He’d brought along two colleagues, and as soon as the introductions were over, everyone sat down for the meeting.
Knutas began by giving a brief summary of the case and reporting on the latest developments.
‘Right now we’re putting all of our efforts into finding the woman who disappeared a week ago. Stina Ek.’
Kihlgård pushed his glasses up on to his forehead and leaned back in his chair.
‘As I understand it, you consider her a prime suspect. Is that right?’
‘Yes, at least the way things stand at the moment. But we’re not locking ourselves into any particular theory.’
‘That’s good. She could just as well be a victim. How are you going about searching for this Stina Ek? And by the way, do you have a photograph of her?’
‘Of course.’
Erik Sohlman got up and clicked on his computer to produce a picture on the screen at the front of the room. It was a photo of Stina Ek. She was a beautiful woman. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a white blouse, a pink cardigan and jeans.
Kihlgård studied the photo thoughtfully.
‘And you said that she’s thirty-seven years old? Christ, she doesn’t look more than twenty.’
‘The picture is a couple of years old,’ muttered Sohlman. ‘But she does look awfully young.’
‘Nobody has seen her since she left for a bicycle ride on Fårö, except for a crew member on the Stora Karlsö ferry,’ said Jacobsson. ‘He thinks that he saw her, but he’s not sure.’
Kihlgård shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off the photo.
‘We did find a few traces of her,’ Knutas reminded the others. ‘Her bag, plus what was found on Stora Karlsö.’
‘The last person to see Stina Ek was her husband Håkan. On Fårö, on the afternoon of Saturday, the twenty-eighth of June. Just before she left for her bike ride. After that no one has seen either her or her bicycle. In my opinion, that’s where we need to start. Where did Stina go? Who did she meet? What happened? Who is the man that she claimed to have met, the old classmate of hers?’ Kihlgård gave Knutas an enquiring glance. ‘Have you talked to him?’
‘No,’ sighed Knutas. ‘We don’t know who he is. Or what his name is.’
‘When were they in school together? In primary school? Middle school? Secondary school? Or even nursery school?’
‘Håkan Ek says that he thinks it was in middle school.’
‘But you haven’t checked up on that?’
The colour of Knutas’s face had grown significantly redder under Kihlgård’s cross-examination.
‘No,’ he exclaimed. ‘We haven’t done that yet because we didn’t think it was particularly urgent. We suspect that Stina Ek was lying about that too.’
‘But what if it’s true? What if she really did meet this old classmate? And then disappeared.’
‘She said on the phone that they were sitting in a restaurant called Kuten on Fårö,’ Knutas went on, annoyed. ‘And of course we investigated this thoroughly, since it was the last phone call she made, meaning that it was the last time anyone had direct contact with Stina. None of the employees remember seeing an Asian-looking woman in the restaurant on that Saturday afternoon. Right now all indications are that the purported meeting was nothing but a lie. It seems more and more likely that she is the perpetrator. The ribbon that was found in the hiding place on Stora Karlsö belongs to Stina. Then there’s her mysterious disappearance and the fabricated text messages. It all adds up.’
‘So what’s the motive?’
Knutas threw out his hands.
‘I have no idea! The gods only know what sort of intrigues have been going on with that group of people. They almost seem like a cult – the perfect scenario for bloodshed and revenge.’
Kihlgård reached for what had to be his third cinnamon roll, took a bite, and then swallowed before saying, ‘To sum up, we can conclude that we don’t know a fucking thing. We have no facts to go on. In other words, it’s an open question as to who’s the killer and who’s the victim. I suggest that my NCP colleagues and I get started at once on searching for Stina.’
‘Considering that a murder has actually been committed, shouldn’t we put out an APB on Stina Ek?’ said Wittberg. ‘I mean, to the general public? Since so many people have been in the area, both on Fårö and on Stora Karlsö, we might get some tips if we make use of the media.’
Silence fell over the room. Everyone was considering this suggestion.
‘You’re probably right,’ Knutas said at last. ‘That’s exactly what we should do.’
He fixed his eyes once again on the smiling woman in the photograph on the screen.
AFTER THE MEETING Knutas went to his office and closed the door. The room seemed stuffy and stifling. He opened a window. For once he felt in great need of a smoke. He usually just filled his pipe without lighting it, but right now he was feeling very irritated.
Lina had phoned to say that she was thinking of going to Stockholm for a couple of days now that the children were away at a music festival in Roskilde. She had time off from her job, and she didn’t feel like sitting at home, waiting for him to get off work.
