Missing (19 page)

P
atrik went back downstairs to commune with his computer. Meanwhile, she was impatiently pacing the corridor to pass the time.

The donor must have died just before 15 March, 1998. How could they find out who he or she was? Maybe there were lists of donors in that secret world Patrik could access through his computer. If there were, she felt certain he would find it. Everything seemed to be connected by that strange Net of his.

He mustn't say anything to his mother. She had forbidden him, deciding that she preferred to stay chief suspect for however long it took to find the answer alone. The police might be on the same trail – but why would they be? They knew who the murderer was already.

When Patrik returned, he had no good news to bring. There were no officially available registers of dead individuals, only general mortality statistics. It was not helpful to know that during the year, 93,271 people had died.

‘I've checked the sites of the Population
Register and the Central Statistical Bureau, but they won't let you in on the actual lists without permission from the Data Inspection Office.'

He looked so young in his dejection that Sibylla had to smile.

‘You've got to be an exceptionally smart fifteen-year-old!'

He turned his head away but she had already noticed how he blushed.

‘Bah.'

They sat in silence for a while. Chasing murderers from hiding places in attics wasn't easy. Then Sibylla remembered something.

‘I've got it. What we need is access to the Donor Register.'

‘What's that?'

She knew more than he did this time and the feeling made her smile inside, even though her superior knowledge was very recent. She wasn't as thick as he might have thought, no poor helpless soul he could save by his bravery. Besides, she was twice his age and she wanted him never to forget that simple fact.

She fetched the pile of papers from her armchair, leafing through them until she found what she was looking for.

‘Here, in the documentation from the Health and Welfare Board. Information about donations. Listen to what it says.'

She read aloud.

‘Question: Can relatives have access to information
held in the register?

Answer: It is a criminal offence for outsiders
to attempt access to the register. The routine
precautions are designed to maintain the highest
data security. Only a few people are authorised
to search the register. Each authorisation refers
to one individual, i.e. it is not transferable.'

She flicked the paper out of her hand and let it float away.

‘Ah, well. It seemed a good idea at the time.'

He looked intently at her.

‘How much is it worth to you to find out what the Register says?'

‘A lot.'

‘Several thousand?'

She hesitated for a moment. Several thousand might mean half a bedroom.

‘What's this about?'

‘I know a guy who might check it out. For a down-payment, a big one.'

‘How do you know people like that?'

‘I don't, but his brother goes to my school. The kid brother is like royalty after the big guy served time for hacking data.'

This was not easy. However much she wanted the information, she wanted even less to risk having Patrik involved in breaking the law.

‘How old is “the big guy”?'

Patrik shrugged.

‘Don't know. Like, twenty?'

She thought it over. This was their one chance to move on. They had come so far already. She sighed.

‘You're on. He gets three thousand for the name.'

S
he had decided to go there herself. It was her problem and, besides, she definitely didn't want Patrik to get involved in this shady affair. He had helped enough by anonymously arranging the deal using his father's mobile phone. The price had been agreed. Four thousand kronor.

Sibylla touched the purse round her neck, feeling its shrinking bulge. It was hard, but what choice did she have?

Patrik had asked why she was hauling the rucksack along, and was told the simple reason. She never left it anywhere, except in the Left Luggage at Central Station. It meant she had security in the shape of a locker key or a receipt.

The master hacker lived on Kock Street, only a few minutes' walk away. Patrik stopped outside the door and pressed the buzzer. The door clicked open at once.

‘Are you waiting round here?'

He was still disappointed that she wouldn't let him join her.

‘Patrik, this is the best idea – honestly.'

The door slammed behind her. She walked upstairs to the second floor, where a young man with sleek blond hair stood waiting at the door to a flat. Sibylla stopped and they examined each other in silence.

After a few seconds of this, he opened the door wide for her. He was wearing a white T-shirt, revealing muscular arms with prominent veins. He must have worked out hard in prison. As he walked ahead of her into the flat, she noticed that his hair had been pulled back in a long pony-tail.

