It seemed unlikely, in Fredrika’s view, for the husband not to have touched his wife for two years, only for the violence then to escalate as it obviously had.
There was no prosecution that time either. Sara’s husband could prove by means of original tickets and the word of two independent witnesses that he had been on business in Malmö at the time of the alleged assault. The crime could not be substantiated, and the investigation was halted.
Fredrika was concerned by what she read, to put it mildly. She could not get the pieces of the picture to fit together. Sara Sebastiansson hadn’t given the impression of being a woman who would lie. Not about anything, in fact. She had not mentioned the assaults, though she must have realized that the police would find out about them sooner or later, but Fredrika was not inclined to see that as a lie. The injuries that had been documented were also true and genuine. So her ex-husband must be guilty, but however did he manage his alibis? He was clearly a successful businessman, and twelve years older than Sara. Did he buy his alibis? But that many?
Fredrika continued working her way through the papers. The couple had separated shortly after the second assault, and only a few weeks after that, Sara was back at the police station lodging another complaint. Her ex-husband would not leave her alone; he stalked her in his car; he waited for her outside her flat and her workplace. Her ex-husband made a counter-accusation that Sara sabotaged all his attempts to maintain proper contact with their daughter. A real classic. A few more months passed – more official complaints to the police of unlawful threat, molestation and trespass – but he never actually hit her. Or if he did, it was not reported.
The last report was dated 11 November 2005, when according to Swedish Telecom’s records Sara’s husband had rung her over a hundred times the same night. That was the only time any accusation made against him could be substantiated, and a banning order was issued to prevent him visiting Sara.
Fredrika pondered this. During Fredrika’s interrogation, Sara had said that she and her ex-husband had recently separated, but the official reports told another story: she and her husband had not lived together since July 2005, when Sara had made the second report of assault to the police. What had happened between 11 November 2005 and today? Fredrika rapidly checked her information against the national police files and sighed when she discovered the answer. They had, of course, got back together again.
The timeline became all too clear. On 17 July 2005, two weeks after the second report to the police, Sara and Gabriel Sebastiansson were at different addresses. They never filed for divorce, but they did separate. On 20 December 2005, just weeks after the banning order was issued, they were back at the same address. Then it all went quiet.
Fredrika wondered what their lives had been like since. She wondered how relations between them were now. And she understood all too well that Sara would not want it to come to her ex-husband’s attention that she had moved on in her life and was in a new relationship.
Fredrika turned to a new page in her notebook. She would have to talk to Sara as soon as possible about the earlier, or continuing, abuse. She would definitely have to talk to Sara’s ex-husband, who was currently unavailable. And she would also have to interview Sara’s new ‘friend’, as she called him. Fredrika slammed her notebook shut and hurried out of her office. There was still time to get a cup of coffee before the team assembled to pool their information about the missing child, Lilian. Maybe she could also fit in a call to Gabriel Sebastiansson’s mother before the meeting. She might know her son’s whereabouts.
Alex Recht opened the meeting in the Den with his usual efficiency. Peder always felt a slight quickening of his pulse when they were gathered there on operational business. The Den, or the Lions’ Den to give it its full name, was what they called the only meeting room they had. Peder liked the name. He took it for granted that it hadn’t been Fredrika’s suggestion. She was entirely lacking in that sort of imagination and finesse.
It was nearly six and Lilian Sebastiansson had been missing for more than four hours. In view of the fact that she had disappeared in the middle of Stockholm, and in view of her age, this had to be considered a long time. It was clearly beyond all reasonable doubt that she had not gone missing of her own free will. She was far too young to have made her way anywhere unaided, and she had no shoes on her feet.
‘I need hardly remind you that we have a very grave situation here,’ said Alex grimly, surveying his colleagues.
Nobody said a word, and Alex took a seat at the table.
Besides Alex, those in attendance were Fredrika, Peder, and the team’s assistant Ellen Lind. Also present were some officers from the uniformed branch, there to report on the search of the area round the Central Station, and a few people from the technical division.
Alex started by asking what the search had revealed. The answer was as short as it was depressing: it had revealed nothing at all. Hardly anyone had responded to the appeal over the public-address system on the concourse, and talking to the taxi firms had not produced any leads either.
The result of the technical check of the train coaches was almost as scanty. It had been hard to secure any fingerprints on site, nor had they found any traces indicating where the girl had got off the train. If it was assumed that she was carried and was possibly still asleep when she was taken, the task became even more difficult. No traces of blood had been found anywhere. All that they had found, and been able to secure, were some shoeprints on the floor, right by the girl’s seat.
Alex pricked up his ears when he heard that the train crew said the floors were cleaned between trips, which meant the prints the technicians had found must relate to the journey in question. The prints were from a pair of Ecco shoes, size 46.
‘All right,’ Alex said briskly. ‘We’ll have to see if we get any pointers from the other passengers on the train.’
He cleared his throat.
‘Has the news gone out to the media yet, by the way? I haven’t seen or heard anything.’
The question was really directed at Ellen, who was the nearest thing the team had to a press officer. She answered:
‘It was on the radio quite quickly, as we requested, and on the web, of course. And an announcement went out through the Central News Agency about an hour ago. We can expect the story to be in all the big national dailies tomorrow. The statement we issued to the media says specifically that we want to hear from all the passengers on that train from Gothenburg as soon as possible.’
Alex nodded, feeling fairly satisfied. He had no objections himself to turning to the media for help. But he was well aware that putting out the appeal could prove counterproductive. It was the end of July, the summer was raining away, millions of Swedes were off work for the holidays, and the newspaper editorial offices were presumably suffering from a total dearth of news. He scarcely dared think what the following day’s headlines would be if the girl was not found in the course of the evening. And he scarcely dared contemplate how many members of the public would pick up the phone and ring in with a tip-off. Far too many people had a tendency to imagine that they were in possession of some vital piece of information the police couldn’t live without.
‘We’ll hold back on the press conference for now,’ he said meditatively. ‘And we’ll wait a bit before we issue a picture of the girl.’ He went on, now addressing the whole investigation team: ‘As we know, we’re only talking about a very short space of time when there was no adult with her. According to the statements we’ve taken, she was left unsupervised for fewer than four minutes. The train had been at a standstill for scarcely a minute when the conductor got back to her seat, and by then she was gone.’