A money clip with a few thousand kronor, her pay for opening her legs twelve times a day for three years.
A diary. He broke the lock and leafed through it. Cyrillic letters making up lots of words he didnt understand.
A pair of sunglasses. Cheap plastic, the kind you buy when you have to.
A mobile phone. The model was quite up to date, more functions than anyone could ever cope with.
A single ticket for the ferry from Stockholm to Klaipeda for today, 6 June. He checked his watch. The ticket had ceased to be valid.
He started putting her life back in the box, read the chain-of-custody list, signed it and put it in with the rest.
Ewert knew more than he wanted to. Now he had to interrogate her. And she would repeat exactly the things he didnt want to hear. So he would listen and forget, tell her to pack her bag and go home.
For Lenas sake. Not for you. But for her
.
He rose, followed the corridors to the lift that would take him to the custody cells. The duty officer was expecting him
and led the way to the cell where Alena had spent the last hour and a half. The officer used the small square hole in the door to check on the prisoner. She was sitting on the narrow bunk, doubled up, her head resting on her knees. Her long dark hair almost reached the floor.
The guard unlocked and opened the door and Ewert stepped into the tired little room. She looked up. Her eyes . . . she had been crying. He nodded a greeting.
I am Detective Superintendent Grens. I believe you speak Swedish?
I do, a bit.
Good. I am going to ask you some questions now. We are going to sit here, in the cell, with the tape recorder between us. Do you understand?
Why?
Alena Sljusareva tried to make herself smaller. She did that sometimes when someone had been too rough, when her genitals hurt, when she hoped no one would look at her.
Ewert Grens, interview leader (IL): Do you remember seeing me before?
Alena Sljusareva (AS): In the flat. Youre the policeman who hit a stick on his stomach. Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp. He fell down.
IL: You saw me doing that, but you ran away all the same?
AS: I saw Bengt Nordwall too. I panicked. I just wanted to run away.
He was sitting on a hard bunk in a police cell, next to a young woman from a Baltic state; his back ached from sleeping for a few hours on the office sofa and his leg ached as usual. His breathing was laboured, he was tired and he didnt want to be there any longer. He didnt want to destroy the one thing he had left, his pride, his identity. He hated the lie that he had to live with, that forced him to carry on lying.
AS: I know now. Lydia is dead.
IL: Yes, she is.
AS: I know now.
IL: Before she died, she shot an innocent policeman dead. Then she killed herself, one shot through the head, using the same gun. A nine-millimetre Pistolet Makarova. I would very much like to know how she got hold of that gun.
AS: She is dead. She is really dead! I know now.
She had kept hoping, as one does. If I dont know whatever it is, it hasnt happened.
Alena crossed herself and burst into tears. She wept bitterly, the way you weep only when you finally understand that a person, whom you will miss, no longer exists.
Silently Ewert waited for her to stop, watching the tape unwind. Then he repeated his question.
IL: A nine-millimetre Pistolet Makarova.
AS: [inaudible]
IL: And plastic explosives.
AS: It was me.
IL: Me?
AS: I went to get it.
IL: Where from?
AS: The same place.
IL: Where is that?
AS: Völund Street. The basement.
Grens slammed his fist into the tape recorder, almost hitting her. How the hell had this broken, scared girl on the run managed to slip past the guard outside the building, raid the basement and carry off enough explosives to blow up a substantial part of a large hospital?
He frightened her, this man who hit out, just like the rest. She made herself smaller still.
He apologised and promised not to do it again.
IL: You knew what she was going to use it for.
AS: No.
IL: You handed over a loaded gun, without asking why?
AS: I knew nothing. And I asked nothing.
IL: She didnt explain?
AS: She knew that if she did I would have insisted on being there.
Ewert switched off the recorder and removed the tape. The lie. Questions and answers which would never be transcribed. This cassette must vanish, just like the film of their shared story had vanished.
He looked at her, she looked away: didnt want anything more to do with him.
Youre going home.
Home? Now?
Now.
Alena Sljusareva got up quickly, stuck her feet in the regulation prison slip-ons, pulled her fingers through her hair and tugged at her blouse.
They had promised each other that they would go home together. That would never happen now.
Lydia was dead.
She was on her own now.
Ewert called a taxi. The fewer police involved, the better. He escorted her to the Berg Street door. An older man with his younger woman, or perhaps a father with his grown-up daughter. Few passers-by would have guessed at a detective superintendent from Homicide sending a prostitute back home.
Alena sat in the back as the taxi manoeuvred through the city afternoon traffic, from Norr Mälarstrand to Stureplan, down Valhalla Way to join Lidingö Way, the route to the harbour. She would never come back here, never; she would never leave Lithuania again. She knew that; she had completed her journey.
Ewert paid the taxi driver and accompanied Alena into the ferry terminal. The next departure for Klaipeda was in two hours time. He bought her a ticket and she held it tightly, determined not to let go until she arrived in her home town.
It was so hard to imagine it, the place she had left as a girl of seventeen. She hadnt hesitated for long when the two men had offered her a good, well-paid job only a boat trip away. All she was leaving behind was poverty, and little hope of change. Besides, shed be back in a few months. She hadnt discussed it with anyone, not even Janoz. She couldnt remember why.
She had been a different person then. Just three years ago, but it was another life, another time. Now she had lived more than her peers.
