Dark Secrets Page 22

  “Making the best of the situation you’ve ended up in is a way of dealing with the pain.”

  “It’s a sick way.”

  “Maybe it’s all she has.”

  Typical psychologist. So understanding. All reactions are natural. Everything can be explained. But Vanja had no intention of letting Sebastian get off so easily. She was furious, and had no qualms about taking it out on him.

  “Come on, seriously. Her eyes were red from all that bloody smoke. I’d put money on the fact that she hasn’t even cried, not once. I’ve seen people in shock, but that’s not what this is. She’s just at rock bottom.”

  “I got the impression she has no contact with the feelings we’re expecting. Grief. Despair. Maybe not even empathy.”

  “So why not?’

  “How the fuck should I know? I’ve only spent forty-five minutes with the woman. I suppose she’s shut them down.”

  “You can’t just ‘shut down’ your feelings.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve never heard of people who have been hurt so badly by someone that they choose never to grow attached to anyone again?”

  “There’s a difference. Her child has died. Why would you choose not to react to that?”

  “So that you can manage to go on living.”

  Vanja drove on in silence. There was something.

  Something about Sebastian.

  Something different.

  First of all he had seized on the issue of Roger’s father like a terrier, even though that particular topic had turned out to be of no interest to the investigation after just two questions, and now Vanja thought she could hear a new tone in his voice. More subdued. Less confrontational. Not so keen to be quick, witty, or condescending. No, there was something else. Grief, perhaps.

  “I don’t buy it. It’s just sick, not grieving for her son.”

  “She is grieving, as best she can.”

  “Like hell she is.”

  “How the fuck do you know?” Vanja jumped at the sudden sharpness in Sebastian’s voice. “What the hell do you know about grief? Have you lost someone who means everything to you?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you know what a normal reaction is?”

  “Well, I don’t, but—”

  “No, exactly,” Sebastian broke in. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, so maybe it’s best if you keep your mouth shut from now on.”

  Vanja glanced sideways at Sebastian, surprised by his outburst, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Vanja drove on in silence. We know so little about each other, she thought. You’re hiding something. I know how that feels. Better than you think.

  The open-plan office at the station was more or less in darkness. Here and there a computer screen or a forgotten desk lamp illuminated a small area of the room; otherwise it was dark, empty, and silent. Torkel slowly made his way between the desks toward the staff room. He hadn’t expected Västerås police station to be humming with activity around the clock, but it still came as something of a surprise that large parts of the building were completely dead after 5:00 p.m.

  He reached the staff room, which was fairly impersonal. Three round tables, eight chairs at each. A fridge and freezer, three microwaves, a coffee machine, a sink, a draining board, and a dishwasher along one wall. A plastic flower on a round purple mat in the middle of each table. Scratched linoleum on the floor, easy to clean. No curtains at the three windows. A single telephone on the windowsill. Sebastian was sitting at the table farthest away from the door with a paper cup of coffee in front of him. He was reading Aftonbladet. Torkel had also flicked through it; they’d given Lena Eriksson four pages.

  Well written.

  Exposing her vulnerability.

  According to the article, Lena still believed it was Leonard Lundin who had murdered her son. Torkel wondered how she had taken the news that they had released him today. He had tried calling her several times, but she had never picked up. Perhaps she didn’t know yet.

  Sebastian didn’t look up from the paper, even though he must have heard Torkel’s approach. Only when Torkel pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down did he glance up before resuming his reading. Torkel linked his hands on the table and leaned toward Sebastian.

  “How did it go today?”

  Sebastian turned a page.

  “How did what go?”

  “Everything. The job. You were out with Vanja for some time.”

  “Yes.”

  Torkel sighed. Obviously he wasn’t going to get anything for nothing. He probably wasn’t going to get anything at all.

  “So how did it go?”

  “Fine.”