The flat was small, just a single room with a kitchenette. The sink was so full of dishes she wondered if he ever washed up. There was a rack with a set of dumb-bells in a corner. Next to it, a yellow electric guitar was leaning against its amplifier. A long window wall was entirely taken up by computer equipment and other electronic goods she couldn't even guess the function of. Presumably, this was the kind of kit self-respecting hackers simply couldn't live without. Two of the screens showed a series of letters and numbers scrolling past quickly. She moved towards them to see what was going on.

He stepped into her path.

‘Not so fast. It's practically ready. Let's do the paying first, shall we?'

She was clutching the notes in her pocket.

‘No problem.'

He took the bundle without checking it.

‘Sit down over there.'

He was pointing to a stool well away from the computers, in fact almost inside the small hallway. She did as she was told, keeping her rucksack on her back but resting it a little against the wall behind her.

She couldn't see much from where she was sitting, but by leaning forward it was possible to watch him working on one of the computers. He was writing things using the keyboard and his fingers were moving at an incredible speed. She marvelled at his skill and wondered how his huge hands could work with such precision.

‘You're in luck.'

He was muttering, not taking his eyes off the screen.

‘Someone went in for a search just now, so all we need to do is hang on.'

He stopped keying and she sat upright again, looking at the wall. She didn't want to be caught out spying on him.

Would he recognise any of the names from the newspapers? Jörgen Grundberg's name had been used a lot, almost as often as her own.

When she heard him get up from the chair, she rose too. Then he come over, holding out one folded sheet of A4 paper.

‘Done.'

She took the paper without taking her eyes off his face.

‘You're sure it's the right person?'

He smiled, clearly never having heard such a stupid question before.

‘Yes, don't worry.'

He sounded soothing.

‘Depends, of course. But he's the guy whose organs were transplanted into the names on your list.'

He looked quizzically at her.

‘Weren't they all murdered afterwards? By some character called Sibylla?'

She didn't answer. He smiled broadly.

‘Just so that we know where we are, you know.'

She put the paper in her pocket, unafraid because he couldn't threaten to reveal her identity. If one of them talked, the other one would and they shared that knowledge.

She looked at him, reflecting on how his big muscles seemed matched by his brain. Just as she put her hand on the door handle to leave, another thought occurred to her.

‘Haven't you ever thought of getting a real job? You have all the qualifications for a good one, it seems.'

He was leaning against the door frame to the main room, his bulging arms crossed over his chest. He was grinning openly at her now.

‘No, I haven't. Have you?'

Then she left.

T
homas Sandberg. That was all it said on the note she showed Patrik. They were standing together in the street, reading the name over and over again, as if reading a long story rather than a sequence of fourteen letters.

‘No address?'

‘No.'

He looked disappointed. Obviously, he felt this was a poor show after an outlay of four thousand kronor.

‘How many Thomas Sandbergs do you think there are in this country?'

She raised her eyebrows.

‘No idea. All we do know is that there's one less now. Let's go.'

She started walking. She felt certain that what she was about to do next was the right thing, but even so she was troubled by the distance she would callously create between them. If she kept walking she wouldn't have to look into his eyes, which would make it a little easier.

‘Now what do we do?'

He had hurried to catch up with her.

That instant the alarm in his wristwatch went off.

‘Christ! Sunday lunch!'

He turned off the signal.

‘Mum forced me to set the alarm. She'll have a fit if I don't turn up.'

‘Don't risk it. Off you go.'

‘Do you want to keep hanging out in the attic?'

She didn't reply.

‘Do you?'

‘Maybe that's the best idea.'

She hadn't even lied. It almost certainly was the best idea if she stayed hidden in Patrik's attic for the foreseeable future, allowing him to feed her the leftovers from the family meals.

Be that as it may. It was too late now.

Somewhere, a man or a woman existed, who had had an improbable stroke of luck when their paths crossed that night in the Grand Hotel. That person had stolen her name and exploited her outsider's isolation to further a purely personal vendetta.

She was not going to let that pass. The invisible one had almost succeeded in crushing her. Almost, but not quite.

When the large iron door leading to Patrik's attic had slammed behind her and Patrik's steps were disappearing down the stairs, she pulled the second sheet of A4 paper from her pocket.

