Monday 26 October, 22.06
Berger stepped inside. The door closed behind him. The room was extremely clinical. The woven wallpaper was as bland as the empty birch-veneer table. On a side table stood an unidentifiable piece of electronic equipment. There were no windows in the room, but there were two chairs. One of them was empty.
On the other sat Nathalie Fredén.
She was wearing the same simple, vaguely sporty clothes she had been wearing in her flat on Vidargatan, minus the off-white raincoat, and her clear blue eyes followed him the whole way from the door to the other chair. He sat down and studied her. It was only a few hours since they had last seen each other. Since then a prosecutor had been brought in and had instigated a preliminary investigation into her activities.
Without a word Berger removed a number of items from his rucksack. Three thick files, a laptop and a mobile phone. He opened one of the files and said as he leafed through its various contents: ‘I know you’re something of a mystery, and ordinarily that might have roused my interest. But right now I don’t give a damn about you. This is all about one thing. This.’
And he put a photograph down in front of her. It showed fifteen-year-old Ellen Savinger with a smile that hinted at a future of unlimited possibilities.
Berger watched Nathalie Fredén. She looked at the picture without the slightest change in her expression. Her face, which had shown itself to be so expressive before, registered no reaction whatsoever.
‘It’s all about this,’ he repeated.
She merely went on looking at the photograph.
‘Have I understood correctly?’ he went on. ‘You’ve waived your right to a lawyer?’
‘I don’t even know why I’m here,’ Fredén said in her dark, slow voice. ‘Let alone why I would need a lawyer.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yes.’
Berger took a deep breath and turned to the electronic device on the side table.
‘Red light,’ he said, pointing. ‘When it’s lit the audio and video are on. So that everything is official and can be recorded. The light is off at the moment. Is there anything you want to say to me, and me alone, before we start doing this formally? Just between the two of us?’
‘That your mobile phone is already recording,’ Nathalie Fredén said.
It was lying upside down on the table between them. No lights, no sound. He smiled faintly, leaned over to the side table and pressed the record button. The red light came on.
He said the day’s date. He said where they were. He said who was present. He said: ‘Nathalie Fredén, you are primarily suspected of withholding information regarding the kidnap of Ellen Savinger, fifteen years old. I have now informed you of the nature of the suspicions against you. Do you understand these suspicions?’
‘Yes. But not what I might have to do with any of it.’
Berger put three photographs on the table in front of her. Two were enlarged, cleaned-up pictures from his mobile phone, taken from the porch in Märsta. The third was a press photograph that Syl had only just got hold of. It showed Nathalie Fredén even more clearly. Even the brand of her bicycle was clearly visible. Rex.
‘Is this you?’ Berger asked.
‘It looks like it,’ Fredén said calmly.
‘Do you know where that is?’
‘Not really. I cycle a lot. It looks like it’s raining.’
‘You cycle a lot?’
‘Yes. I like cycling.’
‘What, thirty kilometres to Märsta in the rain?’
‘Märsta? OK, now I know where that is. The police were there. And the media. This is a press photograph, isn’t it?’
‘What were you doing there?’
‘Cycling. A Sunday excursion north of the city.’
‘And what happened?’
‘I saw flashing blue lights and followed them.’
‘Has that happened before?’
‘What?’
‘That you saw flashing blue lights and followed them?’
‘Now and again, yes. When you cycle as much as I do.’
‘Can you give me an example?’
‘No idea. Now and again.’
‘Here, for instance?’
And then three photographs from the wintry forest between Karlskoga and Kristinehamn, all with Nathalie Fredén and her bicycle in their centre.
‘That looks like winter,’ she said calmly.
Berger looked at her very seriously for the first time. If he had ever been under the illusion that this would be easy – which he probably hadn’t – then that illusion had long since blown away now. He would have to delve deeper.
He looked into her blue eyes and tried to get a real sense of who she was. Either she lied very easily, always had a good excuse to hand, or she was almost implausibly naive. It was incredibly difficult to determine which.
Then it dawned on him. He’d had an idea at the back of his mind, but this was the first time he managed to formulate it. Nearly two years ago she had made preparations to end up here, right here, when she gave her name to the reporter. Now he understood. She is where she wants to be. But why?
