But why the hell had he applied for a new passport?
When Spencer was arrested, he had been unaware that Tova had raised the stakes and accused him of rape. So why did he need a passport?
He must have realised that he figured in the murder investigation Fredrika was working on. That was the only conclusion that made sense. What was less easy to understand was why he had decided not to confide in Fredrika. Why hadn’t he mentioned it to her? And why hadn’t she talked to him?
Or had she? Fredrika thought back to the times when she had confronted Spencer over the past week. About his problems at work, about how he knew Rebecca Trolle. He hadn’t said a word about any of it. She felt the tears threatening once more. Had they lost the most important ingredient in their relationship, the ability to talk about anything?
If we have, it’s all over.
Fredrika got out of bed and fetched her bag. She had brought some work home. She got back into bed and sat cross-legged. She re-read the short piece Rebecca Trolle had put together about the film club known as The Guardian Angels – the group that provided yet another link between Spencer and the investigation. Alex had told her that according to one of Rebecca’s fellow-students, Rebecca had approached Spencer for more than one reason. She wanted him to act as her supervisor, but his name had also come up in her research.
Because of the film club, Fredrika thought.
She read the last word on the page.
Snuff.
The word did not occur anywhere else, and no explanation was given. Just before Spencer’s phone call from Uppsala, Torbjörn Ross had mentioned just such a film. Or at least he had talked about the filming of the books Thea Aldrin had allegedly written.
Fredrika went into the library and found one of Spencer’s film lexicons. As far as she knew, the idea that there had ever been genuine snuff movies was a myth, as was the belief that there had ever been a demand for them. The expression ‘snuff movie’ was first used in the early 1970s, based on the English expression ‘to snuff it’, or die. According to legend, violent films were secretly produced, recording real murders and rapes; these films were then sold for vast sums of money. The victims were often homeless prostitutes, and the purchasers of the finished product were rich and influential individuals with perverted tendencies.
According to the lexicon, no police authority had ever reported the discovery of a genuine snuff movie – in every suspected case the film had turned out to be a clever fake, which meant that the victim had not died, but had survived. The closest approximation was murderers who filmed their own crimes so that they could watch them over and over again, but in those cases the murder itself was more important than the recording, and the films were not made with the intention of selling them.
Fredrika replaced the book on the shelf. Why did the word come up in Rebecca’s notes at all? Had she made the same link as Torbjörn Ross had done between Thea Aldrin and Mercury and Asteroid? Although how could that be? There had never been anything in the press about the film Ross had referred to.
Fredrika glanced through the piece on The Guardian Angels again. There was no indication as to why Rebecca thought the group might be associated with snuff movies. Admittedly several of the members fulfilled the criteria for the type of person who was allegedly interested in that kind of thing, but Fredrika found it difficult to see how Rebecca could have established such a connection.
Fragments of conversations and all the information she had acquired during the past week drifted through her weary mind. Rebecca’s supervisor had compared her dissertation to a police investigation. Her mother had said something similar, but Fredrika could see no evidence that Rebecca had been in touch with the police to discuss Thea Aldrin’s case. At least Rebecca hadn’t made a note of any such contact.
Or had she? Had they missed it? Fredrika dug out her copy of Rebecca’s diary and the list of unidentified initials:
HH, UA, SL and TR.
TR?
Torbjörn Ross. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Fredrika scrabbled through her papers, searching for the lists of phone calls. Had anyone noticed that Rebecca had called the police? She couldn’t remember it being mentioned, but on the other hand it wouldn’t have seemed particularly noteworthy. People called the police all the time, for a wide variety of reasons.
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became: Rebecca Trolle must have been in touch with Torbjörn Ross. In which case, why hadn’t Ross said anything, either when Rebecca originally went missing, or when she was found dead? Torbjörn Ross, who still visited Thea Aldrin on a regular basis, with the aim of getting her to confess to a murder no one even knew for sure had been committed. Torbjörn Ross, who believed Thea had written some of the most controversial literary works in the whole of the twentieth century. And who thought it was possible to link Thea Aldrin to a violent film his colleagues believed was a fake. What was he actually hiding?
When Alex woke up, he had no idea where he was at first. The long, thin white curtains were unfamiliar, as were the white sheets and the pale striped wallpaper. The memories came flooding back as he turned his head and saw Diana lying beside him, sleeping on her stomach and facing away from him.
Instinctively, he sat up, running a hand through his hair, peppered with grey. The sensation spreading through his body was both pleasant and frightening. He had made love with a woman other than Lena. Should he be apologising to someone?
The idea almost made him let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh. The children certainly wouldn’t be interested in an apology; they wanted nothing more than for him to move on. They might be surprised that things had happened so quickly, but on the other hand, they didn’t need to know right away.
He lay down again, taken aback by thoughts and feelings he didn’t recognise. Not everything that had happened during the night was a good idea. He had gone to bed with the mother of a murder victim whose death he was in charge of investigating. The police weren’t in the habit of turning a blind eye to that kind of behaviour. He could be in big trouble if anyone found out what he was up to.
But he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
That was his one recurring thought. And it was liberating.
It was also liberating, and calming, to wake up next to a person he knew he wanted to see again. Many of his friends and colleagues had found themselves alone following a bereavement or divorce, and had embarked on a constant search for a woman who didn’t exist – who couldn’t exist – making it impossible for them to sustain a new relationship.
Alex had promised himself he would never be one of them.
At the same time, the grief was overwhelming. He could never find what he had had with Lena with another woman. There would be no more children, no new family. Everything that lay ahead of him would forever be incomplete, damaged.
His mobile rang; Diana stirred as he answered.
‘Jimmy’s gone missing,’ Peder said.
‘Missing?’
‘They rang from the assisted living complex yesterday. Ylva and I have been out looking for him all night. It’s as if the ground has swallowed him up.’
Peder’s voice was thin and high, full of an anxiety that made Alex forget everything else.
‘I presume the police are involved?’
‘Of course. But they can’t find him either.’
‘Right, listen to me. If you’ve been out all night, you need to go home and get some sleep. I don’t bloody want you…’
‘I’m not going anywhere until we find him.’
There’s nothing quite as irrational as a person who has been deprived of sleep; Alex knew that only too well.