Maya had sat there for weeks with her nose buried in the magazines, reverently examining them as if they contained some kind of secret code. She had chosen pictures of slender women with pale skin and dark eyes, dressed in black and leaning against ancient trees; perfume adverts consisting of naked bodies in artistic poses; black men with bare torsos and gleaming white teeth with gold fillings; men in women's clothes; women in men's suits. Women with cheekbones to die for. She had snipped and glued for months before the collage was finally pronounced complete: an explosion of faces and bodies and colours. She had painted straight on to the pictures with pastel colours, capriciously altering them. She had stuck many pictures on top of one another with thick layers of fabric glue, then torn away strips of the faces and bodies before the glue dried so that the picture underneath was partly exposed: a pair of eyes with a piercing gaze. A breast. A foot in the sand. A snake.
Solveig had not been pleased when Maya put up the collage in her room. She didn't appreciate the many pairs of eyes that seemed to be staring at her wherever she went. She knew this was because all the models had been looking straight into the camera when they were photographed. And that's why it didn't help when she pressed herself right against the wall next to the collage to avoid their scorn: they were still looking her straight in the eye. She also thought it was a little advanced for an eleven-year-old, all that bare skin.
She said so to Maya. What's the matter with you? There's plenty of time for you to break your heart over all that kind of thing.
Sebastian must have secretly kept it all these years and put it up during the night. He had chosen to contribute his treasure to the memory room. A lump of gratitude formed in her throat, and she had to clear it several times so that she wouldn't start crying. This was an acknowledgement on Sebastian's part. A small step along the road to reconciliation.
She padded across the floor and pushed open the door to his room.
That same afternoon, as Solveig was putting the finishing touches to the memory room, she knocked on the door. Solveig, who for a long time had found it difficult to distinguish clearly between daydream and reality, thought at first that the tall woman in the long black coat was a product of her imagination. She simply didn't match the shabby stairwell, with her red-painted lips and the broad-brimmed hat that concealed a choppy, boyish haircut.
'At first I thought you were some kind of artist,' Solveig said much later, and she meant it. Not that she thought the woman was particularly attractive - quite the opposite. According to the ideals with which she had grown up, girls were supposed to be sweet and slender and as transparent as elves. There was nothing elfin about this woman, with her wide full mouth and strong square jawline.
She had introduced herself as a friend of Maya, stepping inside with total confidence as if she already knew that she would be moving in. As if it didn't even occur to her that anyone would refuse.
In the hallway Solveig quickly became aware of the smell emanating from the woman's body, a faint but unmistakable aroma of cinnamon and woodsmoke. The woman unbuttoned her coat to take it off, and Solveig was enveloped in the sweet warmth that had been held within the fabric. It was almost intoxicating. She felt something that could be confused with a fleeting erotic attraction, swayed slightly and took a step back.
The stranger stopped dead, as if she had just become aware of the unexpected effect she was having on Solveig.
'Don't be frightened,' she said quietly. 'I just want to talk about Maya. I know something's happened to her, and I think I'll go under if I can't talk to someone about her.'
Solveig grasped the woman's hand as a person in distress grasps the hand of their saviour, and led her into the dressing room without saying a word. Afterwards Solveig would regard her as being sent from heaven.
* * *
Chapter 48
2007
Tell wanted to hit himself on the head with something hard, and would have done so if he had thought it would do any good.
How had he managed to lead a murder enquiry along such a narrow track that they had missed the simplest thing of all? If he hadn't illegally entered the home of one of the witnesses involved in the investigation, a witness he had also slept with and then neglected, since he was just as scared of her as he was of his boss, he would have let the team carry on digging deeper and deeper without realising that they were digging in completely the wrong place.
His confidence was at rock bottom. It took an enormous effort for him to go back to the station to start trying to put things right, to win back just a fraction of the time his thoughtlessness had cost them.
Karlberg was at the end of the corridor talking to a woman wearing a blue suit, and as Tell drew closer he could see that it was Maria Waltz. A couple of metres away stood two gangling creatures both wearing sullen looks as if they had the word 'teenager' stamped on their foreheads. Although what else could you expect? Their father had just been murdered and they had been brought in for questioning. Tell only hoped that Karlberg had had the presence of mind to formulate a plausible and inoffensive reason for the interview. If Maria Waltz had not been making such angry gestures he would no doubt have had the same confidence in his colleague as always, but her attitude made him wonder if Karlberg might have gone in too hard.
'They've only just lost their father…' he heard Lars Waltz's ex-wife say angrily, but she fell silent as Tell walked past and went over to her sons. Their expressions became even more blank, if that was possible, as he placed one hand on the shoulder of the older boy. At least he looked as if he were the older. The brothers were very alike, both in beige chinos and tight-fitting checked shirts.
Tell introduced himself and quietly expressed his condolences. The boy pushed his hair behind his ear. More than anything he seemed confused at being spoken to as an adult.
'It was a mistake to bring you here today,' said Tell, speaking loudly enough for Maria Waltz to hear. 'You can go home.'
