“In what way?”
“She told me that her mother drinks too much.”
“So she has actually confided in you a great deal?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Have you seen each other outside the stable?”
“No, no. Just here.”
“Do you know whether she has met anyone new lately? A boyfriend, maybe?”
“I have no idea.”
“When did you last see her?”
“It was on Saturday.”
“Where?”
“Here, outside.” He nodded toward the stables.
“How did she seem?”
“The same as usual.”
“Do you have any idea where she might be?”
“Not a clue.”
There was no one else at the stable to question. They left Tom Kingsley and went back to their car.
“What do you think happened?” asked Knutas as they drove back to police headquarters.
“It’s possible that she might have killed herself.”
“I have a hard time imagining that. She’s too young. Fourteen-year-old girls who commit suicide are rare. They’re usually at least a couple of years older. Besides, she didn’t seem particularly depressed, even though things might have been worse than they seemed on the outside. I think all three men at the stable seem credible, although the trainer was damned irritating.”
“I agree,” said Jacobsson. “I didn’t get any weird vibes from any of them.”
By the afternoon Fanny had still not turned up. Her mother called Knutas to hear how the search was going. She was distraught. Her sister in Vibble, south of Visby, had stepped in to look after her. Knutas decided to begin searching the areas surrounding Fanny’s apartment, her school, and the stable. A bulletin was broadcast on the local radio station and immediately attracted the interest of the media. Radio Gotland and both of the local newspapers, Gotlands Tidningar and Gotlands Allehanda, wanted to interview him.
Knutas tried to be generous with the press and agreed to brief interviews.
He dealt with one journalist after the other, and they all asked basically the same questions. He kept the interviews short, telling them only when Fanny had disappeared, where she was last seen, and what she looked like. He asked the reporters to say that the police were appealing to the public for help.
The search brought results. Fanny’s bicycle was found by a passerby. It had been tossed into a ditch less than a kilometer from the stable. It was immediately taken in so that the techs could examine it.
Johan Berg also called.
“Hi. Am I disturbing you?”
“I’m very busy at the moment.”
“I’m calling about the girl who disappeared. It just came over the wire service. What happened?”
Knutas gave him the same information that he had given to the other journalists, but he also told Johan about the bicycle. He thought he owed him that much.
“Do you suspect foul play?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Do you think she might have committed suicide?”
“We can’t rule out that possibility, of course.”
“What’s her home life like?”
“She and her mother live alone in an apartment here in Visby.”
“Is she an only child?”
“Yes.”
“The description says that she has a dark complexion. Was she adopted, or is her mother from some other country?”
“Her father is from the West Indies.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Stockholm, with his wife and kids. They don’t have any contact with each other.”
“Could she have gone there?”
“We’ve talked to the father, of course. And she’s not there.”
“She could still have gone to Stockholm,” said Johan.
“Sure.”
“Did she take along any money, or her passport?”
“There’s nothing to indicate that. All her belongings are still at home,” replied Knutas impatiently. Why couldn’t Johan Berg ever be satisfied with the same information he gave to all the other journalists? He never gave up asking more questions.
“The fact that her bike was found tossed aside could mean that she got into a car. Was it found near a road?”
“That’s right. I have to go now.”
“I realize that you’ve got your hands full, what with the murder investigation, too. Is there anything to indicate she might have fallen into the hands of the same perpetrator as Dahlstrom?”
“Not at the moment.”
Knutas shook his head as he put down the phone. What a stubborn man that journalist was.
The next second the phone rang again. The switchboard told him that a woman from the youth clinic in Visby wanted to talk to him. He told the operator to put her through.
“Hi, my name is Gunvor Andersson, and I’m a midwife. The girl that I think you’re looking for was here recently.”
“Is that right? How do you know it was her?”
“I recognized her from the description on the radio. She was here several months ago, asking for birth control pills.”
“Did she say why?”
“She said that she had a steady boyfriend. I asked her whether she really felt old enough to have intercourse. I said that we usually don’t recommend the Pill for such young girls. She said that they had already done it. I told her that since she’s under fifteen, it’s a crime to have sexual intercourse with her. On the other hand, we can’t very well refuse to give the Pill to a girl who wants to protect herself. We usually require a parent’s consent in the case of such young girls, but when I said that I would have to call her mother, she didn’t want anything more to do with us. She just got up and left. I tried to stop her, to say that we could talk about it, but before I knew it, she had walked right out the door.”
“Did you find out who her boyfriend was?”
“No, unfortunately. She refused to say anything about him.”
After Knutas finished talking to the woman, he called Majvor Jansson.
“Did you know that Fanny has a boyfriend?”
“No, I’m sure she doesn’t.”
“She went to the youth clinic to ask for birth control pills.”
“What?”
