The Silent Girl (Sebastian Bergman 4)

by Michael Hjorth

  ‘I want her brought here as soon as she lands,’ Torkel said, getting to his feet. He looked as if he’d like to start pacing back and forth as he usually did, but the room was too small, so instead he went and stood by the window with his arms folded. ‘The neighbours didn’t mention the fact that another child sometimes came to visit, and if the mother’s in Africa, that would explain why no one has reported Nicole missing,’ he summarised. ‘So we assume it’s her, until we can prove otherwise.’

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  ‘What else do we know about the girl?’ Torkel went on, directing the question at Vanja. Once again she consulted her notes.

  ‘Ten years old, as I said. Parents divorced, lives with her mother, father’s in Brazil, little or no contact with him, as far as I can make out.’

  Was it Sebastian’s imagination, or was there a hint of sorrow in her voice?

  ‘According to her teachers she’s intelligent and mature for her age.’ Vanja gathered up her papers with a shrug. ‘She’s only ten, so there’s not much.’

  ‘Are we sure she’s missing?’

  Everyone, even Sebastian, turned to Billy.

  ‘I mean, she could have been abducted,’ he went on. ‘The killer could have grabbed her coat and shoes in the hallway so that we wouldn’t look for her.’

  ‘No,’ Sebastian said. ‘If he’d seen her, she would be dead.’

  ‘And you know that for certain, do you?’ Billy couldn’t help a note of irritation creeping into his voice. Being put right by Sebastian wasn’t a new experience, but there was still something incredibly annoying about that self-assured tone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That’s my job, and I’m good at my job.’

  Their eyes met. Billy gritted his teeth; this was an argument he couldn’t possibly win. Whatever the rest of the team thought of Sebastian, no one would question his expertise.

  ‘So she’s definitely missing, she hasn’t been kidnapped,’ Torkel stated, confirming Billy’s thoughts. Sebastian turned his attention back to the photograph.

  The dark hair tied back in a ponytail, apart from two strands that hung down and framed the girl’s face. A red sweatshirt worn over a white blouse. Nicole’s smile reached her open brown eyes.

  Sabine had also had dark hair and brown eyes.

  ‘Sebastian …’

  He was jerked back to reality. Torkel and the others were looking at him as if they were expecting an answer, but he had no idea what the question might have been.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The girl, Nicole. What are you thinking?’

  Sebastian thought for a moment before he spoke.

  ‘She hid in the living room, waited for the killer to leave. Went back to fetch her outdoor clothes so that she wouldn’t freeze later.’ He paused, gazing at the smiling child in the school photo again. ‘She’s not just running around like a headless chicken – she’s in hiding.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she’s not prepared to go to the police. She could easily have come here in the past forty-eight hours. She has a different plan.’

  He reached out and touched the photograph as if that would help him work out what was going on in Nicole’s mind.

  ‘Whatever she’s doing might not make sense to us, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s the obvious course of action. She’s behaving rationally, but according to her own logic.’

  ‘That’s really helpful,’ Billy said quietly, but not quietly enough to stop the others from hearing.

  Erik contemplated the Riksmord team with a growing feeling of unease. They seemed rather dysfunctional, to say the least.

  ‘So what do you want us to do?’ he asked Torkel, who took a deep breath. Good question – what did he want them to do?

  They had a girl. Presumably traumatised. Missing for over forty-eight hours. Normal procedure would be to bring in as many resources as possible to search for her, but if he did that, they risked letting the killer know that there was a witness, which could theoretically put Nicole in mortal danger.

  The alternative was to keep it to themselves for as long as possible and not to ask for help – but then they risked not finding her.

  He could see that everyone was waiting for an answer. The alternative wasn’t really an alternative.

  ‘We go all out to find her.’

