The Crow Girl (17 page)

‘Obviously, that depends. As I’m sure you know, I’ve got a duty of confidentiality, and unless I’m mistaken there has to be a court order authorising me to discuss a patient.’

‘It’s on its way. I’m investigating the murders of two boys who were tortured before they died. I presume you read the papers or watch the news, so I doubt you could have missed it. I’d be very grateful if you had anything to tell me about Lundström, no matter how insignificant it might seem.’

Sofia didn’t like the tone of the woman’s voice. It was ingratiating and patronising at the same time. It looked like the woman was trying to pull a fast one and milk her for information she had no right to divulge. ‘Like I said, I can’t discuss anything until you have a court order. Besides, I haven’t got access to my notes on Karl Lundström at the moment.’

She could hear the disappointment in the woman’s voice. ‘I understand. Well, feel free to get in touch if you change your mind. I’d be grateful for anything.’

THAT EVENING SOFIA
and Mikael were chatting in front of the television, and as usual he was mainly preoccupied with telling her about his successes at work. She knew he was self-obsessed, and most of the time she liked listening to his voice. But that evening she felt a need to talk about what she had been through.

‘I was attacked by a patient today.’

‘What?’ Mikael looked at her in surprise.

‘Nothing serious, he just hit me, but … well, I’m thinking of saying I can’t see that patient again.’

‘But surely that sort of thing must happen all the time?’ Mikael said, stroking her arm. ‘Of course you can’t keep seeing a patient who’s dangerous.’

She said she needed a hug.

Later, as she was lying against Mikael’s shoulder, she could see the shadow of his profile close to her in the dim light of the bedroom.

‘A few weeks ago you asked if I wanted to go to New York with you. Do you remember?’ She stroked his cheek, and he turned towards her.

She saw how keen he looked, and for a moment regretted mentioning it. But, on the other hand, it was probably time to tell him.

‘Lasse and I were there last year, and …’

‘Are you sure this is something you want me to hear?’

‘I don’t know. But what happened is important to me. I wanted to have children with him, and …’

‘I see … And this is something I want to hear?’ Mikael sighed.

She switched on the light and sat up in bed. ‘I want you to listen,’ she said. ‘For once, I’ve got something to say to you that actually means something.’

Mikael pulled the duvet around him and turned away.

‘I wanted to have children with him,’ she began. ‘We were together ten years, but nothing ever happened, because he didn’t want it to. But during that trip things happened, and made him change his mind.’

‘The light’s in my eyes, can’t you turn it off?’

She was hurt by his lack of interest, but turned the light out and curled up against his back.

‘Do you want to have children, Mikael?’ she asked after a while.

He took her arm and wrapped it around him.

‘Mmm … maybe not right now’.

She thought about what Lasse had always said. He spent ten years saying ‘not right now’. But in New York he had changed his mind.

She was sure he had meant it, even if things were different when they got home.

What had happened after that was something she’d rather not think about. How people change, and how it sometimes seems as if everyone contains different versions of the same person. Lasse had been very close to her, he had chosen her. But at the same time there was another Lasse, one who pushed her away. It’s really just basic psychology, she thought. But that didn’t make any difference, it still scared her.

‘Is there anything you’re frightened of, Mikael?’ she asked quietly. ‘Something that really frightens you?’

He didn’t reply, and she realised he’d fallen asleep.

She lay awake for a while thinking about Mikael.

What had she seen in him?

He was handsome.

He looked like Lasse.

He had caught her interest, in spite of the fact that he seemed so friendly, or possibly precisely because of that.

Classic middle-class background. Raised in Saltsjöbaden with Mum, Dad and one younger sister. Safe and secure. No money worries. School and football and following in Daddy’s footsteps. Done and dusted.

Daddy had committed suicide just before they met, but Mikael never wanted to talk about it. Every time she tried to raise the subject he left the room.

His father’s death was an open wound. She realised they had been close. She’d only met his mother and sister once.

She fell asleep behind his back.

She woke up at four in the morning, bathed in sweat. For the third night in a row she had dreamed about Sierra Leone, and was far too agitated to get back to sleep. Mikael was sleeping soundly beside her, and she got out of bed carefully so as not to wake him.

He didn’t like her smoking indoors, but she switched on the exhaust fan in the kitchen, sat down and lit a cigarette.

She thought about Sierra Leone, and wondered if she’d made a mistake in turning down the job of checking facts for that book.

It would have been a wiser and more cautious way of starting to deal with her experiences there than by coming face-to-face with a child soldier the way she had with Samuel Bai.

In many ways Sierra Leone had been a disappointment. She never quite managed to get close to the children she had imagined she might be able to help find a better life. She remembered their blank faces and their wary attitude towards aid workers. She had soon realised that she was one of the others. An adult white stranger who had probably scared them more than she had helped them. The children had thrown stones at her. Their trust in adults was gone. She had never felt so impotent.

And now she had failed with Samuel Bai.

Disappointment, she thought. If Sierra Leone had been a disappointment, then her life now, seven years later, was just as much of a disappointment.

She made herself a sandwich and drank a glass of juice, thinking about Lasse and Mikael.

Lasse had let her down.

But was Mikael a disappointment too? It had all started out so well.

Were they already starting to slide apart, before they even got properly close to each other?

There wasn’t really any difference between her work and her private life. The faces blurred together. Lasse. Samuel Bai. Mikael. Tyra Mäkelä. Karl Lundström.

Everyone around her was a stranger.

Slipping away from her, beyond her control.

She sat down beside the stove again, lit another cigarette, and watched the smoke disappear up into the exhaust fan. The little tape recorder was on the table, and she reached for it.

