Читать книгу Thomas Quick - Hannes Råstam - Страница 26

SÄTER HOSPITAL, THURSDAY, 28 AUGUST 2008

AS SOON AS Sture and I had made ourselves comfortable, I was keen to hear his feelings about his time in Grycksbo.

‘When I read the interviews with the boys in Grycksbo and all the other people who knew you back then, I got the impression that this was a very happy period in your life.’

‘Yes, that was a very good period,’ Sture confirmed. ‘Actually the best time of my life.’

Sture talked about various events, happy memories, his and Patrik’s dogs and Christmas celebrations with the Olofsson family.

‘But it all ended up as a complete disaster,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah, in the end it went terribly bad, the whole thing!’ said Sture, wringing his hands.

‘And the effects on Patrik’s family,’ I continued. ‘You worked your way in and then you hurt them terribly. Didn’t you?’

Sture nodded. Silent. I could see his mind working. Then he hid his face in his hands and was rocked by deep sobs.

‘Sorry, it’s just so terrible thinking about it,’ he managed to tell me through his convulsions.

I don’t think I have ever seen a grown man cry with such abandon. Like a child. It was touching and frightening at the same time.

I was concerned that I had ruined everything I had started to build up, but Sture soon pulled himself together, wiped his tears and went to the locked door.

‘Wait here! I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, pressing the button.

Before long a care assistant was there to let him out. A few moments later he came back with a big tin box containing hundreds of photographs from his childhood, adolescence and adult years. We sat there for a long time, looking through the photographs. Many were of Sture posing or indulging in horseplay for the camera.

The television producer in me only had one thought: How can I persuade Sture to lend me this box?

One of the photos was of a woman in her mid-thirties. She was sitting in a kitchen, smiling at the camera. Sture held the photo under my nose.

‘This is a bit odd. This is the only woman I ever had sex with,’ he said.

I sensed a certain pride in him.

‘The only one?’ I asked, dumbfounded. ‘Ever?’

‘Yeah. Just with her. There are some special reasons for it,’ he explained cryptically.

Long after, I learned that these ‘special reasons’ were that at a certain time in his life he dreamed of having children. Maybe he could manage to live with a woman despite his sexual orientation? The attempt was unsuccessful.

For my own part, that photograph and what Sture had just told me had another significance. Gry Storvik, I thought to myself. The woman working as a prostitute in Norway, who had been murdered and dumped in a car park with a man’s sperm inside her body. That woman in the photo is not Gry Storvik! With whom you claimed you had intercourse.

So why had Sture told me this intimate detail? Had he given himself away? Or was he consciously leading me down this train of thought? No, we had never spoken of either Gry Storvik or any other murder, so why would he think I knew about his claim to have had sexual intercourse with Gry? My thoughts swung back and forth along these lines as we continued looking through the photographs.

As my visit started drawing to a close I asked, in a slightly absentminded way, ‘Do you think you could lend me a few of your photos?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’d be happy to.’

I made do with five photographs: Sture in the kiosk; Sture and the guys on a hard rock outing; Sture looking with mock alarm into his empty wallet; Sture at the kitchen table; Sture posing outside the Olofssons’ holiday cottage, where allegedly Yenon Levi was murdered.

That Sture let me take the five photographs was a clear indication of trust. As we parted, I knew that Sture would participate in my documentary. One way or another.