Thursday 26 November, 09.16
Berger walked in. The door closed behind him. It was all very clinical. The textured wallpaper was as bland and nondescript as the empty birch-veneer table. There was some unidentifiable technical equipment on the side table. There were no windows in the room, but two chairs. One of them was empty.
And on the other sat Jessica Johnsson.
Her wrists were fastened to the armrests with cable ties. She had a number of cuts on her face, some covered with plasters, others still seeping a little blood. Berger recognised the strange little smile playing at the corners of her mouth. But she said nothing.
Berger sat down, switched on the recording equipment on the side table and said, ‘Where’s Molly?’
Jessica didn’t answer. Instead she looked around the bare room, analysing it. Berger went on, ‘It’s over, Jessica. Surely you can see that?’
No reaction.
‘If nothing else, spare a thought for Reine,’ Berger said. ‘Your Reine. Don’t make him commit one last murder. Don’t force him into another psychotic breakdown.’
Forcing himself to hold back was genuinely painful. All he wanted to do was launch himself at her and tear her to pieces. But Deer, who was directing him via his earpiece, had persuaded him that that wouldn’t be particularly effective.
‘Get under her skin,’ she reminded him now, in his ear.
And he had to try, he really did have to try to crawl under the skin of Jessica Johnsson. But how the hell was he supposed to find his way in?
They’d had heated discussions about the arrangements. Should Deer be present during the interview? Or should Deer conduct it on her own? In the end they came to the conclusion that her absence would probably have most impact. At least to start with.
After all, it was Sam Berger whom Jessica had been after.
He leaned across the table and said, ‘If you tell me where she is, you’ll probably get a fixed-term sentence. Otherwise it’ll be life, a full life sentence: you’ll already have taken your last breaths as a free woman.’
Jessica sat in silence, watching him, mysterious, determined, absurdly strong. Infinitely sick. This really wasn’t going to be easy. He needed to summon up all his patience. It seemed unlikely that Reine would attack Molly on his own. Assuming she was still alive …
Jessica seemed to read his mind. Her first words were, ‘Reine knows what to do if I don’t come back.’
Berger felt like he was going to be sick, throw up across that stupid birch-veneer table. In his ear he heard, very calmly, ‘And what is Reine going to do?’
He managed to sit still and said, ‘And what is Reine going to do if you don’t come back?’
Jessica smiled, momentarily, fleetingly, joylessly, ‘Finish the job,’ she said.
‘Farida Hesari,’ Deer said in his ear.
‘Reine becomes a different person when you’re not there,’ Berger said. ‘While you were asleep he let Farida Hesari escape from that house in Täby.’
Jessica nodded slowly, as if something had just dawned on her.
‘You’ve done your homework,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very clever.’
‘Just as you wanted,’ Berger said as calmly as he could.
‘Reine’s done his homework too,’ Jessica said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘He won’t make that mistake again.’
Berger looked deep into Jessica Johnsson’s averted eyes. For a brief moment he thought he could see all the artifice in her. As if she realised how much pain she ought to be feeling but wasn’t capable of. The question was whether she actually felt anything at all, or if it was all just a sick game.
‘We know about everything you’ve been through,’ Berger said.
‘Everything?’ Jessica laughed. ‘Stick to what you’re good at.’
Berger fell silent. He vaguely recognised the phrase.
Jessica went on, ‘Is she chattering in your ear again, Sam? Like she did eight years ago?’
The scene in Orsa came back to Berger. Him raising his hand towards Reine and the nurse. Forming his fingers into a pistol. Shooting Reine. And saying to the nurse: ‘Stick to what you’re good at.’ Then Deer laughing.
A gesture, a few words, a laugh. And that combination had taken root and grown like some insane cancerous tumour.
Against all the odds he managed to return to the present, and his outward calm surprised him, ‘We know what you’ve been through,’ Berger said. ‘But we can’t get it to make sense. When you were eight years old you found a four-leaf clover. You got to make a wish, something you really wanted, but you weren’t allowed to say it out loud. And what you really wanted was not to have a little brother.’
She was staring at him now, and their eyes got caught in each other.
‘Because you wanted to be alone,’ Berger continued. ‘Like a true narcissist you couldn’t bear the thought of having to share your parents’ attention. I wonder if you were even shocked when you found your mother in a pool of blood at the age of eight. I can’t help wondering if you actually killed her? Did you poison her? If you were going to have to share her with someone else, then she had to die.’
Jessica tore her eyes from his and stared into the wall. He thought he could see her jaw muscles tense.
He needed those tensed muscles.
‘And there’s the whole business with your father,’ Berger went on. ‘You never did get his attention. Perhaps you could get it now, now that the threat had been removed?’
Her jaw remained tense.