“Yes, I’ve just talked to someone over there. She went there several months ago to get a prescription for the Pill, but when they told her that they would have to contact you, she left. I need you to think about this some more. Was there anything to indicate that she had a boyfriend? Was she spending time with anyone?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“She never said anything about it. But it’s hard to keep tabs on her, because I work nights and I’m a single mother. She could always meet someone in the evening, since that’s when I’m at work.”
Majvor Jansson was clearly about to start crying again.
“I was thinking of trying to get a different shift, now that she’s getting older. But I didn’t think there was any danger yet. She’s only fourteen, after all.”
In the meantime, the search continued. A hundred volunteers offered to help the search-and-rescue groups that had been organized at various sites. The sense of alarm about what had happened to Fanny was growing with every hour that passed.
At 8:00 p.m. the investigative team gathered for a meeting at police headquarters. The mood was tense. Knutas told them about his phone conversation with the woman from the youth clinic and Fanny’s failed attempt to obtain birth control pills. Sohlman, who looked worn out, told them about the results of searching Fanny’s room.
“We’ve found three packets of morning-after pills hidden among the clothes in Fanny’s closet. Two were empty; one still had both pills. That proves that she has had intercourse with someone.”
“It doesn’t take much detective work to come to that conclusion,” Jacobsson interjected acidly. “But morning-after pills
? Aren’t they supposed to be used in extreme emergencies? Surely they’re not meant to be used for birth control?”
She glanced around the room. When she saw the blank expressions on the faces of her colleagues, she realized that she worked with a bunch of middle-aged men who had all been cast from the same mold and who probably knew nothing about how that sort of pill worked.
“How many pills did she take?” asked Jacobsson, turning to Sohlman.
“There are two in each package, and from what I understand, that counts as one dose. So she took four pills, or two doses.”
“Where do you get them? In a drugstore? Can a fourteen-year-old go out and buy them? Don’t you have to be at least fifteen?”
No one at the table could answer Jacobsson’s questions.
“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll call the youth clinic.”
Her colleagues looked relieved to get out of hearing any more embarrassing questions that they couldn’t answer.
Sohlman went on. “Bloodstains and hairs that are not hers were found on the bedspread. They are short, dark, coarse hairs. In her bed we also found sperm and pubic hair, but we can’t say yet who they’re from. Everything has been sent to SCL. We also sent over some things that her mother didn’t recognize and couldn’t explain where Fanny had gotten them.”
He read from a list: “One bottle of perfume, one necklace, several rings, one sweater, one dress, and two pairs of underwear. Quite sophisticated underwear, I might add,” he said, clearing his throat. “We haven’t found anything of interest on her bike.”
When Sohlman fell silent, a heavy mood settled over the room. Their apprehension that Fanny was in trouble had been significantly reinforced by his report.
Wittberg broke the silence. “What the hell should we do?” he said with a resigned sigh. “What do we have to go on?”
“There’s plenty we can do,” Knutas objected. “While we wait for the lab results, we need to expand the search area. Tips have been coming in from the public, and they have to be processed.”
“How should we divide up the work between the Dahlstrom investigation and this case?” asked Norrby.
“We’ll work on them in tandem. We’ve done that before. Don’t forget that we don’t know what’s happened to Fanny Jansson. She might turn up tomorrow.”
When Johan came home from work on Wednesday evening, he found to his surprise that Emma was sitting on the steps. She looked pale and hollow-eyed, wearing her yellow quilted jacket.
“Emma, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry that I was so mad yesterday, Johan. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Come inside.”
She followed him in and without a word sank down on the sofa.
“I’m about to lose my footing altogether. Olle still won’t let me talk to the children. I was thinking of going over to their school yesterday, but the school counselor advised me not to. She thinks that I should wait. I’ve talked to their teachers, and the children seem to be doing all right. The only thing they seem to know is that we’re going through a crisis, and that I’ve taken a leave of absence from my job.”
She pushed back her bangs. “Is it okay if I smoke?”
“Sure, go ahead and smoke. Do you want something to drink?”
“Yes, please. A glass of wine or a beer, if you have any.”
Johan took two beers out of the fridge and sat down next to her.
“What are you thinking of doing?”
“That’s exactly what I don’t know,” she said, sounding annoyed.
He touched her cheek.
“Have you quit your job?”
“I called in sick. Without giving any explanation. My job feels like the least important thing at the moment.”
“Olle will calm down. You’ll see. Don’t worry about that. After a while you’ll be able to talk to each other again.”
“I just don’t understand why he reacted so strongly. He’s shown so little interest in me and our relationship during the past few years. He really shouldn’t be surprised. But to hell with him. The only thing I can think about is Sara and Filip. You have no idea how tough this is.”
He reached out his hand and caressed her cheek.
She grabbed his hand, kissed it, and put it on her breast. When he kissed her, the response was fierce. It was as if she were hungering for him, for physical contact, for solace. He wanted to transmit his own strength to her, to give her the energy she obviously needed. There was something disconsolate and desperate about the way she made love to him that night.
