“She worked at a beauty salon in Ostercentrum. Maybe you saw her there.”
“Oh, you’re right. I took my kids there a couple of times to get their hair cut.”
“Do you think Helena might have known her?”
“No idea. I wonder whether it’s just a coincidence that the two of them were murdered, or whether there’s some sort of connection. I’ve been thinking about Helena nonstop, turning everything over in my mind. I’ve tried to figure out what could be behind such a crime, and who could have done it. I went to Stockholm for her funeral, and I met a lot of people there who knew Helena. Her parents, her siblings, her friends. Per’s parents were at the funeral, too, of course. No one believed for a minute that he was the killer. Since then all of us who were at the party on that evening at Per and Helena’s house have gotten together. We can’t think of anything. I wonder if she had met some new man that none of us knew about, someone she started a relationship with and who turned out to be crazy.”
She poked her fork at the remnants of the food on her plate.
“Maybe she was trying to break off the relationship because she realized that she loved Per, and then the other man got horribly jealous.”
“Maybe,” said Johan. “Sure, it’s a possibility. Do you know whether she was ever unfaithful to Per?”
“Yes, that actually did happen. At least once, several years ago. She met someone at a party, and they ended up in bed together. They had an affair that lasted several weeks. She was having her doubts at the time about Per. Didn’t really know what her own feelings were anymore. She thought things had gotten to be so routine between them. Helena was completely obsessed with that other guy. She talked about nothing else and said that he was like a drug that calmed her down. She even left work a few times to meet him. That wasn’t like her.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. I thought she was being ridiculous. She refused to say anything about who he was or what he did or where he lived.”
“Why is that?”
“No clue. Of course I tried to squeeze the information out of her, but she was really impossible. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ she told me.”
“So what happened?”
“One day she told me that it was over. I don’t know what happened or why. She just said it was over and that she had decided to stay with Per.”
“When was that?”
“Hm… a few years back. It must have been three or four years ago, I guess.”
“Didn’t she ever talk about him after that?”
“No. Time passed and I forgot all about it. Until now.”
“That’s something that should be checked out,” said Johan. “Somebody else must know about it. Did you discuss it with any of her friends over in Stockholm when you were there?”
“No, I didn’t. It didn’t occur to me.”
She glanced at her watch. Two thirty. An hour and a half until she had to pick up the kids. She could feel the effect of the wine, but she took another sip and met his gaze.
“I need to keep an eye on the time because I have to catch a bus so I won’t be late at the daycare center.”
“I can drive you there. I’ve only had one glass of wine. It’ll be okay.”
They drove through the town in silence. Emma leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling more at ease than she had in a very long time.
She opened her eyes and let her eyes rest on him.
Good Lord, she thought, am I falling in love? This is idiotic. At the same time, she couldn’t help enjoying the moment. She felt relaxed in his company, happier and more talkative than she’d been in a long time. She looked at his hands on the steering wheel. Very tan and manly. Short, clean fingernails.
He turned his head to look at her. “What are you thinking about?”
She blushed. “Nothing.” She felt a smile tugging at her lips.
Without warning, he turned off the main road to Roma onto a gravel road, stopping at the edge of the woods. She was neither surprised nor frightened, merely felt a fluttering in her stomach.
He didn’t say a word, just leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back. He was startled by her intensity. He touched her hair, her arms, her thighs. Emma felt desire seize hold of her. Just a few more minutes, she thought as her tongue began playing a tender wrestling match with his. Just a little while longer. Until his hand crept under her shirt and she pushed him away.
“We have to stop. We can’t do this right now.”
“Just a little more,” he begged.
But Emma was firm. Reason began trickling back into her brain.
The rest of the drive to Roma took place in silence.
When they reached the school, he turned to her. “When can I see you again?”
“I can’t tell you that right now. The kids are waiting. I have to think about it. I’ll call you.”
A sense of relief swept over her when she saw Sara waving from the playground. On his way to school, the pain in his stomach grew stronger. With each step he took, it got worse. When he turned onto Bromsebrogatan and saw the redbrick facade of Norrbacka School, he felt the usual pressure in his chest that made it even harder to breathe. He tried to push the feeling aside. Right now he had to be his normal self. Appear unaffected. There came Jonas and Pelle. Chattering and kicking pebbles back and forth, shoving and teasing each other. Completely natural and confident. Just a few months ago he was one of them, but now everything had changed. They reached the playground at the same time. He stretched and then spat into the road. Glanced furtively at his classmates. The boys ignored him. He could feel his face turning red and looked down at the ground as he quickly crossed the playground. The feeling of desperation grew in his stomach. How could everything have changed in such a short time? School was now nothing more than a big, black object of hatred. Total darkness. Would it ever pass? How he wished he could turn back the clock! To the way things were last fall. Back then he went to school and played with his friends as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They played soccer and hockey during recess. Back then school was the most fun part of his life. That’s where he always longed to be whenever he was home. In school everything was normal. Everyone around him was happy and nice. It wasn’t like at home, where he couldn’t understand all the weird moods and he didn’t know how he was supposed to react to them. At home he was often walking on eggshells, trying to please his mother. Not make any trouble. He had gotten used to the fact that his parents hardly ever talked to each other anymore, and to the odd atmosphere at the dinner table. The main thing was to get away as quickly as possible without annoying anyone. In the past it had never felt so dangerous at home. Back then he had friends to visit. Kids he could go out and play with. But not anymore. That’s why the unpleasant atmosphere at home was making him feel so much worse. He had nowhere to go. Instead, he would escape to his room. Into himself. He read books. Worked on complex and difficult puzzles that took a long time to solve. Did his homework with great care. Lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Mostly he felt lonely and worthless. No one wanted to be around him anymore. No one asked about him. He wasn’t wanted, either at home or at school. His sister had her own friends and spent most of her free time at the stables. Who wanted to be with him? By now he had reached the classroom door. He hung his jacket and book bag on a hook. When the bell rang for first period, he felt relieved. Even though he knew the feeling was only temporary.
