pictures were apparently some of the worst they had ever seen.”
Irene felt Rebecka’s hand tremble, but the movement was so faint that it might have been her imagination. Encouraged, Irene continued, “So you aren’t alone in having experienced the pictures and films as unpleasant. It’s not strange at all-”
Irene stopped when Rebecka pulled her hand back. She gripped it with her other hand and pulled it against her chest. Her gaze was focused on the floor, at a point next to Dr. Fischer’s elegant shoes. She sat in that position, catatonic, without blinking. Silence fell over the room. Irene became desperate. Rebecka seemed impossible to reach. Would the whole London trip be wasted? For lack of a better idea, Irene decided to continue speaking in Swedish.
“I think that you may have told your parents about what you and Christian had seen on the Internet. Did you also tell Jacob?”
Irene paused on purpose to allow Rebecka to react.
At first it didn’t seem like Rebecka had heard. She sat immobile. Irene looked at Glen and raised her shoulders in a dejected gesture. Then Rebecka moaned hoarsely. Irene bent forward and tried to make eye contact with her. It was impossible; she stubbornly kept her eyes downcast. But she made an effort to move her stiff lips. With difficulty, she said, barely audibly, “No.”
Her lips were completely dry and covered with sores. Thick yellowish-white saliva coated the corners of her mouth. Her tongue was sluggish in her bone-dry mouth. Irene frantically tried to decide what to say that would not scare Rebecka back into silence. Carefully, she asked, “When you say no, Rebecka, do you mean that you didn’t tell your parents or Jacob anything?”
“No,” she answered softly.
Just to be sure, Irene clarified, “So you didn’t tell your family anything about the pedophile ring?”
“No,” she whispered again.
Rebecka hadn’t moved during the conversation, but now she turned her head toward Irene. Their eyes met, and Irene felt her heart stop for a few seconds. There was bottomless darkness in Rebecka’s.
“No,” Rebecka repeated.
In vain, she tried to swallow non-existent saliva. “She was. . sick. I had to. . protect her,” she finally managed to say.
Wheezing shook her body and she covered her face with her hands. She rocked back and forth while mumbling, “My fault. Everything is. . my fault.”
Irene felt completely powerless.
“This is enough. Even you must see that this is cruel and futile,” Dr. Fischer said.
Irene looked at Glen, who was at a loss. Rebecka continued to rock slowly back and forth with her hands over her face, but she had stopped wheezing. Irene was ready to give up questioning Rebecka today.
A large gray-haired woman materialized in the doorway. Despite her size, Irene hadn’t heard her come in. She carried a thin beige summer jacket as if she had come from outside. Apparently, she had the key to the office.
“Good, Marion. We’ll drive Rebecka directly to the clinic,” said Fischer.
Without saying a word to the police officers or even favoring them with a look, Marion stepped up to Rebecka. She wore sturdy jogging shoes, and Irene realized why she hadn’t heard her footsteps. She put Rebecka’s arm around her own neck and helped her to her feet. Rebecka was so tall that the woman could get her shoulder under Rebecka’s armpit. By placing her other arm around Rebecka’s waist, she managed to drag her loose-limbed body toward the door. Without turning her head, she said to the doctor, “The car is outside the door.”
“I’ll be there right away,” he said.
He gathered together the few papers that were on the otherwise bare shining desk and put them in a thin briefcase of tan-colored soft leather. He looked at them and gestured toward the door. “Please.” He ushered them out and then hurried out himself, passing them on the stairs.
What was this man’s relationship with Rebecka? As he at least sometimes had an interest in young women, could there be a sexual relationship? But surely Rebecka’s condition precluded this? A thought struck Irene: Was Rebecka heavily drugged? Had the doctor given her psychotropic drugs?
Such thoughts buzzed in Irene’s head the whole way down the steps in the cool stairwell. She discarded them, one after the other. A black car pulled away just as they emerged from the building. Irene glimpsed Rebecka’s pale face. Next to her in the back seat was John Fischer.
Glen had gotten the same impression as Irene: Rebecka was really sick, but her doctor was certainly acting strangely.
Irene was about to suggest going to lunch, where they could discuss their impressions, when the Marsellaise started chiming in her jacket pocket. She quickly pulled out her cell phone.
“Irene Huss.”
“Hannu here. I tried to get hold of you earlier this morning, but you were probably on the plane.”
Irene mumbled in order to avoid admitting that she had forgotten to turn on her phone after her plane landed.
“I’ve found something.”
Irene realized that she had been holding her breath.
“There wasn’t a Christian Lefevre or a Rebecka Schyttelius on the passenger list. I checked all the departures on Monday and Tuesday with all of the airlines. But one person spent the night in Goteborg. He left Heathrow at seven twenty on Monday evening and returned at seven ten on Tuesday morning. Furthermore, he had reserved a rental car at Avis, a dark-blue Volkswagen Polo.”
Irene was in suspense. The decal on the back window of the car that the dog owner had seen could very well have been an advertisement for Avis.
“What was his name?” she croaked tonelessly.
“Andrew St. Clair.”
Hannu gave her the information he had gotten from the airline. Irene pulled out her little notebook and wrote it down.
Glen was looking at her curiously when she hung up.
“Good or bad news?” he said.
She looked at him and answered, “Don’t know. Or maybe. . ”
She pulled herself together to explain what Hannu’s investigation had turned up. For once he was quiet for almost a minute.
“Andrew St. Clair. One of Scotland’s richest men. . why would he fly to Goteborg and murder Rebecka’s family?”
They ended up at a small Indian restaurant not far from Whitley’s. It would have been fun to walk around the large department store again, but shopping was the last thing on Irene’s mind now. She hardly noticed how good the tandoori smelled and tasted.
“The personal ID number on the list from the airline matches that of Andrew St. Clair. He’s almost a year older than Christian,” said Glen.
He looked thoughtfully at the paper where Irene had scribbled the information she had gotten from Hannu, and then he brightened up.
“Now I remember something from my studies of the gossip columns! He’s going to be married soon. There was a big article about the upcoming wedding in which it was referred to as the Society wedding of the year.”
“That doesn’t explain anything. Why would a rich Scot go to Goteborg and shoot three complete strangers?” Irene asked.
Glen looked at her for a while. “Do we know that they were strangers to him?”
Irene thought about this before she answered, “No. Actually not.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Glen said firmly.
“What?”
“Ask him.”
Irene would have to look after herself during the afternoon. Glen had to discuss how they would carry out the remainder of the investigation with his boss. Before they split up, they decided to meet at Restaurant Vitoria at six
