He told her about the man Heikki Järvinen had seen from where he was standing on Norra Bantorget, some time between one and two on the morning of Saturday, August 15, who may have given Nima Rita a bottle of moonshine.
Modig was taking notes as they walked into his office and sat down opposite each other, at first in silence. Bublanski was shifting in his chair. He was trying to pin down something that was stirring in his subconscious.
“So there are no indications to suggest that he’s used our health-care system?” he said.
“Not so far,” she said. “But I haven’t given up. He could have registered under a different name, don’t you think? We’ve applied for a court order to be allowed to conduct a broader search based on his physical characteristics.”
“Do we have any idea how long he was seen around the city?”
“It’s always tricky when you’re dealing with people’s perception of time, but there’s nothing to suggest he was in the neighbourhood for more than a couple of weeks.”
“Could he have come from another part of the city, or from another town?”
“I don’t think so. That’s my gut feeling.”
Bublanski leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window towards Bergsgatan, and in an instant it became clear to him what he had been looking for.
“The South Wing,” he said.
“What?”
“The closed psychiatric unit at Södra Flygeln—the South Wing. I think he may have been committed there.”
“What makes you say so?”
“It fits. It’s exactly the sort of place you’d put someone you wanted to hide. The South Wing doesn’t even report to the county council. It’s an independent foundation and I know from old that there’s a working relationship between the military authorities and the clinic. Do you remember Andersson, that crazy UN soldier from Congo who attacked people in the city? He was a patient there.”
“I do remember him,” Modig said. “But this sounds like a bit of a long shot to me.”
“I haven’t finished yet.”
“In that case, Chief Inspector, please continue.”
“According to Järvinen, Nima said that he had climbed down from a mountain to get away, down to a lake, and that tallies too, doesn’t it? The South Wing is in a rather dramatic position on the edge of a cliff, above Årstaviken Bay. Besides, it’s not that far from Mariatorget.”
“Good thinking,” Modig said.
“It may just be a wild guess.”
“I’ll check it out right away, in case.”
“Excellent, although…”
“What?”
“It still wouldn’t explain how Nima Rita turned up in Sweden and managed to get through all the passport checks without having his name registered.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Modig said. “But it’s something to be getting on with.”
“And it would also be a useful start if we could talk to Rebecka Forsell, although it seems we’re not allowed to do that either.”
“No,” she said, looking at him thoughtfully.
“What is it?”
“There’s supposed to be another woman in Stockholm, someone who knew Nima Rita and Klara Engelman.”
“Who’s that?”
Modig told him.
* * *
—
Catrin Lindås was walking along Götgatan and tried again to call Blomkvist, but he was still not answering, infuriatingly, even though sometimes his line was busy. What did she care? She had more important things to think about. She had just finished recording her podcast—a discussion about the media campaign against Forsell with Alicia Frankel, the Minister of Culture, and Jörgen Vrigstad, professor of journalism—but it had not made her any more relaxed. She felt off kilter, as she often did after a recording session.
There was always some retort or question which niggled at her, and now she worried that she might have taken too tough a line, or been as partisan as the media she was criticizing; that she had demanded nuance from others without living up to that herself. But then she never shrank from being self-critical, and she was well aware that the hysteria over Forsell had got under her skin. Maybe it was more about her than about him.
She knew only too well how such hatred and lies could destroy a person and, although she had never considered taking her own life, she did sometimes lose her footing and self-harm—just as she had when she was a teenager—by cutting herself. She had felt out of sorts ever since she woke up at dawn that day and prepared for her recording, as if something dark from the past were trying to come back. But she dismissed it. Götgatan was full of people. There was a group of day-care children milling about with balloons on the pavement in front of her, and she turned into Bondegatan and found her way to Nytorget, where she breathed a little easier.
Nytorget was considered one of the most stylish addresses in Söder and, although to some it was almost a dirty word, it was a synonym for the in-crowd among the media elite. She felt safe in the neighbourhood, as if she had found both a home and place of refuge. It was true that she had overmortgaged herself in buying the apartment. But since her programme had become such a success—it was Sweden’s most-listened-to media podcast—she felt reasonably secure, and could in any case always sell the place and move to the suburbs if necessary. She never doubted that everything could be taken away from her at a moment’s notice.
She stepped up her pace. Were those footsteps behind her? No, she was just imagining it, silly old fears. Yet she wanted to get home as quickly as possible. She wanted to forget the world and lose herself in a romantic comedy, or anything that was not part of her own life.
* * *
—
Blomkvist was sitting on a balcony in Östermalm, interviewing the woman Modig had spoken about. He had come from Kungliga Biblioteket, the National Library, where he had spent the whole day reading. He was now beginning to see the chain of events more clearly, or at least where there were gaps and what else he needed to find out.
He had therefore invited himself to Elin’s home on Jungfrugatan. She was now thirty-nine years old, an elegant woman with distinctive features, very slim and somewhat distant. Felke was her married name, but in 2008 she had been called Malmgård and she was quite a celebrity in the fitness world—with her own advice column in Aftonbladet—and had been a member of the Everest expedition led by the American, Greg Dolson.