The Girl Who Lived Twice
Page 22
He looked embarrassed.
“What did the evil spirit say?” he said.
“That he should leave her up there.”
“Her?”
“Yes, I think that’s what he wrote. It was a she, a madam, or a mam-something who’d been left on the mountain. But then there was something about the valley of rainbows, Rainbow Valley, where the dead hold out their hands and beg for food. It really was all very strange. Then it clearly said that Johannes Forsell appeared. Very weird. That’s as far as I got, to be honest. The bus came, and there was some bloke arguing with the driver, and I had my mind on other things. In any case I’d already guessed by then that the man was a paranoid schizophrenic. He wrote that he never stopped hearing those cries in his head.”
“You probably don’t need to be a schizophrenic to feel like that.”
“What do you mean?”
What was he trying to say now?
“I mean …” he said. “That I recognise that too. There are certain things you never get rid of. They gnaw and clamour inside you, year after year.”
“Yes,” she said, more hesitant now. “That’s true.”
“Can you hang on a moment while I do a quick search?”
Else Sandberg nodded and Bublanski logged onto his computer and put three words into Google. He turned the screen to face her.
“Do you see this?”
“That’s awful,” she said.
“Isn’t it? It’s Rainbow Valley on Mount Everest. I never knew anything about this world before. But I’ve been reading up on it these last few days, and I recognised it as soon as you mentioned it. Rainbow Valley’s just a bit of slang of course. But it does come up quite a lot, and it’s easy to see why. Have a look.”
He pointed at the screen and wondered if he was being unnecessarily brutal. But he wanted her to understand how serious this was. Image after image showed dead climbers in the snow above eight thousand metres, and even though many had been lying up there for years, maybe even decades, they still looked muscular and strong. They were frozen in time, and all were dressed in brightly coloured clothes – reds, greens, yellows and blues – and strewn around them were oxygen cylinders, remains of tents or Buddhist prayer flags, also in brilliant hues. It really did look like a rainbow landscape, a macabre testimony to human folly.
“You see,” he said. “The man who wrote the wall newspaper was once a porter and guide on Mount Everest.”
“So he really was?”
“He was a Sherpa, and probably he shouldn’t have called it that. Rainbow Valley is a western invention, a stupid piece of gallows humour. But it seems to have stuck all the same, and it became mixed up with his religious representations of spirits and gods. By now, more than four thousand people have climbed the mountain, and three hundred and thirty of them have died up there. It’s been impossible to bring all the bodies down, and I can really understand it if this man, who had climbed the mountain eleven times, felt that the dead were speaking to him.”
“But—” she began.
“There’s more,” he interrupted her. “Life up there is dreadful. The risks are significant. You can get H.A.C.E., for example, High Altitude Cerebral Oedema.”
“The brain swells up. I know.”
“It does, exactly,” he said. “You’ll know more about this than I do. The brain does swell up, and rational thought and speech become a problem. You’re liable to make terrible mistakes, and often you have hallucinations and lose contact with reality. Many perfectly sensible people, like you or me – well, certainly fitter and more reckless than me – have seen spirits or felt a mysterious presence up there. This man, he always climbed without oxygen, and that eats up your strength, both mentally and physically. During this dramatic event he was trying to describe, he had worked incredibly hard and gone up and down the mountain and saved many people. He must have been completely worn out, exhausted beyond imagination, and it’s not at all surprising that he saw angels and demons, like Captain Haddock, not in the least bit strange.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” Else Sandberg said, apologetic now.
“You weren’t, and I’m sure you’re right,”Bublanski said. “The man was very sick, quite simply a schizophrenic. But he may still have had something important to tell us, so I’m asking you one last time: is there anything else you remember?”
“Nothing really, I’m sorry.”
“Anything more about what he wrote about Forsell?”
“Well, maybe.”
“What?”
“You said that the man rescued people, didn’t you? I think he wrote that Forsell didn’t want to be rescued.”
“What could that have meant?”
“I don’t know, and it’s only just occurred to me. But I’m not totally sure about it either. The bus came, and the next day the newspaper was gone.”
Afterwards, when the woman had left, Bublanski stayed in his office with a strange feeling that he was having to interpret a dream. He spent a long time staring at the pictures of Klara Engelman’s body, which the jet stream had torn from Viktor Grankin higher up on the mountain, and which an American expedition had photographed a year later. Klara was lying on her back with her arms frozen in a beseeching gesture, as if she were still reaching out for Grankin, or perhaps, he thought, like a child wanting to be picked up by its mother.
What had happened up there? Probably only what had already been described a hundred times. But one could not know for sure. New layers in the story were constantly coming to light. It would now seem, for example, that there was some military connection to the Sherpa, which the doctors at the South Wing were forbidden to talk about, and Bublanski had been trying to get hold of Klas Berg at Must all afternoon and evening, hoping to follow that up.
