Room No. 10 (45 page)

“Just give me the connection,” Winter repeated.

“Ellen and Elisabeth are sisters. Were sisters. Paula is Elisabeth’s daughter. Was Elisabeth’s daughter.”

“Keep going,” said Winter.

“Ellen disappeared eighteen years ago. No one has seen her since, as far as we know. A few months ago, she carries a bag into Central Station and puts it in a storage locker. We’re not sure that it was her, but we think it was.” Ringmar looked up. “And then she isn’t missing anymore. We find her body.”

Winter nodded.

“Before that, we found Elisabeth’s body.” Ringmar paused. “And before that we found Paula’s body.”

“Three bodies,” said Winter.

“Three murders.”

“And three men,” said Winter.

Ringmar didn’t answer. He knew the names of the men Winter was talking about: Mario Ney. Christer Börge. Jonas Sandler.

“Let’s have a little talk with Jonas,” said Winter. “And his mom.” He stood up. “We’re going to show them something.”

•   •   •

Anne Sandler stood up from the bed when Winter and Ringmar stepped into the room. Jonas was lying with his head toward the wall. He hadn’t moved when they came in. Anne Sandler took a step toward them.

“How is he doing?” Winter asked.

“I think he’s sleeping,” she said. “He seems completely exhausted.”

Winter looked at the back of Jonas’s head. It was half-hidden behind the blanket. The young man didn’t move.

“Was it really necessary to bring him here?” she said.

Her words could have been accusatory, but Winter didn’t hear any accusation in her tone.

“We have him under observation,” he said.

“What kind of observation is that?”

“Medical, of course.”

“Then couldn’t you have taken him to a hospital instead of here?” she said.

“I’d like to ask you to come with me to a different room,” said Winter. “Bertil will stay here with Jonas.”

She followed him out into the corridor without a word. Once outside, she turned to him.

“You don’t really think that Jonas had anything to do with that . . . that awful thing, do you?” she said.

Winter didn’t answer. He gestured toward the far end of the corridor. His office was down there.

Once there, she asked her question again. She looked like someone who had suddenly stepped into a world where everything is unfamiliar and who was starting to realize that it wasn’t a dream.

“Please have a seat,” said Winter, gesturing at the chair in front of his desk.

“Jonas can’t have done anything . . . bad,” she said, and she sat down abruptly.

“What was he actually doing out there?” Winter asked. “He hasn’t been able to explain. Been able to talk about it.”

He had sat down, too.

“He’s in shock,” she said. “He’s shaken up! Who wouldn’t be?” Her eyes became larger. “A . . . body . . . a dead body in the grove. In our grove?”

“I found Jonas in there,” said Winter. “It was before we found the body.”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s what I’m wondering about,” said Winter.

“I don’t know,” she said after a few seconds. “He doesn’t know either. He isn’t feeling well.”

Winter opened the envelope that was on the desk. He took out a photograph and held it up for her.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

“Who is it?”

“Just tell me whether you recognize her.” He held the photograph out farther. “Here. Take it.”

Sandler took it and held it up in front of her. Winter adjusted the light from the lamp on the desk.

Sandler looked up.

“Is it her?”

“Sorry?”

“Is it the woman in . . . the grove?”

“Do you recognize her?”

Winter saw her eyes become even larger. It looked as though the skin was stretched tight over her face.

“There’s no rush,” said Winter.

“No,” she said after a little while, and she put down the photograph. “I don’t recognize her. Who is she?”

Winter didn’t answer. He took out another photograph and handed it over without holding it up first.

“Have you seen this woman before?”

It could be a worthless question.

“Yes,” she said almost immediately. She looked up. “It’s her. She’s younger here. But it’s her.”

“Who?”

“The woman who lived in our stairwell. The mother of the girl.”

“How can you be so sure?”

She looked at the picture again.

“I don’t know. I just recognize her.” She looked up. “It . . . I don’t know. I recognize her.”

“That’s Ellen,” said Winter. “Ellen Börge.”

He had chosen to reveal the name to Sandler. It could be a mistake, but he had made his choice. It was the same thing with the photograph.

