Her first reaction almost immediately gave way to the realisation that this time she'd really caught it. Obviously the police would be especially interested in the woman Grundberg had picked up, fed and then, always the gentleman, fixed a hotel room for as well.
It was pretty certain she was the mysterious woman the police was looking for. Worse, in the circumstances, no one would care to help her just for the asking, that much was certain too. Her first feeling was rage and she marched straight into the garage shop to pull a paper from the stand. The centrefold headline left no room for doubt.
MURDERER MUTILATED VICTIM.
Three words in heavy black type. Below, a full-page photograph of Jorgen Grundberg smiling broadly at the camera.
Unnamed sources alleged that the murderer had sliced open the dead man's torso and removed unspecified internal organs. The police admitted that some kind of religious symbol had been left at the scene of the crime, suggesting a ritual act of slaughter.
'Gruesome stuff, isn't it?'
Sibylla looked up. The man behind the counter nodded towards the paper.
'That's eight kronor for the paper, then. Is that all?' She hesitated, fingering the coins in her pocket. Eight kronor were a lot to spend, just for a newspaper. 'A can of paraffin too, please.'
The man pointed for her to help herself from the right shelf. After paying, there were only nineteen kronor left in her purse.
Back at the allotments, Hjelm was no longer to be seen. She closed the door behind her and settled down with the paper. Reading the first four lines was enough to convince her that she was the wanted woman.
Who, the paper was asking, was Jorgen Grundberg's mysterious female companion, who had dined with him in the Grand's French restaurant? How had she managed to vanish in the morning, slipping unseen past the police cordons? The public was encouraged to contact the police headquarters with any information that might have a bearing on the case. The number to ring was displayed in large print.
She felt queasy. Seconds later she realised why. She was under threat.
What was she to do? The simplest answer was to ring that police number and explain the situation, insisting that she was innocent. The drawback was that she would have to let them know her personal details, including her ID number. A single computer check would tell them that she hardly had an official existence. This would instantly make them curious about her, the last thing she needed. Being left alone to mind her own business was all she ever wanted. She'd managed to do just that for fifteen years now. No one had chased her.
Of course she'd committed lots of minor illegal acts, misdemeanours that never harmed anyone poor or needy. She was not at all wicked but still, there were many things she'd rather not have the police look into. Living outside the margins of the normally acceptable for so long had shaped her. She was no longer in the system.
Being an outcast was part of how she lived, who she was. That she should be allowed to survive on her own terms seemed a small thing to ask, but she knew the media would turn the story of her life into something she couldn't endure. Not that she was proud of what she'd done so far, but anyone who tried interfering and laying down the law could go to hell.
No stranger would ever really understand why her life had turned out the way it had. Too bad if she'd been born with a silver spoon in her mouth. What had happened, had happened.
‘Henry, I just can't take her with me. You know what it was like last time!'
Beatrice Forsenström was preparing for her annual visit to her mother and two aunts. Henry Forsenström didn't have much time for these ladies and the feeling was mutual. Beatrice went to see them on her own.
Sibylla had speculated about the possibility that once upon a time her mother really must have married her father for love because her parents had been so opposed to the marriage. Beatrice's family was upper-class. Her parents, Mr and Mrs Hall, surveying the world from inside their huge apartment in Stockholm's prestigious Ostermalm district, had dismissed the son of Forsenström's Foundry as 'not really one of us'. When anyone wanted to marry into the Hall family 'a good family background' was what really counted. 'New money' was automatically suspect.
Besides, what would a Hall girl do, buried in Hultaryd? No one had ever heard of this one-horse place somewhere in the Småland uplands. Still, it's your funeral, my dear, just don't come complaining to us afterwards.
Sibylla had picked this up gradually, listening to her mother's conversations with Granny at mealtimes. Apparently, Granny was also displeased at how long it had taken Beatrice and her husband to produce children. Displeased, though not at all surprised. What can you expect? Beatrice had been all of thirty-six when Sibylla was born.
Sibylla's grandmother had a finely honed ability to make herself understood, a skill relying entirely on insinuations and covert accusations. Her daughter had inherited it in full. As a grown-up, Sibylla had sometimes wondered if she too carried the same dissembling gene.
At that time, she had been eleven and hiding halfway up the stairs to listen to what her parents were saying about going to see Granny.
'Her cousins simply can't understand what she's talking about half the time. They make fun of her. I shouldn't expose her to that.'
Henry Forsenström said nothing. Perhaps he was just looking through some of his documents and personal things.
'Her accent is even coarser than some of the working-class children here, you know.'
Her father sighed audibly, but must have felt he should comment.
'What's wrong wi' that. She's born 'n bred in these parts after all.'
Henry Forsenström's version of the local dialect showed no regard for proper speech. Beatrice didn't answer at once. Although Sibylla couldn't see her, she felt she knew exactly what her mother's face looked like.
'Anyway, I think she'd better stay here this time… Besides, I'd have a chance to get out on my own for a change. Mummy mentioned a premiere at the opera on Friday – they're doing La Traviata.'
