ask “how high”,’ he said with a laugh, taking a step to one side to avoid the kick she playfully aimed at his shin.
‘You just wait, after Saturday I’ll be wielding the whip with renewed vigour,’ said Erica, trying to look stern. She was happy he was even thinking about the wedding.
‘I think you’re doing a pretty good job of it already,’ he said, bending over to kiss her.
‘Lay off out there,’ Anna shouted from the living room. ‘I can hear you smooching. There are children present.’ She laughed.
‘Mmm, maybe we’ll have to save this till later,’ said Erica with a wink at Patrik. ‘Now tell me more about what happened.’
Patrik gave her a brief rundown of what they’d found out, and the smile vanished from Erica’s face. There was so much tragedy, so much death mixed up in the case, and despite the fact that the investigation had now taken a big step forward she understood that things were going to be difficult in future as well.
‘So the victim in Nykoping had also killed someone in an accident?’
‘Yes,’ Patrik said, cutting tomato wedges. ‘Although not in Nykoping, but in Uddevalla.’
‘Who was it she killed?’ said Erica, stirring her pork filet stew.
‘We don’t know the details yet. That accident was much longer ago than the others, so it will take a while to find out more. But I talked with our colleagues in Uddevalla today, and they’re sending over all the material as soon as they dig it up. Some poor soul will have to crawl around among dusty boxes for a while.’
‘So somebody is murdering drunk drivers who killed someone. And the first accident occurred thirty-five years ago, while the last one was… when was the last one?’
‘Seventeen years ago. Rasmus Olsson.’
‘And the locations are spread all over Sweden,’ said Erica pensively as she kept stirring. ‘From Lund all the way up here. When did the first murder take place?’
‘Ten years ago,’ Patrik answered obediently, watching his future wife. Erica was used to handling facts and analysing them, and he welcomed help from her sharp mind.
‘So the killer moves over a large geographical area, has a great time spread for his deeds, and the only thing the victims have in common is that they were killed because of a fatal accident they caused by driving drunk.’
‘Yep, that’s about it,’ said Patrik with a sigh. It sounded utterly hopeless when Erica summed up the situation. He poured the veggies into a big bowl, mixed them up, and placed the salad on the kitchen table.
‘Don’t forget that we’re most likely missing one victim,’ he said quietly as he sat down. ‘In all likelihood it’s victim number two that we haven’t found yet. But I’m sure there is another victim. Somebody we missed.’
‘Isn’t it possible to get more out of those book pages?’ Erica asked, setting the steaming pot of stew on a trivet on the table.
‘It doesn’t seem so. What I’m pinning my best hopes on now is that we can develop something that will take us further once we get all the details about Elsa Forsell’s accident. She was the first victim, and something tells me she’s the most important one.’
‘Mmm, you may be right,’ said Erica and then called Anna and the children for dinner. They could talk more later.
Two days had passed since they had worked out what the serial killer’s victims had in common. The initial euphoria had subsided, and discouragement had taken its place. They still didn’t understand why the geographic territory was so large. Did the murderer travel about in his hunt for victims, or had he actually lived in all these towns? There were just too many questions. They had pored over all the available material on the accidents involving the murder victims, but nowhere did they find anything to connect them. Patrik was leaning more and more towards the idea that there was no personal connection among the victims, but that the killer was a person filled with hate who randomly chose his victims based on their actions. In that case it seemed that the murderer took no notice of the fact that several of his victims had shown real remorse after the events. Elsa had struggled with guilt and sought redemption in religion; Marit had never touched alcohol again; the same was true of Rasmus, but he couldn’t drink anyway for physiological reasons because of the injuries he had suffered in the car crash. Borje was the exception. He had continued to drink, continued to drive drunk, and didn’t seem to have worried about the girl whose death he had caused.
But it was impossible to draw any conclusions when one victim was missing. When the phone rang at nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, Patrik had no idea that the call would give him the last piece of the puzzle.
‘Patrik Hedstrom,’ he answered, placing his hand over the receiver so that the person calling wouldn’t hear that he was yawning. Consequently he didn’t catch the name of the caller.
‘Excuse me, what was your name?’
‘My name is Vilgot Runberg, and I’m superintendent of the Ortboda police station.’
‘Ortboda?’ said Patrik, feverishly searching his geographic memory.
‘Outside Eskilstuna,’ Superintendent Runberg said impatiently. ‘But it’s a small station, only three of us work here.’ He coughed, turned away from the receiver, but then went on, ‘The thing is, I just came back from a two- week holiday in Thailand.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Patrik, wondering where this was leading. ‘Yes, that’s why I hadn’t seen the query you sent out. Until now.’
‘I see,’ said Patrik with much greater interest. He felt his fingers starting to tingle from anticipation at what might come next.
‘Yes, my younger colleagues here are relatively new to the region, so they didn’t know anything about it. But I recognize the case. Without a doubt. I was the one who investigated it eight years ago.’
‘What case?’ said Patrik, his breathing turning short and shallow. He pressed the receiver hard against his ear, afraid of missing a single word.
‘We had a man here eight years ago who… well, I thought there was something strange about the whole thing. But he had a history of alcohol abuse, and…’ Runberg paused with embarrassment, apparently reluctant to admit the mistake he’d made. ‘Well, we all just thought that he’d had a relapse and then drank himself to death. But the injuries you mention, I have to admit in hindsight that I wondered about them.’ The line went silent and Patrik understood how much it was costing the superintendent to have this conversation.
‘What was the man’s name?’ said Patrik to break the silence.
‘Jan-Olov Persson,’ said Superintendent Runberg. ‘He was forty-two years old, worked as a cabinetmaker. Widower.’
‘And he was an alcoholic?’
‘Yes, he had a big problem for a while. When his wife died, then, well, he went to pieces. It all turned into a very sad story. One evening he got into his car drunk and ran into a young couple who were out walking. The man died, and Jan-Olov spent some time in jail. But after he got out he never touched alcohol again. Behaved himself, did his job, took care of his daughter.’
‘And then he was suddenly found dead of alcohol poisoning?’
‘Yes,’ Runberg sighed. ‘As I said, we thought he’d had a relapse and things got out of control. His ten-year-old daughter found him. She claimed that she had met a stranger, a man, in the doorway, but we didn’t really believe her. Thought it must have been the shock, or that she wanted to protect her pappa…’ His voice died out and the shame hung heavy in his silence.
‘Was there a book page next to him? From a children’s book?’
‘I tried to remember when I read your query. But I can’t recall anything like that,’ Runberg said. ‘At least if there was a book page we didn’t give it any thought. We probably assumed it belonged to the girl.’
‘So there’s nothing like that left?’ Patrik could hear how disappointed he sounded.
‘No, we don’t have much left from the investigation. As I said, we thought the guy had drunk himself to death. But I can send you what we do have.’
‘Do you have a fax? Could you fax it over? It would be good to have it ASAP.’
‘Of course,’ said Runberg. Then he added, ‘Poor girl. What a life. First her mamma died when she was little and her pappa went to prison. Then he dies and leaves her all alone. And now I read in the papers that the girl was murdered over in your town. I think she was in some reality show. I never would have recognized her from the photos. Lillemor didn’t look at all like herself. As a ten-year-old she was small, dark, and thin, and now… well, a lot has happened over the years.’
Patrik could feel the walls whirling around him. At first he couldn’t process the information. Then he suddenly
