‘Friends, boys?’
‘No,’ Caroline replies. ‘But I don’t know her … look, we’re both doing ADL, so we see each other quite a bit, but she never talks about herself.’
‘ADL?’
‘Sounds like a condition, doesn’t it?’ Caroline laughs. ‘It stands for All Day Lifestyle. Only for people who are really good. You get to try going out, you tag along to Sundsvall to get the groceries, exciting stuff like that …’
‘You must have talked to each other when you were doing that?’ Joona prompts.
‘A bit, but not much.’
‘So who else would she talk to, then?’
‘No one,’ she replies. ‘Except Daniel, of course.’
‘The counsellor?’
Joona and Susanne leave the bridal suite and walk back along the corridor to the lift. She laughs as they both reach for the button at the same time.
‘When can we talk to Daniel Grim?’ Joona asks.
‘His doctor said it was too soon yesterday, which is understandable,’ she says, glancing at him. ‘This isn’t easy. But I’ll try prompting, and see what happens.’
They get out on the ground floor and head towards the front door, but stop at the reception desk when they see Gunnarsson standing there.
‘Oh yes, I got a text message to let me know that the post-mortem’s underway,’ Susanne tells Joona.
‘Good. When do you think we’ll get the first results?’ he asks.
‘Go home,’ Gunnarsson grunts. ‘You shouldn’t be here, you’re not going to see any damn results, you …’
‘OK, calm down,’ Susanne interrupts, surprised.
‘We’re so damn stupid up here that we’re happy to let some fucking observer take over the whole preliminary investigation just because he comes from Stockholm.’
‘I’m trying to help,’ Joona says. ‘Seeing as—’
‘Just shut up.’
‘This is my preliminary investigation,’ the prosecutor says, looking Gunnarsson hard in the eye.
‘Then maybe you’d like to know that Joona Linna has got Internal Investigations on his back, and that senior prosecutor at National—’
‘Are you under investigation?’ Susanne Öst asks, taken aback.
‘Yes,’ Joona replies. ‘But my role—’
‘And here I am going about trusting you,’ she says, her mouth contracting tightly. ‘I’ve let you in on the investigation, listened to you. And it turns out you’re just a liar.’
‘I haven’t got time for this,’ Joona says seriously. ‘I need to talk to Daniel Grim.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Gunnarsson says with a snort.
‘You do realise how serious this is,’ Joona goes on. ‘Daniel Grim could be the only person who—’
‘I’m not prepared to work with you,’ the prosecutor interrupts.
‘You’re suspended,’ Gunnarsson says.
‘I’ve lost all faith in you,’ Susanne sighs, and starts to walk towards the door.
‘Goodbye,’ Gunnarsson says, and follows her.
‘If you get a chance to talk to Daniel, you have to ask him about Dennis,’ Joona calls after them. ‘Ask Daniel if he knows who Dennis is, but above all ask him where Vicky might have gone. We need a name or a location. Daniel’s the only person Vicky talked to, and—’
‘Go home,’ Gunnarsson laughs, then waves at him over his shoulder and walks out.
Counsellor Daniel Grim has worked part-time with the girls at the Birgitta Home for eleven years. He practises Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Aggression Replacement Training, and talks to the residents individually at least once a week.
Daniel’s wife Elisabet was a nurse, and had been working the night-shift when he thought she had gone with the badly shocked Nina Molander in the ambulance to the district hospital.
When Daniel realised that Elisabet was lying dead in the brew-house, he collapsed on the ground. He was talking confusedly about Elisabet’s heart disease, but when he heard that she had been killed he fell completely silent. He had goosebumps on his arms, and sweat was running down his cheeks. He was breathing fast, and didn’t say a word when he was lifted into the ambulance on a stretcher.
Superintendent Gunnarsson has already pulled out another cigarette when he gets out of the lift at Ward 52A in the psychiatric clinic at the West Norrland district hospital.
A young man in a white coat comes to meet him, they shake hands, then Gunnarsson follows him down a corridor with pale grey walls.
‘Like I said on the phone, I don’t think there’s much point trying to interview him this soon …’
‘No, but I can just have a little chat with him.’
The doctor stops and looks at Gunnarsson for a moment before he begins to explain: ‘Daniel Grim is in a state of traumatised shock, which is commonly known as arousal. It’s triggered by the hypothalamus and the limbic system, and—’
‘I don’t give a damn about that,’ Gunnarsson interrupts. ‘I just need to know if he’s been stuffed with a load of drugs and is totally fucking out of it.’
‘No, he’s not out of it, but I wouldn’t let you see him unless—’
‘We’ve got a double murder—’
‘You know full well whose decision is final here,’ the doctor interrupts calmly. ‘If I believe the patient’s recovery might be adversely affected by talking to the police, then you’ll just have to wait.’
‘I understand,’ Gunnarsson says, forcing himself to speak calmly.
‘But seeing as the patient himself has repeatedly stated that he wants to help the police, I’m prepared to allow you to ask him a few questions in my presence.’
‘I’m very grateful,’ Gunnarsson smiles.
They set off down the corridor again, turn a corner, walk past a row of windows looking