Karlberg was dumbfounded. Tell left without any further explanation. As he headed towards his office he could hear his colleague saying something lame about the police being in touch when they knew more or if they needed the boys' help. Dragging her bewildered sons behind her, Maria Waltz marched out of the station.
The sound of Karlberg's boots drew closer, and he appeared in the doorway.
'What the hell was all that about? I thought you told me to bring them in?'
'I did. But now I've changed my mind.'
He slammed a bundle of A4 sheets on the desk and ripped them demonstratively in half in front of an increasingly bewildered Karlberg.
'Are you intending to explain, or are you just going to carry on ripping up paper? We do have a shredder, in case you didn't know.'
Tell realised he might be trying Karlberg's patience a little too far.
'Bring the rest of the team to the conference room. I'll be there when I've gathered my thoughts.'
Ten minutes later they were all waiting there. Since they had been forced to drop whatever they were doing without any explanation, they were both irritated and curious in equal measure. Tell couldn't resist making a Poirot entrance. Several people rolled their eyes at one another.
'I've gathered you all together because earlier today an idea struck me. I was - well, the how or why doesn't matter, but anyway it struck me that… I think we've been on the wrong track. No, not the wrong track, but we've been thinking about the wrong person all the way through this investigation. And it's not all that strange. We focused on one of the victims and his background and those around him. But we've been digging in the wrong bloody place. That's why we kept getting stuck or finding yet another dead end.'
He looked triumphantly at the team but realised he was facing utter confusion.
'I may be wrong, but I think Lars Waltz was murdered by mistake. I also think there may be a link to a case that's already closed, but I'm not sure enough about that to say any more at this stage. I suspect the plan was to murder Lise-Lott's first husb
and, Thomas Edell. For some reason the murderer didn't know he was already dead, so instead he murdered the man he found in the car workshop…'
He waved his hand meaningfully in the air, and ended up pointing at Beckman.
'THOMAS EDELL-VEHICLE REPAIRS AND SCRAPYARD,' she supplied. 'The sign.'
'Exactly, in the belief that he was in fact Thomas Edell.'
A thoughtful silence descended over the room. Tell could feel his confidence returning.
'Why do I think this? Well, as you know, we've searched high and low for a link between the first and second victims. We've asked Lise- Lott if her husband Lars Waltz knew an Olof Bart, but not if her ex-husband Thomas Edell knew an Olof Pilgren. Are you with me? From '83 to '86 Olof Bart had a supervisor linked to his temporary accommodation. This was Thorbjorn Persson, who remembers that Olof had a friend called Thomas. I also talked to Lise-Lott on my way in, and she confirms that her ex-husband used to hang out with someone called Pilen - which could easily be Pilgren.'
Gonzales' eyebrows were firmly knitted in a scowl, but after a short silence Karlberg allowed himself to nod in agreement.
'OK, Tell, even if it does seem a bit off the wall. If we buy into the idea that the murderer was after Edell, we're still left with one important question - why? Motive and perpetrator. We're no further forward even if you are right. And if you hate somebody enough to want to kill them, it surely suggests some kind of obsession. Isn't it likely then that you'd be keeping an eye on the person, at least enough to know if they've been dead for… how long? Seven, eight years?'
'Yes,' Tell conceded, 'that's true. You're thinking it could be some kind of revenge attack on these two men.'
'Yes. Are you thinking along a different line?'
'It's a little difficult for the rest of us to come up with something when the information you're giving us is so vague,' Beckman interjected.
Tell seemed lost in thought. He nodded and stared at the door as if he were longing to escape from the room. He opened his mouth but closed it a second later without answering Karlberg's question. Suddenly he felt as if the looks his colleagues were giving him were much too challenging. He had things to do: he had to see Seja before he tackled anything else. He now regretted not staying in the house to wait for her. The sudden urge to act had misled him.
'What are you talking about, Tell?' came Bärneflod's irritated voice. He had sat in the corner in silence until now.' "The how or why doesn't matter…" Fuck that! Are we all in the same boat, or are you paddling your own fucking canoe here? Conducting a little enquiry of your own on the side? I mean, what the hell is going on here? Are you trying to solve the case all on your own? How the fuck can we work if we're not a team?'
He looked around the room seeking agreement but was met by total silence.
'Could we try to raise the level a little?' Karlberg tried to mediate, but Tell couldn't avoid noticing his hesitant expression.
Beckman clapped her hands together.
'We can't afford to sit here squabbling. Nor can we afford to ignore any possible leads. As Tell says, we haven't found a motive or any connection between Waltz and Bart. If we can prove that Edell and Bart's paths crossed, then of course we need to see where that takes us. And of course Tell will pass on his thoughts to us as soon as they're clear.'
Tell stood up with a grateful look at Beckman, who rewarded him with an ambiguous grimace.
'Thank you. OK, so we change tack. We'll leave Lars Waltz in peace for the time being and concentrate on Thomas Edell: background, family, friends, job,… I assume everybody knows what to drop and what to focus on. I suggest we regard this as a natural break and use the evening to go home and think about this new direction. We'll meet back here tomorrow, eight o'clock sharp.'
