Unspoken (28 page)

Johan and Peter headed back to town. They were planning two reports, one that dealt with the police work and another that focused on the feeling of shock the day after among the schoolkids, the stable staff, the neighbors, and the ordinary citizens of Visby.

Many had still been hoping that Fanny would be found alive, even though hope had dwindled with each day that passed. Now there was a great sense of sorrow.

Back at the hotel that evening, Johan tried to get hold of Grenfors, but the editor refused to talk to him. He had found a trainee to do the interview with Fanny’s mother, but after discussions with the producer and editors, the piece was never aired. No one else seemed to be interested in it, either.
It’s just a matter of prestige
, thought Johan when a colleague later recounted on the phone the wrangling going on in the newsroom. Good Lord, sometimes his job was like kindergarten.

The important thing was never to forget your purpose and to keep asking yourself why you were doing a particular story and whether it had general interest. And then you had to weigh that against the harm that you might cause people. He was sure that he had made the right decision when he refused to contact Majvor Jansson. No one could make him interview people who were in shock.

That was one lesson he had learned after all his years working in TV. On a few occasions he had done what some overzealous editor wanted and interviewed people who had just lost a loved one or who had been involved in an accident. Just in order to be accommodating. Afterward he had realized that it was wrong. Even though at the time of the interviews the individuals had wanted to talk in order to share their grief or to draw attention to a problem, they were confused and unable to think clearly. To dump the responsibility on them was indefensible. Besides, they didn’t comprehend the scope of their participation. The impact of TV was enormous. Images and interviews could be repeated in all kinds of contexts, without allowing the person involved any opportunity to stop them. And each time his or her grief would be torn wide open.

She felt as if she were in a soundproof glass bubble, cut off from the rest of the world. Someone had pulled the cord, stopped the noise, brought the merry-go-round to a halt.

Emma was lying on her back on the floor of Viveka’s small living room. Her friend was away for the weekend, so she had plenty of peace and quiet to think things through.

It was very tranquil in the living room. She didn’t want any disturbing sounds—no radio, no TV, no music. She wished she could sink deep into an undemanding darkness that would simply embrace her.

Another body was growing inside of her body. A tiny human being that was part of her and Johan. Half him and half her. She closed her eyes and ran her hand over her smooth abdomen. Nothing was visible on the outside yet, but her body was sending her signals. Her breasts were tender, she had started suffering from morning sickness, and her craving for oranges was just as strong as during her previous pregnancies. She wondered what kind of person was inside her. A girl or a boy? A little sister or a little brother?

She let the tips of her fingers move in circles under her shirt, sliding down to her crotch and then back up to her sore nipples. The baby was telling her that he or she was inside, already taking nourishment through the umbilical cord, and growing bigger every day. She had figured out that she was in her eighth week. How far had the fetus developed? She and Olle had followed closely the various stages of development when she was pregnant with Sara and Filip. He had read aloud to her from a book about what was happening each week. They had been so filled with anticipation.

Now everything was different. This weekend she would have to make a decision. To have the baby or not. She had made a promise to Olle. He had reacted with surprising composure to the news that she was pregnant, even though it was quite clear that he was not the father. With icy determination he had told her that if she decided to have the child, their divorce would be inevitable. He had no intention of taking care of Johan’s kid and being saddled with her lover for the rest of his life. If they were going to continue as a family, there was only one choice—to get rid of it, as he said. Get rid of it. The words sounded absurd to her ears. As if it were merely a matter of picking off a scab. Just scrape it off and flush it down the toilet.

She wished that someone else could make this decision for her. No matter which option she chose, it was going to be trouble.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 17

On Monday morning the phone began ringing the minute Knutas stepped through the doors of police headquarters.

“Hi, this is Ove Andersson, the building superintendent at Jungmansgatan. We met in connection with the murder of Henry Dahlström.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, the thing is that we’re cleaning out the darkroom that Dahlström was using here. It’s going to be a storage room for bicycles again. I’m standing in the room right now.”

