The Disciple (21 page)

‘What about this? Could this be what you’re looking for?’

‘Have you opened it?’

‘No, I thought you’d want to do it.’ She moved to one side to let him pass. ‘And I’m hoping you’ll explain what we’re doing here before too much longer.’

Sebastian looked at the door, then at Vanja. ‘I really hope I’m wrong.’

‘No you don’t.’

He couldn’t bring himself to answer; he reached out and tried the handle. The door was locked. With the other hand he turned the key. Pushed down the handle again, and the door opened. It was dark inside; the light from the lamp behind them didn’t reach very far. But it was enough to make out the shape of the objects on the floor. Sebastian felt his entire body lock. His fingers groped for the light switch that he knew should be somewhere on the wall just inside the door. He found it, and the white light from the naked bulb turned his spiralling anxiety into fact.

Perfectly arranged.

A soft drink.

A packet of Marie biscuits.

Two bananas.

A bar of chocolate.

An empty chlorine bottle.

It was him. It
was
him.

Hinde.

They were back in the Room. Vanja was putting up the pictures they had taken in the Granlund house. Sebastian was walking around and around. Restless. Wound up. Of all the things that could come back to haunt him, he never thought Hinde would be one of them.

‘Our man has information about Hinde’s modus operandi, and there’s only one way he can have acquired that information,’ Sebastian said when the others were all sitting down.

‘From your books?’ Ursula asked. That had also been Vanja’s first thought when he had discussed his theory with her in the car on the way back from Tumba.

Without stopping his pacing, Sebastian gave Ursula the same answer he had given Vanja. ‘My books just said that he had a store of supplies. Not what. Not how.’ Sebastian stopped by the board and tapped his knuckle on the picture of the neatly arranged food and drink from the Granlunds’ cellar. ‘The content and the way the items are placed is absolutely identical to Edward Hinde’s supplies,’ he went on. ‘That hasn’t been written about anywhere. Our man has had contact with him.’

‘But how?’

That had also been Vanja’s response to Sebastian’s assertion. Sebastian sighed; he was no wiser now than he had been in the car twenty minutes ago. He didn’t know how. He just knew that he was right.

‘I don’t know, but he can only have got this information from Edward.’

‘Or a police officer who was part of the investigation at the time.’

All activity in the room stopped as everyone turned to look at Billy.

‘Hinde can’t communicate with the outside world, so I’m just trying to find another explanation.’

‘Sebastian, Ursula, Trolle Hermansson and I made up the investigating team back then,’ Torkel said matter-of-factly. ‘Three of us are here in this room, and I think it’s highly unlikely that Trolle has decided to relive his glory days by getting involved in murdering women. But we’ll have a chat with him.’

Sebastian stiffened. Could Trolle have anything to do with this? He’d gone downhill, but this? He might possibly have said too much to the wrong person when he was drunk. Nobody in the team really thought he was involved, but what would happen if Vanja went to see him and started asking questions? Sebastian felt dizzy. He could just picture Vanja speaking to Trolle. Trolle telling her what Sebastian had asked him to do. Bloody hell, Vanja wouldn’t even need to push him; Trolle was perfectly capable of dumping Sebastian in the shit just because it was fun. Sebastian swallowed and tried to concentrate on the discussion in the room.

‘I didn’t say it was one of you. There must have been any number of uniforms and forensics around at the scenes of the crimes,’ Billy persisted. ‘If you found the food, surely one of them could have seen it?’

‘I found the food afterwards. Hinde told me about it. If we’d found it,’ Sebastian gestured towards his colleagues, ‘then Torkel and Ursula would have remembered it, wouldn’t they?’ Sebastian glared at Billy. ‘Think, for God’s sake.’

‘I am thinking. I was just trying to think outside the box, that’s all. So I was wrong.’

Vanja stared at her colleague, unable to conceal her surprise. It was Billy’s voice, but someone else’s words. Since when did Billy think outside the box? Or maybe he did, but since when did he call it that?

‘You can bring it up with Hinde tomorrow morning,’ Torkel broke in. ‘Your visitors’ permit has come through.’

‘What’s with the food?’ Ursula asked. ‘Why does he hide it away?’

‘It’s in my books,’ Sebastian replied curtly.

‘I haven’t read your books.’

Sebastian turned to face her. She met his eyes with a contented smile. Was it possible? Had she deliberately not read the best books ever written in Swedish about serial killers, out of pure spite?

‘Neither have I,’ Billy chipped in.

