Magdalena shook her head.
‘It wasn’t a lot to ask,’ she said curtly. ‘I got rid of it, of course. And I never saw him again.’
‘Where was the actual abortion done?’ asked Fredrika.
‘Here in Stockholm, at Söder hospital,’ Magdalena said quickly. ‘But it was so early in the pregnancy that I had to wait several weeks before I could have it done.’
Fredrika could see the other woman’s eyes clouding again.
‘It was all very weird. You see, the abortion didn’t work, but they didn’t realize. So I went home thinking the baby was gone, when in fact it was still inside me. A few days later I felt very ill, and miscarried. My body completed the abortion by rejecting the baby, as it were. I think that’s why I never managed to get pregnant again. The infection I got afterwards made me sterile.’
She fell silent. Fredrika swallowed and looked for the right words to formulate the vital question:
‘Where was the abortion completed?’ she asked in a low voice.
Magdalena looked troubled, as if she did not understand.
‘Where did you lose the baby?’ whispered Fredrika.
Magdalena’s face dissolved and she put her hand to her mouth, as if to smother a scream.
‘In the bathroom at Mum and Dad’s house,’ she wept. ‘I lost the baby where he left Natalie.’
Peder Rydh was in a bad mood when he got to work on Sunday. The only bright spot was that he’d managed to make Jimmy’s day when he rang him on the way in.
‘Posh cake soon, Pedda?’ cheered Jimmy on the phone.
‘Posh cake very soon,’ Peder agreed. ‘Maybe even tomorrow.’
Assuming there’s anything to celebrate by then, he added silently to himself.
Peder’s early morning grumpiness was not improved by the fact that Ellen still hadn’t been able to get the results from the files that he’d asked for.
‘That sort of thing takes time Peder; just be patient, please,’ she begged.
He couldn’t stand that phrase, but he had no grudge against Ellen and didn’t want to fall out with her. So he went back into his room before he said something he’d regret.
That night had not afforded him the same peace of mind as the one before. He had slept on the settee, and that had never happened before. He had briefly considered driving to Jimmy’s assisted living unit and bedding down there instead, until he realized how confused and anxious it would make his brother.
Lack of sleep made Peder less than rational, and he knew it. That was why he hadn’t exchanged a single word with Ylva before he left home that morning, and had started his working day with two big cups of coffee.
He sat down at his computer and looked up a few things at random in various registers, but found the task beyond him. He didn’t have full access to the files, and there were some to which he had no access at all.
He opened his filing cabinet and got out all the material he had amassed. He repeated the phrases they had all been trotting out in recent days. What do we know? What don’t we know? And what do we definitely need to know to solve this case?
They thought they knew why: the women were being punished because they had once had abortions. That fitted with the words ‘women who don’t love all children equally are not to have any at all’. To begin with, Peder had interpreted the phrase to mean that the man somehow wanted to punish all women who didn’t literally love all children equally, but now he knew that to be wrong.
What the team did not know, however, was how the man selected these women from among all those in Sweden who had had abortions and then gone on to have children. Could the murderer actually be the father of the ‘rejected’ children? Peder didn’t think it very likely. The murderer was, or had been, on the margins of the women’s lives when they had their abortions. So he could be a doctor, for example. Unless he came across their names later, in old case notes or something like that. In that case, he might not even have known them at the time of the abortions.
Peder sighed. There was an almost infinite number of alternatives to choose from.
He returned doggedly to his notes.
There were several indications that the man they were looking for could be linked in some way to a medical setting, like a hospital. There were the traces of talc from hospital gloves; there were the drugs to which he seemed to have access. Sedatives, but also more lethal substances.
Peder reflected. The drugs weren’t that uncommon in themselves. They were no doubt to be found in every hospital in Sweden. But not all hospitals had staff members who had served sentences for serious crimes of violence. Was that sort of thing checked up on? And if it was, could the man they were looking for have been working in a hospital under a false identity?
Peder doubted it. Surely hospitals kept tabs on that kind of thing? Unless of course the change of name had been done entirely legally.
Peder shuffled his facts this way and that. All the while, the phrase ‘There must be a way of checking this’ was echoing in his head. It became a mantra, a life-buoy to cling on to. Somewhere out there was the man they were looking for. All they had to do was find him…
Peder had no idea how long he had been sitting there, deep in thought, when Fredrika rang to confirm what they had suspected, namely that Magdalena Gregersdotter had also had an abortion years ago. For Peder, the link to the bathroom in Bromma was both tragic and fascinating.
Half an hour later, Fredrika walked into his room. She looked different, in jeans and a cord jacket, with a sleeveless top underneath. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail and she had scarcely any make-up on. Peder was surprised to find how pretty he thought she looked.
‘Have you got time?’ asked Fredrika.
‘Sure,’ he replied.
Fredrika sat down on the other side of the desk. She had a sheaf of papers in her hand.
‘I’ve had the women’s hospital records faxed over,’ she said, brandishing the papers. ‘From the time of their abortions.’
Peder felt reinvigorated.
‘You think the murderer works at a hospital, too?’
‘I think the murderer works, or worked, in some part of the healthcare system,’ Fredrika said guardedly. ‘And I think that’s where the women might have met him. They didn’t necessarily meet him in person, but I still tend to think they did. And I think the reason they don’t remember him today is that his role in their treatment was a very minor one.’
‘A man on the margins,’ Peder mumbled.
‘Just so,’ said Fredrika.
She tossed half the pile of paper onto Peder’s desk.
‘Shall we do this together, while you’re waiting for Ellen to get you your results? Who knows, maybe it could be the shortcut we’ve been looking for.’
It was getting hotter and hotter in Ellen’s office. She could feel her deodorant evaporating and the sweat prickling her skin. She knew this was yet another sign that she was nervous. She always sweated at times like that.
Why had she still heard nothing from Carl? And why had she decided to wait until the evening before she started ringing the hospitals? It felt an indescribably long time away.
Ellen was so anxious she was close to tears. What had really happened? She touched the bouquet of flowers Carl had sent her a few days before. She had so much love to give; why did he have to make it so hard?
My emotions are all over the place, thought Ellen, smiling at what she was finding harder and harder to see as a coincidence.
Then she felt her anxiety and dejection turning to sheer frustration. Not hearing from Carl was one thing, but why weren’t the children answering her texts? Didn’t they realize she’d be worried?
It was late morning, so she was sure they wouldn’t still be asleep. She lifted the receiver of her desk phone and tried ringing the landline instead. She must have let it ring twenty times, but there was no answer.