  Torkel watched Sebastian turn another page and reach the pink supplement. Sports. Torkel knew that Sebastian had no interest in any kind of sport, whether it involved active participation, being a spectator, or reading about it. And yet he seemed to be examining the pages with great interest. As clear a sign as any. Torkel leaned back and watched Sebastian in silence for a few seconds before moving over to the coffee machine for a cappuccino.

  “Do you fancy having dinner somewhere?”

  Sebastian stiffened slightly. There it was. As expected. Not “We must meet up one evening” or “Let’s have a beer sometime.” Dinner.

  Same shit. Different name.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have other plans.”

  A lie. Just like his sudden interest in the sports supplement. Torkel knew it, but decided not to push things. He would only get more lies in response. He took his cup out of the machine, but instead of leaving the room, as Sebastian had expected, he came back to the table and sat down again. Sebastian gave him a brief, quizzical glance then turned his undivided attention to the newspaper once more.

  “Tell me about your wife.”

  He hadn’t expected that. Sebastian looked at Torkel with genuine surprise as his former colleague raised the cup to his lips, completely relaxed, as if he had merely asked what time it was.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Torkel put down the cup and wiped the corners of his mouth with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand before he met Sebastian’s gaze across the table and held it. Sebastian quickly ran through his options.

  Get up and leave.

  Carry on pretending to read.

  Tell Torkel to go to hell.

  Or.

  Tell him about Lily.

  His instinct was to go for one of the first three, but what harm would it do if Torkel knew a little more? No doubt he was asking out of some genuine concern, rather than curiosity. Another outstretched hand. An attempt to revive a friendship that, if not actually dead, was certainly in a deep sleep. You had to admire his persistence. Time for Sebastian to give something back? After all, he could set the boundaries, decide how much. Better that than have Torkel decide to search on the Internet and find out more than Sebastian wanted him to know.

  Sebastian pushed away the newspaper.

  “Her name was Lily. She was German; we met in Germany when I was working there and got married in ’98. Unfortunately I’m not the type who carries a photo around in his wallet.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She was a sociologist. At the university in Cologne. That’s where we lived.”

  “Older than you? Younger? Same age?”

  “Five years younger.”

  Torkel nodded. Three quick questions, three apparently straight answers. Now things were going to get a bit more tricky.

  “When did she die?”

  Sebastian stiffened. Okay, enough. Question time was officially over. There was the line, and Torkel had crossed it.

  “Several years ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s private and you’re not my therapist.”

  Torkel nodded. True, but there had been a time when they had know
n most things about each other. Perhaps it would be overstating the case to say that Torkel had missed those days; he hadn’t given Sebastian more than a passing thought for several years. However, now he was back, now Torkel saw him at work, he realized that his job, and perhaps his life, had been more boring during the years Sebastian hadn’t been around. There were other factors as well as Sebastian’s absence, but still, Torkel couldn’t shake the feeling that he had missed his former colleague. His old friend. More than he had thought he would. Torkel had no expectations that the feeling was mutual, but at least he could give it a try.

  “We used to be friends. All those times you had to hear about my problems, about Monica and the kids and all that crap.” Torkel looked directly at his colleague across the table. “I’m happy to listen.”

  “To what?”

  “To anything you like. If there’s anything you want to tell me.”

  “There isn’t.”

  Torkel nodded. He hadn’t expected it to be easy. After all, he was talking to Sebastian Bergman.

  “Is that why you invited me to dinner? So you could hear my confession?”

  Torkel picked up his coffee cup, buying himself a little time before he answered.

  “I just get the impression you’re not feeling too good.” Sebastian didn’t answer. No doubt there was more to come. “I asked Vanja how things went today. Apart from the fact that she thinks you’re an awkward bastard, she said it seemed as if… I don’t know… She got the feeling that perhaps you were carrying some kind of burden.”

  “Vanja ought to concentrate on her work.” Sebastian stood up, left the newspaper, but took his cup and screwed it up. “And you shouldn’t take any notice of all the crap you hear.”

