Alex turned to Peder.
‘Peder, did you get anything concrete from your interviews? What sense did you get of the people you spoke to?’
Peder sighed and flicked through his notebook.
‘I didn’t talk to anyone who was directly under suspicion, so to speak,’ he drawled. ‘Nobody saw anything; nobody heard anything. The girl was gone, that’s all. The only one who behaved a bit weirdly was the other conductor, Arvid Melin. He not only gave the all-clear for the train to leave Flemingsberg without Sara Sebastiansson, he also ignored his colleague’s call for assistance. But to be honest… No, I can’t for the life of me say I really think Arvid M. had anything to do with it. He seems totally useless at his job, and that no doubt made it easier for whoever took Lilian, but he wasn’t actively involved in her disappearance. I really don’t think so. And he hasn’t got a criminal record.’
‘Good,’ said Alex.
Fredrika frowned.
‘I’m not sure I think Arvid Melin stands out as the shady one in all this,’ she said. ‘Can we assume it was a coincidence that Sara missed the train in Flemingsberg? What have we got on the woman who delayed her there?’
Alex put his head on one side.
‘What’s your take on it?’ he asked.
‘It depends how we view the girl’s disappearance. If we think it was planned, and depended on the girl being unsupervised in Stockholm so she’d be easier to snatch, we have to see the woman with the dog as a suspect, too,’ Fredrika replied.
‘True,’ said Alex with some hesitation. ‘But then how did the perpetrator know that the adult who was supposed to keep watch on Lilian would be prevented from doing so?’
‘He didn’t, of course,’ said Fredrika. ‘The perpetrator must naturally have realized that Sara Sebastiansson would leap into action when she missed the train, and contact the crew. But maybe it still seemed less of a problem to take her from someone who didn’t know her than from her mother. Whoever took Lilian might have tried to do it even if Henry Lindgren had been there.’
‘So you think the priority was to get Sara off the train, so what happened in Flemingsberg was no coincidence?’ asked Alex.
‘Exactly,’ said Fredrika.
‘Hmm,’ said Alex.
‘Er,’ said Peder.
Alex gave Peder an encouraging nod.
‘Well, I think it seems a bit far-fetched,’ said Peder with a doubtful expression.
‘What’s the alternative?’ asked Fredrika. ‘It was all pure chance?’
‘Opportunity makes a thief,’ said Peder, like a patient teacher.
Fredrika could not believe what she was hearing, and was about to argue when Alex broke in.
‘Let’s finish the run-through of our findings first, then we can continue this discussion,’ he suggested.
He nodded to Peder to go on.
Peder waited demonstratively for a few seconds for Fredrika to start protesting, but to his disappointment, she did not. Ellen’s mobile stated to ring, however, so she left the room. Referring to his rather sloppy notes, Peder passed on to his colleagues what little other information they had. Nobody had seen what happened in Flemingsberg and nobody had seen Lilian leaving the train.
‘The interviews didn’t produce much,’ said Peder, feeling suddenly sheepish.
Alex shook his head as if to say it didn’t matter.
‘At this juncture, it’s impossible to say what’s important and what’s not,’ he sighed. ‘Fredrika, can you give us Sara’s story and what you’ve got on her ex-husband, please?’
Fredrika liked giving lectures. She spoke clearly and concretely, and in all the other places she had worked, her presentations had been praised. But she suspected that in the police she was considered supercilious and far too formal.
Fredrika briefly gave her own impression of Sara and her account of the events in Flemingsberg. She also explained what the files had turned up, and put forward her theory that Sara’s husband was still a big problem for her.
It was Alex who spoke next, of course.
‘Have you talked to her ex-husband?’ he asked.
‘His name’s Gabriel, and technically they’re still married, so he’s not really her “ex-husband” but her husband,’ Fredrika began. ‘And no, I haven’t managed to get hold of him. He’s got a small house tucked away in a nice part of Östermalm. I got through to his mother just before the start of the meeting, and she said her son was on a business trip. She thought he’d be in Uppsala all day. I tried ringing, but his phone’s turned off. He had to be informed of what’s happened to his daughter, anyway, so I left a voicemail message.’
‘What’s his current situation? Does he live alone?’ asked Alex, jotting something down on his pad.
‘I haven’t had a chance to ask Sara or his mother yet. But I shall look into it, of course.’
Alex pondered in silence. A father who had in all probability abused his ex-wife on numerous occasions, and was perhaps still doing so, was a very interesting person in a missing child investigation. The single most interesting person, in fact. Decades of police work supported that fundamental assumption.
‘What were the custody arrangements?’ he asked Fredrika, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head.
‘What Sara herself told me was that it hadn’t been a matter of dispute between them, but on the phone just now, the husband’s mother expressed concern that her son didn’t get to see Lilian more often. I got the impression that she, the grandmother, was well informed about her son’s daily life. She told me, for example, that the time he rang Sara a hundred times on one evening he was, as the grandmother put it, “beside himself with worry for the girl”. She claimed Sara had taken Lilian off on a short trip without telling Gabriel.’
‘So they had argued about the girl, in fact, at least earlier on,’ Alex said slowly. ‘Are there any grounds at all for suspecting that Sara Sebastiansson has been lying, and never was abused and harassed by her husband?’
Fredrika gave an emphatic shake of the head.
‘No,’ she said, with some force. ‘I simply don’t see how that could be possible. Not when the injuries are so well documented.’
‘But isn’t there something fishy about this whole set-up?’ asked Peder, glancing at Alex, who nodded.
‘Yes, there’s something fishy all right. But I can’t quite put my finger on it.’
He looked at Fredrika.
‘Have you spoken to Sara Sebastiansson about the abuse aspect?’
‘No, I didn’t see the reports until I got back here. But I’m going to see her later this evening and I’ll bring it up then.’
A rattling sound filled the silence when Fredrika stopped talking. The ancient air conditioning made a lot of noise considering how little cool air it generated.
‘But even so,’ Peder persisted, with another look of entreaty at Alex. ‘The father’s got to be our hottest lead, if he really is such a bastard as Sara claims, that is.’
Alex saw Fredrika’s face harden at Peder’s insinuation that Sara Sebastiansson might be lying to the police.
‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘Regardless of what Sara herself may think, the father is a main lead in this investigation until we have reason to write him off as uninteresting.’
Fredrika felt relieved, and her shoulders relaxed a little. Alex had often thought how attractive she could be when she smiled and relaxed. Shame she didn’t do it more often, that was all.
‘Right,’ said Alex. ‘You said the girl’s mother had a new man. Is he of any interest?’
‘I haven’t got a definite ID on him yet. He’s called Anders Nyström, and Sara’s known him for such a short time that all she could give me was his year of birth and where he lives. He isn’t recorded as living at the address where Sara went to see him, and his mobile number only traces back to an unregistered pay-as-you-go account. He isn’t answering his mobile and the voicemail isn’t working.’