‘Spring has sprung,’ she said.
‘I’m here to tell you that Hong Qiu is dead.’
Birgitta hadn’t known what to expect – but it wasn’t that. She felt a wrench deep down inside her. Not of sorrow, but of immediate fear.
‘What happened?’
‘She died in a car accident while on a trip to Africa. Her brother was there as well. But he survived. He may not have been in the same car. I don’t know all the details.’
Birgitta stared at Ho in silence, chewing over the words, trying to understand. The colourful spring was suddenly surrounded by shadows.
‘When did it happen?’
‘Several months ago.’
‘In Africa?’
‘My dear friend Hong Qiu was part of a big delegation to Zimbabwe. Our minister of trade, Ke, was the leader of the visit, which was considered very important. The accident happened on an excursion to Mozambique.’
Two of the drunks suddenly started screaming and pushing each other.
‘Let’s go,’ said Birgitta, rising to her feet.
She took Ho to a nearby cafe where they were almost the only customers. Birgitta asked the girl behind the counter to turn down the music. Ho drank a bottle of mineral water, Birgitta a cup of coffee.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘In detail, slowly, as much as you know. During the few days I met Hong Qiu she became a sort of friend. But who are you? Who has sent you all the way from Beijing? And above all, why?’
Ho shook her head.
‘I’ve come from London. Hong Qiu had a lot of friends who are now mourning her loss. Ma Li, who was with Hong Qiu in Africa, gave me the sad news. And she asked me to contact you as well.’
‘Ma Li?’
‘One of Hong Qiu’s other friends.’
‘Start at the beginning,’ said Birgitta. ‘I still find it hard to believe that what you say is true.’
‘All of us do. But it is. Ma Li wrote to me and described what happened.’
Birgitta waited. She had the impression that the silence also contained a message. Ho was creating a space around them, closing them in.
‘The information is not consistent,’ said Ho. ‘The official story of Hong Qiu’s death seems to have been sanitised.’
‘Who told Ma Li about it?’
‘Ya Ru, Hong Qiu’s brother. According to him Hong Qiu had chosen to go on a trip deep into the bush, to see wild animals. The driver was going too fast, the car overturned, and Hong Qiu died instantly. The car burst into flames; petrol had leaked out.’
Birgitta shook her head. And shuddered at the same time. She simply couldn’t imagine Hong Qiu dead, a victim of a banal car accident.
‘A few days before Hong Qiu died she’d had a long conversation with Ma Li,’ Ho continued. ‘I don’t know what about; Ma Li is not the type to betray the confidence of a friend. But Hong Qiu had given her clear instructions. If anything happened to her, you should be told.’
‘Why? I barely knew her.’
‘I can’t answer that.’
‘But surely Ma Li must have explained?’
‘Hong Qiu wanted you to know where I could be found in London, if you needed any help.’
Birgitta could feel her fear growing. I’m attacked in a street in Beijing; Hong Qiu has an accident in Africa. The two events are somehow connected.
The message scared her. If you ever need help you should know that there is a woman in London called Ho.
‘But I don’t understand what you’re saying. Have you come here to give me a warning? What might happen?’
‘Ma Li didn’t give any details.’
‘But whatever was in the letter was sufficient to make you come here. You knew where I lived, you knew how to get in touch with me. What did Ma Li write?’
‘Hong Qiu had told her about a Swedish judge called Mrs Roslin who had been a close friend of hers for many years. She described the regrettable mugging, and the meticulous police investigation.’
‘Did she really say that?’
‘I’m quoting from the letter. Word for word. Hong Qiu also told her about a photograph you had shown her.’
Birgitta gave a start.
‘Really? A photograph? Did she say anything else?’
‘That it was of a Chinese man you thought had something to do with incidents that had taken place in Sweden.’
‘What did she say about the man?’
‘She was worried. She had discovered something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
Birgitta said nothing. She tried to work out what was implied by the message from Hong Qiu. It could only be a warning cry out of silence. Had Hong Qiu suspected that something might happen to her? Or did she know that Birgitta was in danger? Had Hong Qiu discovered the identity of the man in the photograph? In which case, why didn’t she say so?
Birgitta could feel her discomfort growing. Ho sat in silence, watching her, waiting.
‘There’s one question I must have an answer to. Who are you?’
‘I’ve been living in London since the beginning of the 1990s. I first went there as a secretary in the Chinese embassy. Then I was appointed head of the English-Chinese chamber of commerce. Now I’m an independent consultant to Chinese companies that want to establish themselves in England. But not only there. I’m also involved in a big exhibition complex that’s going to be built near a Swedish city called Kalmar. My work takes me all over Europe.’
‘How did you get to know Hong Qiu?’
The reply surprised Birgitta.
‘We’re relatives. Cousins. Hong Qiu was ten years older than me, but we’ve known each other since we were young.’
Birgitta thought about Hong Qiu evidently having said that she and Birgitta had been friends for many years. There was a message in that. Birgitta could only interpret it as meaning that their brief acquaintance had formed deep links. Significant trust was already possible. Or perhaps, rather, necessary?