  ★ ★ ★

  Torkel estimated that there were about eighty people in front of the police station. Most had been mobilised from the local defence service and off-duty police officers who had been called in, but there were also quite a lot of volunteers. A spokeswoman for Missing People had assured him that she could provide twice as many the next day if required. They had decided to combine a summary of the situation with a brief press conference; those who would be actively searching for the girl gathered around Erik Flodin and the large map, while the reporters formed an outer circle.

  Sebastian reminded them that it wasn’t unusual for the killer to return to the scene of the crime, or to try to get close to the investigation, then Billy went around and photographed everyone who had turned up.

  After a couple of minutes Torkel looked for Sebastian, but couldn’t see him; he must have gone back inside. He had decided to take a back seat at this point; Erik knew the area and he knew the people who were here, so he was the best person to take the lead, even though he wasn’t the SIO. Torkel recognised a face in the crowd: Pia Flodin. Her expression was grim. After five murders in two days, no doubt a missing ten-year-old was the last thing she needed. He was a little surprised to see her; shouldn’t she be meeting the council’s PR representative to work on a damage-limitation exercise? But of course this was where all the cameras were, and it was election year …

  Axel Weber detached himself from his fellow journalists and came over to Torkel. The previous year Weber had broken the story of two Afghan asylum seekers who had mysteriously disappeared, highlighting links to the military intelligence service and a murdered family up in the mountains, but it had caused no more than a ripple on the surface of the media pond. Clearly certain people had done enough to shut it down.

  Weber had his notebook at the ready.

  ‘Do you think she saw the killer?’

  ‘If you listen to Erik, you’ll find out what we think.’

  ‘If I say she saw the killer, will you deny it?’

  ‘We don’t know what she did or didn’t see. We just want to find her.’

  ‘So no denial, then?’

  Torkel didn’t reply; instead he turned his attention back to the briefing, which was coming to an end. They didn’t have many hours of daylight left. Everyone had been given a picture of Nicole, and the house from which she had disappeared had been pointed out on the map. She had been missing for over fifty hours by now; they had worked out an average speed, taking into account the possibility that she might have been going around in circles, and had come up with five areas where they thought she could be. These areas were now allocated to search teams, each with a leader: Torkel, Vanja, Billy, a local defence officer and the Missing People representative. Everyone was issued with the relevant telephone numbers and given walkie-talkies, sandwiches and a Thermos flask.

  In conclusion Erik explained that he would be staying behind to act as co-ordinator and to take overall responsibility for the search. The team leaders would report back to him.

  Cars started up, and the area emptied in no time. Erik watched as the last vehicle turned left onto Bergebyvägen, then he headed inside. Pia appeared at his side.

  ‘Have you spoken to Frank?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should?’

  Erik considered the question. There was definitely something in what Pia said. Frank Hedén was the local game ranger. No one knew the forests around Torsby better than Frank and his dogs, but a few months ago, not long after his sixtieth birthday, he had been diagnosed with bone cancer. Erik didn’t feel entirely
comfortable about asking for his help.

  ‘If he’d wanted to get involved he would have been here,’ he began.

  ‘If you need him, he’ll help if you give him my love,’ Pia said, placing a hand on his forearm.

  That was probably true.

  Frank had worked in local government for the Social Democrats for many years. He had been the chair of the council when Pia started to get interested in politics, and had become something of a mentor to her as she climbed the ladder. They were very close. Erik gave the matter a little more thought, then nodded. It was worth a try.

  ‘Good,’ Pia said, leaning forward to kiss him on the lips. She watched him walk to the car; he waved as he drove off, and she waved back, wearing a smile that disappeared as soon as he was out of sight.

  They had to find the girl.

  They had to put an end to this.

  She had googled ‘Torsby’ during her lunch break, and after the town’s home page and Wikipedia, the first three pages had been exclusively about murder and violence. That really wasn’t good for the town, and anything that wasn’t good for the town wasn’t good for her.

  And she really wanted everything to be OK.

