of rape. So why did he need a passport?

He must have realised that he figured in the murder investigation Fredrika was working on. That was the only conclusion that made sense. What was less easy to understand was why he had decided not to confide in Fredrika. Why hadn’t he mentioned it to her? And why hadn’t she talked to him?

Or had she? Fredrika thought back to the times when she had confronted Spencer over the past week. About his problems at work, about how he knew Rebecca Trolle. He hadn’t said a word about any of it. She felt the tears threatening once more. Had they lost the most important ingredient in their relationship, the ability to talk about anything?

If we have, it’s all over.

Fredrika got out of bed and fetched her bag. She had brought some work home. She got back into bed and sat cross-legged. She re-read the short piece Rebecca Trolle had put together about the film club known as The Guardian Angels – the group that provided yet another link between Spencer and the investigation. Alex had told her that according to one of Rebecca’s fellow-students, Rebecca had approached Spencer for more than one reason. She wanted him to act as her supervisor, but his name had also come up in her research.

Because of the film club, Fredrika thought.

She read the last word on the page.

Snuff.

The word did not occur anywhere else, and no explanation was given. Just before Spencer’s phone call from Uppsala, Torbjörn Ross had mentioned just such a film. Or at least he had talked about the filming of the books Thea Aldrin had allegedly written.

Fredrika went into the library and found one of Spencer’s film lexicons. As far as she knew, the idea that there had ever been genuine snuff movies was a myth, as was the belief that there had ever been a demand for them. The expression ‘snuff movie’ was first used in the early 1970s, based on the English expression ‘to snuff it’, or die. According to legend, violent films were secretly produced, recording real murders and rapes; these films were then sold for vast sums of money. The victims were often homeless prostitutes, and the purchasers of the finished product were rich and influential individuals with perverted tendencies.

According to the lexicon, no police authority had ever reported the discovery of a genuine snuff movie – in every suspected case the film had turned out to be a clever fake, which meant that the victim had not died, but had survived. The closest approximation was murderers who filmed their own crimes so that they could watch them over and over again, but in those cases the murder itself was more important than the recording, and the films were not made with the intention of selling them.

Fredrika replaced the book on the shelf. Why did the word come up in Rebecca’s notes at all? Had she made the same link as Torbjörn Ross had done between Thea Aldrin and Mercury and Asteroid? Although how could that be? There had never been anything in the press about the film Ross had referred to.

Fredrika glanced through the piece on The Guardian Angels again. There was no indication as to why Rebecca thought the group might be associated with snuff movies. Admittedly several of the members fulfilled the criteria for the type of person who was allegedly interested in that kind of thing, but Fredrika found it difficult to see how Rebecca could have established such a connection.

Fragments of conversations and all the information she had acquired during the past week drifted through her weary mind. Rebecca’s supervisor had compared her dissertation to a police investigation. Her mother had said something similar, but Fredrika could see no evidence that Rebecca had been in touch with the police to discuss Thea Aldrin’s case. At least Rebecca hadn’t made a note of any such contact.

Or had she? Had they missed it? Fredrika dug out her copy of Rebecca’s diary and the list of unidentified initials:

HH, UA, SL and TR.

TR?

Torbjörn Ross. It couldn’t be anyone else.

Fredrika scrabbled through her papers, searching for the lists of phone calls. Had anyone noticed that Rebecca had called the police? She couldn’t remember it being mentioned, but on the other hand it wouldn’t have seemed particularly noteworthy. People called the police all the time, for a wide variety of reasons.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became: Rebecca Trolle must have been in touch with Torbjörn Ross. In which case, why hadn’t Ross said anything, either when Rebecca originally went missing, or when she was found dead? Torbjörn Ross, who still visited Thea Aldrin on a regular basis, with the aim of getting her to confess to a murder no one even knew for sure had been committed. Torbjörn Ross, who believed Thea had written some of the most controversial literary works in the whole of the twentieth century. And who thought it was possible to link Thea Aldrin to a violent film his colleagues believed was a fake. What was he actually hiding?

When Alex woke up, he had no idea where he was at first. The long, thin white curtains were unfamiliar, as were the white sheets and the pale striped wallpaper. The memories came flooding back as he turned his head and saw Diana lying beside him, sleeping on her stomach and facing away from him.

Instinctively, he sat up, running a hand through his hair, peppered with grey. The sensation spreading through his body was both pleasant and frightening. He had made love with a woman other than Lena. Should he be apologising to someone?

The idea almost made him let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh. The children certainly wouldn’t be interested in an apology; they wanted nothing more than for him to move on. They might be surprised that things had happened so quickly, but on the other hand, they didn’t need to know right away.

He lay down again, taken aback by thoughts and feelings he didn’t recognise. Not everything that had happened during the night was a good idea. He had gone to bed with the mother of a murder victim whose death he was in charge of investigating. The police weren’t in the habit of turning a blind eye to that kind of behaviour. He could be in big trouble if anyone found out what he was up to.

But he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

That was his one recurring thought. And it was liberating.

It was also liberating, and calming, to wake up next to a person he knew he wanted to see again. Many of his friends and colleagues had found themselves alone following a bereavement or divorce, and had embarked on a constant search for a woman who didn’t exist – who couldn’t exist – making it impossible for them to sustain a new relationship.

Alex had promised himself he would never be one of them.

At the same time, the grief was overwhelming. He could never find what he had had with Lena with another woman. There would be no more children, no new family. Everything that lay ahead of him would forever be incomplete, damaged.

His mobile rang; Diana stirred as he answered.

‘Jimmy’s gone missing,’ Peder said.

‘Missing?’

‘They rang from the assisted living complex yesterday. Ylva and I have been out looking for him all night. It’s as if the ground has swallowed him up.’

Peder’s voice was thin and high, full of an anxiety that made Alex forget everything else.

‘I presume the police are involved?’

‘Of course. But they can’t find him either.’

‘Right, listen to me. If you’ve been out all night, you need to go home and get some sleep. I don’t bloody want you…’

‘I’m not going anywhere until we find him.’

There’s nothing quite as irrational as a person who has been deprived of sleep; Alex knew that only too well.

‘In that case, you will be jeopardising the inquiry,’ he said.

A little more brusque than necessary, perhaps, but he was hoping to make Peder see reason. At the same time he could see his team falling apart. Fredrika’s partner had been arrested; Peder’s brother was missing.

He would have to request additional resources, that was all there was to it.

Peder said something in a subdued voice.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said I don’t know what I’ll do if we don’t find him. I think I could fucking kill the person who takes Jimmy away from me.’

‘There’s nothing to suggest that he’s dead,’ Alex said. ‘Nothing at all.’

He was trying to reassure Peder, but he could tell that his colleague wasn’t listening.

‘He called me,’ Peder said.

‘Jimmy?’

‘He called to tell me that someone was standing outside looking in through a window. Someone who frightened him.’

Alex was confused.

‘Someone was looking in through Jimmy’s window?’

‘No, through another window. And Jimmy saw him and he was scared. That’s what he said when he rang me. “It’s a man. He’s looking in through the window. He’s got his back to me”.’

50

The ground gave way beneath Malena Bremberg’s feet as she ran. She could feel her pulse pounding in her body as she forced it on, kilometre after kilometre. Two years ago, she had been like any other student. She had finally decided what she wanted to do at university, and had managed to find student accommodation and a part time job at Mångården care home.

It had taken time for Malena to get her life on the right track; there had been many diversions. Her high school years were a fog of binge drinking, countless love affairs and poor marks. She hated thinking back to that time; she didn’t want to dwell on the life she had lived in those days. After leaving school, she had spent several years working abroad. As an au pair. As an undernourished model. As a holiday rep.

She came home feeling emptier than ever.

‘Your life belongs to you and you alone,’ her father had said. ‘You’re the one who chooses how you’re going to live. But if you choose not to live your life at all, that will make me very sad.’

She enrolled on adult education courses that same autumn. Started working in a clothes shop. Carefully built herself a new life, made new friends. Friends who were very different from the ones with whom she had surrounded herself in the past. She didn’t have a boyfriend; for the first time, she didn’t need one.

She celebrated the most important day of her life when she was finally accepted to study law at the University of Stockholm. Success gave her the taste for more. She knew what it had cost her to gain that place, and now she was determined to make progress, to forge ahead. If you were over thirty it was high time you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up.

At first, she had believed they had met by chance, at an opening event for a new, unusual restaurant on Stureplan. Suddenly he had appeared by her side, standing just a little too close. It had bothered her to begin with, but the feeling didn’t last long. She had allowed herself to be flattered by his compliments and his presence – all too easily.

And his voice. That deep, almost hypnotic voice had made her blush, and however much she wanted to, she just couldn’t stop listening. Helpless. That was how she had felt.

She remembered that her friends had seen them together and wondered what she was playing at. He was so much older than her. Admittedly he was a man with power and wealth, but above all he was older. She had dismissed their words as nothing more than envy.

Warning bells had rung at an early stage, when he had started asking questions about Thea Aldrin. She hadn’t made the connection immediately, hadn’t realised that he had known all along where she worked, and that was why she was interesting.

With hindsight, she felt nothing but embarrassment and revulsion. She had allowed herself to be seduced and led astray by a man with an agenda that could only be described as sick. Because it had seemed so exciting, because there was a part of her that would never be like everyone else, that would never be a good girl. The desire had come from nowhere, the desire to do what was dangerous, what was taboo. She had played with fire, and she had almost been consumed by it. While he documented the whole thing on film.

51

It was half-past eight by the time Fredrika got to work. Alex was surprised to see her.

‘I thought you’d be staying at home with your daughter today.’

‘My mum’s looking after her. I can’t just stay at home. I have to keep busy.’

Alex didn’t question Fredrika’s reasoning. However, he did make it clear that she couldn’t be involved in their dealings with Spencer.

‘I’ve sent another officer over to Uppsala to carry out a formal interrogation,’ he said. ‘I assume that will put an end to the matter from our point of view. But I’d like to hear what he has to say about the film club and its members; he might also be able to tell us something about Thea Aldrin.’

Fredrika nodded.

‘Why isn’t Peder interviewing him?’ she asked.

Alex went pale as he told her about Peder’s brother. Fredrika’s eyes filled with tears, and she sat down on one of the chairs in Alex’s office.

‘What the hell is wrong with you two?’ Alex said when he saw her reaction. ‘We’re bound to find him. He’s probably gone for a walk and got lost. I’m sure that kind of thing can happen with someone like Jimmy.’

Fredrika could see that Alex believed what he was saying, and she admired him for that. Personally, she was up to her eyes in crap, and couldn’t manage one single positive thought.

‘Is he coming in later?’ she asked.

‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

Fredrika opened her bag.

‘With regard to the film club,’ she said. ‘Something occurred to me this morning. Something that has nothing to do with Spencer.’

Alex watched as she took out her papers. She glanced over at him; there was something unfamiliar about his face, as if it had acquired a patina of tranquillity that had not been there before.

She lost focus for a moment, and had to think about what she had been going to tell him. Then she remembered. Alex looked sceptical.

‘So you think that Torbjörn Ross, who has been a colleague of mine since the 1980s, was in touch with Rebecca Trolle before she died? And that he then withheld this information from the investigating team?’

Fredrika swallowed. The sleepless night had taken its toll.

‘I think it’s possible, yes.’

She pushed Rebecca’s notes across the desk. Pointed to the word at the bottom. Snuff.

‘It’s just a word,’ Alex said.

‘It’s his word,’ Fredrika replied. ‘He’s the one who thinks the books were filmed.’

Alex thought for a moment.

‘Ask Ellen to go through the list of calls,’ he said. ‘Check whether Rebecca called the police, either via the switchboard or to a direct line. We might have missed it, thinking she’d contacted the police for a completely different reason.’

Fredrika got to her feet.

‘I’ll do that right away.’

‘And if Peder doesn’t come in, I’d like you to sit in on the interview with Valter Lund. He’ll be here in an hour.’

‘And Thea Aldrin?’ Fredrika asked.

‘What about her?’

‘Aren’t we going to speak to her as well?’

‘Find out where she’s living these days, and we’ll go and see her later. Not that I think it’ll make much difference, if she never speaks anyway.’

Fredrika had one more question.

‘What’s our thinking on Morgan Axberger? Don’t we need to talk to him too?’

Alex suppressed a sigh.

‘We’ll hang fire on that. Let’s tackle one thing at a time.’

Fredrika hurried to her office, then went to see Ellen, who promised to check Rebecca’s phone records as soon as possible.

‘By the way, you’ve had several faxes from the Norwegian police about Valter Lund,’ Ellen said.

More paper, more work.

Fredrika went back to her office and read through what her Norwegian colleagues had to say. They had done quite a bit of digging. Among other things, they informed her that Valter Lund’s uncle had reported him missing at the beginning of the 1980s, when he signed on as a crew member on a car ferry, and was never heard of again. According to the police, this uncle still turned up at the local station in Gol on a regular basis, year after year, to ask if they’d found out anything about his nephew.

But why? Valter Lund was known all over northern Europe, and was frequently featured in the Scandinavian press. Didn’t the old man realise that the successful man who now lived in Stockholm was his missing nephew?

Fredrika frowned. Could there have been a mix-up? Was there more than one Valter Lund who had emigrated from Norway to Sweden in the same year?

Probably not.

She took out a picture of Valter Lund and stared at it. Why hadn’t he been in touch with his only remaining relative in Norway? And, even more to the point, why hadn’t his own uncle recognised him?

The night had been interminable. All the unfamiliar sounds, smells and impressions pierced Spencer Lagergren’s skin like needles, forcing him to stay awake. As the lonely hours passed, a new certainty formed in his mind. Even if they let him go, the life he had lived before was gone forever. He would only ever be remembered as the man who raped his female students. Who showed such contempt for women that he felt compelled to subject them to physical violence.

There was no margin for error when it came to sexual offences, Spencer knew that. Nobody wanted to be the one who had been wrong after the event, the one who had given the benefit of the doubt. So in the end it didn’t matter if Spencer was cleared of the crimes which Tova claimed he had committed; the verdict of his colleagues and the outside world would still be the heaviest burden to bear.

No smoke without fire. Not when it came to sexual offences.

And as if that wasn’t enough, his partner’s colleagues suspected him of being involved in a murder. With hindsight, he bitterly regretted not having told Fredrika what was going on from the start. To a certain extent, he blamed this obvious error of judgement on his problems with Tova. There hadn’t been room for two situations of such gravity; he could only deal with one at a time. In addition, he had only recently become aware that he was a suspect in a murder case – far too late for him to be able to work out how to behave. There had been just one thought in his head, and that had been born out of a state of sheer panic.

He needed a passport so that he was ready to leave the country.

He hardly dared to think about what that mistake had cost him, and it wasn’t much of a defence to state that he had applied for a new passport because he was suspected of a completely different crime: murder.

It was after nine o’clock when he was taken to an interview room. The custody officer informed him that it was the Stockholm police rather than Uppsala who wanted to speak to him. Spencer was only too well aware of the reason for this.

The officer from Stockholm introduced herself as Cecilia Torsson. A colleague from Uppsala was also present. Spencer felt that Cecilia Torsson came over as almost a caricature copper. The handshake was a parody of a normal handshake: far too firm, far too long. If her plan was to gain respect, she was distinctly wide of the mark. Her voice was loud, and she emphasised every word as if she thought he had severe hearing difficulties. In a different context her behaviour would have made Spencer smile. Now he just found it upsetting.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ said Cecilia Torsson. ‘How did you know her?’

‘I didn’t know her at all.’

‘Are you sure?’

Spencer breathed in, then out. Was he sure?

His memories of the spring when Rebecca Trolle went missing were relatively clear. He had had quite a lot to do as far as work was concerned, and he and Fredrika were seeing each other with increasing frequency. At home, the silence had been dense, the distance between him and Eva immense. As a consequence he had spent more and more time at work, more and more time away from home, even more evenings in the apartment in Östermalm with Fredrika.

That spring might well have been one of the best in his adult life.

But did Rebecca Trolle fit in somewhere? Had she passed through his life that spring, so fleetingly that he didn’t remember it when he looked back? He searched his memory, feeling that there were events he ought to be able to recall.

‘She called me once.’

He was surprised to hear his own voice.

‘She called you once?’

Cecilia Torsson leaned forward across the desk. Spencer nodded; it was all coming back to him now.

‘I had a message from the switchboard saying that a girl by that name had tried to get hold of me, but she didn’t ring again. That must have been in March or April.’

‘Didn’t you react when she disappeared?’

‘Why would I do that? I mean, I remember the newspapers ran stories about her disappearance, but to be honest I wasn’t sure if it was the same girl who had called me, even if the name was a little unusual.’

Cecilia Torsson looked as if she accepted his argument.

‘She didn’t leave a message asking you to call her back?’

