The Dead Of Summer

by Mari Jungstedt

  ‘Haven’t you eaten anything today?’ asked Vera, watching with amusement as the pile of food on the table continued to grow.

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  Tanya stopped what she was doing and gave her older sister a coy smile and a wink.

  ‘What is it? Tell me,’ said Vera with a sigh. ‘Who is it now?’

  Her younger sister possessed a bewitching charm, and she knew how to make use of it. She regarded it as a sport to make men fall for her.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Tanya gloated as she plunked herself down on the chair across the table and began spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread.

  ‘Come on, cut it out. Tell me,’ Vera insisted. ‘I won’t say a word.’

  Tanya leaned forward, as if to confide in her sister.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes, I promise.’

  ‘Peter.’

  ‘Which Peter?’

  ‘Peter Hartmann, my philosophy teacher.’

  ‘Are you mad? You must be out of your mind – a teacher! How did this happen?’

  ‘Oh, you know, I stayed after school today to find out more about what’s going to be on the exam tomorrow. While we were standing there talking, I suddenly felt a tension between us. He must have felt the same thing because he touched my arm and asked me whether I’d like to go out for coffee. And then…’

  She stopped what she was saying as the door opened. Their father always came home earlier on Fridays, and it was out of the question to tell him anything about amorous adventures. Especially if they involved a teacher.

  ‘Hi, girls,’ cried Oleg cheerfully, standing in the kitchen doorway and smiling. He was holding an envelope in his hand.

  ‘What’s that, Pappa?’ asked Tanya. ‘Have you got good news?’

  Oleg slapped the envelope against the door frame.

  ‘You might say that,’ he replied gleefully. He came in, gave each of his daughters a kiss on the cheek and then sat down on a chair across from Tanya.

  ‘But I think I’ll just wait until Mamma comes home,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ they both protested. ‘Tell us what it’s about!’

  ‘OK.’

  All three of them pushed aside the food to clear a space on the table.

  Oleg opened the big envelope and took out a brochure and several photographs.

  He held up the brochure so the girls could see it. Vera leaned forward to get a better look.

  The picture showed a sandy beach with a bunch of reeds in the foreground. The sky was cornflower blue. It looked like a lovely beach somewhere in the Canary Islands. Then they read the text. ‘Gotska Sandön,’ it said.

  ‘What’s this all about? Are we going there?’ asked Tanya eagerly.

  Without replying, their father showed them the photographs, one after the other. A sunset over a shimmering sea; long expanses of shoreline, sandy beaches and pebble-strewn shores; deserted forests; enormous flocks of exotic birds; a ravine; and plump grey seals lazing on the rocks in the sunshine.

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh. ‘At last.’

  ‘But foreigners aren’t allowed there,’ Vera objected. ‘You said it was a restricted military area.’

  ‘It is, but I’ve been granted special dispensation. The county administrative board in Gotland has given me permission to go there because that’s where my great-grandfather is buried.’

  ‘That’s fantastic, Pappa.’

  Tanya gave him a big hug. Vera studied her father. Oleg had been talking about Gotska Sandön for as long as she could remember. He was a biologist and an active member of an ornithological association. In her eyes he seemed incomprehensibly obsessed with nature. Gotska Sandön was a nature reserve, and he had told them countless times about the amazing natural setting and the wealth of flora and birdlife on the island. Otherwise, she really didn’t know much about it. Except that it was part of Sweden, just off another island called Gotland.

  ‘Do we get to go with you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I haven’t said anything to your mother yet. I want to surprise her.’

  ‘Oh, what fun,’ said Tanya. ‘When are we going?’

  ‘In about three weeks. We leave for Sweden on 16 July and we’ll spend the night in Stockholm. It’s supposed to be such a beautiful city. From there we catch a plane to Visby on Gotland, and we’ll stay there overnight. Then we take the boat to Gotska Sandön for a week.’

