The police officer wasn’t listening. She produced some photographs and placed them on the table in front of Birgitta Roslin. All of them were of young men.
‘Perhaps you saw something without having registered it.’
There was obviously no point in protesting. Birgitta leafed through the pictures, and it occurred to her that these were young men who might eventually commit a crime that would result in their being executed. Naturally, she didn’t recognise any of them. She shook her head.
‘I’ve never seen any of them before.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain.’
‘None of them?’
‘None.’
The policewoman replaced the photographs in the briefcase. Birgitta noticed that her fingernails were badly bitten.
‘We shall catch the people responsible for the attack,’ said the woman. ‘How much longer will you be staying in Beijing?’
‘Three days.’
The officer nodded, bowed and left the room.
You knew that, Birgitta thought as she fastened the safety chain. That I would be staying for three more days. Why ask me something you knew already? You can’t fool me as easily as that.
She closed her eyes and thought that she should call home.
When she woke up it was dark outside. The pain in her neck was beginning to subside. But the attack seemed even more menacing now. She had a strange feeling that the worst hadn’t actually happened yet. She took out her mobile phone and called Helsingborg. Staffan wasn’t at home, nor did he answer his mobile phone. She left a message, considered calling her children, but decided not to.
She went through the contents of her bag in her head one more time. She had lost sixty dollars. But most of her cash was locked up in the little safe in the wardrobe. She stood up and went to check the safe. It was still locked. She keyed in the code and went through the contents. Nothing was missing. She closed the door and relocked it. She was still trying to work out what had struck her as odd about the policewoman’s behaviour. She stood by the door and tried to call up the scene in her mind’s eye. But in vain. She lay down on the bed again. Thought again about the photographs the policewoman had taken out of her briefcase.
She suddenly sat up. She had opened the door. The policewoman had indicated that she wanted to come in and Birgitta had moved to one side. Then the woman had walked straight over to the chairs by the window. She hadn’t even cast a glance at the open bathroom door, or the part of the room with the large double bed.
Birgitta Roslin could think of only one explanation. The policewoman had been in the room before. She didn’t need to look around. She already knew where everything was.
Birgitta stared at the table where the briefcase and the photographs had been lying. She hadn’t recognised any of the faces she had been asked to study. But was that perhaps really what the police wanted to check? That she couldn’t identify anybody in the pictures? It was not a question of her possibly being able to recognise one of her attackers. On the contrary. The police wanted to make sure that she really hadn’t seen anything.
But why? She stood by the window. A thought she had entertained while still in Hudiksvall came back into her mind.
What has happened is big, too big for me alone.
Fear flooded her before she had time to prepare herself. It was more than an hour before she could pluck up the courage to take the lift to the dining room.
Before she went in through the glass doors, she looked around. But there was nobody there.
24
Birgitta Roslin had been crying in her sleep. Karin Wiman sat up in bed and gently touched her shoulder in order to wake her up.
Karin had come back very late that evening. To make sure that she didn’t lie awake for hours, Birgitta had taken one of the sleeping pills she so seldom used but always had with her.
‘You must have been dreaming,’ said Karin. ‘Something sad that made you cry.’
Birgitta couldn’t remember any dreams. The inner landscape she had just left was completely empty.
‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly five. I’m tired, I need to sleep a bit longer. Why were you crying?’
‘I don’t know. I must have been dreaming, even if I don’t remember what.’
Karin lay down again. She soon fell back to sleep. Birgitta got up and opened a little gap in the curtains. The early-morning traffic was already under way. A few flags straining at their moorings told her that it was going to be another windy day in Beijing.
The fear she had felt after being mugged returned. But she resolved to fight against it, just as she had when she had received numerous threats as a judge. She ran through in her mind once again what had happened, this time being as critical as she possibly could. In the end she was left with the almost embarrassing feeling that her imagination had got the better of her. She suspected conspiracy at every turn, a chain of events that she made up, whereas in reality they were unconnected. She had been mugged; her bag had been snatched. Why the police should be involved in the attack now seemed beyond her comprehension — no doubt they were doing all they could to help. Perhaps she had been crying about herself and her fantasies?
She switched on the lamp and tilted it backwards so that the light didn’t fall on Karin’s side of the bed. Then she started to leaf through the Beijing guidebook she had brought with her. She ticked off in the margin things she wanted to see during the days she had left. First of all she wanted to visit the Forbidden City that she had read so much about and been entranced by ever since she first became interested in China. Another day she wanted to visit one of the Buddhist temples in the city. She and Staffan had often agreed that if by any chance they felt the need to become more closely acquainted with the spiritual world, only Buddhism would fit the bill. Staffan had pointed out that it was the one religion that had never gone to war nor resorted to violence in order to spread its message. It was important for Birgitta that Buddhism recognised only the god that everybody had latent inside his or her self. Understanding its creed meant slowly waking up that inner god.
She went back to bed and slept for a few more hours, then woke up to see Karin naked, stretching and yawning in the middle of the room. An old Rebel with a body that was still quite well preserved, she thought.
‘Now there’s a pretty sight,’ she said.
Karin gave a start, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was until a minute ago. This time I woke up without crying.’
‘Did you dream?’
‘I expect so. But I don’t remember anything. The dreams slipped away and hid. No doubt I was a teenager and unlucky in love.’
‘I never dream about my youth. But I do sometimes imagine myself very old.’
‘We’re not far from that state.’
‘Not yet. I’m concentrating on lectures that I hope are going to be interesting.’
She went into the bathroom, and when she emerged she was fully dressed.
Birgitta still hadn’t mentioned the mugging. She wondered if she should keep it to herself. Among all the emotions surrounding the event was a feeling of embarrassment, as if she should have been able to avoid what had happened. She was normally very alert.
‘I’m going to be just as late this evening again,’ said Karin. ‘But it will be all over by tomorrow. Then it’ll be our turn.’
‘I have long lists,’ said Birgitta. ‘Today it’s going to be the Forbidden City.’
‘Mao used to live there,’ said Karin. ‘Some people maintain that he consciously tried to imitate one of the old emperors. Most likely Qin, who we talk about day after day. But I think that’s malicious slander. Political slander.’