‘No, I was just told that she had rung, and that she would try again. It was to do with a dissertation she was working on.’

More memories came to the surface.

‘I remember thinking I didn’t really have time for her. It’s not unusual for students to ring up asking for help.’

Spencer shrugged.

‘But I rarely have the time. Unfortunately.’

‘I understand,’ Cecilia said.

She turned the page in her notebook.

‘The Guardian Angels,’ she said.

The words were as much of a shock as if the ceiling had collapsed. He hadn’t heard those words for a long, long time.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You were a member of that particular film club?’

‘I was.’

Spencer was on full alert; he had no idea where the conversation was going.

‘Could you tell me a little more about it?’

Spencer folded his arms, trying hard to think back to a time that was so many years ago. What was there to tell? Four adults, three men and one woman, who regularly got together to watch films, then went for something to eat and drink and wrote poisonous reviews.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘Why? What have The Guardian Angels got to do with all this?’

‘We think there might be a connection between the film club and the murder of Rebecca Trolle.’

The laughter came from nowhere. Spencer pulled himself up short when he saw the expression on Cecilia Torsson’s face.

‘But for goodness’ sake, that film club has been defunct for over thirty years. You must see how unreasonable it would be for…’

‘If you could just answer my questions, we’ll both get out of here a lot sooner. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to explain why the film club is of interest to us, but we would be very grateful for any information you can provide.’

Her tone was almost pleading by the end, as if she was hoping that Spencer would produce a magic wand and transform the entire investigation in a trice.

‘I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,’ he said, hoping he sounded honest. ‘I was the last person to be chosen as a member of the group before it was dissolved. Morgan Axberger and I knew each other from an evening class in French that we had both attended in the mid-’60s. That was before he became a high-flyer; he spent all his time smoking, drinking and writing poetry.’

The memory made him smile.

‘After that, things moved quickly for Morgan. He became a different person when he realised he could shoot up the corporate ladder in record time. But he still had an interest in film, and in the early ’70s we bumped into one another at an art exhibition. He told me about the film club – I’d already seen articles about it in the newspapers, of course – and hinted that there was an opening if I wanted to join. Naturally, I said yes.’

‘Tell me about the other members. Are you still in touch with them?’

‘No, not at all,’ Spencer replied. ‘After Thea Aldrin ended up in prison and Elias Hjort moved abroad, that left just Morgan and me. And we had very little in common, I must say. It was only natural that we stopped seeing each other.’

Spencer thought for a moment.

‘The film club was dissolved around 1975-6. I never really understood why, but that’s what happened. By the time Thea Aldrin was charged with murder, the film club hadn’t met for several years.’

Cecilia Torsson looked interested.

‘Could there have been disagreements you were unaware of?’

‘It’s possible, of course, but I don’t know what they could have been about. If you speak to Morgan Axberger or Elias Hjort, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you more. Thea could tell you plenty as well, of course, but if what it says in the papers is true, she hasn’t spoken since she went to prison.’

‘How did the other members of the group react? To the fact that she’d murdered her husband, I mean?’

Not at all, Spencer thought. He hadn’t seen Morgan or Elias after Thea was arrested. He remembered ringing Morgan to talk it over. Morgan, who had known Thea’s ex, had been shocked and refused to discuss what had happened.

‘We had virtually no contact at all by then,’ Spencer said. ‘I was the youngest of the four, and I hadn’t been a member from the start. I didn’t know Thea’s ex, or anything about their relationship. But obviously I was horrified when I found out what she’d done.’

‘So you never questioned her guilt?’

Spencer shrugged.

‘She confessed.’

The air in the room was stale, the walls grubby. How much longer would he have to sit here talking about things he hadn’t done, hadn’t been involved in?

‘There were rumours that Thea Aldrin was the author of Mercury and Asteroid. Was that the case?’

‘Not as far as I knew. We discussed the matter, of course, but not in any detail. It was just a piece of particularly nasty gossip, nothing else.’

He felt a sudden spurt of anger at all the attempts that had been made to ruin Thea’s reputation. It had been sheer persecution, as if some powerful force was secretly working to destroy everything she had achieved. Spencer hadn’t understood the background at the time, and he didn’t understand it now.

‘Her son went missing,’ Cecilia said. ‘Do you remember anything about that?’

‘Of course,’ Spencer replied. ‘You could say that was the beginning of the end for her. She never got over the loss, and who can blame her? Although by that time the film club had already broken up, and I hardly ever saw her.’

‘But there were more rumours; people said she’d killed her son as well.’

Spencer shook his head.

‘It was absolutely bloody ridiculous. The boy disappeared and didn’t come back. I have no idea what happened to him, of course, but I think I can say with some certainty that his own mother didn’t kill him.’

The watch on Cecilia Torsson’s wrist flashed as it caught the light on the ceiling.

‘So what do you think happened to him?’

Spencer no longer needed to make an effort to recall the events of all those years ago. He remembered exactly what he had thought when the boy went missing.

‘Thea rarely mentioned her son or her relationship with him, but I know they quarrelled quite a lot. He kept asking where his father had gone, and he didn’t treat her with the respect she wanted from him.’

The words stuck in his throat; for some reason, they were more difficult to get out than they had been at the time.

‘OK, they quarrelled,’ Cecilia said. ‘And?’

‘And I think he ran away from home. That’s what I’ve always thought. He was a very enterprising young man.’

‘You think he ran away and had some kind of accident, which is why he’s never been found?’

‘No,’ said Spencer. ‘I think he left with the intention of never coming back. And I think he’s still alive.’

52

The place was crawling with police. Thea Aldrin sat in her room watching them from her window, struck dumb with horror.

How could it have happened again?

How could the events that had taken place in the ’60s still be claiming victims? Because Thea had no doubt about the fate that had befallen the boy who had been standing in the flowerbed outside her window. Nor had she been capable of preventing it.

Boy wasn’t really the right word. He was a man, but it was obvious almost straight away that there was something not quite right about him. The look in his eyes would haunt Thea for the rest of her life: a grotesque mixture of pleading and incomprehension that almost made her stop breathing.

There was a time when she had believed she would enjoy a rich and happy life. A time when she and Manfred had fallen in love, when they made their co-habitation into a political issue and refused to get married, even when she became pregnant. She had never felt that Manfred found it difficult to cope with her success. Quite the opposite, in fact: he had praised her to the skies with deep sincerity.

But none of the things she had taken for granted had been true, and none of the things she had held sacred had remained untouched. She could still recall the fear that had made her chew her own tongue as she watched the images flickering on the screen. And the powerlessness that followed when she confronted him.

‘It’s not real, for fuck’s sake!’ he had bellowed.

As far as Thea was concerned, that was of minor importance. She didn’t want to be anywhere near a man with desires of that kind. Nor did she want him anywhere near her unborn child.

He had been so easy to drive away, and she had always taken that as an indication that the film was in fact genuine. That a murder really had been committed. In her parents’ summerhouse, which she had visited countless times. With fear clutching at her throat, she had tried to find proof of what had happened there. She found nothing. And yet she knew that they had been there, that they had destroyed everything. Manfred and someone else, someone who was holding the camera. It wasn’t until several years later she found out who that someone was.

If only she hadn’t given up the film on the night he moved out. That was the price she had to pay: Manfred refused to leave without the film.

‘I don’t trust you,’ he had said. ‘If you’re sick enough to believe the film is real, then I don’t know what to think of you any more.’

So she had given him the film and assumed she had seen the last of him. Perhaps she should have realised what a terrible error of judgement that was. Everything that followed was undoubtedly a consequence of the first catastrophe. But she couldn’t have known how badly things would turn out. If she had had any idea, she would have acted differently a long time ago.

Many things frightened her as she sat there alone in self-imposed silence. Had anyone heard what had happened in her room yesterday evening? Had anyone seen the boy disappear? And, almost more significantly, had anyone heard Thea speak?

53

There was no time for rest or recuperation. Peder Rydh decided not to go home and sleep as Alex had suggested. Instead he drove around the streets yet again, then went back to the assisted living complex.

He remembered his brother’s earlier phone call with absolute clarity.

It’s a man. He’s looking in through the window. He’s got his back to me.

The police had already left when Peder got back to the complex; there was no reason for them to stay. He went to see the manageress and asked to her to let him into Jimmy’s room. She couldn’t stop apologising.

‘I don’t understand how this could have happened,’ she said as she led the way down the corridor.

She looked and sounded as if she had been crying. Peder didn’t care. He didn’t understand why she was apologising; she hadn’t been on duty when Jimmy disappeared.

‘One minute he was here, the next he was gone.’

Peder didn’t answer; he just walked past her into Jimmy’s room. Everything was as it should be, just as it had been when Peder was there in the morning. The bed with the quilt their grandmother had made, the bookshelves full of cars, pictures and books.

The staff had called Peder and his parents as soon as they realised Jimmy was missing. It was hard to know how long he had been gone; no one had seen him since the afternoon. There was nothing particularly unusual about that; Jimmy liked spending time on his own. Sometimes he didn’t bother coming to supper, but stayed in his room instead.

‘We found out he wasn’t there when we knocked to see if he’d started getting ready for bed. Otherwise, he stays up till all hours, as you know.’

Peder knew. It had been impossible to get Jimmy to bed even when he was a little boy. He wanted to be awake all the time; he was afraid he might miss some fun if he went to bed before everybody else.

The manageress carried on talking, telling Peder things he had already heard the previous evening.

‘The only thing missing was his jacket. And the patio door was open when we came in, so we think he must have gone out that way.’

Peder could understand that, but he just couldn’t work out where his brother had gone. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times when Jimmy had gone off on his own.

A missing jacket, an open door.

Where did you go, Jimmy?

Peder looked out of the window.

‘Who lives in the building opposite?’ he asked.

He thought back once again to what Jimmy had said; he had seen a man looking in through someone’s window.

‘That’s part of the care home,’ the manageress said.

‘Is it private?’

‘Yes, they just take a few elderly residents each year. I’ve heard there’s a long waiting list to get in.’

Peder looked at the row of small patios on the other side of the lawn. Where could the man Jimmy had seen have been standing? An elderly woman caught Peder’s eye. She was so pale and unremarkable that he almost didn’t notice her. It looked as if she was gazing straight into Jimmy’s room, straight at Peder.

There was something familiar about her.

‘Who’s she?’ Peder asked, pointing at the woman.

‘She’s one of the more eccentric residents,’ said the manageress. ‘She used to write children’s books. Her name is Thea Aldrin. Have you heard of her?’

Valter Lund was waiting in reception at the appointed time. In his dark suit and white shirt he looked just like any other businessman. Fredrika observed him through the glass door before she went out to collect him. She looked at his open, confident expression, his friendly smile. Shoulders relaxed, legs crossed, hands resting in his lap.

Was it you who murdered Rebecca, dismembered her body and put it in bags, then carried her through the forest?

He had no legal representative with him, which surprised Fredrika. His handshake was warm, his voice deep as he said hello. In another time, another life, Fredrika would have found him attractive.

Alex joined her for the interview; he and Fredrika sat down opposite Valter Lund. The time was approximately half-past nine.

‘Thank you for taking the time to come in,’ Alex began.

Almost suggesting that attendance at a police interview was voluntary.

‘Naturally, I want to help in any way I can.’

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ Alex said.

‘Yes?’

‘You knew her.’

‘I was her mentor.’

‘Was that your only connection or relationship with her?’

Fredrika hoped her surprise at Alex’s direct approach so early in the proceedings didn’t show in her face.

‘I don’t think I understand the question.’

‘We’re wondering whether you spent time together for any other reason, apart from the fact that you were her mentor.’

‘We did, yes.’

The interview was stopped in its tracks before it had even got going. Fredrika knew she wasn’t the only one who was stunned by Valter Lund’s honesty; Alex was also surprised. He couldn’t hold back a wry smile.

‘Could you tell us more?’

Valter Lund ran his hand over the surface of the desk.

‘Absolutely. But I would like an assurance that any information I give you will be dealt with discreetly.’

‘It’s very difficult to give such an assurance when I don’t know what you’re going to say.’

‘I understand.’

Fredrika cleared her throat.

‘As long as what you tell us has no relevance as far as our inquiry is concerned, then of course we can ensure that it is not made public along with the documentation relating to the preliminary investigation.’

That seemed to satisfy Valter Lund.

‘We had a brief relationship,’ he said.

‘You and Rebecca?’ Fredrika asked.

‘We realised almost immediately that there was a mutual attraction. One thing led to another, and in December 2006, I asked her out. We carried on meeting discreetly until the beginning of January, when I decided that we couldn’t carry on.’

‘So it really was a brief relationship.’

‘Indeed.’

‘You took her to Copenhagen,’ Alex said.

‘That’s true. That was after we’d broken up. We slept in separate rooms at the hotel, and took different flights to Kastrup. Unfortunately, I realised that Rebecca thought the trip was an attempt to rekindle the relationship on my part. She was terribly disappointed when I explained that wasn’t the case.’

Valter Lund’s voice filled the room, and his entire being radiated calm stability. He owned the interview in a way Fredrika found fascinating.

‘It’s hardly surprising that she misunderstood an invitation of that kind,’ Alex said. ‘My God, a romantic weekend in Copenhagen could make anyone go weak at the knees.’

Lund had to smile.

‘Naturally, I realised I had made a mistake. I knew she was upset because I’d finished with her, and I wanted to prove that I still took my role as mentor very seriously. It was stupid of me to think she would understand the difference from the way I behaved.’

‘What happened after Copenhagen?’

‘Not much. She called me a few times and we decided we would meet up one evening, but it never happened.’

‘Because she went missing?’

‘Yes.’

Alex looked down at his scarred hands, then glanced over at Fredrika.

‘You were considerably older than Rebecca,’ he said.

Over twenty years, Fredrika worked out. The same as the age difference between her and Spencer.

‘And that was definitely a contributory factor in my decision to stop seeing her. We had nothing in common.’

He spoke as if this was something simple and self-evident, but Fredrika knew that Rebecca must have seen things very differently, and fallen apart.

That’s what I would have done.

‘Did you tell anyone about your affair?’ Alex said.

‘No.’

‘Did she?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

Alex’s question remained hanging in the air. For the first time Fredrika could see that they had said something that had not been part of Valter Lund’s calculations from the start.

‘Pregnant?’

He whispered the word. He quickly passed a hand over his forehead, then lowered it again.

‘My God.’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘No. No, definitely not.’

‘But the child could have been yours?’

They knew this wasn’t the case, but Fredrika asked anyway.

‘I doubt it. She said she was on the pill.’

Valter Lund suddenly looked smaller, and genuinely upset.

‘She was so very young,’ he said quietly.

Alex gave him a moment to recover.

‘Did you discuss her dissertation?’ he said eventually.

‘No.’

Lund quickly recovered his composure; gone was the grief and the shock.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Well, obviously I knew what she was working on, but I didn’t feel I had anything to offer when it came to that particular topic.’

‘We have reason to believe that she may have wanted to talk to Morgan Axberger about her dissertation. Did she ask you for help in arranging a meeting with him?’

‘No.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’

‘One hundred per cent. I would have remembered.’

‘Did you ever discuss Axberger with Rebecca?’

‘Only superficially. She wasn’t really interested in my work.’

Alex broke in.

‘Did you attend the mentors’ event that took place on the night she disappeared?’

‘Yes.’

For the first time, Valter Lund looked genuinely concerned.

‘Were you surprised when Rebecca didn’t turn up?’

‘Of course. I was there mainly for her sake, after all.’

Lund thought for a long time; he looked as if he were considering whether or not to say more.

‘The thing is,’ he began, ‘something happened that day, but I didn’t mention before. Or to put it more accurately, something I didn’t think was of any significance.’

He ran his hand over the surface of the desk once more.

‘Bearing in mind your interest in Morgan Axberger: I was just about to leave for the mentors’ dinner and I went along to Morgan’s office to speak to him. He was standing there talking to someone on his mobile. As I drew closer I heard him say something along the lines of, “Make sure you’re there at quarter to eight, and I’ll meet you at the bus stop. I know a place nearby where we can talk”.’

Valter Lund spread his hands wide.

‘I’m not at all sure this is relevant; I mean, he could have been speaking to anyone. About anything. But… deep down, I’ve always been afraid that Rebecca was on the other end of the phone, just because the time he mentioned fitted in perfectly with the time she went missing. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before.’

Fredrika tried to work out the significance of what she had just heard. Had Morgan Axberger called Rebecca before the dinner and arranged a meeting? There had been an unidentified call on the list. Someone had rung Rebecca just before she left home.

Was that person Morgan Axberger?

If that was the case, then Rebecca must have tried to get in touch with him without involving Valter Lund. How had she managed that?