In a different world he might even have realised how beautiful she was. And now, when he understood how difficult this was going to be, how deep he would have to delve to get anywhere, he realised also that he would have to get to know her better. This was his only chance.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s winter.’
‘I don’t know where that is,’ she said. ‘A lot of unexpected things happen when I’m out cycling. That’s part of the charm of it.’
‘Of these long bike rides?’
‘Yes. They can take weeks. I cycle all round Sweden.’
‘Aimlessly?’
‘Mostly, yes. I try to be a free person.’
‘A free person.’
‘Yes, actually. I don’t think you’re as cynical as you sounded when you said that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It shows in your eyes.’
‘So you consider yourself to be a free person?’
‘We all follow a whole load of laws, not least the laws of nature. No one can be properly free. But you can seek freedom. That’s much harder than being cynical. Cynicism is the cheap version.’
‘A whole load of laws … Financial as well?’
‘Yes, those too.’
‘You have no income to speak of, no Swedish bank account. How do you finance your free life?’
‘It doesn’t cost that much. If it did, I wouldn’t be free. And I was given my bicycle by an ex.’
‘But a flat near Odenplan costs money.’
‘I inherited it from my grandfather.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Arvid Hammarström.’
‘And your parents?’
‘John and Erica Fredén.’
‘Erica, born Hammarström?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Where were you born?’
‘Umeå.’
‘Which primary school did you go to?’
‘The Mariehem School, I think it was called. But why do you want to know so much about me? I thought this was all about that.’
She pointed at the photograph of Ellen Savinger.
There was something in the gesture that really got to him. Nonchalance, ambivalence, whatever. He shut his eyes for a couple of seconds. Controlled himself. As best he could. The tick of his watch seemed to grow stronger. It was as if his wrist were on fire.
He said, with as much restraint as he could muster: ‘She isn’t a “that”. She’s a girl with her whole life ahead of her. She’s spent three weeks shut inside that fucking house in Märsta, captive in that horrific basement, subjected to a whole load of unfathomable shit. I emerged from that basement and you were standing outside afterwards. And in Kristinehamn some eight months earlier, when the police thought that another fifteen-year-old girl had been buried in the forest, you were standing there as well. And you were standing here, outside a biker gang’s clubhouse in Västerås a year before that, when yet another fifteen-year-old girl was thought to be held, like a lamb to the slaughter, on the premises. How the hell can you just happen to be standing there at all three crime scenes?’
All the pictures had been revealed. All the cards were on the table. Yet really just one, one card that he had staked everything on. He ought to get something out of it, a reaction at the very least. He had to get through the wall. Even a small crack would do.
He focused all of his attention on her. She maintained a neutral expression, yet there was still something playing across her face. That type of reaction wasn’t particularly common in interview rooms, but he had seen it on a few rare occasions. It had its own special place in the internal register of human reactions that Sam Berger had compiled over the years. He just couldn’t quite place it.
It was a long way from Västerås and the television camera which had unwittingly captured her two decisions. On that occasion a lot had played out on her forehead. Two clear decisions. The first was whether or not to speak to local media at all, the second whether or not to say her name.
If she hadn’t done that a year and a half ago they wouldn’t be sitting there. Neither of them.
No, this reaction was much smaller, yet unmistakable. Not on her forehead but under her eyes.
Her brow was quite smooth.
‘Botox?’ Berger said instinctively.
Nathalie Fredén looked at him. For the first time there was no immediate response. And no perceptible reaction.
‘Your forehead,’ Berger went on, touching the top of her face with his index finger. ‘It was much more expressive in Västerås.’
‘Västerås?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. The interview with local television in Västerås. When you made your decision.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course not,’ Berger said, leaning back. ‘So it is Botox? Why would you need that? Why would you want to be less expressive?’
Now she just shook her head.
He waited and reflected. What was the reaction he had seen? He ran it through his internal register. What had he said that had prompted that reaction? A fusillade of information. When had the reaction happened? When precisely?
He found the right location in the archive. It was a reaction that said she really wanted to comment on something he had said. She was forcing herself not to. Comment? No, not comment. Correct. Yes, that was it. He had said something that she wanted to correct. He felt like breaking off at once to go and check the video recording of the interrogation.
The Botox discussion was just a way of getting time to think.
Even so, she replied: ‘Botox wasn’t produced to make skin smoother. Not to start with.’