Had he tried to find her? Wondered where she was? She saw Janoz, had kept an image of him in her mind that they had never managed to take away. They had penetrated her and they had spat at her, but they had never been able to get at what she had refused to let go of. Was he still there? Was he alive? What would he look like now?
Ewert told her to come along to the cafeteria at the far end of the terminal and bought her a coffee and a sandwich. She thanked him and ate. He bought two newspapers as well. They settled down to read until it was time to go on board.
The day was not over yet.
Lena Nordwall was sitting at the kitchen table and staring at something or other. When you stared, it had to be at something.
How long would it take? Two days? Three? One week? One year? Never?
She didnt need to understand. She didnt need to. Not yet. Did she?
Someone was sitting behind her. She sensed it now.
Someone in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs. She turned; her daughter was looking at her, in silence.
How long have you been there?
Dont know.
Why arent you outside playing?
Cause its raining.
Their daughter was five years old.
Her
daughter was five years old.
Her
daughter. No matter how hard she searched, she wouldnt find another adult in this house now. She was the only one, alone. The responsibility was hers. The future.
Mummy, how long will it be?
How long will what be?
How long will Daddy be dead for?
Her daughters name was Elin. Lena hadnt noticed that she still had her wet, muddy wellie boots on. The little girl got up and walked to the kitchen table, leaving a trail of wet soil. Lena didnt see it.
When will he come back home?
Elin sat down on the chair next to her mother. Lena noted this, but nothing else, nor did she really hear that Elin kept asking questions.
Wont he come home, ever?
Her
daughter reached out a hand and stroked her cheek; she could only just reach.
Where is he?
Your daddy is asleep.
When will he wake up?
He wont wake up.
Why not?
Her
daughter sat there throwing questions at her. Each one made a physical impact; she was being bombarded with these things that crawled over her before boring into her skin, into her body. She stood up. No more attacking words. Enough. She shouted at the child, who was trying to understand.
Stop it! Stop asking questions!
Why has he become dead?
I cant . . . its too much, cant you see that? I cant bear it!
She almost struck the child. The impulse was there it came in an instant, as the questions crashed against her head. Up went her arm. She could have slapped her, but she didnt. She never had. She burst into tears, sat down again and hugged her daughter close.
Her
daughter.
Sven had laughed out loud as he walked back alone from the sad little restaurant to Kronoberg. It wasnt the food, even though that was laughable, those small, fatty pieces of meat in slimy powder gravy. He had laughed at Ewert. He thought of his colleague marching round the table, kicking its legs and then stopping to curse the tape recorder and Langs threatening voice, until the waitress tiptoed over to ask him to calm down or shed have to call the police.
Sven had burst out laughing without thinking and two women walking towards him looked concerned. One of them mumbled something about alcohol and not being in control. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Ewert Grens was a lot of things, but at least he was never boring.
Ewert was going to question Sljusareva, good. Sven Sundkvist felt sure that she had information that would help them understand more about the case. He decided to abandon the Lang case for the moment, concentrate on the hostage-taking instead, and walked faster, hurrying back to his office. The mortuary business made him feel deeply disturbed, and not just because it was all about death.
There was something else, something incomprehensible. Grajauskas had been so driven and brutal. Medics held hostage with a gun to their heads, corpses blown apart, her demand for Nordwall, only to shoot him and then herself. All that without letting them know what it was she really wanted.
Back at his desk he ran through the events again, scrutinising 5 June minute by minute, noting the exact time for
each new development. He started at 12.15, when Lydia Grajauskas had been sitting on a sofa in the surgical ward watching the news, and ended at 16.10, when several people agreed that they had heard the sound of two gunshots in their earpieces. The two shots had been followed by one more. Then a great crash, when the Flying Squad men forced the door.
He read the statements made by the hostages. The older man, Dr Ejder, and the four students seemed to have the same impression of Grajauskas. They described her as calm and careful to make sure she stayed in control at all times. Also, she had not hurt anyone, except Larsen who had attacked her. Their descriptions gave a good picture, but not what he needed most. Why had she acted like this?
He went through the chain-of-custody list and the technical summary of the state of the mortuary at around 16.17, but no new angles came to mind. All very predictable, nothing he hadnt expected.
Except that.
He read the two lines several times.
A videotape had been found in her carrier bag. The cassette had no sleeve, but had been labelled in Cyrillic script.
They swapped newspapers. He bought them another cup of coffee and a portion of apple pie and custard each. She ate the pie with the same hearty appetite as the sandwich.
Ewert observed the woman opposite him.
She was pretty. Not that it mattered, but she was lovely to look at.
She should have stayed at home. What a bloody waste. So young, so much ahead of her, and then . . . what? To be exploited every day by randy family men looking for a change from mowing the lawn. From their ageing wives and demanding kids.
Such a terrible waste. He shook his head and waited until she had finished chewing and put her spoon down.
He had brought it in his briefcase, and now he put it on the table.
Have you seen this before?
A blue notebook. She shrugged. No, I havent.
He opened it to the first page and pushed it across the table so she could see it.
Do you understand what it says here?
Alena read a few lines and then looked up at him. Where did you find this?
Next to her bed in the hospital. The only thing that was hers. Seemed to be, anyway. Is it hers?
Its Lydias handwriting.
He explained that because it was in Lithuanian, no one had been able to translate the text during the hostage crisis, when she was still alive.
While Bengt was alive, he thought. While his lie didnt yet exist.
Alena leafed through the book, then read the five pages of text and translated it for him. Everything.
