The Man From Beijing Read online

  She turned to a general map of Sweden. Hälsingland was further north than she had imagined. She couldn’t find Hesjövallen. It was such an insignificant little hamlet that it wasn’t even marked.

  When she put the map down, she had made up her mind. She would take the car and drive up to Hudiksvall. Not primarily because she wanted to visit the crime scene, but in order to see the little village where her mother had grown up.

  When she was younger she had dreamed of one day making a grand tour of Sweden. ‘The Journey Home’, she used to call it. She would go to Treriksröset in the far north, where the borders of Sweden, Norway and Finland converged, and then back south to the coast of Skåne, where she would be close to the Continent, with the rest of Sweden behind her back. On the way north she would follow the coast, but on the way back south she would take the inland route. However, that journey had never taken place. Whenever she had mentioned it to Staffan, he had displayed no interest. And it had not been possible when the children were at home.

  But now she had the opportunity to make at least part of that journey.

  When Staffan had finished his breakfast and was preparing to join the train to Alvesta, the last one before he was due for several days off, she told him her plan. He didn’t object, merely asked how long she would be away and if her doctor would be happy about the strain that such a long drive was bound to impose.

  It was only when he was in the hall with his hand on the front-door handle that she became upset. They had said goodbye in the kitchen, but now she followed him and threw the morning paper angrily at him.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Have you no interest at all in why I want to take this trip?’

  ‘But you’ve told me why.’

  ‘Doesn’t it occur to you that I might also need some time to think about our relationship?’

  ‘We can’t start in on that now. I’ll miss my train.’

  ‘There’s never a good time as far as you’re concerned! It’s no good in the evening, no good in the morning. Don’t you ever want to talk to me about our life?’

  ‘You know that I’m not as perturbed about it as you are.’

  ‘Perturbed? You call it being perturbed when I wonder why we haven’t made love for over a year?’

  ‘We can’t talk about that now. I don’t have time.’

  ‘You’ll soon have plenty of time.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve run out of patience.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘All I know is that we can’t keep going on like this. Go away, go to your damned train.’

  She turned on her heel, headed for the kitchen and heard the front door slam. She felt relieved at having said at last what she’d been wanting to say for ages, but she was also anxious about how he would react.

  He phoned that evening. Neither of them mentioned what had happened in the hall that morning. But she could tell by his voice that he was shaken. Perhaps it would be possible now, and not a moment too soon, for them to talk about what could no longer be suppressed?

  The following day, early in the morning, she got into the car, ready to drive north from Helsingborg. Staffan, who had arrived home in the middle of the night, carried her bag out to the car and put it on the back seat.

  ‘Where are you going to stay?’

  ‘There’s a little hotel in Lindesberg. I’ll spend the night there. I promise to call you. Then I suppose I’ll find somewhere in Hudiksvall.’

  He stroked her cheek gently and waved as she drove off.

  A day later she found herself six or seven miles from Hudiksvall. If she turned off inland a bit further north, she would pass through Hesjövallen. She hesitated a moment, felt a bit like a hyena, but banished the thought. She had a good reason for going there, after all.

  When she reached Iggesund she took a left, and went left again when she came to a fork in the road at Ölsund. She passed a police car travelling in the opposite direction, and then another. The trees suddenly gave way to a lake. A row of houses lined the road, all of them cut off by red-and-white police tape. Police officers were walking along the road.

  She could see a tent erected at the edge of the trees, and a second one in the nearest garden. She scanned the village slowly through a pair of binoculars she’d brought with her. People in uniform or overalls were moving between the houses, smoking by the gates in groups. She sometimes visited crime scenes as part of her work and was familiar with the set-up – though not on such a scale. She knew that prosecuting counsels and other officers of the law were not especially welcome, as the police were often wary of criticism.

  A uniformed police officer tapped on her windscreen and interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I didn’t realise that I’d strayed inside the cordoned-off area.’

  ‘You haven’t. But we keep an eye on everybody who comes here. Especially if they have binoculars. We hold our press conferences in Hudiksvall, in case you didn’t know.’

  ‘I’m not a reporter.’

  The young police officer eyed her suspiciously.

  ‘What are you, then? A crime-scene junkie?’

  ‘Actually I’m a relative.’

  The officer took out his notebook.

  ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Brita and August Andrén. I’m on my way to Hudiksvall, but I can’t remember the name of the person I’m supposed to see.’

  ‘Erik Huddén. He’s the one responsible for contacting relatives. Please accept my condolences.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The officer saluted; she felt like an idiot, turned round and drove off. When she got to Hudiksvall she realised that it wasn’t only the battalions of reporters that made finding a vacant hotel room impossible. A friendly receptionist at the First Hotel Statt told her that there was also a conference taking place that involved delegates from all over Sweden, ‘discussing forests’. She parked her car and wandered around the little town. She tried two hotels and a guest house, but everything was full.

