Watching You(27)

‘What was his name?’

‘Arvid Hammarstr?m.’

‘And your parents?’

‘John and Erica Fredén.’

‘Erica, born Hammarstr?m?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Where were you born?’

‘Ume?.’

‘Which primary school did you go to?’

‘The Mariehem School, I think it was called. But why do you want to know so much about me? I thought this was all about that.’

She pointed at the photograph of Ellen Savinger.

There was something in the gesture that really got to him. Nonchalance, ambivalence, whatever. He shut his eyes for a couple of seconds. Controlled himself. As best he could. The tick of his watch seemed to grow stronger. It was as if his wrist were on fire.

He said, with as much restraint as he could muster: ‘She isn’t a “that”. She’s a girl with her whole life ahead of her. She’s spent three weeks shut inside that fucking house in M?rsta, captive in that horrific basement, subjected to a whole load of unfathomable shit. I emerged from that basement and you were standing outside afterwards. And in Kristinehamn some eight months earlier, when the police thought that another fifteen-year-old girl had been buried in the forest, you were standing there as well. And you were standing here, outside a biker gang’s clubhouse in V?ster?s a year before that, when yet another fifteen-year-old girl was thought to be held, like a lamb to the slaughter, on the premises. How the hell can you just happen to be standing there at all three crime scenes?’

All the pictures had been revealed. All the cards were on the table. Yet really just one, one card that he had staked everything on. He ought to get something out of it, a reaction at the very least. He had to get through the wall. Even a small crack would do.

He focused all of his attention on her. She maintained a neutral expression, yet there was still something playing across her face. That type of reaction wasn’t particularly common in interview rooms, but he had seen it on a few rare occasions. It had its own special place in the internal register of human reactions that Sam Berger had compiled over the years. He just couldn’t quite place it.

It was a long way from V?ster?s and the television camera which had unwittingly captured her two decisions. On that occasion a lot had played out on her forehead. Two clear decisions. The first was whether or not to speak to local media at all, the second whether or not to say her name.

If she hadn’t done that a year and a half ago they wouldn’t be sitting there. Neither of them.

No, this reaction was much smaller, yet unmistakable. Not on her forehead but under her eyes.

Her brow was quite smooth.

‘Botox?’ Berger said instinctively.

Nathalie Fredén looked at him. For the first time there was no immediate response. And no perceptible reaction.

‘Your forehead,’ Berger went on, touching the top of her face with his index finger. ‘It was much more expressive in V?ster?s.’

‘V?ster?s?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. The interview with local television in V?ster?s. When you made your decision.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course not,’ Berger said, leaning back. ‘So it is Botox? Why would you need that? Why would you want to be less expressive?’

Now she just shook her head.

He waited and reflected. What was the reaction he had seen? He ran it through his internal register. What had he said that had prompted that reaction? A fusillade of information. When had the reaction happened? When precisely?

He found the right location in the archive. It was a reaction that said she really wanted to comment on something he had said. She was forcing herself not to. Comment? No, not comment. Correct. Yes, that was it. He had said something that she wanted to correct. He felt like breaking off at once to go and check the video recording of the interrogation.

The Botox discussion was just a way of getting time to think.

Even so, she replied: ‘Botox wasn’t produced to make skin smoother. Not to start with.’

‘It’s a neurotoxin, isn’t it?’ he said without really caring.

‘A diluted form of the botulinum toxin,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the strongest poisons known to man. One millilitre would be enough to kill everyone in Sweden.’

‘And people inject that just a centimetre away from their eyes?’

‘Botox was originally used to treat the spasms associated with brain damage.’

She was talking. She was talking of her own volition. That in itself was something new. He let her go on.

‘And of course to treat migraines,’ she continued.

He looked at her altered fae. ‘So, migraines? You had Botox injected into your forehead to treat migraines?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Serious migraines?’

‘Fairly.’

He cast a pointed glance at the video camera in the left-hand corner of the ceiling. Deer had probably already picked up on it. He lowered his head and met Nathalie’s eyes.

‘What did I get wrong earlier?’ he finally asked.

‘What do you mean?’

He sighed and tried again, but after that he’d have to move on. ‘I said a whole load of things about how you just happened to be standing there at the three crime scenes. I got something wrong. What was it?’