The Intruder (31 page)

“No. I haven’t had a chance to call.” Thomas concluded with a slight cough.

“Or for whatever reason.”

There was complete silence on the line.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I … To be completely honest I don’t know what I should say. This is really awful. What do you say?”

Fredrik realized after a brief silence that the question was sincere, not rhetorical.

“I don’t think it’s that important what you say,” he said.

Thomas Bark mumbled something into the receiver.

“Excuse me?”

“You have a point there,” said Thomas Bark, more intelligibly. “Is there anyone with him now? I mean some friend or relative?”

“He’s with a relative.”

“Okay, that’s good.”

There was a scraping on the line.

“Hello?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“Have you and Henrik maintained contact even after he moved to Gotland?”

“Yes, absolutely. We don’t see each other as often, of course, but Henrik is in town at least once a month and I’ve been down to Fårö three or four times for sure. It doesn’t take long to fly down and, well…”

“How were things between him and Malin? I assume that he tells you about such things?”

Bark cleared his throat.

“You don’t suspect Henrik of this, do you?”

“No, he’s been ruled out.”

“Well, that’s good.”

There was silence on the line.

“Malin and Henrik?” said Fredrik.

“A pretty big question. You can’t be a little more precise?”

Answering that kind of question is not really that tricky, thought Fredrik.

“Were they doing okay, or has Henrik mentioned any problems during the past six months or year?”

“They were doing really well, I would say. Then they’ve been together a pretty long time and have two kids. A long relationship always has its ups and downs. But on the whole…”

“No real problems, you mean?”

“No.”

“Henrik hasn’t said anything about any relationships with other women?”

A brief silence before Bark answered with a question.

“You mean if he had something going on the side?”

“Yes.”

“Why would that be interesting?”

“One thought we are working on is that the murderer may have been driven by jealousy.”

“If you ask me, I think it seems to be pure madness.”

“It might be that way, too, of course,” Fredrik admitted. “But it’s still more likely that somehow or another this has a connection to Henrik or Malin.”

“Yes, of course,” mumbled Thomas.

“Are you aware of whether he had any other relationships, short-term or longer?”

“No.”

“He never talked about any such thing?”

“No, I can’t say that he did.”

“You don’t sound completely sure.”

“Well, I’m thinking about whether he hinted at anything, but … No.”

“And no names came up that could be interesting in such a context, even if he didn’t say anything concrete about them?”

“I don’t know, no … that is, there are an awful lot of names spinning around in our industry. Models, people from magazines, stylists, makeup artists … But nothing that…”

He clearly had difficulty finding the words.

“Not in that way,” he decided at last.

“So you mean that you haven’t had any boy talk about photo models or other women?”

Thomas Bark laughed.

“Sure, that has happened, but that sort of thing doesn’t mean anything.”

“Stina Hansson, does that name say anything to you?”

Bark thought a moment.

“No. Or wait. That was one of Henrik’s girlfriends … well, a hell of a long time ago.”

“One of Henrik’s girlfriends?”

“Yes, he probably had one or two before he met Malin.”

“It doesn’t sound as if it was a particularly steady relationship. Between Stina and Henrik, I mean.”

“That I don’t really know. I have the idea that they lived together awhile, so it must have been somewhat steady.”

“But you haven’t heard the name since then?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know whether Henrik saw her recently?”

“He…”

Thomas Bark interrupted himself and had a new tone in his voice when he continued.

“Do you mean she’s the one who did it, this Stina? That sounds completely crazy.”

“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 did 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?”