They brought the interview to a close. They would check on what Lund had told them, but Fredrika didn’t expect to find any inconsistencies. It was obvious that he had agreed to speak to the police in order to eliminate himself from their inquiries, and Fredrika thought he had succeeded in his aim. Morgan Axberger, on the other hand… Fredrika wanted to talk to him right away.

They said goodbye at the glass doors leading to reception.

‘Just one more question,’ Fredrika said.

He turned back.

‘Your uncle,’ she said. ‘Your mother’s brother. Do you see much of him?’

He looked blank.

‘My uncle? I don’t have an uncle. My mother was an only child.’

Clouds in the sky, no sunshine. Suddenly the night seemed far away, almost completely overshadowed by the events of the morning. Alex felt at peace, grateful to have put some distance between himself and what had happened. He was convinced that it had all happened too fast. One look at Lena’s photograph, and he was plagued by a guilty conscience.

I’ll always love you, I’ll never leave you.

Ellen came in and confirmed that Rebecca Trolle had been in touch with the police in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. Because her calls had come via the switchboard, it was impossible to say who she had spoken to. But Alex thought he knew anyway.

Torbjörn Ross.

The question was, where had she got his name from? Ross had been a young man at the time of Thea Aldrin’s trial, a peripheral figure in a major police investigation. Rebecca must have gone to the archive department, asked to see the original case notes and found Ross’s name among the rest. Perhaps she had made a list of all the officers involved in the case; perhaps Ross was the only one who was still a serving officer.

Or perhaps she had got the name when she went to see Thea Aldrin, since Ross was still visiting her in the hope that he would be able to solve another crime. But who would have told her? Thea Aldrin never spoke, and why would Rebecca have asked the staff about the old woman’s visitors?

‘There’s some material missing,’ Fredrika said.

Alex gave a start when he heard her voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Rebecca was very meticulous when it came to making notes on anything to do with her dissertation. But I can’t find a single bloody word about either her visit to Thea Aldrin or her contact with the police. And I think we can safely say she had been in touch with the police, because I’ve gone through all her material over and over again, and there is absolutely no mention of the snuff movie. She got that information from elsewhere.’

Her voice was so strained that Alex had to make a real effort to hear what she was saying.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Bloody awful. If you’ll pardon my language.’

Alex had to smile. Fredrika sat down.

‘I don’t know what to do with myself.’

‘It’ll all work out.’

He didn’t know that, of course, but he thought everything would be fine. Spencer Lagergren wouldn’t be convicted of rape if the only evidence was a statement by a disgruntled student. If that really was the only evidence. He hoped it was.

‘He’s more fragile than you might think,’ Fredrika said. ‘I don’t know how much longer he can cope with being locked up.’

‘They’ll let him go by tomorrow at the latest,’ Alex reassured her. ‘They can’t justify holding him for any longer than that.’

‘The passport.’

‘The passport is irrelevant, because he went to get a new one for a completely different reason, didn’t he?’

Fredrika managed a wan smile.

‘Yes, but it wasn’t exactly a better reason.’

‘Doesn’t matter. We have to take some of the blame for that; we didn’t handle that part of the inquiry particularly well.’

Alex changed the subject.

‘Rebecca Trolle. You thought she’d been in touch with the police, and the list of calls confirms that.’

‘And I also think someone has removed papers from among Rebecca’s belongings. Information she got from the police.’

Alex linked his hands behind his head.

‘Let’s assume you’re right. What kind of notes do you end up with when you interview a woman who refuses to speak?’

‘Nothing much, I’d say. But I’m sure she would have jotted down a line or two.’

Fredrika was probably right. Alex decided to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

‘Morgan Axberger,’ he said.

A small smile played around Fredrika’s lips.

‘He could have been involved. At least he could have been the reason why she got on the wrong bus. If it was Rebecca he was speaking to on the phone, of course.’

‘We need to talk to him,’ Alex said. ‘Sort this out.’

The sound of the telephone interrupted them, and Alex answered. Peder’s voice was hoarse.

‘Where have you been? I’ve called several times.’

‘Interviewing Valter Lund. Has something happened?’

What a question. Peder’s brother was missing, and Alex had just asked him if something had happened.

‘Do you know who lives opposite Jimmy?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘Thea Aldrin.’

Alex stared blankly at Fredrika, who was frowning.

‘Thea Aldrin is your brother Jimmy’s neighbour?’

‘She lives in the building opposite. On the ground floor. She has a small patio that faces Jimmy’s room. Do you remember what I told you this morning?’

The tone of his voice frightened Alex.

‘That Jimmy saw a man looking in through someone else’s window.’

‘Exactly. And whose window do you think that might have been?’

‘Peder, listen to me.’

‘I’m already on my way over there to give the old bag a good shake.’

Alex slammed his hand down on the desk with such force that Fredrika jumped.

‘You will do no such thing. She is one of the key figures in a major murder inquiry. You will not go over there in your present state. Do you hear me?’

Peder was breathing heavily at the other end of the line.

‘In that case you need to send Fredrika over here, or someone else. If they’re not here within the hour, I’ll speak to her myself.’

With a click he was gone.

‘Fuck.’

Alex put the phone down and turned to Fredrika.

‘I need you to go and speak to Thea Aldrin right away.’

He outlined the background.

‘But how could Jimmy’s disappearance have any connection with Thea Aldrin? It has to be a coincidence.’

‘I think so too, but Peder has been out looking for him all night, and he isn’t thinking clearly. I want you to go over to Mångården care home and set up an interview so that the whole thing doesn’t go pear-shaped.’

A memory from a few years ago flashed through his mind: a time when Fredrika was new to the job, and Alex didn’t know how to handle her. To be honest, he hadn’t believed he would ever come to value her, let alone trust her. Not the way he did now.

‘And Torbjörn Ross?’ she said.

‘I’ll confront him with what we’ve got. If he didn’t discuss Thea Aldrin with Rebecca, he might know whether someone else did.’

Fredrika got to her feet.

‘Are we going to bring in Morgan Axberger? I think we need to speak to him as a matter of urgency.’

‘I’ll get on it right away.’

‘OK,’ Fredrika said. ‘And then we can think about why Valter Lund lied to us.’

Alex raised his eyebrows.

‘You think he lied?’

Fredrika told him what had happened as they were saying goodbye.

‘Give our Norwegian colleagues a call and ask to see a passport photo of their Valter Lund so that we know we’re talking about the same person,’ Alex suggested. ‘And get hold of the uncle’s contact details.’

‘Already in hand,’ Fredrika replied.

Alex’s phone rang again. It was one of the officers who had been involved in the search for Håkan Nilsson on Lake Mälaren. The boat had been found. And Håkan Nilsson was missing.

54

It started to rain just as Fredrika drove into the car park at Mångården. She hadn’t been there before, and was surprised at how much greenery there was. Low buildings separated by lawns, deserted in the rain.

There was no actual barrier separating the assisted living complex from the care home, but the difference was clear to Fredrika. The windows of the assisted living complex had bright, colourful curtains with pot plants on the sills, and a young girl was gazing out from one of the rooms. On the other side, where the elderly residents lived, the windows lacked any sign of life. They almost acted as the opening to a peep-show in the complex, but revealed nothing whatsoever about the aged inhabitants of the care home.

She met Peder outside Jimmy’s block. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and felt him pull away impatiently. He showed her Jimmy’s room.

‘This is where he was standing when he spoke to me on the phone, I’m sure of it. And that’s what he could see.’

He pointed to the building across the lawn.

‘Is that where she lives?’ Fredrika asked.

Peder nodded. The sinews in his neck were strained; his eyes were dull with exhaustion.

‘We’ll go straight over there,’ he said.

They followed the path around the edge of the lawn and went into the care home through the main entrance on the other side of the building.

‘Peder Rydh, police.’

He showed his ID, and the care assistant immediately stopped what she was doing and showed them to Thea Aldrin’s room. The corridor smelled fresh, not stale and unpleasant like some other care homes Fredrika had visited.

The assistant stopped outside one of the anonymous white wooden doors and knocked firmly before walking in.

‘You know she doesn’t talk?’

‘Yes.’

They found themselves in a small hallway, then moved into the room itself; it was light, quite large, and simply furnished.

Thea Aldrin was sitting in an armchair facing the window. She didn’t move a muscle. She gave no indication that she had heard them come in.

‘You have visitors, Thea.’

Still no reaction. Peder quickly walked around the armchair and stood directly in her line of vision.

‘My name is Peder Rydh. Police.’

Fredrika moved to his side and introduced herself in a slightly less stressed tone of voice. She pulled up a chair and sat down; Peder did the same.

‘We’re here to ask you one or two questions relating to an investigation we’re working on,’ Fredrika explained. ‘Do you remember Rebecca Trolle?’

No reply, no reaction.

Thea didn’t appear to have aged significantly since the last pictures of her were published when she was released from prison. Grey hair, cut in a simple bob. Dark eyebrows, a pointed nose. She looked ordinary, like any other pensioner.

Fredrika took out a photograph of Rebecca and held it up in front of Thea.

‘We know she came to visit you on one occasion,’ Peder said. ‘We know she wanted to talk about your past.’

‘About the murder of your ex-boyfriend,’ Fredrika clarified.

‘And the disappearance of your son,’ Peder added.

The silence was so dense that Fredrika felt as if she could touch it if she just reached out. Peder’s jaws were working. He wouldn’t give Thea many more chances to speak before he exploded.

‘The film club,’ Fredrika said. ‘Do you remember the film club?’

It was just possible to sense the hint of a smile, but it vanished so quickly that Fredrika wasn’t sure if she had seen it after all.

‘To be perfectly honest, we’re really confused right now,’ she said. ‘We’ve found several bodies on the site where Rebecca’s body was dug up, but we don’t understand the connections. The only thing we know for certain is that whichever way we look at this story, it leads straight back to you, Thea.’

The old woman went pale, but still she said nothing. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, trying to shut them out in every possible way.

‘There was a man in the grave: Elias Hjort. Do you remember him?’

Peder’s voice was sharp, quivering with suppressed irritation.

He went on: ‘There’s an assisted living complex just across the lawn. Do you know any of the residents?’

He leaned forward.

‘One of them went missing last night. Are you aware of that?’

Thea stiffened and her eyelids trembled. There was no doubt that she could hear what they were saying, so why the hell did she persist in remaining silent?

‘A young man who’s good at some things, not so good at others. Did you see him, Thea? He’s tall, with dark hair. He nearly always wears blue.’

He sounded as if he was on the point of bursting into tears.

Fredrika gently placed a hand on his arm and caught his eye. She shook her head.

We’re not getting anywhere, we have to drop this.

Then she saw that Thea had begun to cry. The tears made transparent tracks down her cheeks. Her eyes were still closed.

Peder slid off his chair and crouched down in front of her.

‘You have to talk to us,’ he said.

His voice was filled with such pleading that Fredrika didn’t know what to do with herself.

‘If you saw something, anything at all, you have to tell us. Or if someone is threatening you – you can talk to us about that too.’

Thea wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Fredrika didn’t know what to think. The old woman was straight-backed and indomitable, yet clearly marked by the life she had led. Once upon a time, she had had everything anyone could wish for; now she sat alone in a care home, stripped of all that had been written in the stars for her.

Thea got up and lay down on the bed with her back to her visitors. Fredrika and Peder stood up.

‘We’ll be back,’ he said. ‘Do you hear me? We’re not letting this go just because you refuse to co-operate.’

As they left the room a few minutes later, Thea was still lying in exactly the same position.

‘Old bitch,’ Peder said when they were out in the corridor.

Fredrika ignored him and went in search of a member of staff. She spotted a young woman who was reading what appeared to be a patient’s file.

‘Excuse me.’

The woman looked up with the most hunted expression Fredrika had ever seen; her face was pale and weary. Fredrika hesitated.

‘Excuse me,’ she said again. ‘Could I possibly ask you one or two questions about Thea Aldrin?’

The young woman swallowed and attempted a smile.

‘Of course. But I don’t think I can be of much help; I’ve only just come on duty. They usually call me in at short notice.’

‘Were you working yesterday?’

Relief spread across the woman’s face.

‘No.’

As if she really didn’t want to help.

Fredrika read her name badge: Malena Bremberg. There was such a depth of anxiety in her eyes that it made Fredrika’s skin crawl, and she could see that Peder had noticed it as well.

‘We need to know whether Thea had any visitors yesterday,’ Fredrika said.

‘In that case you’ll have to ask someone else,’ Malena replied. ‘As I said, I wasn’t working yesterday.’

A colleague appeared in the corridor; she must have overheard the conversation, and took it upon herself to answer the question.

‘Thea hardly ever has visitors. Yesterday was no exception.’

‘Were you on duty?’

‘All day. The only person who visits Thea on a regular basis is that detective. Ross, I think his name is.’

Fredrika made no comment on Torbjörn Ross and his activities. She felt embarrassed for him, and wished he would put a stop to his visits.

‘He’s been here so often we were almost starting to wonder whether he’s the one who sends Thea flowers every Saturday.’

There. A fresh scrap of information.

‘She gets flowers every Saturday?’

‘She does.’

‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘Ever since she came here.’

Instinctively, Fredrika knew that this was important. Peder must have felt the same, because he suddenly decided to join in the conversation.

‘You don’t know who they’re from?’

The second care assistant smiled, clearly enjoying the attention more than Malena Bremberg, who excused herself and slipped into one of the anonymous rooms further down the corridor.

‘We haven’t a clue. They’re delivered at eleven o’clock in the morning. Always the same kind of flowers, always the same message on the card: “Thank you”, that’s all it says.’

So someone had a reason to be grateful to Thea Aldrin, who might have written violent pornographic novels under a pseudonym, and who had stabbed her ex-boyfriend to death.

‘We’d like the name of the florist,’ Peder said.

Fredrika was holding her breath. So far every road they had followed had led them back to Thea. Now at last they had found a road that led away from her. The question was – who was hiding at the other end?

While he was waiting to hear more about Håkan’s disappearance and Fredrika and Peder’s visit to Thea Aldrin, Alex decided to confront Torbjörn Ross.

‘You’ve been withholding information, Torbjörn.’

A direct statement, leaving no room for denial.

Ross gazed at the papers on his desk as Alex sat down opposite him.

‘You met up with her, didn’t you? You helped Rebecca Trolle with the research for her dissertation.’

When Ross didn’t reply, Alex went on:

‘Memory sometimes lets us down, doesn’t it? It only struck me today that you were involved in the investigation when Rebecca disappeared. But only during the first week, when we were questioning everyone and going through her things. Then you requested a transfer to another case, didn’t you?’

Alex felt the disappointment forming a lump in his throat.

‘You took material that could have been useful to us from among Rebecca’s belongings. You withheld important clues from me and the others.’

At last, Ross reacted.

‘Like hell, I did! You all ignored Thea Aldrin completely. You were too busy searching for the mysterious secret boyfriend. Nobody had even seen him, but you were all convinced he existed. I was the one who looked into the link with Thea Aldrin, and when it led nowhere I didn’t see the point in passing on information about an irrelevant minor line of enquiry.’

‘You don’t believe that for one minute. You kept quiet in order to save yourself, so that you could continue your bizarre, endless investigation into the disappearance of Thea’s son.’

Torbjörn Ross flushed deep red.

‘She murdered her son, Alex. Surely she shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that?’

Alex shook his head.

‘You’re the only person in the entire world who thinks that. It’s unhealthy. You need help.’

Ross got up from his chair, clearly agitated.

‘Thea Aldrin was right there in front of you, and you all ignored her completely.’

‘At the time, yes, but not now. And you knew that.’

Last weekend. Their conversation on the boat. It was Torbjörn Ross who had first brought up Thea’s name, who had pretended to be surprised that Rebecca Trolle was writing a dissertation about her. In fact, the opposite was true. Ross had merely wanted to ensure that Alex wasn’t going to drop Thea Aldrin this time.

‘What did you take during the original investigation?’

‘A few notes, that’s all.’

Ross’s voice was quiet. He sat down again.

‘Notes which included your own name, I presume?’

Ross said nothing.

‘What else?’

Silently, Ross reached for a thin folder on the top shelf of his safe. He handed it to Alex.

A page torn from Rebecca’s file block, containing notes about the investigation into the murder of Thea’s ex. Dates, names. Including that of Torbjörn Ross.

‘Who are the other people mentioned here?’

‘Officers involved in the case. Most of them have retired by now. She contacted the police and asked to see the records from the preliminary inquiry; that was how she found me and the others.’

‘So she called you?’

Ross nodded.

‘We met only once, at Café Ugo on Scheelegatan. We went through the case together, and she asked some pretty banal questions. Then it was over.’

‘Hang on a minute. It must have been more than some banal questions. It was you who led her to the snuff movie, wasn’t it?’

Ross looked surprised.

