The Crow Girl (109 page)

The coffee machine out in the kitchen rattles. Ice crystals have started to form on the window. The rain will soon turn to snow.

‘There must be some mistake –’

‘No, there isn’t. I spoke to the person who conducted the transactions myself, and she was very clear.’

‘She?’

‘The donor wished to remain anonymous, but she asked me to let you know that Victoria Bergman is alive and well. Is that someone you know?’

Six months of events pass through her mind. The picture of the defiant schoolgirl in the yearbook, the only one not smiling. Sexually abused by her father. Jeanette has seen the film of the assault at the boarding school in Sigtuna.

Jeanette remembers Victoria’s voice on the phone.

‘Yes,’ she replies after a few moments’ reflection.

BY THE TIME
Hurtig drives Jeanette out to Gamla Enskede, the weather from Lapland has reached Stockholm and it starts to snow.

She hasn’t told Hurtig about the bank transactions. And she hasn’t told him about Victoria Bergman either.

She needs to think.

Probably for quite some time.

If things are the way she imagines, she might never tell anyone.

They sit in silence the whole way, and part with a hug. Large, light snow-stars are drifting across the street like cotton wool as she gets out of the car.

She empties the mailbox of its advertisements and bills, and as she walks round the hedge and enters the drive she sees something that erases any last traces of doubt.

A brand-new Audi is parked in front of the garage.

The same shade of red as the one she recently sent to be scrapped.

Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg stands beside the car for a long time. She feels drained of all rational thought, and when she finally reacts, it comes in the form of a smile.

Then relief.

A wonderful, liberating sense of relief.

In another time, another place, she has time to think before her mobile vibrates.

A text from Johan, saying that they’ve landed, and that the first thing Åke did was call Alexandra and argue about money he hasn’t received.

After she’s read it she notices that she’s received another message without realising it. Probably while they were on their way back from Ånge.

It’s a message from Sofia.

Sorry
, it says.

It’s always too late, Jeanette thinks.

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Epub ISBN: 9781448161737

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Copyright © Erik Axl Sund 2016

English translation copyright © Neil Smith 2016

This translation is comprised of three works that were originally published separately in slightly different form in 2010, 2011, and 2012 as:
Kråkflickan
,
copyright © 2010 by Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist, published by Print, It, Lithuania;
Hungerelden
, copyright © 2011 and
Pythians Anvisningar
, copyright © 2012 by Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist, published by CPI Clausen & Bosse, Germany. Published by agreement with the Salomonsson Agency.

Erik Axl Sund have asserted their right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781846557569