‘So the suggestion now is that we turn round and go back to the last junction, where we waited for a long time while you were deciding, and then we take the alternative road to the left, because you were looking quite steadily in that direction, and then we’ve covered that possibility as well.’
After this, they turned on to the road leading to the crime scene, but Quick led them the wrong direction.
‘There’s an exit here now onto the E18 again, Thomas,’ Penttinen finally pointed out.
After this, he announced, ‘Christer has an idea that you should stay here, in this area, if you could turn off a bit . . . Yes, stop. I think we should take a short break, if you don’t mind? OK, turn off the sound.’
When sound and image were turned back on the car was travelling along the same road, but heading in the right direction this time. Thomas Quick moved his finger hither and thither. Then suddenly Seppo Penttinen said that he had pointed to the right and the car turned off at the correct junction. Was he pointing to the right? Maybe. Certainly he was also pointing to the left. And straight ahead. But only when they were at the correct turn-off did Penttinen react and explain where Quick was really pointing. Soon the procedure was repeated, but in the opposite direction, because Quick had once again missed a junction and the vehicle had to turn round – after the interrogator had discreetly asked if it might not be better to turn back.
As they were passing the actual place where Gry’s body had been found, Penttinen said, ‘Should we stop?’
But Thomas Quick didn’t pick up on this; he wanted to carry on.
Before long Penttinen said, ‘What do you say, do you want to turn round?’
Finally Quick realised what was going on. He agreed that they should turn round. Soon he asked them to stop in more or less the place where Penttinen had just suggested it might be good to stop for a while.
To say that Thomas Quick was able to lead the investigators to the scene is to really conjure things out of thin air. It was quite the opposite; they were the ones who led him to the scene, through their hints and helpful interpretations as well as clear instructions and manoeuvres.
Sture Bergwall said to me, ‘There was always information to pick up on. I was reading not just Seppo but also the other police in the minibus, and the driver. If Seppo got a bit strained I knew we were heading in the wrong direction. And if the driver applied the brakes I knew we had to turn off very soon, and then I had time to say so. The whole time I had these small, small signs. With little details they let me know where we were going. But it sounded as if I was telling them.’
And what about that spontaneous reaction to the spot where Gry Storvik had been found?
First of all, Thomas Quick was aware of the basic facts, already given away by Gubb Jan Stigson in Dala-Demokraten. Furthermore his fellow travellers – contrary to what they later claimed in the district court – were long since aware of the similarities between the two cases and how close together the two crime scenes were.
Stigson wrote as follows, ‘The third case concerns 23-year-old Gry Storvik, who disappeared in central Oslo and was found murdered in a small car park in Myrvoll on 25 June 1985. The spot was not far from the place where Trine’s body was found.’
The following exchange from the reconnaissance took place when the vehicle passed a sign for ‘Myrvoll’:
PENTTINEN: You’re thinking about something, Thomas. Tell me. How do you feel?
TQ: Yeah, I’m OK.
PENTTINEN: Really?
TQ: Mm. Yes, there’s the name of a town that I don’t connect to the place where I saw the name.
PENTTINEN: Was it just now?
TQ: Yes.
PENTTINEN: What town was it, then?
TQ: I can’t remember.
PENTTINEN: Was it in connection with the crossroads we passed?
TQ: Mm.
And sure enough, soon they passed the car park in question in Myrvoll, where for some unknown reason the car stopped and remained stationary at a junction. Quick was encouraged to keep showing them the way, but he chose the wrong direction and soon they turned round and went back, this time stopping at the other end of the car park. In the district court film, the video recording was cut there and a voice-over announced, ‘This view of the car park is what Thomas Quick focused our attention on. It’s where Gry Storvik was found.’
Yet the film I was now watching continued with Penttinen sitting there talking to Quick in the car park where they had brought him.
‘There’s something here,’ said Quick.
‘Is there something here?’ said Penttinen.
‘Yes.’
‘Where? You’re indicating the whole area?’
‘No, not the whole area.’
‘So, what then?’
‘That shed . . .’
Thomas Quick pointed to the right from the direction they were facing, while the car park was the other way.
‘What?’ said Seppo Penttinen, sounding quite surprised.
‘. . . behind here, there and here . . .’
Quick didn’t point out the car park with a single word or gesture. On the contrary, he seemed to want to focus the investigators’ attention on a place on the other side of the road.
As for Thomas Quick’s anxious reaction, which the investigators seemed to feel was so enormously significant, it actually occurred on a nearby roundabout as they once again passed a road sign for ‘Myrvoll’. On the film, one can hear Quick explaining that they were ‘close to the Trine place’.
He didn’t mention Gry Storvik at all. Only Seppo brought her up, in a voice-over recording in the edited version of the film.
MEETING WITH THE JOURNALIST
STURE BERGWALL WOKE at 05.29, one minute before his alarm clock went off. A report on Ekot was talking about a member of parliament, Fredrick Federley, whose salad bar had gone bankrupt, and how suppliers and tax payers were affected, which didn’t interest Sture very much.
After washing and getting dressed, he went to the canteen to pick up coffee and buttermilk, which he took in his room. Ten minutes later, at exactly five past six, he rang the bell to be let outside.
