The Hanging Girl (44 page)

Carl scratched his chin. This was a strange development. Was it really possible that she actually didn’t know anything? Had he so misjudged the way she’d looked?

He tried to gauge Assad’s mood. He also seemed unsure just now.

“We’re investigating a hit-and-run case where the victim was a person who we believe that Atu, or rather Frank Brennan, as he was known then, was acquainted with.”

“Acquainted with? In what way?”

Her chest was heaving now, so she was tense. Did she think they wouldn’t notice?

“It isn’t pleasant to have to say it today of all days, when he’s declared his desire to share his life with you, but it was a romantic relationship, we can say that much, can’t we, Assad?”

Curly nodded. Like a cat keeping an eye on the mouse about to pop its head out of its hole, he watched this woman’s movements down to the smallest element. Carl was certain that afterward he’d be able to recall the whole course of events and every last detail of her behavior.

Carl decided to try the charm offensive. “Believe us, we’ve come here to . . . what was the name on the sign? Yes, Ebabbar. What does that mean, by the way?”

She was ice-cold. “House of the Rising Sun.”

Of course it was so pretentious. Carl nodded and continued with a subdued smile. ”. . . here to Ebabbar after a rather long search for Atu. I have to stress that we’ve only been looking for him as a matter of routine. We’ve got a lot of other leads to follow in this case, but the temptation to take a trip to this beautiful place was honestly just too great,” he said.

Carl thought that the temptation to kick her out was just as strong, so they could be left in peace and quiet to wait for Atu alone. The questioning that lay in front of them would hopefully be quick, successful, and result in Atu’s arrest, which would be guaranteed to leave the woman here angry. Like a lioness, she would protect her mate, so they just needed to get her out of the way first.

“You need to understand that our work has many aspects. You could say that we’re experts in distinguishing between secrets and what just remains unsaid. Because those things don’t necessarily need to be the same thing, do they?”

She smiled drolly at them. Carl didn’t like it. He felt as if she’d seen right through him.

“So what are we searching for, the secret or the unsaid?” she asked. “Can you also differentiate here?”

“Yes, we think so, but we need more information. So I’d like to ask if we can have a little look around Atu’s rooms while we’re waiting,” Assad threw in.

Where on earth was he going with this?

“No, of course you can’t. Not even I have that sort of access without his express authority and consent.”

“No, I thought as much,” said Assad. “Incidentally, are you often visited by the Swedish authorities out here?”

She frowned. “I don’t really follow where you’re going with that sort of idiotic and irrelevant question.”

“Right, but I can tell you that maybe Atu is hiding something from you and the Swedish authorities, something you can’t even imagine, precisely because he is as he is. It could be so many things: tax evasion, abusing the women at the center, being in possession of stolen goods. You never know what goes on in a place like this before you’ve checked, do you?”

Something was going on behind the look she was throwing them, and he couldn’t work out where it might lead. Normally, a person would flare up at such an outrageous attack like the one Assad was carrying out just now, regardless of whether or not they were guilty. But she just sat there and observed them, as if they were worth less than the dirt on her shoe. She appeared completely indifferent.

“Just a moment,” she said and got up, opened the door out to the corridor, and disappeared.

“What are you up to, Assad? You’re right off with that tactic,” whispered Carl.

“I don’t think so. I’m trying to stress her out. She’s as cold as ice. I’m thinking that if she’s like that, Atu probably is, too. So we’ll be driving home in an hour without a step to stand on, and what then?” he whispered back. “You’ve said it before, Carl. We
don’t
have anything to go on. No concrete evidence or witnesses. We need to stress her out and probably Atu, too, if he even . . .”

Carl only registered the shadow when he saw it swing a heavy rubber mallet toward Assad’s head.

He was about to jump, but didn’t make it before the next swing hit him.

He momentarily managed to catch a glimpse of her bending over him to pick something up.

When she lifted the small wooden figure, which he’d had in his pocket, up to her face, everything went black.

Pirjo was shaking all
over.

She knew it was the most stupid thing she’d ever done. She’d overreacted and painted herself into a corner. Yet she still couldn’t reproach herself.

Behind the door to the room with the electrical control system lay two unconscious men who’d just spoiled the most precious moment in her life. Ever. Two blasphemers who’d trespassed on holy ground at a moment that would shape her future life. Maybe the one extreme attracted the other. All her life she’d dreamt of a future like this, and now that it was within reach she wouldn’t let them get in the way.

But what should she do? They weren’t just anybody. Not vulnerable or naive women who could suddenly disappear. They were policemen in the middle of an investigation, which she knew neither the extent of nor who’d been involved. This was information she simply needed to get hold of before she could assess the danger and how she should react going forward.

One thing was certain: They had to be stopped. The question was how.

She noticed dark red blotches spreading treacherously on her forearms, and how they began to itch.

It was the mixture of adrenaline and frustration; she knew it all too well.

In an hour Atu would be finished with his coaching and come in to her, expecting embraces and ill-concealed happiness.

In an hour.