“Yes?”

“We’ve found something odd, behind a vent. It’s a plastic bag with a package inside. It’s taped up and I didn’t want to open it because I thought I might destroy some evidence.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s a brown paper package with ordinary tape around it, very lightweight, about the same size as a stack of postcards.”

Under Knutas’s intense supervision, Sohlman opened the carefully wrapped package, which had been delivered to the crime tech division. It turned out to contain photographs. Rather blurry, but there was no doubt about the subject matter. Almost identical, they all seemed to have been taken from the same angle. In the pictures they could distinguish a man who was having intercourse with a young woman, or rather a girl. She seemed to be half the size of the man. Her face was hidden, partly by him and partly by her long black hair. Her arms were stretched up in an unnatural position, as if she had been tied to something. The man was bending over her, almost covering the girl’s body with his, but one of her legs was visible. She had dark skin.

Sohlman and Knutas looked at each other.

“It must be Fanny Jansson,” Knutas said at last. “But who’s the man?”

“God only knows.”

Sohlman ran a hand over his forehead. He took out a magnifying glass and began scrutinizing the photos.

“Look at this. There’s a painting hanging on the wall behind them. You can see a bit of red and a . . . What’s that? Maybe a dog?”

He handed the magnifying glass to Knutas. One corner of the painting was visible.

“It looks like a dog lying on something red. It could be a cushion or a sofa.”

Sohlman eagerly looked through the other pictures, but none of them revealed anything more.

Both men sank down on their chairs. Knutas dug his pipe out of his pocket.

“Well, we now have the connection,” muttered Knutas. “Dahlström took pictures of someone who had a sexual relationship with Fanny Jansson. He must have photographed them on the sly and then blackmailed the man for money. That’s where the twenty-five thousand came from. That would explain everything: the man at the harbor, the money, Fanny . . .”

“That means that the man we’re looking at in these pictures is the perpetrator,” said Sohlman, tapping his gloved index finger on the man’s pale back.

“Presumably. It’s easy to figure out why he killed Dahlström. But why Fanny? If it is her, that is. We can’t be completely positive.”

Knutas picked up one of the photographs and held it out.

“Who the hell is he?”

Knutas summoned the investigative team to a meeting to discuss the surprising discovery. The mood was one of nervous elation—rumors about the contents of the package had quickly spread through the corridors. Sohlman had scanned the photos so that he could project them on the screen at the front of the room. Wittberg was the first to speak.

“Are we positive that the girl in the photos is Fanny Jansson?”

“Her mother was just here, and she identified her. You can see the girl’s watch on her left wrist. Fanny got that watch as a birthday present last year.”

“How did the mother react?” asked Jacobsson.

“She fell apart,” said Knutas with a sigh. “And who wouldn’t, seeing their child in that sort of situation?”

“What kind of damn pervert is this guy?” growled Norrby.

“The only thing we’ve been able to determine so far is that we’re dealing with a grown man—definitely not a boy her own age.”

“It looks like she’s tied up,” Kihlgård interjected. “Her arms are stretched above her head. She’s tied to something.”

“Look at this,” said Sohlman, putting up the most detailed of the photos. “There seems to be a painting in the background. The only thing we can really make out is the image of a dog lying on a red sofa or something similar. Yellow-patterned wallpaper with a faint border is visible in the background, as well as a glimpse of the back of a chair. It looks like an antique chair with a high back and carved decorations. The photographer took all the pictures from the same angle. The fact that they’re so blurry could be because they were taken from outside, through a window. The question is: Where were the photos taken? It has to be somewhere in town or nearby, at some easily accessible place. Otherwise how would Dahlström have discovered Fanny and the unidentified man?”

“Maybe it’s a storeroom,” suggested Norrby. “Or a meeting room. Or it could be in the home of somebody that Dahlström knew.”