‘What did it say in the letter? About me?’
‘Hong Qiu wanted you to be informed as soon as possible.’
‘What else?’
‘As I’ve already said. You should know where I live, in case something happens.’
‘What might happen?’
‘I don’t know.’
Something in Ho’s tone of voice put Birgitta on her guard. So far Ho had been telling the truth. But now she was being evasive. Ho knows more than she’s saying, Birgitta thought.
‘China is a big country,’ said Birgitta. ‘For a Westerner it’s easy to confuse its size with the impression that it’s secretive. The lack of knowledge is transformed into mystery. I’m sure that’s what I’m doing. That’s how I experienced Hong Qiu. No matter what she said to me, I could never understand what she meant.’
‘China is no more secretive than any other country. It’s a Western myth that our country is incomprehensible. The Europeans have never accepted that they simply don’t understand the way we think. Nor that we made so many crucial discoveries and inventions before you acquired the same knowledge. Gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, everything is originally Chinese. You weren’t even first to learn the art of measuring time. Thousands of years before you started making mechanical clocks we had water clocks and hourglasses. You can never forgive us for that.’
‘When did you last see Hong Qiu?’
‘Four years ago. She came to London. We spent a few evenings together. It was in summer. She wanted to go for long walks on Hampstead Heath and interrogate me on how the English regarded developments in China. Her questions were demanding, and she was impatient if my answers were unclear. She also wanted to go to cricket matches.’
‘Why?’
‘She never said. Hong Qiu had a number of surprising interests.’
‘I’m not all that interested in sports, but cricket seems to me totally incomprehensible – it’s impossible to work out how one of the teams wins or loses.’
‘I
think her enthusiasm was due to the fact that she wanted to understand how Englishmen work by studying their national sport. Hong Qiu was a very obstinate person.’
Ho checked her watch. ‘I have to go back to London from Copenhagen later today.’
Birgitta wondered whether she ought to ask the question that had been forming in the back of her mind.
‘You weren’t by chance in my house the night before last? In my study?’
‘I was staying in a hotel. Why should I have wanted to creep into your house like a thief?’ she said, bemused.
‘It was just a thought. I was woken up by a noise.’
‘Had somebody been there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is anything missing?’
‘I thought somebody had disturbed my papers.’
‘No,’ said Ho. ‘I haven’t been there.’
‘And you are here on your own?’
‘Nobody knows I’m in Sweden. Not even my husband and children. They think I’m in Brussels. I often go there.’
Ho took out a business card and put it on the table in front of Birgitta. On it was her full name, Ho Mei Wan, her address and various telephone numbers.
‘Where exactly in London do you live?’
‘In Chinatown. In summer it can be very noisy in the streets all night long. But I like living there even so. It’s a little China in the middle of London.’
Birgitta tucked the business card into her purse. She accompanied Ho to the railway station to make sure she caught the right train.
‘My husband’s a conductor on the railway,’ Birgitta said. ‘What does your husband do?’
‘He’s a waiter,’ said Ho. ‘That’s why we live in Chinatown. He works in a restaurant on the ground floor.’
Birgitta watched the Copenhagen train disappear into a tunnel. She went home, prepared a meal and felt how tired she was. She decided to watch the news, but fell asleep soon after lying down on the sofa. She was woken up by the telephone ringing. It was Staffan calling from Funchal. It was a bad connection. He had to shout in order to make himself heard over all the crackling. She gathered that all was well and they were enjoying themselves. Then they were cut off. She waited for him to call again, but nothing happened. She lay down on the sofa again. She had difficulty taking in the fact that Hong Qiu was dead. But even when Ho told her what had happened, she had the feeling that something didn’t add up.
She began to regret not having asked Ho more questions. But she had simply been too tired after the complicated trial and hadn’t felt up to it. And now it was too late. Ho was on her way home to her English Chinatown.
Birgitta lit a candle for Hong Qiu and searched through maps in the bookcase before finding one of London. Ho’s husband’s restaurant was adjacent to Leicester Square. Birgitta had once sat with Staffan in the little park there, watching people come and go. It was late autumn, and they had made the journey on the spur of the moment. Looking back, they had often talked about that trip as a one-off but very precious memory.
She went to bed early, as she had to be in court the following day. The case, concerning a woman who had beaten up her mother, was not as complicated as the one involving the four Vietnamese, but she couldn’t afford to be tired when she took her place on the bench. Her self-respect wouldn’t allow that. To make sure that she didn’t spend the night awake, she took half a sleeping pill before switching off the lights.
The case turned out to be simpler than she had expected. The accused woman suddenly changed her plea and admitted all the charges against her. And the defence did not produce any surprises that would have extended proceedings. As early as a quarter to four Birgitta Roslin was able to sum up and announce that the sentence would be made public on 1 June.
