“Stina is one of many leads we are working on. It doesn’t mean that she’s guilty.”
“But you’re looking for a jealous ex?”
“That’s one angle.”
“I see, do such things happen? It sounds like a movie.”
“It happens. But you’re right. That a woman, as it appears to be in this case, murders out of jealousy is extremely uncommon. Most often it’s men. But as I said, we don’t even know if that’s how it fits together.”
“No, I understand.”
Fredrik could hear Thomas Bark’s breathing on the line.
“I see, well then, was there anything else?”
“You never answered the question of whether Henrik had seen her since he moved back to Gotland.”
“No, exactly, exactly. Now as far as I know. He hasn’t mentioned her.”
“Okay, then I won’t disturb you any longer.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Yes, just one last question,” said Fredrik. “Henrik has not mentioned any other conflicts, anyone he’s had a falling out with, quarreled with about a job or about money?”
“No, not that sort of thing, either. Henrik is not a guy who gets into trouble. He always works hard to do his best. If there’s ever any trouble you can be very sure that he met up with a real asshole.”
“But no one like that has shown up this year?”
“Not that I know about.”
Fredrik thanked him and hung up. He had not found out much. Practically speaking nothing. But he had a definite feeling that he had not been told everything.
* * *
Ninni heard the front door open and shouted a hi out toward the hall. There was a muffled hi back, then silence while Fredrik untied his shoes.
“You’re home really late.”
She got no answer. She saw Fredrik pass the doorway like a shadow before she heard his steps on the stairs, heavy but steady. They continued across the floor upstairs. The creaking of the floorboards was clearly heard through the ceiling. Then there was silence. Ninni pricked her ears. She thought he was on his way into Simon’s room, but it was completely silent up there.
Ninni looked at the pile of papers lying in front of her on the table. She thought she would be done with them this evening, but had not made it more than halfway. The TV had stayed on a little too long.
It was simpler with ordinary tests. When the students wrote essays in English it sometimes got so complicated that in the end the submitted papers contained more red pen than pencil. Ninni mostly felt like a butcher out for some poor young person’s self-confidence and desire to learn. But many were also extremely advanced. Whatever the average skills in the country might be, there were a number of Swedish children who were very good at English, that couldn’t be denied.
It was ten minutes to eleven. It was high time to nag Simon into bed. She gathered up the essays in a neat pile, the uncorrected ones on top, stood, and went upstairs.
“Fredrik,” she called halfway up the stairs.
No answer.
When she came into the bedroom he was lying stretched out across the bed with his clothes on, his face turned toward the wall.
“Fredrik?”
For a moment she was scared. Then she saw that he was breathing. He was probably just worn-out. Completely-worn out, clearly. How tired were you if you didn’t even have the energy to stop and say hi properly? And he had driven home from Visby. A forty-five-minute drive, alone in the car, verging on unconscious.
59.
Several new pictures had come up on the whiteboard in the windowless conference room, but two of them in particular attracted Fredrik’s attention. They depicted two heads. It was not hard to understand whose, even if the hair had been shaved off and the skin on the skulls was turned down over the faces. Only splinters remained of the upper parts of the crania. In several places the bone was crushed and pressed in, and the holes were of the same size and shape as a hammerhead.
Fredrik’s own head was ringing, just like the other evening in the garden. He turned his eyes away from the macabre images. The sound was imaginary, created in his head just like the memory of how he fell out at Östergarnsholme. The memory that could not possibly be a memory. He peeked at the pictures from the corner of his eye and wondered how having them posted would help them solve the crime.
It was two and a half days since SOS Alarm had taken the call from Henrik Kjellander. The lineup was not really the same as over the weekend. Gustav was missing, as was Eva Karlén.
Fredrik leaned closer to Sara and asked if she had seen Gustav.
“He’s not coming in today.”
“Is he sick?”
“Family reasons.”
The test results. Was it today they would get the news? Fredrik was not certain. He fingered his cell phone and wondered whether he should call, but realized that he would not have time before the meeting. Besides, calling would probably only be a disturbance. Better to call this evening. Or maybe tomorrow, if Gustav was still not back at work.
He looked at the whiteboard again. Of the other pictures that had been put up, five were from the crime scene, four were enlarged passport photos that depicted Stina Hansson and Henrik Kjellander’s half sisters on Fårö and their father.
“Okay, let’s get going, with a little luck we’ll have a crime-scene technician here, too,” said Göran, setting his glasses down on the tabletop.
He pointed at the passport picture on the whiteboard that depicted Stina Hansson.
“Hansson is still behind bars, held for homicide. There are remand hearings tomorrow. We still have no technical evidence, but there’s a lot that suggests that it’s her. Besides, she’s the woman without an alibi. So far we have not managed to find any person or circumstance that can support that she has been where she says she’s been, neither when the Kalbjerga house was booked in Uppsala or at the time of the murders.”
Peter Klint nodded at Göran, raising one index finger in the air.
