“He was there with a girl who was going to take the morning ferry to Nynashamn.”
“So we’re talking about a younger man. It might be one of Dahlstrom’s neighbors. Wasn’t there a young guy living in the building?”
“You’re right about that. I think he lives on the floor upstairs.”
Knutas glanced down at his papers.
“His name is Niklas Appelqvist. A student.”
“If the witness, whoever he is, could at least tell us the name of the girl, then we could find out what day she left by looking at the passenger lists of Destination Gotland,” said Jacobsson. “I think they keep the lists for three months.”
“But how are we going to proceed if the witness doesn’t want to talk to the police?” asked Norrby.
“Maybe the reporter would have better luck getting the information out of him than we would,” said Jacobsson. “I think we should first ask Johan Berg for help. Maybe the witness is one of those types who’s extremely hostile toward the police. For some inexplicable reason, those sorts of people do exist,” she added sarcastically.
She turned to Knutas, giving him a big smile.
“So we’re going to have to suck up to the reporter,” she said gleefully. “And you’re so good at that kind of thing, Anders.”
Jacobsson gave him a friendly poke in the side. Kihlgard looked equally amused.
Knutas was annoyed, but he had to admit that she was right. Legally, he couldn’t investigate the young man, but there was nothing to prevent him from asking Johan to find out the name of the girl. So the police were at the mercy of the journalist’s goodwill. And that was a pisser.
Just as Johan entered the editorial offices of Regional News, his cell phone rang. It was Knutas.
“I wonder if you’d be willing to help us with something.”
“What is it?”
“Do you think the witness would remember the name of the girl he was with when he saw Dahlstrom and another man down at the harbor?”
“I don’t know. It sounded as if she was someone he spent only that one evening with.”
“Could you ask him?”
“Sure. But it’ll have to wait awhile. I just arrived at the newsroom.”
The police wanted his help. How nice. This was a switch from the normal situation when, as a journalist, he had to beg, plead, and cajole to get any information. He would keep Knutas waiting for just a bit.
A pleasantly drowsy Friday mood had settled over the newsroom. Fridays often had a slower pace than usual because half of the evening news program was devoted to a longer story.
Grenfors was sitting alone at the big table in the middle of the room, the so-called news desk. It was the workplace for editors, anchormen, and broadcast producers-all the key people whose job it was to put together the programs, make decisions, and assign the stories. At this time of day the anchormen and producers hadn’t yet put in an appearance. Most of the reporters were sitting at their own desks with phones pressed to their ears. In the morning they did their research and made appointments for interviews. The day often started off at a leisurely pace, which then accelerated and finally reached a crescendo of stress right before the broadcast. That’s when they had to deal with stories that weren’t finished in time, something in a report that had to be changed at the last minute because the editor wasn’t happy with it, computers that crashed, video-editing machines that broke so that certain images couldn’t be transmitted, and all sorts of other problems. Time was short, and they always worked up until the very last second. Everyone was used to that; it was their normal work tempo.
“Hi, there,” Grenfors greeted Johan. “That was a good report yesterday. Great that we’ve got the story now. It feels like it’s going to get bigger. We’ll have to wait and see how it develops. Meanwhile… something else has come up.”
The editor shuffled through the documents and newspapers that were heaped in a big, messy pile on the table.
“The police seized a record amount of Rohypnol in Kapellskar this morning. Could you look into it?”
Oh, right, look into it, thought Johan. That sounded easy enough, but he knew what Grenfors expected. A substantial story that he could use at the top of the broadcast, containing information that was a Regional News exclusive. He had strong doubts that it was a record amount. He had lost count of all the drug busts that had been made over the past year.
“Isn’t National News doing the story?” he asked wearily. He had been hoping to go home early.
“Sure, but you know how they are. They do their report and we do ours. Besides, you have better contacts than all their reporters put together.”
“Okay.”
Johan went back to his desk. Before he got started, he called Niklas Appelqvist in Grabo.
He answered at once. Yes, he had kept in touch with the girl for a short time. He might still have her last name and phone number somewhere. He recalled only that her first name was Elin and she lived in Uppsala. He promised to call back as soon as possible. Before Johan could pick up the receiver to call the Customs Agency, the phone rang. He heard his mother’s voice.
“Hi, my dear boy. How are you? How was it on Gotland?”
“It was fine.”
“Did you see Emma?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”
He was close to his mother, and by this time she knew almost everything about his complicated relationship with Emma. She listened and offered advice without expecting that he would follow it. She never judged him, and he appreciated that.
Johan’s relationship with his mother had deepened after his father died of cancer almost two years ago now. There were four brothers, but Johan was the oldest, and he was closest to his mother. They had a need for each other. During the past year his mother had needed him more, and they had spent a great deal of time together, talking about his father and how life had changed. Especially for her, of course. She now lived alone in the big house in the suburb of Bromma. He had tried to persuade her to move so that she wouldn’t have to take care of all the practical matters by herself. Her sons did help out quite a bit, but they also had their own lives.
She had now recovered from the worst of her grief. She had even started seeing a man who belonged to the same bowling club. He was a widower, and she seemed to enjoy his company. Whether there was anything romantic going on between them she had never mentioned, and Johan didn’t want to ask. The fact that his mother was seeing this man took a lot of the pressure off because he no longer had to worry as much about her being alone.
Fanny was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the reflection of her face in the window. She was alone. Her mother was at work, as usual. The neighbors across the courtyard had hung up their Advent stars already. In another month it would be Christmas Eve. Yet another Christmas alone with her mother. Other people got together with family and friends to celebrate with Christmas trees and presents. The coziest thing of all must be to sit around a big table and eat Christmas dinner together. A warm apartment, candles, and good company. But she and her mother had only each other. And Spot, of course. They never went to visit relatives. Fanny had begun to realize why. The relatives were afraid that her mother would either get drunk or have one of her outbursts. She was so unpredictable that no one could ever relax when she was around. They never knew what might happen. If someone said or did something that her mother took as a criticism, the rest of the evening would be ruined. That’s why she and her mother were always alone. Not even her maternal grandmother was around anymore; she was senile and lived in a retirement home.
They never bought a real tree for Christmas, either. They just set up a dreary-looking plastic tree on the table, as if they were a couple of old retired people. They usually ate Christmas dinner in front of the TV. Store-bought meatballs, beet salad, and ready-made Jansson’s Temptation, the traditional casserole of herring, potatoes, and onions in a cream sauce. All they had to do was heat it up in the microwave. Her mother would drink aquavit and wine and get more and more tipsy as the evening wore on. There was always some movie on TV that she wanted to see, but before long she would fall asleep on the sofa. Fanny would have to take Spot out for his evening walk. She hated Christmas. The fact that it was also her birthday didn’t make matters any better. She was going to turn fifteen-that meant she was practically grown up. She felt like a child in an adult’s body. She didn’t want to get any older; she had nothing to look forward to. She leaned her head on her hands, inhaling the scent of her newly washed hair. In some strange way she found that comforting. She looked down at the curve of her breasts. They had caused all the problems; her body had ruined everything. If she hadn’t gotten older, this whole thing would never have happened. Her body was a weapon that could be used both against others and against herself.