We Know You Remember (63)

“No, no.”

“Can you see anything else around here that you used? Was it a branch, or something you’d brought with you? A belt? We need you to remember now, Olof. I know it’s in here.” The interview leader’s hand on his forehead. “I need you to be brave and remember now, buddy.”

Eira stopped the tape.

“They’re putting words into his mouth,” she said.

“They’re trying to access his memories,” said August. “Stuff he’s shelved somehow. It happens sometimes when a person goes through something really traumatic.”

“Repressed memories, you mean? It’s been repeatedly proved that they don’t exist. People remember the terrible things that happen to them; it’s the ordinary stuff they forget. The things they don’t even notice. No one forgot being in Auschwitz, for example.”

“This is from, like, twenty years ago,” said August. “And by the way, it’s not that clear cut. A friend of mine did a course in forensic psychology at Stockholm University. The tutor had been involved in several cases like this and had gone through therapy himself—stuff came back to him, abuse and that kind of thing. He was convinced it was real.”

“We’re police officers,” said Eira. “It’s not our job to believe things that don’t exist.”

“So using your imagination’s banned?” That smile of his, teasing, irritating.

“Mmm,” she managed to mutter. “At work.”

It was almost two in the morning but Eira was no longer tired. She fast-forwarded through the footage. On that day in late August 1996, it was now afternoon. The walk-through with the suspect had been going on for almost two hours.

Olof had picked up something from the ground, tossed it away, picked up something else, a branch.

“Was it one of those?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you show me what you did with it?”

Olof bent the branch, making it into a loop.

“The sallow branch,” said Eira.

“Can I go home now?” asked Olof.

“You’ve been very good,” said the interview leader. “Now I just want you to show me how you carried her out of here. Could you show me, using the doll? Did you carry her like this, in your arms? Or was it like this?”

The footage ended as Olof swung the doll up over his shoulder and the image started to flicker. Eira changed the tape.

“They seemed completely sure it was him,” she said. “Everyone knew it. I remember that so clearly. I’ve known it all my life.” She felt an urge to take August’s hand—it was so close to hers, draped nonchalantly over the armrest.

The footage started again, a different setting this time. There was the river, a beach. Sand, or possibly mud.

The interview leader’s voice sounded a little hoarse.

“Did you put her down here? Was this where she dropped her keys? Or was it you who dropped her things here? What happened to the rucksack she was wearing? Did you throw it into the water? Could you show us where you threw it in?”

Past a metal shed, still clutching the doll, its arms swinging as though they were pounding his back, to the very edge of the jetty.

That was somewhere no child was allowed to play. The water was thirty meters deep, they said; huge ships had docked there during the sawmill era. And yet it wasn’t even the deepest point of the river. Slightly farther out, there was a dizzying drop to one hundred meters depth, hidden beneath the deceptively glittering surface. Anyone could disappear for good there.

“Was this where you threw her in? Or was it farther down?”

“No, no.”

“So it was here? Could you show us what you did?”

Olof tossed the doll away.

“Is that how you threw her? Did Lina fall into the water then? Was she already dead when you threw her into the water?”

“She wasn’t,” the boy whimpered, hunched over on the jetty, eyes fixed on the concrete. “She wasn’t dead.”

The interview leader crouched down beside him. She adjusted something in her ear and glanced up. Despair on her face, exhaustion. Eira saw her eyes seeking out someone behind the camera. She’s getting help with these questions, she thought.

The crackling of wind in a microphone.

“Was she still alive when you threw her in?”





Chapter 35





GG arrived at the station in Kramfors just after lunch. Striding down the corridor with his phone clamped to his ear.

Eira waited until he had finished the call before stepping into the room and placing the summary of the preliminary investigation on his desk.

“I’m not sure he did it,” she said.

“What?” GG looked down at the folder in confusion.

“Olof Hagstr?m.” Eira had managed to get only a few hours’ sleep, but she had dreamed about the interrogation room with the vinyl sofa, she had teetered on the edge of the jetty in Marieberg. The limp, faceless doll had also made an appearance.

“Aha,” said GG. “OK, got you.”

He picked up the folder by its corner, just enough to be able to read the writing on the cover. The case. The year.

“He didn’t confess to anything the police hadn’t already said to him,” Eira continued. “They interviewed him for hours without his parents present.” She had gone through what she wanted to say in her head, rewording it. Over and over again. Speaking up like this went against everything she had been taught growing up; you were supposed to be humble, and you definitely weren’t meant to act like you thought you knew better than all those who had come before you. It was about loyalty and disloyalty, and it felt like a vague knot in her gut. “The interviewers put words into his mouth. They told Olof he couldn’t go home until he pointed out where he’d thrown her into the water, until he showed them how he killed her.”