“And that is exactly why we have to keep working,” he said. “Find a witness who may have seen her, talked with her, anything at all that can refute or confirm the information she’s given us. She was a little wobbly on a few points during the interview, but no worse than if she simply didn’t remember.”
The prosecutor slowly ran his gaze over the police officers in the room as he spoke.
“If what Stina Hansson says is true, reasonably there ought to be something that can link her to her home at a certain point in time, an Internet connection, a cell phone or landline call, a neighbor who heard flushing in the pipes. Something. On the other hand, if she is not telling the truth she can not possibly have been in Uppsala to book and pay for the house, then also have been in the house, taken Ellen Kjellander with her in the car from the school, and committed the murders without having been seen or left a single trace on any of those occasions. And someone ought to have seen her car on Fårö. At the time of the murders it was dented on one fender and easy to identify. Someone has definitely seen it, but not made the connection.”
Göran turned back to the pictures on the board.
“Our other cluster of possible murderers is the three Voglers. All of them have alibis, of course, but these three and the sisters’ husbands give each other alibis back and forth. There is a motive.”
Again Peter Klint’s eyebrows went up and his finger in the air.
“We’ve talked about that inheritance before. I don’t think Henrik Kjellander has much of a case, in purely legal terms.”
Göran rubbed his forehead thoughtfully.
“In any event, the Voglers’ alibis must be checked carefully. As long as we haven’t found any outsider who can support their alibis they will remain as case files.”
Göran picked his glasses up from the table.
“What else do we have?” he said while he put them on.
He quickly browsed through his notes.
“Exactly! The former owner of the house. How di
d that go?”
He looked at Fredrik.
“He was at work until seven fifteen on Friday. There were a dozen associates who could confirm that. I’ve spoken with two of them. Otherwise he said he gave Henrik all the keys at the closing.”
“Then we can remove him,” said Göran, lowering his eyes toward his papers.
“The passenger lists have not produced anything really interesting so far. We will continue to check the departures. Destination Gotland’s personnel will note the license plate numbers of vehicles with blond women traveling alone. I hope that works as it should. Hotels and hostels have given a few leads that have been followed up, but nothing hot there, either.”
He turned over the paper.
“I guess I’ll take the technical aspects that I’m aware of, because Eva isn’t here. The shoe that left the print in the hall is a Vans brand. That’s a simple cloth shoe without laces with a rubber edge around it. We haven’t found any shoes of that type in the house search of Stina Hansson. In asking around among coworkers, friends, and neighbors, no one has reported having seen her in such shoes, either.”
Göran interrupted himself briefly, pulled out his chair, and sat down for the first time during the meeting.
“Eva has secured a print on the log pile down by the mailboxes. It’s presumably from the same kind of shoe, but it’s a very poor print. It indicates, anyway, that Eva was right in her assumption that the murderer hid there while keeping an eye on the house. We’ve got the shampoo profile on the wad of hair. It shows that the hair may have come from Stina Hansson, but as you know that doesn’t count as technical evidence in court. We’ll have to wait and see if they can produce DNA, but that will take another few days.”
The door to the room opened and everyone turned in that direction. Eva came in with a green plastic folder in her hand.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, catching her breath.
She had evidently hurried up the stairs.
“I just went through the technical findings,” said Göran. “Do you have anything new?”
“Yes, I have something interesting here,” she said, holding up the folder. “A picture of the perpetrator.”
There was total silence in the room. Everyone watched as Eva took a printout on shiny photo paper from the folder and handed it over to Göran. The head of the squad inspected the picture and then handed it on to the prosecutor.
“I got a tip that a number of alarms with cameras have an internal control function,” Eva related while Klint inspected the picture. “Even if the alarm is not activated, the cameras take a still picture once a minute that is stored in the memory, but which are then deleted, or rather written over, when the alarm is activated and starts storing video images. There is no function on the menu to display these images, but with a little support from the manufacturer I’ve managed to extract them.”
“Is this the only one you produced?” he asked.
“No,” said Eva, “but the only one that shows the perpetrator.”
“So now we have an exact time,” said Göran. “I assume that you’ve checked that the alarm’s clock was right?”
“I’ve done that,” said Eva with a smile.
Fredrik got the picture after the prosecutor. In the bottom right-hand corner the date and time were indicated: 18:36:23. The picture covered the whole hall with the front door farthest away in the picture. In the middle of the picture someone in a light jacket or sweatshirt with a hood was seen leaning over Malin Andersson. The hood on the jacket was pulled up. It was not possible to see any of the hair or face, but it was quite obviously a woman. The shoulders were narrow, the hips broader, and in the forward-leaning position the rear end had a form that Fredrik at least had never seen on a man. The color reproduction was poor and leaned sharply in the blue-violet direction. Presumably the jacket, or sweatshirt, was light gray or possibly pink. On the back it said NYU in big letters. The person in the picture had both arms in front of her, so probably it had been taken just when a blow struck Malin Andersson’s head.
“Bring in Henrik Kjellander for questioning,” said Klint. “Maybe he knows who it is.”
