The Disciple Read Online Free PDF Page B

clubs or organisations, had no mutual hobbies; their husbands and ex-husband had no obvious links; they didn’t appear to be friends on Facebook or other social networks.
    They didn’t know each other.
    They had nothing in common.
    At least nothing Billy and Vanja could come up with. Billy closed his computer and leaned back wearily in his chair. Vanja got up and went over to the whiteboard. She gazed at the photographs of the three women. One picture of each of them alive, several of them dead. On the far right a number of photographs had been arranged in a vertical line. Photographs from the nineties. Terrifyingly similar to the new pictures.
    ‘He’s copying them exactly.’
    ‘Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. How can he?’ Billy stood up and went to join her. ‘Do you think they know one another?’
    ‘Not necessarily; the old pictures have been published.’
    ‘Where?’ Billy asked in surprise. He found it difficult to imagine any newspaper printing the gruesome photographs, and in 1996 the internet was far from the inexhaustible well of information it was today.
    ‘In Sebastian’s two books, among other places.’ Vanja turned to face him. ‘Have you read them?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You should. They’re actually pretty good.’
    Billy merely nodded without saying anything. Given Vanja’s opinion of Sebastian, that was probably the only positive comment she was likely to make about him. Billy hesitated; it was very late and Vanja had already shown signs of irritation, but he heard himself saying: ‘Do you think we’ll be bringing him in?’
    ‘Sebastian?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I certainly hope not.’
    Vanja went back to the table, gathered up her folders and headed for the door. ‘However, we do need to visit Hinde in Lövhaga. I thought you and I could go.’ She opened the door. ‘See you tomorrow. Can you ring Torkel and tell him how little we’ve found?’
    Without waiting for a reply she turned away, leaving Billy alone. So it was his job to call Torkel and pass on the bad news. As usual. He glanced at the clock. Just before one. With a sigh he picked up his mobile.

Sebastian was woken by someone touching his face. He opened his eyes, quickly orientated himself in the unfamiliar bedroom and turned his head to the left as he ran through the evening that had led him here. He had followed Vanja home. Watched her go inside. He had been on the point of moving to his usual vantage point when she suddenly came out again. Seconds later a patrol car pulled up and she jumped in. Something had happened.
    Vanja was needed at the scene of a crime.
    He wasn’t needed anywhere.
    Wearily he had headed back to his apartment, which was far too big, but had felt restless almost at once. There was only one way to get rid of the sense of unease and dissatisfaction. He had scanned the morning paper and settled on a lecture at ABF-huset: ‘An Evening with Jussi Björling’. The subject didn’t interest him in the slightest, but as usual at cultural events, the majority of the audience was made up of women, and after a brief assessment of the possibilities he had sat down next to a woman in her forties in the third row. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He had started a conversation during the interval. Had an alcohol-free drink with her afterwards. They decided to go for something to eat. Walked the short distance to her apartment in Vasastan. Had sex. And now she had woken him up. Ellinor Bergkvist. Shop assistant at Åhléns department store. Household goods. What time was it, anyway? It was light outside, but that meant nothing. It was high summer, after all. Ellinor was lying on her side facing him, her elbow on the pillow, head resting on her hand as she traced the contours of his face with the index finger of the other hand. A pose she might have seen in some romantic comedy. Charming in a film, incredibly irritating in reality. A lock of strawberry-blonde hair had fallen down over one eye, and she was