Karin Jacobsson could hear a commercial for Radio Mix Megapol playing in the background as she stepped inside the beauty salon. The only customer was a middle-aged woman who was having her curls wrapped in foil papers.
In a basket on the floor in one corner lay a shaggy little dog who wagged his tail when he caught sight of Jacobsson.
The hairdresser was wearing a blouse and skirt made of natural-colored linen and red shoes. Her legs were slender and tan. She turned toward the door when Jacobsson came in. “Hi,” she said with
an inquisitive look at Jacobsson.
Karin introduced herself.
“I’m just about finished here,” said the hairdresser in a friendly voice. “Why don’t you have a seat.” She nodded toward a brown sofa.
Jacobsson sat down and leafed through a glossy magazine filled with different types of hairstyles.
It was not a large room. Three black leather chairs for the salon customers stood lined up along the opposite wall. The woman in the only occupied chair kept casting curious glances at Jacobsson. The walls were painted a light color but were bare. Very little had been spent on the decor. Mirrors and a clock on one wall, but otherwise nothing. It was more like a typical barbershop for men, spartan and slightly old-fashioned. After a few minutes the hairdresser was through wrapping up the woman’s hair. She placed a dryer over the customer’s head, supplied her with some coffee and several magazines, and then motioned Jacobsson to follow her behind a curtain.
“How can I help you?” she asked after they were seated at a little coffee table.
“I’d like you to tell me about Frida Lindh.”
“All right, but what can I say? She worked here for six months. I took a risk by hiring her. She was from Stockholm, and I didn’t really know much about her. The only experience she had was a part-time job for a couple of years at a salon in Stockholm, but that was a long time ago, so I had my doubts. She turned out to be a big hit, at least financially. She was talented, she worked fast, and she was cheerful and nice to the customers. They really liked her. She rented a chair here, and after only a few weeks she was totally booked up. She also brought in new customers that the rest of us took care of if she didn’t have time.”
“What did you think of her yourself?”
“To be honest, I didn’t particularly like her. Simply because she was a little too flirty with the male customers. And it was mostly men who made appointments with her.”
“Why did you react so strongly?”
“Well, of course I think that anyone who works here should have good relations with the customers, but Frida didn’t know where to draw the line. She would giggle and chatter loudly about all sorts of things with her customers, and I often thought she got too personal with them. In this place it’s impossible not to hear what everyone else is saying, and sometimes it could be rather embarrassing. She quite simply went too far.”
“In what way?”
“For instance, sometimes she and the customer would tell jokes with all sorts of sexual innuendoes. I don’t think that’s proper. Visby is a small town, and lots of people here know each other well.”
“Did you ever speak to her about this?”
“Actually I did, just a week or so ago. Frida and a male customer were joking around, and she started laughing so hard that she couldn’t even cut his hair. It was a Saturday, and we had so many walk-ins that people were lined up waiting, but she acted as if she didn’t even see them. The customer got so lively and carried away by her giggling that he just kept going on and on. It took her over an hour to finish a typical man’s haircut. That’s when I had a talk with her.”
“How did Frida react?”
“She apologized and promised me it would never happen again. And I believed her.”
“When did this happen? You said it was a week ago?”
“Yes, it must have been last Saturday.”
“Did you know the customer from before?”
“No, he was new. I’d never seen him before.”
“Can you describe him?”
“I guess he was a little older than she was. Tall and good-looking. That was probably why she started acting that way.”
“Do you think he was from Gotland?”
“No, he didn’t speak with a Gotland accent. I noticed that because they were carrying on and making so much noise. He sounded like a Stockholmer.”
“Did they seem to know each other?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you happen to remember what he was wearing?”
“No, actually I don’t. He was probably very neatly dressed. I would have noticed if there was anything special about his clothes.”
“And with your walk-in customers you don’t write down their names?”
“No, not the walk-ins. We don’t do that.”