  He left the room, throwing the cup in the trash can by the door on his way out. Torkel was left alone. He took a deep breath and let the air out very slowly. What had he expected? He should have known better. Sebastian Bergman didn’t allow himself to be analyzed. And he’d lost his dinner companion for the evening. Billy and Vanja were working, and there was no point in thinking about Ursula. But he really didn’t want to sit through another dinner all on his own. He took out his cell.

  Sebastian strode through the deserted office. He was furious. With Torkel, with Vanja, but mostly with himself. Never before had Sebastian given a colleague the feeling that he was “carrying some kind of burden.” Nobody had even been able to hazard a guess at what he was thinking before. The only things they knew about Sebastian were the things he allowed them to know. That was how he had reached the position he used to occupy.

  At the top.

  Admired.

  Feared.

  But he had given himself away in the car. Lost control. And in Lena Eriksson’s apartment, too, when he thought back. Unacceptable. It was his mother’s fault. Hers and those letters. He had to make some kind of decision on what to do about that. Right now it was affecting him more than he could permit.

  There was a light on in the conference room. Through the glass Sebastian could see Billy sitting with his laptop open. Sebastian slowed down. Stopped. Every time he had thought about Anna Eriksson during the day he had come to the conclusion that he ought to forget it. There was too little to gain, too much to lose. But could he do that? Could he just forget what he knew and carry on as if nothing had happened? Probably not. Besides which, it wouldn’t do any harm to have that address if someone could find it. Then he could decide later what he was going to do. Use it or throw it away. Go around there or stay away. He could even go and check out the lay of the land. See what kind of people lived there. Get an idea of how he might be received if he introduced himself. He made a decision. It was just stupid not to keep all his options open.

  He pushed open the door. Billy looked up from his computer.

  “Hi.”

  Sebastian nodded, pulled out a chair, and sat down on the edge of the seat, legs outstretched. He pulled over the fruit bowl on the table and took a pear. Billy had turned back to the computer.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking out Facebook and a few other social networking sites.”

  “Does Torkel let you do that during work hours?”

  Billy looked up at him over the top of the screen, smiled, and shook his head.

  “No chance. I’m checking up on Roger.”

  “Find anything?”

  Billy shrugged his shoulders. It depended on how you looked at it. He had found Roger, but nothing of interest.

  “He wasn’t particularly active. I know he didn’t have a computer of his own, but it’s still more than three weeks since he wrote anything on Facebook. Actually, it’s not so strange that he wasn’t on there more often. He had only twenty-six friends registered.”

  “Is that a small number?” Sebastian knew what Facebook was, of course—he hadn’t spent the last few years living under a rock—but he had never felt the urge to find out exactly how it worked or to become a member, or whatever it was called, himself. He had no desire to keep in touch with old school friends or former work colleagues. The very thought that they might “add” him as a friend and terrorize him with artificially imposed intimacy and stupid trivialities made him feel quite exhausted. In fact, he made a real effort not to associate with anyone, either in real life or in cyberspace.

  “Twenty-six friends is nothing,” said Billy. “You get more than that just by registering, virtually. Same thing on MSN. He hasn’t been on there for more than four months, and his only contact was with Lisa, Erik Heverin, and Johan Strand.”

  “So he had hardly any cyber friends.”

  “Looks that way. No enemies either, though—I haven’t found any bad stuff about him on the Net.”

  Sebastian decided he had pretended to be interested long enough to broach what he had really come for. Why not smooth the way with a little flattery?

  “You’re pretty good with computers, from what I’ve heard.”

  Billy couldn’t suppress the smile that said it was true.

  “Above average. It’s cool, I enjoy it,” he said, rather more modestly.

  “Do you think you might be able to help me with something?”

  Sebastian took the letter out of his inside pocket and tossed it over to Billy.

  “I need to find someone called Anna Eriksson. She was living at this address in 1979.”

  Billy picked up the letter and examined it.

  “Is she connected to the investigation?”

  “Could be, yes.”

  “In what way?”

