Unseen (31 page)

“Hagman’s alibi is based on statements from his son and a neighbor. The neighbor confirms that they were out emptying nets when the first murder was committed. When Frida Lindh was killed, Hagman’s son was visiting him. Both claim to have been asleep at the time of the murder, since it happened in the middle of the night. When the last murder occurred, he was out fishing with the same neighbor who had been emptying nets with him before. That was on the night before Midsummer. After that they celebrated at the neighbor’s house, and Hagman passed out on the couch.”

“What about Nordström?”

“Apparently he has no alibi for the first murder,” Sohlman went on. “He was at the party at Helena Hillerström’s summer house until close to three in the morning. Then he shared a cab as far as Visby with Beata and John Dunmar. Afterward, he continued on to his house. He arrived home just before four in the morning. He lives in Brissund. The taxi driver confirms that he got out of the cab at his house and that he was very drunk. It seems highly unlikely, to put it mildly, that he would then go back forty miles to the Hillerström cabin and wait on the beach to kill Helena. Besides, he flew to Copenhagen that very same day. He took a flight from Visby to Stockholm in the afternoon. And when the other two murders were committed, he wasn’t even on Gotland. When Frida Lindh was killed, he was in Paris, and when Gunilla Olsson died, he was in Stockholm. No one saw Kristian Nordström in the Monk’s Cellar on the night that Frida Lindh was killed. They should have recognized him. He could have waited for her on the way home. That’s a possibility. On the other hand, the man that Frida was talking to at the bar still hasn’t come forward, and that puts him at the top of the list of suspects. He was Swedish, and no one could have avoided hearing all the appeals for him to notify the police.”

“Well, there could be other reasons why he hasn’t come forward. Maybe he has something to hide that has nothing to do with all this,” said Jacobsson.

“Sure, that’s always possible,” Sohlman admitted.

“The woman who sells Gunilla Olsson’s pottery told us that she met a man about thirty-five years old at Gunilla’s house. He was tall and good-looking,” said Knutas. “He introduced himself as Henrik. He didn’t have a Gotland accent. She said he sounded like a Stockholmer. Frida Lindh’s women friends reported that the man Frida met at the Monk’s Cellar was named Henrik. The bartender said that the man sitting with her at the bar spoke with a Stockholm accent. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not from here. He could be from Gotland but moved to the mainland long ago. Maybe one of his parents is from the mainland. That could explain why he doesn’t have a Gotland accent, or he may have disguised his accent so as not to be recognized. Of course it’s also possible that he’s from the mainland but knows the island well and is living over here at the moment. I’m leaning more toward the idea that we need to be looking for someone who’s from the island. If we at least start with that idea, what do we know about the killer? His name may be Henrik. He’s tall, and he wears a size 11½ shoe. He’s between thirty and forty years old, and he suffers from asthma. There are only about fifty-eight thousand of us living here on the island. There can’t be many who fit that description. By now we also have so much information from witnesses about this man that we should be able to create a sketch of him. Maybe it’s time we did that.”

“I disagree,” said Kihlgård. “It would only start a panic.”

A murmur of agreement was heard from several of those sitting around the table.

“Does anyone have a better suggestion?” asked Knutas, throwing out his arms. “All indications are that the murderer is here on the island. A serial killer, who might strike again at any time. We’ve found the clothing, but what else do we really have? We can’t come up with any connection between the victims that seems to have any significance for the investigation. There are no witnesses to any of the murders. He struck when the victims were alone, and no one was nearby. In each instance, he disappeared fast as lightning. Nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything. At the same time, plenty of people must have seen him. He’s been all over the island, for God’s sake. Fröjel, Visby, När, Nisseviken. He’s been to an inn and out at the beach; he’s been walking around town and out at När. A sketch of him might make it possible for us to catch him quickly.”

“That seems to be the only alternative,” agreed Sohlman. “We have to do something extreme. He could kill again at any time. There was only a week between the last two murders. Maybe now it will be only a few days before he strikes again. We’re running out of time.”

