‘Is it really true?’ asked the woman on the sofa. She was frightened.
‘Yes,’ Sundberg said. ‘It could well be that everybody in this village is dead. Apart from you.’
Huddén was standing by the window.
‘Not quite everybody,’ he said slowly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Not quite everybody’s dead. There’s somebody out there on the road.’
Sundberg hurried over to the window and saw a woman standing in the road outside. She was old, wearing a bathrobe and black rubber boots. Her hands were clasped in prayer.
Sundberg held her breath. The woman was motionless.
3
Tom Hansson came up to the window and stood beside Vivi Sundberg.
‘It’s only Julia,’ he said. ‘We sometimes find her outside in the cold without a coat on. Hilda and Herman usually keep an eye on her when the home help isn’t here.’
‘Where does she live?’ asked Sundberg.
He pointed at the house next to the last one at the edge of the village.
‘When we moved here,’ he said, ‘Julia was married. Her husband, Rune, used to drive forestry vehicles, until he burst an artery and died in the cab of his truck. She went a bit odd after that — wandering around with her hands clenched in her pockets, if you see what I mean. I suppose we’ve always thought she should be able to die here. She has two children who come to see her once a year. They’re just waiting for their little inheritance and couldn’t care less about her.’
Sundberg and Huddén went outside. The woman looked up when Sundberg paused in front of her, but she said nothing. Nor did she protest when Huddén helped to lead her back home. The house was neat and tidy. On one wall were photographs of her dead husband and the two children who didn’t care about her.
Sundberg took out her notebook for the first time. Huddén examined a document with official stamps that was lying on the kitchen table.
‘Julia Holmgren,’ he said. ‘She’s eighty-seven.’
‘Make sure somebody phones the home-help service. I don’t care what time they normally come to see to her, get them here right now.’
The old woman sat at the kitchen table, looking out of the window. Clouds were hanging heavily over the landscape.
‘Should we try asking her a few questions?’
Sundberg shook her head.
‘There’s no point. What could she possibly tell us?’
She nodded at Huddén, indicating that he should leave them alone. He went out to the yard. Sundberg went into the living room, stood in the middle of the floor and closed her eyes. She tried to come to terms with what had happened.
There was something about the old woman that set bells ringing faintly in the back of Sundberg’s mind. But she was unable to pin the thought down. She continued standing there, opened her eyes and tried to think. What had actually happened that January morning? A number of people murdered in a tiny remote village. Plus several dead pets. Everything pointed towards a wild frenzy. Could a single attacker really have done all this? Had several killers turned up in the middle of the night, then disappeared again after carrying out their brutal massacre? It was too soon to say. Sundberg had no answers, only a set of circumstances and many dead bodies. She had a couple still alive who had withdrawn to this place in the middle of nowhere from Stockholm, years ago. And a senile old woman in the habit of standing in the road wearing only a nightdress.
But there was a starting point, it seemed. Not everybody in the village was dead. At least three people had survived. Why? Coincidence, or did it have some meaning?
Sundberg stood motionless for a few more minutes. She could see through the window that the forensic team from Gävle had arrived, along with a woman she assumed was the police doctor. She took a deep breath. She was still the one in charge — for the time being, at any rate, but she needed help from Stockholm today.
She pulled out her mobile phone and called Robertsson, the district prosecutor, to explain the situation.
Sundberg wondered how he would react. None of us has ever seen anything like this before, she thought.
She went outside where the two forensic officers and the police doctor were waiting.
‘You need to see this for yourselves. We’ll start with the man lying outside in the snow. Then we’ll go through the houses one by one. You can decide if you’ll need extra assistance. It’s a very big crime scene.’
Sundberg parried their questions. They had to see it all with their own eyes. She led the procession from one macabre scene to the next. When they came to the third house, Lönngren, the senior forensic officer, said he needed to call for reinforcements right now. At the fourth house, the police doctor said the same thing. Calls were made. They continued through the remaining houses and gathered once more on the road. By then the first journalist had arrived. Sundberg told Ytterström to make sure nobody spoke to him. She would do it herself as soon as she had time.
The people standing around her on the snow-covered road were pale and silent. None of them could grasp the implications of what they had just seen.
‘Well, that’s the way it is,’ said Sundberg. ‘Our collective experience and abilities are going to be put to the test. This investigation is going to dominate the mass media, and not only in Sweden. We’re going to be under enormous pressure to produce results by tomorrow. At the latest. Let’s hope that whoever is responsible for all this has left traces that we can follow to catch him or them pronto. We need to try to remain calm and get help whenever necessary. District Prosecutor Robertsson is on his way here. I want him to see everything for himself, and to take charge of the investigation. Any questions? If not, we need to get down to work.’
‘I think I have a question,’ said Lönngren.
He was a short, thin guy. Sundberg considered him a very efficient technician. But his weakness was that he tended to work too slowly for those desperate for answers by yesterday.
‘Shoot.’
‘Is there a risk that this maniac, if that’s what he is, might strike again?’
‘Yes,’ said Sundberg. ‘As we know nothing at all, we have to assume that anything might happen.’
‘There’s going to be panic out there,’ said Lönngren. ‘For once I’m relieved to live in town.’
The group split up just as Sten Robertsson arrived. The reporter who’d been hovering outside the taped-off area immediately closed in on Robertsson as he got out of his car.
‘Not now,’ shouted Sundberg. ‘You’ll have to wait.’
‘Oh, come on, Vivi! Can’t you say anything at all? You’re not usually impossible.’
‘Right now I am.’
She disliked the reporter, who worked for Hudiksvalls Tidning. He often wrote articles criticising the way the police worked. What probably irritated her most was that he was often right to criticise.
Robertsson was feeling the cold — his jacket was far too thin. He’s vain, was Sundberg’s immediate thought.
‘So, let’s hear all about it,’ said Robertsson.
‘No. Come with me.’
For the third time that morning Vivi Sundberg went through the entire crime scene. On two occasions Robertsson was forced to go outside, on the point of throwing up. She waited patiently for him. She wasn’t sure he was up to the task. But she also knew that he was the best of the prosecutors currently available.
When they finally arrived back at the road, she suggested that they sit in her car. She had managed to grab a Thermos of coffee before leaving the police station.
Robertsson was rattled. His hand holding the mug of coffee was shaking noticeably.