The Crow Girl (15 page)

As Sofia left Ward 112 of Huddinge Hospital she reflected on her attitude to her work.

What sort of clients did she really want to work with? How and where did she do the most good? And how much should it cost her in terms of poor sleep and an unsettled stomach?

She wanted to work with clients like Samuel Bai and Victoria Bergman, but there she had shown that she wasn’t up to the job.

In Victoria Bergman’s case she had simply become far too involved and had lost her judgement.

Otherwise?

She walked into the car park, pulled out her keys and took a quick look at the hospital complex.

On the one hand there was her work out here, with men like Karl Lundström. She wasn’t able to make decisions unilaterally. She gave recommendations to investigations. At best, her conclusions were adopted and passed on to the court.

It felt to her like a game of Chinese whispers.

She whispered her opinion into someone else’s ear, the whisper was passed on to the next person, and the next, and eventually reached a judge who made a final decision that was usually completely different, and quite possibly influenced by some important adviser.

She unlocked the car door and sank into the seat.

On the other hand there was her work at the practice, with clients like Carolina Glanz, where she was paid by the hour.

The client pays for an agreed period of time, and uses the therapist, who gets paid to allow themselves to be used by the client.

A rather sad way of looking at things, she thought as she pulled out of the car park.

I’m like a prostitute.

PROSECUTOR KENNETH VON
Kwist’s office was a restrained and very male room, with black leather seats, a large desk, and plenty of naturalistic art.

His stomach ached, but in spite of that he poured himself a stiff whisky and offered the bottle to the lawyer Viggo Dürer, who shook his head.

Von Kwist raised his glass, took a cautious sip and enjoyed the powerfully smoky aroma.

The meeting with Viggo Dürer hadn’t yet changed anything, for either better or worse. Although Dürer had admitted that he was more than superficially acquainted with the Lundström family.

‘Viggo …’ Prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist said, letting out a long breath. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, and I’ve always stood up for you, just like you’ve always been there when I’ve needed your help.’

Viggo Dürer nodded. ‘That’s true enough.’

‘But right now I don’t know if I can help you. The fact is, I don’t even know if I want to.’

‘What are you saying?’ Viggo Dürer looked at him uncomprehendingly.

‘Karl landed himself in hot water when he confessed to abusing Linnea.’

‘Yes, that was a terrible business.’ Viggo Dürer shuddered and attempted a not wholly successful look of distaste. ‘But what does that have to do with me?’

‘Linnea has confirmed what he said.’

Viggo Dürer looked surprised. ‘But I thought Annette …’ He fell silent, and Kenneth von Kwist was struck by the fact that he had stopped himself.

‘Annette, what?’

His eyes flitted about. ‘Well, that she’d put it behind her.’

There was something in Viggo Dürer’s attitude that strengthened Kenneth von Kwist’s suspicion that the girl had been right.

‘Linnea is also suggesting that you were involved in Karl’s … how should I put this … activities.’

Viggo Dürer went white as a ghost and put a hand to his chest. ‘Damn it.’

‘What is it – are you all right?’

The lawyer groaned and took several deep breaths before raising one hand. ‘I’m OK,’ he eventually said. ‘But what you’re saying sounds extremely troubling.’

‘I know. So you have to be pragmatic. If you understand my meaning?’

WHEN SOFIA GOT
back to the office she felt completely empty. She had an hour before her next client, a middle-aged woman she’d seen twice before, whose main problem was that she had problems.

A conversation that would be devoted to understanding a problem that wasn’t a problem to start with, but which became a problem because it turned into one, more or less unnoticed, during the course of the conversation.

After that she would be seeing Samuel Bai.

Real people’s problems, she thought.

One hour.

Victoria Bergman.

She put her headphones on.

Victoria’s voice sounded amused.

