She ripped out a sheet of paper and placed it on the table.
‘Draw a map of the village,’ she said. ‘Your house and all the rest. Then we’ll give each one a number. Your house is number one. I want to know the names of everybody who lived in each of the houses.’
The woman stood up and fetched a bigger sheet of paper. She sketched out the village. Sundberg could see that she was used to drawing.
‘How do you earn your living?’ Sundberg asked.
‘We’re day traders — stocks and shares.’
It occurred to Vivi Sundberg that nothing ought to surprise her any more. Why shouldn’t a pair of ageing hippies in a village in Hälsingland deal in stocks and shares?
‘And we talk a lot,’ Ninni added. ‘We tell each other stories. People don’t usually do that nowadays.’
Sundberg felt the conversation was drifting away from the point.
‘The names, please,’ she said. ‘Preferably ages as well. Take your time so that you get it right.’
She watched the pair of them huddled over the piece of paper, muttering to each other. The thought crossed her mind — maybe one of the villagers was responsible for the massacre.
Fifteen minutes later, she had the list in her hand. The number didn’t tally. They were a name short. That must be the boy. She stood by the window and read through the list. There seemed to be basically three families in the village: the Anderssons, the Andréns and two people by the name of Magnusson. As she stood there with the list in her hand, she considered all the children and grandchildren who had moved away, who a few hours from now would be hit by this terrible news. Many, many people would be affected, and the resources required would be considerable.
All the first names flitted through her mind: Elna, Sara, Brita, August, Herman, Hilda, Johannes, Erik, Gertrud, Vendela... She tried to picture their faces in her mind’s eye, but they were blurred.
Then a thought suddenly struck her, something she had overlooked entirely. She went outside and shouted for Erik Huddén, who was talking to one of the forensic officers.
‘Erik, who was it that discovered all this?’
‘Some guy called us — had a heart attack and crashed into a truck with a Bosnian driver.’
‘Could he be the one responsible for all this?’
‘Maybe. His car was full of cameras. Probably a photographer.’
‘Find out what you can about him. Then we need to set up some kind of HQ in that house over there. We have to go through the list of names and find their next of kin. What happened to the truck driver?’
‘He was breathalysed, but he was sober. He spoke such poor Swedish they took him to Hudiksvall instead of interrogating him in the middle of the road. But he didn’t seem to know anything.’
Huddén left. As she was going back indoors she noticed a police officer running along the road towards the village. She went to the gate and waited for him.
‘We’ve found the leg,’ he said, clearly shaken. ‘The dog uncovered it about fifteen yards in among the trees.’
He pointed towards the edge of the forest. There was more, judging from his expression.
‘Was that all?’
‘I think it’s best if you take a look yourself,’ he said.
Then he turned away and threw up. She left him to it and hurried towards the trees. She slipped and fell twice.
When she arrived she could see what had upset the officer. In places the flesh had been gnawed off the leg to the bone. The foot had been bitten off completely.
She looked at Ytterström and the dog handler who were standing next to the find.
‘A cannibal,’ said Ytterström. ‘Is that what we’re looking for? Did we arrive and spoil his meal?’
Something touched Sundberg’s hand. She gave a start. But it was only a snowflake, which soon melted.
‘A tent,’ she said. ‘We need a tent here. I don’t want the footprints obliterated.’
She closed her eyes and suddenly saw a blue sea and white houses climbing up a warm hillside. Then she went back to the day traders’ house and sat down in their kitchen with the list of names.
There must be something somewhere I haven’t noticed, she thought.
She started to work her way slowly through the list. It was like walking through a minefield.
4
Vivi Sundberg had the feeling that she was studying a memorial to the victims of a major catastrophe, a plane crash or a sunken ship. But who would raise a memorial for the people of Hesjövallen who had been murdered one night in January 2006?
She slid the list of names to one side and stared at her trembling hands. She was unable to keep them still.
She shuddered, and picked up the list once again.
Erik August Andersson
Vendela Andersson
Hans-Evert Andersson
Elsa Andersson
Gertrud Andersson
Viktoria Andersson
Hans Andrén
Lars Andrén
Klara Andrén
Sara Andrén
Elna Andrén
Brita Andrén
August Andrén
Herman Andrén
Hilda Andrén
Johannes Andrén
Tora Magnusson
Regina Magnusson
Eighteen names, three families. She stood up and went into the room where the Hanssons were sitting on the sofa, whispering to each other. They stopped when she entered.
‘You said there weren’t any children in this village? Is that right?’
They both nodded.
‘And you haven’t seen any children during the last few days?’
‘When sons or daughters of the old folk come to visit, they sometimes bring their own children with them. But that doesn’t happen often.’
Sundberg hesitated before continuing.
‘Unfortunately there is a young boy among the dead,’ she said.
She pointed at one of the houses. The woman stared at her, eyes wide open.
‘You mean he’s dead as well?’
‘Yes, he’s dead. If what you’ve written is accurate, he was in the house with Hans-Evert and Elsa Andersson. Are you sure you don’t know who he is?’
They turned to look at each other, then shook their heads. Sundberg went back to the kitchen. He’s the odd one out, she thought. Him and the couple living in this house, and Julia who suffers from dementia and has no conception of this catastrophe. But somehow or other, it’s the boy that doesn’t fit in.
She folded up the sheet of paper, put it in her pocket and went out. A few snowflakes were drifting down. All around her was silence. Disturbed only by an occasional voice, a door being closed, the clicking of a forensic tool. Erik Huddén came towards her. He was very pale. Everybody was pale.
‘Where’s the doctor?’ she asked.
‘Examining the leg.’
‘How’s she doing?’
‘She’s shocked. The first thing she did was to disappear into a toilet. Then she burst out crying. But there are more doctors on the way. What shall we do about the reporters?’
‘I’ll speak to them.’
She took the list of names from her pocket.
‘The boy doesn’t have a name. We must find out who he is. Make sure this list is copied, but don’t hand it out.’
‘This is beyond belief,’ said Huddén. ‘Eighteen people.’
‘Nineteen. The boy’s not on there.’