  Sebastian was sitting in their temporary HQ. He had stayed outside and listened to Erik for a little while, but had found it fairly boring. He had given a less than polite response when he was asked whether he would like to join one of the search parties, and had come inside.

  Sebastian Bergman did not wander through the forest shouting out someone’s name. There were plenty of superannuated military types, bored schoolteachers, housewives and unemployed layabouts to do that kind of thing. Not one of Europe’s leading criminal psychologists.

  Too little stimulation.

  Too much nature.

  He looked up at the wall.

  Nicole …

  Who had done this?

  Presumably a man; female mass murderers were extremely rare. But who walks up to a house with a shotgun, intent on killing four people, two of whom are children?

  Someone who feels hatred. Someone who wants revenge, or can’t see any other solution to his problems. There must be a personal connection, Sebastian was sure of it; that was why Torkel’s suggestion that the neighbours might like to go away for a while just to be on the safe side was completely idiotic. This was no psycho, randomly going from house to house. This was focused, planned. The killer believed the Carlstens deserved to die.

  Nicole …

  Had the Carlstens done something to the killer on a personal level? Probably, or at least that was how he perceived it. But why did the entire family have to be punished? Why the children? It was important to him that they all died. He must have searched for the boy in the wardrobe …

  Sebastian gazed at the timeline. CEDER THREATENS CARLSTEN OUTSIDE SWIMMING POOL. Jan Ceder was something else. He was a threat. He had to be disposed of so that the killer could get away with the Carlsten murders. The family was the primary target.

  CARLSTENS SHOT.

  Nicole …

  Why now? Why had they been shot now? Had something happened or changed recently, or did the killer have to build up to the massacre? Did he have to convince himself, turn them into symbols rather than people in order to be able to do it? That could take time …

  CORNELIA TORSSON’S STATEMENT. CLOSE-UPS OF EMPTY CARTRIDGE. PLASTER CAST OF BOOT PRINT.

  Nicole …

  The door was open when Cornelia arrived. No attempt whatsoever had been made to hide the bodies. What did that tell Sebastian? That it didn’t matter when the bodies were found. Why? Because the killer hadn’t fled. He was still in the area, or at least not far away. He killed Jan Ceder within two hours of the official notification that he had been released.

  CEDER FOUND DEAD IN DOG PEN.

  Nicole …

  Sebastian kept coming back to the smiling child in the school photograph, with her dark hair and brown eyes.

  Sabine would have been a few years older by now.

  He had never thought of her that way.

  Older.

  He had never thought about what it would be like to take her to school on her first day, or pictured himself as the proud father at parents’ evenings or sports days. He had never considered what joys, what challenges, what discoveries might lie beyond the age of four. Never reflected on the fact that he would be the father of a teenager now, with all that brought with it: the responsibility of guiding her closer and closer to independence in an adult world.

  Was that why he kept coming back to the photograph? Was he seeing Sabine in Nicole? If so, he was crazy. He had met lots of dark-haired, brown-eyed girls since Boxing Day 2004 without reacting like this.

  Nicole …

  Sabine had never grown older as far as he was concerned. She was still that curious four-year-old whom he had loved more than he realised, who was always at the centre of his universe. She had seized life with both hands, she was bright and she would try anything – it hadn’t taken her long to work out how to escape from her cot!

  They had had a rule. Sabine must go to sleep in her own bed. Whether she stayed there all night or ended up in their bed was irrelevant. In the autumn of 2004, her last autumn, she came to them virtually every night. He usually woke up when he heard her scampering along the parquet flooring in the hallway, but if not he would wake when he heard her say: ‘I want to sleep here,’ just before she threw her pillow in between him and Lily, then clambered up. He would help her to snuggle under the covers and put his arm around her. She liked to grab his fingers in her left hand and squeeze them. She stuck her right thumb in her mouth, and she was fast asleep in seconds …

  Sebastian gave a start when he heard a knock on the door; a second later Fredrika walked in.