  She looked for somewhere to have lunch and found a little Chinese restaurant. It was quite full, but she got a small table next to a window. The room seemed to be exactly like every other Chinese restaurant she’d been to. The same vases, porcelain lions and lamps with coloured ribbons serving as shades.

  A Chinese woman came with the menu. Birgitta Roslin ordered with difficulty; the young woman could speak practically no Swedish at all.

  After her hasty lunch, she rang for a room and eventually got one at the Andbacken Hotel in Delsbo. There was a conference going on there as well, this one for an advertising company. Everyone in Sweden appeared to be tied up travelling between hotels and conference venues.

  Andbacken turned out to be a large white building on the shore of a snow-covered lake. As she waited in the queue at reception, she read that the advertising folk would be busy that afternoon with group work. In the evening there would be a gala dinner at which prizes would be distributed. Please God, don’t let this be a noisy night with drunks running up and down the corridors and slamming doors, she thought.

  Her room looked out over the frozen lake and the wooded hills. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes for a short while, then got up, put on her jacket and drove to Hudiksvall. Reporters and TV crews thronged the police station. Eventually she found herself face to face with a young, exhausted receptionist and explained what she wanted.

  ‘Vivi Sundberg doesn’t have time.’

  The dismissive response surprised her.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to ask me what I want to see her about?’

  ‘I take it you want to ask her questions, like everybody else. You’ll have to wait until the next press conference.’

  ‘I’m not a journalist. I’m a relative of one of the families in Hesjövallen.’

  The woman behind the counter changed her attitude immediately.

  ‘I apologise. You need to speak t
o Eric Huddén.’

  She dialled a number and told Eric that he had a visitor. It was evidently not necessary to say any more. ‘Visitor’ was a code word for ‘relative’.

  ‘He’ll come down and collect you. Wait over there by the glass doors.’

  She found a young man standing by her side.

  ‘Unless I’m much mistaken, i think I heard you say that you were a relative of one of the murder victims. Can I ask you a few questions?’

  Birgitta Roslin usually kept her claws tucked into her paws. But not now.

  ‘No. I’ve no idea who you are.’

  ‘I write.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘For everybody who’s interested.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’

  ‘Obviously, I’m very sorry about your sad loss.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not sorry at all. You are speaking softly in order not to attract attention – so others don’t realise you’ve found a relative.’

  The glass doors were opened by a man with badge informing the world that he was Erik Huddén. They shook hands. A photographer’s flash was reflected in the glass doors as they closed again.

  There were people everywhere. The tempo here was radically different from that in Hesjövallen. They went into a conference room where a table was covered in files and lists. This is where the dead are gathered together, Roslin thought. Huddén invited her to sit down and took a seat opposite her. She told the full story from the beginning, the two different name changes, and how she discovered that she was related to the victims. She could see that Huddén was disappointed when he realised that her presence was not going to help.

  ‘I appreciate that you no doubt need other information,’ she said. ‘I work in the law, and I’m not totally unaware of the procedures involved.’

  ‘Obviously, I’m grateful that you’ve come to see us.’

  He put down his pen and squinted at her.

  ‘But have you really come all the way from Skåne to tell us this? You could have phoned.’

  ‘I have something to say that is relevant to the investigation. I’d like to speak to Vivi Sundberg.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me? She’s extremely busy.’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to her, and it would be useful to continue where we left off.’

  He went out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Roslin slid the file labelled BRITA AND AUGUST ANDRÉN towards her. What she saw horrified her. There were photographs, taken inside the house. It was only now that she realised the scale of the bloodbath. She stared at the pictures of the sliced and diced bodies. The woman was almost impossible to identify, as she had been slashed by a blow that almost cut her face in two. One of the man’s arms was hanging from just a couple of thin sinews.

  She closed the file and pushed it away. But the images were still there; she wouldn’t be able to forget them. During her years in court she had often been forced to look at photographs of sadistic violence, but she had never seen anything to compare with what Erik Huddén had in his files.

  He came back and beckoned her to follow him.

  Vivi Sundberg was sitting at a desk laden with documents. Her pistol and mobile phone were lying on top of a file filled almost to the bursting point. She indicated a visitor’s chair.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me,’ said Sundberg. ‘If I understand it rightly, you’ve travelled all the way from Helsingborg. You must feel what you have to say is important.’

  Her mobile phone rang. She switched it off and looked expectantly at her visitor.

  Roslin told her story without getting bogged down in details. She had often sat on the bench and thought about how a prosecuting or defending counsel, an accused or a witness, ought to have expressed themselves. She was an expert in that particular skill.

  ‘Perhaps you already know about the Nevada incident,’ she said when she had finished.