  ‘But where are we going to stay?’ asked Tanya. ‘Is there a hotel there?’

  ‘No,’ said Oleg with a laugh. ‘It’s a protected nature reserve. There are only a few little cottages. The rest of the island is uninhabited. Nobody lives there year-round.’

  Vera was touched by the fact that he looked so happy. He’d been dreaming about this trip all his life.

  Now his dream was finally going to come true.

  TUESDAY, 11 JULY

  KARIN WOKE WITH a jolt and reached for the clock on the nightstand. 6.55. She lay in bed for a while, thinking about the events of the previous day. The image of Peter Bovide’s lacerated body appeared in her mind.

  Outwardly there seemed to be nothing remarkable about his life. Bovide was an ordinary father of two and part-owner of a construction company. The answers that his partner Johnny Ekwall had given seemed perfectly straightforward. Karin was looking forward to hearing the results of the search the police had carried out, both at Bovide’s home and at his company offices. The police had still been hard at work late last night.

  Jacobsson climbed out of bed. She and Knutas were both morning people. She wondered what else they shared. How would he have handled the investigation? She realized that she wouldn’t be able to resist ringing him again later in the day.

  She opened the window. Since she lived on the top floor, she could look out over the rooftops to the sea. Off in the distance she saw one of the Gotland ferries on its way out of Visby harbour.

  The floorboards creaked under her feet as she went out to the kitchen. Her cockatoo, Vincent, was awake, and he said, ‘Good morning,’ to her, in English. He was the only bird she knew who was bilingual. Karin had inherited him from an Australian friend who had moved back to her home country a few years earlier.

  She made herself some coffee and a couple of open sandwiches on rye. She fetched the newspaper from the letterbox and switched on the radio. The murder of Peter Bovide was of course the top story. She noted with relief that the news reports contained no surprises, only the information that the police had already revealed. After carefully reading everything written about the murder, she quickly scanned the rest of the newspaper. An article in Gotlands Tidningar caught her attention.

  The Russian ships bringing coal to the cement factory in Slite were going to double their deliveries in the autumn. They would be arriving in Slite harbour once a week instead of every two weeks, as they did now. The factory was apparently increasing its production, and coal was used in its furnaces. The stone quarry in Slite was one of the largest in Sweden.

  She poured herself another cup of coffee. Something about this article bothered her, but she couldn’t work out what it was. She read it again, this time paying more attention, but didn’t notice anything special.

  No doubt it would come to her later on.

  THE PHONE STARTED ringing even before Karin Jacobsson stepped into her office. She recognized at once the agitated voice of the director of tourism. No matter what the issue, Sonja Hedström always sounded as if it was a matter of life and death. Just the sound of her voice could raise the blood pressure and cause heart palpitations in even the calmest of people.

  ‘Hi, this is Sonja Hedström. We’ve got our hands full here with nervous campers and visitors. The public seem to think that this terrible murder has something to do with the fact that the man was staying at the campsite!’

  As usual, the tourism director took it for granted that whoever she happened to be calling had all the time in the world to talk to her. She didn’t ask whether she might be i
nterrupting anything, even though the police were in the middle of a homicide investigation. Jacobsson did her best not to sound too annoyed.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. It had already started yesterday morning, and since then it has escalated, getting worse and worse. And now the cancellations have started rolling in too. What if people decide they don’t dare come over here? What if the murderer strikes again, at some other tourist destination?’

  The high season was not very long on Gotland; it lasted about six weeks, from Midsummer’s Eve until early August. During that time, between 300,000 and 400,000 tourists visited the island, which had only about 60,000 permanent residents. So of course the income from these tourists was essential. Jacobsson could understand why Sonja Hedström was so concerned.

  ‘Tell the people who call that there’s no indication that the murder has anything to do with camping or that particular campsite,’ said Jacobsson. ‘On the other hand, we really can’t rule out anything, since we’ve just started the investigation.’

