‘He didn’t do it. What happened that night between the twelfth and thirteenth of January was much bigger than anything a man with a few assault convictions and an ancient homicide would be capable of.’
‘You may be right. But you could also be wrong. Over and over again it turns out that the biggest fishes swim around in the most placid of pools. Bicycle thieves become bank robbers; rowdies turn into professional hit men willing to kill anybody for a sum of money. So why shouldn’t a guy who gets drunk and beats up a few people and maybe even kills the odd one simply go to pieces and commit a horrific crime like the one in Hesjövallen?’
‘But there was no motive,’ she insisted.
‘The prosecutor talks about revenge.’
‘For what? What could justify revenge on a whole village? It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘If the crime doesn’t make sense, the motive doesn’t need to either,’ Malmberg said.
‘Whatever, I think Valfridsson was a red herring.’
‘Is a red herring. What did I say? The investigation continues even if he’s dead. Let me ask you a question. Is your idea of a mysterious Chinese man being responsible much more plausible? How in God’s name can you link a little village in the north of Sweden with a Chinese motive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We shall have to wait and see. And you must make sure to get better soon.’
It was snowing even more as he prepared to leave.
‘Why don’t you take a holiday? Go somewhere warm?’
‘Everybody keeps saying that. I’ll have to clear it with my doctor first.’
She watched him disappear into the swirling snow. She was touched to think that he’d taken the time to visit her.
By the following day the snow had moved on. She kept her appointment with the specialist, had blood samples taken, and was informed that it would be a week or more before all the test results were available.
‘Are there things I’m not allowed to do?’ she asked her new doctor.
‘Avoid unnecessary exertions.’
‘Am I allowed to go on holiday?’
‘That would do you good.’
‘I have another question. Should I be afraid?’
‘No. As you don’t have any other symptoms, you’ve no reason to worry.’
‘So I’m not going to die?’
‘Of course you are. Eventually. So am I. But you’ll be OK as long as we can get your blood pressure down to reasonable levels.’
When she emerged into the street, she recognised that she had been anxious, not to say afraid. Now she felt relieved. She decided to go for a long walk. But she hadn’t gone far before she paused.
The thought struck her from out of the blue. Or maybe she had already reached a decision without knowing it. She went into a cafe and phoned Karin Wiman. The line was busy. She waited impatiently, ordered a coffee, leafed through a newspaper. Tried again. Still busy. She didn’t get an answer until her fifth attempt.
‘I’m going with you to Beijing.’
Birgitta couldn’t get the same flight — she would arrive a day later. Staffan was fine with the idea, even pleased for her.
The evening before she left, Birgitta rummaged through a cardboard box in the garage. Down at the very bottom she found what she was looking for: her old well-thumbed copy of Mao’s Little Red Book. On the inside of the red plastic cover she had written a date: 19 April 1966.
I was a little girl then, she thought. Innocent in almost every way. I’d only once been with a young man, Tore, from Borstahusen, who dreamed of becoming an existentialist and regretted not having much of a beard. I lost my virginity to him in a freezing cold garden shed smelling of mould. All I remember is that he was almost unbearably awkward. Afterwards, all the sticky goo on our bodies became such an embarrassment that we parted as quickly as possible and never again looked each other in the eye. I still wonder what he told his friends. And then came the political storm that carried me away. But I never managed to live up to the knowledge of the world that I acquired. After some time with the Rebels, I hid myself away. I never managed to work out why I’d allowed myself to be lured into what was almost a religious cult. Karin joined the Communist Party. I became linked with Amnesty International, and now I have no political connections at all.
She sat on a pile of old car tyres and skimmed the Little Red Book. She came across a photograph between two of the pages: it was of her and Karin Wiman. She remembered the occasion. They had squeezed into a photo booth at Lund railway station — it was Karin’s idea as usual. She laughed out loud when she saw the photo, but was also scared by the thought of how long ago it was.
The cold wind, she thought. Old age comes creeping up behind me. She put the book of quotations in her pocket and left the garage. Staffan had just come home. She sat down opposite him in the kitchen as he ate the evening meal she had prepared for him.
‘So, is my Red Guard wife ready to go?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just fetched my Little Red Book.’
‘Spices,’ he said. ‘If you want to give a present, bring back some spices. I always maintain there are smells and tastes in China that you don’t find anywhere else.’
‘What else do you want?’
‘You, healthy and happy
‘I think I can deliver that.’
He offered to drive her to Copenhagen the next day, but she thought it would be enough if he took her to the station.
It was a beautiful, clear winter’s day when Staffan Roslin drove his wife to the railway station and waved as her train left the platform. At Kastrup airport she checked in without difficulty and got the aisle seats she wanted on both flights, to Helsinki and Beijing. As the plane took off, and she had the feeling that she was emerging from a locked room, she smiled at the elderly Finn sitting beside her. She closed her eyes, declined anything to eat or drink before reaching Helsinki, and thought back to the time when China had been her paradise, both on earth and in her dreams.
She woke up as the plane began its descent into Helsinki. The wheels came into contact with the concrete of the runway, and she had two hours to fill before her flight to Beijing was due to depart. She sat down on a bench underneath an old aeroplane hanging from the ceiling of the departure hall. It was cold. Through the large picture windows facing the runways, she could see the breath of the ground staff as they worked. She thought about the latest conversation she’d had with Vivi Sundberg a couple of days earlier. Birgitta had asked if they had made any stills from the film in the home-made surveillance camera. They had, and Sundberg didn’t even ask why when Birgitta had asked for a copy of the picture of the Chinese man. The following day an enlargement of the photograph arrived in the post. Now it was in her bag. She took the picture out of the envelope.
So you are one in a billion Chinese faces, Birgitta thought. I shall never find you. I shall never discover who you are. And if the name you gave was genuine. And above all, what you did.
She slowly made her way to the departure gate for the flight to Beijing. A queue was already forming. This is where Asia begins, she thought. Borders are distorted by airports, closer but at the same time further away.
Her seat was 22C. Next to her was a dark-skinned man working for a British company in the Chinese capital. They exchanged a few pleasantries, but neither of them wished to become involved in a serious conversation. She curled up under her blanket. Her excitement had now given way to a feeling of having embarked upon a journey without being properly prepared. What would she actually do in Beijing? Wander the streets, look at people and track down museums? It was quite certain that Karin Wiman wouldn’t have much time to spend with Birgitta. She wondered if something of the insecure Rebel still survived inside her.