Mia Bolander reached for the cell phone that was lying on the table. She scrolled through the status updates on Facebook but was irritated, as usual, by all the people who had posted pictures of freshly baked cakes, Christmas decorations and things as idiotic as pictures of future vacation destinations.
How the hell do they have the energy? she thought, releasing her phone onto her lap.
She drew her hand through her blond hair and yawned, sinking into the sofa. She cast a glance at the fifty-inch television that she had bought on a payment plan last spring and sure, it was a great deal, but now she was behind on her payments. Two months, maybe, but as soon as she got her next paycheck, she’d rectify that, for sure. It kind of sucked, though, paying so much for a TV that was now almost a year old. She’d rather put the money toward a new one, and had seen an awesome one with a curved screen. If she had only been a little less impulsive last spring, she’d have bought one like that instead.
Mia wound a blond lock around her finger. She was tired and not satisfied with how the day had gone. Nor her life, for that matter.
She was turning thirty-one in two months and had discovered new wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes. The skin above her breasts also seemed less tight and made a fanlike pattern when she wore a tight sports bra.
She tried to convince herself that she still looked good, but it didn’t work. In spite of her regular workouts, with strength training three times a week, she didn’t feel attractive. She never slept enough, ate at odd times and drank too much.
All wrong.
She spent money on unnecessary things and was always broke. She had a tiny apartment and only occasional relationships with men who seemed all but normal. The last one had seemed loving and tender, but as soon as they went back to his place, he had shown a sick interest in her feet. A foot fetishist.
He’d had a corny name, too.
Martin.
He had satisfied her, but she never wanted to sleep with him again. Not with someone who wanted to suck her toes.
That was crossing the line.
She had spent just over half her life finding out what a mature sex life had to offer. She had lost her virginity when she was fourteen and spent the rest of her teen years experimenting with horny classmates and older high schoolers. She had a heavy make-out session with a teacher at an end-of-the-year party when she was in ninth grade, had a threesome with two guys in a bathroom and had on one occasion given blow jobs to three heavy metal dudes at a house party. In her twenties, she had tried bondage with a tattooed man from Falun. She had dressed up as a flight attendant, a nurse and an innocent girl wearing a corset. Whipped and been whipped. Had sex at secret clubs and in public places. Her sex life required a constant stream of new men.
She was, therefore, not interested in a long-term relationship, and had never understood how someone could be with the same person year after year. She had sat in the police department cafeteria and listened to her female colleagues gush about how their male partners were wonderful, insightful, exciting, generous, warm and romantic one day, then bitch the next day about their bad habits and how they left beard hairs on the sink and shit-stained boxers on the bedroom floor for days. She had heard them say that they had met the man they wanted to grow old with, have children with, that he was The One. Mia had never felt that way. She didn’t want just one.
She wanted many.
Preferably.
She looked out the window at the darkness outside. She rubbed her hands across her face and thought about brushing her teeth, but she felt too lazy and instead put her feet up on the table.
Her thoughts wandered to the two-hour morning meeting with the National Crime Squad. She’d had a hard time deciding in the last half hour if she should do something, say something. Anders Wester was an unpleasant man. He had criticized their work and been really hard on Gunnar. She had never seen Gunnar so irritated and tense.
But he had been the only one who had defended them, and the only one from the investigation who had said anything during the meeting. Maybe she should have said something, stood up for herself and her colleagues. But no one else had, either. It wasn’t only her responsibility.
Carin could have been more assertive in the conversation. But she surely didn’t dare, Mia thought. Not having just received a new position—in the new Police Authority, where everything would be changed for the better and everyone would take part and live happily-ever-after. What bullshit!
She lay down on the sofa, crossed her arms over her head and stayed there for a long time before picking up her cell phone.
She knew she shouldn’t. She knew she’d regret it.
Still, she looked for Martin Strömberg’s number.
But just as she raised the phone to her ear, someone called.
She saw from the display that it was Henrik Levin.
“Yes?” she answered.
“You have to get down to the train station. Right now!”
* * *
The X2000 to Stockholm with departure time 10:24 p.m. stood still on Track 1 at Norrköping’s Central Station. It had taken an hour to evacuate all of the travelers and get them on a bus to Nyköping where a regional train had been waiting to take them to their planned destination.
All of the platforms had been roped off, parking lot and building, too.
Henrik Levin stood at the police tape and watched as Mia Bolander parked her wine-red Fiat Punto at the intersection of Norra Promenaden and Vattengränden. He waved when she got out of the car. She pulled her white hat down over her ears and zipped her jacket all the way to her chin to keep out the cold.
“So what happened?” she asked, ducking under the tape.
“A young woman was found dead in a bathroom. Her name is Siriporn Chaiyen, Thai national. We found her purse with her passport and other possessions in it.”
“How old?”
“Eighteen.”
Henrik saw her raise her eyebrows.
“Come on,” he said, showing her the way to the train and the bathroom in Car 5 where Anneli Lindgren crouched down with tweezers in her hand. The small room was illuminated with bright lights.
Henrik and Mia stood in the doorway and studied the dead woman. She was young, with a characteristically Southeast Asian appearance.
“A suicide?” Mia asked.
Anneli looked up.
“No...” she said, getting up from the floor. “At first glance, it looks like an epileptic seizure, like she asphyxiated. But exactly how she died, I’m not sure yet.”
“So what are we doing here?”
“We can eliminate suicide,” said Henrik. “And it’s probably not an epileptic fit.”
“Who found her?”
“A train attendant, Mats Johansson,” Henrik said. “He is unfortunately in shock, but we were able to speak with him for a moment before he was taken to Vrinnevi Hospital. He said that he had been rushed by a crazy woman who had forced him to open the bathroom door. I know what you’re going to ask next—who was that woman?”
“Yes. But what, don’t I get to?”
“Well, you should, but I don’t know the answer.”
Mia gave him a questioning look.
“Why not?”
“She disappeared from the train.”
“And where is she now?”
“No one knows.”