The Disappeared (17 page)

‘Prove it by helping us!’

The officer’s fist whistled through the air and slammed down on the glass counter. The shop owner stared at the cracked glass and turned to his computer.

‘What was her name?’

‘Rebecca Trolle.’

‘That’s no use to me; what was her alias?’

‘Miss Miracle.’

Just uttering the words made Rebecca feel ill.

‘Her profile has been taken down.’

‘We know that, but we think you’ve kept a copy.’

‘Absolutely not, I can assure you that I never . . .’

Her colleague moved so fast that Fredrika barely had time to react. In less than a second he had the shop owner pressed up against the wall. Fredrika had heard Peder holding forth when the question of the use of excessive violence by the police arose.

‘We have to speak the language the bastards understand,’ he always used to say.

She looked at her colleague’s back view, the shop owner’s face just visible over his shoulder.

‘We don’t want your fucking assurances because they’re not worth jack shit to us. We want the pictures, get it?’

But what if he hasn’t got any pictures, Fredrika thought, her heart racing.

Her colleague let go of the man, who sank down onto the floor. The shop was full of fear, as palpable as a bad smell.

‘OK, OK.’

To her surprise she saw the owner pick himself up and return to his computer.

‘Oh, yes, now I realise I can call up her history. But it’ll take a minute, all right?’

That was fine, as long as it was only a minute. The feeling that something wasn’t as it should be grew as Fredrika waited for the result. Her colleague stood behind the owner, glowering at the screen. Fredrika tried to remember if she’d ever been in a similar place before; she didn’t think so. Maybe once when she was a student, just for fun. But it hadn’t been like this, in a basement so cut off from reality that there could be no perception of the beautiful day outside.

‘Got it,’ said the owner. ‘The person who uploaded this girl’s profile then took it down did a rubbish job. It hasn’t been removed, it’s just been temporarily shut down.’

‘How come?’

‘Perhaps she didn’t know how it worked. She must have thought she’d removed the profile, when in fact she’d just suspended things temporarily.’

‘She? Who’s she?’

‘The girl who uploaded the profile in the first place.’

‘How do you know it was a girl?’

The man looked at Fredrika as if she was stupid.

‘The person in these pictures looks very much like a girl to me.’

Fredrika suppressed a groan of frustration.

‘We have reason to believe that the girl in these pictures didn’t set up the profile herself.’

The answer came instantly.

‘That’s not my problem.’

Fredrika ignored him.

‘Can you tell who uploaded the profile in the first place?’

‘Possibly; I think I kept the emails. When someone joins the website they have to accept the terms and conditions via email.’

‘And those terms and conditions state that you have the right to use the pictures again, presumably?’

The shop owner shrugged.

‘It’s their choice. Nobody makes them do it.’

Nobody makes them do it.

Fredrika felt nothing but revulsion. And despair. Where was the choice in a place like this?

‘I can give you a name and the IP number of the computer that sent the email. The name is probably false, but you should be able to get somewhere with the IP number.’

Fredrika waited as he wrote; he passed her a grubby scrap of paper folded in half.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And now I’d like to see the pictures.’

The man stepped aside to make room in front of the computer. A click of the mouse and Rebecca Trolle filled the screen. The pictures were not what Fredrika had expected. Rebecca was lying on her side in bed, naked. She appeared to be asleep; it looked completely natural, not as if she had been drugged.

Fredrika leaned closer to the screen.

‘It’s impossible to tell where they were taken,’ she murmured.

The images revealed nothing apart from an ordinary bed and white walls. A small number of photographs above the bed suggested that the room was in someone’s home.

‘When was the profile uploaded?’ she asked.

The man pointed, and Fredrika could see that it was just under two weeks after Rebecca went missing. Why would someone do such a thing if they had nothing to do with the murder? She stared at the screen, desperate to spot some detail that would reveal more about the background to the pictures.

She pointed at Rebecca’s head.

‘Look at the length of her hair; it’s quite short. When she disappeared, it was down to her shoulders.’

