“No,” he had to confess, feeling ashamed. “I haven’t been able to dig up much in this case.” How much digging had he done, in fact? Not much. Of course he had contact with his source and several others at police headquarters, but he hadn’t invested a lot of effort in finding out any answers himself. And that wasn’t like him. It was Emma’s fault, he thought.
“I guess I’ve been thinking too much about you.”
“And I think too much about you,” she said. “I think about you all the time. Nonstop.”
She crept into his arms. Together they formed one body.
“I love you,” he said, his lips against her hair. For the first time he actually loved a woman. “I dream about you. I want to live with you. Have a house here on Gotland. Take care of your children and ours. Grow my own potatoes.”
He laughed and held her face between his hands. “Just think, that’s something I’ve always wanted. To have my own potato patch and be able to go out and pull up my own potatoes to eat with grilled salmon in the summertime. That’s what we did out in the country when I was little.”
As Emma drove home, she realized that she was in love. Head over heels in love.
Karin Jacobsson turned out to be right. A third murder committed within the course of a few weeks had scared both the Gotlanders and the tourists. Many women no longer dared go out alone. The high season on Gotland always started in earnest around Midsummer and lasted for almost two months, up until the annual Medieval Festival, which fell during the second week of August. Shortly after that, summer vacation would be over for all the schoolchildren, and then the tourists went back to the mainland.
In late August, life usually returned to normal, except for a few stragglers still enjoying a Gotland vacation. Right now it was the end of June, and the high season was just beginning, but cancellations were starting to pour in at the tourist bureau, the hotels, and the campgrounds.
The Visby police were feeling the pressure from all sides. On the morning of Midsummer Day, Knutas received calls from the county police chief, the head of tourism, the director of trade and industry, the chairman of the municipal executive board, and the county governor. Not to mention the conversation he had with the national police commissioner. What was required was quite simple and crystal clear. They had to catch the murderer.
The members of the investigative team had quickly returned to police headquarters in Visby, and now they were all sitting in the conference room of the criminal department. It was eleven o’clock in the morning.
Knutas began the meeting. He was grateful that the media had chosen not to divulge Gunilla Olsson’s identity. Almost twenty-four hours after the body had been discovered, the police still hadn’t been able to reach her brother.
“Welcome back,” he greeted everyone. “I’m glad that you could all be here. The latest victim is Gunilla Olsson, thirty-five, who was presumably murdered on the night before Midsummer Eve. She made her living as a potter, quite successfully, and she lived alone on a farm out in Nar. No children. We’ll start with a few pictures.”
The lights were turned off, and since the curtains had been drawn in front of the windows, it was almost completely dark. The pictures clicked into view as Knutas talked. Most of those present had a hard time keeping their eyes on the images, occasionally having to turn away in revulsion.
“According to the preliminary statement from the ME, she received a greater number of blows than the other two women. The wounds are also of a different nature than on the previous victims. In this case, the killer acted with even greater ferocity. He wildly hacked at the whole body. It’s difficult to say what type of axe was used. The wounds are ragged, and some of them penetrated quite deeply. None of the blows were aimed at the sexual organs. There is nothing to indicate that she was raped. Just like the other victims, she had a pair of panties in her mouth. The murder weapon was not found, but we did find something on site that may have come from the killer.”
Pictures of the asthma inhaler appeared on the screen.
“This is an inhaler used by asthmatics,” said Knutas. “It was found in the yard, outside the pottery workshop. The victim did not suffer from asthma, nor did her friend. Of course it could have come from someone else, a neighbor or an acquaintance. We’re continuing to knock on doors in the vicinity. There are fingerprints on it, which we’re in the process of analyzing, to see if we can find a match in police records. So far nothing else of interest has been found at the crime scene. As for the victim’s background, she was originally from Visby. Twenty years ago her family moved to Ljugarn. For the past ten years Gunilla Olsson lived in Hawaii, on the island of Maui, to be more precise. She came back here just last January and bought that farm in Nar, presumably using the money that her parents left her. They died in a car accident six years ago. You may remember the incident. Outside Larbro a minibus collided with a sedan, and five people were killed. It was winter and very slippery. Two of the fatalities were children.”
The local officers murmured as they recalled the accident.
“Well, at any rate, Gunilla Olsson’s parents were in the passenger car,” Knutas went on. “Her parents’ name was Brostrom. Gunilla changed her last name to Olsson when she came of age. That was her mother’s maiden name. Evidently she and her parents did not get along. Any questions?”
“Do we know that she was killed inside the workshop?” asked Wittberg.
“Yes. All indications are that the workshop was the scene of the murder.”
“Do we have anything new about a possible connection between the previous victims?” asked Norrby.
“Well, let’s see. Kihlgard?” Knutas gave his colleague an inquiring look.
“Hmm. The group that’s been in Stockholm has come up with quite a bit. Both of them lived in Stockholm. Frida lived there all her life, and Helena for the past twenty-two years. The latest address for both of them in Stockholm was in Sodermalm. They actually lived only a stone’s throw from each other. Helena Hillerstrom shared an apartment with her boyfriend, Per Bergdal, on Hornsgatan, and Frida Lindh and her family lived on Brannkyrkagatan. They had no friends in common, but there is one point of connection. Both were registered members of a Friskis amp; Svettis gym. There’s a branch in Hornstull where both of them worked out. Helena Hillerstrom used to go there on Thursdays and Saturdays, while Frida Lindh usually went on Mondays and Wednesdays, and occasionally on Saturdays. They might have met each other there. We’ve talked to people at the club and shown them pictures of the victims. Both of them were recognized. We’ve interviewed all the Friskis managers, both male and female. Nothing out of the ordinary has turned up so far. None of them has any contact with Gotland, except that most of them have been here on vacation, of course.”
“Well, that’s not much to go on,” Sohlman said dryly.
“We still think the killer may be in Stockholm, and that’s where a connection can be found,” Kihlgard continued, unperturbed. “Gunilla Olsson also went to Stockholm several times this spring. A shop in Gamla Stan sold her work.”
“I agree that it’s possible the killer could live in Stockholm,” said Jacobsson. “If that’s the case, the question is: Why did he murder them here on Gotland?”
“No matter what,” said Knutas, “we have to do some more digging into this. I’m thinking of going to Stockholm tomorrow. The NCP and the Stockholm police are working on the case, of course, but I want to go over there myself, at least for a couple of days. I suggest that you come with me, Karin.”
“Sure,” she nodded.