Fredrik handed the picture over to Sara. He had a hard time taking his eyes from it. Far out on the left-hand edge of the picture the head of a little boy was visible and a pair of terrified, wide-open eyes.
60.
Henrik Kjellander pushed back his hair with a hand that was clearly shaking. It was as if the seriousness in the room had affected him before they even said why they had asked him to come in.
Fredrik was again sitting in front of Henrik in the big interview room at the far end of the corridor, this time along with Sara Oskarsson. Henrik appeared to be feeling a little better than on Saturday, or at least seemed more present, which was not necessarily the same thing.
Fredrik set the green plastic folder out on the table with the printed-out photo from the surveillance camera upside down.
“We have a picture we want to show you,” said Fredrik.
Henrik looked worriedly at the folder under Fredrik’s hand.
“Is it a suspect?” he said.
“The picture comes from one of the cameras that are connected to the alarm in the house.”
Henrik looked at Fredrik with surprise. It was evident that he did not really understand how it all fit together and Fredrik explained the situation with the control function that Eva Karlén had discovered.
“I see, so … what does it show?”
“The picture shows the perpetrator.”
Henrik gave a start, almost jumping backward in the chair.
“The one who … You’re quite sure of that?”
“Yes, there is no doubt that this is the perpetrator,” said Fredrik. “But the person in the picture has his or her back turned toward the camera. It’s not possible to identify him or her. Or in any case, we can’t. We thought that possibly you could help us.”
Henrik raised his hand as if to push back his hair again, but the movement stopped level with his forehead without his fingers touching his hair.
“The picture was taken while the crime was committed,” Sara clarified. “We understand that it may be extremely hard for you to look at this. You don’t see much of Malin in the picture, but even so … And, of course, it’s up to you whether you want to look at it.”
“Up to me?” said Henrik.
He took a deep breath and audibly exhaled through his nose.
“Do I have any choice, I mean…”
He fell silent and looked first at Sara and then at Fredrik.
“This may be decisive,” said Sara.
Henrik forced a tight smile and cleared his throat.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s just as well to get it over with.”
Fredrik nodded, took out the picture, and placed it in front of Henrik.
“But,” he said immediately and then abruptly fell silent.
He looked up at Fredrik and Sara, then at the picture again.
“But that’s … that’s Maria. Or I think it’s her sweatshirt. I don’t get it. It can’t be Maria, can it?”
No, it could not be Maria, thought Fredrik, they had already ruled her out. It could not be her. Assuming that the neighbor’s information was correct.
Henrik laughed.
“Or what? This is absurd. It’s impossible.”
He reached out his hand and carefully brushed the picture as if the touch could reveal something more.
“It just can’t be her,” he said again.
“You’re sure that this is her sweatshirt?” said Sara.
“Yes,” he said with clear certainty. “She’s been wearing it ever since she got here. It doesn’t show very well on the picture, but it’s pink … those letters … yes, that’s it. There’s a zipper in front.”
But if it wasn’t Maria in the picture, thought Fredrik, why did the murderer have her sweatshirt on?
“When did you last see her wear the sweatshirt?”
�
��No,” Henrik screamed loudly.
Both Fredrik and Sara recoiled from the sudden outburst.
“No, no, no,” whimpered Henrik.
He leaned over the table and tenderly stroked his fingers over the left edge of the picture, right next to his son’s staring eyes.
“No, no, no.”
His eyes filled with tears and despair cut into Henrik’s words.
“He’s alive. Look, he’s alive.”
61.
Fifteen minutes later Fredrik and Sara were standing in Göran Eide’s office. The sky had turned cloudy above the courtyard’s glass covering. The roof lighting formed shadows on their faces.
“It can’t be Maria Andersson,” said Fredrik. “The picture was taken at six thirty-six and Ann-Katrin Wedin saw Maria and Ellen pass before the Channel 4 local news had started. She’s quite sure of that.”
“You’ve double-checked it?”
“Yes.”
Eva had checked the alarm’s time indicator yet again. Fredrik had called and questioned the neighbor once more to rule out any possible mistake. Sara had even checked with TV4 that the program truly had been broadcast at the scheduled time.
“The perpetrator may have put on the sweatshirt to conceal her own clothes,” Göran suggested.
“Or to get Malin Andersson to think it was Maria who had come back,” said Fredrik. “That could explain how she got in.”
Sara picked up the picture, which was lying on Göran’s desk.
“But then she must have been certain that it was Maria’s sweatshirt.”
“We can forget about the motive right now,” said Göran. “We have a picture of a sweatshirt that, if it’s not burned up, is probably lying in a trash barrel or wastebasket somewhere here on Gotland. Or possibly tossed by a road somewhere. The perpetrator must have taken it with her in her car, otherwise we would have found it. And she can hardly have risked keeping it in the car very long.”
“If we find it that may be the key that connects the perpetrator with Malin and Axel,” said Sara.
“I’ll go to the media with it, so maybe we’ll get a little help,” said Göran. “You can question Maria and try to get some clarity in how the perpetrator may have acquired the sweatshirt.”
The Intruder Page 25