Watching You(22)

‘External monitoring, et cetera. And surveillance outside, in shifts. Photographs of people going in and out.’

‘Thanks,’ Berger said, then added as the young man was already walking away: ‘Thanks, Raymond.’

He turned towards the whiteboard and contemplated two things. The first was what ‘et cetera’ might mean in that context, the second was where Vidargatan actually was. In the end he was left staring into a white void. He turned round again.

‘Bloody hell,’ he exclaimed to the office in general. ‘We must be able to find out more than this. And fast. If she doesn’t work, how can she afford a flat near Odenplan? Bank accounts? How has she managed to get to her thirties without earning any money? Has she been in a care home? An institution? Prison? Give me something!’

‘No criminal record,’ Deer said from somewhere. ‘But you already knew that.’

Maja was suddenly standing beside him, big and solid, and said in her steady way: ‘Nathalie Fredén is listed as unmarried, and was born in Ume? thirty-six years ago. Her parents’ names were John and Erica, and they’re both dead. I’ve managed to find a primary school there, the Mariehem School. They’re busy digging out all the information they’ve got. Including a class photo. Apparently she was only there up to Year 3.’

‘And how the hell is a class photograph from Year 3 going to help us?’ Berger bellowed.

Deer appeared next to Maja, making her look even smaller than usual.

‘Now you sound like Allan,’ Deer said, giving him her most innocent – in other words, her most evil – look.

He looked at her and took a couple of deep breaths through his nose.

‘Yoga breathing,’ Deer declared.

‘I get it,’ Berger said eventually. ‘We can check to see if it really is her.’

‘There are obvious holes in Nathalie Fredén’s biography,’ Maja said calmly. ‘It would be good if we could at least confirm that it’s the same person. And, maybe even more so, if it isn’t.’

‘Good,’ Berger nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Carry on.’

Maja returned to her desk.

Samir came back and stood beside Deer. He seemed to be waiting his turn, so Deer went on: ‘I think I might have a Facebook account. Belongs to an N Freden, no accent. No posts and no friends. Dormant, clearly. But when it was registered, both a mobile number and email address were listed. I’ve called the mobile but the number’s not in use.’

‘Get a trace on it anyway,’ Berger said. ‘And the email?’

‘I’ve sent it to Forensics.’

‘Good work, Deer. Keep looking. Samir?’

‘Initial conversation with a temp agency who employed Nathalie Fredén four years ago. She’s on their books, but no one there remembers her. She was sent to a now defunct car-hire company in Ulvsunda.’

‘Hmm,’ Berger said. ‘The obvious holes in Nathalie Fredén’s biography are becoming increasingly obvious. Keep working. Find some former employees of the car-hire company.’

Samir turned on his heels and went back to his place.

A sudden pause arose. Berger stared at the whiteboard. He was looking at the gaps on it.

‘The most likely explanation is that she hasn’t actually been spending that much time in Sweden,’ Deer said.

He had forgotten she was still standing there.

‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘Swedish mobile number, though, and obvious traces of her presence here in the past …’

‘… four years,’ Berger concluded.

‘But possibly not before that,’ Deer said.

‘Maybe not,’ Berger agreed.

Then Maja was back again. Without a word she held out a sheet of paper. It featured a photograph, clearly cropped from a group picture, its colour faded. And the face was very young.

‘A bit of a snub nose,’ Deer said.

‘And blonde,’ Maja said. ‘It could be her.’

‘Year 3,’ Berger said. ‘Year 3. What age is that? Nine? Ten? What does puberty do to people? Some people look pretty recognisable afterwards, while others change completely. So what about Nathalie Fredén?’

The three of them stood there staring at the class photograph, which Berger had already pinned up between the two sharpest pictures of bicycle-woman’s face.

‘Possible,’ Deer said after a while.

‘Good summary,’ Berger said. ‘Possible, no more than that. Which makes it pretty much useless. Neither true nor false. I’d have preferred it if nine-year-old Nathalie Fredén had been adopted from Biafra.’

‘Biafra?’ Deer said.

At that moment Berger glanced out of the window for the first time in a very long while. It had started to rain again, hard, heavy drops blowing against the windows of the large office space. That was when time entered its second phase. Everything slowed down. None of the paths led any further. It was apparent that Nathalie Fredén had always been employed through temp agencies, and that her Swedish employment history seemed to have begun a mere four years ago. But it wasn’t possible to find out more detailed information from any of the companies. It didn’t seem to be in their nature to have any form of personal contact with their staff. The email belonging to ‘N Freden’ didn’t lead anywhere, nor did the defunct car-hire company in Ulvsunda. No bank accounts of any kind were identified, nothing like that. And no trace of a single person in the entire universe who remembers bumping into Nathalie Fredén just once during her thirty-six years on the planet. No classmates, no neighbours, no colleagues, no friends.