“How was your relationship with him?” asked Sven-Erik. “Were you close?”
Anna-Maria could see how Sven-Erik was making a real effort to draw Kristina Strandgård in with his questions, but she was staring blankly at the pattern on the wallpaper.
“Our family is very close,” said Olof Strandgård.
“Was he going out with anybody? Did he have other interests outside the church?”
“No, as I said, he decided to put everything else in life to one side for the time being, and to work only for God.”
“But didn’t that worry you? Not having anything to do with girls, or any hobbies?”
“No, not at all.” Viktor’s father laughed, as if he found what Sven-Erik had just said utterly ridiculous.
“Who were his closest friends?”
Sven-Erik looked at the photographs on the walls. Above the television hung a large photograph of Sanna and Viktor. Two children with long, silvery blond hair. Sanna’s in ringlets. Viktor’s straight as a waterfall. Sanna must have been in her early teens. It was quite clear that she was refusing to smile for the photographer. There was something defiant in the turned-down corners of her mouth. Viktor’s expression was also serious, but natural. As if he was sitting and thinking about something else altogether, and had forgotten where he was.
“Sanna was thirteen and the boy was ten,” said Olof, who had noticed Sven-Erik looking at the photograph. “It’s obvious how much he looked up to his sister. Wanted to have long hair just like hers from when he was little, and screamed like a stuck pig if his mother ever came near him with the scissors. At first he got teased in school, but he wanted it long.”
“His friends?” prompted Anna-Maria.
“I’d like to think the family were his closest friends. He and Sanna were very close. And he idolized the girls.”
“Sanna’s daughters?”
“Yes.”
"Kristina," said Sven-Erik.
Kristina Strandgård jumped.
“Is there anything you’d like to add? About Viktor,” he explained when she looked at him questioningly.
“What can I say,” she said uncertainly, glancing at her husband. “I haven’t really got anything to add. I think Olof described him perfectly.”
“Have you got an album of clippings about Viktor?” asked Anna-Maria. “I mean, he was in the papers quite a bit.”
“There,” said Kristina Strandgård, pointing. “That big brown album on the bottom shelf.”
“May I borrow it?” asked Anna-Maria, getting up and taking it off the shelf. “You’ll have it back as soon as possible.”
She held on to the album for a moment before putting it on the table in front of her. She was desperate to get another image of Viktor into her head, instead of the white lacerated body with its eyes gouged out.
“It would be very helpful if you could write down the names of people who knew him,” said Sven-Erik. “We’d like to talk to them.”
"It’ll be a very long list," said Olof Strandgård. "The entire population of Sweden knew him. And more."
"I mean those who knew him personally," said Sven-Erik patiently. "We’ll send somebody to pick up the list this evening. When was the last time you saw your son alive?"
“On Sunday evening, at the Songs of Praise Service in the church.”
“That would be the Sunday evening preceding the murder, then. Did you speak to him?”
Olof Strandgård shook his head sorrowfully.
“No, he was part of the intercession group, so he was busy all the time.”
“When was the last time you met and had time to talk?”
“On Friday afternoon, just about two days before-” Viktor’s father broke off and looked at his wife.
“-You’d cooked some food for him, Kristina; it was Friday, wasn’t it?”
“Definitely,” she replied. “The Miracle Conference was just starting. And I know he forgets to eat, always puts others before himself. So we went round to his house and filled up the freezer. He thought I was being a mother hen.”
“Did he seem worried about anything?” asked Sven-Erik. “Was anything bothering him?”
“No,” answered Olof.
“He obviously hadn’t eaten for some considerable time when he died,” said Anna-Maria. “Do you have any idea why that might be? Could it have been because he’d just forgotten to eat?”
“Presumably he was fasting,” replied his father.
I’ll need to find the bathroom in a minute, thought Anna-Maria.
“Fasting?” she asked, concentrating on not wanting to go. “Why?”
“Well,” said Olof Strandgård, “it says in the Bible that Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert and was tempted by the devil before He appeared in Galilee and chose the first disciples. And it says that the apostles prayed and fasted when they were choosing the elders for the first churches and handing them over to God. In the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah fasted before they received God’s revelations. Presumably Viktor felt that he had an important role during the Miracle Conference, and wanted to sharpen his concentration beforehand through fasting and prayer.”
“What is this Miracle Conference?” asked Sven-Erik.
“It started on Friday evening and finishes next Sunday evening. Seminars during the day, and services in the evenings. It’s all about miracles. Faith healing, wonders, prayers being answered, various spiritual gifts of grace. Wait a minute.”
Olof Strandgård got up and went out into the hall. After a while he came back with a shiny colorful folder in his hand. He passed it to Sven-Erik, who leaned toward Anna-Maria so that she could look at it.
It was an invitation in folded A4 format. The soft-focus pictures showed happy people with their hands raised. In one picture a laughing woman was holding up her child. In another, Viktor Strandgård was praying for a man who was on his knees, his hands raised toward heaven. Viktor’s index and middle fingers rested on the man’s forehead, and his eyes were closed. The text explained that the seminars would be dealing with topics including “You Have the Power to Demand That Your Prayers Are Answered,” “God Has Already Conquered Your Illness,” and “Release Your Spiritual Gifts of Grace.” There was also information about the evening services, where you could dance in the spirit, sing in the spirit, laugh in the spirit and see God work miracles in your own life and the lives of others. And all for four thousand two hundred kronor, excluding board and lodging.
"How many participants are there in the conference?" wondered Sven-Erik.
“I can’t tell you exactly,” said Olof, betraying a hint of pride, “but somewhere around two thousand.”
Anna-Maria could see Sven-Erik calculating how much the church had made from the conference.
“We need a list of participants,” said Anna-Maria. “Who should we get in touch with?”
Olof Strandgård gave her a name, and she made a note of it. Sven-Erik could get somebody to check it against police records.
“How was his relationship with Sanna?” asked Anna-Maria.
“I’m sorry?” said Olof Strandgård.
“Could you describe their relationship?”
"They were brother and sister."
"But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they had a good relationship," Anna-Maria persisted.
Olof took a deep breath.
“They were the best of friends. But Sanna is a fragile person. Sensitive. Both my wife and I, and our son, have had to take care of her and the girls on many occasions.”
There’s a hell of a lot of talk about how fragile she is, thought Anna-Maria.
“What do you mean by ‘sensitive’?” she asked, and noticed Kristina squirm slightly.
“This isn’t easy to talk about,” said Olof. “But there are times when she finds it difficult to cope as an adult. Difficult to maintain the boundaries for the girls. And sometimes she’s found it difficult to look after them and herself, hasn’t she, Kristina?”