In the shower, he thought about the homicide. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Morgan Larsson had been killed at the Cementa site in Slite, so close to the harbour where the sale of illegal booze took place. Booze that Peter Bovide had also purchased. There had to be some sort of connection: the Cementa factory – the transactions at the harbour – Russia. Everything fitted together. Plenty of indications that the key to the motive for the murders would be found down at the harbour. The first thing he had to do was to find a link between Peter Bovide and Morgan Larsson.
His thoughts were interrupted when Emma appeared in the doorway to the bathroom and let her dressing gown fall to the floor. How beautiful she was. Although thinner than usual. He held out his hand.
‘Come here.’
He’d never found it so difficult to leave her. It was as if the time they’d spent apart had now brought them closer together than ever before.
‘What’s happened to your mouth?’ he asked with a laugh when they kissed on the way out to his car. ‘It’s like a suction cup.’
‘You should talk.’
He took her face between his hands.
‘I love you, Emma.’
‘I love you too.’
‘I want to see Elin. When can you bring her home?’
‘I’m driving out there today, so why don’t you come back here after work and spend the night?’
‘When can I move in?’
‘Now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
She looked so serious he had to laugh.
‘Too bad we can’t get married tomorrow.’
AT FIVE THIRTY, the alarm clock rang. Karin Jacobsson felt as if she hadn’t slept more than an hour. She had to make a real effort to get herself out of bed. Outside the window it was utterly quiet. She packed her rucksack, drank a cup of coffee and forced herself to eat a couple of sandwiches. She was definitely not a breakfast person, and she didn’t much like eating anything so early in the morning, but the words of the ranger were still echoing in her ears. She had a long hike ahead of her, and there was no food to be found along the way.
The rising sun was just becoming visible between the trees, but it was still the early light of dawn as she set off. There wasn’t a sound in the woods; all she heard was the soft tramping of her own feet.
On the map, she’d seen where the chapel was located, and she caught sight of it after only a few minutes. The door stood open, and she went inside, sat down in one of the back rows, and let her eyes scan the blue-painted wooden pews. The furnishings were simple, and a lovely light came in through the windows. She wondered if there was some special reason Morgan Larsson had always come here.
She lit one of the candles that were affixed to the pews, studying it for a moment before she blew it out, and then left the chapel.
The hike through the woods took longer than she’d thought. On the other side, the beach called Las Palmas opened up before her. She’d read that the name came from a Spanish ship which had capsized long ago.
The shore was rocky and uneven, which made it difficult to walk. When she reached Säludden, she fought an inner battle with herself. Either she could choose to follow the instructions on the little sign and turn right so as not to disturb the seals, or she could ignore what it said and continue along the water. The decision was easy to make. If for once in her life she was going to see seals in their natural habitat, then she wanted to see them up close.
As she approached, she saw big, ungainly shapes moving slowly back and forth, way out in the sun-glinting water. She raised her binoculars to her eyes and was amazed when she counted fifteen chubby grey seals frolicking in the morning sun. Soon she could see them with the naked eye.
She sat down cautiously at the very end of the promontory, took out the sandwiches she’d brought along, and then poured herself some coffee. The seals were swimming, playing and drying themselves off in the sun. Even though she was breaking the law, she didn’t regret for a moment coming this way. She sat there for half an hour, fascinated by the spectacle. Just her and the seals.
After walking for three hours, Franska Bukten opened out before her. It was hard to imagine that a young woman had been raped and murdered in this peaceful spot.
In the middle of the beach, Karin stopped, stripped off her clothes and walked naked into the water. She knew she was alone. Presumably, she’d left long before all the others, and it was at least a three-hour walk from the campsite. Nobody was going to turn up for at least an hour.
After her swim, she lay down on the beach to dry off. She drank a bottle of water and looked at the map. So it was here that she’d find the Russian cannons from the sunken ship. She looked around, but couldn’t see anything. According to the map, they were a bit higher up on the shore, near the Russian cemetery.
She pulled on her shirt and shorts and walked up towards the woods. There it was. Slowly, an idea was taking shape in her mind. She stopped short. The Russian cemetery. Of course. The murders had nothing at all to do with illegal workers or Russian coal transports. The key was here, on Gotska Sandön. Right in front of her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? She ran down to the beach and grabbed her things.
She thought about Morgan Larsson’s visits to Gotska Sandön. When was it he’d come here? Always on the same date, over the past fifteen years. She got her notebook out of the rucksack. He was usually here between 21 and 23 July. When was Tanya murdered? It was in the summer, but she couldn’t remember the exact date. She cursed herself for not writing it down. She pulled out her mobile to ring the head ranger. It was dead. No coverage. Shit. That meant she couldn’t ring Knutas either.
She checked the map to find the quickest route back to camp.
BY THE TIME Jacobsson finally reached the campsite, she was parched and drenched with sweat. She was dying for a drink of water, but there was no time for that. First she had to do two things: get in touch with Knutas, and then find out the date that Tanya was murdered. She also wanted to get home as fast as possible. Her mobile still wasn’t working. Near the rows of outhouses, she ran into a couple of young guys who were emptying the latrines. They told her that the next boat to Gotland was leaving in fifteen minutes.