  ‘It hasn’t come up at our briefings yet.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything.’

  ‘It could mean that the murderer you are looking for is not a madman.’

  ‘I shall evaluate your information the same way I do every tip and suggestion. And believe me – there are masses of them here, phone calls, letters, emails. You name it, we got it. Who knows, something may turn up.’

  She reached for a notepad and asked Birgitta Roslin to repeat her story. When she had finished making notes she stood up and escorted her visitor to the exit.

  Just before they came to the glass doors, she paused.

  ‘Do you want to see the house where your mother grew up? Is that why you’ve come here?’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘The bodies are gone. I can let you in, if you’d like to. I’ll be going there in half an hour. But you must promise me not to take anything away from the house. There are people who’d be only too pleased to rip up the cork tiles on which a murdered person has been lying.’

  ‘I’m not like that.’

  ‘If you wait in your car, you can follow me.’

  Vivi Sundberg pressed a button, and the glass doors slid open. Birgitta Roslin hurried out into the street before any of the reporters who were still gathered in reception could get hold of her.

  As she sat with her hand on the ignition key, it struck her that she had failed. Sundberg hadn’t taken her seriously. It was unlikely they’d look into the Nevada lead, and if they did it would be without much enthusiasm.

  Who could blame them – the leap between Hesjövallen and Nevada was too great.

  A black car with no police markings drew up beside her. Vivi Sundberg waved.

  When they reached the village, Sundberg led her to the house.

  ‘I’ll leave you here, so that you can be alone for a while.’

  Birgitta Roslin took a deep breath and stepped inside. All the lights were on.

  It was like stepping from the wings onto a floodlit stage. And she was the only person in the play.

  8

  Birgitta Roslin stood in the hall and listened. There is a silence in empty houses that is unique, she thought. People have left and taken all the noise with them. There isn’t even a clock ticking anywhere.

  She went into the living room. Old-fashioned smells abounded, from furniture, tapestries and pale porcelain vases crammed onto shelves and in between potted plants. She felt with a finger in one of the pots, then went to the kitchen, found a watering can and watered all the plants she could find. She sat down on a chair and looked around her. How much of all this had been here when her mother lived in this house? Most of it, she suspected. Everything here is old; furniture grows old with the people who use it.

  The floor, where the bodies had been lying, was still covered in plastic sheeting. She went up the stairs. The bed in the master bedroom was unmade. There was a slipper lying halfway under the bed. She couldn’t find its mate. There were two other rooms on this upper floor. In the one facing west, the wallpaper was covered in childish images of animals. She had a vague memory of her mother having mentioned that wallpaper once. There was a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a chair and a heap of rag rugs piled up against one of the walls. She opened the wardrobe: the shelves were lined with newspaper pages. One was dated 1969. By then her mother had been gone for more than twenty years.

  She sat in the chair in front of the window. It was dark now, the wooded ridges on the other side of the lake were no longer visible. A police officer was moving around at the edge of the trees, lit up by a colleague’s torch. He kept stopping and bending down to examine the ground, as if he were looking for something.

  Birgitta Roslin had the feeling that her mother was near. Her mother had sat in this very place long before Birgitta had ever been thought of. Here, in the same room at a different time. Somebody had carved squiggles into the white-painted window frame. Perhaps her mother. Perhaps every mark was an expression of a longing to get away, to find a new dawn.r />
  She stood up and went back downstairs. Off the kitchen was a room with abed, some crutches leaning against a wall and an old-fashioned wheelchair. On the floor next to the bedside table was an enamel chamber pot. The room gave the impression of not having been used for a very long time.

  She returned to the living room, tiptoeing around as if afraid of disturbing somebody. The drawers in a writing desk were half open. One was full of tablecloths and napkins, another of dark-coloured balls of wool. In the third drawer, the bottom one, were some bundles of letters and notebooks with brown covers. She took out one of the notebooks and opened it. There was no name in it. It was completely filled with tiny handwriting. She took out her glasses and tried to make sense of what looked to be a diary. The spelling was distinctly old-fashioned. The notes were about locomotives, coaches, railway tracks.

  Then she noticed a word that gave her a start: Nevada. She stood stock-still and held her breath. Something had suddenly begun to change. This mute, empty house had sent her a message. She tried to decipher what followed, but she heard the front door opening. She replaced the diary and closed the drawer. Vivi Sundberg came into the room.

  ‘No doubt you’ve seen where the bodies were lying,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to show you.’

  Birgitta Roslin nodded.

  ‘We lock the houses at night. You ought to leave now.’

  ‘Have you found any next of kin of the couple who lived here?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I came to tell you. It doesn’t seem like Brita and August had any children of their own, nor any other relatives apart from the ones living in the village who are also dead. The list of victims will be made public tomorrow.’

  ‘And then what will happen to them?’