as well and stared right back. He quickly looked down at his empty notebook, but Irene could see how his cheeks and ears were burning.
Birgitta nodded at her boss but shot Borg another direct stare before starting her report.
“Jonny and I headed over to Axel Dahlstrom Square, where we met Pontus Olofsson. He’s subletting an apartment on the tenth floor of the skyscraper there. It appears he moved in last week and had his final few things moved from Linda’s apartment on Saturday.”
“That is to say, Saturday the eighth,” the superintendent noted.
“That’s right. Pontus didn’t hide the fact that he took the breakup pretty hard. They’d moved in together just one year ago. According to Pontus, everything was fine until the beginning of January. Then Linda suddenly said she wanted a separation. To Pontus this came straight out of the blue. He had no clue why, but she wouldn’t change her mind. Around the same time, Pontus had a friend who was leaving to spend a year in the United States, so he was able to rent his friend’s apartment.”
“So Pontus was not happy about separating,” Andersson said.
“No, not at all. He said he didn’t have the slightest idea why Linda wanted him to move out. He asked her over and over if there was someone else, but she said that there wasn’t. She only said that she did not love him anymore. So he picked up his stuff and moved into the apartment in Hogsbo.”
“What kind of alibi does he have?”
“Airtight. I checked it. He was in Boras taking part in his employer’s personnel-training program between Monday morning and Wednesday afternoon. He shared a hotel room with one of his co-workers. The night between Monday and Tuesday, he was in the hotel bar with this co-worker, and they were busy raising their glasses at around two in the morning, after which they went to bed.”
“So it seems he’s in the clear. Does he have any idea what might have happened to Linda?”
“No, but he’s extremely worried.”
“He didn’t have a clue as to where she might be?”
“No. But I did ask him about Linda’s day planner. He says she always had it with her. And when she takes her bike, she always wears a mini-backpack of light brown leather. So the missing items are these: one bicycle, one brown backpack, and Linda herself.”
“But we have her day planner, and later today the techs will give it to me to go through. Hannu will be put on Linda’s disappearance,” declared Andersson. “Hans, did you find out anything more during your house-to-house by Lowander Hospital?”
Hans Borg had returned to his usual lethargic self, but by the way he fiddled with his pen Irene could tell he was still nervous.
“Nothing new. None of the renters or homeowners near the hospital has seen a thing. I also asked about Linda yesterday. Again nothing. No one has seen anyone fitting her description around there since late Monday evening.”
“Damn it all, it looks like Linda went up in smoke,” Andersson exclaimed glumly.
The other officers in the room could only agree.
The superintendent sighed deeply and turned to Irene. “What have you got on Andreas Svard and his boyfriend?”
Irene summarized the interrogation of Marianne’s ex-husband and his present partner. Hannu Rauhala nodded at her suggestion that he follow up Niklas Alexandersson’s alibi.
Then Irene took up Mama Bird. She repeated her conversation with Folke Bengtsson and related the search of Mama Bird’s shed shelter.
Andersson seemed surprised. “Doesn’t the welfare office take care of people like her?”
Tommy flipped through the pages of his notebook before he answered. “I spent a great deal of time calling around yesterday. All I can say is that bureaucracy has managed to make some people invisible to us—and even, maybe, to themselves. They’re bounced from department to department in the system until they finally cease to exist.”
“But we’ve all seen homeless people,” the superintendent protested.
“Homeless folks are not all alike. Many are drug-dependent. But the folks I’m talking about are mentally ill. Strange people who cannot make it in our society on their own. Or outside of society, for that matter.” Tommy stopped to sip the last of his coffee before he continued. “Homeless people are almost impossible to trace via the welfare system without a name, number, or address. All we know about Mama Bird is her nickname, as well as the fact that she tends to feed the birds when she’s at Drottning Square and that she’s been staying at Lowander Hospital’s shed since this past Christmas. We also have Irene’s imitation of Mama Bird’s speech pattern from the notes she took off of Kurt Hook’s recording. They certainly show that Mama Bird is mentally ill. I’ve also contacted people at the Salvation Army and the City Mission, and they’ve told me that help for the mentally ill is different from that for addicts. There’s a few treatment residences for the addicts, but nothing for the severely mentally ill.”
“There has to be someplace they can go!” Birgitta protested.
“The reform that included closing mental hospitals and letting the mentally ill become integrated with society has worked for many people who have families and are in contact with the social-welfare offices. But they forgot about one group of people. Those who can’t take care of themselves, even within a mental institution, are suddenly expected to handle their personal hygiene, their living quarters, their food, and their money. Many of these people also have no contact with relatives and often no friends. Many of them have committed suicide.”
“How many commit suicide?” wondered Birgitta, upset.
“No one has kept any such statistics. No one wants to know.”
“So where do these people hang out?” asked Andersson.
“They show up at cafes that the Salvation Army and other organizations run. People from City Mission drive around at night in a bus, and they’ll creep out of their hiding spots for some sandwiches and coffee.”
“So they take care of themselves as best they can.” Birgitta was more upset than ever.
“Right. The City Mission and the Salvation Army do their best to take them in if they show up. Otherwise no one bothers about them. Last night I brought this up to my better half, who’s a nurse, and she said that our society has returned them to the medieval state of the village idiot. I think she’s probably right.”
“But,” Irene countered, “you said many other mentally ill folk have better living arrangements after the reform.”
“That’s certainly true, and many people were freed from confinement, but they probably were not the long- term mentally ill. The rest have no one to take their hand, and they’ve fallen through all the cracks in the system. Nobody seems to care about them.”
“Why not?” asked Irene.
“People who need so much help cost society a great deal of money. This way they cost the state nothing. The best answer for politicians cutting the costs of government. It’s their own final solution, so to speak.”
Tommy paused, and no one else spoke up. “Anyway, today I believe I’ll contact our colleagues in Nordstan shopping mall and see if they know where Mama Bird can be found. If we don’t find her during the day, we’ll have to stake out the garden shed at night. Let’s hope she decides to show up to sleep.”
“Fine,” said Andersson. “Tommy and Irene are in charge of finding the bird lady.”
Irene watched Hans fidget in his chair. He obviously wanted to get away, which was not like him at all.
The superintendent turned to him. “Hans, put on an intensive search for Linda’s bicycle. Maybe it’s been stolen. Maybe someone has turned it in to one of the other police stations. We have its brand and serial number. If we find the bike, maybe Linda will be found close by.”
Irene thought the way Andersson put it was certain to bring bad luck, although of course he didn’t mean it like that. She watched Hans Borg nod even as he got up. He was really in a hurry to leave. Irene was surprised to see Birgitta simultaneously rise and follow him. Instinctively, she got up to follow them both.
Irene watched Birgitta sneak around the corner a few meters ahead of her. Silently, Irene followed her, and just as she was rounding the corner, she heard Birgitta’s angry voice: “Let go. That was in my in-box.”
Irene saw Birgitta snatch at a brown internal-mail envelope that Hans had just taken from the box next to Birgitta’s office. Borg didn’t reply, but he also didn’t let go of the envelope. Birgitta then kicked him in the shin. Borg yelled, and Birgitta took her chance, grabbing the envelope and dancing away with it. Irene saw Hans lower his head to charge Birgitta, and instantly she stepped between them. She blocked Borg’s hand with her forearm, pushed away his hip with her left arm, and dropped him backward with an osoto otoshi. This was not hard to do,