'To start from the beginning all over again,' added Bärneflod.
During the drive to Stenared Tell worked himself into a rage that had more to do with disappointment than anything else, a feeling that Seja had cheated in order to gain access to an area which was his alone. And, which was worse, there must have been a reason. She had failed to pass on to him information she had somehow acquired, even though she knew better than anyone how he had been tearing his hair out, trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together. That meant she didn't trust him.
He would have been even more angry if she had pretended she didn't know what he was talking about. At least she didn't do that(didn't shake her head and say she didn't know what he meant. Instead her reaction was unexpected in a completely different way: she was absolutely furious that he had gone into her house, that he had been prying among her things,.
'I can't believe you just walked in! Helped yourself! Opened drawers.
SWITCHED ON MY COMPUTER!!! What were you looking for? Are you a detective inspector in my home as well? Am I a criminal?' Did he make a habit of going to bed with criminals, she asked him, to gain access to evidence? And he replied, without really thinking it through, that she didn't know what she was talking about, that she was bloody hysterical - she was actually hysterical, and for a fraction of a second he thought she was going to slap him.
Instead she went and sat down on the armchair by the fire, and put her head in her hands.
'You've searched my house.You. You even went through my underwear drawer. It's fucking sick.'
'What's this you? Why do you have to keep saying you all the time?' he asked crossly, hating the whining undertone in his voice. 'As if I were the last person who should be allowed to see your secrets.'
'I just didn't think you'd do that,' she said simply. 'I hoped we were for real.'
Silence fell over the room. A bird let out a harsh screech and took off from the top of a fir tree.
Tell felt a great tiredness descend over the whole situation, linked to the vast tiredness underlying every single quarrel he had ever had with women over the years. How many times had he said Stop being so bloody hysterical? He didn't know, but he was quite sure his words had never fallen on fertile ground.
He sank down in the armchair opposite Seja and tried to gather his thoughts, suppressing his natural impulse to get in the car and drive straight back to work. She had managed to make him feel slightly ashamed of himself, hysterical or not.
He had, in his manic state, gone through the drawer where she kept her underwear. Not that the underwear had interested him one iota at the time. At that moment the folder containing the photograph of Lars Waltz with his brains blown out had been the only thing on his mind, along with the text in Finnish and the document on the computer containing the name of Thomas Edell.
Part of him understood that she felt violated. But just as he accepted her indignation was partly justified, he also realised that she had cleverly made him forget his real reason for coming to see her.
He had been upset, he had been kept in the dark, and he was still furious, but he forced himself to calm down, because in spite of everything he realised he would never be able to get her to talk if he carried on in the same accusatory tone.
'Do you speak Finnish?'
She closed her eyes and shook her head as if she couldn't believe her ears.
'Do you?' he repeated.
'Yes,' she said tersely and louder than necessary. 'My mother was born in Finland.'
She refused to look at him, clearly uncomfortable. Tell thought there was just a chance she was slightly embarrassed over her mendacity after all, and suddenly he felt sorry for her. He cursed the spontaneous satisfaction he had felt at her collapsing defences, as if she were the object of an interrogation and not the woman in whose hair he had buried his face just a few days ago, thinkingThis is it.
'Was it so that other people couldn't read it?' he asked, more gently this time. She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly.
'I always used to write in Finnish when I was little, when I didn't want the other kids to understand.' She was speaking quietly. 'It was like my own secret language.'
He quelled the impulse to place his hand over hers; she
looked so vulnerable, lost in the secrets of her childhood.
'Were you going to tell me?' he asked eventually.
The illusion of defencelessness was instantly transformed into irritation once more. She threw her arms wide open.
'I don't even know if there's anything to tell, Christian. I didn't know - I still don't - if what I know has anything to do with your investigation. I mean it wasn't Thomas Edell lying there! It wasn't him! And that's exactly why I didn't say anything. How… how can you know if the memories from a difficult period in your life are true? You must know what I mean? Memory is like a bloody sieve - you decide for yourself what you want to remember, depending on your self- image at the time.'
She stared at him, her shoulders hunched up by her ears, before she breathed out heavily and lowered them, allowing the images from the past to come pouring in.
Over the next hour darkness fell over the room; they didn't bother switching on the lights. Once she started talking he found he was holding his breath, as if the least movement on his part might cause a sudden break in her story, in her fragile trust. She kept on drifting off the point and he was itching to ask concrete questions - Why have you got several enlarged photographs of a murder victim? How is this connected to the fact that you were first on the scene of the crime and then started a relationship with the officer leading the investigation? - but he was sensitive enough to realise that too much pressure would just make her retreat.
He buried his fingernails deep in the palms of his hands in order to remain patient as she attempted to put the pictures in her memory into words and to formulate the conclusions drawn by her subconscious over the past ten years.
He should have contented himself with simply listening. Should have been patient and actually enjoyed getting to know her, but he couldn't. He was trapped inside the framework of his job. He couldn't split himself in two, and evidently neither could Seja. Sometimes the story became incomprehensible. Sometimes the words were not right, and she had to start again.
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