It was so easy you almost couldn’t help laughing at their serious expressions when I bought a toffee for ten öre and had my jacket full of goodies that I could sell to everyone competing to see who dared touch me on the breast or between the legs, and then laugh when I got cross and squirted glue in the lock so they were late and the old guy with the beard hit me over the head with the book so hard my teeth shook, and forced me to spit out the chewing gum that had already lost its taste anyway, and later on I stuck a fly to it …

Sofia was amazed at how the voice changed with the different associations. It was as if the memories belonged to different people who were competing for control of a medium. Mid-sentence, Victoria’s voice took on a melancholy strain.

… and of course I had more chewing gum in reserve, and could sneak another piece in while he was sitting and reading and checking to see if I was cheating using the answers on my hand, but they got smeared with sweat and I only got the spelling wrong because I was nervous and not because I was stupid like the other poor bastards who could do endless tricks with a ball but knew nothing about capital cities or wars but who ought to know because it was people like them who started wars the whole time and never realised when enough was enough, but kept on picking on anyone who stood out, whose trousers were the wrong label, or who had an ugly haircut or was too fat …

The voice got sharper. Sofia recalled that Victoria had been angry.

…
like that big fat girl who always rode around on her tricycle, and whose face looked odd, she was always drooling, and once they told her to take her clothes off, but she didn’t understand until they started pulling her pants off. They had always thought she was just a big baby, so they got a surprise when they saw she was all grown up down there, and you would end up getting beaten up just because you didn’t cry when they thumped you in the stomach and you just laughed and carried on without telling anyone or complaining, and were just tough and focused …

Then the voice fell silent. Sofia could hear the sound of her own breathing. Why hadn’t she asked Victoria to continue?

She pressed fast-forward. Almost three minutes of silence. Four, five, six minutes. Why had she recorded this? All she could hear was breathing and the sound of paper rustling.

After seven minutes Sofia heard the sound of her pen clicking. Then Victoria broke the silence.

I never hit Martin. Never!

Victoria was almost screaming, and Sofia had to turn the volume down.

Never. I don’t let people down. I ate a load of shit for them. Dog shit. Fuck, I’m used to shit! Fucking Sigtuna snobs! I ate shit for their sake!

Sofia took off the headphones.

She knew that Victoria got her memories mixed up, and that she often forgot what she’d said just a few minutes before.

But were these gaps ordinary memory lapses?

She felt nervous before her session with Samuel. The conversation mustn’t get diverted into a dead end the way it had seemed to when they last met.

She had to get close to him before it was too late, before he slipped out of her hands completely. She knew she was going to need all her wits about her if she was going to be able to cope with the conversation.

As usual, Samuel Bai turned up punctually with a social worker from Hässelby.

‘Half past two?’

‘I thought we might have a longer chat this time,’ Sofia said. ‘You can pick him up at three o’clock.’

The social worker disappeared off towards the lift. Sofia looked at Samuel Bai, who let out a whistle. ‘Nice meeting you, ma’am,’ he said, and fired off a broad smile.

Sofia was relieved when she realised which of Samuel’s personalities was standing in front of her.

This was Frankly Samuel, as Sofia had described him in her notes, the polite, extroverted, pleasant Samuel who prefaced every other sentence with ‘Frankly, ma’am, I have to tell ya …’ He always spoke in a kind of homespun English that Sofia found faintly amusing.

Last time Samuel had assumed this personality as soon as the social worker disappeared and they shook hands.

Interesting that he chooses his polite persona when he sees me, she thought as she showed him in.

Frankly Samuel’s polite manner made him the most interesting of the various Samuels that Sofia had observed in their meetings so far. The ‘normal’ Samuel, whom she called Common Samuel, the one that was his dominant personality, was withdrawn, correct and not particularly expressive.

Frankly Samuel was the part of his personality who talked about the terrible things he had done as a child. It was fairly odd to see him smiling constantly and giving Sofia charming compliments on her beautiful eyes and well-formed bust, then going on to explain how he had sat in a dark shack on Lumley Beach outside Freetown, cutting a little girl’s ears off. Occasionally he would burst into infectious laughter that she thought reminded her of the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovíc. A deep, cheerful ‘ho-ho’ that lit up his whole face.