‘She’d saved some of her notes on a floppy disk, and you missed it,’ Alex said, trying not to sound triumphant. ‘We couldn’t understand why the word “snuff” appeared, but now we think we know where she got it from.’

Ross’s eyes were darting all over the room.

‘I might have given her a helping hand; she was already heading in that direction.’

‘Like hell she was,’ Alex bellowed. ‘It was you and your bloody obsession that gave her ideas. And now she’s dead.’

‘Exactly!’

Ross raised his voice.

‘Now she’s dead, and what does that tell us, Alex? It was no coincidence that she died. She must have stumbled on something that you and your colleagues missed.’

‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence either; the question is whether we still have any chance of finding out what she came up with. Because unlike you, she believed Thea was innocent of the murder of which she had been convicted. Why do you think that was? Where did she get that idea from?’

Ross had no answer to that.

‘Did she mention it to you?’

‘No. When we met she didn’t say anything at all about the issue of Thea Aldrin’s guilt.’

Alex thought for a moment.

‘Do you know what she did after that? Did she speak to anyone else who had worked on the Aldrin case in the ’80s?’

Torbjörn Ross hesitated.

‘I think she might have pursued the snuff movie angle after I mentioned it to her. I heard she’d spoken to Janne Bergwall; he was there when the film was found, but Janne and I have never discussed it.’

Janne Bergwall. The toughest of them all. A corrupt bastard who had a hold over God the Father himself, which was the only reason he hadn’t lost his job. Now he was only a year or so away from retirement. Alex knew a lot of people who would be relieved when he finally went.

Dragging Bergwall into this investigation was the last thing he needed.

‘I want to see that bloody film myself before I speak to Bergwall,’ Alex said. ‘Where is it?’

‘In the archive. Would you like me to…?’

‘No thank you – you’ve already done more than enough.’

Alex raised a hand to indicate that Ross should keep his distance from now on.

His next job would be to watch this notorious film. He wondered what it would tell him.

Who was it who had so much to hide, Rebecca?

55

Time was running out for Malena. When they rang from Mångården to ask if she could work an extra shift that day, the call had felt like a blessing at first, but after she had spoken to the police, that no longer seemed possible.

Now, Malena could see more clearly how everything hung together, how she had become a pawn in a game she did not understand, a game she had never asked to be a part of. And she realised that she had good reason to keep out of the way.

Out of the way of a monster from hell.

Malena hated Thea Aldrin. For her silence, for her refusal to take responsibility. She was at the centre of the whole thing, and yet no one grabbed hold of her, forced her to tell them what must be told so that everyone could move on. So that everyone could get their lives back.

As lunchtime approached, Malena’s fear had turned to sheer terror. She hardly dared walk down the narrow corridors of the care home, and instead sought refuge in the residents’ rooms. She might not be aware of the full picture, but Malena sensed that she knew far too much for her own good.

Terror sliced through her belly like a knife.

What if she died? This wasn’t like the film she had made. Death was irrevocable.

There’s still so much I want to do.

And that was the tipping point for Malena, because if there was one thing in her life that she had had more than enough of, it was being a victim. It had to stop. No more.

Without looking back, she left the care home just before midday and headed for her bicycle. The morning’s clouds had dispersed, and it looked as if it was going to be another lovely spring day.

Malena took a deep breath.

This was the day when she would find peace of mind.

INTERVIEW WITH PEDER RYDH, 04-05-2009, 14.00 (tape recording)

Present: Urban S, Roger M (interrogators one and two). Peder Rydh(suspect).

Urban: How are you, Peder?

(Silence.)

Roger: We realise things are difficult at the moment, but it’s in your best interests to co-operate with us.

Urban: You know how these things work. The people who come off worst are those who don’t co-operate during an internal inquiry.

(Silence.)

Roger: We think we have a relatively clear picture of what happened out on Storholmen, but we would very much like to hear your own version.

Peder: I don’t have my own version.

Roger: OK. What does that mean?

Peder: Exactly that. I don’t have something called ‘my own version’ of what happened. I’m the only one who was there. Therefore, the version I have given ought to stand.

Urban: We understand your thinking, but that’s not how it works, as you well know.

Roger: We carried out some additional investigations after we received your original statement, and it just doesn’t add up.

Peder: Doesn’t it?

Roger: No. It’s just not possible that you shot the suspect in self-defence. He was unarmed and defenceless, and you shot him right between the eyes.

Urban: You’re a good officer, and you are also tall and strong. You had plenty of opportunities to put the suspect out of action without killing him.

Peder: I assessed the situation differently.

(Silence.)

Urban: Are you sure about that, Peder?

Peder: Am I sure about what?

Roger: How many hours’ sleep did you get after Jimmy went missing?

Peder: None.

Roger: Almost forty-eight hours without sleep, and with an enormous amount of stress in your system. It’s understandable that a significant number of things went wrong.

Peder: Nothing went wrong.

Urban: Everything went wrong.

(Silence.)

Peder: So what is it you actually think?

(Silence.)

Urban: We think you shot the suspect in cold blood, that’s what we think. It’s called manslaughter. At best. The prosecutor might even decide to call it premeditated murder.

Roger: If you have anything to tell us, it would be best to speak up now, Peder. Otherwise you risk going down for life. Do you understand?

Peder: I have nothing more to add. Not one single word.

56

The film appeared to have been made in some kind of summerhouse, because in spite of the fact that all the walls were covered with white sheets, the sunlight found its way through the fabric. Alex was running the film in one of the rooms belonging to the photographic department.

‘It’s been a while since you lot wanted to borrow a projector,’ the technician who had helped him to set up the film had said.

Alex had asked to be left alone; his gut feeling told him that would be for the best. He switched off his mobile, disconnected his thoughts, which kept finding their way back to the night he had spent with Diana Trolle, and switched on the projector.

He realised straight away that the camera was not fixed on a tripod, but was being held by someone who remained anonymous throughout. The door of what Alex assumed was a summerhouse opened; a young woman hesitated, then came in.

She was beautiful. Youthful and unspoiled, the kind of girl Alex would have been happy to see with his son. Or the kind of girl he would have been interested in when he was a young man. Her sleeveless dress breathed summer and the 1960s. The film was in colour, and her skin was tanned. She smiled tentatively at the camera and said something that couldn’t be heard: there was no sound.

The room was completely empty of furniture or anything else. An open arena for what was to come. The door opened once again, and a man walked in. Tall, well-built, masked. Armed with an axe in one hand. His appearance was timeless; he looked exactly the way evil has always looked. Alex felt sick as the woman backed away and stumbled into one of the sheets. The window stopped her from falling. The man seized her by the arm, dragged her towards the middle of the room.

Then he raised the axe and swung it at her body in a frenzied attack. She fell to the floor, and even when she was motionless he continued to hack at her body with the axe, and with a knife which he suddenly produced from somewhere. The woman’s dress was covered in blood, and when the man finally straightened up, huge slashes in the fabric were clearly visible.

When the film was over, Alex sat there in stunned silence. He watched it again. And again. Then he ripped it from the projector and raced up to Torbjörn Ross’s office.

‘What made you think the film wasn’t genuine?’

‘It was just too much of a spectacle to be real. We thought it had been made in the ’60s, obviously inspired by the spirit of the age. And we didn’t find a murder victim with injuries consistent with those sustained by the woman in the film.’

‘And that was it?’

Ross shrugged.

‘For a long time, I believed the film was genuine, but in the end I was convinced by the fact that we didn’t have a murder victim. I mean, she would have been missed by someone. As far as I was concerned, that didn’t really matter anyway. The film was sick, and the person who made it must have been equally sick.’

Alex thought about the mythology surrounding snuff movies, the contention that the victims were usually people who could easily disappear without being missed by anyone.

‘Thea Aldrin. You think Thea Aldrin made this film?’

He held out the reel in his hand.

‘She was definitely involved,’ Ross snapped. ‘The links to her disgusting, filthy books were too obvious. The scene where the woman dies in a summerhouse was in both books. There’s no other explanation.’

Alex finally lost his temper.

‘For fuck’s sake, we don’t even know if she actually wrote the bloody books! And you thought the film wasn’t real!’

‘We found Thea’s friend Elias Hjort, we found out the royalties were paid to him. And guess what, Alex? When we went to bring him in for questioning, we were told that he’d left the country. What’s that worth today, now we know he hadn’t left the country at all? He was dead.’

‘Your only link to Thea Aldrin was Elias Hjort,’ Alex said. ‘And that bloody film club.’

‘And the rumours. There’s no smoke without fire; you know that as well as I do.’

Alex shook his head.

‘The film is real,’ he said.

The colour drained from Ross’s face.

‘Real?’

‘I’ll show it to the forensic pathologist, but I’m absolutely certain. The young woman who dies in this film is the young woman who was sharing a grave with Rebecca Trolle.’

Spencer called when Fredrika was on her way back to HQ from the care home.

‘They’ve let me go.’

Emptiness in her soul, warmth in her breast.

How far apart have we drifted?

‘Have they dropped the case?’

‘No, but there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest that I was likely to abscond for them to arrest me. They’ve blocked my passport; I can’t apply for a new one until all this is over.’

Fredrika said nothing. The whole thing had gone beyond the point where words were even possible.

‘I wasn’t the only one who was keeping secrets. And your secrets were my secrets.’

She heard what he said, but was incapable of taking in the words.

She wanted to say that she hadn’t been keeping any secrets at all, but she knew it was a lie. Several days had passed since Spencer’s name first came up in the investigation; several days of silence.

Then again, no silence was worse than Spencer’s. He had changed their life in order to hide his problems. Said he wanted to take paternity leave, when in fact he was running away from a difficult situation at work, a situation that could well cost him both his job and his future.

‘I could have helped you,’ Fredrika said.

‘How?’

‘Given you some advice.’

That wasn’t true, and she knew it. There was nothing she could teach Spencer in that respect, nothing she could use to support him. All the same, she felt as if he had rejected not only her professional expertise, but her heart and her love. In his hour of need, she had not been permitted to be there for him.

And it hurt like hell.

‘See you at home.’

He ended the call. Fredrika drove into the underground car park, then hurried upstairs. Peder wasn’t there, of course – he had said he was going to carry on looking for Jimmy – and there was no sign of Alex either.

Ellen came to see her. Morgan Axberger had been in touch after Ellen had spoken to his secretary, at Alex’s request. He had promised to call in later that afternoon.

‘Since when do people decide when they’d like to be questioned?’ Fredrika wanted to know.

‘Since we started contacting leading figures within Swedish industry,’ Ellen replied.

One of the officers who had found Håkan Nilsson’s boat called; Håkan was still missing.

Fredrika felt a creeping sense of anxiety as she put the phone down. They had assumed that Nilsson had taken off in order to get away from the police, but they could have been wrong. Perhaps he thought his life was in danger, and that he had to find somewhere safe to hide? But in that case, why hadn’t he spoken to the police and asked for protection?

She went over the many events of the day. The meeting with Valter Lund hadn’t been as helpful as she had hoped; it had merely generated yet more confusion with regard to his identity. It was obvious that he was trying to hide something, but what? And did the fact that Valter Lund might not be the person he claimed to be actually have anything to do with the case?

A man with his roots in Gol, outside the beautiful area of Hemsedal. A man who, on paper, had had a catastrophic upbringing, and had no living relatives. Unless you counted a bewildered uncle who turned up at the local police station every year to ask if his nephew had been found. An uncle who obviously didn’t recognise his nephew in pictures of Valter Lund.

Then there was the meeting with Thea Aldrin. A woman who had chosen to live in self-imposed silence for decades; she had been convicted of premeditated murder, and since her release she had spent all her time in a care home. Could there really be a connection with Jimmy’s disappearance, or was the fact that they were neighbours no more than a coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidences any more.

Rebecca Trolle had obviously felt the same way, because she had pursued the tip-off about the snuff movie, assumed that it was somehow relevant. Fredrika and her colleagues had yet to fully appreciate the connection with the dead bodies; they only knew that there was allegedly a link between Thea Aldrin and the snuff movie. Fredrika reminded herself that Alex was taking care of that particular line of enquiry; in fact, he was probably working on it right now.

The corridor was eerily silent. Fredrika went along to Alex’s office: still empty. Everyone else seemed to be out too. She returned to her own office. There was only one way out of this mess that kept on sending them back to Thea Aldrin and her silence: the flowers that were delivered to the care home every Saturday.

The helpful assistant had quickly found the name of the supplier: Masters Flowers, a shop on Nybrogatan in Östermalm. Fredrika decided not to waste any more time on speculation, and gave them a call.

‘I’m ringing about the flowers you deliver every Saturday to a lady by the name of Thea Aldrin.’

‘I’m afraid we operate a policy of strict confidentiality when it comes to our clients. They have the right to rely on our discretion.’

‘Obviously, we will treat any information you give us with great care, but we are in the middle of a murder inquiry, and I really do need your help.’

The shop owner was still hesitant, and Fredrika thought she was going to have to get a warrant from the prosecutor to make him talk.

‘It’s a standing order,’ he said eventually. ‘We’ve made the same delivery every week for more than ten years. Payment is made in cash; the client’s representative comes to the shop once a month. A woman.’

‘And the name of the client?’

‘I don’t honestly know.’

‘You don’t know?’

Fredrika heard a sigh at the other end of the line.

‘We questioned the arrangement in the beginning, but then we asked ourselves what was the point? I mean, it was hardly likely to be some kind of criminal activity, and the payment was always made on time. Naturally, we were curious, I mean Thea Aldrin is quite well known, but…’

His voice died away.

Fredrika’s brain kicked into gear. Someone sent flowers to Thea Aldrin every Saturday. Anonymously. Payment in cash by a third party.

‘You don’t have any contact details for the client?’ she asked. ‘A telephone number, an email address, anything at all?’

‘Just a minute.’

She heard the rustle of papers; the owner was soon back on the line.

‘We do actually have a mobile number. We insisted. We have to be able to contact someone if we can’t make the delivery.’

Fredrika’s heart rate doubled.

‘Could you possibly give me the number? That would be enormously helpful.’

57

Things would have to be done in the right order, otherwise everything would go to hell in a handcart. First of all, Alex sent the film and the projector to the forensic pathologist by courier.

‘Sit down in a darkened room and watch this disgusting crap,’ Alex said over the phone. ‘Then call me back and tell me what you think.’

If the girl in the grave was the same girl who had died in the film, there was suddenly a clearer connection between the murders. First of all someone was killed on film, then others died so that the secret would be kept.

But what secret?

Alex found Janne Bergwall in his office. It was obvious that his colleague was living on borrowed time, so to speak. The walls were virtually covered with a selection of diplomas, newspaper articles and other souvenirs that Bergwall had collected over the years. Alex glanced at them; it was clear that none of the documents bore witness to some kind of impressive feat, which fitted in perfectly with his impression of Bergwall. He was a man who could fall through the ice hundreds of times during his life, and never drown or freeze to death. It was as if he sought out the spots where the ice was at its thinnest so that he would be sure of hearing that familiar crack.

But this time he had stepped onto thin ice once too often.

Alex didn’t feel the need to waste time introducing himself; instead, he put his energy into explaining why he was there.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ he said. ‘The girl whose dismembered body we found in Midsommarkransen.’

Bergwall looked at him through narrowed eyes.

‘Yes?’

‘I believe she came to see you.’

‘Maybe.’

Alex took a deep breath.

‘No, not maybe. We’re a long way past the point where you can carry on keeping quiet about this. The girl is dead, and I want to know how she ended up in a grave with two other people who had been there for decades.’

He sat down opposite Bergwall, who was looking less than happy. His face was marked by the passing of the years, marked by the problems for which no one was to blame but himself.

‘Start talking. When did she come to see you, and what did you tell her?’

Bergwall closed his eyes for a second, as if he wanted to shut Alex out while he made his decision.

When he opened his eyes, his expression was unreadable.

‘I didn’t think the girl would come to any harm.’

But she did, didn’t she?

Alex kept quiet.

‘She came to see me after she’d spoken to Torbjörn Ross. She’d gone through the notes from the preliminary investigation relating to Thea Aldrin and the murder of her ex, and she’d found Ross’s name there. I think he was probably the only one who was still on the team. Anyway, as I understood it they had discussed not only the murder, but also the dirty books the old bag was supposed to have written. The girl obviously had her doubts about whether Aldrin really was the author, and Ross mentioned that they’d been turned into a film as well. Then she found the notes from that investigation as well.’

‘You mean the raid on the porn club – Ladies’ Night?’ Alex said.

‘Exactly.’

‘And what did you tell Rebecca?’

‘Too much.’

Bergwall cleared his throat and folded his arms.

‘I told her how we’d found the films, and that we’d tried to track down the person who’d written the books to help us establish whether the film was real. But we only got as far as Elias Hjort, who received royalties from the publisher, Box. At first we thought it was a dead end, but then we came across the film club. Elias Hjort and Thea Aldrin knew each other through the club.’

