The Disappeared (16 page)

Peder slid down in his seat. A man like Gustav Sjöö didn’t suddenly decide to live rough. He was out there somewhere, and soon he would come home.

Ylva called, reminding him of what was important in life. A cosy Friday evening with the boys – he hadn’t forgotten, had he? He assured her that he hadn’t, but explained that he would be late.

‘Very late?’

‘I’ll ring you if that’s the case.’

This new routine they had established was amazing. Ylva’s tolerance for his working hours evoked a feeling of guilt that he didn’t recognise. In the past he had been too busy defending his choices in life to have any room for guilt. If they hadn’t ended up quarrelling, he had reacted by feeling unhappy. He didn’t really understand the logic of it all.

His colleague tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Isn’t that him?’

Peder wasn’t sure. The court case and recent upheaval must have taken more of a toll on Sjöö than Peder had realised. The man was pale and looked old, very different from the pictures Peder had seen in his file.

They got out of the car and stood behind Sjöö as he was about to open the door of the apartment block.

‘Gustav Sjöö?’

It was lucky that he was holding onto the door handle. Every trace of colour drained from his face; even his lips went pale and his eyes widened as Peder and his colleagues held up their ID.

‘What the hell do you want now?’

The interview with Gustav Sjöö began at four o’clock in the afternoon. Peder found it difficult to summon up a great deal of enthusiasm. Håkan Nilsson had left HQ just a few hours ago, and now Peder was about to embark on his second interview of the day. He was working with a female officer, Cecilia Torsson. She was a new experience for Peder; he had heard that Fredrika had complained about her to Alex, but obviously she hadn’t got very far, because Cecilia was still here. In his former life as the Casanova of HQ, he would have been interested and would have asked her out for a drink afterwards. Now he barely looked in her direction, focusing instead on Sjöö.

‘You seem to be finding things rather difficult at the moment?’

He looked at Sjöö, who chose to keep his eyes fixed on the table.

‘You could say that.’

His voice sounded as if it was used too infrequently; it was hoarse and rough. His shoulders sloped with the weight of the burden that had been placed upon them. Gustav Sjöö looked exhausted, like a man who has used up all his strength and given up hope of ever regaining it.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ said Cecilia. ‘Do you remember her?’

Sjöö nodded. ‘She disappeared.’

‘As I’m sure you’ve heard on the news, we’ve found her.’

Sjöö looked up, his expression simultaneously sad and surprised.

‘You’ve found her?’

Peder stared at him.

‘I’m sorry, but where have you been for the last few days?’

‘At my summer cottage. I’d just come back when you picked me up.’

‘And you have no contact with the outside world when you’re there?’

‘No, that’s the whole point of going there, so that I can be alone. I had no idea that you’d found Rebecca. Where was she?’

Cecilia replied, ‘Buried on the outskirts of Midsommarkransen. A dog owner found her.’

Gustav Sjöö’s voice was an almost inaudible whisper: ‘Alive?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Had she been buried alive?’

The question made both Peder and Cecilia stiffen. Being buried alive was possibly the only thing worse than being dismembered and buried in bin bags.

‘No,’ said Cecilia. ‘She was dead when she was buried. Why do you ask?’

Sjöö shuffled, wrung his hands.

‘I probably just misunderstood what you said.’

Peder straightened the notepad in front of him.

‘You seem to have a tendency to misunderstand things, Gustav. For example, you misunderstood your girlfriend when you thought she wanted to have sex with you.’

Sjöö looked at Peder with distaste.

‘If that’s what you want to talk about, I’d like my solicitor present.’

Peder held up his hands.

‘Let’s go back to Rebecca. When did you last see her?’

Sjöö gawped at him.

‘Pardon me for pointing this out, but you’ve already asked that question. Two years ago, when she went missing.’

‘And now we’re asking it again.’

Sjöö rested his chin on one hand, his elbows on the table.

‘I can hardly remember. We had a supervision session a few days before she disappeared.’

‘How did it go?’

‘Fine, as far as I recall.’

‘No disagreements?’

‘Not that I can remember.’