“That’s fucking crazy,” thundered Kihlgård. “What do you think will happen when people see that sketch? They’ll associate it with practically everyone they know. We’ll be completely flooded with tips. It’ll be sheer hysteria, I can promise you that. Then we’ll be the ones responsible. And how are we going to find time to deal with it all? We already have our hands full trying to nail down this lunatic.”

“What would we base the sketch on?” Jacobsson asked. “We have two witnesses who have seen a person who might be the perpetrator: the woman who sold Gunilla Olsson’s pottery and the neighbor who noticed a man near her house. Then we have Frida Lindh’s women friends, of course, who saw the man at the bar, but we still don’t know if he could be the perp. That’s just a suspicion. How much do their accounts coincide? And what happens if they’re wrong? There are two big risks with using a sketch. First, the witnesses may have remembered things wrong, so we’ll be putting out a picture that doesn’t gibe with reality. Second, it’s possible that they didn’t see the killer at all. They may have seen someone else instead. I think the risks are too great to use a sketch. It seems stupid to resort to something so drastic right now.”

“Drastic?” Knutas repeated, his voice filled with sarcasm. “Is it so strange that we need to resort to drastic measures in this case? We have three homicides on our hands. An entire island paralyzed with fear. Women who don’t even dare stick their noses outside at the height of the summer heat, while practically the whole country is breathing down our necks. The prime minister is going to be calling us up next! We need to solve this thing. I want the killer caught within a week, whatever the cost. We’re going to bring in a police artist right now and get him to put together a sketch. I want it publicized as soon as possible. I also want to bring in Hagman and Nordström immediately for more questioning. And I personally want to talk to everyone who was at the party at the Hillerström home. Every single one of them. The same goes for Frida Lindh’s friends. How’s it going with outlining the victims’ lives? Have we gotten anywhere?”

Björn Hansson from the National Criminal Police was the one who answered. “We’re working hard on that. Helena Hillerström moved to Stockholm when she was twenty, and it looks as if she never met Frida Lindh. Helena and Gunilla Olsson went to different high schools and middle schools and don’t seem to have had any interests in common. We haven’t been able to link Gunilla and Frida together, either. As everyone knows, Frida Lindh lived in Stockholm. Her real name was Anni-Frid, and her birth name was Persson. These things take time, and it’s not easy now that it’s summer. Every other person seems to be on vacation.”

“I know, I know,” said Knutas impatiently. “Keep digging into things and ratchet up the pace as much as possible. There’s no time to lose.”

After the meeting Knutas retreated to his office. He was furious at everyone and everything. He sat down at his desk. His shirt was sticking to him. Big patches of sweat had spread under his arms. He hated feeling so grubby. The heat they had all been longing for was already making him miserable. It made it hard to think, almost impossible to concentrate. More than anything, he would have liked to go home and take a long, cool shower and drink a couple of quarts of ice water. He stood up and pulled down the blinds. Police headquarters had no air-conditioning. It was considered too expensive to install, since it was needed on only a few days of the year. He was looking forward to the remodeling that was scheduled for the fall. He hoped they would have the good sense to install air-conditioning then. A person needed to be able to think, for God’s sake, in order to solve a difficult homicide case.

Finding the clothing was at least a step forward. He would go out to see the shack later on. Right now it was best to let the techs do their work undisturbed. He began leafing through the folders containing transcripts of the interviews. Three folders: one for Helena Hillerström, one for Frida Lindh, and one for Gunilla Olsson. He had an uneasy feeling that various things in the investigation had simply passed him by. His visit to Stockholm had proved as much: the interview with Helena Hillerström’s parents, the abortion that no one had mentioned before. What about the other interviews? He decided to go through all of the transcripts one more time, starting with the parents.

Gunilla Olsson didn’t have any, and they still hadn’t been able to reach her brother. He opened Frida Lindh’s folder. Gösta and Majvor Persson. Gullvivegränd 38 in Jakobsberg. He had planned to see them in Stockholm, but the discovery of the clothing prevented him from doing so. He started reading. The interview seemed to be in order, but Knutas still wanted to talk to the parents himself.

