Watching You(61)

She saw it. And pulled back.

He huddled up and sank down with his hands still tied behind his back. He hid his face against his knees, pressed it against his knees.

She heard him whimper. She crouched down.

‘Oh, God,’ he gasped. ‘How many do you think there are?’

‘We’ve got five,’ she said. ‘I think there are seven.’

‘Seven fifteen-year-old girls,’ he said. ‘And none of them would have got hurt if I hadn’t been such a coward. If I’d rescued you William Larsson would have been caught. And he wouldn’t have come back now and become a serial killer. I – cowardly, pathetic Sam Berger – created him.’

‘But you’ve been aware of that the whole time, surely?’

He whimpered some more. With great effort she overcame her instincts and reached a hand out towards him. It landed on his shoulder. They sat like that for a while.

Then she said: ‘I feel pretty similar. I was a coward as well. I got free, but I didn’t say a thing to anyone. I didn’t tell anyone at all. I’ve lived with this on my own all these years.’

He snorted. ‘But even that was my fault.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I could have stopped him too.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much time, do we?’

‘I don’t know how far they’ve got with the recording from the interview room. My boss, August Steen, doesn’t believe me. He really doesn’t believe me. Kent and Roy could already be on their way up the stairs.’

‘Again,’ he said, and got to his feet. ‘No, fuck that.’

She stood up, stretched and said: ‘Well, one thing’s clear. This frame can’t stay here.’

‘But it must weigh a ton.’

‘It’s supposed to look like it does.’

Berger looked at Blom. She returned his gaze. Their eyes locked.

‘OK,’ Berger said eventually. ‘William Larsson is scattering clues to get me put away for his monstrous crimes. But does he know that you’re on his trail?’

‘There’s no reason to think that, no.’

‘There is.’

‘There is?’

‘How tall are you?’

She paused and stared at him.

‘One metre sixty-nine,’ she said in the end.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The booby trap.’

‘What?’

‘The knives in the house in M?rsta. They weren’t designed for a normal-height cop, not even a short one, like Ekman. They were meant for a slightly taller than average woman. Or possibly you specifically, Molly. If I’m allowed to use your first name …’

If it had been possible, she would have frowned. She thought for a moment.

‘OK,’ she nodded, taking her knife out once more. He could see her wrestling with her thoughts.

Then she sighed and cut through the zip tie behind his back.

Their eyes met. He gestured towards the picture frame.

‘So it doesn’t weigh a ton?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I carried it up with the help of just one other person when I moved in.’

He nodded and started to push the stained sofa out of the way. Then he pointed at the pink Post-it note bearing the words WL pl. surg. Saudi? ‘Just don’t tell me you left that on the floor on purpose?’

She went to other end of the frame. ‘That’s something you’ll never know.’

Then she slowly closed her end of the picture. He did the same. And what was hanging on the wall was nothing more than a very large picture of a gang of mountaineers heading up a snow-covered mountain. Together they gently lifted it down from the wall. It really wasn’t particularly heavy. It felt more like polystyrene, or perhaps balsa wood. They carried it out into the hall. She opened the door to the stairs and the autumn darkness. Yelling in the stairwell in the dead of the night would obviously be a terrible move, so Berger sat on all the things he wanted to say while Blom locked the door and they manoeuvred the picture down the stairs and hurried to get it into the van before the frame got too wet, then jumped in themselves.

They sat there for a while. The weak glow of the street lamps shifted in patterns down the windscreen, spreading out, disappearing, re-emerging.

Berger breathed in deeply and looked at Blom. Eventually she looked away from the play of light on the windscreen and met his gaze.

‘It’s not just that we’ve tried to destroy each other in our respective interview rooms,’ Berger said. ‘We also have backgrounds that make us deeply unsuitable for each other. Are you seriously suggesting that we work together?’

It felt like the first time she had truly met his gaze, without any role play. In the end she looked away and made an impatient gesture.

‘It’s our only chance,’ she said to the windscreen.

‘Is there really no chance we could explain this and go back? Make a proper police investigation out of it?’

She paused. ‘You and I are both guilty of disloyalty to our bosses. We’d be asked to hand over our IDs and weapons with immediate effect. We’d get the sack and a bunch of detached outsiders would take over our investigations. That’s not going to help Ellen Savinger.’

‘You’re thinking of Allan?’