Afterward she fell asleep, curled up in his arms like a child. For a long time Johan lay in the dark, looking at her profile and listening to her breathing.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29
The media’s interest in the disappearance of Fanny Jansson continued to grow as the hours passed. More and more people became involved in the search groups, and the police were using helicopters and infrared cameras in the woods around Visby as they intensified their search. On Thursday morning both evening papers ran big articles about the missing girl. Her picture dominated the front pages.
When Johan came into the Regional News editorial offices, he was met by Grenfors waving several newspapers in his hand.
“What the hell is this?” he shouted. His face was bright red. “Both Aftonbladet and Expressen have big spreads about the missing girl. Weren’t you supposed to keep on top of this story?”
“Could you let me take off my jacket first?” Johan snapped back. He had waited at the Hornstull subway station for twenty minutes for a train that never came. The red line was having problems again. And then Stockholm Local Traffic had the nerve to raise the price of a monthly pass.
Grenfors stubbornly followed him as he went to his desk.
“How come we didn’t have anything to report?” he continued, standing behind Johan.
Since Johan was painfully aware that he had been concentrating too much on Emma and too little on his job lately, he had no good answer. She had flown home this morning, and it would probably be a while before they saw each other again.
“I’ll make some calls and check things out,” he said.
“Maybe there’s a connection to the murder of that alcoholic. The killer is still on the loose, after all.”
“Do you think I should go over there?” asked Johan hopefully.
“That depends on what you find out.”
He got out the local papers from the stack of dailies and listened to the Radio Gotland morning news on the Internet. It was true that they were reporting that Fanny Jansson was still missing, but the police also seemed to be working with a number of new clues. It was the same story as in the newspapers, which had reported how the search was being conducted and the fact that the girl’s bicycle had been found.
It was damn stupid that he had been so lax at keeping tabs on the investigation. Regional News was now way behind in reporting the story. It was a big disadvantage that he wasn’t on site in Gotland and able to follow developments. The evening papers were both speculating, of course, whether the same person who had murdered the alcoholic might have struck again.
With a sigh he picked up the phone and punched in Knutas’s number. No answer, and his cell was turned off. Damn it. He tried Karin Jacobsson. He had dealt with her quite a bit during the summer. She sounded stressed.
“Jacobsson here.”
“Hi, this is Johan Berg from Regional News. I wonder how it’s going with the search for Fanny Jansson.”
The voice on the other end of the line softened. Johan realized that he was still in the good graces of the Visby police, at least for the moment.
“We’re working on a wide front. The search is now under way in the area around her school, her apartment building, and the racetrack, which is where she was last seen. But so far the results have been meager. We’ve found her bicycle, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“Yes. Are there any prints on it?�
�
“You’ll have to take that up with Anders Knutas. He’s the only one who can decide what we tell the media.”
“I’ve been trying to reach him, but he doesn’t answer his phone.”
“No, he’s in a meeting with the new officers from the National Criminal Police right now. It will probably go on for another hour.”
“Have you brought in more personnel from the NCP? Why is that?”
“As I said, you’ll have to talk to Knutas.”
“Okay. Thank you anyway. Bye.”
He leaned back in his chair. The fact that the police were receiving more help from the NCP meant that they were taking a serious view of the case. Something else must have come to light, indicating that a crime was involved. He got up and went over to the desk where Grenfors was sitting with a phone pressed to his ear, as usual.
Sometimes Johan wondered how much time he wasted waiting for people to finish talking on the phone. He noticed that Grenfors had dyed his hair again. The editor had recently turned fifty, and he was meticulous about his appearance. He was always dressed in a sporty and youthful manner. On principle, he never ate lunch with his colleagues; instead, he preferred to make use of his pass to the gym in the television building. He was tall, slim, and trim. He looked good for his age. Max Grenfors was married to an attractive woman who was fifteen years younger and an aerobics instructor.
When the editor finally put down the phone, Johan told him what Jacobsson had said.
“Let’s wait and see what Knutas has to say. It’s too late for you to go over there today, unless they have something really significant to report. From here you can put together some text for the anchorman, so that we can at least keep the pot boiling. You and Peter can fly over tomorrow if it seems worthwhile.”
That evening Johan went out with his friend Andreas. They started at the Vampire Lounge on Ostgotagatan, where the drinks were cheap and the atmosphere relaxed. The female bartender had short cropped hair and was dressed all in black and wore big earrings. When she turned around to rinse some glasses, a tattoo was visible at the small of her back. She mixed each of them a frozen margarita in a glass with a spiral stem. The bar was filled with a relatively young crowd, most of them with a pack of Marlboro Lights in front of them on the bar. In the restaurants at lunchtime hardly anyone ever smoked, but in the evenings nearly everyone had a cigarette hanging from their lips.
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