Watching You(38)

‘The school psychologist, yes,’ Berger said. ‘And evidently he managed to find a place for Nathalie in a psychiatric clinic.’

‘Hans-Ove?’ Britt-Marie Bengtsson exclaimed. ‘Really? Well, I never. He wasn’t exactly the most sensitive psychologist in the country …’

‘You didn’t know about that?’

‘No, and I don’t understand how things could have turned out the way they did in that case. Mind you, that’s no guarantee. The point was that her mother worked in the registry office, and back then all the records were kept manually. You could say it was before the age of computers. At least, they weren’t widespread.’

‘Wait a moment,’ Berger said, stopping on the pavement. The rain was lashing against him.

‘I’m waiting,’ Britt-Marie Bengtsson said obediently.

‘Just tell me what happened in your own words.’

‘Yes, well, it was all very unofficial. For the mother’s sake we accepted the official story. That little Nathalie had moved abroad to live with relatives.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Nathalie Fredén is dead,’ Britt-Marie Bengtsson said. ‘She committed suicide that summer.’





17




Tuesday 27 October, 03.58

Deer was waiting for him outside the main entrance to Police Headquarters. It was almost four o’clock in the morning, and her presence was balm for the soul. She didn’t say anything, but her brown eyes – which bore absolutely no resemblance to a deer’s – were sharper than ever. From her pocket she fished an earpiece that she fastened to his right ear a little too carefully. Then she looked him in the eye, acknowledging the less than perfect circumstances, and gave him a little pat on the cheek. Then she was gone. Without a word.

He didn’t want to have to pass his colleagues in the control room. He only wanted to meet one person. And she didn’t exist.

So he stood in the gloomy corridor, entirely alone, in front of a characterless door. His clothes were dripping.

He took a deep breath, ran his card through the reader and tapped in the code.

Nathalie Fredén wasn’t alone in the interview room. A guard was standing by the wall, and at the desk sat a woman with a laptop. When she saw Berger she sent an email with the characteristic little whooshing sound, closed the computer, then stood up and left with a nod, closely followed by the guard.

There was a ping from Berger’s own reserve laptop, which was facing away from Fredén. Before he sat down he opened the newly arrived email. In contained a sketch. The male face looked like an utterly bland mixture of the two older pictures of Erik Johansson. He glanced at the equipment on the side table and noted that the light was already glowing red. He turned the laptop round and sat down.

‘So you’re seriously claiming that this is your version of Charles?’

‘It’s not easy,’ Nathalie Fredén said.

‘Especially if the whole thing is a lie.’

She looked at him. Her eyes were sharp but expressionless.

‘Maybe you spent more time looking at his cock than his face,’ Berger said, slamming the laptop closed.

‘What?’ Nathalie Fredén said.

‘The show is over,’ Berger said. ‘Nice performance. But now it’s over.’

She watched him, and suddenly he found himself wondering how he could ever have been taken in by her feigned naivety. The look in her eyes now was something entirely different.

‘How come you were completely dry when you came into your flat earlier this evening? It was pouring outside.’

‘Was I dry?’

‘Bone dry. Like your performance. Your neighbours on Vidargatan aren’t going to be too delighted when the police – as we speak, in fact – wake them up to find out which flat you were hiding in while you waited. The real question is whether or not you were alone.’

She went on looking at him. She said nothing. He didn’t like that look.

‘What do you have to say about that?’ he asked.

‘I don’t understand. I came home. You were sitting at my kitchen table. Two men came in from behind and threw themselves on me.’

‘But you were dry when you came in. You came from another flat in the building. Who was with you, watching the feed from the surveillance camera in the hall?’

‘Was there a surveillance camera? In my flat?’

‘It’s gone now. Charles came to get it. Then he went home to Ellen and carried on torturing her.’

‘There was a surveillance camera inside my flat and you didn’t spot it?’

And that was when he saw the smile in the left-hand corner of her mouth.

Everything went black inside him. The way it occasionally did. It was something that came from deep down. He had learned to control it, but it demanded absolute stillness, what used to be called counting to ten. When he was younger he would sometimes wake up with busted knuckles and loose teeth, once with half his bicep bitten off.

The fucking bitch had been toying with him the whole time. He wanted to lash out. Hard. Wipe her out.

Instead he went into the darkness. Found a calm point. Returned to the still point of the turning world. Saw Marcus and Oscar in front of him. Remembered what sort of person he had been. Wanted to be that person again, to take strength from that, from the depths.