She dashed into the cabin and threw all her things into the rucksack, then raced over to the museum. Luckily, it was open. Not a soul was in sight. She bounded up the stairs and grabbed the folder she was looking for. Five minutes until the boat left.
On her way down to the beach, she saw that the mobile phone signal was back, and she rang Knutas. He answered immediately.
‘Hi,’ she panted. ‘I’ve worked out how everything fits together. The murders have to do with an old case. A German girl who came here to Gotska Sandön on holiday with her family, an unsolved homicide from 1985.’
Her mobile beeped, warning her that the battery was almost used up.
‘Damn it. If we get cut off, I’ll ring from the boat. I’m going on board right now; it leaves in a few minutes. I think the father is the killer. He’s Russian.’
‘OK, start over. I’m not following you.’
‘You remember the case, don’t you? It was in the middle of the summer, a German family whose daughter was murdered, in 1985.’
‘Oh right, I do now. Although I was working in uniform back then, so I don’t recall much about it. But good God, that was twenty years ago, and the case was never solved.’
‘Exactly, but now I’ve…’
The connection was broken. The battery was dead. Karin swore as she ran down towards the boat, where the gangway was being pulled on board.
‘Wait!’ she shouted, waving her arms.
A boy standing on shore, who was tossing the last bag on to the ship’s deck, signalled to the captain.
Jacobsson thanked him as she stumbled on board, gasping for breath.
It was with relief that she recognized the captain, Stefan Norrström, from before, and she quickly went up to the wheelhouse.
/> ‘Hi again. Could I borrow your phone?’
‘Absolutely. Has something happened?’
‘Yes, you might say that,’ replied Jacobsson as she opened the folder containing the old newspaper clippings.
She wanted to find out the date that the German woman was murdered before she talked to Knutas. The captain cast a curious glance at the folder over her shoulder.
‘I have to ring the police. My crappy mobile isn’t working.’
‘Sometimes there are problems with coverage out here.’
‘The battery’s dead, and I left the charger back home in Visby,’ she said, with a gesture of resignation.
She had reached the pages with the clippings about the murder of Tanya Petrov. In her mind, she went over what she knew. Morgan Larsson always travelled to Gotska Sandön on the same date. He’d visited the island every few years over the past fifteen years. And each time he’d been here from 21 July until 23 July.
Her eyes fell on the date of the murder. Tanya had been killed in the early hours of 22 July 1985. Her body had been found on the twenty-third. Jacobsson took a deep breath. The connection was crystal clear.
‘What do you have there?’ asked the captain as he handed her the phone. ‘Is that about the girl who was murdered out here?’
‘Yes,’ said Jacobsson curtly as she took the phone. She had neither the time nor the desire to tell an outsider about what she’d discovered.
She began punching in Knutas’s number.
‘Do you have any water?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
Stefan Norrström got up from his chair and turned away to get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. Jacobsson happened to catch a glimpse of his expression. It had changed completely.
AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS in Visby, Knutas contacted the German police and asked them to find out what had happened to the family from Hamburg that had spent a holiday on Gotska Sandön in July 1985. A holiday that had ended in tragedy. Could it be the father, Oleg Petrov, who had finally decided to avenge his daughter’s death?
While he waited to hear back from the Germans, he summoned to his office everyone from the investigative team who was available. He told them the facts that Karin Jacobsson had managed to tell him before their conversation was cut off.
‘So it’s the father who’s supposedly the murderer?’ said Kihlgård, sounding dubious. ‘After such a long time? Why now?’
‘Yes, that’s the big question,’ said Wittberg. ‘Something must have triggered the whole chain of events.’
‘I remember that case,’ interjected Prosecutor Smittenberg. ‘The girl went missing, and at first a search party was organized; a lot of officers from here helped look for her. Then her body was found in the water off the coast of Gotska Sandön; she’d been raped and murdered. A terrible story. There was something about some young men who had come ashore from a boat and later disappeared. They were never caught.’
‘I can’t understand why Karin hasn’t reported in again,’ said Knutas, annoyed. ‘She was supposed to ring me as soon as she was on board.’
‘Why don’t you try the boat?’ suggested Wittberg. ‘Ask them to call her on the loudspeakers.’
‘Oh, right. Good idea.’
Knutas looked a bit embarrassed, but he got the police switchboard on the line, and was connected to the M/S Gotska Sandön. A man’s deep voice could be heard over a crackling sound.
‘M/S Gotska Sandön. Captain Stefan Norrström speaking.’
Knutas introduced himself.
‘Would it be possible to contact a specific individual on board, by using the loudspeaker system, for example?’
‘Who do you want to speak to?’
‘A police officer named Karin Jacobsson.’
‘Do you want to wait on the line or ring back in a few minutes?’
‘I’d like to wait.’
‘OK.’
Knutas heard the captain announcing Karin’s name, asking her to come to the wheelhouse immediately. Then he was back on the phone.
‘If she’s on board, she should be here in a minute. This boat isn’t very big.’