Berg had promised the police a full account the next morning, but had qualified this by saying that he too had some unanswered questions. Bublanski did not like the sound of that. He hated having to depend on the intelligence services. Not because he worried one little bit about prestige or matters of status, but because he knew that it would have a negative effect on the police investigation. He was determined to regain the upper hand.
He closed down the pictures of Klara Engelman on his computer and tried once more to phone Under-Secretary Lindberg. But again Lindberg did not answer. Bublanski got up and decided to take a walk, to see if that would help clear his head.
Lindberg walked in through the hospital entrance. He had already been there that day and Rebecka had not made him feel welcome, so there was really no reason for him to return. But now that he knew Johannes was conscious, he had to talk to him and say … something … he was not really sure what, only that he had to get him to keep his mouth shut, come what may. He turned off his mobile because he did not want to make the chaos any worse.
He had no intention whatsoever of speaking to Mikael Blomkvist, who had been trying to reach him, or even to Chief Inspector Bublanski, who had just rung his number for the third time. He had to keep a cool head.
In his briefcase he had a bundle of classified papers about the Russian disinformation campaign. They were not especially important, at least not compared to everything else, but they would give him a pretext for a private conversation with Johannes, and he had to make sure that no-one saw him. No-one at all. He had to be strong, as always. It would all sort itself out. So he told himself.
What was that smell? Ammonia perhaps, disinfectant, hospital? He looked around the lobby, afraid that the paparazzi would be hanging about down there, afraid that Blomkvist might suddenly appear, knowing his darkest secrets. But all he could see were patients and their families and hospital staff in their white coats. An ashen-faced man who looked as if he were dying was wheeled past on a trolley bed. Lindberg barely noticed him.
He looked down at the floor, shutting out the world around him. Yet he still detected something out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the back of a tall, slender woman in a grey jacket over by the A.
T.M. next to the chemist’s.
Wasn’t that Becka? It definitely was Rebecka. He recognised her posture, the way she leaned forward. Should he go up and say a few words? No, no, he thought. This was an opportunity to snatch a few words with Johannes in private, without all the rigmarole about classified information, and he walked towards the lifts. He took a quick look back, having had the impression that she was not alone. But she was gone.
Had he been mistaken? Perhaps he had, and he was just about to step into the lift when he noticed the large column beside the A.T.M. Surely she wasn’t hiding from him? How crazy would that be? He could not help feeling uneasy and began to walk towards the pillar, a little hesitantly at first, then more quickly. There really was something sticking out, and it looked like Rebecka’s grey jacket.
He thought about what he should say to her, he even got angry – how silly to try to hide – when suddenly he tripped and fell. Before he had time to realise what had happened he sensed a movement nearby and heard footsteps running away. He cursed, picked himself up and hurried after them.
PART III
SERVING TWO MASTERS
27.viii – 9.ix
Secret agents, double agents, spies: sometimes their mission from the start is to infiltrate the enemy and to contrive smokescreens. Not infrequently they are turned politically, or submit to threats or inducements.
In some cases, their ultimate allegiance is not crystal clear. Sometimes even they do not know where they stand.
CHAPTER 25
27.viii
Catrin Lindås had still had nothing to eat, she had only drunk some tea and read up on Forsell and the Everest expedition, and time and again she cast her mind back to her encounter with the beggar in Mariatorget, as if it were a riddle she needed to solve. Each time his outbursts sounded more and more desperate.
She remembered other things too, painful memories, the end of her childhood journey to India and Nepal when things went from bad to worse and eventually they left Kathmandu for the Khumbu. They did not get very far. Pappa’s withdrawal symptoms became too severe. They did manage to make friends among the local population up there and, after going over Blomkvist’s text message several times in her mind, she began to wonder if she had not recognised the beggar from the Khumbu Valley as much as from Freak Street. She sent Blomkvist one more question, even though he had not answered her first:
The answer came right back:
Stop it, she thought. Stop it. Then, reluctantly, she smiled. At last. But she was not going to go there, definitely not. Instead she went into the kitchen to tidy up, and put on Emmylou Harris so loudly that her cat raced into the bedroom. When she got back to the sitting room and picked up her mobile, she saw another text from Blomkvist.
No way, she thought. No way.
They went onto Signal.
Then she changed and asked the neighbour to look after the cat, and began to pack.
Camilla was standing on the balcony and felt the rain falling on her shoulders and hands. Still, she was glad to be outside. Along Strandvägen and on the boats out there in the bay, a life was going on that should by rights have been hers, but now reminded her only of how much had been stolen from her. This cannot go on, she thought. It has to end.
