‘Those two don’t exactly warm to strangers, do they?’ he said as he followed Erica into the kitchen.
‘Anton has always been shy. Noel, on the other hand, is usually quite outgoing, but he seems to be in a phase where he’s scared of anyone he doesn’t know.’
‘Not a bad attitude to have, in my opinion,’ said Gösta as he sat down on a kitchen chair, glancing around nervously. ‘Are you certain Patrik won’t be coming back for anything?’
‘He left for work half an hour ago, so he’s probably already over at the station.’
‘I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’ He traced his finger over the pattern on the tablecloth.
‘I think it’s a great idea,’ said Erica. ‘There’s no need to get Patrik involved. He doesn’t always appreciate my help.’
‘And with good reason. Sometimes you have a tendency to get yourself mixed up in things.’
‘But everything turns out well in the end.’
Erica refused to be deterred. She thought the idea she’d had last night was a stroke of genius, and she’d quickly slipped away to ring Gösta. And now here he was, although it had taken some persuasion to get him to come over without mentioning it to Patrik.
‘We share a common interest, you and I,’ she said, sitting down across from him. ‘We’re both desperate to find out what happened out on Valö during that Easter holiday.’
‘Yes, but now the police are working on the case.’
‘And that’s good. But you know how investigations can get bogged down by all the rules and procedures police officers have to follow. I, on the other hand, am at liberty to pursue alternative methods.’
Gösta was still sceptical. ‘That’s as may be, but Patrik won’t be pleased if he finds out about this, and I’m not sure that I want to-’
‘That’s precisely why Patrik is not going to find out,’ Erica interrupted him. ‘All you have to do is see to it that I get to study the case files in secret, and I’ll let you in on anything that I manage to dig up. As soon as I find something, I’ll pass it on to you. You present it to Patrik, and you’ll be the hero of the day. After the case is closed, I use the information in one of my books. Everybody wins, especially Patrik. He wants to solve this case and catch the arsonist. He’s not going to ask awkward questions. He’ll just be grateful for whatever information is offered. Besides, you’re short-staffed at the station, what with Martin out sick and Paula on holiday. So it won’t hurt if you have an extra person working on the case.’
‘I suppose.’ Gösta’s expression relaxed, and Erica surmised that he liked the idea of being the hero of the day. ‘And you really don’t think that Patrik will get suspicious?’
‘Not at all. He knows how involved you are in this case; trust me, he won’t suspect a thing.’
It sounded as if a riot had started up in the living room, so Erica got up and dashed out to see what was going on. After directing a few words of warning to Noel to leave Anton alone, and then switching on a Pippi Longstocking movie, things calmed down and Erica was able to return to the kitchen.
‘So now the question is: Where do we start? Have you heard any more about the blood?’
Gösta shook his head. ‘No, not yet. But Torbjörn and his team are still out there working, trying to see if they can find anything else. And sometime later today he’s hoping to receive a report that will tell us whether we’re dealing with human blood. All we have at the moment is a preliminary report about the fire, which Patrik received before I left the office yesterday.’
‘Have you started interviewing people?’ Erica was so eager that she could hardly sit still. She didn’t intend to give up until she’d done everything she could to help solve the mystery. The fact that it might provide material for an amazing book was an added bonus.
‘Yesterday I compiled a list, prioritizing which individuals I think we should talk to first, and then I started trying to find contact information for them. But it’s not exactly an easy task, given the amount of time that’s passed. It can be difficult to track people down, and what they remember could be pretty vague by now. We can only wait to see what emerges from the interviews.’
‘Do you think the boys might have been involved?’
He understood at once which boys she was referring to. ‘Naturally, the thought has occurred to me, but I just don’t know. We interviewed them on a number of occasions, and their stories always matched up. And we didn’t find any physical evidence to indicate that-’
‘Did you find any physical evidence at all?’ asked Erica.
‘No, there wasn’t much to go on. After my colleague Henry and I found Ebba alone in the house, we went back down to the dock. That’s where we met the boys, as they arrived in the other boat, and it did look as though they’d been out fishing.’
‘Did you search the boat? It’s conceivable that the bodies could have been dumped at sea.’
‘The boat was searched very carefully, but there were no traces of blood or anything like that, which there would have been if they’d loaded five bodies into the boat. And I wonder whether they would have been capable of lugging the bodies that far. They were quite slender lads. And besides, bodies usually float to the surface. Some of the family members should have washed up sooner or later, unless the boys made sure to weigh down the corpses – and that would require heavy objects that might not be so easy to come by on the spur of the moment.’
‘Did you talk to other pupils at the school?’
‘Yes, but some of the parents were reluctant to allow us access to their sons. I suppose they regarded themselves as too upper-class, and they didn’t want to risk a scandal.’
‘So did you find out anything interesting?’
Gösta snorted. ‘No, just a bunch of nonsense about how awful the parents thought it was. They told us their sons had nothing to say about life at the school. Everything was excellent. Rune was excellent, the teachers were excellent, and there were no conflicts or quarrels. And the pupils simply repeated what their parents had told us.’
‘What about the teachers?’
‘Of course we interviewed both of them. And at first we had our suspicions about Ove Linder. But later it turned out that he did have an alibi.’ Gösta fell silent for a moment. ‘We had no suspects. We couldn’t even prove that a crime had been committed. But…’
Erica placed her arms on the table and leaned forward. ‘But what?’
He hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Your husband is always talking about his gut feelings, and we usually tease him, but I have to admit that back then my gut feeling was that we were missing something. We did our best, but it got us nowhere.’
‘So we’re going to try again. A lot has changed since 1974.’
‘My experience is that some things never change. Those upper-crust types will always look out for themselves.’
‘We’ll try again,’ said Erica patiently. ‘Finish making the list of names of all the pupils and teachers. Then let me have a copy, so we can work on two fronts at once.’
‘Just don’t tell-’
‘Patrik is not going to know about this. And I’ll keep you up to date on everything I find out. That was our agreement, right?’
‘Yes.’ A worried expression appeared on Gösta’s lean face.
‘By the way, I went out to have a talk with Ebba and her husband yesterday.’
Gösta stared at her. ‘How’s she doing? Is she upset about what happened? How…?’
Erica laughed. ‘Take it easy. One question at a time.’ Then she turned serious. ‘I’d say she was subdued but composed. They claim that they don’t know anything more about who might have set the fire, but I can’t tell whether they’re lying or not.’
‘I think they should stay somewhere else.’ It was obvious that Gösta was extremely concerned. ‘At least until we work everything out. It’s not a safe place for them, and it was pure luck that they got out of the house in time.’