It was late, and she ought to try to get some sleep, but she couldn’t resist the temptation and switched it on.

… always been afraid of heights, but he really wanted to go on the big wheel. If it hadn’t been for him, it would never have happened, and he would have been speaking with a Skåne accent by now, he’d be grown up and know how to tie his laces properly. God, it’s so hard to remember. But he was horribly spoiled and always had to have his own way.

Sofia could feel herself relaxing.

Just before she fell asleep her thoughts roamed free.

OPENED AND THE
fair woman came into his room. She was naked too, and it was the first time he’d seen a woman without clothes. Not even his mother had revealed herself to him like that.

He shut his eyes.

She curled up beside him and lay there completely quiet as she smelled his hair and gently stroked his chest. She wasn’t his real mother, but she had chosen him. Just looked at him and took his hand with a smile.

No one had ever caressed him like that before, and never had he felt so safe.

The others had always doubted. They pinched him rather than felt. Testing his strength.

But the fair woman had no doubts.

He shut his eyes again and let her do whatever she wanted with him.

The mattress got wet from their exertions. For several days they did nothing but stay in bed, practising and sleeping in turn.

When he wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do, she would show him exactly what she meant. Even if all this was new to him, he was a quick learner, and as time passed he got more and more adept.

What he had the most trouble learning to handle was the claw-like object.

He often pulled it too gently and she was forced to show him how to scratch her until she started to bleed.

When he pulled hard she groaned, but showed no sign of punishing him, and he realised that the harder he pulled, the better, even if he didn’t really understand why.

Maybe it was because she was an angel and couldn’t feel pain.

The ceiling and walls, the floor and mattress, the squeaking plastic under his feet, and the little room with the shower and toilet. All this was his.

His days were filled with lifting weights, doing painful stomach crunches, and spending hours on the exercise bicycle she had installed in one corner of the room.

Inside the bathroom was a little cupboard. It was full of oils and creams that she rubbed into him every evening. Some had a strong smell, but they helped his aches and pains go away. Others smelled wonderful, and made his skin soft and elastic.

He saw himself in the mirror, tensed his muscles and smiled.

The room was like a miniature version of the country he had come to. Silent, safe and clean.

He remembered what the great Chinese philosopher had said about people’s ability to learn.

I hear and forget, I see and remember, I do and learn.

Words were superfluous.

He just had to look at her and learn what she wanted him to do. Then he would do it, and understand.

The room was silent.

Every time he made an effort to speak she put her hand over his mouth and shushed him, and when he communicated with her it was via small, precise and muffled grunts, or with sign language. After a while he didn’t utter a single word.

He could see how pleased she was when she looked at him. When he put his head in her lap and she stroked his cropped hair, he felt calm. He showed her he was happy by quietly humming.

The room was safe.

He watched her and he learned, memorising what she wanted him to do, and as time passed he went from thinking in words and sentences to relating his experiences to his own body. Happiness became a warmth in his stomach, and anxiety a tension in his neck.

The room was clean.

He merely did, and understood. Pure feeling.

He never said a word. When he thought, he did so in pictures.

He would be a body, and nothing else.

Words were meaningless. Words must not exist even in thoughts.

But they were there now, and he couldn’t help it.

Gao, he thought. My name is Gao Lian.

JEANETTE KIHLBERG FELT
deflated as she ended her call to Sofia Zetterlund. She knew there’d be problems getting hold of a court order. Von Kwist would raise objections, she was convinced of that.

And then there was Sofia Zetterlund.

Jeanette didn’t like how cool she had been. She was far too rational and unemotional. They were dealing with two dead children, after all, and if she could be of any help, why wouldn’t she want to? Was it really just a matter of professional ethics and her oath of confidentiality?

It felt like they weren’t getting anywhere.

That morning she and Hurtig had tried in vain to track down Ulrika Wendin, the girl who had reported Karl Lundström for rape and sexual abuse seven years ago. The phone number in the directory was no longer in use, and there was no answer when they drove out to the address in Hammarbyhöjden. Jeanette hoped that the note she had put through the letter box would encourage the girl to get in touch as soon as she got home. But so far the phone had remained silent.

This case had turned into a real uphill struggle. It had been two weeks, they had no leads, and one boy was still unidentified.

She felt she needed a change. A new challenge.

If she wanted to go any further up the police hierarchy it would mean being deskbound or taking on more administrative responsibilities.

Was that what she wanted?

While she was reading an internal memo about a three-week-long training course on how to interview children, there was a knock on the door.

Hurtig came in, followed by Åhlund.

‘We’re thinking of going for a beer. Do you want to come?’

She looked at the time. Half past four. Åke would be busy making dinner. Macaroni and meatballs in front of the television. Silence and a suggestion that boredom was all they had in common these days. Change, she thought.

She balled up the memo and threw it in the waste bin. Three weeks in a classroom.

‘No, I can’t. Maybe another time,’ she said, remembering that she had promised herself that she would say yes.

Hurtig nodded and smiled. ‘Sure. See you tomorrow. Don’t work too hard.’ He shut the door behind him.

Just before she packed her things to go home, she made up her mind.

A quick call to Johan to ask if he could see if it was all right for him to sleep over at David’s before she called and booked two cinema tickets for the early screening. Not exactly a massive change, admittedly, but at least it was a small attempt to shake up their grey, everyday life. The cinema, then dinner. Maybe a drink after that.

Åke sounded annoyed when he picked up the phone.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘What I usually do at this time of day. What are you doing?’

‘I’m about to leave, but I thought maybe we could meet in the city instead.’

‘Oh, something special going on?’

‘Not really, I just thought it’s been a while since we did anything nice together.’