The Crow Girl (65 page)

‘So you think the perpetrator had a terrible childhood?’

‘I think what Alice Miller thinks.’

‘Who?’

‘She was a psychologist who said it was utterly impossible for someone who grew up in an environment of honesty, respect and warmth to ever want to torment anyone weaker and harm them for life.’

‘There’s something in that. But I’m not entirely convinced.’

‘No, sometimes I doubt it. There’s a proven link between excess production of male sex hormones and an inclination to commit sexual assaults. You can also regard physical and sexual violence against women and children as a way for a man to construct his masculinity. Through violence the man acquires the power and control that society’s traditional gender and power structures suggest are his right.’

‘I see.’

‘And there’s a connection between social norms and degrees of perversion that, in basic terms, suggests that the more double standards there are in a society, the more likely this sort of boundary transgression is.’

Jeanette feels like she’s talking to an encyclopedia.

Cold facts and crystal-clear explanations piled on top of one another.

‘OK, while we’re talking generally about this sort of perpetrator, can we go back to Karl and Linnea Lundström?’ Jeanette says. ‘Can someone who has been subjected to sexual abuse in childhood have no memory of it at all?’

Sofia takes time to consider this. ‘Yes. Both clinical practice and memory research support the idea that very traumatic events during childhood can be stored but are not accessible. Problems arise if those types of memories lead to police investigations, because it has to be proved that the alleged assaults actually took place. We can’t ignore the possibility that an innocent man might be accused and possibly convicted for an act of this sort.’

Jeanette is starting to pick up the pace, and already has her next question formulated. ‘And can a child in an interview situation be steered to talk about sexual abuse that never actually happened?’

Sofia gives her a serious look. ‘Sometimes children have trouble with the concept of time, such as when or how often something occurred. They often think that grown-ups already know everything they might have to say, and are more inclined to omit sexual details than place particular stress on them. Our memories are intimately connected to our perceptions. In other words, what we see, hear and feel.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

‘One clinical example is a teenage girl who smells her boyfriend’s semen and realises that this isn’t the first time she’s encountered that smell. And that instigates a process through which she comes to remember her father’s abuse of her.’

‘So how do you explain why Karl Lundström became a paedophile?’

‘For some individuals, other people have no emotional reality. They know about the concept of empathy, but it has no qualitative meaning. And people who function that way can be capable of doing terrible things.’

‘But how could he have hidden it?’

‘In an incestuous family, the boundaries between adults and children are unclear and hazy. All needs are satisfied within the family. The daughter often switches roles with the mother, and might replace her in the kitchen, for instance, but also in bed. The family does everything together, and from the outside looks like the ideal family. But the internal dynamics are severely disturbed and the child has to satisfy its parents’ needs. The child often takes more responsibility for its parents than the other way round. The family exists in isolation, even though it might have a superficial social life. To escape scrutiny the family will move to another place every so often. Karl Lundström was probably a victim himself. And, as Miller says, it’s tragic if you hit your own children to avoid having to think about what your own parents did.’

‘What do you think’s going to happen to Linnea?’

‘More than fifty per cent of women who suffer incest try to commit suicide, often in their teens.’

‘That reminds me of the quote “There are many ways to cry: noisily, quietly, or not at all”.’

‘Who said that?’

‘I don’t remember …’

A welcome silence follows.

Jeanette can feel the heavy subject matter becoming too much for her. She could do with a good laugh, a really good laugh that would chase out the images of raped and abused children.

She refills their glasses and takes the initiative to change the subject. ‘How do
you
cry? Quietly, noisily or not at all?’

Sofia smiles gently. ‘It depends on the situation. Sometimes noisily, and sometimes not at all.’

‘And how do you laugh?’

‘Pretty much the same way, I suppose.’

Jeanette isn’t sure how to continue. ‘Do you …’ she begins, but doesn’t get any further.

Why am I hesitating? she thinks. After all, I know just what I need right now.

Human warmth.

‘Hold me,’ she says eventually.

