Fredrika took down the name and address. Stared at the piece of paper, gazed out of the window. Looked back at the address. She wanted to know more. More, more, more. She took out her mobile to call Spencer.
Spencer. Whose name was written in red ink in a brochure that had been in the possession of the murder victim.
She called home, pressing the telephone close to her ear when she heard his wary voice. An hour. That was all she needed to fit in a visit to Söder, then she would hurry home. She must find time to play her violin for a little while this evening. To dispel those thoughts, to drive away the anxiety and the distraction.
The man’s groaning and moaning grew louder and louder; he could be heard throughout virtually the entire shop. He was out of sight behind a paper-thin closed door, but there wasn’t much doubt what he was up to. Fredrika glanced at the male colleague she had brought with her to the porn shop; he seemed to be finding the whole thing extremely entertaining. He was looking around at the shelves, taking in the rows of dildos and sex toys.
The shop was located in a basement, with the same paucity of light as the garage Fredrika had visited. She peered through the gloom, searching for the owner of the shop and, hopefully, the person responsible for ‘Dreams Come True’. She wanted to get this out of the way and head home as soon as possible.
The door to the small booth accommodating the groaning man flew open and he emerged. He caught Fredrika’s eye. And smiled. She felt her cheeks flush bright red, and looked away. Why didn’t he want the ground to swallow him up? How could he walk out with his head held high when he’d just been masturbating in front of a porn film?
‘Can I help you?’
She couldn’t see where the voice was coming from; she turned and saw a young man who had suddenly appeared behind the counter. She took two firm steps towards him, then stopped, unable to bring herself to move any closer. He smiled at her uncertainty.
She took out her ID and introduced herself and her colleague.
‘It’s about a website.’
The man raised one eyebrow, his expression quizzical.
‘Oh?’
‘Are you the person who started “Dreams Come True”?’
‘Yep. There’s nothing illegal in that.’
Pictures of young girls, on their way to adult life via the internet. How could it be legal to hold the gates of hell wide open for underage girls?
‘We’re looking for a profile that was taken down from the website about two years ago.’
The man burst out laughing and moved over to the till.
‘Two years ago? In that case I can’t help you, unfortunately. Much as I would like to, of course.’
The look in his eyes was so crafty that it took Fredrika’s breath away. Her colleague stepped in.
‘Listen to me, you slimy little bastard. Your website is smack bang in the middle of an investigation into the murder of a woman whose body was dismembered, and if you know what’s good for you and your shop, you will answer my colleague’s questions!’
The man blinked, his pupils dilated.
‘I’m not involved in any murder!’
‘Prove it by helping us!’
The officer’s fist whistled through the air and slammed down on the glass counter. The shop owner stared at the cracked glass and turned to his computer.
‘What was her name?’
‘Rebecca Trolle.’
‘That’s no use to me; what was her alias?’
‘Miss Miracle.’
Just uttering the words made Rebecca feel ill.
‘Her profile has been taken down.’
‘We know that, but we think you’ve kept a copy.’
‘Absolutely not, I can assure you that I never…’
Her colleague moved so fast that Fredrika barely had time to react. In less than a second he had the shop owner pressed up against the wall. Fredrika had heard Peder holding forth when the question of the use of excessive violence by the police arose.
‘We have to speak the language the bastards understand,’ he always used to say.
She looked at her colleague’s back view, the shop owner’s face just visible over his shoulder.
‘We don’t want your fucking assurances because they’re not worth jack shit to us. We want the pictures, get it?’
But what if he hasn’t got any pictures, Fredrika thought, her heart racing.
Her colleague let go of the man, who sank down onto the floor. The shop was full of fear, as palpable as a bad smell.
‘OK, OK.’
To her surprise she saw the owner pick himself up and return to his computer.
‘Oh, yes, now I realise I can call up her history. But it’ll take a minute, all right?’
That was fine, as long as it was only a minute. The feeling that something wasn’t as it should be grew as Fredrika waited for the result. Her colleague stood behind the owner, glowering at the screen. Fredrika tried to remember if she’d ever been in a similar place before; she didn’t think so. Maybe once when she was a student, just for fun. But it hadn’t been like this, in a basement so cut off from reality that there could be no perception of the beautiful day outside.
‘Got it,’ said the owner. ‘The person who uploaded this girl’s profile then took it down did a rubbish job. It hasn’t been removed, it’s just been temporarily shut down.’
‘How come?’
‘Perhaps she didn’t know how it worked. She must have thought she’d removed the profile, when in fact she’d just suspended things temporarily.’
‘She? Who’s she?’
‘The girl who uploaded the profile in the first place.’
‘How do you know it was a girl?’
The man looked at Fredrika as if she was stupid.
‘The person in these pictures looks very much like a girl to me.’
Fredrika suppressed a groan of frustration.
‘We have reason to believe that the girl in these pictures didn’t set up the profile herself.’
The answer came instantly.
‘That’s not my problem.’
Fredrika ignored him.
‘Can you tell who uploaded the profile in the first place?’
‘Possibly; I think I kept the emails. When someone joins the website they have to accept the terms and conditions via email.’
‘And those terms and conditions state that you have the right to use the pictures again, presumably?’
The shop owner shrugged.
‘It’s their choice. Nobody makes them do it.’
Nobody makes them do it.
Fredrika felt nothing but revulsion. And despair. Where was the choice in a place like this?
‘I can give you a name and the IP number of the computer that sent the email. The name is probably false, but you should be able to get somewhere with the IP number.’
Fredrika waited as he wrote; he passed her a grubby scrap of paper folded in half.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And now I’d like to see the pictures.’
The man stepped aside to make room in front of the computer. A click of the mouse and Rebecca Trolle filled the screen. The pictures were not what Fredrika had expected. Rebecca was lying on her side in bed, naked. She appeared to be asleep; it looked completely natural, not as if she had been drugged.
Fredrika leaned closer to the screen.
‘It’s impossible to tell where they were taken,’ she murmured.
The images revealed nothing apart from an ordinary bed and white walls. A small number of photographs above the bed suggested that the room was in someone’s home.
‘When was the profile uploaded?’ she asked.
The man pointed, and Fredrika could see that it was just under two weeks after Rebecca went missing. Why would someone do such a thing if they had nothing to do with the murder? She stared at the screen, desperate to spot some detail that would reveal more about the background to the pictures.
She pointed at Rebecca’s head.
‘Look at the length of her hair; it’s quite short. When she disappeared, it was down to her shoulders.’