Right now she was immersed in a quiet conversation with Detective Inspector Thomas Wittberg. He looked more like a surfer than a police officer, with his thick blond hair and trim body. He was a twenty-seven-year-old playboy who constantly had new girlfriends, but his attention to his job was irreproachable. His talent for making contact with people had been of great use-as the head of an interrogation he was unbeatable.
Lars Norrby, on the other side of the table, was the direct opposite of Wittberg: tall, dark, and meticulous to the point of being long-winded. He could drive Knutas crazy with his fussing over details. At work they knew each other’s habits inside out. They had joined the police force at the same time, and for a period they had patrolled together. Now they were both approaching fifty and were as familiar with the criminals on Gotland as they were with each other.
Detective Inspector Norrby was the police spokesman, as well as the assistant head of the criminal investigation unit-a situation that did not always please Knutas.
The technician of the group, Erik Sohlman, was intense, temperamental, and as zealous as a bloodhound; at the same time, he was incredibly methodical.
Birger Smittenberg, the chief prosecutor, was also sitting at the table. He was originally from Stockholm, but he had married a woman from Gotland. Knutas valued his knowledge and his strong sense of involvement.
Knutas began the meeting.
“The victim is Henry ‘Flash’ Dahlstrom, born in 1943. He was found dead just after six p.m. yesterday, in a basement room that he used as a darkroom. If you haven’t all heard it already, he’s the alcoholic who was once a photographer. He used to hang out down on Oster, and the most distinctive thing about him was the camera that he always wore around his neck.”
No one at the table said a word. Everyone was listening intently.
“Dahlstrom was found with extensive contusions on the back of his head. There’s no doubt that he was murdered. His body will be transported to the forensic medicine lab in Solna sometime today.”
“Did you find the murder weapon?” asked Norrby.
“Not yet. We’ve searched both the darkroom and his apartment. Those are the only areas that we’ve cordoned off. Anything else would be pointless since the body has been lying there for a week, and Lord knows how many people have gone up and down the stairs during that time. Dahlstrom lived on the ground floor in a corner apartment. Right outside is the public passageway to Terra Nova. The whole area has been searched. The dark made our work more difficult, but the search was resumed as soon as it was daylight. Which was just a short time ago.”
He looked at his watch.
“Who called it in?” asked the prosecutor.
“The body was discovered by one of the building superintendents. Apparently there are four of them. This one lives in the building across the way. His name is Ove Andersson. He said that a man claiming to be a good friend of the victim rang his doorbell around six p.m. yesterday. The man said that he hadn’t seen Dahlstrom for several days and he wondered where he might be. They found him in the basement, but when the superintendent went up to his place to call the police, the friend took the opportunity to disappear.”
“It seems fishy that he ran off. Maybe he was the murderer,” Wittberg suggested.
“But if so, why would he contact the super?” objected Norrby.
“Maybe he wanted to get back inside the apartment to get something that he left behind, but he didn’t dare break in again,” Jacobsson piped in.
“Well, we can’t rule that out, even though it doesn’t sound very plausible,” countered Norrby. “But why would he wait a whole week? There was always a risk that the body would be discovered.”
Knutas frowned. “One alternative is that he disappeared because he was afraid of being a suspect. Maybe he was at the party, because it’s obvious that a party took place in that apartment. No matter what, we need to get hold of him as soon as possible.”
“Have we got a description?” asked Wittberg.
Knutas looked down at his papers. “Middle-aged, about fifty, according to the super. Tall and heavy. He has a mustache, and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Dark shirt, dark pants. He didn’t notice the man’s shoes. I think it sounds like Bengt Johnsson. He’s probably the only one of the local winos who fits the description.”
“It’s got to be Bengan. Those two were always hanging out together,” said Wittberg.
Knutas turned to the crime tech. “Erik, you can give us the technical details now.”
Sohlman nodded. “We’ve gone over the apartment and darkroom, but we’re far from done. If we start with the victim and his wounds, we need to look at the photos. I should warn you that they’re rather nasty.”
Sohlman switched off the lights and, using a computer, clicked the digital pictures onto the screen at the front of the room.
“Henry Dahlstrom was lying prone on the floor with extensive contusions to the back of his head. The perpetrator used a blunt instrument of some kind. My guess is a hammer, but the ME will eventually be able to tell us more. Dahlstrom was struck repeatedly on the head. The large amount of blood spatter resulted because the perpetrator first knocked a hole in the victim’s skull and then continued to strike the bloody surface. Each time he delivered another blow, blood sprayed all over.”
Sohlman used a pointer to show spatter that was visible on the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
“The killer probably knocked Dahlstrom to the ground and then stood over him and kept striking as he lay there. As far as determining the time of death, I would estimate that the murder took place five or six days ago.”
The victim’s face was a blotchy yellowish gray shifting to green. His eyes had a dark, brownishred color, and his lips were black and parched.
“The process of decomposition had begun,” Sohlman went on impassively. “You can see the little brown blisters on the body and the corpse fluid that has started to seep out. The same substance is coming out of his mouth and nostrils.”
