Professor Hanke, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be a young woman with long blond hair and a pretty face, dressed in black leather pants and a low-cut top. Linda saw that it threw her father. Hanke walked around the room shaking hands and then sat down in the chair that was pulled up next to Lisa Holgersson.
“My name is Sofia Hanke,” she said. “I’m a professor at the university and wrote my dissertation on the Christian paradigm shift in Sweden after World War II.”
She opened her portfolio and took out the Bible that had been found in the hut.
“This has been fascinating,” she said. “But I know that you don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll try to make it brief. The first thing I want to say is that I believe this is the work of one person, not because of the handwriting, but because there is a kind of logic to what is written here.”
She looked in a notebook and continued, “I’ve chosen an example to illustrate what I mean, from Romans chapter seven. By the way, how many of you know the Bible? Perhaps it’s not part of the current curriculum at the police academy?”
Everyone who met her gaze shook his or her head, except Nyberg, who surprised everyone by saying, “I read from the Bible every night. Foolproof way to induce sleep.”
Everyone laughed, including Sofia Hanke.
“I can relate to that experience,” she said. “I ask mainly because I’m curious. In any case, Romans chapter seven discusses the human tendency to sin. It says, among other things, ‘Yes, the good that I wish to do, I do not; but the evil that I do not wish to do, I do.’ Between these lines our writer has rearranged good and evil. The new version reads: ‘Yes, the evil that I wish to do, I do; but the good that I do not wish to do, I do not do.’ St. Paul’s message is turned upside down. One of the grounding assumptions of Christianity is the idea that humans want to do what is right, but always find reasons to do evil instead. But the changed version says that humans do not even want to do what is right. This sort of thing happens again and again in the changes. The writer turns texts upside down, seemingly to find new meanings. It would be easy to assume that this is the work of a deranged soul, but I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with. There is a strained logic to these changes. I think the writer is hunting for a significance he or she believes is concealed in the Bible, something that is not immediately apparent in the words themselves. He or she is looking between the words.”
“Logic,” Wallander said. “What kind of logic is there in something this absurd?”
“Not everything is absurd; some of it is straightforward. There are also other texts in the margin. Like this quote: ‘All the wisdom life has taught me can be summed up in the words ‘he who loves God, is blessed.’”
Linda saw that her father was getting impatient.
“Why would someone do this? Why do we find a Bible in a secret hut where a woman has been the victim of a bestial murder?”
“It could be a case of religious fanaticism,” Hanke said. Wallander leaned forward.
“Tell me more.”
“I normally refer to something I call Preacher Lena’s tradition. A long time ago, a milkmaid in Östergötland had mystical visions and started preaching. After a while she was taken to an insane asylum, but these people have always been around: religious fanatics who either choose to live as lone preachers or who try to gather a flock of devotees. Most of these people are honest to the extent that they act out of a genuine belief in their divine inspiration. Of course there have always been con artists, but they are in the minority. Most of these people preach their beliefs and start their sects from a genuine desire to do good. If they commit crimes or evil deeds, they often try to legitimize these acts in the eyes of their God, by interpretation of Bible verses, for example.”
The discussion with Sofia Hanke continued, but Linda could already tell that her father was thinking about other things. These scribbles between the lines of the Bible found in the Rannesholm hut hadn’t yielded any clues. Or had they? She tried to read his thoughts, something she had been practicing since early childhood. But there was a big difference between being alone with him at home and being in a conference room full of people at the police station, like now.
Nyberg escorted Sofia Hanke out, and Holgersson opened a window. The pizza cartons were starting to empty. Nyberg returned. People walked around, talked on the phone, went to get cups of coffee. Only Linda and her father stayed at the table. He looked at her absently and then retreated into his own thoughts.
When they started their long meeting, Linda was quiet and no one asked her any questions. She sat there like an invited guest. Her father looked at her a few times. If Birgitta Medberg had been a person who mapped old, overgrown paths, then her father was a person who was looking for passable roads to travel. He seemed to have an endless patience, even though he had a clock inside him ticking quickly and loudly. That’s what he had told her once when he was in Stockholm and met with Linda and a few of her student friends and told them about his work. During times of enormous pressure, like when he knew a person’s life was in danger, he had a feeling that there was a clock ticking away on the right side of his chest, parallel to his heart. Outwardly, however, he was patient, and he only displayed any signs of irritation if anyone started to leave the subject: where was Zeba?
The meeting went on, but from time to time someone made or received a call, or left and returned with some document or a photograph that was immediately worked into the investigation.
Chief Holgersson closed the door at a quarter past eight after a short break. Now no one was allowed to disturb them. Wallander took off his coat, rolled up the sleeves of his dark blue shirt, and walked up to the large pad of paper propped up on the easel. On a blank sheet of paper he wrote Zeba’s name and drew a circle around it.
“Let’s forget about Medberg for the moment,” he said. “I know it may be a fatal mistake, but right now there is no logical connection between her and Harriet Bolson. It may be the same perpetrator or perpetrators, we don’t know. But my point is that the motive seems different. If we leave Medberg, we see that it is much easier to find a connection between Bolson and Zeba. Abortion. Let us assume that we are dealing with a number of people — we don’t know how many — who with some religious motivation judge and punish women who have had abortions. I use the word assume here since we don’t know. We only know that people have been murdered, animals killed, and churches burned to the ground. Everything that has happened gives us the impression of systematic and thorough planning.”
Wallander looked at the others, then went back to his place at the table and sat down.
“Let us assume everything is part of a ceremony,” he said. “Fire is an important symbol in many similar cases. The burning of the animals may have been a sacrifice of some kind. Harriet Bolson was executed in front of the altar in a way that could be interpreted as ritual sacrifice. We found a necklace with a sandal pendant around her neck.”
Lindman lifted his hand and interrupted him.
“I’ve been wondering about that note with her name on it. If it was left there for us, then why?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Doesn’t it suggest that we are in fact dealing with a lunatic who challenges us, who wants us to try to catch him?”