“Is that her name? Ellen?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t her name . . . she had a different name . . .”

“Eva?”

“Yes!”

“Her name was Eva when you met?”

“Yes. Her name was Eva.”

“Have you seen her picture anywhere else?”

“No. Where would I have seen it?”

Winter didn’t answer.

“No . . . I’ve never seen a picture of her before.”

Winter nodded.

“So that’s the girl’s mom.” Sandler looked up from the photograph. Her skin looked very thin in the light from the desk lamp, as though the blood was about to leave her face.

Her eyes reflected her sudden thought: “Is that her? Is she the one who . . . who . . .”

Winter didn’t answer.

“Where is she, then? If it isn’t . . . her? And where is her daughter?”

“If it is her daughter,” said Winter.

“I don’t understand.”

“The daughter said that she wasn’t her real mother.”

“I don’t understand. Who told you that?”

“Your son,” said Winter.

M
ario Ney stood up immediately when Winter stepped into the interrogation room. His face was whiter than chalk. The circles under his eyes looked as though they were made of soot. He tried to say something, but Winter couldn’t hear a sound. The words that caught in Ney’s throat caused him to cough suddenly and then gasp for breath. Maybe they were big words, important words.

Ney’s coughing fit stopped as quickly as it had started. He steadied himself against the surface of the table and looked at Winter with watery eyes.

“Why . . . why am I here?” he finally asked. “What has happened?”

“How do you feel?” Winter asked.

“What . . . what’s happened?”

Ney wiped his mouth. Winter could see sweat gleaming on his forehead.

“I can tell by looking at you that something has happened.”

“Would you like a glass of water?” Winter asked.

Ney shook his head. He took a step away from the chair and appeared to lose his balance. Before Winter made it over to him, he caught the top of the table and regained his balance, as he had just regained his voice.

“Have you found him?” Ney asked, looking at Winter. There were still tears in his eyes from his fit of coughing. “Is that why you’re here?” He looked around suddenly, as though he had finally become conscious of where he was. “Is that why I’m here?”

“Sit down, Mario.”

“I’m good standing here,” he said, suddenly swaying again. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Sit down,” said Winter.

Ney turned his head, looked at the chair, looked at Winter again, took the few steps up to the chair, and sat down. The legs of the chair scraped against the floor. Winter’s thoughts suddenly flew to cleaning, grit on a floor, a broom, a vacuum. A cleaner, a maid, a room, a hotel.

Winter sat down in front of Ney. His chair scraped in the same way. The director of the county CID had drawn back on the cleaning of the interrogation room. He was better at taking leave than at cleaning.

“Tell me about your job at Hotel Odin,” said Winter.

“What?”

Ney had given a start, as though he was about to have another coughing fit. But his voice worked this time:

“What about it?”

“Tell me about the job,” said Winter.

“How do you know that?”

“How do we know what?” Winter asked.

“That I worked there. It was many years ago.”

“Tell me about it,” Winter repeated again.

“Well . . . what . . . it was a long time ago . . .”

“What did you do?”

“Oh . . . everything. I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

“Don’t you understand?”

Ney didn’t answer.

“Don’t you understand why I’m asking, Mario?”

Ney looked down at the table. He seemed to have frozen where he sat.

“Mario?”

He looked up.

“You’re . . . thinking of Elisabeth,” he said. “But I . . . I swear that it didn’t occur to me that I . . . that I once worked there. And anyway, I wasn’t there for very long. I swear that I didn’t put . . . didn’t put that together.”

Swear, Winter thought. That’s a big word. But swearing is for church. No, that’s believing. Or you do both. Swear to your belief. The church offers that opportunity.

“Do you remember what you did at the hotel, Mario?”

“What do you mean, did? When?”

Winter didn’t answer. Ney appeared to become more conscious of what he was saying. His eyes became more alert, as though his thoughts were moving around more quickly inside of them.

“I mean when as in during the time I worked there,” he said. “That is, many years ago.” He waved his hand. “That’s what I meant.”

“And when was that?”