‘It’s a neurotoxin, isn’t it?’ he said without really caring.
‘A diluted form of the botulinum toxin,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the strongest poisons known to man. One millilitre would be enough to kill everyone in Sweden.’
‘And people inject that just a centimetre away from their eyes?’
‘Botox was originally used to treat the spasms associated with brain damage.’
She was talking. She was talking of her own volition. That in itself was something new. He let her go on.
‘And of course to treat migraines,’ she continued.
He looked at her altered fae. ‘So, migraines? You had Botox injected into your forehead to treat migraines?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Serious migraines?’
‘Fairly.’
He cast a pointed glance at the video camera in the left-hand corner of the ceiling. Deer had probably already picked up on it. He lowered his head and met Nathalie’s eyes.
‘What did I get wrong earlier?’ he finally asked.
‘What do you mean?’
He sighed and tried again, but after that he’d have to move on. ‘I said a whole load of things about how you just happened to be standing there at the three crime scenes. I got something wrong. What was it?’
When she merely looked at him with that same smooth forehead, he slapped some more photographs on the table.
‘March last year, fifteen-year-old girl missing, the police mount an operation in Västerås – bang, there you are. February this year, fifteen-year-old girl missing, police mount an operation in Kristinehamn – bang, there you are. Yesterday morning, fifteen-year-old girl missing, police mount an operation in Märsta – bang, there you are. How the hell can you have been in all three places?’
‘Coincidence,’ Nathalie Fredén said. ‘I cycle all over Sweden. That’s my life. Sometimes I have to work the odd month here and there, simple office work, but apart from that I keep on the move. Sometimes I run into things. There’s nothing strange about that.’
‘But do you really not understand that it is strange? That it’s seriously strange? Are you mentally handicapped? Have you been shut away in an institution?’
‘Ugh,’ she said with distaste and pushed the pictures away.
‘I’m serious,’ Berger said, taking hold of her wrists. ‘You’re not in any databases, you live completely outside of society. Your social pattern is that of a criminal, a homeless person, or someone who’s mentally ill. But it’s all a persona.’
‘A what?’
‘A persona, a mask. You’re pretending to be something you’re not.’
‘You don’t get it,’ she said, pulling her hands free. ‘You can’t handle it. I’m nothing more strange than a free person. That’s what I do, I cycle, in complete freedom. I have no credit card, no internet access, no mobile phone. I tried once, I got a mobile phone, tried to join Facebook. But I let it drop. What’s the point?’
The terrible thing was that what she was saying was sounding more and more plausible. For the first time a hint of doubt entered Berger’s resistant consciousness. Serious migraines, constant cycling all round Sweden, probable first-hand knowledge of mental institutions, the inherited flat, maybe a shoebox full of inherited cash she’d been living off. And then that lame phrase, ‘it shows in your eyes’. Taken as a whole, an asocial existence, completely outside of society.
The perfect assistant.
The subordinate helpmeet.
A master’s slave.
‘Who is he?’ Berger exclaimed, standing up. ‘Who the hell is the scum who’s got you in his power? Who is it you’re ready to lie for? Lie until you’re blue in the face? Who’s your master, your ruler? Who sent you?’
The door opened behind Berger’s back. Deer came in and half whispered in his ear, very slowly: ‘Sam, you have an important call.’
She led him out of the interview room through one of the two doors and closed it firmly but gently behind them. Then she turned round in the soundproofed observation room and barked at Samir over at the computer: ‘Watch her every move. If she so much as lifts a finger, you rush in.’
Then she fixed her very sharpest look on Berger, shook her head and moved aside. Behind her stood Allan. It was as if his bushy eyebrows were saying: And it was looking so promising.
Berger managed to stop himself exploding, formulated the words very carefully and said: ‘You saw where it was heading, Allan.’
‘Of course,’ Allan said. ‘But I also saw that it was heading off the rails. You need to take a break.’
‘She’s a puppet,’ Berger said. ‘She has a specially selected, damaged psyche that the Scum is directing from a distance. She’s the shell, surrounding another person’s will. She was placed here for a reason. Has she been through a metal detector? She could have a whole fucking bomb in her stomach. Or at the very least a transmitter, a recording device.’
‘Of course she has,’ Allan said.
‘Did you spot the three critical moments, Deer?’
