‘You’re welcome to take it,’ said Hermansson. ‘I can’t read Chinese.’
She put it in her bag and prepared to leave.
‘Many thanks for your help.’
Hermansson smiled. ‘It was nothing. Are you satisfied?’
‘More than satisfied.’
She was heading for the exit when she heard Hermansson’s voice behind her.
‘I might have something else for you. But you seem to be in a hurry — perhaps you don’t have time?’
Birgitta Roslin went back to the counter. Hermansson smiled. Then he pointed towards something behind his head. Roslin didn’t understand at first what she was supposed to see. There was a clock hanging on the wall and a calendar from a garage promising quick and efficient service on all Ford cars.
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Your eyes must be even worse than mine,’ said Hermansson.
He took a wooden pointer from underneath the counter.
‘The clock’s slow,’ he explained. ‘I use this pointer to adjust the hands. It’s not a good idea for a rickety old body like mine to stand on a stepladder.’
He pointed up at the wall, next to the clock. All she could see was a ventilator. She still didn’t understand what he was trying to show her. Then she realised: it wasn’t a ventilator, but an opening in the wall for a camera lens.
‘We can find out what this man looked like,’ said Sture Hermansson, looking pleased with himself.
‘Is it a surveillance camera?’
‘It certainly is. I made it myself.’
‘So you take pictures of everybody who stays in your hotel?’
‘Video films. I don’t even know if it’s legal. But I have a button I press under the counter. The camera films whoever is standing there.’
He looked at her with an amused smile.
‘I’ve just filmed you, for instance,’ he said. ‘You’re in exactly the right place to make a good picture.’
Roslin accompanied him into the room behind the counter. This was evidently where he slept, as well as being his office. Through an open door she could see an old-fashioned kitchen where a woman stood washing dishes.
‘That’s Natasha,’ said Hermansson. ‘Her real name’s something different, but I think all Russian women should be called Natasha.’
He looked at Roslin, and his face clouded over.
‘I hope you’re not a police officer,’ he said.
‘Certainly not.’
‘I don’t think she has all the right papers. But as I understand it, that applies to most of our immigrant workers.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘But I’m not a police officer.’
He started sorting through the video cassettes, all of which were dated.
‘Let’s hope my nephew remembered to press the button,’ he said. ‘I haven’t checked the films from the beginning of January. We had hardly any guests then.’
After a lot of fumbling around that made Birgitta Roslin want to snatch the cassettes out of his hands, he found the right one and switched on the television. Natasha flitted through the room like a silent shadow, and disappeared.
Hermansson pressed the play button. Roslin leaned forward. The picture was surprisingly clear. A man with a large fur hat was standing at the counter.
‘Lundgren from Järvsö,’ said Hermansson. ‘He comes to stay here once a month in order to be left in peace so that he can drink himself silly in his room. When he’s drunk, he sings hymns. Then he goes back home. A nice man. Scrap dealer. He’s been coming to stay with me for nearly thirty years. I give him a discount.’
The television screen started flickering. When the picture became clear again, two middle-aged women were standing in front of the counter.
‘Natasha’s friends,’ said Hermansson solemnly. ‘They come now and then. I’d rather not think about what they do for a living. But they’re not allowed to entertain guests in this hotel. Mind you, I suspect they do so when I’m asleep.’
‘Do they also get a discount?’
‘Everybody gets a discount. I don’t have any set prices. The hotel’s been operating at a loss since the end of the 1960s. I actually live off a little portfolio of stocks and shares. I rely on forestry and heavy industry. There’s only one piece of advice I give to my trusted friends.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Swedish industrial stocks. They’re unbeatable.’
A new picture appeared on the screen. Birgitta Roslin sat up and took notice. The man’s picture was very clear. A Chinese man, wearing a dark overcoat. He glanced up at the camera. It seemed almost as if he were looking her in the eye. Young, she thought. No more than thirty, unless the camera’s telling a lie. He collected his key and disappeared from the screen, which went black.
‘My eyes are not too good,’ said Hermansson. ‘Is that the man you’re looking for?’
‘Was it the twelfth of January?’
‘I think so. But I can check with the ledger and see if he checked in after our Russian friends.’
He stood up and went to the reception counter. While he was away Birgitta Roslin managed to play through the pictures of the Chinese man several times. She froze the picture at the moment when he looked straight at the camera. He’s noticed it, she thought. Then he looks down and turns his face away. He even changes the way he is standing, so that his face can’t be seen. It all went very quickly. She rewound the tape and watched the sequence again. Now she could see that he was on his guard all the time, looking for the camera. She froze the picture again. A man with close-cropped hair, intense eyes, tightly closed lips. Quick movements, alert. Perhaps older than she’d first thought.
Hermansson came back.
‘It looks like we’re right,’ he said. ‘Two Russian ladies checked in, using false names as usual. And then came this man, Mr Wang Min Hao from Beijing.’
‘Would it be possible to make a copy of this film?’
Hermansson shrugged.
‘You can have it. What use is it to me? I installed this camera and video set-up for my own amusement. I wipe the cassettes every six months. Take it.’
He put the cassette in its case and handed it to her. They went back into the lobby. Natasha was cleaning the globes over the lights that illuminated the hotel entrance.
Sture Hermansson gave Birgitta Roslin’s arm a friendly squeeze.
‘Are you going to tell me now why you’re so interested in this Chinese man? Does he owe you money?’
‘Why on earth should he?’
‘Everybody owes everybody else something. If somebody starts asking about people, there’s usually money involved somewhere.’
‘I think this man can provide the answers to certain questions,’ said Roslin. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what they are.’
‘And you’re not a police officer?’
‘No.’
‘But you don’t come from these parts, do you?’
‘No, I don’t. My name is Birgitta Roslin, and I come from Helsingborg. I’d be grateful if you’d get in touch if he turns up again.’
She wrote her address and telephone number on a piece of paper and gave it to Sture Hermansson.
When she emerged into the street she noticed that she was sweating. The Chinese man’s eyes were still following her. She put the cassette into her bag and looked around, unsure of what to do next. She really should be on her way back to Helsingborg — it was already late afternoon. She went into a nearby church and sat down in a pew at the front. It was chilly. A man was kneeling by one of the thick walls, repairing a plaster joint. She tried to think straight. A red ribbon had been found in Hesjövallen. It had been lying in the snow. By coincidence she had succeeded in tracing it to a Chinese restaurant. A Chinese man had eaten there the evening of 12 January. Later that night or early the next morning, a large number of people had died in Hesjövallen.