“I don’t remember.” He seemed to relax; perhaps his eyes became calmer. “I was young then; it was twenty years ago, twenty-five . . .”

“When you lived with Elisabeth,” said Winter.

“Yes . . . but my God, surely you don’t think that I . . .”

Winter didn’t say anything.

“Is that why I’m here? Because you all think . . . think that I killed my own wife?” His eyes came to life again, his thoughts. His words became faster, too, with no pauses aside from the audible dot-dot-dot at the ends of his sentences and after words in the middles of his sentences. “How could you think something like that? My own wife? How could someone do something like that?”

“Did you do it, Mario? Did you kill her?”

Ney didn’t answer. He was staring straight at Winter, as though to emphasize his words with his eyes.

“Did you kill her, Mario?”

“No!”

•   •   •

Winter had stood up and walked over to the door and asked for some water. Then he had walked back and adjusted the recording equipment on the table. This time he had chosen to do without the video camera. He thought that it might be too distracting for this interrogation. Had he expected anything from the interrogation? Yes. No. Yes. No. Not a confession. Maybe something else. Some sort of truth.
Part of one. It wasn’t too late yet. The water had arrived. Ney drank it thirstily and set down the empty glass.

“Do you want more?” Winter asked.

Ney shook his head.

“Who is Ellen Börge?” Winter asked.

Ney slowly raised his head. Winter could see the answer in his eyes. But there was also something he couldn’t decipher.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Winter asked.

“What would I have told you?” Ney answered.

“That Elisabeth had a sister. That Ellen was her sister.”

“I . . . don’t understand. Why would I have told you that? What does it matter? What does it matter to Elisabeth? It doesn’t have anything to do with this, does it?”

He isn’t mentioning Paula, Winter thought. He isn’t saying her name. Why isn’t he?

“If it doesn’t matter, then I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us about it,” said Winter. “Neither you nor Elisabeth did.”

Ney threw out one hand as though to say “I don’t know, it never occurred to us, I didn’t understand.”

“And you didn’t tell us about the time when Ellen and Paula lived together in an apartment on Hisingen,” said Winter.

Ney gave a start. Winter’s words appeared to have hit him like an electrical shock. Maybe he had thought the worst was over. That Winter didn’t know what he knew. Or that he would guess like he was doing now. But these weren’t just guesses. This was something else. Experience. Intuition. Imagination. Maybe something more. Maybe luck. Or bad luck. We’ll see.

“Why did Ellen and Paula live together?” Winter asked.

Ney didn’t answer. He appeared to accept Winter’s words, to receive them without fighting them.

“Why did they live in an apartment you rented, Mario?”

Ney started again.

Winter had gotten lucky again.

“Why did you rent that apartment, Mario?”

“It was only for a short time,” said Ney.

His words were short, direct, with a dark tone. But they answered the question.

“You never lived there yourself, did you?”

“No.”

“Why did they live there?”

“It was only for a short time,” Ney repeated, as though he had forgotten that he had just said this.

“Why?”

Ney didn’t answer. Winter couldn’t see his eyes. The sweat on his forehead was back. Ney’s graying hair looked like steel wool in the cold light. His eyes were somewhere else. When they come back, maybe he’ll tell me everything, Winter thought.

“Why, Mario?”

“Ellen wanted to spend a little time with Paula.” Ney looked up. Winter could see that there was something very painful inside him. That didn’t necessarily mean that he was worthy of sympathy. Or empathy. “Just a little time.”

“But why?”

“Because . . . because Paula was Ellen’s child.”

Winter felt himself give a start.

Maybe Ney hadn’t seen it. He didn’t seem to see anything anymore. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing. They seemed fixed on the wall behind Winter, or on a place or a time that was far beyond the walls and the doors in this ugly brick palace. All the silence Winter had encountered. Here was the source of it. Maybe more hidden silence, more lies, were streaming out of it. An even greater darkness.

“Paula was Ellen’s daughter?” Winter asked slowly.

Ney nodded just as slowly, as though in reply to each and every one of Winter’s words.

“Why didn’t she live with her parents?”

Ney stopped nodding. Winter saw that he gave another start. Parents.