‘Botox treatment for migraines,’ Deer said, looking down at her notepad. ‘I’ve got people on it already. It can’t be that common a treatment, and she must have started treatment after her television debut a year and a half ago. And I saw her reaction when you revealed our three crime scenes. Maja and Syl are working on that, trying to find the exact moment the reaction occurred. Because she wanted to correct you, didn’t she?’
‘I’ve trained you well, Deer,’ Berger said.
‘You haven’t trained me at all. You said three? I’m not sure about the third critical moment. Arvid Hammarström and the inheritance? If that’s it, we’ve got people looking into it. But the Mariehem School was accurate.’
‘No,’ Berger said. ‘I meant the bicycle. Have you found it?’
‘Not sure. We’ve seized three women’s Rex bicycles in the vicinity. She didn’t have a key to a bike lock on her, and those three were all locked. We’re dusting them for prints and comparing them with the photographs.’
‘Good,’ Berger said. ‘She was given the bicycle by an ex. Rex from an ex. With a bit of luck we’ll manage to find the ex. And with a bit more luck, the ex is our man.’
‘The perp?’ Deer exclaimed.
‘Check the number on the frame. Maybe we can figure out when and where the bike was bought. And by whom.’
‘What the hell is this?’ he asked straight out.
Berger in turn was watching Allan. He did look genuinely curious. Had a trace of police instinct returned to the old bureaucrat?
‘Samir?’ Berger said.
Without taking his eyes from the screen, the young man said: ‘What?’
‘Strongest impression from the interview?’
Samir looked up and said: ‘I’m looking at her now, and I’ve been looking at her the whole time. If she had a serious mental health condition, wouldn’t it be more obvious?’
‘There is such a range of disorders,’ Berger said.
‘I know,’ Samir said, gesturing towards the screen. ‘But there’s nothing. I’m not seeing a troubled soul.’
They gathered round the computer screen, leaning in. Nathalie Fredén was sitting perfectly still at the table in the interview room. There was no movement. It might as well have been frozen.
‘No curiosity about the things I left in the room?’ Berger asked.
‘None,’ Samir said. Not a flicker of movement.’
‘That in itself strikes me as an indication of mental illness,’ Allan said. ‘Isn’t she just a complete lunatic with a thin veneer of social competence that we simply have to drill through? Isn’t that what you were starting to do in there, Sam, before you got overexcited? For my part I don’t care if you destroy her. Peel off layer after layer and see how empty she is inside. I can’t help wondering if she’s a dead end. A psycho who has a habit of showing up in the crowd whenever there’s a major operation. She cycles round the country with a police radio at the ready, then dashes off to exciting places to get her pulse racing. Have you actually checked to see how many police photographs she appears in?’
Berger straightened up and stared at the ceiling of the small room.
‘How many,’ he repeated in a completely different voice.
Allan and Samir looked up at him with two different generations’ expressions of scepticism. Then Berger’s mobile rang. It sounded like a pig, mid-slaughter. He answered it.
‘Hello,’ a sharp voice said. ‘This is Sylvia.’
‘Syl,’ Berger said. ‘What have you got?’
‘Maja and I have been scrutinising the recording. We think we’ve found the moment when Fredén wants to correct you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It’s right at the end of your long speech. You start by saying “She’s isn’t a ‘that’. She’s a girl with her whole life ahead of her.” Do you remember?’
‘Vaguely, yes. Go on.’
‘Then you put all the pictures on the table and get to Västerås.’
‘But it wasn’t then?’
‘That’s the dilemma,’ Syl said sharply. ‘For a while we thought that was it, when you mentioned the biker gang in Västerås. You hadn’t talked about that before. But then we got the impression that it was when you talked about a lamb to the slaughter. Do you remember the phrase?’
‘More or less. That was when she reacted?’
‘Like I said, we thought so for a while. But then came your last salvo. I quote: “How the hell can you just happen to be standing there at all three crime scenes?” And that’s when the reaction actually comes.’
‘How many,’ Berger said, looking up at the ceiling.
‘Yes, now that we’ve looked carefully and compared the results from all four cameras, that seems to have been the moment.’
‘More precisely?’
‘When you say “all three crime scenes”.’
‘Interpretation?’
‘When you say the number. Three.’
‘Yes,’ Berger said, clenching his fist.