Frozen Moment (30 page)

    Tell
had added the last sentence hastily as Bärneflod was beginning to look more and
more grim.

    'We'll
make a start along those lines. It's too early to begin talking about motive
until we have a clearer picture of victim number two and what the link is
between the victims. But let's assume that the perpetrator had some kind of
relationship with both of them.'

    He
reached for a glass of carbonated water from the Sodastream, the station's
latest acquisition.

    
'Any questions?'

    'Yes.
Why?'

    That
came from Frisk.

    'Why?'
Tell repeated blankly.

    'Yes,
why are we assuming that the perpetrator had a relationship with the victims?'

    Silence
briefly fell around the table. Karlberg leaned forward and grabbed a tin of
snuff somebody had left behind. He opened it and contented himself with
inhaling the aroma. Sometimes it helped.

    
'Because the alternative is a maniac who kills at random.
And we all know the statistics about how unusual it is for a victim and killer
to have had no previous contact. Plus that scenario doesn't really fit in with
the method and the evidence left behind - or rather the lack of evidence.'

    Beckman
agreed. 'A confused person would leave more clues behind. Besides which, the
method is far too full of hatred to be an impulsive act. I
mean,
the victims were both shot and run over, not once but twice: one right across
the body, the other crushed against a wall. It almost looks like…'

    She
fell silent, but Tell prompted her.

    'Like
what?'

    She
shrugged, suddenly embarrassed at the attention. She hadn't quite finished
formulating her ideas.

    'I
don't quite know what I meant, but it looks like the kind of rage that could
have been caused by some deep wrong. I actually thought of something sexual at
first, but I don't know why.'

    'You
mean the murders were committed by a woman?' said Gonzales.

    'No,
I didn't mean that at all. I just mean I think there was a great deal of anger
behind the killings.
That much rage
builds up over a
long period, and is directed at a person who has some significance for you. I
think any profiler would agree with me on that,' she said, missing Bärneflod's
meaningful glance at Karlberg, who thankfully failed to respond.

    'I
think you're right. That's what I meant when I said we should assume that the
victims knew the killer.' Tell turned to
Frisk
. 'But
you're right too. We can't exclude the alternatives. We can't tie ourselves
down to one theory without any proof. That was a good reminder.'

    With
those
words,
and with the feeling that he was an
excellent team leader - clear, ready to listen, generous, constructive - Tell
brought the briefing to an end.

    1995

    The
gastric pains kicked in as soon as she got off the train at Borås central. She
had taken an earlier train than she'd said and didn't expect to see any familiar
faces on the platform. Apart from an elderly man in a raincoat and sou'wester,
it was deserted. She bought a couple of bananas and a bottle of mineral water
from the kiosk in the hope of settling what her mother usually referred to as
her 'nervous tummy', which was protesting against several cups of coffee she'd
drunk in the buffet. She'd been travelling all day.

    Early
that morning a classmate had offered
her a
lift to the
station.

    Maya
had agreed immediately, throwing a few clothes into her rucksack and scribbling
a note to Caroline, who was still asleep:
Making my own way to the station -
see you Sunday night. Love M!
Deep down she knew that this bright little
message was a way of hiding the real reason why it felt so indescribably good
to leave Stensjö in a hurry. She wanted to be free, even if it was just for a
couple of days. Wanted to prove to
herself
that she
could still cope on her own. To have the chance to
miss
Caroline, as she had done at the start of their relationship.

    Talking
to Caroline about her need for freedom was pointless, and every time ended in
despair and long drawn-out punishment in the form of silence or a sophisticated
nastiness. Up to now Maya had not thought that her longing for freedom had in
any way matched the pain it caused Caroline; she had adapted, despite the fact
that the empty feeling in her stomach had returned, and sometimes became actual
pain.

    Otherwise
she might have thought that the gastric discomfort was associated with the
town, with the lifeless greyness surrounding Borås station. Her 'nervous tummy'
- the snare inside her - characterised her relationship with her mother,
Solveig.
Poor Solveig.

    The
same pain had coloured her teenage years and was closely intertwined with
guilt, the constant gnawing guilt that she could never rationally explain but
which had nevertheless always been there. She had realised at an early age that
her mother was a pathetic soul, but over the years the guilt had become
interwoven with anger at the guilt, and love interwoven with the anger, all of
it associated with this person who lived and breathed other people's guilt.

    No
behavioural therapy in the world would be able to remove the snare that had
ceremonially been placed around her neck, tightening slowly now as she opened
the door.

    The
smell of home struck her like a slap in the face. It pervaded the people who
lived there and their dealings with each other, the hall furniture made of pine
and the armchair upholstered in Laura Ashley fabric that her mother had won in
a competition in a women's magazine. The vibes, her well-developed sixth sense,
told her that she ought to call out to warn Solveig that she'd arrived. That
she shouldn't surprise her by walking in unannounced. She tried to clear her
throat, but the sound turned into an indistinct mumble.

    Solveig
was in the bedroom. Maya waited in the doorway until the shoulders stopped
shaking and she knew that her mother was aware of her presence.