  ‘The only thing that will calm the public down is if the police catch the murderer. How close are you to making an arrest?’

  ‘Impossible to say at this point. The murder was committed only yesterday, you know.’

  ‘And you really have no idea what this is all about? There must be some sort of clues at the crime scene, and I’m sure that lots of people must have noticed something. I mean, he was shot, after all, and the shots must have been heard in a wide area, and Sudersand was fully booked. Now lots of campers have decided to cut short their holidays and leave. Nobody is going to want to camp there after this. Do you realize what a disaster this is for the owner of the campsite?’

  Great. Now it seemed Sonja Hedström also wanted to tell the police how to run a murder investigation.

  ‘At the moment my primary sympathies are not with the owner of the campsite,’ said Jacobsson dryly. ‘And of course there are witnesses and evidence. That’s exactly what I need to concentrate on right now instead of wasting time on unnecessary phone conversations.’

  ‘You don’t need to be so rude,’ said Sonja Hedström, clearly insulted. ‘Peter Bovide was a frequent visitor to the campsite, so it’s not so strange that rumours have been spreading; they say the murderer must hate people with caravans, or something like that. I just wanted to know what I can tell people to reassure them, at least a little bit, but I guess I’ll just have to wait until Anders gets back.’

  The tourism director’s voice was quivering with indignation, and with an abrupt click she hung up.

  The blood instantly raced through Jacobsson’s body, and with a flushed face she went out into the hall to get some water. That usually helped if she was feeling upset.

  As she was drinking from her plastic cup, Thomas Wittberg showed up in the hall. As usual, he was more suntanned than anyone else; he wore a white T-shirt to show off his tan, and a pair of worn jeans. His curly blond hair was longer than normal and hung down into his eyes, which were barely visible.

  ‘Hi, how’s it going? You’re looking like a thundercloud.’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Jacobsson said between clenched teeth. She turned her back to him as she filled another cup with water from the drinking fountain.

  ‘That bad, huh? Well, I’ve got some news. Would that help?’

  A couple of minutes later they were seated in Jacobsson’s office. Wittberg had dropped on to the chair facing her desk.

  ‘I just talked to the man who was captain of the Fårö ferry yesterday morning. He told me that on the first crossing at four a.m. there were only three cars on board. He always finds it amusing to study the passengers on the ferry, so that’s why he remembers exactly who was sitting in those three cars. If the perp wasn’t already on Fårö, then he would have had to take the four o’clock ferry across the sound. There aren’t any earlier boats, and the one at five o’clock would have been too late.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘In the first car there was a young couple who looked as if they’d been partying in Visby all night. The driver of the second car was a pregnant woman, and in the third was a man with a horse trailer hitched to his car.

  ‘Does the captain remember what kind of cars they were driving?’

  ‘That’s what’s so amazing. He not only remembers the colour and type of car, he can even tell us the licence plate numbers. He usually memorizes at least the letters.’

  ‘What a guy! He should be a detective,’ said Jacobsson with a laugh, forgetting her earlier annoyance. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Bo Karlström. Sixty years old. From Fårösund.’

  ‘Good. Get him in here ASAP. He might have actually seen the perp. And get started on looking for those people in the cars. We need to find out why they were going out to Fårö so early in the morning.’

  WHEN EMMA WINARVE drove into the car park near the Almedal library, part of her wanted to turn round and go straight back home. She cast a glance at her face in the mirror. She could see how pale she was under the sunburn, and there were bags under her eyes. Never mind. She was just going to leave Elin with Johan for a little while so she could go to the dentist. Nothing to get excited about.

  She got out and opened the boot of the car. With some effort, she hauled out the pushchair and unfolded it. On the rack underneath she put Elin’s bag, containing nappies, a baby bottle filled with water and a stuffed animal. Then she lifted her daughter out of the car and kissed her neck before she put her in the chair and stuck a dummy in her mouth. She straightened the child’s cotton dress and patted her hair, which was pulled back in a ponytail. It had grown long and now reached all the way down her back. They headed toward Almedalen. The lovely park was right outside the Visby ring wall, an oasis between the town and the harbour.