His colleagues around the table grimaced. Jacobsson wondered how Sohlman could always manage to talk about bloody victims, rigor mortis, and decomposing bodies as if he were discussing the weather or his annual income tax returns.
“Everything in the place had been tossed, and the cupboards and boxes containing photos had been searched. The murderer was apparently looking for something. The victim also has defensive wounds on his arms. Here we can see bruises and scratches. So he attempted to resist. The bruise on his collarbone may have been made by a blow that missed its mark. We’ve taken blood samples, of course. We also found a cigarette butt in the basement hallway, and hairs that don’t seem to have come from the victim. Everything has been sent to SCL but, as you know, it will take a while before we get any answers.”
He took a sip of coffee and sighed. The response from SCL, the Swedish Crime Laboratory in Linkoping, usually took at least a week, more often three.
Sohlman went on. “As far as evidence goes, we’ve found footprints in the flower bed outside the basement window. Unfortunately, the rain made them impossible to identify. On the other hand, we did get some footprints in the hallway outside the darkroom, and in the bestcase scenario they should tell us something. The same footprints were in the apartment-which, by the way, was filled with bottles, ashtrays, beer cans, and a lot of other junk. We’ve secured quite a few fingerprints, as well as the footprints of four or five different individuals. We also searched the apartment.”
The photos of the mess in Dahlstrom’s place sent a clear message: The apartment had been completely turned upside down.
“Dahlstrom must have had something valuable at home, but I wonder what it might be,” said Knutas. “An alcoholic living on welfare doesn’t usually have assets of any great value. Did you find his camera?”
“No.”
Sohlman cast another glance at his watch. He seemed eager to get away.
“You said that you found a cigarette butt in the basement. Could the m
urderer have waited outside the darkroom for Dahlstrom to come out?” asked Jacobsson.
“Quite possibly.”
Sohlman then excused himself and left the room.
“In that case, the perp knew that Dahlstrom was inside the darkroom,” Jacobsson went on. “He may have stood in the entryway for hours. What do the neighbors say?”
Knutas leafed through the investigative report.
“We kept knocking on doors until late last night. We haven’t got all the reports in yet, but the neighbors in that stairwell confirm, as I mentioned, that there was a party at the apartment last Sunday. A bunch of people came staggering through the front door around nine p.m. A neighbor who encountered them in the entryway guessed that they had been to the racetrack because he heard some remarks about various horses.”
“Oh, that’s right, Sunday was the last race day of the season,” Jacobsson reminded herself.
Knutas looked up from his papers. “Is that right? Well, the track isn’t very far away, so they could have easily walked or bicycled home afterward. At any rate, there was a big racket in the apartment, according to the neighbors. A lot of noise and partying, with both male and female voices.
“The woman next door reported that the man who is probably Bengt Johnsson rang her doorbell first, to ask her whether she had seen Dahlstrom. She referred him to the building superintendent.”
“Does her description of him match what the super told us?” asked Norrby.
“Yes, for the most part. An overweight man, younger than Dahlstrom, about fifty, she thought. Mustache and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail-a biker-type hairstyle, as she expressed it. Wearing shabby clothes, she also said.”
Knutas gave a little smile.
“He had on dirty, loose-fitting jeans, with his stomach hanging out. A blue flannel shirt, and he was smoking. She recognized the man because she had seen him with Dahlstrom several times.”
“Everybody knows who Henry Dahlstrom is, but what do we actually know about him?” asked Wittberg.
“He’s been an alcoholic for years,” replied Jacobsson. “He usually hung out at Ostercentrum or at the bus station with his buddies. Or at Ostergravar in the summer, of course. Divorced, unemployed. He had been living on a disability pension for over fifteen years even though he didn’t seem completely destitute. He paid his rent and bills on time, and he kept mostly to himself, according to the neighbors, aside from the occasional party. His friends say that he was utterly harmless, never got into fights or committed any sort of crime. He apparently kept up his interest in photography. This summer I ran into him one day as I was biking to work. He was in the process of photographing a flower near Gutavallen.”
“What else do we know about his background?” Wittberg cast a glance at Jacobsson’s papers lying on the table.
“He was born in 1943 in Visby Hospital,” Jacobsson continued. “Grew up in Visby. In 1965 he married a woman from Visby, Ann-Sofie Nilsson. They had a
child in 1967, a girl named Pia. Divorced in 1986.”
“Okay, we’ll find out more about him today,” said Knutas. “And we’ve got to locate Bengt Johnsson.”
He looked out the window.
“Since it’s raining, the winos are probably sitting outside the Domus department store, in the mall. That would be the best place to start. Wittberg?”
“Karin and I can go.”
Knutas nodded.
“I’ve started to collate the interviews with his neighbors, and I’d like to keep working on that,” said Norrby. “And there are a couple of people I’d like to talk to again.”
“That sounds fine,” said Knutas, and then he turned to the prosecutor. “Birger, do you have anything to add?”
“No. Just keep me informed and I’ll be happy.”
“Okay. We’ll stop here. But we’ll meet again this afternoon. Shall we say three o’clock?”
After the meeting Knutas retreated to his office. His new office was twice as big as the old one. Embarrassingly big, he might say. The walls were painted a light color that reminded him of the sand at Tofta beach on a sunny day in July.