She read it carefully, memorising the text.

Rune Hedlund. ID 46 06 08 – 2498 res. Vimmerby.

T
he cemetery was large and it took her the best part of an hour to find the tombstone. It was tucked away in the parkland set aside for urns, a rounded natural boulder with an inscription in gold lettering.

RUNE HEDLUND
* 8
JUNE
1946
†15
MARCH
1998       

Below was a space large enough for another name. An eternal flame was burning inside a white plastic cover. Yellow and purple crocuses were filling the area round the stone. Spring arrived earlier this far south.

She crouched down. Noticing some dry leaves caught between the spring flowers, she pulled them out and threw them to the wind.

‘What are you doing here?'

The voice behind her startled her so much she lost her balance and sat down with a thump. She rose quickly, turning to look at the woman
who had crept up behind her. Sibylla's heart was racing.

‘Just removing some dead leaves.'

Their eyes met, fiercely, as if facing each other across a battle demarcation line. The woman's eyes were full of suspicion and dislike. Sibylla suddenly felt sure she had found her quarry.

They faced up to each other in hostile silence. Sibylla's adversary was dressed in white under her grey coat and she had brought along a green, funnel-shaped vase filled with multicoloured tulips.

‘You're not to mess about with my husband's grave.'

Aha. Rune Hedlund's widow.

‘I was just clearing some leaves away.'

The woman breathed heavily through her nose, as if trying to pull herself together.

‘What have you got to do with my husband?' ‘I never met him.'

The woman smiled suddenly, but there was no friendliness in her smile. Fear started creeping up on Sibylla. Had the woman recognised her? The police might have worked out the link between the killings and the organ transplant and asked Hedlund's wife to keep a look-out for Sibylla. They would be keen to find a link between them, to trace Sibylla's motive.

She glanced over her shoulder. Maybe they were here already?

‘Don't you realise I know what you've been up to for ages?'

After a pause the woman spoke again.

‘I knew ever since the funeral, when I saw your flowers.'

She sounded outraged.

‘What's going on in the mind of someone sending an anonymous bouquet of red roses to a funeral? What did you hope to gain by it? Can you tell me that? Did you think it would please Rune?'

The contempt in the woman's eyes was so searing that Sibylla had to look away.

‘If he really wanted to live with you he'd have chosen you while he was alive. But he stayed with me. Not you. So was that why you had to produce the flowers – to humiliate me?'

The woman frowned demonstratively as if she was trying to make the revulsion she felt visible.

‘Every Friday, week in and week out, one more bloody red rose on his grave. Do you want to punish me? Make me suffer because I was the one who got him in the end?'

Her voice was cracking, but it was obvious that she had stored up more to say. Words had been piling up, waiting for an outlet.

Sibylla was shaken by her own miscalculation. The authorities would have had to ask this woman. She was one of the ‘close relatives' whose informed consent must be sought.
The answer was presumably that someone else out there was feeling abandoned and bitterly wanted to restore something of what had been lost. She had to make sure.

‘Have the police contacted you?'

‘What? The police? Why should they?'

Rune Hedlund's widow took a step forward, kneeled and jammed the sharp tip of her tin vase into the ground. The crocuses shied away in alarm.

Watching the other woman's back rising and falling with her heavy breathing, Sibylla was quite sure that she had been looking forward to this moment of confrontation. She had probably practised carefully what to say when she was finally face to face with her husband's unknown mistress.

Shame that she had wasted her ammunition.

Of course, she was not to know that Rune's real lover had committed much, much worse acts than putting flowers on her man's grave. Sibylla wouldn't like to be the one who enlightened her.

When the distraught woman got up, there were tears in her eyes.

‘You're sick – you realise that, don't you?'

The detestation in her eyes hit Sibylla almost like a physical blow. Old memories came back and she looked away to stop remembering.

‘Can't let him be, can you? Not even in death?'

She walked away. Sibylla just stood there, watching her disappear.

It was obvious that Rune Hedlund's widow had no idea of how right she was, in a way.