‘Thanks, but no – there’s no need.’
Then he changed his mind.
‘Actually, yes, if you’ve got time. It might be useful for you to talk to the Eisenbergs before you go off tomorrow.’
He could hear the sound of children’s voices in the background, and felt guilty; why hadn’t he told her to stay at home? However, he needed her – more than ever. The team must be expanded as soon as possible, with permanent members; they couldn’t carry on like this.
‘No problem,’ Fredrika said. ‘I’ll meet you in the car park.’
Alex threw down his mobile. They had three key questions for the parents: did they know who the Lion was, had their sons met him, and could they explain the background to the paper bags?
He hoped to come away with at least an embryonic lead.
As far as the Lion was concerned, Alex was surprised they had found so little to go on. The boys’ email accounts and their conversations on Super Troopers had been checked, and it appeared that Simon and Abraham had never communicated with one another about the Lion, not once. That didn’t mean they hadn’t spoken about him in school or over the phone, of course, but there was nothing at all in their online messages.
To be on the safe side, he went through the material one more time. The Lion had contacted the boys about three weeks ago. He wanted to meet them to discuss their sporting ambitions and his tennis academy. Grants for short training courses at international schools had also been mentioned.
Surely the boys’ parents must have known about that?
He went through the latest material, and established that the analysis of the traffic on the boys’ mobiles had also failed to generate anything useful. There wasn’t a single call to or from an unknown individual. Every person on the list was a friend from school or the tennis centre, a parent, or another relative.
Fuck.
He made a note to pass on a list of Simon and Abraham’s school friends to the technicians who were analysing the telephone traffic; it was worth checking whether the Lion had contacted anyone else. Maybe they could track his communication, if that was possible. Now that he was no longer active on the forum, perhaps that information was no longer available.
The phone on his desk rang just as he was about to go down to the car park. It was a colleague from the National Crime Unit.
‘I thought you’d be in today, somehow.’
‘Hard to avoid it under the circumstances,’ Alex said, thinking briefly of Diana. He pictured her gliding along on her skis, and wished he was by her side. With a bit of luck the snow would linger, and they would be able to go another day.
‘I’m calling about the murder of the schoolteacher,’ his colleague said.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s about the tracks on the roof where we think the sniper was lying.’
‘You mean the tracks that had almost been blown away or covered in snow by the time we got there?’
The weather had definitely not been on their side.
‘Exactly. The footprints were useless; the weather had more or less destroyed them. The only thing CSI would say with any certainty was that the large imprint must have been left by the perpetrator’s body. Indentations in the snow showed where the knees and elbows had been placed.’
Alex already knew this, but he assumed there was more to come.
‘You found some footprints out at Drottningholm as well, I believe? Size 43 shoes, if my information is correct.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And this is where things get weird,’ his colleague said. ‘Because even taking into account the fact that the imprint on the roof had been affected by the wind and the fresh fall of snow, we have been able to establish that the person in question can’t possibly have been any taller than one metre seventy.’
This was unexpected.
‘You mean that someone of that height wouldn’t be wearing size 43 shoes?’
‘I mean it seems highly unlikely,’ his colleague said. ‘And the footprints we found support that view.’
‘I thought you said they were no use?’
‘It was impossible to secure a cast of the sole, for example. However, CSI were able to get a rough idea of the size.’
Alex pressed the receiver to his ear.
‘And?’
The tension in his voice was clear.
‘There is no possibility whatsoever that those prints were made by someone wearing a size 43. According to CSI’s calculations, the maximum length of the shoe was twenty-five centimetres. Which means that the perpetrator’s feet were a centimetre or so shorter than that. Which means that the person who lay on the roof and fired the gun was wearing shoes somewhere between size 36 and 38.’
Alex sat motionless in his chair.
He thought about the killer who had settled down on the roof and shot his victim through the falling snow. A killer who was no more than one metre seventy tall, and whose feet were small enough to fit into a pair of size 38 shoes.
A killer who could be a woman.
The toboggans crunched in the snow as they walked through Vasa Park, heading for the hill behind the playground. Eden Lundell was towing one toboggan, her husband the other, a little girl riding on each one. Mikael was holding her hand, and she hadn’t pulled it away. It was his day today. The weather had been kind to him, and he deserved to play happy families.
In Stockholm the sun was shining, but in London they had sleet and high winds. All flights had been postponed, and Eden wouldn’t be able to get away before evening at the earliest.
‘There you go,’ Mikael had said when she told him. ‘Sometimes things just sort themselves out.’
Eden had no idea what he thought had sorted itself out; she wasn’t going to be home any sooner just because her flight was delayed.
However, it was too nice a day to argue, so she didn’t object when Mikael suggested an outing to the park. Instead she packed sausages and rolls and drinks in a rucksack and pulled on her thermal tights. The food was Mikael’s idea; he claimed there were big outdoor barbecues in the park for public use. Eden knew nothing about that kind of stuff.
The rucksack bounced against her back as they walked along. So at last the day had come: Eden was going to Vasa Park. She almost thought it might be fun.
Her daughters were thrilled when they realised where they were going, and their laughter warmed Eden’s heart. Sometimes she did the right thing. It was important to remember that.
From time to time Mikael said hello to people they met. People Eden didn’t recognise. When he spoke to a tall dark woman who gave him a big smile, Eden felt something she hadn’t experienced for a very long time. Jealousy.
‘Who the hell was that?’ she said.
The tone of voice and choice of words gave her away. Mikael couldn’t help smiling.
‘Jealous?’
‘Of course not. I just wondered who she was.’
‘A colleague.’
Eden forced herself to keep on walking.
‘A colleague?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean she plays the organ or something?’
Mikael’s laughter rang out across the park.
‘For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together,’ Eden said, punching him on the arm.
‘You pull yourself together! Plays the organ – what the hell are you talking about?’
‘Well, answer me then – and stop swearing!’
‘Me stop swearing?!’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
Mikael let go of her hand, and for a fraction of a second Eden felt the ground give way beneath her feet.
You’re not going to leave me, are you?
But Mikael wasn’t the kind of man to leave the woman he loved. Instead he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a big hug. Bigger than she deserved.
Eden slipped her arm around his waist.
‘So who is she?’
‘She’s a priest.’
‘In your church?’