The Disciple (14 page)

An acceptable end to a crap day.

Part of a revenge strategy.

He kissed her again.

Annette’s apartment was in Liljeholmen, five minutes from the recently built shopping mall with a view over Essingeleden. Once they were home she seemed able to relax a little. The living room was a mess, with clothes strewn around everywhere. Annette apologised; she quickly cleared the bed and ran out of the room with her arms full of clothes.

‘No need to tidy up on my account,’ Sebastian said, sitting down on the bed and taking off his shoes.

‘I wasn’t expecting company,’ he heard her say. He looked around the room. A perfectly ordinary living room, but with details that told him something about the occupant. First of all a fairly large single bed by the wall under the window. Sebastian had noticed another room when he walked into the apartment. Why didn’t she sleep in there? She had said that she lived alone, and there was only one name on the letterbox.

The second thing was a collection of cuddly toys on the shelves. Animals of every size and colour. Teddy bears, tigers, dolphins, cats. Toys and rather too many cushions, soft blankets and throws. The whole room signalled a longing for security, a desire for a warm, kind, protective cocoon to stop cold, hard reality getting in. Sebastian saw himself in the mirror that was propped up against the wall. She had invited that cold, hard reality into her life. She just didn’t know it yet.

Sebastian wondered what had happened in her life to cause such poor self-esteem and this exaggerated longing for security. Some trauma, a bad relationship, the wrong life choice, or was there something worse, an attack or an abusive relationship with a parent? He didn’t know, nor did he have the energy to find out. He wanted sex and a few hours’ sleep.

‘Is it okay if I move the mirror?’ he asked, picking it up. The thought of seeing himself having sex with her in this room almost frightened him. He would prefer it if they could slide under the covers and turn off the light before they did anything else.

‘Put it in the hallway,’ she said from what he suspected must be the bathroom. ‘I usually move it into the living room when I’m trying on clothes.’

Sebastian carried it out and quickly found the hook on which it usually hung.

‘Do you like clothes?’

Sebastian turned as he heard her voice. Different. She had put on a sexy black lace dress, with dark lipstick. She looked like a different woman. A woman you would notice.

‘I love clothes,’ she went on.

Sebastian nodded. ‘You look good in that dress. Really good.’ He meant it.

‘Do you think so? It’s my favourite.’ She stepped forward and kissed him. With her tongue. Sebastian returned the kiss, but now she was the one seducing him. He let it happen. She took what she wanted from him. He tried to take off the dress so that he could feel her body against his, but she wanted to keep it on. He got the feeling that it was important to her to make love wearing that dress.

Ursula had reached the last few pages in her third reading of the preliminary autopsy report on Katharina Granlund when there was a knock and Robert Abrahamsson stuck his well-groomed head around the door. He was the surveillance team leader she had the least time for.

‘Time you fuckers dealt with your own crap.’

Ursula looked up with an enquiring expression.

‘The papers have started ringing me,’ Abrahamsson went on. ‘They’re saying you lot aren’t even answering the phone up here.’

Ursula looked crossly at Abrahamsson: his tan a fraction too perfect, his jacket a fraction too tight. She hated being interrupted, particularly by a self-satisfied peacock like Abrahamsson. Even if it was justified. She answered as curtly as she could: ‘Take it up with Torkel. He deals with the press. You know that.’

‘So where is he then?’

‘No idea.’

Ursula went back to the report, but instead of leaving, Abrahamsson strode purposefully towards her.

‘I’m sure you have a great deal to do, Ursula, but when they start ringing
me
about
your
cases, it means one of two things. Either you’re not communicating with them sufficiently, or they’ve found an angle they want to push. In this case I suspect it’s both.’

Ursula sighed wearily. She was the team member who always ignored what the newspapers wrote; she wanted to keep to a minimum any information that could influence her ability to interpret evidence rationally. And yet she understood that this wasn’t great. Riksmord were very keen to avoid the murders of the three women being linked, leading to the inevitable Serial-Killer-on-the-loose-in-Stockholm headlines. Minimising the possibility of journalistic speculation was one of Torkel’s strategic cornerstones. When the press started desperately searching for sensational stories, anything could happen. Particularly within the police service itself. Everything suddenly became political, and politics could be catastrophic for an investigation. That was when ‘decisive’ action was needed in order to ‘bring home results’, which could lead to officers thinking less about the quantity of evidence and more about satisfying their superiors.

‘Who is it?’ she asked. ‘If you give me their numbers I’ll make sure Torkel rings them.’

‘There’s only one. So far. Axel Weber from
Expressen
.’

Ursula took in the name and leaned back in her chair with an excessively happy smile on her face. ‘Weber! So there’s probably a third reason why he chose to ring you, wouldn’t you say?’

Robert went bright red. He wagged his index finger threateningly at Ursula in a gesture that made him look like a schoolmaster from some 1950s film. ‘That was a misunderstanding, as you know perfectly well. The commissioner accepted my explanation.’

‘In that case, he was the only one.’ Ursula leaned forward again, suddenly serious. ‘You leaked information to Weber. In a murder enquiry.’

Robert looked at her defiantly. ‘Think what you like. This is the twenty-first century, and we have to learn to work with the press. Particularly in complex cases.’

