‘Aren’t you even going to ask me what I want to see her about?’
‘I take it you want to ask her questions, like everybody else. You’ll have to wait until the next press conference.’
‘I’m not a journalist. I’m a relative of one of the families in Hesjövallen.’
The woman behind the counter changed her attitude immediately.
‘I apologise. You need to speak to Eric Huddén.’
She dialled a number and told Eric that he had a visitor. It was evidently not necessary to say any more. ‘Visitor’ was a code word for ‘relative’.
‘He’ll come down and collect you. Wait over there by the glass doors.’
She found a young man standing by her side.
‘Unless I’m much mistaken, i think I heard you say that you were a relative of one of the murder victims. Can I ask you a few questions?’
Birgitta Roslin usually kept her claws tucked into her paws. But not now.
‘No. I’ve no idea who you are.’
‘I write.’
‘For whom?’
‘For everybody who’s interested.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’
‘Obviously, I’m very sorry about your sad loss.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not sorry at all. You are speaking softly in order not to attract attention — so others don’t realise you’ve found a relative.’
The glass doors were opened by a man with badge informing the world that he was Erik Huddén. They shook hands. A photographer’s flash was reflected in the glass doors as they closed again.
There were people everywhere. The tempo here was radically different from that in Hesjövallen. They went into a conference room where a table was covered in files and lists. This is where the dead are gathered together, Roslin thought. Huddén invited her to sit down and took a seat opposite her. She told the full story from the beginning, the two different name changes, and how she discovered that she was related to the victims. She could see that Huddén was disappointed when he realised that her presence was not going to help.
‘I appreciate that you no doubt need other information,’ she said. ‘I work in the law, and I’m not totally unaware of the procedures involved.’
‘Obviously, I’m grateful that you’ve come to see us.’
He put down his pen and squinted at her.
‘But have you really come all the way from Skåne to tell us this? You could have phoned.’
‘I have something to say that is relevant to the investigation. I’d like to speak to Vivi Sundberg.’
‘Can’t you tell me? She’s extremely busy.’
‘I’ve already spoken to her, and it would be useful to continue where we left off.’
He went out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Roslin slid the file labelled BRITA AND AUGUST ANDRÉN towards her. What she saw horrified her. There were photographs, taken inside the house. It was only now that she realised the scale of the bloodbath. She stared at the pictures of the sliced and diced bodies. The woman was almost impossible to identify, as she had been slashed by a blow that almost cut her face in two. One of the man’s arms was hanging from just a couple of thin sinews.
She closed the file and pushed it away. But the images were still there; she wouldn’t be able to forget them. During her years in court she had often been forced to look at photographs of sadistic violence, but she had never seen anything to compare with what Erik Huddén had in his files.
He came back and beckoned her to follow him.
Vivi Sundberg was sitting at a desk laden with documents. Her pistol and mobile phone were lying on top of a file filled almost to the bursting point. She indicated a visitor’s chair.
‘You wanted to speak to me,’ said Sundberg. ‘If I understand it rightly, you’ve travelled all the way from Helsingborg. You must feel what you have to say is important.’
Her mobile phone rang. She switched it off and looked expectantly at her visitor.
Roslin told her story without getting bogged down in details. She had often sat on the bench and thought about how a prosecuting or defending counsel, an accused or a witness, ought to have expressed themselves. She was an expert in that particular skill.
‘Perhaps you already know about the Nevada incident,’ she said when she had finished.
‘It hasn’t come up at our briefings yet.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t think anything.’
‘It could mean that the murderer you are looking for is not a madman.’
‘I shall evaluate your information the same way I do every tip and suggestion. And believe me — there are masses of them here, phone calls, letters, emails. You name it, we got it. Who knows, something may turn up.’
She reached for a notepad and asked Birgitta Roslin to repeat her story. When she had finished making notes she stood up and escorted her visitor to the exit.
Just before they came to the glass doors, she paused.
‘Do you want to see the house where your mother grew up? Is that why you’ve come here?’
‘Is it possible?’
‘The bodies are gone. I can let you in, if you’d like to. I’ll be going there in half an hour. But you must promise me not to take anything away from the house. There are people who’d be only too pleased to rip up the cork tiles on which a murdered person has been lying.’
‘I’m not like that.’
‘If you wait in your car, you can follow me.’
Vivi Sundberg pressed a button, and the glass doors slid open. Birgitta Roslin hurried out into the street before any of the reporters who were still gathered in reception could get hold of her.
As she sat with her hand on the ignition key, it struck her that she had failed. Sundberg hadn’t taken her seriously. It was unlikely they’d look into the Nevada lead, and if they did it would be without much enthusiasm.
Who could blame them — the leap between Hesjövallen and Nevada was too great.
A black car with no police markings drew up beside her. Vivi Sundberg waved.
When they reached the village, Sundberg led her to the house.
‘I’ll leave you here, so that you can be alone for a while.’
Birgitta Roslin took a deep breath and stepped inside. All the lights were on.
It was like stepping from the wings onto a floodlit stage. And she was the only person in the play.
8
Birgitta Roslin stood in the hall and listened. There is a silence in empty houses that is unique, she thought. People have left and taken all the noise with them. There isn’t even a clock ticking anywhere.
She went into the living room. Old-fashioned smells abounded, from furniture, tapestries and pale porcelain vases crammed onto shelves and in between potted plants. She felt with a finger in one of the pots, then went to the kitchen, found a watering can and watered all the plants she could find. She sat down on a chair and looked around her. How much of all this had been here when her mother lived in this house? Most of it, she suspected. Everything here is old; furniture grows old with the people who use it.
The floor, where the bodies had been lying, was still covered in plastic sheeting. She went up the stairs. The bed in the master bedroom was unmade. There was a slipper lying halfway under the bed. She couldn’t find its mate. There were two other rooms on this upper floor. In the one facing west, the wallpaper was covered in childish images of animals. She had a vague memory of her mother having mentioned that wallpaper once. There was a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a chair and a heap of rag rugs piled up against one of the walls. She opened the wardrobe: the shelves were lined with newspaper pages. One was dated 1969. By then her mother had been gone for more than twenty years.