  Hell, why were they all so keen on sticking to the rulebook in this place? Sebastian was too tired and too slow to come up with a good lie, so he decided to go with something vague, hoping it would suffice.

  “It’s just something I’m following up on my own, a bit of a long shot. I haven’t said anything to the others, but with a bit of luck it may work out.”

  Billy nodded and Sebastian relaxed slightly. He was just about to get up when Billy stopped him.

  “But in what way is it related to Roger Eriksson?” Okay, so that didn’t work. What happened to people just doing as they were told? If it all went pear shaped Billy could always blame Sebastian, who in turn would claim that Billy had misunderstood him. Torkel would get a bit upset. There would be talk of revising procedures. Everything would carry on as normal. Sebastian gave Billy the chance to take the hook without adding any further bait.

  “It’s a long story, but it would be a good thing for you too if you could help me out. I really think this could lead somewhere.”

  Billy turned the envelope over, studied it. Just in case Billy wasn’t going to bite, Sebastian started working out a story in his head. He thought he might say there was a chance that Anna Eriksson could be Roger’s biological mother. No, it wasn’t listed in any adoption register—this was inside information. No, he couldn’t say who from. That might work. If it was biologically possible. Sebastian started calculating. How old would Anna Eriksson have been when sh
e had Roger, in that case? About forty? It worked.

  “Okay.”

  Sebastian came back to reality, unsure of what he had heard, whether he might have missed something.

  “Okay?”

  “Sure, but it’ll have to wait a while. I’ve got a load of files from the CCTV cameras to look at by tomorrow.”

  “Of course, there’s no rush. Thank you.” Sebastian headed for the door. “Just one more thing.”

  Billy looked up from his computer.

  “I’d appreciate it if we could keep this between ourselves. It’s a long shot, as I said, and people like nothing more than to gloat if someone gets it wrong.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  Sebastian smiled gratefully and left the room.

  Limone Ristorante Italiano. She had made the reservation, but Torkel got there first and was shown to a corner table next to two windows, with metal spheres the size of bowling balls hanging from the ceiling. A table for four. Two sofas instead of chairs. Hard, straight-backed. Upholstered in a dark purple fabric. Torkel sipped a beer straight from the bottle. Had this been a bad idea? Inviting Hanser to dinner? Although he hadn’t really asked her out per se. He just wanted to have a more in-depth discussion about the case with her; their brief meetings during the day had only scratched the surface, and he might as well do that over a meal as in her office. Admittedly Hanser had voluntarily taken a step back and allowed them to run the investigation as they wished, but it was important to remember that she was ultimately responsible, and Torkel had the feeling he had been a little grumpy with her lately.

  Hanser arrived, apologized for being late, sat down, and ordered a glass of white wine. The local police chief had sought her out to check on the current state of things. He was concerned at the news that they had released Leonard Lundin and keen to hear that another arrest was imminent. Of course, she had to disappoint him. He was also under pressure: the interest from the press, particularly the tabloids, had not diminished at all. At least four pages, every single day. The interview with Lena Eriksson was repackaged and presented as something new. They focused on Roger’s loneliness, speculated that the perpetrator may not have been known to Roger. In which case it could happen again. An “expert” explained that when a person killed for the first time—which could be the case in this instance—they crossed a line from which there was no way back. It was likely that this person would kill again. Probably quite soon. Good old-fashioned scaremongering journalism, in the same category as the latest pandemic hysteria, or the COULD YOUR HEADACHE BE A BRAIN TUMOR? headlines. Expressen had managed to sniff out the cock-up from the first weekend when the boy’s disappearance wasn’t followed up, and they were questioning the efficiency of the police. In connection with the article they had already produced information panels on other unsolved murder cases, with the murder of Olof Palme at the top. Hanser explained that she was meeting Torkel and hoped to have more information for the chief superintendent the following day. He had settled for that, but before he left he made it clear that (a) he hoped it had not been a mistake to call in Riksmord, and (b) if it had been a mistake, then she and no one else would bear the responsibility.