Fredrika felt sick. Shortly before midnight she gave up, got out of bed and went into the kitchen. She made some coffee and read the previous day’s newspaper without taking in what she was reading. Restlessness drove her to the nursery; she had to check that Saga was asleep, that she was all right. She was fine. Through talking to the mothers in the parents’ group – which was actually a mothers’ group – she had realised that Saga’s ability to sleep soundly was a blessing. She went down after she had been fed in the evening, and didn’t wake until half past six in the morning. At the earliest.
As she stood there in her daughter’s bedroom, Fredrika could hardly believe that it was only a few days since she had been on full time maternity leave. Had it gone too fast, she asked herself? Would Saga be damaged by Fredrika’s abrupt disappearance from her life? She didn’t think so. It wasn’t as if she had put Saga into day care; she was at home with her father.
Fredrika couldn’t help smiling. Spencer as a father. She would never have believed it that first time she and Spencer met outside the university, and he went home with her. Not then and not later on. She had loved him, but she had never counted on him. Not until now.
The last year had been unimaginably turbulent. Spencer had taken the step from being her secret lover to becoming her partner with astonishing ease. After some initial hesitation, her parents had understood how important he was to her, and had accepted him. On one occasion when Fredrika had gone away for the weekend to visit a friend in Malmö, Spencer had actually gone to dinner at her parents’ on his own.
‘Why not?’ Fredrika had said. ‘You’re the same age, after all.’
Age wasn’t an issue for Fredrika, but she knew perfectly well that few people shared that view. The mothers in the group looked horrified when Fredrika talked about Saga’s daddy. They smiled, but their eyes betrayed sheer panic. They found her life choices challenging; she made them feel insecure about what they had.
Fredrika went back to the kitchen. The mothers’ group was the last thing to provide her with peace of mind. If she wanted to sleep, she needed to think about something else.
But not Rebecca Trolle.
Those pictures again, almost like a film. The chainsaw raised in the air, cutting and slicing and hacking. Fredrika covered her eyes with her hands; wanting the images to disappear. Think about something else, think about something else.
If Rebecca Trolle had lived and had chosen to carry her baby to full term, she would have been a young mother in Stockholm. More than ten years younger than Fredrika. Rebecca hadn’t wanted to keep the child; Fredrika could feel it in every fibre of her body. She had gone to the clinic, discussed a termination. She hadn’t told a single friend. Was she so lonely, or was there another reason why she kept quiet about such an important matter?
Peder and the other officers had asked around among Rebecca’s circle of friends, reminding each one that this was a confidential matter. They didn’t want the media to find out about the pregnancy yet. No one had heard that Rebecca was pregnant, but several had heard that she was selling sex over the Internet. How was that possible?
The answer was simple: it wasn’t possible.
The two were incompatible. A person with secrets of that magnitude would not be so involved in their studies, the church choir, friends, the mentoring network, teaching babies to swim.
The pregnancy was indisputable; it was a medical fact. But the rumour that Rebecca had been selling sex was not. It was an alien concept; it just didn’t fit.
Her mind full of anxious thoughts, Fredrika returned to the bedroom and lay down next to Spencer.
‘Can’t you sleep?’ he murmured.
She didn’t answer, but crept closer and laid her head on his arm.
She was thinking about Rebecca Trolle.
About the body in the plastic sacks.
About the violence to which she had been subjected.
The chainsaw. It said something about the murderer, something Fredrika just couldn’t grasp. She was struck by a sudden, unstoppable thought: routine. He kills as a matter of routine.
INTERVIEW WITH FREDRIKA BERGMAN, 02-05-2009, 17.30 (tape recording)
Present: Urban S, Roger M (interrogators one and two). Fredrika Bergman (witness).
Urban: In spite of the fact that you found a second victim, you still subscribed to the theory that Håkan Nilsson was the killer?
Fredrika: We didn’t subscribe to any particular theory; we were keeping an open mind.
Roger: And the second victim, what happened there?
Fredrika: It took time to secure an identification.
Urban: Because you made mistakes.
Fredrika: Because we stuck to facts.
Roger: And Peder Rydh? Did he stick to the rules?
Fredrika: All the time.
Urban: And Alex Recht?
Fredrika: He stuck to the rules as well.
Urban: I was thinking more in terms of his mental state.
Fredrika: He was fine throughout.
Roger: And what about you?
Fredrika: I was fine too.
Urban: We were thinking more of the issue of sticking to the rules.
(Silence.)
Fredrika: I don’t understand the question.
Urban: We’re wonder if you followed the letter of the law and stuck to the rules when you were carrying out your work.
Fredrika: Of course.
Roger: You didn’t suppress any evidence?
(Silence.)
Urban: Not when you went through Rebecca’s things in the garage?
Fredrika: No.
(Silence.)
Roger: So what about Thea Aldrin? You must have found her by this stage?
Fredrika: No, we hadn’t.
Urban: Isn’t that a bit odd?
Fredrika: The investigation was complicated by the fact that the victims had been in the ground for such a long time. We were constantly waiting for test results and analyses. It took a while.
Urban: That’s obviously a downside of being meticulous; everything is so slow.
Roger: What happened next? You were about to bring in both Håkan Nilsson and Gustav Sjöö. But you went off on a tangent of your own as usual. Isn’t that correct?
(Silence.)
Urban: It was your idea to go through Rebecca’s belongings in the garage, wasn’t it?
Fredrika: Yes.
Roger: And what did you find?
(Silence.)
Urban: Answer the question, please.
(Silence.)
Roger: That was when you found Spencer, wasn’t it?
Fredrika (whispering): Yes.
FRIDAY
13
A second body buried next to the first one. Thea drank her coffee out of the same stupid mug as always, then banged it down on the table. The shock was making her chest feel tight. Who was the man who had been laid to rest just a few metres away from Rebecca Trolle? The police were refusing to comment; they had merely stated that the deceased was a man, and that he had probably been lying there for at least two decades, possibly three.
Two decades. That was a long time to be missing.
Thea reached for the morning paper. The discovery of the two bodies was a major story. The editorial team dealt with a lot of news, but rarely anything as exciting as a double murder. The press were asking if there might be a link, in spite of the time that had elapsed between the deaths. And the police were saying nothing.
They were saying nothing because they knew nothing.
Thea’s father had been a police officer, which was why she believed she knew how the police thought. He had visited her in prison just once. She couldn’t make up her mind whether the number of visits was a measure of his inadequacy as a father or a judgement on her.
‘You have to start speaking, Thea,’ he had said. ‘If there’s anything you want to put forward in your defence, you must speak now. Now. Otherwise it will be too late.’
Her silence had provoked him.
‘The evidence is overwhelming. There is nothing to suggest that you are innocent. I just don’t understand. How did you become so… disturbed?’