Dark Secrets (23 page)

Sebastian undid his seat belt and got out of the car. He looked up at the building in front of him and was filled with an immense weariness.

“So this was where he went?”

“Yes.”

“Poor bastard. Have we completely ruled out suicide?”

Above the double doors leading into Palmlövska High was a large painting of a man who could only be Jesus. His arms were outstretched in a gesture that the artist undoubtedly meant to be welcoming, but that looked distinctly threatening to Sebastian. Keen to take away the freedom of anyone who walked through those doors.

Beneath the picture it read:
John 12:46
.

“ ‘I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me shall not remain in darkness,’ ” Sebastian reeled off.

“You know your Bible?”

“I know that thing.”

Sebastian went up the last couple of steps and pushed open one door. With a final glance at the enormous painting, Vanja followed him.

Ragnar Groth, the principal of Palmlövska High, waved expansively toward a small sofa and an armchair in one corner of his office. Vanja and Sebastian sat down. Ragnar Groth, on the other hand, unbuttoned his jacket and sat down behind the old-fashioned rustic desk. Without even realizing what he was doing, he straightened a pen until it was perfectly parallel with the edge of the desk. Sebastian noticed and allowed his gaze to sweep over the desk, then to the rest of the room. The principal’s workplace was almost empty. To his left was a pile of plastic folders. Edge to edge. No part of any folder was sticking out. They were in the bottom left-hand corner of the desk, with a gap of less than an inch below and at the side. To his right lay two pens and one pencil in parallel lines, all pointing in the same direction. At a right angle above them were a ruler and an eraser, which looked unused. The telephone, computer, and lamp were arranged with precision in relation to the edges of the desk and to one another.

The rest of the room was ordered along the same lines. No crooked pictures. Not a Post-it note in sight. Everything on the bulletin board
neatly pinned up and evenly spaced. Every file precisely in line with the edge of the bookshelf. No hint of a mark left by a coffee cup or a glass of water. The furniture arranged with absolute precision in relation to the walls and the rug. Sebastian quickly reached a diagnosis on Ragnar Groth: a pedant with elements of obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Wearing an expression of the utmost seriousness, the principal had met Vanja and Sebastian outside his office, his outstretched hand so rigidly straight it looked ridiculous, and had immediately embarked upon a lengthy narrative on how terrible it was that one of the school’s pupils had been found murdered. Everyone would, of course, do their best to help solve this horrific crime. No obstacles would be placed in the way of the police. Total cooperation. Vanja couldn’t help feeling that every single word sounded as if it came from some PR firm’s crisis management handbook. The principal offered them coffee. Vanja and Sebastian declined.

“How much do you know about the school?”

“Enough,” said Sebastian.

“Not much,” said Vanja.

“We started as a boarding school in the 1950s, and now we’re a private high school; we have a social studies and natural sciences program, with options in languages, economics, and leadership. We have two hundred eighteen students from the whole Mälardalen area, and from as far away as Stockholm. That is why we have retained the boarding-school element.”

“So that the rich kids won’t have to mix with the plebs.”

Groth turned to Sebastian, and even though his voice remained low and well modulated, he was unable to hide a hint of irritation.

“Our reputation as an upper-class school is disappearing. These days the parents who come to us are those who actually want their children to learn something in school. Our results are among the best in the country.”

“Of course they are. That makes you competitive and justifies your ridiculously high fees.”

“We no longer charge fees.”

“Of course you do, you just have to call it ‘a reasonable donation’ these days.”

Groth glared at Sebastian and leaned back in his ergonomically perfect desk chair. Vanja could feel the whole thing slipping through their fingers. In spite of the principal’s exaggerated formal tone, he had at least seemed keen to help with the investigation. Sebastian’s inappropriate remarks could change that situation after just three minutes, which would leave them fighting for every scrap of information about students and staff. If Ragnar Groth didn’t give his blessing, they wouldn’t even be able to look at a school photograph without applying for permission. Vanja wasn’t sure if Groth was aware of how difficult he could make their job, but at this stage she wasn’t prepared to take the risk. She shifted forward on the sofa and gave him a winning smile.

“Tell me more about Roger. How come he ended up here?”

“There were problems with bullying at his middle school, and at the high school he first attended. A member of my staff knew him well—he was a friend of her son’s, so she put in a good word for him and we found him a place here.”

“And he was happy here? He didn’t get into any kind of trouble with other students?”

“We’re very proactive in our efforts to prevent bullying.”

“You’ve got another word for it, haven’t you? ‘Hazing,’ isn’t that what it’s called?”

Groth ignored Sebastian’s comment. Vanja gave Sebastian a look that she hoped would make him keep his mouth shut. Then she turned back to the principal.

“Do you know if Roger was behaving differently over the last few days or weeks? Whether he was worried about anything, playing up, that kind of thing?”

Groth shook his head slowly as he thought about it.

“No, I wouldn’t have said so. But you should speak to Beatrice Strand, his class teacher—she saw him far more often than I did.”

He was now addressing only Vanja.

“It was through Beatrice that Roger came here.”

“How did he manage the reasonable donation?” Sebastian piped up. He had no intention of being ignored. That would make things rather too easy for Herr Groth. The principal looked a little surprised, almost as if he had managed to forget for a little while that this slightly overweight and rather unkempt man was sitting in his office.

“Roger was exempt from making the donation.”

“So he was your little social project? Filled your quota of charitable deeds? That must have felt good.”