It was a nice day. The fresh morning air brought with it a scent of bird cherry as he emerged into the exercise yard. Sture took a deep breath, closed his eyes and held his breath.
At twenty-five to eight he was back in his room, where he showered and then drank the second cup of coffee of the day in the company of Dagens Nyheter.
He noted in his calendar that he had completed his two thousand, three hundred and fifty-sixth day in a row. It was the only entry he made that day, despite having agreed to meet another human being for the first time in seven years.
After this he immersed himself for a few hours in ‘Crossword Fun’ in the magazine Bra Korsord (‘Good Crosswords’) until he ground to a halt on a difficult clue. He had a few letters pinned down and was unsure about the rest until he finally gave up.
It was a strange coincidence that he had seen the journalist’s SVT documentary on the Falun pyromaniac: nine children and young people who had confessed to starting several fires even though they were innocent. There was something in the tone of it that had appealed to him. The subject of the reportage, false confessions, had also given him a vague sense of hope. But no more than that. He wasn’t particularly thinking about it.
On Ward 36, the care assistants knew that Sture was having a visitor in the afternoon. They had spoken among themselves and agreed that it had to mean Sture had made a decision and that something had changed. Why else would he break his silence now?
As Sture came out to fetch his lunch, one of the old-timer nurses from Ward 36 came up to him, took him gently by the arm and said to him in a confiding voice, almost whispering, ‘Sture, you’re having a visitor today?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Sture.
‘Are you going on with the criminal investigations?’ said the nurse optimistically.
Sture hummed by way of an answer, a vaguely
communicative hum that could mean almost anything. So that’s what they think. That’s what the staff are saying, he thought.
He would go to his meeting without expectation or anxiety. Maybe some sort of possibility would appear, he thought, but he pushed this away as soon as it occurred to him.
Ten minutes before the appointment, two care assistants came to Sture’s room and said it was time to go.
CHRONOLOGY OF STURE BERGWALL/THOMAS QUICK
1969
Sture molests four young boys
1970
Sentenced to closed psychiatric care, admitted to Sidsjön Hospital
1971
Studies for a year at Jokkmokk Folk High School
1972
Back to Sidsjön Hospital
1973
Moves to Säter
Trial release
1974
Stabs a man in Uppsala, back to Säter
1976
Charles Zelmanovits disappears in Piteå
1977
Discharged from Säter
Death of father
1980
Johan Asplund disappears
1981
Trine Jensen murdered
1982
Opens a tobacconist’s with his brother Sten-Ove
1983
Death of mother
Begins contact with Patrik Olofsson
1984
Murders in Appojaure
1985
Gry Storvik murdered
1986
Closure of tobacconist’s kiosk
Opens a new kiosk with Patrik Olofsson’s mother
1987
Obtains driving licence
Moves to Falun, then to Grycksbo
1988
Yenon Levi murdered
Therese Johannesen disappears
1989
Two Somali boys go missing from refugee centre in Oslo
1990
Moves to Falun
Robs a bank
1991
Convicted of aggravated robbery and theft
Admitted to Säter
Starts therapy with Kjell Persson
1992
Plans move into own flat
Change of name to Thomas Quick
Goes with Kjell Persson to Bosvedjan
1993
First meeting with Birgitta Ståhle
Confesses to murder of Johan Asplund
Reconnaissance of the crime scene
Remains of Charles Zelmanovits found
Kjell Persson requests leave of absence
Göran Fransson hands in his notice
1994
Confesses to murder of Charles Zelmanovits
Admitted to forensic psychiatric clinic in Växjö for a few weeks
Birgitta Ståhle takes over the therapy at Säter
First meeting with Sven Åke Christianson
Reconnaissance in Piteå
Convicted of the murder of Charles Zelmanovits
Confesses to murders in Appojaure
Establishment of the Quick Commission
1995
Reconnaisance in Appojaure
Reconnaissance in Messaure
Changes lawyer to Claes Borgström
Confesses to murder of Levi
1996
Convicted of murders in Appojaure
Confesses to murder of Therese Johannesen
Reconnaissances in Drammen, Ørje Forest and Lindesberg
Confesses to murder of Trine Jensen
1997
Convicted of the murder of Yenon Levi
Reconnaissance in Ørje Forest to point out burial sites
1998
Quick feud begins
Convicted of the murder of Therese Johannesen
1999
Reconnaisance for Trine Jensen murder
2000
Convicted of the murders of Trine Jensen and Gry Storvik
2001
Convicted of the murder of Johan Asplund
Thomas Quick takes time out
2002
Takes back the name of Sture Bergwall
Ends his therapy with Birgitta Ståhle
2008
Meets Hannes Råstam for the first time
Thomas Olsson accepts the case
2009
Retrial approved for the murder of Yenon Levi
2010
Charges dropped for the murder of Yenon Levi
Retrial approved for the murder of Therese Johannesen
2011
Charges dropped for the murder of Therese Johannesen
2012
Retrial approved for the murder of Johan Asplund
Charges dropped for the murder of Johan Asplund
Retrial approved for the murders of Trine Jensen and Gry Storvik
Charges dropped for the murders of Trine Jensen and Gry Storvik
2013
Retrial approved for the murder of Charles Zelmanovits
Retrial approved for the murders in Appojaure
Charges dropped for the murders in Appojaure
Thomas Quick Page 45