Fanny had no one to talk to about her problems. She didn’t know where to turn.
Sometimes she dreamt about her father, imagining that one day he would suddenly appear in the door, saying that he had come to stay. In her daydream she saw him embracing her and her mother. They celebrated Christmas together and went on vacations. Her mother was rosy-cheeked and happy and no longer drank. In certain dreams they would be walking along a beach in the West Indies, where her father was born. The sand was chalk white, and the sea was turquoise, just like in the colorful travel magazines she had seen. They watched the sunset together, with her sitting between her parents. That was the sort of dream that she never wanted to end.
She gave a start when Spot jumped up on the bed and licked away her tears. She hadn’t even noticed that she was crying. Here she lay, all alone, with only a dog for company, when other families were having a cozy time at home. Maybe her classmates were visiting each other, watching a video or TV, listening to music or playing computer games. But what kind of life did she have?
Only one person had shown the slightest interest in her. She might as well see him again. To hell with everything. She would sleep with him, too, if that’s what he really wanted. There had to be a first time, after all. He had said that he would call her tonight. The invitation to go horseback riding still stood, and she decided to say yes.
She got up and dried her tears. Heated up a meat pie in the microwave and ate it without much enthusiasm. Turned on the TV. The phone was silent. Wasn’t he going to call after all? Now that she had made up her mind? The hours passed. She took a can of Coke out of the fridge, opened a bag of chips, and sat down on the sofa. It was nine o’clock, and he still hadn’t called. She felt like crying again, but couldn’t squeeze out more than a few dry sobs. He had probably given up on her, too. She started watching an old movie as she ate the whole bag of chips. Finally she fell asleep on the sofa with the dog beside her.
The sound of the phone ringing woke her. At first she thought it was the landline, but when she picked up the receiver she realized it was her cell phone ringing. She got to her feet and hurried out to the entryway to rummage through her jacket pockets. The phone stopped ringing. Then it started again. It was him.
“I have to see you… I have to. Listen here, honey. Couldn’t we meet?”
“Sure,” she said without hesitation. “You can come over here. I’m home alone.”
“I’ll be right over.”
She regretted it the moment she saw him. He reeked of liquor. Spot started barking but soon gave up. The dog wasn’t the menacing type.
She stood awkwardly in the center of the living room, unsure what to do, as he threw himself onto the sofa. Now that she had invited him over, she couldn’t very well ask him to leave, could she?
“Would you like anything?” she asked uncertainly.
“Come here and sit down,” he said, patting the sofa cushion next to him.
From the clock on the wall she saw that it was two in the morning. This whole thing was crazy, but she did as he said.
It took only a second before he was on top of her. He was rough and determined.
When he forced himself into her, she bit herself on the arm to keep from screaming.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23
At the next day’s morning meeting everyone was talking about the discovery of the murder weapon. It was a breakthrough in the investigation, of course. By all accounts, the blotches on the hammer were blood. The hammer had been sent to the Swedish Crime Lab for DNA analysis. But there were no fingerprints.
Most of them had seen on the evening news how the hammer was discovered. Naturally Kihlgard made jokes about the police officers’ comments that were caught on tape, and he drew a good deal of laughter from the others. Knutas was only moderately amused. He was annoyed by the extent of the information presented in the news story. At the same time, he understood that the reporter was just doing his job. It was so typical that Johan should end up right in the thick of things. He had an incredible talent for showing up exactly when things were happening. Everything had gone so fast out there that no one had thought of reining him in before it was too late. Yet, once again Johan had provided new facts that would benefit the investigation, even though the police didn’t know the source of his report about the witness at the harbor. After the case with the serial killer that past summer, Knutas had learned to trust the persistent TV reporter, although Johan could drive him crazy with all the information he managed to dig up. How he did it was a mystery. If he hadn’t become a journalist, he would have made an excellent police detective.
The news program had started off with a long segment about the murder, the latest developments in the investigation, the payments Dahlstrom had received under the table, and the witness who had seen Dahlstrom with an unidentified man down at the harbor.
“Why don’t we start with the unreported carpentry work?” said Norrby. “We’ve interviewed four people who hired Dahlstrom in addition to Mr and Mrs Persson. Two of them are members of the same folklore society as the Perssons. They all said more or less the same thing. Dahlstrom did a number of minor jobs for them. They paid him for the work, and that was that. Evidently he conducted himself in an exemplary manner, showed up when he was supposed to, and so on. They knew, of course, that he was an alcoholic, but he had been referred to them by friends.”
“So it was through a referral from others that they got in touch with him?” asked Wittberg.
“Yes, and none of them had any complaints about his work. We’re going to keep questioning people.”
“The murder weapon wasn’t the only thing we found yesterday. We also found his camera. Sohlman?”
“It’s a professional camera, a Hasselblad. Dahlstrom’s fingerprints were found on it, so we’re confident that it did in fact belong to him. There was no film in it, and the lens was broken, so someone had treated it rather roughly.”
“Maybe the murderer took the film,” Jacobsson put in. “The darkroom had been searched, which indicates that the murder possibly had something to do with Dahlstrom’s photography.”
“ Possibly. At the same time, we’ve received reports from SCL on the samples that were taken from Dahlstrom’s apartment and darkroom. SCL have really outdone themselves-we’ve never received such quick results before,” Sohlman murmured to himself as he leafed through the documents. “All the prints from glasses, bottles, and other objects have been analyzed. Many are from Dahlstrom’s buddies who visited his apartment. But there are also prints that can’t be ascribed to any of them. They may be from the perpetrator.”
“Okay,” said Knutas. “At least we know that much. As if the information about Dahlstrom’s unreported carpentry work wasn’t enough, Johan Berg has also found a witness claiming to have seen Dahlstrom with a man down at the harbor last summer. Unfortunately, this witness does not want to talk to the police.”
From his notes he rattled off the description of the man at the harbor.
“They were standing in a narrow passageway between two containers and talking, around five in the morning. The witness recognized Dahlstrom and knew that this was far away from the places where he usually hung out. What do you think?”
“If there’s one witness, there could be more,” said Wittberg. “When exactly did this happen?”
“We don’t know. Only that it was supposedly in the middle of the summer.”
“Why was the witness down at the harbor so early in the morning?” asked Kihlgard.