Irene Lilja wiped away her tears right before walking into the conference room with the rest of her colleagues. Who were they really after — the perpetrator or the victim? She felt like hitting something or someone, or maybe sticking her fingers down her throat and vomiting. But instead, she had to dry her tears and push her feelings aside and act like a professional. She glanced over her notes quickly before summarizing them aloud for the team:
VIDEO 1: MID-1980S
— Clearly been transferred from a videotape, poor quality. Handheld camera.
— Glenn and Jörgen are mostly having vanilla sex with various women. Not sure if they’re girlfriends or prostitutes. All acting like porn stars.
— Some group sex with Glenn, Jörgen, and Jörgen’s wife, Lina.
— Everyone’s drunk and giggly.
— All for fun with different positions.
— Jörgen forces his member into Lina’s mouth. She gags. A blow to the face. Glenn laughs and masturbates.
VIDEO 2: MID-1990S
— More sex and violence.
— Better camera on a tripod.
— It looks like Thailand, and the girls look underage.
— Anal.
— Urine.
— A drugged young woman, confused and chained up. A bag over her head and a cigarette pressed to her nipple.
“And that was just the beginning,” Lilja said, looking up from her notes.
“So Glenn and Jörgen systematically raped and abused women?” said Tuvesson.
Lilja nodded.
“What sorts of women?” Klippan asked. “Prostitutes?”
“I don’t know. In some of the videos from the early nineties, Jörgen’s wife, Lina, is involved, but she isn’t in them anymore after he hit her and forced her to have oral sex on camera. It looks like they would bring home pretty much anyone, drug them, and then leave them somewhere to sober up.”
“They filmed everything?” Klippan asked, and Lilja nodded.
“And transferred the videotapes onto DVDs afterward.”
“It’s just sick,” Klippan said, shaking his head.
“What’s so sick about it?” said Molander. “It’s just a way to relive and remember events. The videos functioned as a collection of trophies for them.”
Klippan looked at Molander in disgust. “Ingvar, the whole thing is sick.”
“In any case, I want you to look at the footage from one tape,” Lilja interrupted, holding up one of the DVDs. “It’s different from all the rest.”
“In what way?” Tuvesson asked.
“First, there are no women in it, only our victim... our killer.” She inserted the DVD into the machine and pressed play. A shaky, grainy picture projected onto the white wall; it had been filmed with a handheld camera. The first shot showed a stairwell with bare, flickering lights on the ceiling and graffiti on the walls. There was a time-stamp in the lower right-hand corner.
1993-04-13 6:17 p.m.
Jörgen enters the frame. He is wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and is obviously drunk. He has a beer in one hand, and lifts it toward the camera as he rings the doorbell of one of the apartments. His lips are moving, but the sound on the video recorder has been turned off. He drains the last of his beer and points at the floor. The camera follows his finger and zooms in on a blurry view of Jörgen opening his fly and taking out his penis. The automatic focus moves in and out between the label on the bottle and Jörgen’s penis as he urinates into the bottle...
“What a goddamn pig,” Tuvesson said, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry to say that it’s hardly even begun.”
“Why isn’t there any sound?” Molander asked.
“I think they just forgot to turn it on, but they figure it out in a little bit.”
They continued watching the video.
...Jörgen is holding the bottle toward the camera, grinning. Glenn’s hand enters the frame. He takes the bottle while Jörgen puts brass knuckles on his fingers and rings the bell again; this time he holds the button down for a long time. After a few seconds, Claes Mällvik opens the door. He talks as his eyes flick back and forth between Jörgen and the camera. He looks afraid. His mouth moves again. Jörgen responds by what looks like burping in his face and shoving him into the apartment. The shaky camera follows them, moving all over the place as the apartment door is closed and locked. The camera finally settles on a hall mirror. Glenn is visible from head to toe, filming himself. He raises the full bottle with a smile, and puts it down on the hall table. He presses a button on the camera. The sound kicks in...
The emotional distance Tuvesson and the others had been able to maintain up to that point in the footage diminished immediately. Now they were fully present with Glenn, Jörgen, and Claes. They could hear Claes’s weakening voice, begging and pleading for them to stop, in between Jörgen’s powerful blows, which sounded like a hammer striking a watermelon.
...Glenn takes the camera, moving further into the apartment to find Claes, who has been silenced. He’s lying motionless on the floor, receiving blow after blow from Jörgen’s brass knuckles. His face is red with blood and mucus, and it looks more and more like one big open wound. Jörgen is out of breath and sweaty. He stops hitting him and wipes his bloody hand on Claes’s shirt. “Shit, he can’t give up that easily,” Jörgen says with a sneer. “I think he’s thirsty. Give him something to drink!” The camera moves down until it’s level with Claes’s bloody face. Glenn’s hand enters the frame, holding the beer bottle. He pours the urine into Claes’s mouth. Claes comes to life and coughs. Quite a bit of the liquid ends up on his face. “There you go. Clever boy. Just drink up.” He presses the bottle into Claes’s mouth and empties it. “Have some more.”
1993-04-13 8:03 p.m.
Claes is hanging from the lamp hook on the ceiling like a punching bag, his arms extended above his head. His wrists are bound with duct tape, and the duct tape is wound around the hook. He’s fighting to hold up his battered head, but it gives in to gravity and drops to his chest over and over again. Glenn is bouncing from foot to foot in front of him, as if he were in the middle of a karate match. Now and then he jumps up and kicks Claes’s head, which snaps sideways at full force. “Hold your head high, I said!” Jörgen screams from behind the camera. He walks up to Claes and cuffs his ear a few times. “Jesus Christ, you’re so disgusting! You fucking little pussy!” Claes tries, but he can’t hold his head up. His mouth moves, but no words come out at first. Then: “Please... just kill me... please,” he says in a voice that’s barely audible. Glenn enters the picture: “Come on. Let’s go grab a bite.”
1993-04-13 10:28 p.m.
Claes is lying motionless on the floor of the hall with the house phone beside him. His wrists are still bound with tape. “How the hell did he get over here?” The camera zooms in on Jörgen, who shrugs.“Well, it doesn’t matter, since the line was cut.” Jörgen holds up the severed end of the telephone cord. “But you didn’t think about that, did you? You disgusting little bastard!” Jörgen grabs the phone and slams it into Claes’s head again and again. “Hey! Only hands and feet,” says Glenn from outside the camera frame. Jörgen throws down the phone, lifting Claes’s feet and dragging him back into the room.
Lilja pressed pause and turned to face the others. “It continues on like this for another hour.”
None of the others spoke.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Klippan managed at last. “I’m starting to wonder whose side I’m on.”
“I don’t understand how he survived,” Tuvesson said, standing up. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I need to take a break.”
“Should we decide on a time to resume our meeting?” Lilja wondered.
“No,” Tuvesson said, and left the room.