Bergwall fell silent, but Alex sensed that he had more to say. After a moment he went on:

‘I showed Rebecca Trolle the original case notes and went through them with her. For example, she found out who else was at the porn club on the night of the raid.’

Alex shuffled on the uncomfortable chair, wishing that his colleague would get a move on. Bergwall took a folder out of his filing cabinet, removed a sheet of paper and passed it to Alex.

A list of names. Almost exclusively men.

‘The clients who were at the club that night. Anyone you recognise?’

Bergwall was wearing a supercilious smile.

Alex glanced through the list, and stopped when he reached the penultimate name:

Morgan Axberger.

He looked up.

‘Another member of The Guardian Angels.’

‘Exactly,’ Bergwall said again.

Alex shrugged.

‘A managing director who visits porn clubs; that’s not particularly interesting.’

‘If it wasn’t for one nice little detail that wasn’t followed up in the original investigation.’ Bergwall fixed his gaze on Alex. ‘It was Axberger who had the film on him.’

Alex raised his eyebrows.

‘There you go,’ Bergwall said. ‘That surprised you, didn’t it? Me too. Unfortunately, we never found out how or why Axberger had got hold of the film; he bought his way out straight away. He paid one of the lads involved in the raid to say that the film had been found in the club’s office. The truth didn’t come out until several years later, when the bloody idiot – the copper, I mean – got drunk at a Christmas party and told someone what he’d done.’

He laughed drily.

‘And what happened then?’

‘Not a bloody thing. By that time the prosecutor had dismissed the seizure of the film as being of no interest, so we didn’t bother confronting Axberger with the fresh information. After all, it’s not illegal to walk around with a film in your inside pocket.’

‘As long as it isn’t a genuine snuff movie,’ Alex said.

‘Which it wasn’t.’

Bergwall looked so smug that Alex felt like punching him on the nose. He clenched his fists under the desk; he was furious.

‘You have no idea what your silence has cost my case. How the hell could you keep quiet about the fact that you’d given Rebecca Trolle that kind of information?’

‘What do you mean, that kind of information? I’m telling you, it was irrelevant. The film was a fake and Axberger was untouchable. It was that simple.’

Alex leapt to his feet so abruptly that the chair rocked.

‘I’ll be back, Bergwall. Until then, you keep your mouth shut about what you know. Is that clear?’

He saw the glint in Bergwall’s eye.

‘Think very carefully before you threaten me, Recht.’

Alex took a step closer, leaned across the desk and hissed:

‘The film was genuine, you stupid bastard. You stumbled on a secret that has led to the deaths of at least three people. If I were you, I’d keep my bloody head down.’

With those words he left Bergwall’s office, slamming the door behind him. A fresh thought occurred to him as he heard the crash. What if there were more snuff movies out there? Morgan Axberger might just be able to answer that question.

Exhaustion washed over him after lunch. Peder realised he was blinking several times in order to try to clear his vision. He knew he ought to eat, even though he wasn’t hungry. Ylva called him.

‘Still no sign?’

Peder hardly knew how to respond. No sign, was that what people said when someone disappeared?

‘No, we haven’t found him yet.’

Yet. Was that too optimistic a word, under the circumstances. Was there a possibility that it was already too late?

Don’t think about the unthinkable.

Peder’s eyes filled with tears. If Jimmy was dead… for the first time, Peder was facing something he knew he wouldn’t be able to accept. The bond with his brother was unbreakable, it would last forever. Jimmy was the eternal child, the eternal responsibility.

‘What will happen to Jimmy when Dad and I aren’t around any more?’ Peder’s mother had said a few years ago.

Peder had reacted with fury.

‘Jimmy will come to me. I would never abandon him. Not for a second.’

That promise still held, even though Jimmy was missing. Peder would never abandon him, never stop searching. But why was it so bloody difficult to work out where Jimmy had gone? He couldn’t explain it, but Peder knew it must have something to do with Thea Aldrin. Jimmy had seen someone standing by the window, spying on the old woman. And Peder had dismissed it as a misunderstanding, a figment of his imagination.

What did you see, Jimmy?

You didn’t have to talk to Jimmy for long to realise that his mind wasn’t that of an adult. And yet someone had felt sufficiently threatened to abduct him.

His anxiety grew into sheer terror, and Peder sat in the car with sweat pouring off him. He now felt certain that Jimmy had not simply got lost, but had been robbed of his freedom by someone who wanted him out of the way. Someone who had already committed several murders, and who definitely wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.

Peder wanted to cry. He had to pull himself together, fast. He mustn’t think he had lost, mustn’t give up. Not yet. He had to get back to HQ and try to understand how his brother’s disappearance fitted in with everything else.

There was no time for rest or food. The only thing that mattered was finding Jimmy.

Fredrika bumped into Alex as she left Ellen’s office. He seemed pleased to see her, but the strain was etched on his face.

‘We need to speak to Morgan Axberger as soon as possible,’ he said, and filled Fredrika in on what he had found out from Janne Bergwall.

She was as shocked as Alex.

‘How could Bergwall and Ross keep quiet about all this?’

‘They thought it was irrelevant,’ Alex said. ‘They didn’t think it had anything to do with Rebecca’s disappearance. They should have realised that it was impossible to make that judgement without having the full picture.’

His mobile rang.

‘Get the team together in the Lions’ Den in fifteen minutes,’ he said to Fredrika. ‘I just need to take this.’

It took less than three minutes to gather everyone who wasn’t out on the case. Fredrika sat down and went through the latest fax from Kripos in Norway. They had attached a passport photograph of Valter Lund at the age of eighteen.

It’s not him.

Even though the quality of the image was poor, Fredrika could see from a distance of several metres that the man in the picture was not the Valter Lund she had interviewed earlier in the day.

Could Kripos have made a mistake? Virtually impossible.

She tried to shut out the chatter of her colleagues in the conference room. If Valter Lund had stolen another man’s identity, then he must have done so at a very early age. Was that kind of thing even possible?

She looked at the man on the passport photograph. His expression was grim; he had long hair and a tattoo on the lower part of his neck, just visible above his T-shirt. How had his path crossed that of the man who was now such a well-known figure in the business world? And how had the identity switch been achieved? Murder?

Regardless of who he really was. Valter Lund was too young to have murdered the woman who had been buried the longest. He could have killed Elias Hjort, but in that case he must have known the person or persons who had murdered the woman, because otherwise he wouldn’t have buried Hjort’s body in the same place.

Alex walked in. Everyone straightened up and stopped talking.

‘Unbelievable,’ he said, dropping his mobile on the table. ‘They took the guards off the grave site last night because they’d finished digging, and apparently some idiot has come along and started filling in the crater.’

He shook his head.

‘Sorry?’ said one of his colleagues. ‘Someone turned up in the middle of the night and started shovelling the soil back into the hole?’

‘Apparently,’ Alex replied. ‘But let’s move on: we have more important things to discuss.’

Fredrika put down the fax so that she could listen properly, but a strong sense of unease had come over her. Why would someone go to the grave site in the dark and start filling the hole?

Alex updated everyone on the latest developments. He began with Valter Lund’s interview, and went on to his own inquiries into the old film.

Someone let out a whistle when he had finished speaking.

‘A genuine snuff movie. Bloody hell.’

Alex held up a warning finger.

‘A number of points regarding the film are still unclear, including the link with the two notorious books, Mercury and Asteroid. The film was made in the ’60s; whereas, the books weren’t published until the ’70s. This raises the question of whether the film might have inspired the person who wrote the books, rather than vice versa. And we still don’t know why Rebecca Trolle made a connection between The Guardian Angels and snuff movies.’

‘Does there have to be a concrete link?’ Fredrika asked. ‘It sounds as if she got quite a lot of information from Janne Bergwall. The snuff movie led back to both Elias Hjort and Morgan Axberger, and the fact that they were members of The Guardian Angels, along with Thea Aldrin, was no secret.’

‘What about Spencer Lagergren, the fourth member?’ a colleague wondered.

Fredrika looked down at the table, embarrassed.

‘He’s completely in the clear,’ Alex replied. ‘We’ve spoken to him purely to check our information, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with the other events.’

How many people knew that Spencer and Fredrika were a couple? It was difficult to read anything from the faces around the table, but Alex’s expression clearly communicated support and reassurance. He gave Fredrika a wry smile.

‘Have we heard from Morgan Axberger?’ Alex asked.

‘No,’ said Fredrika. ‘Not since this morning when he called Ellen.’

‘We’ll give him another hour, then we’ll go to his office and pick him up.’

‘Unless he’s already left the country,’ Fredrika said. ‘If he thinks we’re onto him, I mean. If he’s the one we’re after.’

‘Is he?’ Alex said.

‘Maybe. Him or Valter Lund.’ She explained what she had found out from Kripos.

‘Valter Lund is too young,’ Cecilia Torsson chipped in.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Fredrika replied. ‘But he’s still living under a false identity, in spite of the risks that must involve at his level.’

She fell silent, wondering what might lie hidden in Lund’s past. Images crowded her mind, images of strong arms digging in Midsommarkransen.

It’s not him.

Her gut instinct left no room for doubt: it wasn’t Valter Lund they were looking for. And yet he seemed to be an important part of the game.

‘We need to speak to Lund again,’ Alex said. ‘I don’t care if he was here just a few hours ago; let’s get him back.’

‘And Axberger.’

Peder’s voice came out of nowhere. No one had heard him open the door of the conference room.

Fredrika swallowed when she saw him standing there in the doorway. His eyes were narrow, exhausted slits, his face was ashen. His shoulders slumped, and his hair was standing on end. There was no point in telling him to go home until they had found Jimmy.

‘Obviously, we need to speak to Morgan Axberger,’ Alex said gently. ‘Come in and sit down, Peder.’

Peder pulled up a chair and sat down next to Fredrika.

Ellen knocked and came in.

‘I know who’s sending flowers to Thea Aldrin. Or at least, I know where they’re coming from.’

‘Who?’

‘A woman called Solveig Jakobsson. When she realised why I was calling, she suddenly refused to co-operate. But then I rang the tax office and found out who her employer is. She works at Axbergers. According to the switchboard, she’s Valter Lund’s PA.’

58

Thea Aldrin knew that it was only a question of time until it was all over. The visit from the police indicated that the drama had entered its final act, and in just a few minutes all the actors would be called to the stage to receive the audience’s appreciation.

She didn’t believe she could have done anything differently. The most important thing had always been her concern for the boy, for her son. The child she had carried and given birth to all alone. The boy who had become a young man and lost his trust in everything around him the day he went up into the loft to fetch a suitcase, and found the original manuscripts for Mercury and Asteroid.

His bellowing rage had echoed in her head ever since.

‘You fucking psychopath,’ he had yelled. ‘Everything they say is fucking true, you really are sick in the head.’

She had thought she was doing him a favour by not telling him the truth. She had thought his anger would blow over. But that hadn’t happened. The following morning his bed was empty, and he didn’t come back. She wasn’t surprised that he had managed to stay away. He was a genuinely talented individual, and he had drive and ambition. He was also very good-looking.

That was why she never really got anxious in the way that people obviously expected. She went to the police, of course, and reported her son missing. She travelled far and wide in her quest to find him. But as the days went by and she didn’t break down, she noticed a change in the attitude of the police. Why wasn’t the boy’s mother grieving as she should? Why was there always an element of certainty, of assurance in her eyes?

Thea moved over to the window and gazed across at the block where the missing young man lived. The fact that he had got in the way hurt her more than she could say. You only had to look at him to see how things were; he would never have been able to tell anyone what he had heard and seen in a way that made sense.

What he had heard, above all. Thea’s voice. In his world, the fact that an old woman was talking was hardly sensational, but to those who knew she hadn’t spoken since 1981, it was big news. According to the rumours, Thea had chosen eternal silence, but they were wrong. She practised using her voice every day. When she was sure she was completely alone. With the radio on loud. Or when she was in the shower.

Thea wept as she thought about the young man’s brother. No one had told her that the detective who had come to see her with his female colleague that same afternoon was the young man’s brother, but Thea could see it at once. They had many features in common: the same eyes, the same distinctive nose and chin.

And the worry. It burned fiercely in the police officer’s eyes.

She dried her tears. It was unlikely that he would ever find his brother. Nor would he realise in which grave he had been laid to rest.

59

‘I know who he is.’

Fredrika Bergman’s chin was jutting out as it always did when she was sure she was about to be contradicted.

‘So do I,’ Alex replied.

‘Valter Lund is Thea Aldrin’s son.’

Alex had reached the same conclusion.

‘Can we be sure that Thea knows who sends her flowers every week?’

‘I have no doubt about that at all,’ said Fredrika.

‘So, mother and son. What are they hiding?’

Fredrika’s mobile rang, and Alex watched as she rejected the call.

‘If that’s Spencer, it’s absolutely fine if you want to speak to him.’

She shook her head.

‘I can only think of one thing at a time right now.’

Her eyes shone like pebbles that had just been lying in water.

For God’s sake, what is wrong with all my colleagues? Alex thought. Every single one of us is damaged.

Peder knocked on Alex’s door; he came in and closed it behind him.

‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘Of course not.’

Peder’s haggard appearance worried Alex. He understood Peder’s agony over his missing brother only too well. The problem was that Peder failed to appreciate that his own impaired judgement could jeopardise the entire investigation. Alex couldn’t afford to let that happen.

‘Don’t you think you should go home and rest for a few hours?’

Peder shook his head.

‘It’s OK, I don’t feel tired.’

A lie.

Alex turned to Fredrika.

‘If Valter Lund is actually Johan Aldrin, then where is the real Valter Lund? Have you spoken to his uncle?’

‘Not yet. But according to the Norwegian police, who have spoken to the uncle several times, Valter signed on as a crew member on a car ferry in 1980, and was never heard of again.’

‘Johan Aldrin was only young when he disappeared; he hadn’t even left school. Could he have worked on the ferry as well?’

‘I’ll get in touch with the shipping company.’

She made a note on her pad.

Peder looked from one to the other.

‘Morgan Axberger,’ he said.

‘We’ve just sent a patrol car to his office to pick him up.’

‘Good.’

Peder shuffled uncomfortably.

‘Do you think Rebecca Trolle found out who Valter Lund is?’

Alex stiffened.

‘I mean, what if they’re both equally crazy, mother and son? What if Valter Lund murdered Rebecca?’

‘Their relationship,’ Fredrika said. ‘Rebecca knew she was pregnant, but she didn’t know who the father was. She might have confronted Valter Lund, demanding that he accept the responsibility.’

‘In that case, Valter Lund is a fine actor,’ Alex said. ‘Because I had the distinct impression that he didn’t know about the pregnancy until we mentioned it.’

‘We need to speak to him again,’ Fredrika said. ‘Scare him a bit, pretend we think he’s guilty to make him start talking.’

Peder looked at them with exhausted eyes.

‘What is it he’s so grateful for?’

‘Sorry?’ Alex said.

‘He always writes “Thanks” on the card that comes with the bouquet. What is he thanking his mother for?’

When Fredrika got back to her office, she was in such a hurry that she didn’t notice Spencer at first.

‘Busy?’

She almost let out a scream.

‘God, you frightened me!’

For a moment she was at a loss. A second later, she knew exactly what to do.

‘I’ve been so worried.’

The tears came from nowhere, and she walked straight into his arms.

She could feel his breath on her hair as he stroked her back. It sounded as if he was crying too.

‘I saw your mum when I went home.’

Fredrika dried her tears.

‘I asked her to look after Saga today. I couldn’t stay at home doing nothing.’

Spencer moved back a step. There was still unfinished business between them. Things they would have to talk about, but not here and not now.

‘I gather I’m no longer regarded as a suspect in your investigation,’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

Fredrika swallowed hard and pushed a few stray strands of hair off her face.

‘So you won’t be needing a new passport after all.’

Spencer looked as if he was about to laugh, but then his face closed down again. Fredrika could feel her agitation growing.

‘We need to talk, but it’ll have to wait until I get home.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘Later. Late, in fact.’

Spencer pulled on his jacket, which he had been holding, and moved towards the door.

‘I never meant to lie to you,’ he said.

Fredrika felt the tears threatening once more.

‘Don’t do it again, Spencer.’

He shook his head slowly.

‘But you lied too.’

‘I didn’t lie, I withheld information. And there’s a big difference.’

He smiled sadly.

‘Maybe.’

Then he was gone.

Fredrika stood there alone. She wrapped her arms around her body. She felt alone when she was on her own, alone when the two of them were together.

Alex walked in.

‘Who was that?’

She assumed he was referring to Spencer.

‘That was the father of my daughter.’

