FABIAN RISK TURNED OFF Tögatan onto Frostgatan. A few turns later he was speeding through Väla and accelerating onto the southbound E4. The realtor seemed to have given him the correct number because Lina Pålsson picked up, which surprised Fabian. What had he expected? That Lina was behind the murders and had gone underground?
He asked why she’d changed numbers, and she told him she hadn’t had a choice. Since Jörgen’s death, the papers had hounded her day and night for interviews and statements, although she had made it clear she wasn’t interested. She explained that she had moved to Norra Hamnen and invited him to stop by as soon as he had the time and desire. He told her that now was a good time, though it was clear from her tone of voice that he’d caught her off guard. After a few seconds, she’d told him to come over and ring the bell when he arrived.
He couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t quite right: one moment she made herself inaccessible, only to be excessively hospitable the next. It was like she had been waiting for him to call and ask for her help, like she knew what he was after. She had changed her address and phone number. Could he be the only one who knew where she was, about to fall right into her trap? Should he call Tuvesson and the others and let them know?
But he knew it couldn’t be Lina. He was confident the killer was the boy hidden behind Claes. Or at least he thought he was sure. Maybe it wasn’t him. Why did he have no memory of this mysterious classmate? Maybe the boy in the picture was just another false lead; maybe the picture had actually been manipulated. Was it possible that someone had exchanged his yearbook for a different one? Maybe one of the movers did it.
Fabian’s thoughts were darting every which way, as wildly as free electrons. It wasn’t until he was driving down Hälsovagen that he was able to regain control, thanks to Of Montreal’s “Disconnect the Dots,” and to determine that his paranoid thinking was likely the result of a lack of sleep. He found a parking spot behind the City Theatre and crossed in front of the old Sandrew movie theatre, where he’d managed to get into Halloween at age twelve but had to ask the projectionist to call his mommy to come pick him up after it was finished.
He crossed Roskildegatan and was delighted to discover that the Kafferepet bakery was still there. Not much had changed in this neighbourhood. It was a different story closer to the Sound. What had once been the city’s backside — an industrial area full of railroad tracks, shabby warehouses, and rusty silos — had been transformed into a charming marina with boardwalks, restaurants, and cafés during his years in exile.
There was a camera on the entry intercom for Lina’s apartment. Fabian tried to look casual. The door clicked open, allowing him to enter. Her apartment door was open, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafted into the stairwell. He said hello, but didn’t get a response, so he stepped onto the plastic that protected the floor in the hallway, closed the door behind him, and walked further along the crinkly plastic path to a large, unfurnished living room with an open kitchen.
A coffeemaker in the kitchen was sputtering out black poison, and the balcony door was wide open. Fabian walked out and looked across the Sound, busy with traffic, thinking that you couldn’t live close enough to boats and the water. Cars were a completely different matter. He wondered what this apartment must have cost and decided that the view would have gone for over a million kronor.
“Ah, there you are.”
Fabian turned around a bit too quickly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” Lina put down a tray full of cups and a full coffee pot. Fabian took out the coffee bread he’d brought and laid it on its bag.
“Mmm... from Kafferepet?”
Fabian nodded. “What a fantastic view.”
“Thanks. I’ve wanted to move here ever since they built up the area. But Jörgen refused to leave Ödåkra. Over my dead body, he used to say.” She poured the coffee. “Milk?”
“Yes, please.” Fabian took a sip, thinking it was unusually good for being drip. “Lina, how are you, really?”
She sat down, her eyes wandering out across the Sound. “To be perfectly honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this good.”
“You know the killer is still at large, and that there are a number of reasons to believe that he —”
“Yes, but I was never one of the bullies. I never stood there egging them on like Pavlan, and I didn’t watch like Camilla.”
“But Lina, we no longer believe that his motive is —”
“Fabbe,” Lina interrupted, turning to Fabian. “Jörgen’s death was the best thing that could have happened to me — not that I wanted him to suffer the way he must have, but he’s out of my life at the end of the day. You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been through. It’s like I can breathe for the first time since I don’t know when. I’ve been walking around in fear for so long that I just can’t handle it anymore. Do you know what I mean? I can’t keep being scared.”
“Why didn’t you leave him?”
Lina laughed. “Jörgen Pålsson isn’t the kind of guy you just leave.” She shook her head as if it were someone else’s story she was telling rather than her own. “You needed my help, I believe.”
Fabian took out the yearbook and his photo album. “I think I know who the killer is.”
She looked him in the eye, her expression revealing that this was the last thing she’d expected to hear. He opened to their ninth-grade class photo and pointed at Claes’s hair.
“Can you see how someone else is standing here behind Claes?”
Lina took the yearbook and looked more closely. “Oh yeah... God, who is it?”
Fabian shrugged. “I was hoping you could help me. I don’t suppose you happen to have a yearbook? Preferably one from before ninth grade?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any of that stuff. Jörgen burned it all.”
“Burned it?”