Cecilia broke in.

‘Did you and Rebecca meet privately?’

‘Privately?’

‘Outside the university.’

Peder could see that Sjöö was genuinely bewildered.

‘No, never.’

‘Did you try it on with her?’

‘What the fuck are you . . .?’

‘Answer the question!’ Peder roared.

He was risking everything on the turn of one card as he slammed his fist down on the table. Sjöö was clearly shaken.

‘No, I did not.’

‘Other female students have claimed that they had problems with you.’

‘Thank you, I’m aware of that. I’m telling you what I’ve told all the other police officers: they’re lying.’

Of course they are, Peder thought grimly.

There were times when he hated his job, when he thought he’d like to do something else. Why the hell did they never get a bloody confession? Why did no one ever hold their hands up and say, ‘Yes, you’re right, I did it’? That would have made life easier. Too easy, perhaps.

‘Was Rebecca happy with your supervision?’ Peder asked.

Gustav Sjöö sighed.

‘No, I don’t think she was. I found it difficult to cope with the amount of energy she was prepared to put into her dissertation. She went back over it, reformulated the whole thrust of the piece, rewrote the questions. I thought it lacked gravitas.’

‘You thought the fact that she had energy meant her work lacked gravitas?’

‘No, of course not. But . . . The whole hypothesis was flawed; it was starting to resemble a police investigation. That was when I pointed out that she was actually studying literature, not criminology.’

‘What do you mean, it resembled a police investigation?’ Cecilia asked.

‘She was writing about Thea Aldrin, the children’s author who was sent to prison for the murder of her ex-husband, and who was also accused of having written violent pornography under a pseudonym. Rebecca became obsessed with Thea Aldrin, and started digging up all kinds of old stuff that had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of her dissertation. In the end, she was convinced that Thea had neither murdered her ex, nor written the pornographic books.’

So, Rebecca had been a conscientious student. Peder found it difficult to believe that this could have provided a motive for murder.

‘How did she reach the conclusion that this Thea Aldrin was innocent?’ Cecilia asked.

‘Women’s intuition or something,’ Sjöö said. ‘She said all her sources were confidential, that she couldn’t reveal where the information came from. We had some lengthy discussions on that particular issue.’

Cecilia smiled.

‘Do you own a chainsaw?’

‘What? No. Yes.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Yes, I do. There’s one at my summer cottage.’

‘Do you use it often?’

‘No, I can’t say I do.’

He paused.

‘Listen, you checked me out two years ago. I had an alibi for the evening in question. Can’t we just finish this off so I can go home?’

Peder slid a piece of paper from under his notepad: the timetable for the conference Sjöö had been attending in Västerås the evening Rebecca disappeared.

‘We’ve taken a closer look at your alibi, Gustav. And it’s far from watertight. See for yourself.’

He pushed the timetable across the table.

‘This shows that you were free from 16.00 until 19.00, when pre-dinner drinks were served before the meal at 20.00.’

Sjöö looked at him.

‘Yes?’

‘Nobody would have missed you if you’d nipped back to Stockholm, dealt with Rebecca, then turned up late for dinner. It’s just over a hundred kilometres from Västerås to Stockholm. If you put your foot down, it doesn’t take too long.’

‘From a purely hypothetical point of view, I agree with you. But you’re wrong. I didn’t leave Västerås.’

‘And how can we be sure of that?’

Gustav Sjöö leaned back wearily on his chair.

‘That’s your problem, not mine. I went to my room for a nap before dinner. During the pre-dinner drinks party I chatted to a colleague from Uppsala University who can confirm that I was there.’

‘What was the name of this colleague?’

Sjöö remained silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Professor Spencer Lagergren.’

20

They still hadn’t been able to dismiss the allegation that Rebecca had been selling sex over the internet. Peder had asked the technical team to look into the website where Håkan Nilsson claimed to have seen her; he had kept all the information, including the date when he had seen her and the alias she had been using.