Pirjo’s head was full of what she had to find out and what she had to do: She had to force them to tell her what was lying in wait after them; how many she should expect and who they were; what they knew and how many people they’d told; and she needed to make it look like an accident—an accident that might well make you wonder, but not doubt.

She looked at the door leading to the control room. Now and again she felt stomach cramps, and the men were big and strong, so how could she neutralize them with such a disparity in strength. In better circumstances, the most logical thing to do would be to kill them with a tool that was heavier than a rubber mallet. The wrench lying on the floor in there, for example. But a blow like that would be deeper, and subsequently analyzed as having been inflicted by a third party, so that wouldn’t do.

“If only they hadn’t been so insistent,” she snarled in frustration. They’d gone at her too hard. It wasn’t how these things were supposed to happen. She’d expected questions and answers that she’d have been able to shoot down with ease. There were so very many ways you could get around that sort of thing, especially when the case was so old, but not when they were so aggressive.

Actually, she felt certain that the dark one would have taken it to extremes that a civilized police force couldn’t stomach. And she was equally certain that the two men would’ve softened up Atu in a confrontation. If they’d been successful in that, the whole truth would’ve come out and everything would’ve been lost on this otherwise miraculous day.

She looked at the wooden figure that’d fallen out of the Danish policeman’s pocket, and frowned. Someone or other had carved a wooden figure many years ago of the man who’d just proposed to her. The likeness was uncanny.

Pirjo wondered how these policemen had come to be in possession of it, and why one of them had it in his pocket. Was that their tactic? To slam the figure down on the table in front of Atu, like a bolt from the blue, in the hope that it would shock him and knock him off-balance?

She imagined the type of questions they’d ask. Do you deny that the
figure is carved in your likeness? Do you deny all knowledge of someone who has seen you so clearly and at such close quarters?

They’d try to soften him up with that figure, and it might work.

Pirjo had no doubt who the artist was. It was that bitch Alberte who used to plague Atu. It was her special form of voodoo doll, intended to bewitch him and keep him trapped in a net of stipulations and demands from which he couldn’t escape.

Yes, she was certain that this was her doing, so it was good they’d managed to break the curse and get rid of her. There was no knowing what might have happened otherwise.

And the more she thought back to the time when it had happened, the more she hated the people that had brought back the memory of Alberte.

She clenched the figure in her hand and was about to slam it on the floor, but looked closer at the finely carved face and the beautiful mouth. It was almost like bringing back Frank as a young man, and that moved her. So simple and straightforward everything had been back then.

And yet so complicated that everything had gone wrong.

All because of Alberte.

She put the figure to her cheek, moved it a little, and kissed the lips in memory of lost days of innocence.

Then she heard a noise from the corridor behind her and put the figure down on the table. It was one of the two men out there, moaning.

In the following seconds she made some radical decisions and acted accordingly. When she stood in the control room she saw that both men were still lying spread out on the floor, and that the immigrant was trying to lift his head a little. She’d need to deal with him first.

She rolled the cylinder with non-insulated cable forward, pulled the man’s shirtsleeves down to the heels of his hands, and wound the cable around his arms at least ten times so they were tightly bound together. She then pulled him up to the bench and tied him securely. First around his ankles, then his thighs around the bench, and after that she bound his body tightly to a pair of old butcher’s hooks on the wall. When she was finished with him, she did exactly the same with the other man. He wasn’t much heavier than the immigrant, despite the difference in size,
but he was completely limp, so it wasn’t easy, not least because Pirjo was feeling sick. So she stood for a moment and recovered herself until her stomach didn’t feel so strange.

Then she tied their bodies together with the cable and took a step back to scrutinize her work.

She went over the scenario in her head, wondering if she’d done anything wrong or overlooked any details.

It might be possible to trace the men via their cell phone signal, but the cells had probably been confiscated and turned off in reception. And then there was the car she’d seen pass by. It was probably parked some distance down the road, but it couldn’t stay there; it was too close.

She fished out the car keys from the pocket of the larger of the two men, checking again to see if everything was as it should be. They were securely bound together, and nobody came in this room except her. The electrician wasn’t expected back for a few days, so that gave her enough time. Next, there was Nisiqtu, who’d welcomed them, but then hadn’t it been Pirjo herself who’d given her the name “the appreciated”?

Yes, she’d definitely believe Pirjo when she claimed that the men had caused the accident themselves.

Now the immigrant was seriously starting to come round, so there was no time to waste. She judged the distance up to the junction box and cut two pieces of cable in lengths of three meters, winding one around the base of the immigrant’s thumb and the other around the policeman’s left ankle.

She looked at the junction box where all the different solar system cables were gathered together, screwing the cap off. Unknowingly, an electrician and Shirley had told her how she could apply torture and much worse. The direct current would only cause a little stinging sensation for the person the current was sent through so long as the sun was weak. But the stronger the sun, the more dangerous it would become. It would kill them eventually.

She nodded, taking a screwdriver with an insulated handle from the pile of tools under the bench, and loosened the two cable lugs that sent the current to the inverter. The direct current effect from the two cable
lugs came from all the solar panels, creating an optimal effect. Were the sun to shine brighter, the voltage would be enormous.