Without Jeanette noticing, Sofia has put her arm around her, and as Sofia leans over and kisses her it feels like a natural extension of the embrace.

It isn’t a long kiss.

But it makes Jeanette giddy. As if all the wine they’ve drunk during the evening has gone to her head in the space of five seconds.

She wants more. She wants to experience the whole of Sofia.

But something tells her they ought to wait.

Their lips separate, and she strokes Sofia’s cheek.

That’s enough.

For the moment, at least.

STOCKHOLM’S IMPLACABLE WINTER
is hostile and windy; the cold creeps in everywhere and is almost impossible to defend against.

During the six months of winter it’s dark when the citizens wake up and go to work, and it’s dark in the evening when they head home again. For months people live their lives in a dense, suffocating shortage of natural light while they wait for the release of spring. They shut themselves off, withdrawing into their own private worlds, avoiding unnecessary eye contact with their fellows and shutting out the world around them with the help of iPods, MP3 players and mobile phones. Down in the metro there’s a scary silence, and every disruptive noise or loud conversation is met with hostile glares or stern comments. For outsiders, Stockholm is a place where not even the sun has enough energy to penetrate the steel-grey sky and, if only for an hour or so, shine down on the godforsaken inhabitants.

On the other hand, Stockholm in its autumn finery can be incredibly beautiful. The houseboats lining Söder Mälarstrand, bobbing in the waves and lurching stoically in the wake of vulgar motorboats, jet skis, Skeppsholmen’s sophisticated motor yachts, and the white ferries on their way to Drottningholm and the Viking town on Björkö. The clear, pure water embraces the steep grey and rust-red cliffs of the islands at the heart of the city, and the trees spill out in colourful patterns of yellow, red and green.

As Jeanette Kihlberg drives in to work the sky is high and clear blue for the first time in weeks, and she takes a long detour via the quaysides that line Lake Mälaren’s shores.

She feels intoxicated.

A single kiss. Five seconds that struck her right in the heart.

When Jeanette walks into Jens Hurtig’s office, he’s sitting cleaning his service pistol. A Sig Sauer, nine millimetre. He doesn’t look happy.

‘Weapons maintenance?’ Jeanette grins. ‘You can do mine as well.’ She goes off to her office and gets her pistol out of the desk drawer.

‘So what do we know about Fredrika Grünewald?’ Jeanette asks as she hands him the gun.

‘She was born here in Stockholm,’ he says nonchalantly, undoing the holster and removing the pistol. ‘Her parents live out in Stocksund, and haven’t had any contact with her for the past nine years. Apparently she lost most of the family fortune on bad investments.’

‘How?’

‘Without her parents’ knowledge, she pumped everything they had, almost forty million, into a number of new businesses. Do you remember Wardrobe.com?’

Jeanette thinks. ‘Only vaguely. Wasn’t that one of those dot-com companies that was supposed to be invaluable, then crashed on the stock market?’

Hurtig nods as he puts a bit of gun grease on a cloth and begins to polish the pistol. ‘Exactly. The idea was to sell clothes online, but it collapsed with hundreds of millions in debt. The Grünewald family were among the worst affected.’

‘And it was all Fredrika’s fault?’

‘According to her parents, but I don’t know. They don’t seem to be going short of anything. They still live in their villa, and the cars parked in the drive must be worth about a million each.’

‘Did they have any reason to want to be rid of Fredrika?’

‘Don’t think so. After the dot-com crash she dropped all contact with her parents. They think it was because she felt ashamed.’

‘What did she live on? I mean, even if she was homeless, she seemed to have money.’

‘Her dad said that he felt sorry for her, in spite of everything, and every month he used to pay fifteen thousand into her account. Which probably explains things.’

‘Nothing funny there, then.’

‘No, not as far as I can see. Secure childhood. Good grades in junior school, then boarding school.’

‘No husband or children?’

‘No children,’ he goes on. ‘And according to her parents she wasn’t in a relationship. None that they knew about, anyway.’ He puts the last parts of the pistol back in place, then puts it down on the desk.