‘So it’s an old picture. It wasn’t taken by someone who was keeping her prisoner.’

Fredrika turned to the shop owner.

‘I want electronic copies of all the pictures.’

He said nothing, but dug out a CD and burned all the material he had onto it.

Fredrika took the CD and turned to leave. The shop door opened and a new customer came in. Fredrika avoided looking at the man and moved away.

‘We’ll be back if we need any more help,’ she said to the owner.

‘Let’s hope that won’t be necessary,’ he replied, glancing at her colleague.

Fredrika was clutching the CD as they walked out into the fresh air. She wanted to get home as quickly as possible, to hold Saga in her arms and protect her from all the repulsive elements of the adult world.

‘I’ll check out the IP number and the name this afternoon,’ her colleague said as Fredrika passed him the scrap of paper with the details.

She shivered in the cool spring weather. There was something in the pictures of Rebecca Trolle that was niggling away at her. Something that would reveal where they had been taken. And by whom.

21

Alex and Peder were sitting in silence on opposite sides of the desk in Alex’s office.

‘I don’t think Sjöö did it,’ said Peder.

‘Me neither.’

‘Rebecca seems to have chosen an interesting storyteller for her dissertation. A perverted killer, by the sound of it.’

Alex seemed to be far away.

‘We’d better have a look at the chainsaw anyway,’ said Peder.

He looked downhearted.

Alex opened the file in front of him. Rebecca Trolle’s life and death between two pieces of cardboard. A pile of photographs lay uppermost.

‘Håkan Nilsson,’ said Alex, placing a picture of Håkan in front of Peder. ‘A rather persistent friend who seems to be completely divorced from reality when asked to describe his relationship with Rebecca. He has also slept with her, and was the father of the child she was expecting.’

He placed a picture of Gustav Sjöö next to the one of Håkan.

‘Gustav Sjöö, the supervisor who was subsequently accused by several female students of being a dirty old man, and who was also reported for attempted rape. He was obviously another repellent man who was in Rebecca’s circle of acquaintances when she died.’

Alex took a deep breath.

‘In addition, there are indications that Rebecca may have been selling sex over the Internet, which gives us God knows how many potential perpetrators. And then there was the volatile ex-girlfriend.’

Peder picked up both photographs.

‘I heard Fredrika was following up the Internet lead; she was going to visit a porn shop over in the Söder district.’

‘Do you believe in that angle?’ Alex asked.

His voice was tired, but his expression was alert.

‘No, I don’t. But on the other hand . . .’

‘Yes?’

Peder hesitated.

‘I don’t believe that Gustav Sjöö murdered her, but I do have a feeling the solution lies in that direction.’

‘In what direction?’

‘Fredrika quite rightly pointed out that a significant proportion of Rebecca’s life was centred on her studies and the university. We ought to speak to more of her fellow students, including those who weren’t particularly close to her.’

‘Fredrika has started taking a closer look at the mentoring network,’ Alex pointed out.

‘In that case I’ll move onto Rebecca’s other activities as a student. She seems to have been working hard on her dissertation, which could well have brought her into contact with a lot of people.’

Peder got up to leave, then sat down again.

‘Have we got an ID on the male victim yet?’

‘Ellen gave me a list of possible names just before you arrived; I was intending to go through it now.’

Peder lowered his eyes.

‘We’re not going to solve this unless we find out who he is.’

‘I know,’ Alex said.

His promise to Diana echoed inside his head.
I’ll solve this case if it’s the last thing I do.

‘There must be a connection, one way or another. It’s just impossible that . . .’

‘I know,’ Alex said again.

His tone was harsher than he would have wished, but he didn’t want to hear about difficulties and obstacles. For Alex, the only way was the way forward.

Peder stood up.

‘Håkan Nilsson,’ Alex said. ‘What are we going to do with him over the weekend?’

‘I think we should keep him under surveillance for a few more days, see where he goes. What about his alibi?’

‘It’s valid, unfortunately, although that doesn’t necessarily rule him out. He could have been working with someone else who took care of her initially.’

