Watching You(7)

‘And what conclusions do you draw?’ Berger asked.

‘If it’s the same man, his face doesn’t have any distinguishing features. This is just a standard picture of a white man of about forty. On the other hand, it does give us an age and ethnicity. Although it has to be said, neither of those comes as much of a surprise.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nothing else,’ Deer said, shaking her head.

‘Does he look like a novice?’

‘It’s hard to say.’

‘If this is the right person, then he’s done it before, I know you can see that too, Deer. It’s written all over his face.’

‘You really are piling up the sort of firm evidence that Allan loves. So tell me, what have you been keeping to yourself while you’ve been conducting an entirely separate investigation?’

Followed by that Bambi look.

Berger was well aware that rather than a sign of weakness it was actually one of Deer’s greatest assets.

‘Allan expressly forbade me from discussing that,’ he said. ‘And our investigation is covering all lines of inquiry supported by the evidence.’

‘Since when do you care what Allan says?’

‘Since he threatened to fire me.’

They exchanged a glance in the gloom. Deer pulled a face as Berger aimed the lamp so that it was shining on the latest photofit picture.

‘Erik Johansson?’ he said, putting his finger on the picture. ‘The most common name in Sweden.’

‘That’s the name on the rental agreement for the house in M?rsta, yes,’ Deer said. ‘The estate agent has never met the tenant. The house is owned by some Swedes who live in Argentina.’

‘The estate agent …’ Berger said. ‘How does he explain the fact that he’s never met the tenant?’

‘Email. The estate agent claims he’s already deleted their correspondence. That could be true. The perpetrator has had the house for over two years, and emails that old tend to get ditched. But I’ve got a feeling the agent consciously deleted a paper trail. Samir compared the original advert with the tenancy agreement. There’s a difference of three thousand kronor per month. Our perpetrator probably added the three thousand to avoid having to show his face. The estate agent has no scruples about pocketing the difference before transferring the rest to Argentina.’

‘Can we get anything from the email address?’

‘Samir’s been working hard on that,’ Deer said. ‘And has probably exhausted all possibilities.’

Berger stared at the picture of Erik Johansson. ‘Play the recording again.’

Deer did as he asked. They listened intently to Lina Vikstr?m’s agitated voice.

When it was finished Berger said: ‘If that is Erik Johansson himself talking – and I’m completely certain he doesn’t have any accomplices – then a simple call would have done the job. He didn’t need to act it out with such intensity.’

‘What does that suggest?’

‘I don’t know,’ Berger said, flicking the picture. ‘Nothing good, anyway.’

‘Well being a paedophile isn’t a great start.’

Berger was about to speak but stopped himself and looked at Deer.

‘I don’t think he is a paedophile,’ he said.

Deer fell silent and looked at him. Her brown eyes shone sharply through the gloom.

‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘That was the moment when your secret investigation went off in a different direction from ours.’

Berger met her gaze.

‘There is no secret investigation,’ he said.

‘You don’t believe in this investigation,’ Deer exclaimed. ‘All along we’ve been assuming the bastard sitting outside a school waiting to kidnap a child is a fucking paedophile.’

‘As long as that assumption didn’t lead us astray it didn’t make any difference. I’m not sure that’s the case any more.’

‘And what’s changed?’

‘He’s being so damn precious.’

Deer was restrained, loyal; that was one of the things he liked about her. But the look on her face as she gazed out at the bad weather was neither restrained nor loyal.

‘I’m an ordinary cop,’ she said to the rain gods. ‘I haven’t got any other training except for Police Academy. Thanks to my Social Democratic working-class parents’ unshakeable optimism in the future, I’ve been cursed with the stupidly pretentious name of Desiré Rosenkvist. Even so, I’m the first person in my family to get any education beyond high school, and I’ve had to sweat blood to become a detective inspector. Can you, Supercop Sam Berger, please explain what you mean by “precious”?’

‘He’s precious, affected, pretentious, exaggerated. He packages his gift to the police as a beautifully wrapped parcel. He wants praise, he wants us to admire him. I agree, that sort of behaviour also exists within paedophile networks, but there we’re talking about hermetically sealed groups. People cross new and increasingly diabolical boundaries and want to boast about it to their peers, get a response, praise, admiration. But I’ve never heard of a paedophile who wants to boast about his transgressions to a wider audience, least of all the police. Outside that closed circle they get nothing but shame.’