Watching You(42)

And everything was spinning. The world was spinning.

Just before Berger’s synapses settled down his brain was overwhelmed by the chill suspicion that he had been captured by the Scum.

That he was sitting in a cellar, waiting for some extreme form of torture.

That Ellen Savinger’s mutilated corpse was nailed to the wall in front of him.

But then he remembered.

The last thing he grasped before he decided to open his eyes was that there was someone else in the room, someone who in all likelihood was watching him carefully.

‘Molly Blom,’ he said and waited three seconds before opening his eyes.

Sure enough, she was sitting in front of him. The same blonde hair, the same snub nose, the same blue eyes, but with a very different expression in them.

‘Sam Berger,’ she replied, staring hard at him.

The woman he had had in the interview room under the name Nathalie Fredén was now sitting before him in a very different sort of interview room. Were they even in Police Headquarters?

‘A syringe in the neck?’ he said. ‘Seriously?’

‘Apparently you were fighting like a three-term jailbird,’ Molly Blom said quietly. ‘And you were in the process of demolishing my home. What would have been more appropriate? A quiet telling-off?’

‘Appropriate? You mean like appreciating the effect of a deliberate red herring in a serial murder investigation?’

‘Nicely formulated,’ Molly Blom commended coolly.

‘If you hadn’t sent a decoy into the system, the time could have been spent trying to rescue Ellen Savinger.’

‘And why do you suppose we sent a decoy into the system?’ Molly Blom asked.

The room detached itself from her. He had been focusing so hard that the rest of his field of vision hadn’t existed until now, not until the need to think arose. The room was featureless and bare, and apart from the cellar smell there was no indication of where it might be. Berger could see a side table that was exactly the same as the one in his interview room, including the recording apparatus and red light.

The light was on.

His eyes moved past his wrists, which were indeed held down by leather straps. The table he couldn’t reach or touch. On it were – apart from his watch, a laptop, a number of files and various documents and notes – two picture frames, facing away from him, one of them bright blue, and a box. A rectangular wooden box with a gilded catch.

A box for watches.

He smiled grimly. ‘An eye for an eye?’

She didn’t smile. And she didn’t say anything.

He went on: ‘I went into your home, so you went into mine?’

‘You spattered blood over my sofa. Why did you do that?’

‘Because it was so disgustingly white. It needed messing up.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Whereas you yourself are as black as sin. The Security Service’s unofficial “internal resource”. Bloody hell. And then you broke into my home and snooped about.’

‘But unlike you, I didn’t demolish anything.’

He was still thinking of her as Nathalie Fredén. He had to stop that. Apart from their appearance there were very few similarities between Nathalie Fredén and Molly Blom. Above all, the power balance was completely different.

‘You’ve demolished my life,’ he said. ‘That’s possibly rather worse that a stained sofa.’

‘But not worse than a stained and demolished fifteen-year-old,’ Molly Blom said.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Everything, of course. Everything that all this is about. But I don’t think you want to start there, Sam Berger. I think you’d rather start somewhere else instead. “Although I can promise that we’ll come back to it”.’

‘Undercover operatives always borrow other people’s words,’ Berger said. ‘Because they have no identity of their own. Now you’ve proved that you can borrow mine. Clever. But where is your identity, Nathalie Fredén?’

‘You’re in good shape considering you were unconscious a minute ago,’ Molly Blom said. ‘Clever. But watch out, dizziness can strike at any moment. And your eyelids are thin.’

‘What?’

‘“What?” is good. “What?” is a reasonable attempt to buy more thinking time. Especially if you thought I might provide a fairly long answer. Have you had enough time, Sam?’

‘No. Talk some more.’

‘Your eyelids aren’t just thin, they’re also revealing. You were awake for three minutes and eight seconds. Did you manage to work out where you were?’

‘Yes,’ Berger said. ‘In the badlands.’

‘In a way, yes,’ Molly Blom said. ‘Nothing’s official any more. We’re in a different place now. A different time. But you realised that before you opened your eyes.’

‘Even so, there’s a whole group, a whole fucking police force even, that must have started to miss me by now.’

‘“Miss” is a very loaded term, Sam. Are you sure that Allan Gudmundsson and Desiré Rosenkvist miss you?’

‘Allan probably won’t miss me. But Deer will.’

‘The detective inspector you consistently undervalue? She’ll miss you? With that doe-eyed look of hers, full of longing?’