Jacobsson took out her mobile to summon more police officers and the dog patrol to Sudersand; she also ordered all cars on the ferries leaving Faro to be checked. She turned to the officers who were setting up the police tape and shouted, ‘We need to cordon off a much bigger area!’
Jacobsson and Sohlman then went over to look at the body, which was covered with a cotton cloth inside the improvised tent.
‘Are you ready?’
Sohlman cast a glance at his colleague’s pale face. Jacobsson always had difficulty looking at dead bodies. For her to throw up at a murder scene was more the rule than the exception. As the crime-scene tech lifted off the cloth, she pressed a handkerchief to her mouth.
The dead man was about her age. He had a very striking appearance, with deep-set eyes that were an unusually bright blue. Almost nonexistent eyebrows. He had high cheekbones and a slightly protruding jaw. If not for the bullet hole in his forehead, his face would have seemed quite peaceful.
‘The shot was fired from a distance of a few inches, maximum. It’s obvious from the entry wound that the murderer was very close. The guy never had a chance.’
‘How can you be so sure he didn’t do it himself?’ muttered Jacobsson from behind the handkerchief as she struggled to fend off the nausea.
‘There’s more. Prepare yourself.’
Cautiously Sohlman lifted off the rest of the covering. Jacobsson groaned when she saw what was underneath. The man’s stomach was riddled with bullet holes.
‘Shot to hell. I’ve counted seven shots to the abdomen. It’s completely insane.’
Jacobsson turned away and threw up.
JOHAN BERG WAS standing in a cow pasture interviewing a farmer who was complaining about the cutbacks in EU subsidies when the call came through. He had forgotten to switch off his mobile during the interview; it was just the type of stupid mistake that TV reporters were not supposed to make. But the damage was done. His camera person, Pia Lilja, rolled her eyes and threw out her hands, then left the camera on its tripod as she went over to pat a cow while Johan took the call. It was Max Grenfors, the head of Regional News.
‘Have you heard?’
‘No, what is it? I’m in the middle of an interview.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ said Grenfors impatiently, ‘but a man was found shot to death over on Faro. Right next to the campsite. Sudersand. You know it, right?’
‘Of course. What happened?’
While he talked Johan fixed his eyes on the farmer, who was looking unhappy about the interruption. No doubt he wanted nothing more than to continue his complaints about the bureaucrats down in Brussels.
‘He was found this morning, in the sea near Sudersand beach.’
‘How do you know he didn’t drown?’
‘I’m just reading what it says on the TT wire service. According to their report, the body was in the water, but he’d been shot several times.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘So stop what you’re doing and get over there as fast as you can. Ring me when you’re in the car. I’ll give you the latest news update while you’re on the road.’
Johan quickly said goodbye to the disappointed farmer, explaining that they would have to finish the interview some other time.
Luckily they were in Larbro in the north of Gotland, not far from Farosund. Pia Lilja’s face shone with excitement as she stomped on the accelerator, making the car tyres squeal as they took the curves at high speed. Her black hair was sticking out in all directions, as usual. Her eyes, with their heavy coating of mascara, were firmly fixed on the road ahead.
‘Fabulous,’ she exclaimed. ‘Finally something is happening.’
‘Fabulous?’ Johan looked at her in surprise. ‘The fact that a human being has been shot to death?’
‘Come on, you know what I mean. Of course not. But it’s much more exciting to report on a homicide than to film a story about unhappy farmers.’
Pia loved it when things got cracking and stuff was happening. Gotland was really too small a place for someone as news-hungry as Pia Lilja. She was twenty-five and wanted to get out into the world, to accompany one of the TV foreign correspondents and witness wars and famines.
But so far she was considered too young and inexperienced. For the time being she had to settle for documenting more ordinary domestic events, such as disputes about putting in a new road in Burgsvik, or the complaints of students about the poor quality of the food served in the school cafeteria in Hemse, or the drama of the local championship match in throwing the
But no matter what the news report, she somehow managed to take all sorts of exciting pictures. Pia always did her best. In addition, she had a huge network of contacts that was truly astonishing. She was the youngest of seven siblings, and her extended family was spread all over Gotland. Thanks to them, and her highly developed social skills, she seemed to know absolutely everyone.
In the car on their way over to the Farosund ferry dock, Johan listened to Grenfors with one ear and to the local radio station with the other, all the while taking notes at lightning speed. The news had come over the TT wire ten minutes earlier. The press was always cautious if there was the slightest suspicion of suicide, but a witness had managed to catch a glimpse of the body and had seen first-hand the bullet hole in the head, as well as the wounds in the abdomen. Anybody could work out that the dead man couldn’t possibly have caused such wounds all on his own. The witness had been interviewed by a journalist from Radio Gotland who just happened to be on Faro with all of his equipment. The police had confirmed that they were dealing with a suspected homicide.
The ferry crossing to Faro took only a few minutes. The sky had cleared and the sun glittered on the surface of the sea. The road north towards Sudersand took them through the rocky landscape of Faro. Along the way Johan and Pia encountered bicyclists, camping caravans and cars filled with families on holiday.
When they reached the intersection of four roads near Sudersand and turned right towards the campsite, a picture of Emma’s face flashed through Johan’s mind. If they had turned left at the intersection instead, they would have eventually ended up at Norsta Auren, the beach near her parents’ house.
Emma Winarve was the great love of Johan’s life. Or at least she had been. They had spent so many wonderful days in that house by the sea when her parents were away, there on the beach between Skarsande and the Faro lighthouse, on the extreme tip of Faro. It was the most beautiful of places. But now their relationship was non-existent.
He was roused from his thoughts as they reached Sudersand campsite. The police had blocked off the entire area. Officers were everywhere, but there was no one available to speak to journalists. Neither Karin Jacobsson nor the police spokesman, Lars Norrby, answered their mobile, and Knutas was on holiday in Denmark with his family.
‘Typical.’ Johan stared with dismay at the campsite as they stood outside the police tape. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Pia as she finished shooting one last panorama of the area. ‘Come with me.’
They jumped back in the car. Pia drove back to the intersection that would take them to Sudersand East and headed for the nearby colony of summer cottages. She turned on to a small side road, no bigger than a cow path, and the car began jolting along through the woods, thick with underbrush, and across a meadow filled with flowers and tall grass.
Several times Johan thought they were going to get stuck, but Pia managed to make the car forge its way onward. When she finally stopped next to a big shrub that was blocking their way, he could hear the sea. It was three thirty in the afternoon, and they still had about an hour left to file their report. Johan patted Pia on the shoulder.
‘You’re damned good at this.’
It took them all of two minutes to walk down to the shore. In one direction they could see the promontory that marked the end of Sudersand bay, and in the other direction was the campsite. Close to the shoreline a small tent had been set up, and a group of people was gathered around it. Suddenly a whirring sound was heard overhead.
