The biscuit seemed to swell inside my mouth. With every word I felt smaller and smaller. Suddenly my aunt turned to look at me, as if she’d just discovered that I was in the room.
‘And what about you? Do you have a girlfriend?’
The question was so unexpected that it took a moment for me to respond, shaking my head.
I wanted to sink into the green carpet. Allow myself to be swallowed up.
In the car on the way home, Mamma kept on raving about how great Marcel was.
‘And just think – Margareta told me that he has already started shaving,’ she exclaimed. ‘He even has to do it every day!’
I didn’t say a word.
My siblings didn’t either.
THE RAIN WAS pouring down, so Knutas drove his beat-up old Merc to work. He still couldn’t get himself to part with the car, despite pressure from Lina to sell it. He let her take the new car, since he assumed she wouldn’t want to walk either, if the bad weather continued. He remembered her saying that they’d had lasagne for dinner the night before. Was that really part of a low-glycaemic diet? He smiled to himself. It was always the same thing with Lina. She would start out so enthusiastic and with lots of big plans whenever she decided to lose some weight. She would collect a whole bunch of information, buy exercise equipment and fill the refrigerator with the proper food. The diet usually lasted no more than two weeks.
When Knutas entered the conference room for the meeting of the investigative team, he was eager to get going.
‘Good morning, everyone,’ he began.
He raised his hand to quiet the usual morning buzz of conversation. Sometimes he felt like a schoolteacher in a classroom. Right now he wanted to tell his colleagues about what he’d discovered the previous evening. He briefly described how he happened to find Veronika Hammar’s studio at the same address as Viktor Algard’s flat.
‘But isn’t she at least sixty?’ Wittberg interjected. ‘I thought he’d go for a young hottie.’
‘Not every man shares your preferences,’ Jacobsson teased him.
Thomas Wittberg’s numerous love affairs were legend among his colleagues. They often involved twenty-year- olds who were infatuated with Wittberg because of his status as a police detective and his windsurfer good looks. Jacobsson regarded his style as hopelessly out of date and usually made some remark about him being stuck in the eighties. But that sort of criticism rolled right off Wittberg’s back. He continued to show off his biceps in tight T- shirts, regularly went to the tanning salon close to his home, and stubbornly refused to cut his long blond hair.
‘She’s actually fifty-six,’ said Knutas. ‘Viktor was fifty-three. So there was only a three-year age difference. We got hold of her last night and during the interview she confirmed that she’d had a relationship with Algard. She told us that she was at the party at the conference centre, but she couldn’t find Viktor when she was about to leave, so she went home alone. At one point during the evening, they had intended to withdraw to the room downstairs where the victim’s body was eventually found. Viktor went on ahead, while Veronika made a detour to the ladies’ room. She ended up being delayed because she ran into some friends. When she finally went downstairs, Viktor wasn’t there. She assumed that he’d grown tired of waiting for her.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Just after midnight, sometime between twelve and twelve thirty.’
‘So she went down to the closed-off lounge area, with the bar and the sofas?’ asked Wittberg.
Knutas nodded.
‘Did she see anything?’
‘No. Apparently she didn’t actually enter the room because the lights were off. On the other hand, she did notice that a bar stool had toppled over on to the floor.’
Prosecutor Smittenberg looked puzzled as he pensively tugged at his earlobe.
‘That means the murder must have been committed while Veronika was in the loo.’
‘Provided that she didn’t do the killing herself,’ Jacobsson countered sagely.
‘It does seem strange that she made no attempt to contact us. It’s frankly incomprehensible,’ said Wittberg. ‘What was her explanation?’
‘She said that she was overcome with panic.’
‘That’s not really credible. What was she afraid of? But I assume that’s not enough to arrest her, is it, Birger?’ Wittberg turned to the prosecutor.
‘No, it’s not. She was shocked and upset. They were conducting a secret love affair, and she didn’t want to get involved. We also need to consider that she’s actually quite a well-known artist. Maybe not famous, but certainly well known,’ he added dryly. ‘That made the situation more sensitive, of course. The circumstances aren’t sufficiently compelling to warrant an arrest.’
‘Does she live on Hastgatan or is that just where she has her studio?’ asked Wittberg.
‘She lives on Tranhusgatan, over near the Botanical Gardens,’ said Knutas.
‘So who is she, actually? And what sort of life does she lead? The only thing I know about her is that she paints lousy pictures,’ said Wittberg.
Knutas looked down at his notes.
‘She was divorced years ago and now lives alone. She has four grown children. Her eldest son, Mats, lives in Stockholm. He didn’t spend much time with her while he was growing up. He was born when Veronika was very young, so he was raised by a foster family. Then she had Andreas, who’s a sheep farmer out in Hablingbo. A daughter, Mikaela, has moved out to the island of Vato in the Stockholm archipelago. She and her husband own a riding school. The youngest son, Simon, lives on Bogegatan here in Visby.’
He was interrupted by Sohlman coming into the room. The crime tech looked tense.
‘Sorry to be late, but we found a match on the fingerprints. Veronika Hammar’s prints are on the handle to the terrace door near where the body was found. Meaning the door that the perp presumably used to escape.’
Utter silence descended over the room.
THE HUNT FOR Veronika Hammar began as soon as the meeting was over. The police quickly discovered that she wasn’t in her flat on Tranhusgatan or in her studio on Hastgatan. She had no other known residence, so they went looking for her at the homes of her children. The only one they managed to contact was the sheep farmer named Andreas in Hablingbo. He claimed to have no idea where his mother might be, but he promised to phone if he heard from her. According to the employer of her eldest son, Mats was on holiday on Mallorca. The daughter who lived on the island near Stockholm was travelling with the Red Cross in South America, and it was impossible to reach her. Her husband also told the police that Mikaela had broken off all contact with her mother ten years ago. When Jacobsson asked why, he said that she would have to ask his wife about that. The youngest son turned out not to be at home either, but no one knew where he was.
In the meantime, the investigative team worked on finding out who else belonged to Veronika Hammar’s immediate circle of family and friends – a task which was quickly accomplished. She had two sisters, but both of her parents were deceased. And she seemed to have only a small number of friends.
At lunchtime the ME’s preliminary post-mortem report arrived by fax. It confirmed that Viktor Algard had died as a result of cyanide poisoning. He had apparently caused the gash on his forehead himself. According to the ME, the wound occurred when Algard fell against one of the cocktail tables near the bar. The tabletop was made of marble, and Viktor’s blood was found on the surface, as well as on the floor underneath. In her report the ME wrote that cyanide poisoning typically provoked convulsions, and that the victim, by all indications, had staggered around for several minutes before he ran into that table and then died. The time of death had to be between midnight and six in the morning.
Knutas leaned back in his worn old chair, gently rocking back and forth. The report largely confirmed what they already knew. The murderer had most likely exited through the terrace door, which faced the narrow side street. It was all so simple. And their suspicions about Veronika Hammar had been reinforced when her prints were found on the door handle.
In the conference centre just one floor above, Knutas himself had merrily partied away with all the other guests while the murder was being committed. That was a fact he was having a hard time digesting. There were no witnesses. No one had seen anyone leaving the building at the time in question, which would have been between twelve fifteen and twelve thirty. There were no residences in the area surrounding the conference centre.
Knutas felt overcome with restlessness. It seemed very likely that Veronika was the murderer. Maybe Algard had grown tired of their affair and wanted to go back to his wife. Jealousy was quite a common motive for