The view was the same as from their conference room next door: the parking lot at Ostercentrum and in the distance, the ring wall and the sea.
On the windowsill stood a healthy-looking white geranium that had only recently stopped blooming in anticipation of winter. Jacobsson had given it to him for his birthday several years earlier. He had brought the potted plant with him from his old office, along with his beloved old desk chair made of oak with a soft leather seat. It spun nicely, and he often made use of that feature.
He filled his pipe, taking great care. His thoughts were on Henry Dahlstrom’s darkroom and what he had seen there. When he thought about the man’s crushed skull, he shuddered.
Everything pointed to a drunken brawl that got out of hand and came to an unusually brutal end. Dahlstrom had presumably taken a buddy down to the basement to show him some photographs, and they started arguing about something. Most cases of assault and battery started out that way, and every year some drunk or addict on Gotland was murdered.
In his mind he thought back, trying to summon up a picture of Henry Dahlstrom.
When Knutas had joined the police force twenty-five years earlier, Dahlstrom was a respected photographer. He worked for the newspaper Gotlands Tidningar and was one of the most prominent photographers on the island. At the time Knutas was a cop on the beat, patrolling the streets. Whenever big news events occurred, Dahlstrom was always the first on the scene with his camera. If Knutas met him at private functions, they would usually have a chat. Dahlstrom was a pleasant man with a good sense of humor, although he had a tendency to drink too much. Knutas would sometimes meet him heading home from a pub, drunk as a skunk. Occasionally he would give him a ride because the man was too drunk to get home on his own. Back then Dahlstrom was married. Later on he quit his job with the newspaper and started his own company. At the same time, his alcohol consumption seemed to increase.
Dahlstrom was once found passed out inside the thirteenth-century ruin of Saint Karin’s church in the middle of Stora Torget, the central marketplace in Visby. He was lying on a narrow stairway, asleep, when he was discovered by a startled guide and his group of American tourists.
Another time he walked boldly into the Lindgard restaurant on Strandgatan and ordered a real feast consisting of five courses with wine, strongbeer, aquavit, and cognac. Afterward he asked for a cigar imported directly from Havana, which he puffed on as he enjoyed yet another liqueur. When the bill was presented, he openly admitted that, unfortunately, he was unable to pay due to a shortage of funds. The police were called. They took the sated and tipsy man down to the police station, but he was released a few hours later. Dahlstrom probably thought all the trouble was worth it.
Knutas hadn’t seen Dahlstrom’s wife in years. She had been notified about the death of her exhusband. Knutas hadn’t yet spoken to her, but she was scheduled to be interviewed later in the day.
He sucked on his unlit pipe and leafed through Dahlstrom’s file. A few minor misdemeanors, but nothing serious. His friend Bengt Johnsson, on the other hand, had been convicted twenty or more times, mostly on burglary and minor assault charges.
It was strange that they hadn’t heard from him.
Emma Winarve sat down on the worn sofa in the teachers’ lounge. She was holding her mug of coffee in both hands to warm them. It was drafty in the old wooden building housing the Kyrk School in Roma. Her mug was inscribed with the words: “World’s Best Mom.” How ridiculous. A mother who had cheated on her husband and who, for the past six months, had also neglected her children because her mind was always on something else. She was fast approaching forty, and also fast losing all control.
The clock on the wall told her that it was nine thirty in the morning. Her colleagues were already crowding around the table, chatting congenially. The smell of coffee had permanently seeped into the curtains, books, papers, file f
olders, and the dirty-yellow wallpaper. Emma didn’t feel like taking part in the conversation. Instead, she looked out the window. The leaves on the oak trees hadn’t yet fallen. They were in constant motion, sensitive to the slightest gust of wind. In the yard next to the school, shaggy gray sheep stood huddled together, grazing. Their jaws were grinding as they ceaselessly chewed their cud. Roma’s stone church with eight hundred years of history behind it stood there as steadfast as always.
Everything was going on as usual, no matter what storms might be raging inside of someone. It was incomprehensible that she could sit here, seemingly unperturbed, sipping endless cups of coffee, and no one even noticed a thing. Such as the fact that her mind was in the grip of a psychological battle. Or that her whole life was in the process of going to hell. But her colleagues merely sat around her, carrying on subdued conversations. As if nothing were happening.
In her mind’s eye, video clips were playing in rapid succession: her daughter Sara’s birthday when all Emma could do was cry; she and Johan rolling around in a hotel bed; her mother-in-law’s searching eyes; Filip’s cello concert, which had totally slipped her mind; her husband Olle’s face when she once again rejected him.
She had gotten herself into an impossible situation.
Six months earlier she had met a man who had ended up changing everything. They got to know each other in connection with last summer’s police hunt, when Emma’s best friend became one of the killer’s victims, and she herself came very close to meeting the same fate.
Johan had stepped into her path, and she couldn’t just walk by him. He was so unlike everyone else she had ever known; so alive and intense about everything he did. She had never laughed so much with anyone else or felt so calm, almost spiritual. He made her discover sides of herself that she didn’t even know existed.
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