'You do as you think best, of course.'
Sibylla had never again been allowed to travel with her mother to Stockholm. The next time she arrived in the capital, it was under quite different circumstances.
When she woke the following morning, her body was telling her that all was not well. The little shed made her feel trapped. The paraffin heater had cut out and the air was cold. Her throat didn't feel quite as rough as it had, thank God. The night before it felt like a really bad upper-airways infection, the kind you might need to take penicillin for. It's tricky to persuade a doctor to see you without being a registered patient and now it would be worse still, because she was presumably a wanted person.
She was hungry and ate the last piece of bread. There was nothing to drink because she'd finished the Coke at supper last night. She ate the tomato and the apple as well. Then she started packing her things.
She put away the iron candlestick and the fruit-bowl, stacked the cushions and finally looked around to check she hadn't forgotten anything. Pulling on her rucksack, with one hand on the door handle, she suddenly hesitated. It was a long time since she'd felt fearful.
Her rucksack was slipping off her shoulders. She shut the door again.
Bloody hell. Stay cool.
But she sank down on one of the kitchen chairs, leaning her head in her hands. As a rule, crying was not something she did because she knew only too well how pointless it was. For as long as she was left in peace to do her own thing, she normally never wanted to cry anyway. There was only one cause of grief that might still surface, although hidden so deep down in her mind that she only rarely became aware of the pain.
Her conscious thought was almost always focused on food for the day and sleeping quarters for the night ahead. Everything else was secondary.
She had her savings, too.
She put her hand to her chest, where the sacred 29,385 kronor were tucked away inside a safe purse, hanging on a strap round her neck underneath her clothes.
Soon she would have enough saved up. With this money she would finally reach the goal she had fought hard to achieve. Her decision to live differently one day had been utterly sincere and thinking about it had buoyed her up during the last five years. She wanted to change. Instead of always moving on, she wanted a country cottage to live in. It would be her home, where she could peacefully lead her life in her own way. Maybe she would grow vegetables, maybe keep some hens. Draw water from her own well. She didn't dream of comfort, just four walls that were hers alone.
Peace and quiet.
She had investigated and found that about 40,000 kronor would be enough, if you were prepared to live without electricity and running water in unglamorous countryside, somewhere obscure. That was exactly what she wanted. In the far north her kind of place might be even cheaper, but the thought of the long hard winters frightened her. She would keep struggling for a little longer instead.
During the last five years she'd put away as much as she possibly could of the monthly alms from he mother. Once in that purse the money simply didn't exist any more, no matter how cold or hungry she was.
Just a few more years and then she'd have enough…
She put the notes down on the table in front of her, arranging them in a star pattern. She always went to the bank to exchange the money she received for new crisp notes.
Notes that her mother had never touched.
After a while, looking at her money had made her feel better again. It usually cheered her up. The next stage in recovering her fighting spirit would be a visit to an estate agent to keep informed about movements in house prices.
She gathered up her money, put it safely back in the purse, pushed the chair neatly back in place at the table and locked the door behind her. Her steps were lighter now.
She got as far as Ringen. Glancing at one of the posters on the newspaper kiosk made her sense of calm evaporate. Now her problems were no longer about surviving for another day.
Now she was on the run.
WOMAN CHARGED WITH BUTCHERY MURDER
That was the headline. There was a picture of a woman
with a caption underneath naming her: Sibylla Forsenström, 32
years old.
'Dear Sibylla, don't look so sour. Please at least try to smile.'
Obedient as she was back then, she had tried. The effect was ghastly. Whatever she might have looked like seconds earlier, it couldn't have been worse than this. Even her mother presumably thought so, because she'd hidden the picture away until now. Curling tongs had been applied to her fringe, symmetrically on either side of the central parting, and the tips of the curls plastered against her temples. Her eyes had that unmistakable cowed look.
She was feeling nauseous now. Nineteen kronor left. The paper cost eight.
There has been a breakthrough in the investigation of the 'ritual slaughter' of Jorgen Grundberg (51) in his room at the Grand Hotel last night. A woman suspect, Sibylla Forsenström (32) is wanted by the police and has been formally charged in her absence. As The Express learnt yesterday, this is the woman with whom the 51-year-old was seen on Thursday evening. The receptionist on duty that night has now told the police that Mr Grundberg himself booked a room for the woman, who gave what turned out to be a false name. The wanted woman managed to get through the police cordon early on Friday morning, leaving behind several articles including a wig that she allegedly wore the previous evening. The police also found a briefcase which, some sources suggest, may contain the murder weapon. The police are not prepared to reveal any details about the weapon. Fingerprints on the briefcase identified the woman as Sibylla Forsenström. The same prints were found on the key to the victim's room and in her hotel room, where a glass with the victim's prints was also found.
The police are baffled as to her whereabouts. In 1985 she escaped from a mental hospital in southern Sweden where she was an in-patient treated for psychological problems. Since then she has not been in contact with any state or local authority agency. No one seems to know anything about her life during the intervening fourteen years. Police records of her fingerprints were kept after an incident involving a car theft and illegal driving in 1984. Sibylla Forsenström grew up in a well-to-do family, based in a small industrial town in east Småland.
