The Crow Girl Read Online Free Page B

‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yes,’ Ann-Britt said. ‘Mikael just called to say he probably won’t make the afternoon flight, but should be at Arlanda first thing tomorrow morning. He asked me to say that he’d like it if you stayed at his apartment tonight. So you have time to see each other tomorrow.’
    Sofia stopped with her hand on the door frame.
    ‘Hmm, when’s my first appointment today?’ She felt annoyed at having to change her plans. She had been thinking of surprising Mikael with dinner at the Gondolen restaurant, but as usual he had upset her plans.
    ‘Nine o’clock, then you’ve got two more this afternoon.’
    ‘Who’s first?’
    ‘Carolina Glanz. According to the papers she’s just got a job as a presenter, travelling around the world interviewing celebrities. Isn’t that funny?’
    Ann-Britt shook her head and let out a deep sigh.
    Carolina Glanz had crashed into the nation’s consciousness on one of the many talent shows that filled the television schedules. She may not have had much of a singing voice, but according to the jury she had the necessary star quality. She had spent the winter and spring appearing at small nightclubs, lip-syncing to a song that a less beautiful girl with a stronger voice had recorded. Carolina had got a lot of exposure in the evening tabloids, and the scandals had followed, one after another.
    Now that the media’s interest was focused elsewhere she had started to question herself and her choice of career.
    Sofia didn’t like coaching pseudo-celebrities, and had trouble motivating herself for the sessions, even if she needed the money. She felt she was wasting her time. Her talents were better employed seeing clients who were seriously in need of help.
    She’d much rather deal with real people.
    Sofia sat down at her desk and called Huddinge straight away. Bringing forward the appointment would mean that Sofia only had an hour or so to prepare, and when she put the phone down she pulled out her files on Tyra Mäkelä.
    All in all, almost five hundred pages, a bundle of paper that would at least double in size before the case was finished.
    She had read everything twice from cover to cover, and now concentrated on the central aspects. Tyra Mäkelä’s mental state.
    Expert opinion was divided. The psychiatrist in charge of the investigation, along with the counsellors and one of the psychologists, was in favour of imprisonment. But two psychologists were opposed to this, and advocated secure psychiatric care.
    Sofia’s task was to get them to unite around a final verdict, and she realised it wasn’t going to be easy.
    Together with her husband, Tyra Mäkelä had been found guilty of the murder of their eleven-year-old adopted son. The boy had been diagnosed with fragile X syndrome, a disability that led to both physical and mental problems. The family had lived an isolated existence in a house out in the country. The forensic evidence was conclusive, and documented the cruelty the boy had been subjected to. Traces of excrement were found in his lungs and stomach, he had cigarette burns, and he had been beaten with the hose of a vacuum cleaner.
    The body had been found in a patch of woodland not far from the house.
    The case had got a lot of media coverage, not least because the boy’s mother was involved. An almost unanimous general public, led by several vociferous and influential politicians and journalists, was demanding the harshest punishment available under the law. Tyra Mäkelä should be sent to Hinseberg Prison for as long as was legally possible.
    But Sofia knew that secure psychiatric care often meant that the prisoner ended up being locked away for longer than if they served a prison sentence.
    Could Tyra Mäkelä be regarded as mentally competent at the time of the abuse? The evidence suggested that the boy had suffered at least three years of torture.
    Real people’s problems.
    Sofia wrote a list of questions that she wanted to discuss with the