He pushed away all thoughts of Lina and puffed on his pipe. In his mind’s eye he saw the mangled body of Sam Dahlberg. They were getting nowhere with the case. All of the interviews that they’d done had proved more or less useless. They had turned the Dahlberg family home on Norra Glasmästargatan in Terra Nova upside down but found nothing of interest. Outwardly everything seemed perfect: their marriage, the planned surprise trip to Florence, the fancy house. At the same time, Andrea Dahlberg was the last person to see her husband alive. It was entirely possible that she had gone up to the bird mountain with him and pushed him off. We’ve got to get to the bottom of things with her, thought Knutas. With that whole Terra Nova crowd.
The reinforcements from the NCP were definitely needed, even though he couldn’t help feeling irritated with Kihlgård. He asked questions and generally behaved as if he was the one in charge.
Knutas’s thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. It was the duty officer.
‘We had a call while you were in the meeting, but I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘A woman rang from Fårö. A Märta Gardell. She wanted to file a missing person report.’
‘And?’
‘Her brother Valter Olsson has been missing for several days. Maybe a whole week.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘He lives alone in a house in Hammars. He’s actually the closest neighbour to Ingmar Bergman’s house.’
KNUTAS IMMEDIATELY RANG Karin Jacobsson. She and Kihlgård were scheduled to go out to Fårö on the following day, so they could begin by paying a visit to Märta Gardell to talk about her brother’s disappearance. Knutas asked Karin to find out everything she could about the missing man, and try to see if there was some connection with the murder of Sam Dahlberg. Yet he knew from experience that most people who were reported missing usually turned up. People simply didn’t keep in very good touch with each other.
Feeling dejected, Knutas left police headquarters around lunchtime on Friday. He regretted that he was not going out to Fårö with Karin. Then he would at least have a sense of doing something constructive. Right now he seemed to be merely sitting in his office like some sodding administrator, ordering people around. He longed to be doing ordinary, respectable police footwork.
He was going to spend the weekend at home alone, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He closed the glass door of the Criminal Division with a sigh of relief. He was planning to have lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon working at home. He wanted to go through the transcripts from the latest interviews, and that was something he preferred to do at home. He would have the whole house to himself all weekend, so there was no risk of being interrupted.
Knutas felt anything but at ease with himself and his life in general
. On top of his personal problems, the murder investigation seemed to be going nowhere. It felt as if they were simply treading water. I need to have some time for myself, he thought as he crossed the car park outside police headquarters. Time to think.
He stopped at the little pizzeria on his way home. By now the lunchtime rush was over, and the place was empty. He ordered a calzone and a strong beer. He needed it. He exchanged a few words with the owner, but no more than necessary. After all these years, they knew each other well enough so that the pizzeria owner recognized when Knutas wanted to talk and when he didn’t.
Knutas found a secluded table next to the window at the back of the restaurant. He took a big gulp of the cold beer. That helped. He suddenly noticed that he smelled of sweat and glanced down at his shirt. Big damp patches had appeared under his arms. The heat was taking its toll on him. At least here in the restaurant it was cooler than outdoors. Listlessly he stared out of the window. Was he getting depressed? Was he overworked? In fact, there were several indications that he was burnt out. That was the term usually used, although he didn’t much care for it. What did it actually mean? But he’d been suffering from insomnia for weeks, and his sexual desire was completely gone. Not that he and Lina had been feeling particularly passionate lately, but they usually managed to have sex at least a few times a month. And normally it was great. But it had been a long time now. Neither of them felt like taking the initiative. Could it be so bad that they’d actually grown tired of each other? He would never have believed that. Lina had been the love of his life. Good Lord, am I already thinking in the past tense? he realized with alarm. He took another swallow of beer. He was definitely feeling out of sorts; maybe that was part of it. He was having a hard time sleeping, a hard time concentrating. Earlier in the week he’d gone to the ICA Supermarket to buy groceries. When he came out with a full shopping cart, he couldn’t for the life of him remember where he’d parked the car. It took him a good fifteen minutes to find it, but he still couldn’t recall parking it in that particular spot less than an hour earlier. He needed to pull himself together. He was like a spider in the web of the homicide investigation, expected to contribute a majority of the input. But right now he didn’t even have enough energy to deal with the pile of bills and other important papers he should be reading. He ignored them all, almost as if hoping that they’d simply disappear on their own. Friends and acquaintances phoned to ask if he’d like to get together, but their invitations felt burdensome, so he frequently declined, which only made the situation with Lina even worse. She thought he was being negative and boring. Every time the phone rang at home, he would jump. The phone had become a device that meant stress, and he wanted it to remain silent so he could retreat from everything and everyone. He wanted peace and quiet. He wanted to push away all the problems and decisions that needed to be dealt with. Put them in the deep-freeze and take them out later, when he felt better.
He had finished his beer by the time the fragrant, hot pizza arrived. He ordered another one. That was exactly what he needed.