As she has been without a fixed address since 1985, the public are asked to let the police have any relevant information. However the police also warn that she is likely to be confused and violent. Forensic psychologists, currently examining a diary found in her briefcase, claim that several notes are of a disturbed, incoherent character. The photograph, as the police are anxious to point out, is over sixteen years old. The waiter who served the woman and her alleged victim on Thursday evening described her as polite and well groomed. He is assisting a police artist with the creation of a more up-to-date image. Information about the wanted woman should be given to the police, either at the nearest police station or by phoning 08-401 0040.
She could feel the sick taste in her mouth. It came from deep down in her stomach, where some part of her had already taken in what her brain was still refusing to analyse.
They were going to take control over her. Again.
She felt as if she was being suffocated. It was a familiar, frightening sensation that came back from the past to take her over. A hostile spirit was emerging from a hiding-place where it had been waiting and watching. It was ready for her now. In spite of all her efforts, she had failed to exorcise it after all.
Anybody who fancied reading all about her in the paper could go right ahead. What had they all been saying back then? Silly-billy Sibylla. Something odd about that girl. Always reckoned she'd go downhill.
She clenched her fist in her pocket.
Was it her fault that she didn't fit in? She had never been one of them, but managed all the same. What more could they ask? She was a survivor, a survivor in spite of everything.
Now they would take her apart again, seeing her strength as madness and her unconditional existence as a loner's misery. They were poised to crush her plans to build a life of her own.
She wasn't going to let them, no way – not now.
It wasn't me!'
She was phoning from a telephone booth in Stockholm Central Station. The line went silent, so she said it again. 'It wasn't me who killed him.' 'Killed whom?' 'Jorgen Grundberg.' A brief pause.
'Who's that speaking, please?'
She was scanning the great station hall. It was a Saturday and the hall was full of people, leaving and arriving, ready to meet or to separate.
'I'm Sibylla. The person you're looking for. But I'm not the killer.'
A man carrying a briefcase was standing just a few metres away. He looked demonstratively first at his watch and then at her. Obviously, he was in a hurry and would like her to finish her call. Presumably he too had discovered that this was the only phone around that was still coin-operated. She turned her back to him.
'Where are you?"
'It doesn't matter. The important thing I want you to know it that it wasn't me who…'
She fell silent and looked out again. The man was still there, staring irritably at her. She turned her head away again and lowered her voice.
'… not me who did it. That's all I've got to say.'
'Wait a minute!'
She had intended to put the receiver down but stopped. She
could sense the effort the woman at the other end was putting into formulating what she planned to say.
'How do I know that I'm actually speaking to Sibylla?'
'What's that you said?"
'Could you give me your ID number?'
Sibylla almost laughed. For Christ's sake, now what?
'My ID number?'
'Lots of people phoned today, saying that they're Sibylla. How do we know that you're the right one?'
She was open-mouthed with astonishment.
'Listen, I AM Sibylla Forsenström. I've forgotten my ID number, I've had no reason to use for a
long time. I just wanted to say "Please mind your own business, leave me in peace".'
She had forgotten the waiting man, but when she turned he looked away, pretending not to be watching her. 'Where are you?'
Sibylla snorted and stared into the receiver.
'None of your business, mate.' She finished the call and held out the receiver to the waiting man. He hung back, looking anxious.
'Come on, it's all yours.'
He gestured defensively.
'No no, it's all right.'
'No? And you were so fucking keen a moment ago?'
His rolled-up evening paper stuck out from his coat pocket. It was The Express. She spotted one of her own eyes under that appalling fringe.
'Whatever.' She put the receiver back.
The man smiled nervously, then turned and left.
She had to get away now. Better angry than scared, agreed. Above all, she mustn't ever stick her neck out. From now on she couldn't be sure who knew her by name and why. Christ, of all names in world, why did they have to pick Sibylla.
It had been easy to find out where Mrs Grundberg lived. The papers had printed so much information about Jorgen Grundberg that she could have written his biography.
The train journey to Eskilstuna didn't take long. She started off hiding in the toilet, but once the conductor had done his first ticket round and unlocked the toilet door from the outside, she went to find a seat. No one registered surprise at her sudden appearance in the compartment. Ever since discovering that one of the fittings on her hair-curling kit was ideal for opening locked toilet doors on trains, she had been treating herself to the odd excursion. She'd been caught just once and ordered off the train in Hallsberg, which wasn't too bad a place anyway.
She felt happier now, for some strange reason. Maybe it was because she was determined to take control over what was happening to her. Or maybe spending her last kronor on a hamburger had cheered her up.
The Grundbergs' large villa was surrounded by a chest-high wall of the same white, glazed bricks that covered the facade. Mock-Victorian lamps lit the driveway to the mahogany-style front door that contrasted with black-stained window frames. One of the largest satellite discs she'd ever seen was perched on the roof.
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