  ‘There was coffee left over – would you like some?’

  Sebastian straightened up; he had been miles away. In fact, he felt as if he had just woken up. How long had he been sitting here? He looked at Fredrika and saw her expression change from polite enquiry to something else. Confusion? Distaste? Sympathy?

  She put down the Thermos and two green-and-white mugs.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ she said, nodding towards the display board. Sebastian still didn’t understand, then he realised his cheeks were wet. Had he been crying? He quickly ran a hand over his face. Apparently he had. That explained Fredrika’s reaction when she came in; she hadn’t expected to find Riksmord’s criminal psychologist in tears. But here he was, a lonely, sensitive man weeping over the victims, the meaningless violence. She hadn’t retreated in horror though; she was still here, behaving as if this kind of thing was perfectly normal.

  Perhaps she liked sensitive men.

  Perhaps she already had one.

  ‘So many people turned up to help with the search,’ Sebastian said, clearing his throat as if to make sure his voice was working properly. ‘It’s great to see such commitment in the middle of all this.’ He looked up and met her gaze. ‘Was your husband out there?’ he asked, making every effort to keep his tone neutral and chatty.

  ‘I’m not married.’

  Sebastian nodded and gave her a faint smile. He had no intention of enquiring about a boyfriend, partly because that would make it clear what he was up to, and partly because he was pretty sure she was unattached. Most people would follow up her last comment with ‘but my boyfriend’s there’, or ‘and my boyfriend couldn’t make it’ if they had a partner.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ she said again, nodding towards the Thermos. ‘It’s still hot.’

  Sebastian shuffled in his chair. He really did need to chase away those thoughts. Another lonely night surrounded by that blue floral wallpaper was anything but appealing. He fired off his most winning smile.

  ‘Only if you join me …’

  He looks old, Erik thought as Frank opened the door and let him in. He had lost weight; his trousers, obviously too big, were pulled tight around his waist with a belt, and his shirt hung loose. His
cheeks were sunken and covered in stubble, and Erik couldn’t remember him having such noticeable bags under his eyes before. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the short steel-grey hair that stuck straight up, reminding Erik of a character in a comic he used to read when he was a child: Mike Nomad. Erik took off his shoes and followed the older man into the kitchen. Was it his imagination, or had Frank developed a slight limp? He had had prostate cancer for several years, but in October last year he had begun to experience back pain, and had eventually gone to the doctor. Metastasis from the prostate cancer was affecting the base of his spine. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy had slowed down the progress of the disease, but it was inoperable, and no one knew how much time he had left.

  Erik declined the offer of coffee and sat down at the small table. There was an unfamiliar and not entirely pleasant smell in the kitchen: fried food and … illness, Erik thought as he watched Frank spoon coffee into the filter.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, hoping the answer wouldn’t be too detailed.

  ‘Oh, you know – it is what it is. One day at a time.’

  Erik wondered how he was supposed to respond to that. Frank switched on the machine and put the packet of coffee back in the cupboard.

  ‘Pia sends her love,’ Erik said in order to break the silence.

  ‘Send her mine – I hope she’ll come and see me before too long.’

  ‘I’m sure she will, it’s just that there’s so much going on at the moment …’

  Frank nodded, but Erik got the feeling he was disappointed that they didn’t see each other more often.

  Disappointed and lonely.

  He realised he felt sorry for Frank. He and Pia had often talked about it; a cancer diagnosis was never welcome, of course, but in Frank’s case it was a disaster.

  He had already suffered a great deal. His wife Aina had died in a car accident just over eight years ago. They had only one child. Hampus was twenty-eight years old and still lived at home. He was severely disabled, and would never be able to live independently. Erik knew he had cerebral palsy, epilepsy and partial paralysis, but he thought there was something else as well. Help was provided for eighty-five hours a week, but the rest of the time Frank looked after Hampus on his own. Erik didn’t want to think about what would happen when Frank passed away.