Groth pushed back his chair very deliberately and got to his feet. He remained standing behind the desk, straight backed and with his fingertips resting on the dust-free surface. Like Caligula in the old film
Torment
, Sebastian thought as he noticed the way the principal buttoned his jacket with a reflex action as he got up.

“I have to say that I find your attitude toward our school rather annoying.”

“Oh dear. The thing is, I spent three of the worst years of my life here, so it’ll take a bit more than your sales patter before I join in the chorus of approval.”

Groth looked at Sebastian with a certain amount of skepticism.

“You’re a former student?”

“Yes. Unfortunately it was my father’s idea to found this temple of knowledge.”

Groth processed this information, and when he realized what he had heard, he sat down again. Jacket button undone. The irritated expression replaced by one of sheer disbelief.

“You’re Ture Bergman’s son?”

“Yes.”

“There’s not much of a resemblance.”

“Thank you, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me since I got here.”

Sebastian stood up and waved his hand in a gesture that encompassed both Vanja and Groth.

“You two carry on. Where will I find Beatrice Strand?”

“She’s teaching at the moment.”

“But presumably she’s doing that somewhere on the premises?”

“I’d prefer you to wait until break before you speak to her.”

“Okay, I’ll find her myself.”

Sebastian left the room. Before he closed the door behind him he heard Vanja apologizing for him. He’d heard it before. Not from Vanja, but from other colleagues to other people in different contexts. Sebastian was beginning to feel more and more at home in this investigation. He headed quickly toward the stairs. Most of the classrooms used to be one floor down. That was hardly likely to have changed. In general most things looked the same as they had forty years ago; the walls might be a different color, but otherwise Palmlövska High hadn’t changed much.

After all, hell doesn’t usually change.

That was probably the very definition of hell.

The endless torment.

It took Sebastian longer than he had expected to find his way. He spent some time wandering around the familiar corridors, knocking on various doors before finding the classroom in which Beatrice Strand was teaching. On the way he had decided to feel nothing. The school was just a building. A building in which he had spent three years under protest. His father had forced him to attend Palmlövska when he started the place, and from the first day Sebastian had been determined not to like it. Not to fit in. He broke every imaginable rule, and in his capacity as the founder’s son he challenged every teacher and every authority figure. His behavior might possibly have given him a certain status among the other students, but Sebastian had decided that there would be
nothing
positive about his years at this school, and he therefore had no hesitation in telling tales or playing his fellow students off against one another or against the staff. This made him extremely unpopular with everyone and cast him in the role of outsider, which he welcomed. In some way he thought he was punishing his father by
systematically alienating himself from everyone and everything, and there was no denying the fact that his status as a complete outsider gave him a new kind of freedom. The only thing that was expected of him was that he would do whatever he felt like doing in any given situation. He became very good at that.

For the rest of his life he had carried on along the route he had embarked upon in his teens.

My way or the highway.

All his life. No, not all his life. Not with Lily. He hadn’t been like that with her. Not at all. How could it be that one person—eventually, two—could have had such an influence on his life? Changed him so completely?

He didn’t know.

He only knew that it had happened.

It had happened, and then it had been taken away from him.

He knocked on the pale brown door and walked in with one single movement. A woman of about forty was sitting at the teacher’s desk. Thick red hair tied back in a ponytail. The freckled, open face free of makeup. A dark green blouse with a bow resting on the not inconsiderable bust. Long brown skirt. She looked at Sebastian, who introduced himself and gave the students the rest of the lesson off. Beatrice Strand didn’t object.

When they were alone in the classroom, Sebastian pulled out a chair in the front row and sat down. He asked her to tell him about Roger and waited for the emotional outburst he suspected would follow. Absolutely right. Beatrice had had to be strong in front of her students, the person with all the answers, the person who represented security and ordinary, everyday life when something incomprehensible forced its way in. But now she was alone with another adult. Someone who was part of the investigation and who therefore took over the role of security and control. She didn’t have to be the strong one anymore. The dam burst. Sebastian waited.

“I just don’t understand it…” The words came shuddering out
between sobs. “We said good-bye as usual last Friday, and now… now he’s never coming back. We kept on hoping, but then when they found him…”

Sebastian said nothing. There was a knock on the door and Vanja stuck her head in. Beatrice blew her nose and dried her eyes as Sebastian introduced the two women. Beatrice gestured toward her tear-stained face with her handkerchief, then excused herself and left the classroom. Vanja perched on one of the desks.

“The school doesn’t monitor computer usage in any way, and there are no cameras anywhere. It’s a question of mutual respect, according to the principal.”

“So anybody could have sent the message?”

“It doesn’t even have to be a student. You can just walk in straight off the street.”

“But it does need to be someone with a certain knowledge of the school.”

“Yes, but that still means two hundred and eighteen students plus parents, plus friends, plus all the staff.”

“He knew that.”

“Who?”

“The person who sent the message. He knew it would be impossible to trace it beyond the school. But he’s been here before. He has some kind of link to this school. We can assume that.”

“Probably. If it is a he.”

Sebastian looked at Vanja, his expression skeptical.

“I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t a he. The way the murder was carried out, and in particular that business with the heart, indicates a male perpetrator.” Sebastian was about to begin a monologue on the male perpetrator’s need for trophies, a desire to retain his power over the victim by keeping something belonging to him or her, something that almost never occurs in the case of a female perpetrator. But Beatrice came back, interrupting him before he could get going. She sat down at her desk with another apology and turned to face them, looking much more composed.