Sebastian sighed. Was it really the case that half the country’s leading murder investigation team hadn’t read his books? He knew that Vanja had, but what about Torkel? He glanced at his former colleague, but Torkel’s expression gave nothing away. He must have read them, surely. Sebastian sighed again. He had spoken about Edward Hinde in a number of lectures. He knew Hinde’s story inside out. It looked as if he would have to go through it again now. A shortened version, at any rate.

‘Edward grew up alone with his mother. She was bedridden. Ill. In more ways than one, unfortunately. He told me that he remembered the first time. A Wednesday. He remembered it well. He had come home from school, and he . . .’

. . . is standing in the kitchen preparing a meal. The fish fingers are sizzling in the pan. The potatoes are boiling away in a pot with the lid on, just as she taught him. He is looking forward to his dinner. He likes fish fingers, and for pudding they can share the cake that was left over from his birthday. He is humming to himself. The Beatles, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. It’s at the top of the charts. He has just started slicing tomatoes when she shouts to him. He puts down the knife and switches off the cooker to be on the safe side before he goes upstairs. Sometimes she wants him to read to her, and that can take time. He doesn’t read very well. It’s not that long since he learned to read. He works his way slowly through simple children’s books, but she says she likes to hear his voice. And it’s good practice. His mother is almost always in bed. She gets up for just a few hours each day. On good days for a little longer, on bad days a lot less. Today seems like a pretty good day. She looks bright in her nightdress as she pats the space on the bed beside her invitingly. He goes over and sits down. He is an obedient child. Obedient and well-behaved. Things are going well in school. The teachers like him. He likes learning new things, and finds it easy. Both his mother and his class teacher say he is intelligent. There is talk of him starting on next year’s maths work as early as the spring. His mother says he has turned into such a big boy. She says he is such a good boy. She strokes his arm and takes his hand. He is her big boy, her good boy. There’s something else she would like him to do for her today. She takes a firmer grip on his hand and guides it beneath the covers. Into the warmth. She places it on her thigh. Edward looks at her enquiringly. Why does she want his hand there? Sometimes he has warmed his own hands by tucking them between his thighs when he has felt really cold, but he isn’t cold now.

‘He’d just turned eight that first time. He didn’t really understand what was happening. Of course. He was thirty-eight when it stopped. By then it had destroyed him.’

‘It went on for thirty years?’ Vanja looked sceptical.

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t he just leave her? Or stop?’

Sebastian had been asked that question many times. Edward’s mother was ill, she had no way of stopping him from leaving, and he became an adult. Why did he stay?

‘At first he was too small. Then he was too scared. And then . . . it had gone too far.’ Sebastian shook his head. ‘I can’t explain it more clearly without going into more detail about what makes us the people we become, and that wouldn’t help in this case. You don’t have the imagination to understand their relationship.’

Vanja simply nodded. Sebastian’s dismissal might have been intended as an insult, but she could take it. She was glad she couldn’t imagine everything the lonely eight-year-old had gone through.

‘Didn’t anybody find out? Didn’t anybody suspect anything?’ Billy was leaning forward, interested. ‘I mean, it must have affected his schoolwork, among other things.’

‘His mother threatened to kill herself if he told anyone. It was essential that he should behave in a perfectly normal way so that no one would suspect anything. If he did anything even remotely different, people might begin to wonder, might find out. Oddly enough, he became more and more “normal” the longer it went on. He became a master at dealing with any situation that might arise. He had to. If he didn’t do what he was supposed to do, she would die.’

His mother lies down on her stomach on the bed and pulls up her nightdress. He never sees her face. It is buried in the pillow. At first she explained how he must lie down on top of her, what he must do, how he should move. She has stopped doing that now. Now she is silent. To begin with, anyway. He knows exactly what will happen. There are no deviations. She shouts for him, asks him to sit down beside her, tells him what a big boy he is, what a good boy he is, how glad she is that she has him, how happy he makes her. Then she takes his hand and guides it beneath the covers. Everything happens in exactly the same way every time.

After a while the noises start. From deep down in the pillow. He hates the noises. He wishes they would go away. The noises mean that it will soon be over. He doesn’t like what they do. He has realised by now that other mothers don’t behave like this. He doesn’t like it. But he likes what comes next even less. After the noises . . .

‘Every time he was forced to have sex with her, he was punished afterwards. He was unclean. Dirty. He had done something ugly and disgusting, and his mother couldn’t stand the sight of him.’