Watching You(18)

Berger paused and looked round at his subordinates. Then he continued: ‘The investigation evidently leaked like a sieve, because local media from at least two cities were there, and in the pictures taken by both police and press you’ll notice more curious bystanders than we had during yesterday’s rain-soaked Sunday morning on the outskirts of M?rsta. Do you see?’

They saw. Although they weren’t really sure what they were seeing.

Berger raised the marker pen and drew another heavy red ring.

‘One of the police’s own photographs. Note the bicycle. OK, the head is covered by a big fur cap, and the bottom of the face is wrapped in a thick scarf. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s the same damn woman in the crowd. One year later, 160 kilometres from V?ster?s. With a bicycle, in the middle of a wintery forest.’

The frown had actually disappeared from Deer’s face as Berger pointed to the third photograph and said: ‘So, back to the porch of our house in M?rsta, just after yesterday’s raid. And here we have a blonde, snub-nosed woman in her mid-thirties with a bicycle.’

And his red pen circled another figure.

Then Berger put the pen down and shook his head.

‘I’d discounted women,’ he said. ‘For my part, I was convinced that this bastard was a man, a lone, dysfunctional man isolated from everyone, especially the opposite sex. I seem to recall a somewhat older colleague in this building saying that it’s refreshing to have your prejudices turned upside down.’

‘He’s not in the building any more,’ a forceful male voice said from the direction of the corridor.

Berger looked up and met the gaze, which had a distinct chill to it, even at a distance.

‘He’s off in Europe,’ Allan went on. ‘Europol. God knows why.’

‘Allan,’ Berger said coolly. ‘Good to have you here.’

‘Go on,’ Allan said, adopting an apparently relaxed posture as he leaned back against a pillar. ‘We can deal with the rest later.’

Berger took a deep breath and was just about to continue when Deer said: ‘Was it that simple? So incredibly fucking banal? Going back to the scene of the crime?’

‘Maybe,’ Berger said, glancing over towards the pillar. ‘But now I get to do a bit of an Allan: “Don’t let’s draw any hasty conclusions.”’

‘Such as this woman with the bike being Sweden’s first female serial killer?’ Samir suggested evenly.

‘We don’t know what role she plays in it all,’ Berger said, with a sharp sideways glance at his most heavily bearded underling. ‘But we need to get hold of her. As I implied, I think she was the woman who called us pretending to be Lina Vikstr?m. That would have put her in the right place at the right time. She probably steered the police in the other two cases as well, so that she could be there to watch. But in those cases she led the police astray, to the biker gang in V?ster?s and the buried elk in V?rmland. This time she’s started by leading us in the right direction. To the point that it’s actually extremely frustrating. Now she can humiliate police officers into the bargain – that knife mechanism is something new, after all. Julia and Jonna are almost certainly already dead, but Ellen is still alive, I’m convinced of that. Something has changed, and I can’t help wondering what.’

‘How do we proceed?’ Deer asked.

‘What do you say, boss?’ Berger asked impertinently.

Allan made a tolerant and inviting gesture, but his face was saying something completely different.

‘I’ve already started,’ Berger said eventually. ‘I’ve emailed the pictures to Robin so that his people can clean them up as much as possible and get a face that we can then run through every facial-recognition software going. There may be more photographs, shots that weren’t used by the media. And that’s where Syl comes in.’

A stern-looking woman in her forties cleared her throat and said sharply: ‘Feel free to call me Sylvia.’

‘I’ll happily call you Hera or Gaia or the Virgin Mary, as long as you’ve got something for me.’

‘Freja, to keep things Nordic?’ Deer suggested mildly.

Berger gave her a dark look. The sort of look a one-eyed god might give.

‘I’ve found out the following,’ Syl went on in a neutral voice. ‘A number of names of press photographers who were present at the three crime scenes – I’m calling them crime scenes, seeing as unlicensed hunting is also a crime. I’ve also got all the police photographs. And lastly, I managed to get the two television stations from yesterday to hold off deleting any unused footage. There’s also a rumour that there was a TV crew present at the biker gang’s headquarters in V?ster?s, but nothing was ever broadcast. I haven’t had time to look into that rumour.’

‘Excellent,’ Berger said. ‘Keep at it, Syl. And those of you who are out in M?rsta, get back there and knock on some more doors with photographs in your hands. If I know Robin’s team at all, these pictures are likely to get a lot better soon.’

‘Surely we ought to release the pictures to the media?’ Deer asked.

Berger looked at her. ‘That’s one of the most delicate questions I’ve ever been faced with.’ He scanned the now largely frown-free gathering and went on. ‘Our only real task is to find Ellen Savinger as quickly as possible. While we’re talking, somewhere out there she’s going through hell. Every word we utter, every step we take needs to be anchored in this innocent girl’s pain. Every second counts.’