Alex looked so shocked that she burst out laughing, but the laughter was accompanied by fresh tears.

‘Sorry,’ she said quickly, dabbing at her eyes.

Alex placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘Listen, if you need to take a break and go home for a while, that’s fine.’

It was almost four o’clock; there was no time to ‘take a break’.

‘I’m staying until we’re done,’ Fredrika replied. ‘How did it go with Morgan Axberger?’

‘He wasn’t in his office. His secretary said he’d gone to an emergency meeting.’

‘Do we believe that?’

‘We do at the moment, but not for much longer. We’ve made it very clear that we want to speak to him on an important matter, and he still chooses to stay away. Valter Lund, on the other hand, was where we expected him to be, and now he’s here.’

Fredrika grabbed her notepad and pen.

‘He’s got a lot of explaining to do.’

‘He has,’ Alex agreed. ‘But he’ll have to wait, because first you’re going to speak to someone called Malena Bremberg.’

‘Malena Bremberg?’

Fredrika was surprised; she tried to place the woman’s name. Wasn’t she the care assistant who had been so shy when they met her at the care home?

Peder walked past the door on his way down the corridor, then turned and came back.

‘I’m going out to look for Jimmy again.’

To look for the brother who had been missing for almost twenty-four hours. The brother who had vanished without a trace; it seemed as if he had disappeared without a single person having seen a thing.

Except for Thea Aldrin, who refused to speak.

The feeling of unease that had haunted Fredrika during the meeting came flooding back. It was something Alex had said. A thought that had passed through her mind so quickly that she hadn’t managed to grab hold of it.

Alex’s phone rang, and he answered. Peder raised a hand in farewell and set off down the corridor.

‘That was one of the lads out at the grave site in Midsommarkransen,’ Alex said. ‘They’re packing it in now. The hole has been filled in, and they’ll be removing the police tape shortly.’

There.

The same thought once more.

An icy hand clamped itself around Fredrika’s heart.

‘You said someone had been there during the night and started filling in the crater,’ she said.

‘Some bloody idiot, no doubt,’ he said. ‘Short of something to do.’

‘We need to open up the grave,’ Fredrika said.

Alex looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

‘Jimmy,’ she whispered. ‘I think they buried him there last night.’

60

In the dream, Jimmy was flying higher and higher on the swing. His whole face was beaming as he shouted to Peder:

‘Can you see me? Can you see how high I’m going?’

Then he was falling.

Or flying through the air.

Peder usually woke up the second before Jimmy hit the ground. It was as if his mind was protecting him from the painful, inevitable outcome. Peder had seen his brother’s skull and his life smashed to pieces against a stone once, and that was enough.

His mother rang while he was in the car on his way back to the assisted living complex.

‘You need to go home and get some rest.’

Her voice was fractured with anxiety.

I’ve already lost one son, don’t make me go through that same hell all over again.

‘I’m OK, Mum.’

‘We’re worried about you, Peder. Can’t you come home and have something to eat?’

We. That must mean his parents and Ylva. Eat? Peder couldn’t remember when he last ate. Was it the previous evening, when he and Ylva were sitting on the balcony? It felt like such a long time ago.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To Jimmy’s. To Mångården, I mean.’

‘Call me soon. Promise?’

‘I promise.’

He pulled into the car park a while later. He slammed the car door and marched straight into the complex, where the residents were in the middle of a meal. One of the girls who worked there got to her feet as Peder walked in.

‘I can find my own way,’ he said, and headed for Jimmy’s room.

He closed the door behind him and stood there in the middle of the floor, searching for something out of the ordinary, some indication of where Jimmy might have gone. But nothing was missing, nothing was damaged. Nothing.

He can’t just have walked out into the night and disappeared.

‘Peder.’

The care worker’s voice made him jump.

‘Yes?’

He turned around and saw her standing in the doorway with one of Jimmy’s friends. Had they knocked before opening the door? He couldn’t be sure.

‘Michael has something he wants to tell you.’

Michael. A young man Peder had met on countless occasions. He was well-built, with dark hair. He suffered from some indefinable impairment that meant he was trapped in eternal childhood, like Jimmy. He loved Jimmy, and thought that Peder was the coolest guy in the whole of Sweden, because he was a cop.

‘What is it, Micke?’

‘I’m not really allowed to say.’

Peder forced a smile.

‘Of course you are. I’m a cop, aren’t I? I can keep a secret.’

‘Jimmy said he saw a man standing out there spying.’

He pointed towards Thea Aldrin’s room on the other side of the lawn.

‘Was it a secret?’

Michael nodded importantly.

‘Yes. That’s what he said. He said it was a secret. That’s why I thought I’d better not mention the other thing until now.’

‘What other thing?’

‘I saw Jimmy leave his room yesterday. I was looking out of my window, and I saw him go over to that lady’s room and stand outside. He looked in through her window.’

Michael swallowed. Peder was fighting to maintain his composure.

‘Then what happened?’

Michael hesitated, but decided to keep going.

‘A man came out of the lady’s room. Through the door. Onto the patio. He spoke to Jimmy, but only for a second. Then they went off.’

Peder’s heart skipped a beat.

‘Where, Micke? Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know. They went to the car park and drove off in a car. They didn’t come back. I waited all night. I kept thinking he’d be really cold; he didn’t have any shoes on.’

There were secrets that were just too big to keep. Secrets that couldn’t be accommodated inside a normal body, a normal heart; they demanded more and more space as time went by.

Malena Bremberg looked as if she was carrying just such a secret. Her face was pale and weary as Fredrika greeted her. She refused coffee, but said she would like a cup of tea.

‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

There wasn’t much time. For anything. For nothing.

Alex had sent the digger back to Midsommarkransen to open up the grave so that the dogs would be able to pick up the scent of a body.

‘Let’s pray that you’re wrong,’ he had said to Fredrika.

She felt so powerless that she wanted to scream.

And Valter Lund, or Johan Aldrin, was waiting in another interview room.

Malena Bremberg sipped her tea as she struggled to find the right words.

‘I’m not sure what all this is about,’ she said eventually. ‘But I think I know something you ought to know too. Something about Rebecca Trolle.’

She took a deep breath and drank some more tea. Fredrika waited. Waited and listened.

‘Two years ago I had a brief relationship with an older man I met in a bar. Morgan Axberger.’

Fredrika was astonished.

‘But you’re so much younger than him!’

Malena blushed.

‘That was the point. The fact that he was forty years older than me. I know he looks boring, but he can be incredibly charming.’

Fredrika had no comment to make on that point; she had never met Morgan Axberger.

‘What did he want from you?’ she asked.

Malena’s face lost all trace of colour.

‘He wanted to know whether Thea Aldrin ever had visitors. At first I thought he was interested in me because… I thought he wanted a relationship with me. But that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted a spy inside Mångården.’

‘He was just using you.’

‘When I realised what he was doing, I tried to break off our relationship. I refused to co-operate. But everything went wrong.’

It was too much for Malena. Huge tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Which of Thea’s visitors was he interested in?’ Fredrika asked.

‘All of them. But she didn’t have many. There was a police officer, Torbjörn Ross, who’d been coming for years, plus the odd journalist now and again. Then suddenly Rebecca Trolle turned up. She said she wanted to speak to Thea because she was writing a dissertation about her.’

Malena blew her nose.

‘Did you tell Morgan Axberger that Rebecca had been there?’

‘Yes. I happened to be on duty that day.’

Fredrika swallowed hard. Morgan Axberger appeared to have good reason to stay away from the police. In addition, he was old enough to have murdered all the victims found in Midsommarkransen.

‘You said things went badly when you tried to break off your arrangement with Axberger?’ Fredrika said.

Malena’s tone was resigned.

‘He picked me up one morning when I was on my way to a lecture. By that time, I had realised he was dangerous, and I’d kept out of his way. But it was no good. He kept me prisoner for twenty-four hours.’

‘What did he do?’

Fresh tears. Then a whisper.

‘He showed me a film.’

Fredrika felt uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking, but she had to know.

‘What kind of film?’

‘A film from hell. One of those silent films that only lasts a few minutes.’

Fredrika held her breath.

‘At first I didn’t understand what I was watching. The film had been shot in a room where all the walls were covered with sheets. A young girl came in, then a man wearing a mask…’

Fredrika knew. Alex had told her about the film; she had decided against watching it herself.

Malena was sobbing.

‘He attacked her with an axe. Then a knife. I thought it was a sick joke. Until it was all over. Then the man bent over the girl, who was lying on the floor, and looked into the camera, at the person who was holding it. He was laughing when he took off the mask; it was just horrible. It was a really old film, but I could see the man’s face clearly. He was evil personified.’

Fredrika’s mouth went dry.

‘Hang on, are you telling me that after the girl was dead, the man who’d killed her took off his mask?’

Time stood still in the interview room.

Malena nodded.

‘I have no idea who he was. He grinned at the man who was holding the camera; he seemed really pleased with himself. When the film ended Morgan went out into the hallway, and when he came back he had an axe in his hand. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so loudly in my entire life.’

She shuddered, her face chalk-white.

‘I ran, and he hunted me down like an animal. I tried to get out onto the balcony, but he was faster than me. He forced me down and swung the axe. It hit the floor several times, just a few centimetres from my head. I was convinced he was going to kill me. When he raised the axe for the last time, he suddenly stopped and leaned over me. Asked me whether I wanted to live or die. If I wanted to live, I had to keep my mouth shut and carry on working at the care home for as long as Thea Aldrin was alive. If I ever defied him again, he would come back. With the axe.’

Malena ran her hands through her tousled hair, and Fredrika thought that there must have been several copies of the snuff movie, including one that had been shortened in order to avoid revealing the identity of the perpetrator, and that could be shown to other people. Perhaps even sold.

‘You didn’t feel you could go to the police?’ Fredrika said.

‘Not under any circumstances. He made it very clear that the police would never be able to touch someone like him. Nobody would believe me if I said that Morgan Axberger had been in my apartment with an axe, threatening to kill me.’

True. Regrettable, but true.

Fredrika sensed that Malena had more to tell her.

‘He was filming me,’ Malena whispered.

‘Sorry?’

‘He showed me afterwards. He filmed me while I was watching the film, and when I tried to run away. How sick is that?’

Fredrika thought for a moment, giving Malena time to recover.

‘You’re going to have to testify against him, Malena.’

‘I know.’

‘One more thing.’ Fredrika glanced at her notes. ‘You said the killer smiled at the man behind the camera. Did you see him? The man who was holding the camera, I mean?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘But you’re sure it was a man?’

Malena nodded, and when she whispered her answer, Fredrika went cold.

‘Morgan told me. When he raised the axe for the last time, he leaned forward and said: “Now do you realise that I was the one holding the camera?”’

61

Peder Rydh left Jimmy’s room the same way as he assumed his brother had left: through the patio door. Leaving the care worker and Micke behind, he strode across the lawn to Thea Aldrin’s room. Thea didn’t have time to realise that he was coming to see her, otherwise she would probably have tried to lock him out.

She gave a start as he stepped inside.

‘You shouldn’t sit here with the door wide open, Thea.’

His voice sounded completely different from the one he normally used.

Thea was staring at him; she lowered the book she had been reading.

‘There are a few things you forgot to mention to me and my colleagues. If you can’t speak like a normal person, then you’re going to have to write. Because I’m not leaving here until you tell me what happened to my brother Jimmy. The boy who lived across the way; he came over to your window yesterday.’

When Thea still didn’t speak, Peder felt a spurt of white-hot rage. He grabbed the old woman by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet.

‘You. Will. Tell. Me.’

Thea made a feeble attempt to free herself, but she knew it was futile.

‘Tell me.’

Her silence decided the matter. He looked at her for a long time, then whispered:

‘We know who sends you flowers.’

The words had an immediate effect. Thea shook her head and tried once more to pull away.

But Peder held on tight.

‘Oh, yes, we know. We know that Valter Lund is your missing son, Johan. The only thing we don’t know, you old bitch, is what the fucker thinks he has to thank you for. Every bloody Saturday.’

She didn’t cry. But she kept on shaking her head, and then she spoke.

She spoke.

Peder was so surprised that he let go of her.

‘Please. Please.’

Her voice was hoarse and rough. Clearly underused, but still functioning.

‘You can talk.’

He cursed his words; they sounded childish, and robbed him of his authority.

‘Almost everyone can,’ said Thea.

Still terrified. Her legs gave way, and she had to sit down.

‘You keep Johan out of this! Do you hear me?’

Peder had to sit down as well. His head was spinning. His anxiety over Jimmy faded away for a moment. Day after day, they had followed up one lead after another. Every time those leads had pointed to Thea. Now he was sitting on her floor, and he had no idea how he was ever going to get up.

‘There’s just one thing I want to know.’

His heart was beating so hard it was almost chafing against his ribs.

‘What happened to Jimmy?’

Thea clutched the arms of her chair.

‘Johan has nothing to do with his disappearance.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

He ought to call Alex and Fredrika. Tell them what he had just found out: that the great writer was perfectly capable of speaking after all. That her son was a highly sensitive issue, and that she was obviously ready to sacrifice anything for him. Even the protection that her silence had provided all these years.

She cleared her throat quietly several times, gave a dry cough. For a moment Peder thought her voice might let her down.

In that case she was going to have to write.

‘He happened to overhear a conversation he shouldn’t have heard.’

Peder could see that she was hesitating, choosing her words with great care. He raised one finger, and saw that it was trembling.

‘Listen to me, Thea. Don’t you dare lie. I’m warning you. Don’t.’

She shook her head.

‘I’m not lying. That’s what happened. He was standing outside the window. We didn’t hear him at first, but then he called out. As if he’d suddenly been frightened. We had quite a heated discussion.’

‘We? Who’s we? Who else was here?’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘I can’t. Forgive me.’

‘Of course you can,’ he hissed, and Peder regained the upper hand.

‘Was it your son Johan?’

Thea’s eyes opened wide.

‘No, absolutely not. He’s never been here. Never.’

‘So who was it, then?’

Another dramatic pause. Then the words that froze Peder’s blood.

‘Morgan Axberger.’

Peder slowly got to his feet. Axberger, that rich bastard who had been on the periphery of the inquiry all along, the man nobody had dared to pinpoint as a suspect.

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. I just saw Morgan take your brother away. He hasn’t been in touch since. I’m so very sorry.’

Sorry for what? Peder felt sick with anxiety.

‘What were you talking about when Jimmy overheard?’

‘The past.’

There was no time. He really wanted to hear the full story from Thea, but there was no time right now. Jimmy was the most important thing. Where the hell was he?

‘OK, if you don’t know what happened to Jimmy, what do you think happened?’

Thea hid her face in her hands and wept.

‘I think something very bad could have happened to your brother. If he’s still alive, you need to find him as a matter of urgency. Because Morgan Axberger has never shown any human being, living or dead, one iota of mercy.’

No mercy. The words sank in, acquired new meaning. If Jimmy was dead…

Then I will show no mercy.

‘Where will I find him? Where is Morgan Axberger right now? The police have been to his office, but he wasn’t there.’

‘A few years ago, Axberger’s company purchased a new property. It’s on the island of Storholmen, just outside Lidingö. Try there; I can’t imagine he’ll be hiding anywhere else.’

‘Can you give me any more details about where this place is?’

Thea’s expression softened; she looked as if she might even smile.

‘The company bought my parents’ old house. The Guardian Angels used to meet there now and again. Morgan said he bought it because he’d always loved the summerhouse in the garden.’

The key interview. Not the last, but the most important. Alex Recht took several deep breaths. If they didn’t manage to get the final elements of the story out of Valter Lund, they were lost.

Peder wasn’t answering his mobile. His wife didn’t know where he was. Nor did his mother.

‘What’s happening with Jimmy?’ she has asked when Alex called her. ‘Have you found him?’

Yet another person who was missing a loved one. Yet another person wanting to know that Alex was doing everything in his power to find them.

Alex thought about the digger he had sent back to Midsommarkransen. There was no suggestion of excavating by hand this time. They had to work faster. With every passing moment, Alex became more and more convinced that Fredrika was right. Jimmy was waiting for them, deep in the ground. Dead and buried.

And so the circle would be closed. Alex would have given another family a grave to visit.

The tears came from nowhere, threatening to well up. Alex held his breath and counted silently to ten. Fredrika was already waiting in the interview room with Valter Lund. God knows how she was managing to hold up so well after everything that had happened.

At that moment, Diana rang. His first impulse was to reject the call, but he pulled himself together and answered.

‘This isn’t a good time,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to hear your voice.’

And I wanted to hear yours.

Could it really be so simple? Was Diana his new woman? Was that what she wanted?

Is that what I want?

Fredrika opened the door of the interview room and stepped out into the corridor.

‘Are you coming?’