Lina nodded. “It was a long time ago, sometime in the early nineties. He and Glenn were gone all night, into the early morning. I remember it clearly because Anki called to ask if I knew where they were. I had no idea, as usual, but they must have been up to some kind of shit, because once he came home I heard him drinking and ripping things off the bookshelf. I’d already gone to bed and I didn’t dare get up, because it was never a good idea when he was in that sort of mood. The next morning I saw that he had burned everything from school: pictures, report cards, exercise books, and yearbooks. Everything was gone, turned to ashes in the grill.”
“Do you know why?”
Lina shook her head. “I never dared to ask.” She returned to the yearbook. “So he’s been there all along.”
“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t see him until late last night, and I don’t think anyone else in our class has either. Apparently the people who put the yearbook together didn’t even notice him. Everyone is listed but him. See for yourself.”
“I believe you. And you’re sure it’s him?”
Fabian nodded. “All I need is a name, and that’s where you come in.”
“I don’t understand how I can help you. I had no idea there was an extra person in our class. Are you absolutely sure?” She picked up her coffee cup and tried to take a sip despite her shaking hands.
“Lina, his locker was the one to the right of yours.”
“What? How —”
“We know which locker was his. Look at this photo.” He opened the album and pointed at the photo of Lina with her back to the camera; she was putting books in her locker. Lina looked at the picture and then at the other photos on the page: they were all photos of Lina taken from various angles, more or less aware that she was being photographed.
“Did you take all of these?”
Fabian nodded. “Just so you know, you’re the first and hopefully last person I’ve shown them to.”
She met his gaze. “I don’t know what to say. Fabian, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. There was a time when I would have done everything for you. But that was then. Now I’m happily married, and I don’t have any —”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lina interrupted him. “I just have no idea whose locker was beside mine. It was someone I obviously never spoke to. Was he really in our class?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, but I have absolutely no recollection of him.”
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”
Lina nodded her head. Fabian felt the energy draining from his body. Maybe he hadn’t been expecting Lina to rattle off the name as soon as he crossed her doorstep, but he had hoped that her memory would be sparked in some way and, in the best-case scenario, that she would have the name on the tip of her tongue. But instead nothing had happened. Lina’s memory was just as empty as his own.
“Is it okay if I take a look?”
Fabian let Lina page through to another group of yellowed photos of herself. “I’ll never forget that moment.” She pointed at a picture where she was about to hit a tennis ball with a flat brännboll bat. Jörgen was standing next to her, holding out a round bat.
“What?”
“Don’t you remember? Jörgen would get so pissed off. He always wanted me to use the round bat, but I could only ever hit the ball with the flat one. I got a fantastic hit right after this photo was taken. It went so ridiculously far. Don’t ask me how, but everyone made it home and I even managed a double round.”
“Of course,” Fabian said, although he couldn’t remember the event at all.
Lina looked at another photo, where she was sitting at a school desk, looking bored. “Oh yes, those German classes. God, I hated those more than anything else. Aus außer bei mit... what was it?”
“Nach seit von zu.”
“Right. German sure was your specialty.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It was more —”
“Don’t even. I remember how you sat at the very front, always raising your hand and showing off.”
“I wasn’t showing off. I was just interested. I actually thought it was fun.”
“German? Fun? You’re kidding.”
“Nein, ich schämten nicht! Für mich war Deutsch immer viel spaß! Immer! Immer!”
Lina burst into laughter. ”What was his name again?”
“Whose name?”
“Our German teacher!”
“Helmut something, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, Helmut... Krull...?”
“No, wait... Kroppen... Kroppenheim. That’s it! Helmut Kroppenheim!” Fabian felt like he’d just won a lengthy game of Trivial Pursuit.
But Lina didn’t give him any applause or hurrahs. Instead, she was looking out at the Sound. “That’s right...”
“What?”
“It was so crowded around our lockers. Don’t you remember?”
Fabian nodded. He could easily recall how crowded it was, and how you often had to wait your turn to reach your locker. But he didn’t want to verbally agree; he knew what was about to happen, and he didn’t want to risk disrupting her concentration for anything in the world. It was the very reason he’d come to see her.
“I accidentally backed into him a few times because I didn’t even know he was there. And then I would do the very same thing again after the next class. God, it’s really awful when you think about it.” She shook her head and kept staring out into the distance.
The silence didn’t last for more than a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity to Fabian. He started rummaging through his thoughts, trying to find something to say that might get her talking again.
“Oh, that’s right... didn’t he always sit with Claes?” she said suddenly, turning to Fabian. “After all, no one else wanted to sit with him.”
Fabian nodded, although all he could remember was that Claes usually sat as close to the teacher’s desk as possible. He had no idea who’d sat beside him. But Lina was right. It couldn’t be anyone but him.
“Wait, I’ve got it. Torgny... wasn’t that his name?” she continued, looking at Fabian. “Torgny Sölmedal.”
Fabian repeated the name to himself and realized that this wasn’t the first time his name had popped up in the investigation.