Suddenly the doors of the supermarket opened and he came out. He didn’t notice her as he walked past with his son and bags of shopping. With the woman’s help, she got to her feet and stared after him. He went over to a white van. On the door it said: Slite Construction, with a phone number.
That was enough.
WHEN KARIN JACOBSSON regained consciousness, everything was quiet. She couldn’t hear the sound of any engine. She was lying in a terribly uncomfortable position, leaning forward, with her back hunched and her head stuck between her knees. Tape had been placed over her mouth, and her wrists and ankles burned from the rope tied around them. It was pitch dark in the small space. Her body ached. She had a splitting headache, and she could taste blood. He must have really hit her hard. It took a moment before she even tried to move, which turned out to be nearly impossible; she felt as if she were held in a vice.
She wondered how much time had passed since she was knocked out. A few minutes? Half an hour? Several hours?
She made an effort to try and make out the shapes in the dark. She managed to lift her head enough to pull herself into an upright position. The headache felt like a migraine and was almost unbearable. She touched the wall with her elbow. The surface felt hard and smooth. She could tell that she was still on the boat, but the silence was so complete that all the passengers must have disembarked by now; presumably, they had reached the harbour in Farosund. How long would the boat stay docked? Maybe twenty-four hours? How long would it be before Knutas began to wonder why she hadn’t reported back? And before he or any of the others worked out what had happened to her?
Who was Captain Stefan Norrstrom, and how was he involved in these events? Why had he knocked her out and then locked her up in here? Thoughts whirled through her mind without making any sort of coherent picture.
Jacobsson desperately tried to move her arms and legs, but the rope refused to budge. A sea captain would know knots, of course. It felt impossible for her to get free. She tried rocking back and forth. There was a little space next to her, and she tried to tap on the wall, but she couldn’t hear anything.
To top it all off, she needed to pee.
She listened for some sound. She had no idea where she was on the boat.
Suddenly she heard a ruckus on the other side of the wall. The door opened, and a strong light blinded her. There he stood, right in front of her. He stared at her for a couple of seconds, then slammed the door shut again. She heard the clack of the lock turning.
Wasn’t he even going to let her use the toilet? Give her anything to drink? She felt terribly thirsty after her long hike on Gotska Sandon in the blazing sun. She’d been in such a hurry back at the campsite that she hadn’t filled her water bottles. It had been a long time since she’d had anything to drink, much less any food. Her head felt heavy, and she was starting to feel dizzy. Was he going to leave her here to die? She tried again to loosen the ropes, to move her fingers, hands and feet, but nothing did any good.
For a long time after the door closed, she sat there trying to make out any noises. She heard nothing. It was utterly quiet. Thirst and dizziness were making her confused. She closed her eyes, and her body went numb.
KNUTAS AND KIHLGARD took the lead, followed closely by two other police vehicles. They drove north-east at top speed, heading for Kyllaj. Kihlgard had managed to bring along the report on what the police had dug up so far about the investigation into Tanya Petrov’s death.
‘Tell us everything you know,’ commanded Knutas, concentrating on keeping his eyes on the road.
‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ said Kihlgard. ‘A week after Tanya’s murder, the family returned to Hamburg. Vera had been studying languages at the university, but she gave it up and took a job in a supermarket. Both parents, Sabine and Oleg Petrov, went on sick leave. When autumn came, more specifically, on 22 October 1985, Oleg committed suicide. He threw himself in front of an express train that was just pulling into Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. He died instantly.’
‘What an awful way to die.’
‘After that, things starting going downhill for the mother too. She became addicted to painkillers, and she never returned to her job. The following year, in February 1986, she retired on a disability pension. She moved to a smaller flat in a suburb of Hamburg, but her daughter Vera didn’t move with her. She lived in several different places in the city while she worked at the supermarket. Two years after the murder, in August 1987, she went back to university and completed her studies. After that, she spent many years working as a language teacher at a school in Hamburg. Until she moved to Sweden, that is, two years ago.’
‘Why did she move here?’ asked Knutas.
He was just in the process of overtaking a long-distance tractor-trailer that seemed to go on and on, and he really couldn’t see far enough ahead. Kihlgard winced but went on with his report.
‘I suppose she moved here because she got married to Stefan Norrstrom.’
‘How did they happen to meet?’
‘I have no idea. All I know is that they were married last summer. And now they’re about to have a baby.’
‘OK. We’re almost there.’
Kyllaj was only ten kilometres from Slite, but its location seemed very remote, all the way out by the sea. Nowadays, it consisted mostly of summer visitors, but for centuries Kyllaj had been an important town because of its stone quarry and port. The harbour was lined with boathouses and piers. Towering above the houses that had been built on the slope leading down to the harbour and Valleviken was the bare, rocky cliff with its magnificent view of the sea and the islets Klausen, Fjogen and Lorgeholm. As far back as the seventeenth century, limestone had been heated in kilns here, and traces of them still remained.
The police cars drew a good deal of attention as they arrived, one after the other, disrupting the idyllic atmosphere.
The house that Stefan Norrstrom and his wife had built stood in lonely majesty high up on a huge plot of land that sloped gently down towards the water. Great expanses of lawn with carefully arranged shrubs and trees surrounded the big white limestone house.
After parking their cars at a safe distance, the officers spread out and surrounded the house. They were dealing with someone who had already killed twice, and it was impossible to know what awaited them.
Knutas and Kihlgard took the lead and crept up to the front door. Knutas rang the bell. Waited. No response. He rang the bell again.
They waited a moment longer. Knutas was sweating in the heat. The tension was also taking its toll. When nothing happened, he gave the order to go in.
One of the officers broke down the door, and they all stormed inside.
KARIN JACOBSSON WAS getting really desperate. She dozed off for a while, exhausted as she was, and by now very dehydrated. She couldn’t change position other than to move sideways a few inches. She did that now and then so that her body wouldn’t go completely numb. She wondered how long she’d be able to hold out. She started losing hope that anyone would ever find her. The boat still wasn’t moving, and she couldn’t hear a single sound from outside. She’d lost all sense of time and could no longer tell how long she’d been taped and tied up like some sort of package.
Her thoughts focused on Knutas. Why wasn’t he doing anything? By now he must have realized that she was on board. After all, she’d told him she would ring from the ship. Maybe the captain had fed him some lies that meant nobody was going to come to her rescue.
Strangely enough, she no longer needed to pee. It was as if her body was already in retreat. Turning off its functions, slowing down until it would gradually shut down completely. No, she shouldn’t be thinking like that.
It was pitch dark as she sat there with her legs tucked up and her arms held in front of her as if she were praying.
Suddenly she heard a thud. At first she thought she’d imagined it. Then there was another thud, and one more. Voices shouting. She repeatedly tried to throw herself against the wall to make some sort of noise, at the same time doing her best to slam her feet against the door.
