And a silence spreads through the room, they all know that the first minutes, hours, days are the most important in any case, that an investigation becomes elusive with time, slippery, and can easily slide from the grasp of even the most experienced and talented detectives. If the truth remains hidden, it changes the lives of everyone involved for ever, in small but clearly perceptible ways.
‘Reinforcements are on their way,’ Sven says, ‘so we can pick up the pace. I suggest that we let Sundsten and Ekenberg check the alibis of all known sex offenders in the area.’ He goes on: ‘I’ve got the list ready. And we can get them to go door-to-door around the parents’ villa out in Sturefors. See if that turns up anything. Malin, Zeke? What are you going to do?’
‘We thought we might have a word with the owner of the ice cream kiosk. We couldn’t get hold of her yesterday, or, to be more accurate, she disappeared before we had a chance to talk to her.’
‘Good. Talk to her and see where it leads. What about the other people on the beach?’ Karim encouraging, almost imploring.
‘
‘Did she usually go swimming there?’ Sven asks.
‘Well, they’ve got their own pool,’ Malin says, ‘but Theresa’s mother did say that she sometimes cycled out there.’
‘Maybe she went for an evening swim?’
Malin nods.
‘How do you think we should play this with the press?’ Karim asks.
He’s asking us for help with the press. That’s a first, Malin thinks.
‘We can’t say anything, in case we jeopardise the inquiry,’ Zeke says.
‘We have to give them something,’ Sven says.
‘Tell them we’re working on the theory that the murder is connected to the girl who was found in the park. But not how or why we suspect that.’
Malin can hear that she sounds sure of her opinion as she speaks, even though she isn’t at all.
‘OK, that’s what we’ll do,’ Karim says.
‘The football team,’ Sven says. ‘The women’s football team. Give their coach a call. After all, Louise Svensson did mention the team. That has to mean something. And the suggestion of homosexuality in teenage girls. We need to follow up that line of inquiry.’
Malin makes a face.
‘She just said it in passing. She was being ironic. And my source didn’t say anything about the women’s team.’
‘Call her,’ Sven says. ‘Call anyway.’
‘What’s his name again, the coach?’ Zeke wonders.
‘Her,’ Sven says. ‘Something like Pia Rasmefog. Danish, evidently.’
Karim looks as if he’s thinking. Not about calling Pia Rasmefog, but something else.
‘Nervous about facing the hyenas?’
Zeke, smiling.
‘You know that’s my natural element, Martinsson.’
Karim almost alarmingly self-assured.
30
‘Does it really make sense to call Pia Rasmefog? Isn’t that just prejudice?’
Malin is sitting at her desk in the open-plan office.
‘You mean, is it prejudiced to look at the women’s football team because the attack and the murder both seem to have some sort of lesbian involvement?’
Zeke at his desk a few metres away, by the window looking out onto the car park. Cars shining in the light.
‘I don’t think it is, Malin. Because even if Lollo Svensson only mentioned them in passing when we searched her house, we still have to check it out, just to make sure. And Viktoria Solhage used to play football, so the team has cropped up more than once in this investigation.’
‘Sure, but it was still just something Lollo Svensson said in passing.’
‘Everybody knows that dykes play football.’
‘Can you hear what you sound like, Zeke? You sound completely bloody mad.’
‘But am I wrong?’
‘You call, Zeke. The number’s 140160.’
The phone rings three, four times before someone answers Zeke’s call.
His face is tense, and Malin is curious to hear how he’s going to approach Pia Rasmefog with his questions. She’s read interviews with the Dane in the
‘Yes, hello,’ Zeke says, and Malin can hear that his voice is hoarser than usual, the tone is higher and he’s nervous, unsure of how to approach Rasmefog.
‘This is Detective Inspector Zacharias Martinsson from the Linkoping Police. I’d like to ask you a few questions, is now a good time?’
His choice of words milder than usual.
‘Great. Well, you see, the women’s football team has cropped up in the investigation into the murder of Theresa Eckeved . . . How it’s cropped up? . . . Well, I’m afraid I can’t reveal . . . no, no particular player, just in general . . . yes, perhaps . . . but . . . yes, of course, it might seem prejudiced, but please, calm down . . . this is actually a very serious crime that we’re investigating,’ and then, suddenly, Zeke takes charge of the conversation, and Pia Rasmefog appears to understand that they have to ask, seeing as ‘the women’s football team’ has cropped up in the investigation, albeit only on the periphery.
‘Is there any player that you believe could have a tendency towards violence? More than anyone else. No? Anyone who’s been behaving differently over the last few days? Not that either? Nothing that you think could be of interest to us?’
Zeke takes the phone from his ear, the conversation is evidently over.
‘Fucking furious. She didn’t even answer the last question.’
Karim Akbar absorbs the light from the photographers’ flashes, as the cameras’ clicking lenses call out: ‘You exist! You’re special!’
Sullen and angry journalists in rows in front of him, dressed lightly in the summer heat, yet still in that typical, scruffy, bohemian journalist style that Karim hates.
He hasn’t given them much, and Daniel Hogfeldt and that hot-tempered woman from
‘So you can’t answer that question?’ Daniel Hogfeldt almost shouted. ‘Because you don’t want to jeopardise the investigation? Don’t you think the general public in this city has a right to know as much as possible seeing as there’s a murderer on the loose? People are frightened, that much is obvious, so what right do you have to withhold information?’
‘There’s no suggestion that we’re withholding information.’
‘Are the cases connected?’
The woman from
‘I can’t answer that.’
‘But is that one of your theories?’
‘It’s one of a number of possibilities.’
‘So what’s your theory?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that.’
‘Is Louise Svensson a suspect in either case?’