‘Particularly if you get your picture on page seven with a story that makes you look like something of a hero for your trouble.’ Ursula paused; she realised that she was on the point of being petty and cheap, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘I recognise the jacket, but you must have been slimmer then. You need to think about what you’re shoving in your mouth these days. You know the camera adds five kilos.’

Robert unbuttoned his jacket, but she saw his eyes darken with anger. He seemed to be gathering himself for a counter-attack, but he managed to suppress the worst of his indignation and headed for the door instead.

‘I just thought you ought to know.’

Ursula wasn’t done yet. ‘That was very kind of you, Robert. And if Weber writes anything unusually intuitive about this case, we’ll know where it came from.’

‘I don’t know anything about your case.’

‘You’re here. You’ve seen the board.’

Robert turned and marched away. Ursula could hear his angry footsteps as he stomped down the corridor and through the glass door at the end. She got up, went over to the door and looked out to make sure he really had gone before she left the Room and took a walk through the virtually empty open-plan office. It might be nothing, but she wanted to give Torkel the opportunity to act quickly. His room was empty. His jacket was gone and his computer had been shut down. What time was it anyway? She checked her mobile: eleven twenty-five p.m. She ought to call him, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. It was idiotic and pathetic and ridiculous.

But she still couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

Seeing him at the station every day was one thing; working side by side was perfectly okay. But ringing him late at night . . . If she rang him at night, it was hardly ever to do with work, unless it involved a new murder or a technical breakthrough in an ongoing investigation. This wasn’t on that level. She could speak to Torkel about Weber tomorrow. When she rang him at night it was because she wanted him. Wanted him to come to her hotel room, or to let her come to his. She rang when she needed him. That was why she was hesitating now. Did she need him? Recently she had begun to ask herself that question. It had been easier to withdraw from their clandestine relationship than she had thought. And at first it had actually felt quite liberating. Simpler. She focused on Mikael and cut away the other part of her life. Torkel was a professional, so it made no difference as far as the job was concerned; they still worked well together. In the beginning she could feel Torkel’s eyes on her, but when she didn’t respond it happened more and more infrequently, which confirmed her belief that she had made the right decision.

But she still thought about him.

More and more.

Ursula went back to the Room, gathered up the autopsy report and her things, and took the lift down to the car park. She had lost the desire to carry on working tonight. She needed to sort out this business with Weber, pass it on to Torkel so that it became his headache rather than hers. They had a clear communications strategy. One person spoke to the press. Always Torkel. Other departments had designated press officers, but Torkel had declined the offer. He wanted full control.

The fluorescent lights in the underground car park came on automatically as she opened the heavy metal door and set off towards her car, which was parked virtually on its own at this hour.

In the middle of the night, in the middle of summer.

She unlocked the car, got in, inserted the key in the ignition and turned it. The car started immediately.

She didn’t want to ring Torkel. Not tonight. It was too reminiscent of the past. Of hotels in other towns. He would misinterpret it. Think she was ringing about something else. She switched off the engine. Did it really matter what he thought? He could think whatever he liked. This was work, she needed to tell him about Weber. Nothing else. She decided to text him instead. She got out her mobile and quickly keyed in a message:
Weber from
Expressen trying to get hold of us. Has evidently rung several times acc. R Abrahamsson.
She pressed send and put the phone down on the passenger seat. She thought about what Mikael had said to her the other day.

It’s always on your terms, Ursula. Always.

This was both true and not true. She really had tried to change. She had even broken things off with her lover.

Admittedly it hadn’t been because of Mikael to begin with, but because she was angry and felt let down. But then it had become for his sake. Because he deserved it. Was that really true? She leaned back in her seat and gazed blankly at the nondescript car park. After a while the lights went out; they worked on motion sensors to save energy. Ursula sat there in the darkness; the only light came from the green emergency exit signs and the display screen on the mobile beside her, faintly illuminating the interior of the car with its pale blue glow. After a while it too went off, and she was left in darkness. Mikael’s words were still with her.

On your terms.

Always on your terms.

But she really had tried to find a kind of harmony with her husband. A point where they were both dictating the terms. Weekends away. Dinners. Bubble baths. But the truth was that those things, while superficially pleasant, romantic and relaxing, were just too shallow for her. It had been particularly striking during the last trip to Paris. They had strolled along hand in hand, talking. Gone for long walks down romantic boulevards, ambled around the charming tourist attractions and sought out romantic bistros with an out-of-date restaurant guide in their hands. All the things you were supposed to do in Paris. All the things you were supposed to do as a couple. But that wasn’t her.

She was an angular creature in a soft world. A shape that didn’t really fit into this thing that was called a relationship. She needed distance. She needed control. Sometimes she needed intimacy. But only sometimes. When it suited her. But then she needed it. Really needed it. And that was exactly what Mikael meant. He knew her so well.

The lights came on and shook her out of her reverie. Robert Abrahamsson entered the car park carrying his briefcase. Even the way he walked annoyed her; he moved with a conscious suppleness, as if he were modelling the latest summer collection rather than heading towards his car just before midnight in a grubby underground car park. He got into a black Saab a short distance away and drove off. Ursula waited until he had disappeared, then started her car and set off for home.