Helene Tursten: The Glass Devil

“But first I’m going to tell you about our visit to the cottage. Here, too, we found the key under a pot by the steps. Then we went inside. And there she showed me the secret space behind the panel. A rifle with cartridges was hidden there. Rebecka told me that her brother was in the process of moving into the cottage and that the rifle was probably his. He had brought down a load of things a few days earlier. He was going to come again the next day, but we weren’t going to stay that long.

“We continued toward Stockholm in the afternoon and had a nice drive through Sweden. And our days in Stockholm were also completely fantastic. Neither of us realized that that was the beginning of the end.”

Christian fell silent and swallowed hard. When he started speaking again, his tone was neutral, almost a monotone.

“We met with the representative of Save the Children. They initiated us in the problems surrounding the largest pedophile ring that had ever been discovered in the Nordic countries. Our assignment was to collect information and uncover the identities of the participants. We really discovered all but two but to the Save the Children people, we said that there were five whom we hadn’t been able to trace.”

Rebecka said something that was inaudible to Irene and Glen, and Lefévre turned his head in her direction. They heard him answer her soothingly, as if he were speaking to a child, “Yes, sweetheart. It’s necessary. They need to know everything. I promise that it will only be the two of them. No one else.”

Neither Glen nor Irene had time to think about what he had said before he turned back to the camera and continued.

“We began our work and penetrated the pedophile ring without being discovered. In the beginning I didn’t notice anything, but after a while Rebecka began to change. She. . became sick. I got in touch with Dr. Fischer. He said that she had developed depression and that it ran in the family. Before this, I hadn’t known that Rebecka’s mother suffered from depression. Naturally, I wondered why she had become sick. I had a feeling that it had to do with the job we were doing for Save the Children. We talked about it one night, and Rebecka started to tell me everything.”

A faint outcry was heard from Rebecka, but Christian just said, “Yes, sweetheart.” He looked quickly in her direction but continued. “As an admission ticket to the pedophile ring, each participant had to submit some of their own material. Films or pictures. One of the participants who we didn’t officially reveal called himself Peter and offered this film.”

Christian typed on the keyboard in front of him and the screen flickered to life.

Irene began to feel queasy. They saw a grown man force himself on a small girl from behind as she crouched on all fours. Of course, he didn’t show his face. She was only seven or eight years old. The girl kneeled there, immobile, like an animal about to be slaughtered. Only the man’s sexual movements made her body move. She turned her head and looked straight into the camera.

The realization of the girl’s identity struck Irene like a blow to the head. She had a hard time breathing. Before she had collected herself enough to say anything, Christian stopped the film, reappeared on screen himself, and confirmed what she had known for a few seconds: “The little girl in the picture is Rebecka. The man who is forcing himself on her is her father. The camera operator is her brother, Jacob.”

His face on the screen looked as if it had been carved from stone. His voice was completely toneless.

“Rebecka was eight years old when this film was made. Jacob was fourteen. Both he and his father had been sexually assaulting her for three years, since she was five years old. Sten Schyttelius lost interest when she turned eleven, because she reached puberty early. However, Jacob’s interest didn’t fade: just the opposite. He abused her systematically until he was drafted by the army, way up in northern Sweden. Rebecka had to have an abortion when she was thirteen. Pappa Pastor drilled into her that if she told anyone, God’s wrath would descend on her. She would be breaking the commandment to honor and love your father and mother. That, of course, included her brother as well.”

Christian’s voice, broke from anger or sorrow, but then he started speaking again.

“Rebecka’s mother knew what was going on but didn’t do anything to help her. In her depression, she hid from the truth. And Pappa Pastor didn’t forget to tell Rebecka that if she didn’t cooperate, her poor, sick, frail mother would have to. Little Rebecka was forced to make herself available to the men of the family.”

Without changing his expression, Christian took a drink from his glass. Tonelessly, he said, “Now we come to ‘Pan’s’ contribution. That’s the Internet name he adopted.”

The screen flickered again. This time they saw a white man having sexual intercourse with a small African girl. Her eyes were just as large and afraid as Rebecka’s had been. They were bright from tears, but she wasn’t crying. It was appalling to see the fear and pain in her wide-open eyes. She was very thin; she was perhaps seven years old. They lay in a narrow bed, with only a pillow and a sheet. A mosquito net, glimpsed over the headboard of the bed, had been pulled away so that everything could be filmed.

The film stopped and Christian returned to the screen.

“Pan was Jacob Schyttelius. Rebecka understood right away that Jacob and her father had abused the children they were supposed to be helping when they were in Africa in September touring children’s villages. This film showed up on the pedophile ring’s Web site just a few days after they returned home, and Pan was then accepted into the group.”

He made an ironic grimace, which was replaced by a sorrowful, resigned expression.

“That was the last straw for Rebecka. She became very sick. That was when she was admitted to the hospital for treatment the first time. After that. . nothing was the same as it had been. She couldn’t have sex, she couldn’t even touch me. . she retreated from me. In some periods, she was better and could function but between us. . it didn’t work any more. Of course she loved me. . but I couldn’t reach her any more. She had enough to contend with, dealing with the demons that had come to life when she saw the films. As she described it, I understood that she had managed to repress most of what had happened. She hadn’t wanted to remember, and then she didn’t. But everything rose to the surface after she saw these films. She never told Dr. Fischer what lay behind her illness; he suspected one thing and another.

“Fischer said that I should be patient, but the months passed. Understandably, she didn’t want to go home at Christmas, so she called and said she had the flu. We drove up to Edinburgh, and it went pretty well. But she wanted to return home-to London, that is-again after three days. She couldn’t keep up the appearance of normality. During January and February, she continued to get worse. I realized that she would never recover. That’s when I decided to kill those damn pigs. They deserved it. I took their lives, but they had already taken Rebecka’s. When she was little, they were supposed to protect her from evil, but they were the ones who destroyed her.”

Rebecka was moaning audibly, but Christian seemed not to hear. He stared right into the camera without blinking.

“I decided to kill them. I thought she would get better again if they vanished. That she would feel some sort of. . revenge fulfillment. I didn’t want to travel under my own name, in case some smart cop, like you, came up with the idea of checking the passenger lists for the days in question. So I stole my cousin’s passport when I was at Rosslyn Castle in March. We’re enough alike that I could pass through Customs with it, especially if I put my hair up in a ponytail rather than leaving it down like John Lennon.