During the prayers of intercession the collection was taken.
“If you had intended to give only ten kronor, wrap it in a hundred-kronor note!” shouted Pastor Gunnar Isaksson.
Curt Backstrom also spoke.
“What shall we talk about?” he asked the congregation, just as Viktor Strandgard used to do.
Is he mad? thought Rebecka.
People squirmed uncomfortably. Nobody spoke. Finally Thomas Soderberg saved the situation.
“Talk about the power of intercession,” he said.
Anna-Maria nodded toward the television, where Curt was instructing the congregation.
“He was in the church praying when we were speaking to the pastors,” she said. “I know you used to be a member of the church. Did you know the pastors and the congregation?”
“Yes,” said Rebecka in a reluctant tone of voice, making it clear that this was something she didn’t want to go into.
Some of them in the purely biblical sense, she thought, and suddenly the camera angle altered and Thomas Soderberg was looking straight into the lens and into her eyes.
R ebecka is sitting in the visitors’ armchair in Thomas Soderberg’s office; she is crying. The midseason sales are on. The town is full of people. Handwritten signs in red proclaiming big reductions plaster the shop windows. The atmosphere makes you feel hollow inside.
“It feels as though He doesn’t love me,” she sobs.
She is talking about God.
“I feel like His stepchild,” she says. “A changeling.”
Thomas Soderberg smiles carefully and passes her a handkerchief. She blows her nose and snivels. Just turned eighteen and crying like a baby.
“Why can’t I hear His voice?” She sniffs. “You can hear Him and talk to Him every day. Sanna can hear Him. Viktor has even met Him…”
“But Viktor is special,” interjects Thomas Soderberg.
“Exactly,” howls Rebecka. “I’d just like to feel as if I were a little bit special too.”
Thomas Soderberg sits without speaking for a little while, as if he were listening inside himself for the right words.
“It’s all a matter of training, Rebecka,” he says. “You must believe me. In the beginning when I thought I could hear His voice, it was only my own imagination I heard.”
He puts his hands together before his breast, raises his eyes and says in a childish voice:
“Do you love me, God?”
Then he answers himself in a deep voice:
“Yes, Thomas, you know I do. Very, very much.”
Rebecka laughs through her tears. There is almost too much laughter. It bubbles over because she has cried so much she has created an empty space, ready to be filled by another feeling. Thomas joins in and laughs too. Then all of a sudden he becomes serious and gazes into her eyes for a long time.
“And you are special, Rebecka. Believe me, you are special.”
Then the tears come again. They roll silently down her cheeks. Thomas Soderberg reaches out and wipes them away. Strokes her lips with the palm of his hand. Rebecka is totally still. She didn’t want to frighten him away, she thinks later.
Thomas Soderberg stretches out his other hand and wipes away the rest of her tears with his thumb, while his fingers take hold of her hair. All at once his breath is very close. It flows over her face like warm water. There is the slightly acrid smell of coffee, the sweetness of gingerbread and something else that is just him.
Then everything happens so quickly. His tongue is inside her mouth. His fingers are tangled in her hair. She clasps the back of his head with one hand and with the other tries in vain to undo at least one button on his shirt. His hands fumble at her breasts and try to find their way in under her skirt. They are in a hurry. They rush over each other’s bodies before reason catches up with them. Before the shame comes.
She locks her arms around his neck and he raises her up out of the chair, lifts her onto the desk and pushes up her skirt with a single movement. She wants to get inside him. Presses him against her body. When he pulls off her tights he scratches the outside of her thigh, but she doesn’t notice until later. He can’t get her knickers off. There isn’t time. Pushes the crotch to one side at the same time as he undoes his trousers. Over his shoulder she can see the key in the door. She thinks that they should lock it, but now he is inside her. Her mouth is open against his ear and she gasps for breath with every thrust. She clings to him like a baby monkey to its mother. He comes silently, controlled, with a final convulsion. He leans over her; she has to support herself on the desk with one hand so that she doesn’t fall backwards.
Then he backs away from her. Takes several steps, until he bumps into the door. He looks at her with no expression, and shakes his head. Then he turns his back on her and looks out through the window. Rebecka slides off the desk. She pulls on her tights and straightens her skirt. Thomas Soderberg’s back is like a wall.
“I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Please go,” he says roughly. “Just go.”
She runs all the way home to the flat she shares with Sanna. Runs straight across roads without looking. It is the middle of an icy January. The cold stabs at her and hurts her throat. The inside of her thighs is sticky.
The door burst open and Prosecutor Carl von Post’s furious face appeared.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asked. When he got no answer, he turned to Anna-Maria and went on:
'What are you up to? You’re not going through preliminary investigation material with her, surely?'
He jerked his head toward Rebecka.
“None of this is classified information,” said Anna-Maria loudly. “You can buy the tapes in the church bookshop. We were just having a chat. If that’s okay with you?”
“I suppose so!” snapped von Post. “But you need to talk to me now! My office. Five minutes.”
He slammed the door shut.
The two women looked at each other.
“The journalist who accused you of assault has withdrawn her complaint,” said Anna-Maria Mella.
Her voice was casual, as if to demonstrate that she’d changed track, and that what she was saying had nothing whatsoever to do with Carl von Post. But the message got through.
He’s livid about it, of course, thought Rebecka.
“She said she’d slipped, and it can’t possibly have been your intention to knock her over,” Anna-Maria went on as she slowly stood up. “I must go. Was there anything you wanted?”
Thoughts whirled around in Rebecka’s head. From Mans, who must have spoken to the journalist, to Viktor’s Bible.
“The Bible,” she said to Anna-Maria. “Viktor’s Bible, have you got it here?”
“No, they haven’t finished with it in Linkoping. They’ll be hanging on to it for the time being. Why?”
“I’d like to have a look at it if possible. Would they be able to photocopy it down there? Not all of it, of course, but all the pages where there are notes. And copies of all the scraps of paper, photographs, cards, that sort of thing.”
“Of course,” said Anna-Maria thoughtfully. “That shouldn’t be a problem. In return maybe you’d be prepared to talk to me about the church if I have any questions.”
“As long as it’s not to do with Sanna,” said Rebecka, looking at her watch.
It was time to fetch Sara and Lova. She said good-bye to Anna-Maria Mella, but before she went out to the car she sat down on the sofa in reception, opened up her laptop and connected it to her cell phone. She keyed in Maria Taube’s e-mail address and wrote:
Hi, Maria.