After he had finished eating and had downed the last of his second beer, he noticed that he was feeling tipsy. He cursed himself. Here he was drinking strong beer in the middle of the day. What an idiot. What if someone saw him? Fortunately, he was still alone in the little restaurant. Probably no one would want to sit inside eating pizza in this heat. The front door stood open to let in some air. Fatigue suddenly overwhelmed him. He hadn’t slept properly for weeks. He ordered coffee and asked for the bill.
When he left the restaurant, he was a bit unsteady on his feet. And the contempt that he felt for himself grew.
JOHAN BERG WAS cooking dinner. He was itching to get back to his job. He sighed heavily, hoping that the feeling would pass. He couldn’t go around like this for the next six months. He thought with admiration of all the women who stayed at home with their children year after year. He was amazed they could stand it.
For the moment peace reigned in the house. Elin was watching a TV programme for kids while Anton sat on the floor, waving a rattle. Johan had showered and shaved and was sipping a glass of red wine that he’d placed within reach. Emma was at the gym and would be home soon.
The phone rang. He picked it up as he continued stirring the chicken casserole, redolent with garlic. It was Emma’s favourite dish.
He didn’t recognize the voice of the man on the phone.
‘Uh, hello, I’m sorry to bother you. This is Arne Gustavsson, and I live on Fårö. I’m a good friend of Emma’s parents. They gave me your number.’
‘Oh. Hello.’
Emma’s parents had lived for many years in the northern part of Fårö.
‘I’m calling about the pictures they’ve published on the Internet. You know, the ones of the missing woman.’
The missing woman? Johan had no idea what the man was talking about.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I know that you’re a journalist and so I talked to Sture, Emma’s father. We’ve been friends for a long time. Here on Fårö everybody knows everyone else, more or less. There aren’t that many of us living here, after all. And I thought that I should ring you. I’ve talked to the police too, of course, but Sture said that you’d definitely be interested.’
Johan took his eyes off the stove for a moment, picked up his glass of wine, and sat down on a chair at the kitchen table. What in the world was this guy babbling about?
‘What’s this about?’
‘Well, the thing is, a week ago I saw the missing woman – Stina Ek, whose picture is in all the papers – right outside where I live. She came cycling past, and my dog ran after her. I called out to her, but she just kept on going. I wanted to stop her because she was headed for some private land, and I didn’t know who she was.’
‘Private land?’
‘Yes, I live next to Ingmar Bergman’s property out here in Hammars. And it looked like she was headed in that direction.’
Johan slowly lowered his hand, still holding the glass. He was trying to gather his thoughts. He’d spent the whole day without listening to a single news broadcast, and he hadn’t turned on his computer since morning. He had no idea what the man was trying to tell him.
‘I’m sorry if I seem a bit confused,’ he apologized. ‘I’m in the middle of taking care of the kids and cooking dinner, so I haven’t a clue what happened today. Could you tell me what this is all about?’
‘Sure.’ The man on the phone cleared his throat. ‘The police are looking for a woman named Stina Ek. She was apparently part of the same group as Sam Dahlberg, who was found dead on Stora Karlsö. A bunch of friends from Visby had come over for the Bergman festival and then continued on to Stora Karlsö. One of the women, whose name is Stina Ek, disappeared from Fårö a week ago. Now the police want to find out any information they can about her, and I seem to have been the last person to see her before she vanished.’
‘When was that?’
‘Last Saturday. She came cycling past in the afternoon.’
‘I see.’
Johan was beginning to understand. At that moment Elin came in from the living room, sobbing. She wasn’t wearing a nappy, and she had wet herself. At the same time, Anton began crying.
‘Maybe it would be best for us to meet so you could explain things in more detail. Would that be OK?’
‘Sure, that’s no problem.’
‘How about tomorrow morning? Around eleven? I can come out to your place.’
‘All right. My wife and I will be home.’
Johan asked for directions, which he quickly jotted down while the sound of the children crying rose to a deafening level in the background.
He put down the phone and dealt with the chaos while thoughts whirled through his mind.
Fifteen minutes later calm was once again restored. He had just enough time to ring Pia before Emma came home.
He picked up the phone and tapped in her home number.
Maybe now she’d have time to talk.
Andrea tried to find some solace in these kinds of thoughts. At least the children still had her. If it weren’t for the kids, she would have preferred to lie down and die. In fact, she had actually toyed with that idea. She would go out to Sandviken on the east coast of Gotland, since she had such fond memories of that place. There she’d take off all her clothes except for a white cotton dress that was her favourite. She’d put on bright red lipstick, the kind that wouldn’t come off in the water. Paint her toenails the same colour, and then in the evening walk barefoot straight out into the water. Let the sea envelop her; let the water rush into all the nooks and crannies of her body, capturing her life’s breath and extinguishing it. She would be a lovely corpse, no question about that.
The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7) Page 15