the house project on Furillen, but we haven’t yet located the person in charge. Of course, Ekwall had his suspicions that things weren’t being done entirely on the up and up, but he reasoned that as long as the company was doing well and he received his salary, he shouldn’t get involved.’
‘Typical male reaction,’ snorted Jacobsson. ‘Just stick your head in the sand and refuse to see what’s going on around you, and then you can’t be held responsible.’
‘At any rate, he had a hard time explaining how the company could have taken on so much more work than its employees could handle. I think that as soon as the examination of the company’s finances is complete, we’ll be able to charge both him and possibly the secretary, Linda Johansson, with tax evasion,’ Knutas went on. ‘She couldn’t have been unaware of what was going on, even if she too did probably try to stick her head in the sand. Provided that tactic isn’t exclusive to men.’
‘Has anyone talked to her husband?’ asked Kihlgard.
‘Yes, but from what I understand, we didn’t learn anything useful,’ said Jacobsson. ‘I don’t have the transcript here, but we can take another look at the interview.’
‘Good.’ Knutas drummed his fingertips impatiently on the table. ‘Anything else? How’s it going with the search for a safe?’
‘We’ve been over the house and the office again with a fine-tooth comb,’ said Sohlman. ‘There’s no sign at all of a safe or any money stashed away.’
‘The fraud division is continuing their investigation, although the wheels turn slowly,’ said Knutas. ‘But at least they’ve gone through the bank accounts of the company, as well as Bovide’s personal accounts. When it comes to the company, it’s obvious that he was making extensive use of illegal workers, at least during the past two years. He was clearly taking big risks, committing the firm to major projects and laying out a lot of money. But as a corporation, the company is separate from his private finances, and there we’ve been unable to find anything out of the ordinary – either too much or too little money. According to his wife, everything adds up.’
‘The question is whether she’s being honest,’ said Knutas pensively. ‘And whether the business partner, Johnny Ekwall, is telling the truth. Let’s bring both of them in again.’
THE PHONE RANG as soon as Knutas was back in his office.
A husky male voice spoke on the other end of the line.
‘Hi, it’s Torsten Ahlberg from Visby hospital. You wanted to talk to me?’
‘Yes, thanks for getting back to me.’
Knutas quickly outlined the details in the Bovide homicide case.
‘He was a regular patient of mine, and I had prescribed anti-depressants for him. That’s true.’
‘Why? What sort of problem did he have?’
‘He suffered from panic attacks and needed help in quelling the symptoms, in order to avoid the real abyss, so to speak. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the underlying problem was.’
‘Was it related to his epilepsy?’
‘Not directly, but he started having epileptic fits about the same time as the panic attacks began. That was years ago.’
‘When did he first come to see you?’
‘I have a very clear memory of that,’ said the doctor. ‘After I heard about the murder, naturally I started thinking about my contact with Peter Bovide. I thought that was what you wanted to ask me about, so I’ve already taken out his casebook. I have all the information here. Under normal circumstances, the contents would be confidential, but it’s a different matter now that a homicide investigation is involved – and besides, the patient is dead.’
‘I’d like to know as much as you can tell me about Bovide.’
‘He came here in the early hours of 1 August 1985, at 3.15 a.m., to be precise,’ the doctor read from the file. ‘He was suffering from violent convulsions. We gave him the appropriate medicines and detoxified him. His blood alcohol level was.16 when he arrived.’
‘From what I understand, that was his first epileptic fit, and it brought on a severe depression.’
‘Hmm… that’s not exactly how I’d describe the situation. Peter Bovide did begin therapy after that event, and then he started seeing an authorized therapist. The psychologist and I kept in contact the whole time, since I was the doctor handling his case from a purely medical perspective, and we both saw a connection between the epilepsy and the depression.’
‘In what way?’
‘It’s not easy to say. But both started at the same time.’
‘On that day, 1 August?’
‘No, he’d actually had his first epileptic fit a week earlier.’
‘Really? In what context?’
‘Unfortunately, I don’t know. He didn’t want to say. On that occasion he was admitted to Nynashamn hospital.’
‘Nynashamn? What was he doing there?’
‘He may have been on his way either to or from Gotland. It was in the middle of the summer, after all. He must have been on holiday.’
‘Sure, you’re probably right. Well, don’t hesitate to ring again if you think of anything else.’
Knutas thanked the doctor for his information.
LATE MONDAY NIGHT, Knutas received the message he was hoping for. The Estonian police reported that the owner of the white van, Ants Otsa, had been arrested, along with his two companions, at his home in central Tallinn. All three had openly admitted to the police that they’d been working illegally in Sweden for a company on Gotland called Slite Construction. The contact between the Swedish and Estonian police had functioned beyond all expectations. The extradition process, which was normally difficult to handle, had been carried out with astonishing ease. On Tuesday the men would be flown to Stockholm, and from there to Gotland.
Knutas leaned back in his chair. He was pleased to know that the men who had most likely beaten Vendela Bovide and also threatened him and locked him in a cupboard had now been caught. And maybe all three, or at least one of them, had murdered Peter Bovide.
TUESDAY, 18 JULY
RIGHT AFTER LUNCH on Tuesday, the three Estonians arrived at police headquarters, along with officers from the Estonian police force. An interpreter was summoned to help out if needed.
Knutas was not allowed to participate since he was a plaintiff in the incident that had occurred on Furillen. He caught a glimpse of the men as they were escorted to the interrogation room, and he recognized them at once. A wave of revulsion ran through his body. Maybe he’d been more affected by the experience than he thought.
The men were identified as Ants Otsa, Andres Sula and Evald Kreem. They were interviewed separately.
Jacobsson and Wittberg started with Ants Otsa, the owner of the van.
They took seats in one of the interrogation rooms on the ground floor of police headquarters. The arrested man sat on one side of the table, and Jacobsson sat across from him. As a witness to the interview, Wittberg sat in a chair a short distance away. Otsa was no more than twenty-three years old, and he seemed nervous. His English was good enough that they didn’t need an interpreter.
‘We had nothing to do with killing Peter. Nothing. You have to realize that,’ he insisted over and over again, even before the interview had begun.
‘OK, OK,’ Jacobsson admonished him. ‘Take it easy. Let’s take one thing at a time.’
She switched on the tape recorder, asked the usual introductory questions and then leaned back in her chair to study the young man’s face; he was clearly panic-stricken. He was blond, with a pale complexion, and his tongue was pierced. A pinch of snuff made his upper lip bulge on one side. His eyes were a watery light blue.
‘What have you been doing here on Gotland?’
‘I work in construction.’
‘Illegally?’
‘What do you mean?’