‘OK.’
Several minutes passed.
‘Shouldn’t she have responded by now?’
‘Yes. She can’t be on board.’
‘Could you try one more time?’
The captain hesitated.
‘Is that really necessary?’
‘I think it is. Just to be sure.’
Again the captain announced Karin’s name. After another couple of minutes, Knutas gave up.
‘I guess she didn’t make it on board.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Thanks for your help.’
‘Not at all.’
An uneasy feeling had settled in Knutas’s chest during the conversation. Karin had found a link between the murder on Gotska Sandön and the two current homicide cases. And now she was missing. He asked the operator to phone the head ranger on Gotska Sandön. When he was connected, Knutas explained why he was calling.
‘She left on the two-thirty boat. Apparently she was in a real hurry.’
‘Are you sure she made it on board?’
‘Absolutely. I was down at the dock helping with the loading, and I saw her go on board.’
‘Are you a hundred per cent sure? I mean, do you know what Karin Jacobsson looks like? Petite, thin, about forty, although she looks younger, with short dark hair, brown eyes, a big gap between her front teeth, quite attractive…’
He heard the ranger sigh with impatience.
‘Yes, of course I know what she looks like. She interviewed me yesterday about that man named Morgan Larsson who was murdered.’
‘OK. When does the boat arrive at Fårösund?’
‘At four thirty. The crossing takes two hours.’
Knutas had barely put down the phone before the operator rang to say that he had the Germans on the line. Knutas pushed his uneasiness about Jacobsson aside.
The other members of the investigative team listened intently to his stumbling English. Knutas looked at them with an inscrutable expression as he slowly put down the phone.
‘That was our German colleagues. Oleg Petrov can’t be the killer, because he’s dead. Three months after Tanya was found murdered, he committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train.’
Everyone in the room exchanged puzzled looks.
‘What about the mother and sister? What happened to them, and where are they now?’ asked Wittberg.
‘The mother still lives in Hamburg, but wait until you hear this: the sister lives here on Gotland. She’s married to a Gotlander and they live in Kyllaj.’
‘Kyllaj,’ Wittberg repeated, a pensive look coming over him. ‘That woman on the ferry, the first ferry on the morning the murder was committed. She lived in Kyllaj. She was pregnant and married. But she had an alibi – that’s why we didn’t question her further. Her husband provided her with an alibi.’
Knutas leaned forward. ‘That’s right, her husband. She’s married to a man by the name of Stefan Norrström. He’s the captain that I was just talking to!’
Knutas’s brain now went into high gear. The captain had claimed that Karin wasn’t on board his boat. And now she was missing.
IT ALL STARTED that day in early June when she went shopping at the ICA supermarket. It was a lovely, warm day, full of promise for the coming summer. She’d gone to Slite and parked near the ICA, where she usually shopped. She grabbed a cart outside and then went in to buy some food.
They were planning to have a barbecue that evening. Strangely enough, she had a particular craving for strongly spiced meat now that she was pregnant. She picked up a couple of big potatoes which she was going to bake and fill with the special herbed butter that Stefan liked so much. She spent a long time in the fruit and vegetable section, carefully selecting green peppers, tomatoes and fresh mushrooms. They could grill the steaks separately and then make some vegetable skewers. She put
some cobs of sweetcorn in her cart. Suddenly she felt a kicking inside of her, then another. She stood still. She loved feeling the child moving around. She rested for a moment, leaning on the shopping cart and running her hand gently over her stomach. She still couldn’t believe she was going to be a mother. It looked as if her life was finally going to work out. So often in the past she’d had her doubts. But every time, Stefan had persuaded her not to give up. Of course they were meant to be together. Surely she understood that. ‘Don’t even think of objecting,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t even think of it.’
And in the end she’d begun to believe him. Really believe him, deep in her heart. To her surprise, she realized that she was actually on her way to feeling safe. From the outside, she appeared to have had a stable upbringing, but the pain and insecurity had never gone away. She’d been marginalized by her parents, constantly compared to her sister. She’d never felt good enough just the way she was. She’d never felt a real sense of security. To be utterly secure, no matter how she looked, what she did, or what happened around her. Stefan loved her like no one ever had before. But she still had wounds she would have to live with to the end of her days. It helped a lot that he knew everything, and had even been present when the very worst had happened to her. He understood her like no one else did.
The kicking stopped for the moment, and she went back to her shopping. She put some beer in her cart for Stefan; she herself drank only mineral water.
There was a long queue at both check-outs. It was Friday afternoon, and everyone was out shopping. She stood at the back of one of the queues and let her eyes slide over the people patiently waiting their turn with baskets and carts full of shopping. Several people were chatting with each other, and every once in a while someone laughed. Most people knew each other here, since Slite wasn’t a big place.
She hadn’t made any friends of her own yet, and she didn’t really feel the need to do so. Occasionally, they got together with Stefan’s relatives and acquaintances. She also talked to her classmates at the Swedish lessons she was taking, and she made regular visits to the antenatal clinic. All in all, that was more than enough socializing for her.
The Dead Of Summer Page 21
