“And that was the first time she took revenge?”
“The second time. The first was when she stabbed Zalachenko several times in the shoulder.”
“But now she firebombed his car.”
“Yes. Zalachenko burned like a torch. Lisbeth was committed to St Stefan’s psychiatric clinic.”
“And her mother was admitted to Äppelviken nursing home.”
“For Lisbeth that was the most painful part of the story. Her mother was then twenty-nine, and she was never herself again. She survived at the nursing home for fourteen years, with severe brain injuries and suffering a great deal of pain. Often she could not communicate at all. Lisbeth went to see her as frequently as she could, and I know she dreamed that her mother would one day recover so they could talk again and look after each other. But it never happened. That if anything is the darkest corner of Lisbeth’s life. She saw her mother wither away and eventually die.”
“It’s terrible. But I’ve never understood Camilla’s part in the story.”
“That’s more complicated, and in some ways I think one has to forgive the girl. After all, she too was only a child, and before she was even aware of it she became a pawn in the game.”
“In what way?”
“They chose opposite camps in the battle, you could say. It’s true that the girls are fraternal twins and not alike in appearance, but they also have completely different temperaments. Lisbeth was born first, Camilla twenty minutes later. She was apparently a joy to behold, even when she was tiny. While Lisbeth was an angry creature, Camilla had everyone exclaiming, ‘Oh, what a sweet girl!’ and it can’t have been a coincidence that Zalachenko showed more forbearance towards her from the start. I say forbearance because obviously it was never a question of anything kinder in those first years. Since Agneta was no more than a whore to him, it followed that her children were bastards with no claim on his affections, little wretches who just got in the way. And yet...”
“Yes?”
“And yet even Zalachenko noticed that one of the children was beautiful. Sometimes Lisbeth would say there was a genetic defect in her family and, even though it’s doubtful that her claim would stand up to medical scrutiny, it cannot be denied that Zala fathered some exceptional children. You came across their half-brother, Ronald Niedermann, didn’t you? He was blonde, enormous and had congenital analgesia, the inability to feel pain, so was therefore an ideal hit man and murderer, while Camilla... well, in her case the genetic abnormality was quite simply that she was astoundingly, ridiculously lovely to look at, and that just got worse as she grew older. I say worse because I’m pretty sure that it was a misfortune. The effect may have been exaggerated by the fact that her twin sister always looked sour. Grown-ups were liable to frown when they saw her. But then they would notice Camilla, and light up and go soft in the head. Can you imagine what an affect that must have had on her?”
“It must have been tough to get passed over.”
“I wasn’t thinking of Lisbeth, and I don’t remember seeing any evidence that she resented the situation. If it had just been a question of beauty, she probably would have felt her sister was welcome to it. No, I’m talking about Camilla. Can you imagine what it must do to a child who doesn’t have much in the way of empathy to be told all the time how divine she is?”
“It goes to her head.”
“It gives her a sense of power. When she smiles, we melt. When she doesn’t, we feel excluded, and do absolutely anything to see her beam again. Camilla learned early on to exploit that. She became expert at it, a mistress of manipulation. She had large, expressive doe eyes.”
“She still does.”
“Lisbeth told me how Camilla would sit for hours in front of the mirror, practising her look. Her eyes were a fantastic weapon. They could both bewitch you and freeze you out, make children and adults alike feel special one day and rejected the next. It was an evil gift and, as you might guess, she soon became very popular at school. Everyone wanted to be with her and she took advantage of it in every conceivable way. She made sure that her classmates gave her small presents daily: marbles, sweets, small change, pearls, brooches. And those who didn’t, or generally didn’t behave as she wanted, she wouldn’t even look at the next day. Anyone who had ever found themselves basking in her radiance knew how painful that was. Her classmates did everything they could to be in her good graces. They fawned over her. With one exception, of course.”
“Her sister.”
“That’s right, and so Camilla turned them against Lisbeth. She got some fierce bullying going — they pushed Lisbeth’s head into the toilet and called her a freak and a weirdo and all sorts of names. This went on until one day they found out who they were picking on. But that’s another story, and one you’re familiar with.”
“Lisbeth doesn’t turn the other cheek.”
“No indeed. But the interesting thing in this story from a psychological point of view is that Camilla learned how to dominate and manipulate her surroundings from an early age. She worked out how to control everybody, apart from two significant people in her life, Lisbeth and her father, and that exasperated her. She put a vast amount of energy into winning those fights as well, and she needed totally different strategies for each of them. She could never win Lisbeth over, and pretty soon I think she gave up. In her eyes, Lisbeth was simply strange, just a surly, stroppy girl. Her father, on the other hand...”
“He was evil through and through.”
“He was evil, but he was also the family’s centre of gravity. He was the one around whom everything revolved, even if he was rarely there. He was the absent father. In a normal family such a figure can take on a quasi-mystical status for a child, but in this case it was much more than that.”
“In what way?”
“I suppose I mean that Camilla and Zalachenko were an unfortunate combination. Although Camilla hardly understood it herself, she was only interested in one thing, even then: power. And her father, well, you can say many things about him, but he was not short of power. Plenty of people can testify to that, not least that wretched lot at Säpo. No matter how firmly they tried to put their foot down, they still ended up huddled like a flock of frightened sheep when they came eyeball to eyeball with him. There was an ugly, imposing self-assurance about Zalachenko which was merely amplified by the fact that he was untouchable. It made no difference how many times he was reported to the social welfare agency — the Security Police always protected him. This is what persuaded Lisbeth to take matters into her own hands. But for Camilla, things were completely different.”
“She wanted to be like him.”
“Yes, I think so. Her father was her ideal — she wanted the same aura of immunity and strength. But most of all, perhaps, she wanted to be acknowledged by him. To be seen as a worthy daughter.”
“She must have known how terribly he mistreated her mother.”
“Of course she knew. Yet still she took her father’s side. One could say she chose to side with strength and power. Apparently even as a little girl she often said that she despised weak people.”
“She despised her mother too, do you think?”
“Unfortunately I think you’re right. Lisbeth once told me something which I’ve never been able to forget.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“Isn’t it about time then?”
“Well, maybe, but in that case I need a strong drink. How about a good brandy?”