A feeling of restlessness was gnawing away at Fredrika’s body. She didn’t want to go home until she had made some progress in the investigation. Peder was interviewing Rebecca’s supervisor, and wouldn’t have time to ring the techies before Fredrika went home for the weekend. Her hand hovered over the telephone as she gazed out of the window. The sun was tempting; it made the brown metal on the building opposite shimmer in countless different shades. Why didn’t she go home?

They answered straight away.

‘I’m calling about the website “Dreams Come True”.’ How stupid did that sound?

‘The job we got this morning?’

‘I’m just calling on the off chance, I know you haven’t had enough time yet, but . . .’

‘We’ve got quite a long way. As far as we can, actually. The website is still there, and it looks pretty bloody kinky. Several of the girls on there are definitely under fifteen.’

‘What kind of website is it?’

Her voice was hesitant; she didn’t really want to know.

‘The principle is the same as for ordinary Internet dating, although in this case it’s only girls who upload their profiles, and it’s exclusively for sex. Imagine sex as an extreme sport. I mean, nobody would visit this site to find the woman he’d want to spend the rest of his life with.’

Sex as an extreme sport – the twenty-first century’s distorted view of what constituted good sex.

‘Did you manage to find Rebecca’s profile?’

‘We didn’t think it would be possible at first, but we managed to identify the website’s administrator.’

Fredrika was surprised.

‘How come?’

‘All websites have an administrator. This one is run by a guy who owns a porn shop in the Söder district. If you go and speak to him, he should be able to help; you’ve got her alias. Just because you take pictures down from a website, that doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. He’ll have kept them, guaranteed. Push him hard; as I said, there are some very young girls on that website.’

Fredrika took down the name and address. Stared at the piece of paper, gazed out of the window. Looked back at the address. She wanted to know more. More, more, more. She took out her mobile to call Spencer.

Spencer. Whose name was written in red ink in a brochure that had been in the possession of the murder victim.

She called home, pressing the telephone close to her ear when she heard his wary voice. An hour. That was all she needed to fit in a visit to Söder, then she would hurry home. She must find time to play her violin for a little while this evening. To dispel those thoughts, to drive away the anxiety and the distraction.

The man’s groaning and moaning grew louder and louder; he could be heard throughout virtually the entire shop. He was out of sight behind a paper-thin closed door, but there wasn’t much doubt what he was up to. Fredrika glanced at the male colleague she had brought with her to the porn shop; he seemed to be finding the whole thing extremely entertaining. He was looking around at the shelves, taking in the rows of dildos and sex toys.

The shop was located in a basement, with the same paucity of light as the garage Fredrika had visited. She peered through the gloom, searching for the owner of the shop and, hopefully, the person responsible for ‘Dreams Come True’. She wanted to get this out of the way and head home as soon as possible.

The door to the small booth accommodating the groaning man flew open and he emerged. He caught Fredrika’s eye. And smiled. She felt her cheeks flush bright red, and looked away. Why didn’t he want the ground to swallow him up? How could he walk out with his head held high when he’d just been masturbating in front of a porn film?

‘Can I help you?’

She couldn’t see where the voice was coming from; she turned and saw a young man who had suddenly appeared behind the counter. She took two firm steps towards him, then stopped, unable to bring herself to move any closer. He smiled at her uncertainty.

She took out her ID and introduced herself and her colleague.

‘It’s about a website.’

The man raised one eyebrow, his expression quizzical.

‘Oh?’

‘Are you the person who started “Dreams Come True”?’

‘Yep. There’s nothing illegal in that.’

Pictures of young girls, on their way to adult life via the internet. How could it be legal to hold the gates of hell wide open for underage girls?

‘We’re looking for a profile that was taken down from the website about two years ago.’

The man burst out laughing and moved over to the till.

‘Two years ago? In that case I can’t help you, unfortunately. Much as I would like to, of course.’

The look in his eyes was so crafty that it took Fredrika’s breath away. Her colleague stepped in.

‘Listen to me, you slimy little bastard. Your website is smack bang in the middle of an investigation into the murder of a woman whose body was dismembered, and if you know what’s good for you and your shop, you will answer my colleague’s questions!’

The man blinked, his pupils dilated.

‘I’m not involved in any murder!’