‘And Gustav Sjöö?’ Peder asked.

‘I think we’ll let him go for the time being. We’ve got nothing on him. His alibi worked out after all, didn’t it?’

‘Looks that way. He gave me the name of a colleague who can confirm that he didn’t leave the conference in Västerås; I’ll follow it up on Monday.’

Peder went back to his office, and Alex settled down with the list of possible missing persons who could be the man they had found buried not far from Rebecca’s body. They were all men who had been reported missing in the Stockholm area twenty-five to thirty years ago. There was only one who was as tall as their victim, and he was considerably older. Damn.

Alex moved onto the next list, which covered men reported missing throughout the whole of Sweden. He went through the names carefully; one had been circled by Ellen.
Possible?
she had written in the margin.

Henrik Bondesson. A man who had disappeared in Norrköping two weeks before his forty-sixth birthday, and had never been found. Why not?

Alex went to see Ellen and asked her to contact the local police.

‘I’d like them to bring up his file and fill me in on the background.’

He went back to his office with renewed vigour. Perhaps he was on the way to providing another family with a grave to visit.

She was like a fairy tale, a saga. That was the way Fredrika Bergman thought of her daughter, and that was why she had chosen the name Saga. Simple and logical, like so many other things.

Saga was asleep when Fredrika got home from work. Spencer was in the library, reading a book. The light from the window caught his hair, making it shine like silver. Fredrika stopped in the doorway.

‘Sorry I’m so late.’

Spencer looked up and raised one eyebrow.

‘As you know, I’ve never been very good at keeping an eye on the clock either.’

She went over to him and perched on the arm of the chair. She gave him a hug, enjoying the feeling of closeness to a man she didn’t think she could ever stop loving.

‘What are you reading?’

‘A book that a colleague of mine co-wrote. It’s pretty boring, to be honest.’

Yes, you should be honest.

She trembled as she breathed out. Should she bring up the issue of Rebecca Trolle with him right now?

‘How was work?’ he asked.

‘Stressful. How was your day?’

‘Saga and I went to the swings; we had a lovely walk in the sunshine.’

He fell silent.

‘Have you heard any more from the university?’

Spencer stiffened.

‘About that student who was complaining about your supervision,’ Fredrika clarified.

Spencer grunted and got to his feet. He grabbed his stick and went over to the window.

‘No, I haven’t heard a thing.’

He seemed tired and downcast. Fredrika didn’t know what to say.

‘Are you enjoying being at home with Saga? It’s not too tiring for you, is it? Because if it is . . .’

Her voice died away. What would happen if it was all too much for Spencer? Would she give up work?

‘It’s absolutely fine.’

Fredrika watched him as he stood by the window. All of a sudden he seemed out of reach, lost in problems he wasn’t prepared to share with her.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ she heard herself say, and Spencer turned to face her.

‘The woman whose body was found in Midsommarkransen?’

‘Yes.’

She hesitated. But she had to know.

‘Did you know her?’

‘No, of course not; why do you ask?’

Because I saw your name among her papers, Spencer, and now I’m wondering how the hell you were connected with her.

She shrugged.

‘No particular reason. I just thought you might have bumped into one another at a seminar or something; she was studying the history of literature after all.’

Spencer was looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

‘I have no recollection of ever meeting her.’

So that was that. The matter was resolved.

Saga woke up, and Fredrika hurried into the nursery.

‘Hello, angel,’ she said as she picked her up.

Saga wriggled in her arms; she wanted cuddles, and rubbed her forehead against the base of Fredrika’s throat.

‘Did you miss Mummy today?’ Fredrika said, kissing the top of the child’s head. ‘Did you?’

Saga hurled her dummy onto the floor and attempted to follow it. Fredrika crouched down and let her daughter crawl away. In many ways she envied the child, who had the privilege of being able to regard the world as exciting and genuinely uncomplicated. Every day promised new discoveries that made her chortle with joy. It was as if she never experienced the tedium of everyday life, but was constantly on the way towards a new adventure.