    'Darling
girl,' said Solveig, turning her tear-drenched face to Maya. The wet cheek was
pressed against Maya's hand, cold and soft like a lump of dough. 'Mummy's just
a bit upset.'

    Maya
knew the words well from her childhood.

    'But
it's
fine now you're here.'

    After
dinner they left the washing up and moved into the living room. Solveig had
bought soft drinks and crisps and made some popcorn in the microwave, and there
was a romantic comedy on TV. In order to be able to watch it from the revolving
armchair, which was covered in dust as Sebastian usually watched TV in his
bedroom, they had to push a pedestal out of the way and lean a folding table up
against the wall. The living room was much smaller than the one in Rydboholm,
and Solveig had found it difficult to get rid of things. She had mentioned
several times during the course of the move that it was hard to find room for
everything.

    Maya
had reassured her patiently, time after time. 'You've done the right thing,
Mum, honestly. It's much better for you to be living in town.'

    'When
Sebastian leaves home, you mean?
Any day now?
When I
end up all on my own? I miss my things. I filled a whole attic with furniture,
and I miss my parquet floor. This thing is just pretending to be a parquet
floor. What am I going to do here in town, anyway? I spend all my time at home.
If anybody ought to spend money on where they live, it's me -1 should have
thought about it that way.'

    'First
of all, Sebbe is only fifteen; he's not moving out anytime soon. And you really
ought to find something to
do,
now you haven't got
anybody to look after any more.
A hobby, something to get you
out and about.'

    Her
mother met her gaze with an expression of sheer contempt.

    'Like
what?'

    'How
should I know?
Dancing lessons.
Learning
a new language.'

    Maya
couldn't summon the energy to put her heart and soul into the all-too-familiar
conversation; she knew it was a waste of time. Her mother snorted and took her
cigarettes and lighter over to the chair by the window. She pushed it open and
blew the smoke out through the gap, peering anxiously into the street.

    'It's
so dark here. They were talking about putting some lighting on this street,'
she mumbled. 'So women would be safe from rapists and so on.
As
if that would help.'
She squinted. 'Turn the light off so I can see.'

    Maya
went and stood beside Solveig. Together they watched a lone dog-walker.

    'Is
it Sebbe you're worried about?' asked Maya in the end.

    Solveig
nodded, and the tears started to trickle down her cheeks.

    Maya
sighed. 'Mum! It's only half past eight. He was going to a party, wasn't he?'

    'I
told him he couldn't go!' yelled Solveig, her face distorted by weeping once
more. She sucked the smoke down into her lungs so sharply that she started to
cough and had to bend over and take deep breaths. As she did so, Maya noticed
that her hair reached right down to the floor. She had a lot of split ends. It
was grey now, Solveig's hair. How long had it been so grey?

    'You
said it yourself, Maya.' Her mother's voice sounded different as the words
bounced off the floor. 'He's only fifteen. These bikers' parties attract all
kinds of rough people. I won't be able to sleep without tablets tonight. I
don't think I can get through this.' Solveig straightened up and slapped one
ear with the palm of her hand. 'Evil, that's what it was called.
Evil.'

    
'The bikers' party?
Where is it?'

    'I
think it was Frufallan.'

    
'The Evil Riders.
Yes, they've got a place there. I know
people who've been.'

    Maya
knew what was coming. She sat down on the sofa and placed a cushion over her
stomach.

    Suddenly
she found them utterly laughable. And she would have laughed, in fact, if it
hadn't been so oppressive: she and her mother in this claustrophobic, insanely
over-furnished little flat, each with her own psychosomatic cramp presumably
exacerbated by their being together. And now Solveig wanted her to go out to
Frufallan, on those narrow roads in the rain and the wind.

    Solveig
pointed at the darkness outside the window as if it were argument enough -
which she thought it was.

    Solveig
shook her head crossly. 'He's your brother! He's only a child; it's your duty
as his older sister to go and fetch him. Please, Maya, please, darling. My
nerves can't cope with this. You can go on the bus, can't you, if you're
worried about getting wet?'

    By
this point Maya deeply regretted coming home. If she had ever longed to get
away from Stensjö and Caroline, that was nothing in comparison to how much she
now longed to be anywhere other than with her mother.

    'Solveig,'
she said, because she knew her mother hated it when she called her by her first
name. 'OK, I know where it is. It's a long way from a bus stop, so that would
be pointless. I presume the bike's still here?'

    Solveig
nodded and her face immediately softened. She stubbed out her cigarette in the
overflowing ashtray on the coffee table and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

    'It's
downstairs in the cellar, in the storeroom. You'll probably need to pump up the
tyres; nobody's used it since you disappeared.'

    Maya
nodded grimly. 'I'm going to have a glass of that wine you've got in the
cupboard while I get ready to go and embarrass Sebastian in front of his
friends.
And to freeze my backside off.'

    She
couldn't even bring herself to look as Solveig hunted among her facial
expressions for one that would show how hurt she was at the suggestion that she
kept wine in the cupboard, since she had made a big thing in recent years of
the fact that she didn't drink because of her 'heart tablets'. In the end she
appeared to decide it wasn't worth the trouble. She'd already got Maya to do
what she wanted, after all.