When she returned to her office, she called the police in Hudiksvall, off the top of her head. She thought she recognised the voice of the young woman who answered. She sounded less nervous and overworked than last winter.
‘I’m looking for Vivi Sundberg. Is she in today?’
‘I saw her walk past only a few minutes ago. Who’s calling?’
‘The judge in Helsingborg. That’ll be sufficient.’
Vivi Sundberg came to the phone almost immediately. ‘Birgitta Roslin. Long time no hear.’
‘I just thought I’d check in.’
‘Some new Chinamen? New theories?’
Birgitta could hear the irony in Vivi’s voice and was very tempted to reply that she had lots of new Chinamen to pull out of her hat. But she merely said that she was curious to know how things were going.
‘We still think the man who unfortunately managed to take his own life is the murderer,’ Vivi said. ‘But even though he’s dead, the investigation is continuing. We can’t sentence a dead man, but we can give those who are still alive an explanation of what happened and, not least, why.’
‘Will you succeed?’
‘It’s too early to say
Any new leads?’
‘I can’t comment on that.’
‘No other suspects? No other possible explanations?’
‘I can’t comment on that either. We are still embroiled in a large-scale investigation with lots of complicated details.’
‘But you still think it was the man you arrested? And that he really had a motive for killing nineteen people?’
‘That’s what it looks like. What I can tell you is that we’ve had help from every kind of expert you can think of – criminologists, profile makers, psychologists, and the most experienced detectives and technicians in the country. Needless to say, Professor Persson is extremely doubtful. But when isn’t he? There’s still a long way to go, though.’
‘What about the boy?’ Birgitta asked. ‘The victim who died, but didn’t fit the pattern. How do you explain that?’
‘We don’t have an explanation per se. But of course we do have a picture of how it all happened.’
‘There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about,’ said Birgitta. ‘Did any of the dead seem to be more important than the other victims?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anybody who was exposed to especially brutal treatment? Or maybe the one who was killed first? Or last?’
‘Those are questions I can’t comment on.’
‘Just tell me if my questions come as a surprise.’
‘No.’
‘Have you found an explanation for the red ribbon?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve been in China,’ said Birgitta. ‘I saw the Great Wall of China. I was mugged and spent an entire day with some very intense police officers.’
‘Really?’ said Vivi. ‘Were you hurt?’
‘No, only scared. But I got back the bag they stole from me.’
‘So perhaps you were lucky after all?’
‘Yes,’ said Birgitta. ‘I was lucky. Thanks for your time.’
Birgitta remained at her desk after replacing the receiver. She had no doubt that the specialists who had been brought in would have had something to say if they’d felt the investigation was going nowhere.
That evening she went for a long walk, and spent a few hours leafing through wine brochures. She made a note of several from Italy that she wanted to order, then watched an old film on TV that she had seen with Staffan when they first started going out together. Jane Fonda played a prostitute, the colours were pale and faded, the plot peculiar, and she couldn’t help but smile at the strange clothes, especially the vulgar platform shoes that had been highly fashionable at the time.
She had almost dozed off when the telephone rang. The clock on the bedside table said a quarter to midnight. The ringing stopped. If it had been Staffan or one of the children they would have called her mobile phone. She switched off the light. Then the telephone rang again. She jumped up and answered using the phone on her desk.
‘Birgitta Roslin? My apologies for calling at this late hour. Do you recognise my voice?’
She did recognise it, but couldn’
t put a face to it. It was a man, an elderly man.
‘No, not really.’
‘Sture Hermansson.’
‘Do I know you?’
‘Know is perhaps too strong a word. But you visited my little Hotel Eden in Hudiksvall a few months ago.’
‘Now I remember.’
‘I want to apologise for calling so late.’
‘You already have. I take it you have a special reason for calling?’
‘He’s come back.’
Hermansson lowered his voice when he spoke these last words. The penny dropped, and she realised what he was talking about.
‘The Chinaman?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘He arrived not long ago. He hadn’t booked in advance. I’ve just given him his key. He’s in the same room as last time. Number twelve.’
‘Are you sure it’s the same man?’
‘You have the film. But he seems to be the same person. He uses the same name, at least.’
Birgitta tried to think what to do. Her heart was pounding.
Her train of thought was broken by Hermansson.
‘One more thing.’
‘What?’
‘He asked about you.’
Birgitta held her breath. The fear inside her hit home with full force.
‘That’s not possible.’
‘My English is not good. To be honest, it took me some time before I realised who he was asking after. But I’m sure it was you.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That you lived in Helsingborg. He seemed surprised. I think he assumed you were from Hudiksvall.’
‘What else did you say?’
‘I gave him your address, because you’d left it with me and asked me to get in touch if anything happened.’
You half-witted imbecile, Birgitta thought. She was suddenly panic-stricken.
‘Do me a favour,’ she said. ‘Call me when he goes out. Even if it’s the middle of the night. Call.’
‘I take it you want me to tell him I’ve been in touch with you?’
‘It would be good if you didn’t mention that.’