‘Maybe I’m just being conservative, but that seems a bit odd to me. I mean, there ought to have been a man of some sort over the years.’

Jeanette studies Hurtig, and catches a fleeting glimpse of the roguish look he gets when he’s got an ace up his sleeve.

‘Guess who was in the same class as Fredrika Grünewald?’

‘I have my suspicions. Who?’

He hands her some sheets of paper. ‘These are the class registers for everyone who attended Sigtuna College at the same time as Fredrika.’

‘OK, so who is it, then?’ She takes the lists and begins to leaf through them.

‘Annette Lundström.’

‘Annette Lundström?’ Jeanette Kihlberg looks at Hurtig, who smiles at her surprise.

It’s as if someone has opened a window and let in some new, fresh air.

The sun is shining outside Jeanette’s window as she settles down to read the material Hurtig has given her.

Class registers from Sigtuna College covering the years that Charlotte Silfverberg, Annette Lundström, Henrietta Nordlund, Fredrika Grünewald and Victoria Bergman were there. So, Annette and Fredrika had been in the same class.

Annette has fair hair, and several of the people in the cavern under St Johannes Church had said they saw a fair-haired woman in the vicinity of Fredrika’s tent.

But Börje, the man who had shown the woman the way and who could hopefully identify her, is still missing.

Should she bring Annette Lundström in for questioning? Check her alibi and maybe even arrange a line-up? But that would reveal her suspicions to Annette, and make the ongoing inquiry harder. Any lawyer would get her released in the time it took to say the word ‘homeless’.

No, better to hold off and leave Annette in ignorance, at least until Börje shows up. But she could call Annette in for a meeting on the grounds that it’s about Linnea’s abuse.

She could lie, and say that Lars Mikkelsen had asked her to. That might work.

That’s what I’ll do, she thinks, unaware that her enthusiasm is going to delay the resolution of the case rather than speed it up, and will indirectly cause a number of people unnecessary suffering.

KENNETH VON KWIST
runs his hands over his face. A small problem has become a big one. Possibly even insoluble.

At last he has realised that he was an idiot for helping P-O Silfverberg and Karl Lundström. He has also been an idiot for being so focused on his career all these years, doing the bidding of others. What had he got for it?

Fate caught up with Dürer, the lawyer, but what if Karl Lundström and P-O Silfverberg were actually guilty? He’s starting to suspect that they might have been.

Under the leadership of the previous police commissioner, Gert Berglind, everything had been so simple. Everybody knew everyone else and you just had to socialise with the right people to climb the hierarchical ladder.

Lundström and Silfverberg had been close friends of both Gert Berglind’s and Viggo Dürer’s.

Since Dennis Billing had taken over, collaboration with the police hadn’t been quite so smooth.

Where Kihlberg is concerned, at least he has a well-formulated plan for how their relationship could be improved, while simultaneously drawing her attention in a different direction, at least temporarily, thus giving him time to sort out the problem of the Lundström family.

Two birds with one stone, he thinks. Time to start putting things right.

It’s no longer a secret in police headquarters that Jeanette Kihlberg, trailing her sergeant Jens Hurtig behind her, is conducting a private investigation into the dropped cases of the murdered immigrant boys, and the rumour has also reached Prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist.

He also knows that an unofficial search is under way for Bengt Bergman’s daughter, that all documents relating to Victoria Bergman have been declared confidential, and that Kihlberg drew a blank from Nacka District Court.

He dials the number of a colleague at the court in Nacka.

His plan is as devious as it is simple, and is based on the idea that legal exceptions are always possible, so long as all parties agree to keep quiet about it. In other words, that the colleague in Nacka stays silent and that Jeanette Kihlberg will be willing to kiss his feet in gratitude.

Five minutes later Kenneth von Kwist leans back contentedly in his chair, folds his hands behind his head and puts his feet up on his desk. That was that, he thinks. Now there’s just Ulrika Wendin and Linnea Lundström left.

What have they told the police and that psychologist?