“Have you seen that customer since then?”
“No.”
“Did you notice anything else here in the salon? Anyone who showed a particular interest in Frida?”
“No. Of course she was very popular, but I didn’t notice anything special. But I can ask Malin. She works here, too.”
“We’ve already talked to her. Are there any other employees?”
“No, just the three of us. Well, two now.”
At that moment a buzzer went off in the salon. It was the timer on the hair dryer.
The hairdresser stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I have to go back to work. Is there anything else?”
“No,” said Jacobsson. “If you happen to think of anything, don’t hesitate to call. Here’s my card.”
“Is there any reason why Malin and I should be afraid? Do you think one of our customers might be the murderer?”
“Right now it doesn’t look as if there’s anything to indicate that. Although it wouldn’t hurt to be extra alert about anyone you happen to see in the area. If you see or hear anything suspicious, give us a call.”
Knutas sat in his office, filling his pipe. Once again he went over in his mind what he knew about the two homicides. There were two things in particular that were puzzling him: the murder weapons and the panties.
Helena Hillerstrom was killed with the family axe. The perpetrator had stolen it from the shed, just as Bergdal had said. How did that happen? How close had he been to Helena? He must have been spying on her for a while. Provided it wasn’t someone she knew, of course-one of the guests at the party, for example.
Frida Lindh was killed with a knife. Why did the perpetrator use two different types of weapon? Maybe he didn’t want to walk around town carrying an axe. A knife was much easier to conceal. It could be as simple as that. Presumably he had waited for her near the cemetery. That meant that he knew where she lived. Was it someone she knew? The mysterious man at the bar in the Monk’s Cellar had not yet turned up.
The bartender remembered him quite well but couldn’t recall having seen him before-or since that night, either. The interviews with the other employees who were working that Friday night at the restaurant had produced no results. If the murderer had been spying on her for a while and then decided to kill her, why did he choose that moment to act? He was taking a big risk by killing her in the middle of town, where he might easily be seen. There was also a big risk that the body would be quickly discovered.
Then there was the part about the panties. Knutas had reviewed similar incidents elsewhere in Sweden and even abroad. In every case in which the perpetrator had done something similar, he had also raped the victim or subjected her to some other kind of sexual assault. Whether Frida Lindh had been raped or not was something he wouldn’t know until the preliminary autopsy report was ready, but there was nothing to indicate that she was.
A group of experts from the National Criminal Police was working to find information about previous assailants with similar MOs. His own core team of Wittberg, Norrby, Jacobsson, and Sohlman was fully occupied with conducting interviews and compiling reports on the interviews they had already completed. The forensic medicine department in Solna would issue a preliminary statement about Frida Lindh, and they were still waiting for the response from SCL. Everything had been set in motion. Yet he was filled with impatience. No matter how he twisted and turned everything, he kept coming to the same conclusion. All indications were strong that the victims had known the perpetrator. That was also most often the case in homicides.
Frida Lindh had a very small circle of acquaintances on Gotland. Of course lots of people knew her, but her actual circle of friends was not large. It
wasn’t at all unlikely that she had met her killer at the beauty salon.
As for Helena Hillerstrom, she didn’t have many friends on Gotland, either. Apart from her relatives, the people she knew were mostly confined to those who had been at the party. Once again it was the face of Kristian Nordstrom that appeared in his mind. Nordstrom had been interviewed once, but Knutas wanted to talk to him again. He decided to go out and pay him a visit. Unannounced.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Real summer heat had finally arrived, and with a vengeance. It was eighty-two degrees without a breath of wind. His Mercedes was in its usual spot outside police headquarters, and Knutas saw to his great regret that at the moment it was parked in direct sunlight. When he opened the car door, it felt like stepping into a sauna. He tossed his jacket onto the backseat and practically burned himself when he got into the driver’s seat. The car had no air-conditioning. He rolled down the window, which helped a lot, but his jeans were sticking to his legs. I should have worn shorts, he thought. The heat made him irritable, and he was having a hard time concentrating. He pulled out onto Norra Hansegatan, and several minutes later he had left the town behind. He was headed north on the road to Brissund, six miles outside of Visby.
When he reached Kristian Nordstrom’s address, he was struck by the spectacular view. The modern wooden house stood in lonely majesty on a high cliff facing the sea and Brissund’s old fishing village. The house was built in a semicircle that followed the curve of the hill, as if the structure were climbing up the slope. Enormous glass windows covered every wall, and a truly huge wooden deck faced the water. Parked outside was a newer-model car, a dark green Jeep Cherokee.
Knutas was sweating. He got out of the car, pulled out his pipe, and stuck it between his teeth without lighting it. He walked over to the front door, which was painted blue. Just like in Greece, thought Knutas, and rang the bell. It had been a long time since he had traveled abroad. He could hear the doorbell ringing inside the house. He waited. Nothing happened. He rang the bell again. Waited. Sucked on the stem of his pipe.
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