way forward to Viktor Strandgård.
That’s Patrik Mattsson, thought Rebecka. He’s still there, then.
The man seized Viktor’s hands, and just before the camera switched to the gospel choir, Rebecka saw Viktor jerk backwards and snatch his hands away from Patrik Mattsson.
What happened there? she thought. What’s going on between those two?
She glanced at Anna-Maria Mella, but she was bending down and rummaging though a box of videotapes on the floor.
“This is the tape from yesterday evening,” said Anna-Maria as she popped up from behind the desk. “Would you like to watch a little bit?”
On the tape from the evening following the murder, Thomas Söderberg was preaching again. The wooden floorboards beneath his feet were stained brown from the blood, and there were piles of roses on the floor.
The performance was serious; he was fired up. Thomas Söderberg exhorted the members of the congregation to arm themselves in readiness for spiritual conflict.
“We need the Miracle Conference more than ever now,” he proclaimed. “Satan shall not gain the upper hand.”
The congregation answered with cries of “Hallelujah!”
“This just can’t be true,” said Rebecka, shocked.
“Think carefully about who you can rely upon,” shouted Thomas Söderberg. “Remember: ‘He who is not with me, is against me.’ ”
“He just told people not to talk to the police,” said Rebecka thoughtfully. “He wants the church to shut itself off.”
Anna-Maria looked at Rebecka in amazement as she thought of her colleagues who had spent the day knocking on doors and speaking to members of the congregation. During the course of their inquiries every single officer had complained that it had been impossible to get people to talk to them at all.
During the prayers of intercession the collection was taken.
“If you had intended to give only ten kronor, wrap it in a hundred-kronor note!” shouted Pastor Gunnar Isaksson.
Curt Bäckström also spoke.
“What shall we talk about?” he asked the congregation, just as Viktor Strandgård used to do.
Is he mad? thought Rebecka.
People squirmed uncomfortably. Nobody spoke. Finally Thomas Söderberg saved the situation.
“Talk about the power of intercession,” he said.
Anna-Maria nodded toward the television, where Curt was instructing the congregation.
“He was in the church praying when we were speaking to the pastors,” she said. “I know you used to be a member of the church. Did you know the pastors and the congregation?”
“Yes,” said Rebecka in a reluctant tone of voice, making it clear that this was something she didn’t want to go into.
Some of them in the purely biblical sense, she thought, and suddenly the camera angle altered and Thomas Söderberg was looking straight into the lens and into her eyes.
Rebecka is sitting in the visitors’ armchair in Thomas Söderberg’s office; she is crying. The midseason sales are on. The town is full of people. Handwritten signs in red proclaiming big reductions plaster the shop windows. The atmosphere makes you feel hollow inside.
“It feels as though He doesn’t love me,” she sobs.
She is talking about God.
“I feel like His stepchild,” she says. “A changeling.”
Thomas Söderberg smiles carefully and passes her a handkerchief. She blows her nose and snivels. Just turned eighteen and crying like a baby.
“Why can’t I hear His voice?” She sniffs. “You can hear Him and talk to Him every day. Sanna can hear Him. Viktor has even met Him….”
“But Viktor is special,” interjects Thomas Söderberg.
“Exactly,” howls Rebecka. “I’d just like to feel as if I were a little bit special too.”
Thomas Söderberg sits without speaking for a little while, as if he were listening inside himself for the right words.
“It’s all a matter of training, Rebecka,” he says. “You must believe me. In the beginning when I thought I could hear His voice, it was only my own imagination I heard.”
He puts his hands together before his breast, raises his eyes and says in a childish voice:
“Do you love me, God?”
Then he answers himself in a deep voice:
“Yes, Thomas, you know I do. Very, very much.”
Rebecka laughs through her tears. There is almost too much laughter. It bubbles over because she has cried so much she has created an empty space, ready to be filled by another feeling. Thomas joins in and laughs too. Then all of a sudden he becomes serious and gazes into her eyes for a long time.
“And you are special, Rebecka. Believe me, you are special.”
Then the tears come again. They roll silently down her cheeks. Thomas Söderberg reaches out and wipes them away. Strokes her lips with the palm of his hand. Rebecka is totally still. She didn’t want to frighten him away, she