Watching You(28)

When she merely looked at him with that same smooth forehead, he slapped some more photographs on the table.

‘March last year, fifteen-year-old girl missing, the police mount an operation in V?ster?s – bang, there you are. February this year, fifteen-year-old girl missing, police mount an operation in Kristinehamn – bang, there you are. Yesterday morning, fifteen-year-old girl missing, police mount an operation in M?rsta – bang, there you are. How the hell can you have been in all three places?’

‘Coincidence,’ Nathalie Fredén said. ‘I cycle all over Sweden. That’s my life. Sometimes I have to work the odd month here and there, simple office work, but apart from that I keep on the move. Sometimes I run into things. There’s nothing strange about that.’

‘But do you really not understand that it is strange? That it’s seriously strange? Are you mentally handicapped? Have you been shut away in an institution?’

‘Ugh,’ she said with distaste and pushed the pictures away.

‘I’m serious,’ Berger said, taking hold of her wrists. ‘You’re not in any databases, you live completely outside of society. Your social pattern is that of a criminal, a homeless person, or someone who’s mentally ill. But it’s all a persona.’

‘A what?’

‘A persona, a mask. You’re pretending to be something you’re not.’

‘You don’t get it,’ she said, pulling her hands free. ‘You can’t handle it. I’m nothing more strange than a free person. That’s what I do, I cycle, in complete freedom. I have no credit card, no internet access, no mobile phone. I tried once, I got a mobile phone, tried to join Facebook. But I let it drop. What’s the point?’

The terrible thing was that what she was saying was sounding more and more plausible. For the first time a hint of doubt entered Berger’s resistant consciousness. Serious migraines, constant cycling all round Sweden, probable first-hand knowledge of mental institutions, the inherited flat, maybe a shoebox full of inherited cash she’d been living off. And then that lame phrase, ‘it shows in your eyes’. Taken as a whole, an asocial existence, completely outside of society.

The perfect assistant.

The subordinate helpmeet.

A master’s slave.

‘Who is he?’ Berger exclaimed, standing up. ‘Who the hell is the scum who’s got you in his power? Who is it you’re ready to lie for? Lie until you’re blue in the face? Who’s your master, your ruler? Who sent you?’

The door opened behind Berger’s back. Deer came in and half whispered in his ear, very slowly: ‘Sam, you have an important call.’

She led him out of the interview room through one of the two doors and closed it firmly but gently behind them. Then she turned round in the soundproofed observation room and barked at Samir over at the computer: ‘Watch her every move. If she so much as lifts a finger, you rush in.’

Then she fixed her very sharpest look on Berger, shook her head and moved aside. Behind her stood Allan. It was as if his bushy eyebrows were saying: And it was looking so promising.

Berger managed to stop himself exploding, formulated the words very carefully and said: ‘You saw where it was heading, Allan.’

‘Of course,’ Allan said. ‘But I also saw that it was heading off the rails. You need to take a break.’

‘She’s a puppet,’ Berger said. ‘She has a specially selected, damaged psyche that the Scum is directing from a distance. She’s the shell, surrounding another person’s will. She was placed here for a reason. Has she been through a metal detector? She could have a whole fucking bomb in her stomach. Or at the very least a transmitter, a recording device.’

‘Of course she has,’ Allan said.

‘Did you spot the three critical moments, Deer?’

‘Botox treatment for migraines,’ Deer said, looking down at her notepad. ‘I’ve got people on it already. It can’t be that common a treatment, and she must have started treatment after her television debut a year and a half ago. And I saw her reaction when you revealed our three crime scenes. Maja and Syl are working on that, trying to find the exact moment the reaction occurred. Because she wanted to correct you, didn’t she?’

‘I’ve trained you well, Deer,’ Berger said.

‘You haven’t trained me at all. You said three? I’m not sure about the third critical moment. Arvid Hammarstr?m and the inheritance? If that’s it, we’ve got people looking into it. But the Mariehem School was accurate.’

‘No,’ Berger said. ‘I meant the bicycle. Have you found it?’

‘Not sure. We’ve seized three women’s Rex bicycles in the vicinity. She didn’t have a key to a bike lock on her, and those three were all locked. We’re dusting them for prints and comparing them with the photographs.’

‘Good,’ Berger said. ‘She was given the bicycle by an ex. Rex from an ex. With a bit of luck we’ll manage to find the ex. And with a bit more luck, the ex is our man.’

‘The perp?’ Deer exclaimed.

‘Check the number on the frame. Maybe we can figure out when and where the bike was bought. And by whom.’

‘What the hell is this?’ he asked straight out.

Berger in turn was watching Allan. He did look genuinely curious. Had a trace of police instinct returned to the old bureaucrat?