“Hurry up. Come on.”
Jacobsson sounded agitated. Knutas followed her out to the yard. In a clump of trees a short distance away, Sohlman and Kihlgard were bending over something. He trotted over to join them.
Sohlman was using tongs to pick up some object from the ground. It was oblong in shape and made of plastic. He turned it this way and that. Sweat was running down his back in the heat.
“What the hell is it?” grunted Kihlgard.
“It’s an inhaler for asthmatics.”
“Was Gunilla Olsson asthmatic?” asked Knutas.
His colleagues shrugged their shoulders.
Knutas ran back to the house. Cecilia Angstrom and the policewoman were just about to leave.
“Do you know whether Gunilla had asthma?” asked Knutas.
“I don’t think so,” replied Cecilia hesitantly. “No, she didn’t,” she then said more firmly. “She couldn’t have. We were at a party a few weeks ago, visiting some of my friends, and they have both a dog and a cat. Gunilla didn’t say anything about it bothering her.”
“Do you have asthma?”
“No.”
Knutas went back outside to his colleagues, who turned to him with a look of inquiry.
“All right,” he said. “It is very possible that we now know something new about our killer. He might have asthma.”
Johan didn’t know much about Nar, other than that it was the home district of the Ainbusk Singers. In his attempts to find Gunilla Olsson’s farm, he and Peter ended up on the road leading to the windy harbor of Narshamn. The little fishing village reminded them of Norway or Iceland. A wharf jutted out into the sea. On it was a long barracks with fish stalls inside. There were fishing trawlers, stacks of polystyrene fishing crates, and piles of netting. The boats that weren’t out at sea rocked on their moorings beside the wharf. In the distance they saw a couple of tourists pedaling their bikes against the wind, heading for the lighthouse on Narsholmen. The waves broke in a steady rhythm that seemed predetermined.
Johan rolled down the window. The smell of seaweed awakened memories. He felt an urge to walk right out to the end of the wharf and let the wind fill him with energy. Thoughts of Emma floated around him, seizing hold of his heart, his brain, his genitals, and his stomach. Right now, though, a different reality was demanding his attention. Peter turned the car around.
“Goddamn it. We took the wrong road.”
After getting lost two more times, they finally reached the farm. As windy as it had been down at the harbor, it was completely still outside the murdered woman’s house. The police had cordoned off a large area, and a number of curiosity seekers had interrupted their Midsummer celebrations to gather outside the police tape.
From the village came the faint sounds of accordion music. The Midsummer celebrations were in full swing just a short distance away from the murder scene.
Johan made inquiries and learned that Knutas had left the woman’s residence only fifteen minutes earlier. Jacobsson had left, too. They were the only ones he had good contact with among the Visby police.
Johan called Knutas, who confirmed that a thirty-five-year-old woman had been killed at her home. The precise time of the murder was unclear. The police refused to comment on how she had been killed.
Knutas, who knew that the journalists could quickly find out the victim’s identity, asked Johan not to include her name or photo in his report. The police had not yet been able to contact her family.
Before it was time for his report, Johan managed to talk to a young guy in the crowd that had gathered outside the police tape.
Yes, it was true that a girl lived here alone. She was in her thirties, the guy told him. She worked with ceramics.
It was a few minutes before six when he called the Aktuellt editor in Stockholm. He was linked up to the studio and reported live on what he had learned to the TV audience.
When the phone spot was done, he had to try to find more material for the later broadcasts. A press conference at police headquarters was scheduled for 9:00 P.M.
By then the national reporter should have arrived, and they could work together. That suited him fine.
Peter walked around outside the police tape, shooting footage. The police refused to say anything more. Johan decided instead to talk to the people standing on the narrow dirt road outside the farm. Some had arrived on bicycles, a couple of teenagers came on delivery mopeds, and a few cars had stopped and parked along the road. Most of them turned out to be neighbors who had seen the police cars gathering around the farm.
Johan approached a short, plump, middle-aged woman wearing shorts and a polo shirt. She had a dog with her, and she was standing by herself, slightly apart from the other spectators.
He introduced himself.
“Did you know the woman who lived here?” he asked.
“No,” replied the woman. “Not really. I heard that she was murdered. Is that true? Was it the same person who killed those other two women?”
She kept on talking without waiting for an answer.
“This is crazy. It’s like in a movie. It can’t possibly be true.”
“What was her name?”
“Gunilla Olsson.”
“Did she have any family?”
“No, she lived here alone. She was a potter. She worked in that studio over there.” The woman pointed to a low building with big windows inside the restricted area.
“How old was she?”
“Thirty-four or thirty-five.”
“Do you live around here?”
“Yes, farther up the road.”
“How well did you know each other?”
“I knew her mother when she was alive. We were in the same sewing circle, but I never had much contact with the daughter. We would say hello to each other whenever we happened to meet, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to talk much. She mostly kept to herself. She moved in quite recently. It must be, what, six months ago? She lived abroad for a long time. Far away, in Hawaii. Her parents lived in Ljugarn, so that’s where she grew up. They’ve been dead several years now. They died in a car accident while Gunilla was living so far away. And just imagine, she didn’t even come home for their funeral! They lost nearly all contact with each other after she grew up. She didn’t even want to have the same last name as they did. As soon as she was old enough, she changed her name to Olsson, even though her parents’ name was Brostrom. I know that her mother was very upset about that. She has a brother, too, but he lives on the mainland. I think his name is still Brostrom. It’s the daughter that the parents had the most trouble with.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“She skipped school a lot and wore strange clothes. And every time I saw her, she had changed her hair color. Her father was a pastor. I think it was especially hard for him. She was… what should I say? Rebellious. That was when she was young, of course. Later she moved to Stockholm and went to art school, and then I know she left to live abroad.”
Johan was astonished by this woman who had turned out to be a virtual news bureau all on her own. Peter had joined them, and the camera was rolling as the woman talked.
“In any case, she had a couple of shows this past spring,” she went on. “I think it was all going really well for her. And she did make beautiful things.”
The talkative woman patted her dog. He had started to whine with impatience.
“This whole thing is just so awful. A person hardly even dares go out anymore. I went to one of her exhibits, and I tried to talk to her there, but I didn’t have much luck. She barely answered me.”
“Do you know whether she had any kind of relationship?”
“No. But now that you mention it, I’ve seen a man that I didn’t recognize around here lately. I take a lot of walks with my dogs, and I’ve seen him several times.”