‘But that didn’t happen, did it? Quite the reverse, in fact. Your dad moved as far away as it’s possible to get on the planet. I think he moved to get away from you, Jessica. He was frightened of you. He could see how dangerous you were. How sick you were. Did you tell your dad about your wish? Have you murdered him too?’
She smiled, but her jaw was still tense. The combination was a very odd expression.
‘You saw a child therapist,’ Berger went on. ‘You realised how you ought to feel. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t feel it then, and you can’t feel it now. Your hinterland is completely white, Jessica. A perfect blank.’
Their eyes met. There was something in her gaze now, something almost content. As if she wanted this out in the open. As if this was what she was after. It wasn’t pain that was driving her, it was the search for pain. The search to feel anything at all.
‘While you were stuck with your poor clueless Aunt Ebba, surfing the Internet for the very worst things you could imagine, you realised that you ought to feel something self-destructive. Perhaps you ought to be drawn to sadomasochism? You adopted the self-punishing role, moved to the USA, saw how Madame Newhouse handled her high boredom threshold. A slave you could order about, perhaps that would be worth trying? Someone who could enact your sickest fantasies, someone who would see you. Because that’s what you want, to be seen. You’re nothing but an attention-seeking drama queen.’
‘Stop there,’ Deer said in his ear.
Berger stopped. Looked at Jessica Johnsson. She met his gaze again. He tried to read the look in her eyes, but it was very, very difficult. Was that something broken he could see in there? Could he see a desire to correct, adjust, change anything he had said?
He didn’t know, so he waited, hoping that Deer might have been able to see more than him. But his ear remained silent.
‘Why should you be the first person in the world to understand?’ Jessica said with a little smile. ‘What would qualify you for that?’
‘You’ve been trying to get my attention, Jessica. You’ve been calling to me.’
Her eyes narrowed. Berger went on:
‘Reine wasn’t enough, was he? You realised that he wasn’t the audience you needed, way back in Orsa. You wanted someone who could both see you and condemn you. Who could stop you. Because what you’re doing is utterly meaningless, and you’re all too aware of that. You think that sooner or later you’re going to feel something, but I think the fact is that you genuinely can’t feel anything.’
Jessica Johnsson looked away. He could see something in her eyes, her smile had been wiped away.
‘I’ll soon be able to feel something,’ she said quietly.
Berger waited, hoping to hear something from Deer, anything at all, but nothing came. His ear was silent.
What the hell did ‘I’ll soon be able to feel something’ mean?
‘Eight years ago you chose Deer and me as some sort of replacement parents,’ Berger went on. ‘Deer was tough on Reine when we were questioning him, I pretended to shoot you with my fingers. Something back then triggered you. Over the years, while you got on with your hideous series of murders, you’ve been trying to contact us, get us to notice you. Get us to understand and stop you. But then something happened, a few weeks ago you really needed to get us moving. What was it that happened then?’
Jessica suddenly smiled again, as if to herself.
‘I already told you in Porjus. I saw you on television.’
‘You said you saw Deer.’
‘You were both on television, you were still working together. She said something about the Ellen case, you were standing in the background.’
‘But why did you need us now?’
‘I want to see your pain,’ Jessica said with a beaming smile.
Lightning flashed through Berger. He wanted to use force. Brutal force.
‘Keep calm, Sam,’ Deer said in his ear.
Berger closed his eyes, managed to control himself.
‘You want me to validate your pain, Jessica,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to do that; there is no pain. But I can validate your emptiness.’
Was that disappointment he saw in her face? Had she been hoping for him to validate her suffering? Had she been hoping that he’d dignify her feelings, make them nobler than they were?
So, what would be most effective now? To go along with her? Or to push even harder? He was going to have to decide. Deer had stopped him. That would have to guide his decision.
‘Unless perhaps you did feel something when you took such extreme revenge on Eddy Karlsson in that basement in Bagarmossen?’
She seemed to brighten up a little.
‘You can’t say he didn’t get what he deserved,’ she said.
‘Hang in there,’ Deer said in his ear.
‘I don’t actually know what Eddy Karlsson did to you,’ Berger said.
‘You’re not going to find out either,’ Jessica said.
‘It seemed a pretty straight eye-for-an-eye transaction. A cock for a womb.’
Jessica laughed.
‘Smart, eh?’ she said.
Berger looked at her and said, ‘Are you really such a banal serial killer, Jessica? Have you really called me here simply so I can admire you? So I can be impressed by how smart you are?’
She blinked again, but this time she didn’t look away. He thought he could see a bit of anger in her eyes.
‘I’ve stopped you now,’ he said. ‘And you’re not really that smart. And you probably haven’t ever felt anything.’
‘Soon I’ll be able to feel something,’ Jessica repeated.
‘And how’s that going to work after thirty-five years of feeling nothing?’
