you go to fancy dinners and things like that. For them, it’s all part of their daily lives, both private and professional. Good breeding and etiquette and an ancient moral code seem to be injected into their genes. They’re often quite pleasant to be around. Carl-Gustaf was too. He laughed politely and shyly during the first four holes, then he shut up, letting that Strand-Julen badger him for four more holes. At the ninth green he set the golf bag down so that Strand-Julen’s putt struck the bag. Then he simply left. I’ve never seen him again. If he’d been a real gentleman, he would have taken us with him.”
“Seventeen, properly brought up, insecure. Of course we stayed. After Carl-Gustaf left, they began tossing around nouveau riche jokes about the arch-conservative nobility. It was a form of jealousy.”
“Could you be a little more precise? What exactly did they do?”
“They’d had a lot to drink here in the restaurant before the game. They seemed-I don’t know, speedy, almost, as if they’d snorted some coke in the men’s room or something like that.”
“Or in the cab on the way over,” said Hjelm, unprofessionally.
“At any rate, they started telling dirty jokes and making insinuating remarks, on a polite level that allowed at least Carl-Gustaf to join in the laughter. Lotta and I were mostly just embarrassed. There was hardly anybody else on the golf course, so they could carry on as much as they liked. After a while Strand-Julen focused his remarks on Carl-Gustaf, which let us off the hook for a time. The remarks were mostly about the size of Carl-Gustaf’s noble organ. Then he made his heroic departure, and the two of us ended up in the line of fire. Really. I’ve never in my life been so badly treated, and I’ll never let it happen again. I promised myself that.”
“So what did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you shoot them?”
She laughed loudly, her voice shrill and unnatural. “Oh sure,” she said at last, as she wiped away the tears. “I can’t say that I was sorry when I heard that they’d been shot. All three of them, one after the other. It was wonderful, to be quite honest. Magical, like in a fairy tale. The unknown avenger. But good God, I’ve never fired a gun in my life.”
“But somebody you know might have.”
She was silent for a moment, mulling it over. “I don’t think so,” she said quite calmly. “Maybe somebody Lotta knew. That would be more likely. I was just furious, fucking furious, and that sort of anger doesn’t go away. But I wasn’t seriously affected. She was. She was already in a fragile state, and things just got worse.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“They started pawing and groping us on the tenth and eleventh fairways. It got much worse when we were over by the woods. They were really worked up-they must have still been high on drugs-and that’s when they started going at us. They tore off Lotta’s sweater, and one of them pushed her down on the ground and lay on top of her. Daggfeldt, I think. Carlberger sat nearby and watched. Strand-Julen grabbed hold of me.
“I managed to pull loose and got hold of a golf club, which I slammed against the back of Daggfeldt’s neck. He rolled off Lotta, and I went over and tried to comfort her. Daggfeldt lay there, writhing. I think he was bleeding from the back of his head. The other two just stood there, thinking. Doing some problem solving. They’d sobered up awfully quick. Started apologizing and saying how sorry they were and offering us money to keep our mouths shut. And we let them buy our silence. It was expensive as hell. Several thousand kronor. Besides, we wanted to keep our jobs. Well, Lotta got fired shortly afterward. She made another suicide attempt a couple of weeks after that. She’d already tried twice before. The seventh time she finally succeeded, a couple of years later. I don’t know whether she really meant to die. And I have no idea how big a role all this played in what she did. But I’ve given it a lot of thought. Those fucking pigs! I’m glad they’re dead.”
“And they continued to play golf here? Afterward? All three of them?”
“Yes. Apparently they would have missed out on important contacts they made here otherwise. But they never played together again.”
“The last time we talked, you said about Daggfeldt and Strand-Julen, who by then were dead, and I quote: ‘They would always say hello when they came in and stop to chat.’ But that didn’t really happen, did it?”
“No, I lied. I don’t think any of them ever even glanced at me again. They looked a bit worried when I moved inside to work in the reception area. But I think they were convinced that they’d bought my silence.”
“And had they? Have you ever told this story to anyone else? To your lover, for example? What’s his name? The golf association secretary. Axel Wifstrand?”
“Widstrand. No, especially not him. He would take it… in the wrong way.”
“React violently?”
“Just the opposite, I think. He would think I was lying. No, I haven’t told anyone. They bought my silence. But I don’t know whether they bought Lotta’s.”
“Did she have a boyfriend? A brother? A father?”
“If I understood correctly, her father, Bengt-Egil, was at the root of all her problems. She would never have told him about it, and he would never have tried to avenge her honor. And she never had a boyfriend-that was another source of anxiety. But she was close to her brother, Gusten. In fact, Gusten and Lotta were inseparable.”
“Do you think he knew?”
“We lost contact when she got really sick, so I don’t know. But if Gusten is behind this, then I’m grateful to him. I’ll visit him in prison.”
Hjelm paused to think. Gusten Bergstrom.
“Shall we find out what Carl-Gustaf’s last name was? After that I won’t bother you anymore. At least I don’t think I will.”
Lena Hansson got up and stretched. He saw a pride that he hadn’t noticed before. Once a possible witness, now a whole and complete human being.
“Keep the anger alive,” he found himself saying to her.
She gave him a sarcastic look.
Count Carl-Gustaf af Silfverbladh had moved in 1992 to his family’s estate in Dorset, England. Having sown his wild oats, he sought to obtain a proper education at Oxford, as his father and grandfather had done. He hadn’t returned to Sweden, and in all likelihood never would.
Hjelm wondered how the English would pronounce the man’s last name.
Gusten Bergstrom was twenty-eight, a few years older than his sister Lotta would have been had she lived. His apartment was on Gamla Brogatan in central Stockholm. He worked as a computer operator for Swedish Rail in the long-distance office at Central Station.
A shadow appeared in the door’s peephole.
“Police!” he bellowed, pounding on the door.
The man who opened it was as thin as a stick, with a haircut that looked like a toupee but probably wasn’t. He wore glasses with thick lenses. He looked like a combination of a teenage hacker and a middle-aged accountant.
Hjelm looked at Gusten Bergstrom with dismay. This was no murderer. He’d bet his life on that.
“I’m from the Criminal Police,” said Hjelm, showing his ID.
Gusten Bergstrom let him in without saying a word. The apartment was spartan, to say the least. The walls were bare, and at one end of the room a computer was on. Before Bergstrom could go over and turn down the light, Hjelm caught a glimpse of a naked woman on the color screen, incredibly true to life. It made him feel old.
“Have a seat,” said Bergstrom politely.
Hjelm sat down on a quasi-antique sofa and Bergstrom on a matching armchair, if it could be called that.
“I’d like to talk to you about your sister,” said Hjelm cautiously.
Bergstrom got up at once and went over to the bookcase near the computer. From one of the shelves he took down a photo in a gold frame and showed it to Hjelm. A girl in her mid-teens was smiling at him. It was astonishing how much she looked like her brother.
“This is Lotta before things went bad for her,” said Bergstrom sadly. “On her seventeenth birthday.”