You needed a boat to get to Storholmen. Peder was standing on the jetty, gazing out towards Stockholm’s stunningly beautiful archipelago. Little islands as far as the eye could see. Every single one with its own secrets. Inhabited by all kinds of people.

On this terrible day, the entire landscape was bathed in golden sunshine, like a fairy tale. It was, in every respect, a day lovely enough to die on.

A young man came down onto the jetty, carrying a bag in each hand.

‘Are you looking for something?’

Peder shaded his eyes with his hand and looked over towards the islands.

‘I need a lift to Storholmen.’

The young man nodded.

‘You can come with me. Are you going to visit someone?’

‘Yes.’

Peder helped to load the bags, and the other man undid the huge padlock securing the boat to the jetty. He dropped the chain on the floor.

‘Lifejacket.’

He handed Peder a large, red lifejacket. Peder put it on and fastened the plastic straps tightly across his stomach.

‘I know it’s only a short run over to Storholmen, but you can never be too careful,’ said his companion.

‘Very true,’ Peder replied.

Time and space became one. He heard what the other man said, and answered automatically. Tried to look pleasant. Normal. But beneath the surface, everything was chaos. He couldn’t manage a single logical thought.

The engine kicked into life with a roar.

‘Couldn’t they come and pick you up?’

Peder sat in the prow and watched the waters part ahead of the boat as they moved away from the jetty.

‘There was a misunderstanding. They thought I was coming earlier.’

He didn’t even consider telling the truth. That he was a hunter, tracking down his quarry.

‘But they’ll bring you back, won’t they?’

The man was smiling at the helm.

‘I’m sure they will.’

Peder had no idea how he would get back. The question was of minor importance. Finding his brother was the only thing that mattered.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

Thea Aldrin had explained where her parents’ house was. Finding his way there wouldn’t be a problem. She had started talking about an old film; she seemed to assume he knew what she meant. Peder couldn’t recall having seen a film that had been made in a summerhouse. Was it the one Torbjörn Ross had mentioned?

The boat trip took less than ten minutes.

‘I’ll drop you at the big jetty up ahead, if that’s OK.’

The young man pointed.

‘That’s great.’

Peder braced himself and jumped ashore as they drew near the jetty.

‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘No problem.’

The other man raised a hand in a hesitant farewell.

‘You don’t want me to wait for you?’

‘No, I’ll be a while.’

Peder pushed his hands deep in his pockets; his companion still looked concerned.

‘OK, if you’re sure.’

He put the boat in reverse and pulled away from the jetty.

Peder watched it as it sped across the water. Then he turned away and set off along the path leading to the island.

62

‘Who is Valter Lund?’

Alex Recht didn’t waste any time on inessentials, but asked the most important question first. Fredrika sat in silence by his side. He had no doubt that she had just as many questions as he did.

The well-known businessman who had been calling himself Valter Lund for almost three decades, but whose real name was Johan Aldrin, slumped in his chair.

‘A guy from Gol in Norway. We enlisted on the same ship in Norway in 1980. Annie, her name was. The ship, I mean. A huge car ferry. We were going to go around the world, cross every ocean.’

‘Did you already know each other?’ Fredrika asked.

‘No, definitely not. It was sheer coincidence. We were the same age, and we were both new recruits, so they put us in a cabin together. He slept in the top bunk and I was below.’

‘You weren’t particularly alike, either in appearance or personality.’

Fredrika looked meaningfully at Valter Lund’s old passport photograph.

‘No, but as time went by that was less important. Although I still dye my hair regularly. It’s actually quite fair.’

Alex looked at his brown hair. It looked completely natural.

‘Where is Valter Lund now?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘What happened?’

‘He died in an accident on board.’ Johan squirmed. ‘We were working a night shift. He had a drink problem. I’d tried to bring it to the attention of the officers in charge, but they chose to ignore it. We were cheap labour, and as long as he did his job, they didn’t think they needed to bother. But I knew it was only a matter of time before he injured himself or someone else. He was always in the way – in his own way, or someone else’s. He was clumsy and inept. It wasn’t just the booze – that was how he was.’

Johan grabbed the passport photograph from Fredrika.

‘He slipped and hit the back of his neck on the sharp fluke of an anchor that was lying on the deck; it belonged to one of the lifeboats. It was pouring with rain that night, and he was just too drunk to cope with the slippery deck.’

‘So he slipped and broke his neck?’

‘Worse than that. The fluke went right into the nape of his neck, just below his head. He was dead when I found him. There was nothing anyone could have done.’

‘What did you do?’ Alex asked.

He could picture the scene. Night, dark skies. Pouring rain and poor visibility. Not a good combination with booze, whatever your role on the ship.

‘I threw him overboard.’

Johan uttered the words without any hesitation, and folded his arms.

‘He wouldn’t be missed by a single person. And I desperately needed a new identity. So I threw him into the sea. The next day, we docked in Sydney. None of the crew noticed he was missing until the afternoon, when I woke up after the night shift. I said I’d heard him leave our cabin during the morning, but I didn’t know where he’d gone. Then I lied for the last time: I said he’d told me he’d love to live in Australia, and that he’d been thinking of leaving the ship when we arrived there. That would have been impossible if he hadn’t run away, because we were bound by unbreakable contracts.’

Johan shrugged.

‘Did they believe your story?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Why wouldn’t they? We left Sydney two days later; the captain was furious. He called Valter a traitor. He was never reported missing; everyone assumed I was right, and that he’d jumped ship in Sydney to make a fresh start in Australia.’

Slowly Alex put down the pen he was holding.

‘And it’s never occurred to you that what you did was wrong?’

‘Many times. If he’d had parents or anyone else who cared about him, I would have acted differently.’

‘He did have someone who cared about him,’ Fredrika said angrily. ‘An uncle in Gol, who has no other relatives. He still turns up at the police station every year to ask about his nephew.’

Johan stared at Fredrika for a long time.

‘That’s why you asked me if I’d seen my uncle lately.’

She didn’t answer, but gazed back at Johan Aldrin in silence. Who did he look like? His mother or his father? He had his mother’s big eyes, but the nose came from someone else. Or perhaps it was just chance.

‘Why was being Thea Aldrin’s son such a terrible thing? Why did you need a new identity?’

‘Ah. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.’

Johan clasped his hands on the table, wondering how to go on.

‘Have you heard of Mercury and Asteroid?’

Both Fredrika and Alex gave a brief nod. They were well aware of the much talked about books.

‘Me too,’ said Johan. ‘The entire country was talking about them. Everyone was laughing behind my back at school, saying that my whore of a mother had written them. That she was sick in the head. I was so tired of all the crap. I’d been defending my mother ever since I was little. Always alone, often facing more than one opponent. In spite of my loyalty, she refused to answer my questions. She said I wouldn’t understand why my father had left us, that I was too young to cope with such a terrible story. Do you see?’

He looked at Fredrika and Alex.

‘She hinted that there was some “terrible story”, but she wouldn’t say any more. I mean, I’m sure you can work out what was going through my mind. Anyway. One day, I was up in the loft hunting for a suitcase my mother had asked me to bring down. She had many good points, but tidiness wasn’t one of them. The loft was a complete mess, with boxes and other stuff all over the place. By accident, I knocked over a small box that was perched on top of a bigger box in a corner. It was full of paper – manuscripts, I assumed. I started gathering them together as fast as I could. Her manuscripts were sacred. No one else was allowed to touch them, so I hurried. Until I happened to read a few lines on one of the pages.’

Johan fiddled with his watch; he looked as if the memories he was digging up were extremely painful.

‘It was the sickest thing I’d ever read. I remember my legs kind of gave way, and I sat down on the floor. And I stayed there. I sat there reading for an hour. The rumours were true, apparently. It really was my mother who had written the sickest books of the century.’

Johan shook his head.

‘So many things fell into place. Why she lived alone. Why she hadn’t had any more children. She was disturbed, that was all there was to it. Mentally ill. Perhaps even dangerous. My whole world collapsed. Everything was dirty, destroyed. So I ran away. I got a job cleaning fish in Norway for a year, then I signed on as a crew member on the car ferry and started working with Valter Lund.’

‘There were so many strange rumours about your mother,’ Fredrika said. ‘About the books, about your disappearance, about the fact that she wasn’t married. Where did they come from?’

‘We never knew,’ Johan replied. ‘But I know she gave it a lot of thought. I suppose in those days it wasn’t all that strange that people reacted to the fact that she lived alone, but all the rest… it didn’t make any sense.’

The sound of a mobile phone sliced through the silence after Johan had finished speaking. Alex excused himself and went out to take the call.

It was the officer in charge of the fresh excavations at the grave site. The dogs had already indicated that there was something there. Taking a chance had produced results.

‘We’ll know within half an hour whether it’s Peder’s brother,’ the officer said.

Alex sent up a silent prayer, hoping that wouldn’t be the case.

‘You came back. Got in touch with your mother again,’ Fredrika said.

Johan removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair.

‘That’s true. Actually, I didn’t just take off in the first place. When I found those terrible manuscripts in the loft, I confronted my mother. Asked her what kind of sicko she was. She defended herself to the hilt, let me tell you. Said that she had wanted to spare me all this. That it was my father who had written the books, not her. And that was why she had asked him to move out before I was born.’

‘But you didn’t believe her?’

The situation Johan described was so bizarre that Fredrika just couldn’t relate to it.

‘No, I didn’t. I mean, if it was true, then why had she kept them? Why hadn’t she told him to take them with him? I thought it was the other way round, in fact. That the manuscripts were as old as she claimed, but that she was the one who had written them, and my father had found them. Found them and left her.’

‘When did you realise she had been telling the truth?’

‘I went to see her after the trial. The case attracted an enormous amount of attention in the press. I read everything I could get my hands on, and followed the case from a distance as best I could.’

‘Were you living in Sweden at the time?’ Alex asked.

Johan hesitated.

‘On a temporary basis. My formal immigration into Sweden came later.’

A young Swede running away from his own mother; he moved to Norway, stole a colleague’s identity, then later became an immigrant in his own country.

‘She must have been so happy to see you.’

‘She was.’

Johan smiled sadly.

‘Why did you continue to live as Valter Lund?’

‘For purely practical reasons. At the time, the idea of admitting I was Thea Aldrin’s missing son who had suddenly risen from the dead seemed impossible. Because a lot of people obviously believed that she had killed her own child.’

‘Did she tell you why the books had been published?’ Fredrika asked.

‘To protect me.’

‘To protect you? From what?’

‘She’d actually forced my father to leave for a completely different reason. He and someone else had made a film in my grandparents’ old summerhouse – what we would call a snuff movie these days. My mother found it by accident, and she didn’t care whether it was genuine or not. She wanted my father out of the house, once and for all. He left and took the film with him. Later, she found the manuscripts in the loft, and realised that my father must have written them. When he suddenly turned up just after my twelfth birthday and came to see my mother in secret, she had the books published and threatened to reveal the name of the real author unless my father stayed away. It obviously worked, but one day he was back. Looking for revenge. That was when she killed him.’

Fredrika tilted her head to one side and tried to get her head around the story Johan Aldrin had told. So it was Thea’s ex who had made the film. Fredrika still had countless questions, but she couldn’t ask them all. They were in a hurry, and they needed answers to the key points.

‘Have you seen the film your mother found?’ Alex asked.

‘No.’

‘And you don’t know who else was involved, apart from your father?’

‘No.’

Alex leaned back.

‘If I said it was Morgan Axberger, would that surprise you?’

Alex had been shocked when Fredrika told him what she had learned from Malena Bremberg.

‘I would be extremely surprised.’

Johan raised his eyebrows.

‘Let me tell you something,’ Alex said slowly. ‘If there’s one thing I find difficult to accept, it’s coincidences. How come you ended up working for Axberger’s company?’

‘Morgan knows who I am. According to my mother, he was very keen to help me when I came back to Sweden. Apparently, he owed her a favour.’

‘Do you think she knew he was involved in the film?’ Fredrika asked.

‘It’s possible. I never saw it. She might have known he was mixed up in it, and decided to keep quiet so that she could use the knowledge to her advantage later. I really don’t know.’

Nor did Fredrika. But she knew that although there were at least two versions of the film, it was impossible to see who was behind the camera in either of them. If Thea had known it was Axberger, someone must have told her. She wondered which version Thea had seen. Had she even known it was genuine?

‘Where can we find Morgan Axberger?’ Alex said.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Think. Is there a particular place he might go under these circumstances?’

Johan pondered for a moment.

‘He might go to the company’s place in the country. It’s on the island of Storholmen. He bought my grandparents’ old house out there.’

‘Why that particular house?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering.’

Alex ran a hand through his hair. Johan had more explaining to do. A lot more.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ he said.

Johan nodded.

‘Did she ever find out that you were Thea’s son?’

‘Not as far as I know; she never mentioned it. And I didn’t tell her.’

‘Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that you became her mentor?’ Fredrika said.

‘Of course it is. I know it sounds unlikely, but when I became Rebecca’s mentor, I had no idea what she’d chosen as the topic for her dissertation. And if I had known, you can rest assured that I wouldn’t have taken her on.’

Or would he? The only coincidence Alex was prepared to accept was that Valter Lund had joined the mentoring programme because he was genuinely interested in young people and their ambitions, and that he had happened to be paired up with a girl who was writing her dissertation about his own mother. However, Alex didn’t believe for a second that Johan would have refused to mentor Rebecca if he had known about her topic in advance. He was too much of a control freak.

‘Taken her on,’ Alex repeated. ‘You actually had a relationship with her. By that stage you must have known what her dissertation was about.’

‘I made a mistake, I admit that. Her dissertation was taking so long, and I wanted to know how far she had got.’

Of course.

‘And how far had she got?’

Johan was becoming impatient.

‘Don’t you think I have questions of my own about my mother? Naturally, I was curious.’

‘So you seduced Rebecca, let her believe you wanted a relationship with her?’

Johan’s voice was thin when he replied.

‘Yes.’

Fredrika asked the final question that only Johan could answer.

‘What are you saying thank you for on the card you send with the flowers?’

A brief hesitation. Then he answered with the same directness he had shown throughout.

‘Because she forgave me when I came back. And for her silence. Thanks to her, I am free of my past.’

Or you were, Fredrika thought. Now the police had exposed his false identity, his life would be turned upside down. It was far from certain that all those who had looked up to Valter Lund would continue to do so once they realised that everything was built on a lie.

Alex’s mobile rang again. This time the officer in charge at Midsommarkransen was in no doubt. They had managed to dig up the body that had been buried very recently.

Jimmy was dead.

63

It was evening on the island of Storholmen. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, adorned with just a few fluffy clouds that knew their place and were keeping well away from the evening sun. Peder had walked around the island several times, looking at the isolated houses; in many cases they were empty, waiting for their summer occupants. Gardens and cottages of every size and colour. Peace and quiet. The kind of place that Ylva would love.

Perhaps they might be able to buy a little summer cottage out here one day. If they could afford it. When all this was over. When he had found Jimmy and taken him back to Mångården.

Nausea overwhelmed him.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

His entire body was suffused with fear; it was a very physical sensation. His heart seemed to have lost his natural rhythm, and he had to remember to breathe regularly. In, out. In, out.

The lack of sleep and food combined with all the stress he had experienced over the past twenty-four hours was knocking out one function after another in his brain. He clutched his head in his hands; for a moment he felt as if it was going to explode.

His mobile was in his pocket, switched off. He ought to call Alex. Or Ylva. Or his mother. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody. The realisation worried him. He could die out here on Storholmen, and no one would ever find him.

He stopped outside the house Thea Aldrin had described in such detail. Bright yellow, with white eaves. Irregular corners and two large balconies. The garden was huge. Mature fruit trees, colourful shrubs. In the far corner he could just make out a summerhouse. The sun sparkled on the windows. It was so beautiful it hurt his eyes.

This was where Thea Aldrin had spent the summers of her childhood. Peder could picture the scene: Thea running across the garden with her notepad and pen, hiding in the summerhouse. Or perhaps she hadn’t run; perhaps she just sat inside.

He couldn’t put it off any longer. The house looked dark and deserted, but Peder could sense the proximity of his enemy.

Slowly, he set off along the gravel path leading to the door.

Alex was standing outside HQ when Ylva called him.

‘Peder isn’t answering his phone.’

A stab of pain so sharp that it brought tears to his eyes robbed him of the ability to speak for a moment.

Oh, God, is there anything more agonising than death?

‘Alex, are you there?’

How many times had Alex met Peder’s wife? Three? Four? He couldn’t remember exactly, but he did remember Ylva. She matched the picture Alex had formed from Peder’s descriptions of her: strong and beautiful. The turbulence of the last few years had definitely left their mark, but she gave an impression of stability.

She would be able to cope with the truth.

‘I’m here.’

His voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

‘Ylva, please listen. I’m afraid I have some very bad news.’