  The sun was blazing, and it was already hot. The park was relatively deserted this early in the morning. An elderly woman was sitting on a bench, tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks in the pond, and a couple of early-rising mothers and their toddlers had settled on blankets which they’d spread out on the grass. Otherwise Emma saw mostly tourists who were on their way to the boats in the harbour, or to their cars, carrying all their beach paraphernalia as they headed for the sea.

  Everything seemed so carefree in the summertime. The people she passed all seemed happy and relaxed as they chatted and laughed. It made her feel even more lonely and miserable. Was life so much easier for everyone else? Was there something wrong with her, something that somehow made her life more difficult?

  They had agreed to meet outside the Packhus restaurant on Strandgatan, but as she approached the ring wall she had already caught sight of Johan as he came through the gate opening. He was looking the other way and hadn’t yet seen her. She couldn’t help it if she still found him attractive. His dark hair, those sinewy arms, his unshaven cheeks. He was wearing shorts, which revealed that his long legs were slightly bowed, and of course the obligatory trainers. Johan had never been interested in fashion.

  For a few moments she pretended that nothing had changed between them, that they were simply about to meet and take a walk in the park with their daughter. That everything was fine.

  She had just managed to convince herself how that would feel when he turned his head and saw her. She flushed when she noticed how his face lit up.

  He waved and started towards her.

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘Hi,’ she replied, sounding a bit strained.

  He gave Elin a hug and planted a light kiss on Emma’s cheek before she managed to pull away.

  ‘Do you have time to keep us company for a bit?’

  Of course she did; her dentist appointment wasn’t for another half-hour.

  ‘So how are you doing?’ asked Johan as he took over the pushchair.

  ‘OK, I suppose.’

  They walked on in silence for a moment.

  ‘It’s so awful about that murder. Do you know anything more than what was reported in the papers?’

  ‘An
d on the radio and TV, you mean?’ he teased her. ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Pappa phoned. They were really upset because it happened so close to their house.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not surprised at their reaction. Although I don’t think they need to be scared. The murderer has probably left the island by now.’

  The house belonging to Emma’s parents was quite isolated, located on Fårö’s north-eastern promontory.

  ‘So I guess you’re really under a lot of pressure right now.’

  She studied his profile.

  ‘Yes, but don’t worry. We’ve got to do a follow-up report today, of course, but we’ll make it. You’ll be done around eleven, right?’

  Emma noticed a trace of impatience in Johan’s dark-brown eyes, which annoyed her. He always seemed to think his job was so damn important.

  ‘Sure, probably even a little earlier.’

  ‘All right. That’ll be fine then.’

  Emma took a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and lit one.

  ‘I thought you’d given up.’

  ‘I did, but I’ve started again,’ she snapped.

  She hadn’t intended to sound so sharp, but it was too late now. She avoided meeting his eye.

  ‘You don’t need to be so grumpy. I didn’t mean it as a criticism.’

  It was impossible to ignore the resignation in his voice. And it drove her crazy. As if all it took was for her to light up one cigarette to ruin everything. That’s how bad things were between them. They just couldn’t get along. After five minutes, it was all spoiled.

  They had reached the path that wound its way along the harbour. The waves were rolling in, calmly and steadily lapping against the pebbles on the beach. Now and then they met a bicyclist heading towards town.

  Suddenly Emma had a great urge to be somewhere else. She stopped abruptly.

  ‘I’ve got to go now.’

  ‘Already?’ Johan cast a glance at his watch.

  ‘Yes.’ She pressed her lips together for a second. ‘Just keep on going, it’s great for Elin to be near the water when there’s a cool breeze blowing. I’ll see you around eleven, back at Almedal library, OK?’