The phone was picked up after four rings. A faint female voice could be heard on the other end. “The Persson residence.”

He introduced himself.

“You’ll have to speak to my husband,” said the woman. Her voice was even fainter, bordering on inaudible. “He’s out in the yard. Just a minute.”

A moment later the husband picked up the phone. “Yes, hello?”

“This is Detective Superintendent Anders Knutas from Visby. I’m in charge of the investigation into the murder of your daughter. I know that you’ve been interviewed by the police, but I’d like to ask you a few more questions.”

“Yes?”

“When did you last see your daughter?”

A brief pause.

The father replied in a toneless voice. “It was a long time ago. We didn’t see each other very often, unfortunately. Our contact with her could have been better. We last saw each other when they were moving. The children wanted to see us.”

Another pause that lasted a little longer.

Then the father spoke again. “But I spoke to her on the phone last week, when Linneas turned five. A man should be allowed to talk to his grandchildren on their birthdays at least.”

“How did Frida seem at the time?”

“She sounded happy, for a change. She said that she was starting to like living on Gotland. It was hard for her at first. She didn’t really want to move there at all. She did it for Stefan’s sake. Typical that she should end up meeting a Gotlander. She hated Gotland. Never wanted to talk about the time when we lived there.”

Knutas was speechless. He had a hard time taking in what the man on the other end had just said.

“Hello?” said the father after a few seconds.

“What did you say? You used to live on Gotland?” Knutas gasped.

“Yes, we moved over there to try it out, but we stayed only a few months.”

“What were you doing here?”

“I worked for the military and was transferred to the P18 regiment. That was a long time ago. In the seventies. We rented out our house here in Jakobsberg, but we didn’t like it there. Frida was especially unhappy. She kept skipping school and seemed completely changed at home. Impossible to deal with.”

“Why didn’t you mention this during the first police interview?” asked Knutas indignantly. He was having a difficult time checking his impatience.

“I don’t know. It was for such a short time, and so long ago.”

“What year did you live in Visby?”

“Let me see . . . Well, it must have been ’78. It was unfortunate for Frida. She had to change schools in the middle of the semester in sixth grade. We moved at Easter time.”

“How long did you live here?”

“We were planning to stay at least a year, but my wife developed cancer, and we wanted to move back to Stockholm to be near her family. We moved back home at the beginning of summer.”

“Where did you live?”

“Hm, what was the name of the street? It was a short distance outside the wall, at any rate. Iris something. Irisdalsgatan. That’s it.”

“So Frida went to Norrbacka School?”

“That’s right. That was the name of it.”

After he hung up, Knutas grabbed his cell phone and called Kihlgård, who told him that he was just about to enjoy some lamb chops at the Lindgården Restaurant.

“Frida Lindh lived in Visby as a child.”

“What did you say?”

“That’s right. She lived here for a few months when she was in the sixth grade. Her father was in the military, and he was stationed in Visby.”

“When was this?”

“It was in 1978. In the spring. She went to Norrbacka School, and they lived on Irisdalsgatan. That’s in the same neighborhood as Rutegatan, where Helena Hillerström lived. This could be the breakthrough we’ve been looking for.”

“You’re right. I’m leaving now.”

“Good.”

It didn’t take long before the police determined that Gunilla Olsson had attended the same school. Frida Lindh was a year younger than the others, but she had started school at the age of six instead of seven. The police soon found the common denominator. The three murdered women had all been in the same sixth-grade class.

The weather seemed to be turning out the way the meteorologists had predicted. The sky was a threatening grayish black, and moving in from the west was a dark cloud cover that looked as if it held plenty of rain. Emma was standing at the bow of the car ferry, watching the island of Fårö come closer. The ride across the sound took only a few minutes, but she wanted to breathe in the sea air and enjoy the view. Fårö was her favorite place. She wasn’t the only one drawn to this wild, bare island with its limestone sea stacks and long, sandy beaches. In the summer it was swarming with tourists.