‘I want to look into your eyes when Molly Blom dies.’
Everything turned white. A world without markers.
‘Keep calm, Sam,’ Deer said immediately into his ear. ‘Take it very gently now. Does that mean she knows exactly when it’s going to happen? Has Reine been given a time when he has to deliver the fatal blow? How do we find that out?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Berger said with hard-won calmness. ‘You didn’t even know Molly existed until we showed up at your house in Porjus.’
‘And at the time I thought her name was Eva Lundström,’ Jessica said with a slightly more confident smile. ‘But the important thing was that I saw that you were a couple.’
‘A couple?’
‘It was very obvious.’
There was a crackle in his ear. Deer said, very clearly:
‘Don’t let her get to you, Sam. Just keep going.’
He couldn’t. He genuinely couldn’t keep going. So Jessica did instead, looking past Berger, straight at the camera, ‘Right outside your daughter’s school, Deer, is a postbox. School was over for the day, Lykke was walking straight towards us. I was standing there with the letter to Säter, to Karl, poised in the mouth of the postbox. Reine was standing next to me, awaiting orders. I had to take a quick decision. What would hurt more? Taking Deer’s daughter or Sam’s lover? Lykke is the same age I was when I picked the four-leaf clover; she actually reminded me of myself, with that hairstyle and everything. We were all set to snatch her. But right there and then I changed my mind. It would be more of a challenge to find and capture Molly Blom. I dropped the envelope in the box and let Lykke walk past. If I hadn’t, your daughter would be dead now, Superintendent Rosenkvist.’
‘Stay where you are, Deer,’ Berger said out loud.
He heard Deer sob in his ear, but nothing else.
He had to get control of the conversation. He said, ‘How did you manage to get to the airport in Gällivare ahead of us? We thought you were in Skogås.’
‘That was the point,’ Jessica smiled sweetly. ‘Once I’d decided that we weren’t going to snatch Lykke we flew back to Lapland.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ Berger said.
Jessica shrugged and said, ‘I realised that you were up north somewhere, within reasonable distance of Porjus. The airlines up here run systems that are very easy to hack into, and we’d positioned ourselves between Gällivare and Arvidsjaur, the two potential airports. All we had to do was set off once your booking popped up. Any more exciting technical questions you’d like to ask?’
‘Anders Hedblom, Karl’s brother,’ Berger said. ‘Why did you kill him?’
‘Berger did that,’ Jessica said with another smile. ‘It said so on the note.’
‘Did you move to Malmö because of Anders?’ Berger asked as calmly as he could.
‘That’s not very interesting,’ Jessica said scornfully. ‘He came to visit his brother up in Orsa, we started seeing each other. I moved down to Malmö to be with him, but he wasn’t that interested in me. To keep hold of him I suggested that Karl was innocent and let slip a bit too much. Then he moved north after I did, and started to blackmail me. So he’s only got himself to blame.’
‘He wasn’t a good enough dad,’ Berger said. ‘So he ended up being one of your ten victims.’
‘Ten?’
‘I make it ten. Helena, Rasmus, Mette, Lisa, Eddy, Farida, Elisabeth, Anders, Jovana and Molly.’
‘I count them completely differently,’ Jessica said. ‘There are six.’
‘Explain,’ Berger said.
‘Farida escaped, she doesn’t count. Eddy and Anders don’t count, they were just unavoidable. And Anders was a way of getting my message to you, Sam.’
‘I still make it seven, Jessica,’ Berger said.
‘Rasmus Gradén doesn’t count. He belongs with Helena.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘It’s not six victims,’ Jessica said. ‘It’s six times two.’
Berger waited, thought, listened. But Deer didn’t say anything, his ear was quiet. And his thoughts weren’t adding up.
Jessica went on with repellent calmness.
‘There are always two, a mother and a son, none of the rest matters. Helena and her son. Mette and her son. Lisa Widstrand and her son. Elisabeth Ström and her son. Jovana Malešević and her son.’
‘That’s only five,’ Berger blurted, feeling his head start to boil. ‘Five times two.’
‘Right jacket pocket,’ Jessica said.
Then she said nothing more.
Berger got to his feet, stumbled out through the door to the hall, returned with Jessica’s padded jacket, put his hand in the right-hand pocket, pulled out some sort of plastic tube, looked at it, saw a window and a small line in the window.
‘I started with a blood test,’ Jessica said. ‘The result was surprising but strangely logical, as if even fate had helped me to make the right decision. Then I did the more usual pregnancy test as well. Urine.’
Berger stared at the line, at Jessica Johnsson, at the wall.
‘Molly Blom is pregnant,’ Jessica said. ‘Less than a month, though.’
Berger stared at her. He wondered what was dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Six times two,’ Jessica said with a broad smile. ‘The number of victims is six times two.’