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, and raindrops fell on her forehead and lips, and as she tried to escape into her dreams, she kept being drawn back to Lundagatan, and Agneta shouting at her to go away, and Lisbeth shutting up like a clam as if she wanted to kill them all with her silence, her grim rage.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Galinov had joined her on the terrace and she turned to look at him, at his gentle smile and his beautiful face. He drew her to him.
“My girl,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She looked down at the quay.
“Don’t worry, everything’ll be O.K.,” he said.
She searched his eyes.
“Has something happened?”
“We have visitors.”
“Who?”
“Your charming bandits.”
She nodded and went back into the apartment and saw Sandström and some other pathetic creature in jeans and a cheap brown jacket. The creature looked bruised, as if he had been given a beating. He was at least two metres tall and disgustingly bloated, and he turned out to be called Conny.
“Conny has something to tell us,” Sandström said.
“So, get on with it then?”
“I was watching Blomkvist’s apartment,” Andersson said.
“That obviously went well.”
“He was attacked,” Sandström said.
She looked at his split lip.
“Was he now?”
“By Salander.”
In Russian she said:
“Ivan, Conny here is taller than you, right?”
“He’s certainly heavier,” Galinov said. “And not quite as well dressed.”
She continued in Swedish.
“My sister is one hundred and fifty-two centimetres tall and as thin as a rake, and she … beat the shit out of you.”
“She took me by surprise.”
“She got hold of his mobile,” Sandström said, “and sent a text to all of us in the club.”
“What did it say?”
“That we should listen to Conny.”
“I’m listening, Conny,” Camilla said.
“Salander said she’d come after all of us if we didn’t stop following Mikael Blomkvist.”
“Then she said something else,” Sandström added.
“And that was …?”
“That she’d come after us anyway and destroy our entire business.”
“Great,” she said, and somehow managed to stay calm.
“And then …” Sandström said. “Well, there was a lot of sensitive stuff on that mobile she nicked. We’re actually quite worried.”
“And so you should be,” she said. “But not about Lisbeth, right, Ivan?”
On the outside Camilla looked sarcastic and menacing. But inside she was falling apart. Eventually she told Galinov to take over the conversation and went into her room, and there she let the past wash over her like dirty, black water.
Rebecka Forsell could not believe what she had done. She had heard Johannes whisper, “He mustn’t see me,” and, on an impulse she would never fully understand, she tripped up Lindberg. Then they raced through the swing doors to the taxis waiting in the rain.
Forsell chose one that looked like it didn’t belong to any taxi firm.
“Drive,” he said, and at that the driver, a dark-skinned young man with curly hair and sleepy eyes, turned to him. He showed no surprise at seeing a man still in his pyjamas.
“Where to?” he said.
Forsell did not say a word.
“Just cross Solnabron and head into town,” Rebecka said, thinking that they could take it from there. But she also noted – and it came as an unexpected relief – that the driver had not shown any sign of recognition. That may have been what Johannes had been hoping for when he picked this taxi – someone whose life was so remote from the Swedish establishment that he did not know what Sweden’s most hated man looked like. But this would get them only so far, and as they swung past Solna graveyard she tried to a
ssess the potential impact of what they had done.
She persuaded herself that it need not be all that dramatic. Her husband was going through a crisis, and she was a doctor and could perfectly well have come to the conclusion that he needed some peace and quiet away from the busy hospital. She just had to let them know, before panic broke out.
“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I can’t handle this sort of madness,” she whispered.
“Do you remember that professor of international relations we met at the French Embassy?” he said.
“Janek Kowalski?”
He nodded and she looked at him, puzzled. Kowalski was not a part of their lives. She would not have remembered his name had she not recently read an article by him, on the limits to freedom of expression.
“That’s right,” he answered. “He lives in Dalagatan, up near Odenplan. We can spend the night there.”
“Why on earth …? We don’t even know him.”
“I do,” he said, and she was not happy about that either.
She remembered them greeting each other almost like strangers at the embassy reception, and making polite conversation. Were they only pretending, was it all an act?
“I’ll stay the night anywhere you say,” she said softly, “as long as you promise to tell me everything.”
He looked at her.
“I will. After that it’s up to you to decide what you want to do,” he said.
“What do you mean, decide?”
“If you still want me.”
She did not answer. She looked ahead across Solnabron and said, “Dalagatan. We’d like to go to Dalagatan,” while she thought about limits, perhaps even about the limits to freedom of expression, but first and foremost about the limits to love.
What would it take for her to leave him?
What would he have to have done for her to stop loving him? Was there even such a thing?
Lindås set off along Götgatan, and was beginning to feel that life might, after all, be worth living. But my goodness, the rain. It was bucketing down and she hurried along with her suitcase. She had of course packed too much, as if she would be gone for weeks. Then again, she had no idea how long they would be staying at the hotel, only that Blomkvist could not go back to his place and had a lot of work to do, unfortunately. But then so did she.