She pulled the end of the cable that was wound around the immigrant’s thumb up to the junction box, connecting it to the positive pole, and then similarly the cable from the big man’s ankle to the negative pole.

In the same second that she connected the second cable, every muscle contracted in the two men’s faces, and all four legs shot suddenly forward. The immigrant’s leg kicked her hard in the stomach, causing her to sink to her knees.

She grabbed her abdomen, looking up at the men, who were both sitting with their eyes open staring, while everything inside her was screaming that she had to get out.

She stumbled into her office and sat down for a moment by the desk, groaning until the pain subsided. She was momentarily scared, but then turned her attention to what needed to be done, looked at the clock, and got up again.

“I’m just popping out for ten minutes to get some fresh air, Nisiqtu,” she said to the woman in reception. “There won’t be anything else today, so you can return to your room now. I’ll serve tea for the men myself when I get back.”

They smiled to each other. No danger there.

*   *   *

The police vehicle was a few hundred meters down the highway, parked to one side but very visible.

She rooted about in the glove compartment, opened the trunk, and checked the interior, but found nothing about the investigation that had led them here.

She started the car and parked it a few hundred meters down a small connecting road that nobody used anymore. It gave her a bit more control over the situation. If more police turned up in the immediate future, she could maintain that they’d driven off but said they’d be back again.

No one should enter the center and pry as long as those two men were still alive. And when they were dead, she’d consider whether or not it
could appear to be an accident, or whether she needed to get rid of them. In any case, when the time came she’d go down and take the license plates off the car and make sure it ended up in Poland or some other obscure place. The Poles and Balts who drove around begging to paint the houses red could have it for a song if they agreed to take it far away. They could have the license plates from the old car sitting gathering dust in the back of the Stable of Senses. It wasn’t going to be used again anyway.

She walked back toward the academy, looking up at the sky. The clouds were still heavy but an easterly breeze looked to be blowing them away from the coast.

She thought about how the sun would soon be shining again, massaging her stomach as she walked in the door to the reception. It’d been a long time now since the baby had kicked.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Are you so tired? It’s been a special day, so Mom’s a bit tired, too,” she muttered. “Dad’s chosen your name, so you can be happy about that. And when you’re born, we’ll name you on the same day as Dad and I are joined together under the sun in the timber circle. It’ll be a great day, sweetheart.”

She screwed her eyes shut with the sudden discomfort that shot through her. It was a really nasty feeling, as if something in her body was completely off-balance.

She thought that something really wasn’t as it should be, as the sweat poured off her. She needed to get to the clinic in Kalmar and get it checked, but first she needed to know what she was up against. The men needed to answer her questions, and then she needed to get going.

*   *   *

They both sat with quivering jaws and tense neck muscles, staring at her, as she entered the room.

The immigrant tried to hiss something at her, but the words became distorted by the contractions in his neck.

She took her screwdriver and screwed one of the cables free from the junction box.

They both collapsed at once, their heads hanging on their chests.

“You should be glad that the sun isn’t out at the moment,” she said, as they slowly lifted their heads.

She looked up toward the skylight and noticed as the men’s eyes followed hers.

“You’re crazy,” said the larger of the two. “You could kill us.”

She smiled. Did he think she was crazy? Dear God, he had no idea how much was at stake. The whole world was waiting for this center to spread the message so that all religions could be united and the world could live in peace. Who did these two insignificant people think they were that they could stand in the way of that vision?

Her smile hardened. “What do you know?” she said, sticking the cable in the cable lug with the effect that both men’s legs kicked out and their backs arched. This time she knew from bitter experience to keep a safe distance.

“I’m well aware that the effect isn’t much at the moment. Maybe it just feels like an internal massage, right? But just wait until later, when the sun comes out again. Then it’ll be worse. Much worse.”

She pulled the cable to her again, causing the men to fall back, albeit not as much as last time. Maybe you could get used to this level of current.

“What do you know?” she asked again.

The big man coughed a couple of times before answering. “We know everything and we aren’t alone in that knowledge. Your Atu killed a girl in a hit-and-run years back, and now the past has caught up with him. So don’t make it any worse for yourself than it already is. Let us go, Pirjo. We . . .”

She pressed the cable against the cable lug again and the whole scenario repeated itself. After a few seconds, she let them off.

If they wouldn’t spit it out now, it would be the last time she’d try.

“Are there more of you?” she asked.

The big one tried to nod. “Of course. Atu’s been under suspicion for a long time. A policeman is dead as a result of this investigation. Atu’s left a trail of death and misery. Why are you protecting him? He isn’t worth it, Pirjo. There’s no reason to . . .”

He gasped for air when she once again pressed the cable against the cable lug. This time she screwed it tight and turned her back on the men.

Now she knew that what would be, would be. The men couldn’t say anything to her to ease her worry. The immigrant hadn’t even said a word. He’d just stared at her with cold eyes, as if he might kill her with a look. No, she’d done the right thing.

She looked up at the floating clouds, and then the twinge came again, only this time like a knife being stabbed in her stomach. It almost felt as if the baby inside her turned right round with one jerk. As if it was the fetus rather than the men who’d been subjected to the current.