She must have realised what he was going to say, because she was crying before he spoke the terrible words.

‘Jimmy is dead. We found him… a little while ago.’

‘How…?’

‘That doesn’t matter right now. The important thing – the only important thing, Ylva – is that Peder doesn’t find out over the phone. Do you understand what I’m saying? He has to hear it from one of us, and not until we’ve found him. I’m afraid he’ll do something he’ll regret for the rest of his life otherwise.’

The decision had virtually made itself after the interview with Johan Aldrin. Alex had sent a patrol over to Storholmen to pick up Morgan Axberger, and another to the care home at Mångården. If Thea Aldrin would write down what had happened when Jimmy disappeared, the truth would come out. When they dug up Jimmy’s body, they found that he had suffered a severe blow to the back of the head. There was no longer any doubt that his disappearance was directly linked to the investigation that had begun with the discovery of Rebecca Trolle’s body.

The forensic pathologist had also called to confirm that the other girl in the grave had probably been murdered in exactly the way shown in the film. Therefore, the girl in the film and in the grave were one and the same.

Morgan Axberger was the killer they had been looking for all along.

First of all, he had murdered a young woman for sheer pleasure. Then he had killed a fifty-year-old lawyer, so that those bloody books, which had obviously been written before the film was made, couldn’t be traced back to him or Thea’s ex, Manfred. And then a young girl who got too close.

Morgan Axberger. The most unlikely murderer, the most unimaginable.

Alex cursed his own failure to see the wider picture.

His mobile weighed heavy in his hand. Please let them find Morgan Axberger before nightfall. He had a great deal on his conscience, and there was no telling what he might do if he felt cornered.

Alex squeezed the phone, knowing exactly who he ought to call.

Diana.

Lena, will you ever forgive me?

There were those who believed it was possible to talk to the dead. Alex wasn’t one of them. But since Lena’s death, he had been able to sense her presence. When he lay alone in their bed. When he was having breakfast. When he saw their children.

Hesitantly, he keyed in the number that his fingers were itching to call. She answered immediately.

‘There was something I wanted to ask you,’ Alex said.

He didn’t have much time; he had to be brief.

‘Yes?’

He could tell that she was pleased to hear from him, and it made him wonder. Was it possible that he had met another woman who could accept that he was always impossible to get hold of, always short of time, always in a different place from her?

That question can wait.

‘Would you like to meet up this evening?’

There. It was done. For the first time the initiative had come from him rather than Diana.

‘Yes. That would be lovely.’

‘Great. I’ll be in touch.’

He ended the call, and the phone immediately rang again.

‘Where are you?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Outside HQ. I’ve just spoken to the patrol who’ve gone off to Storholmen.’

‘Tell them to hurry up.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Peder.’

‘He doesn’t know anything about this, Fredrika. He doesn’t even know Jimmy’s dead.’

‘But he might find out,’ Fredrika said calmly. ‘I’m afraid he’s gone after Morgan Axberger, because he’s the only person we haven’t questioned yet. Jimmy is closer to him than anyone else in his life. Believe me, Peder will search for him night and day if necessary.’

Alex ended the call with an all too familiar feeling. The feeling that everything, yet again, was about to go badly wrong.

He called the patrol as he hurried back inside.

‘Get a bloody move on,’ he bellowed. ‘We don’t have much time!’

As Peder raised his hand to ring the bell, he suddenly hesitated. What would he do when, or if, Morgan Axberger opened the door? Ask if he was keeping Jimmy prisoner? Ask if he could have him back?

He was armed. It was small consolation, but at least it made him feel a little more secure. His eyes itched, and however much he blinked, it was becoming more and more difficult to see clearly. He wondered whether he ought to go back down the steps and take a walk around the outside of the house instead. He hadn’t done enough of a recce to form a picture of the place and its extent. If he lost control of the situation, it was important that he could get away. Particularly if he had Jimmy with him.

Jimmy. Was he even alive?

Thea Aldrin had given him as honest an answer as she dared. It was a matter of urgency, she had said. Because Morgan Axberger showed no mercy. Peder thought about the grave. Saw Axberger walking through the forest with one body after another, burying them in a spot that no one else knew about.

Their relatives must have spent years wondering what had happened to them.

Peder thought about his own visit to the grave site. He thought about all the earth that had been dug up, all the days his colleagues had spent meticulously working their way down, centimetre by centimetre, afraid of driving a spade into a body by mistake.

Strange that some people didn’t respect the sanctity of the grave. A guy at work had told him what Alex had said at the meeting: apparently some idiot had sneaked up to the crater under cover of darkness and amused himself by starting to fill it in. Why would anyone do such a thing?

A bird flew out of a tree close to the steps and made Peder jump. It disappeared into the neighbour’s garden.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

The answer was simple. They wouldn’t. Someone might possibly go and have a look, but they wouldn’t start shovelling soil into the hole. The world was spinning faster and faster, and Peder almost felt as if he might have to sit down.

All of a sudden he knew for certain.

Jimmy was dead.

The angel of death had passed through the forest once again, this time to bury Peder’s brother.

But this time you have dug your last grave.

He knocked loudly on the door. Heard himself shout – or was he yelling, bellowing? – that it was the police, open this door right now. The silence that enveloped him was broken only by the wind, rustling the treetops. He hammered on the door again, desperate for someone to open up. But no one seemed to hear his repeated knocks, blows and kicks. No one responded to his shouting and roaring.

He sped around the back of the house and ran up the steps to the veranda that looked out over the lawn; there was no one there. A glass door led into the house. Closed, but was it locked? Peder grabbed at the handle and felt it give way; the door opened.

His heart was beating so hard he thought he could hear the sound of his own pulse outside his body. Slowly, he pushed open the door. Peered into the room. Stepped inside. There were no lights on. No open windows. No unwashed dishes left lying around. Nor could he hear a sound; just that same accursed silence everywhere. He moved forward a few steps. Heard his own voice bounce off the walls as he shouted again.

‘Hello! Is anyone home? Police – my name is Peder Rydh!’

In the hallway a staircase led to the floor above. For various reasons he didn’t feel tempted to go up.

I’m staying down here, where I still have a way out.

He went back to the first room. It was some kind of reception room. An object standing on a table in one corner caught his attention.

A projector.

A film was already loaded. The same film they had heard about during the case? Peder moved across to the projector, tried to fathom out how it worked. A sound from the garden interrupted his deliberations and made him look out of the window. The summerhouse door was wide open. Had it been like that before?

He quickly went and stood by the veranda door. The garden was silent once more, but now Peder could definitely feel the proximity of another person. The sun was lower now, creating long shadows. And that was what gave Morgan Axberger away. He was crouching beneath one of the trees, just outside Peder’s field of vision. But the shadow cast by the tree was distorted by Axberger’s presence, and Peder spotted the man before he managed to leave the garden.

They didn’t say anything. Was that because Axberger knew who Peder was?

Peder walked slowly across the veranda and onto the lawn.

‘Peder Rydh, police. I’d like to ask you a few questions regarding a missing person.’

Are you the one who killed my brother?

He took a step closer to the man who had now emerged from his hiding place. He stared at Morgan Axberger. He was taller than he looked in the pictures Peder had seen in various newspapers. Well built. His gaze was sharp, granite-grey. It could just as well have belonged to a man of thirty-five. His hair was dark and thick. There was in fact very little to suggest that Axberger was over seventy years old.

‘It’s about a young man who disappeared from Mångården assisted living complex yesterday evening. Do you know anything about that?’

Morgan Axberger slowly shook his head.

‘I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I know nothing about a missing person.’

Really?

The lie sent the adrenalin coursing through Peder’s body.

‘According to Thea Aldrin, you took him to your car. She saw you drive off with him. His name is Jimmy Rydh.’

Morgan Axberger smiled.

‘And Thea Aldrin told you this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thea doesn’t speak.’

‘She spoke to me.’

The smile vanished.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’ve already told you. Police. Peder Rydh.’

Peder swallowed, aware of a lump in his throat. His voice was suddenly hoarse; it sounded like a whisper.

‘I’m Jimmy’s brother.’

Axberger’s movement as he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket was so fast that Peder immediately drew his gun.

‘Stand still!’

The man who had murdered over so many years froze in mid-movement. His hand remained in his pocket.

‘Take your hand out of your pocket! Slowly!’

Axberger did as he was told.

‘I know that you know where he is. Tell me where Jimmy is!’

The pistol shook in his hand. Peder squeezed it hard. Harder. He mustn’t lose control.

Not now, not ever.

When Axberger didn’t reply, but simply carried on staring at him with that steely gaze, Peder continued:

‘It’s all over as far as you’re concerned. We already know everything. We know you murdered Rebecca Trolle and that lawyer. It’s over.’

‘I understand.’

Two pathetic words. I understand.

‘What do you fucking understand?’

A thin smile crossed the other man’s face. ‘That my luck has run out.’ He became serious once more.

Peder was breathing deeply. A confession in the silence of the island. He thought about Rebecca. No hands, no head.

‘Is this where you dismembered her body?’

Why had he asked that? Jimmy was the most important thing right now.

To his surprise, Axberger replied.

‘No, it wasn’t here. I took her to one of the company’s big storage depots in Hägersten.’

‘Why? Was she too heavy to carry?’

‘None of us is getting any younger,’ Axberger said. ‘Obviously, I removed her hands and head purely so that it wouldn’t be possible to identify the body. I don’t know if you recall that winter, but it was cold for a very long time. When I dug the girl’s grave, the ground was still hard because of the frost, and I only managed to get through the top layer of earth.’

So if Rebecca couldn’t be buried deep enough, steps must be taken to prevent identification. Axberger’s logical explanation made Peder feel sick. He wondered what had become of her hands and head, but was unable to put the question into words. Axberger answered it anyway.

‘I burned the body parts that I’d chopped off in a drum here on the island.’

For a brief moment Peder felt as if he might throw up.

Jimmy. I have to think about Jimmy.

Axberger broke the silence.

‘Peder, is that what you said your name was? Good. Peder, let me propose a simple deal. OK?’

Peder clutched the pistol. ‘There will be no deal.’

‘But you haven’t heard my suggestion yet. To be honest, I don’t think you give a damn about the other people you mentioned just now, the young girl and the lawyer. Am I right? But your brother, that’s different. So, this is my suggestion. I’ll tell you where your brother is, and you allow me the time I need to leave Storholmen and to remove myself from Sweden and the situation in which I now find myself on a permanent basis, so to speak.’

Peder blinked.

A deal?

Suddenly, Peder was transported back in time to an entirely different case two years ago, when another perpetrator had suggested a deal. On that occasion it had ended in disaster.

‘Is he alive? Is Jimmy still alive?’

Morgan Axberger looked furious.

‘What kind of man do you think I am? Of course he’s still alive. Unfortunately, he happened to overhear a conversation between Thea and myself, which meant that I had no option but to get him out of the way – temporarily. I’m sure you’ve found yourself in a similar situation?’

Peder hadn’t. He had never had secrets of the magnitude of Morgan Axberger’s crimes.

‘Where is he?’

‘Hang on a minute. First of all you need to put down that gun.’

‘No chance. If you tell me where he is, I’ll give you three hours. Three hours. That’s the best I can do.’

Morgan Axberger thought for a moment. ‘OK, it’s a deal.’

A gust of wind passed through the garden, and Peder couldn’t help shivering. He was frozen.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s in my private summer cottage in Norrtälje.’

The answer was simple and delivered in matter-of-fact tone of voice. Jimmy was alive. He was in a summer cottage in Norrtälje. Relief washed over Peder.

‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered, feeling the tears pricking at his eyes. ‘I thought… I really thought…’

Morgan Axberger looked sympathetic.

‘As I said, I’m very sorry your brother got in the way, but I hope things turn out well for both of you.’

The sound of someone cycling past along the road drifted across the garden, and Peder realised he had more questions.

‘How do I know you’re not bluffing?’

‘How do I know you’re not bluffing?’

Axberger’s eyes narrowed until they were no more than slits.

‘Let’s be honest, you could call your colleagues the minute I walk out of here. You’re the one with the upper hand, not me.’

Peder swallowed. Axberger’s argument was logical, and yet it wasn’t.

I have to know.

‘By the way, on an entirely different matter,’ Axberger said.

Peder was listening.

‘Yes?’

‘You mentioned the girl you found in the grave. I wasn’t the only one who put her there.’

Peder stared at him.

‘Who else was involved?’ he said stupidly.

That smile was back.

‘I think we both know the answer to that.’

Peder didn’t understand.

‘Håkan Nilsson?’

‘Who?’ Axberger looked blank, then annoyed. ‘You can do better than that,’ he said. ‘How do you think I even found out that there was a girl at the university writing her dissertation on Thea Aldrin?’

Peder’s mouth went dry; his head was spinning.

I haven’t a bloody clue.

He changed tack.

‘What about the lawyer, then?’

‘That was me. Elias Hjort had some particularly sensitive information about me which couldn’t be allowed to get out under any circumstances.’

Peder processed this, trying to understand how everything fitted together.

‘About those books?’

‘The books were Manfred’s work. But it was my idea to make a film of selected extracts. In this fantastic summerhouse, in fact.’

He pointed.

‘Who was the girl who died?’

‘Some insignificant tart I found on the street. Nobody reported her missing, so the loss to the world must be regarded as negligible.’

‘But what was it that Elias Hjort knew? Was he involved in making the film?’

Morgan Axberger pursed his lips.

‘Hardly. But Thea found out that I had made a film featuring her precious boyfriend as the killer, and unfortunately she told Elias. When there was all that fuss about the books later on, and it became known that he was the intermediary between the publisher and the author, he tried to blackmail me. He promised to leave the country if I gave him enough, said he would never set foot in Sweden again if I paid him what he was asking.’

‘But you killed him?’

‘It was best for all concerned. Once the film ended up in the hands of the police, the situation became untenable. Elias had to go.’

Peder wondered how someone could think that way, believing they had power over life and death like God Himself. Pointing the finger, you shall live and you shall die.

He could feel his mobile against his leg through the thin fabric of his trouser pocket. Hesitantly he took it out.

‘Excuse me, what are you doing?’ Morgan Axberger’s voice was deep and affronted.

‘I’m calling my boss to tell him I’ve had a tip-off about where Jimmy is,’ Peder said. ‘He doesn’t know what I know. That you were the one who took Jimmy. I went to see Thea on my own. If I call him, the police will be on their way at the same time as I let you go.’

Axberger looked unsure, but silently accepted what Peder had said.

Alex answered almost immediately. ‘Where the hell are you?’

Hearing Alex’s voice in his ear made Peder relax; he suddenly realised how exhausted he was.

‘I’ve been looking for Jimmy. I think I know where he is.’

Alex didn’t speak for a moment, then he said: ‘Peder, let’s not do this over the phone. Come back to HQ, please. Fredrika and I are waiting for you. Ylva is here too.’

Ylva?

‘Ylva? What’s Ylva doing there?’

‘She’s just arrived. Nobody has heard from you for hours, so of course we were worried.’

He was missing something. Peder pressed the phone close to his ear.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said nobody had heard from you for…’

‘Before that.’

‘I said let’s not do this over the phone. Can’t you tell me where you are? We’ll come and pick you up.’

‘What do you mean, let’s not do this? What is it you don’t want to talk about over the phone? I know where Jimmy is.’

He heard Alex sigh, then speak quietly to someone sitting beside him.

‘Peder, I’m so very sorry you’ve had to work this out on your own. If only I could have got hold of you, things would have been different.’

Morgan Axberger began to edge slowly away from Peder, who was rooted to the spot.

‘Alex, I don’t understand.’

‘Can’t you come back to HQ?’

‘I know where he is.’

His voice was thin. Weak. Like a child’s.

‘So do I,’ Alex said gently. ‘We opened up the grave and found Jimmy. Come back, Peder.’

No.

No no.

No no no.

Peder heard someone yelling, and saw Morgan Axberger break into a run. He realised that he was the one bellowing, loud enough to frighten the life out of all the birds that had been perched quietly in the trees. They rose in a panic, flapping furiously into the sky.

Peder dropped the phone as if it had burned his fingers. Alex disappeared, and so did Morgan Axberger.

‘Stop!’

Axberger stopped as he heard Peder’s pounding footsteps behind him.

‘Is it true?’

He couldn’t stop yelling, repeating the same phrase over and over again.

‘Is it true? Is it true? Is he dead?’

And there it was at last. Axberger’s weary expression.

‘Of course. What the hell did you think?’

For a moment, time stood still. There wasn’t a sound, nothing moved.

Jimmy. Was. Dead.

And as far as Peder was concerned, life as he knew it was over.

I will never learn to live with this.

Peder raised his gun, took aim at Morgan Axberger and fired two shots.

Then there was silence once more.