“The room looks brightly lit. Can you see how the daylight is coming through the window? I have the impression that it’s a big room,” Jacobsson said.

“I really wonder how the man met Fanny,” said Wittberg. “Could he be a friend of her mother?”

“How disgusting, if that’s the case. That would be horrible.” Jacobsson grimaced.

“I think the pictures look pornographic,” said Kihlgård, holding one up. “It might very well be a sex ring. Maybe there was a whole gang of guys who were exploiting Fanny, and this is just one of them. Maybe she got drawn into prostitution and was forced to sell her body to the neighborhood men.”

“Up until now we’ve been lucky to be spared that type of activity here on Gotland. At least as far as we know,” said Knutas with a sigh.

“Or pedophiles,” murmured Jacobsson. “Fanny might have been one of many children being exploited. We might have a pedophile ring right around the corner, and we don’t have the faintest idea about it.”

“The Internet. We have to check the Internet. I have a friend who’s working on a big pedophile investigation in Huddinge. I’ll ask her whether there might be anyone in that ring who has connections to Gotland.”

“Good idea,” said Knutas approvingly. “This could be about almost anything at all.”

He was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. The others listened in silence to his murmuring. When he was finished, he looked at his colleagues alertly.

“That was Nilsson at SCL. The samples taken from Fanny Jansson’s bedroom have been examined. No match was found in the police records, but the blood and hairs that were taken from her bed have been compared with the evidence from Dahlström’s place. There’s no doubt whatsoever—they match.”

Late that evening Knutas went back home and found his entire family gathered in front of the TV. They answered his greeting by saying, “Shh—this is so exciting!”

He sighed and went out to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a plate of leftovers, which he heated up in the microwave. The only one who wanted to keep him company was the cat, who rubbed against his leg and then hopped onto his lap and curled up. The cat seemed completely unaware of the problem she caused him. It wasn’t easy to lean forward to eat with a cat curled up on his lap.

The idea that a murderer and sexual predator was on the loose on Gotland gave him goose bumps. At first the perpetrator had given in to Dahlström’s demands and made two payments, but after that it clearly got to be too much. But actually deciding to murder the man who was blackmailing him was a big step. Maybe the killer thought he could get away with it if he made it look like a drunken brawl. And then there was the money from the racetrack. Most likely he knew about it and made use of the fact. He probably stole the money to mislead the police. The fact that Dahlström’s apartment had been searched must mean that he was looking for the photos. The same with the darkroom. But his search had been in vain. The package was hidden inside a vent, and no one had bothered to look there, neither the killer nor the police.

After the murder the perpetrator left the scene. He tossed the murder weapon and the camera into a grove of trees some distance away. He presumably had a car parked farther away, near the next apartment complex.

Knutas poked at his food: meatballs with reheated pasta. He poured on some more ketchup and aimlessly stirred it into his food. He took a gulp of milk. Not a sound from the living room. The movie must be very exciting.

And then Fanny was killed. Although maybe that’s where they really ought to start, since it was where the whole thing began. The story of the fourteen-year-old girl. How had the man met her in the first place? He must somehow be part of her world.

Knutas put that question aside for the time being and continued his train of thought. The man was using her sexually; there was no doubt about that. It was anyone’s guess how long it had been going on. No one seemed to know that she was seeing anybody. He doubted that this was a love relationship in the usual sense. The man might have threatened her, or else she was dependent on him in some way. But what had prompted him to kill her? He had already gotten rid of Dahlström, so he wasn’t being blackmailed anymore.

He was taking a big risk by committing another murder. It might not have been planned, of course. Maybe it happened as a result of some sex game. Fanny appeared to be tied up in the photos. Maybe the killer had strangled her by mistake and then dumped her body in the woods.

There was another alternative. Maybe Fanny had become so difficult that he found it necessary to kill her. Maybe she was threatening to expose him, or simply wanted to end the relationship.

The strange thing was that no one had noticed anything—not a single person.