But several times his eyes had flashed, making her wonder if there wasn’t another Samuel in there, one who hadn’t shown himself yet.

Sofia’s aim with the therapy was to collect all the various personalities into one coherent person. But she was also aware that you shouldn’t move too fast in cases like this. The client has to be able to deal with the material he or she has to absorb.

With Victoria Bergman everything had happened of its own accord.

Victoria was like a sewage treatment plant in human form, using her droning monologues as a mechanism to filter out the evil.

But with Samuel Bai it was different.

She had to be careful with him, but without being unproductive.

Frankly Samuel exhibited no deep scars when he told her about the terrible things he had experienced. But she was more and more convinced that he was a ticking bomb.

She invited him to have a seat, and Frankly Samuel sat down on the chair in a snake-like movement. This personality was accompanied by an elastic, slippery type of body language.

Sofia looked at him and gave him a cautious smile.

‘So … how do you do, Samuel?’

He tapped his big silver ring on the edge of the table and looked at her with cheerful eyes. Then he made a movement, as if a wave were passing through him from one shoulder to the other.

‘Ma’am, it has never been better … And frankly, I must tell ya …’

Frankly Samuel liked talking. He showed a genuine interest in Sofia, asked personal questions, and asked her outright for her opinions on various matters. That was good, because it meant she could lead the conversation towards the things she felt were important if there was to be any breakthrough in the treatment.

The session had been going on for about half an hour when Samuel, to Sofia’s disappointment, suddenly switched to Common Samuel. What had she done wrong?

They had been talking about segregation, a subject that interested Frankly Samuel, and he had asked where she lived and which metro station was closest for anyone wanting to pay her a visit. When she replied that she lived on Södermalm, and that Skanstull or Medborgarplatsen stations were closest, the open, polite smile faded and he became more reserved.

‘Close to Monumental, oh, fuck …’ he said in broken Swedish.

‘Samuel?’

‘What d’you want? He spat in my face … spiders on arms. Tattoos …’

Sofia knew what he was referring to. Hässelby social services had informed her that he had been beaten up in a doorway on Ölandsgatan. By Monumental, he meant the Monument block close to the exit from the Skanstull metro station.

Close to Mikael’s flat, she thought.

‘See my tattoo:
R
for Revolution,
U
for United,
F
for Front. See!’

He pulled his top down to reveal a tattoo on his chest.

RUF in jagged letters, a symbol whose loaded meaning she was all too aware of.

Was it the memory of the attack that had summoned Common Samuel?

She pondered this for a moment while he sat there in silence staring at the table.

Perhaps Frankly Samuel hadn’t been able to bear the humiliation of being beaten up, and had left the whole thing to Common Samuel, who was the one who seemed to handle contact with the police and social services. That could have been why Frankly Samuel disappeared as soon as the Monument block had been mentioned.

That had to be it, she thought. Language is a carrier of psychological symbolism.

All of a sudden she realised how to get Frankly Samuel to come back.

‘Will you excuse me a moment, Samuel?’

‘What?’

She smiled at him. ‘There’s something I want to show you. I’ll be back in a minute.’

She left the room and went straight into the waiting room belonging to Johansson, the dentist, just to the right of her own office.

Without knocking she walked into the dentist’s treatment room. She apologised to the startled Johansson, who was busy rinsing an elderly woman’s mouth, and asked if she could borrow the model of an old motorcycle from the bookcase behind him.

‘I only need it for an hour. I know you’re very fond of it, but I promise to be careful.’

She smiled ingratiatingly at the sixty-year-old dentist. She knew he had a soft spot for her. He was probably a bit lonely, she thought.

‘Psychologists, always psychologists …’ He chuckled beneath his mask. He stood up and took the little metal motorcycle down from the shelf.

It was a red-lacquered model of an old Harley-Davidson. It was very skilfully done; Johansson had said it was made in the States in 1959, using metal and rubber from a real HD.