Johnny sits in silence for a minute or so, eyes shining.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave,’ he says, sounding exhausted.
Back in the car Laura discovers that her phone is once again full of missed calls. Four are from Andreas, and further down the list she sees both her mother’s and Steph’s numbers.
It’s her own fault. Things had just settled down, but the middle-of-the-night call to Andreas and the interrogation of her mother have set the whole circus going again.
She switches off the phone and tosses it on the passenger seat. Looks up at the big house. For years and years the lonely old man inside has kept a lamp lit for Hedda. Put his life on the back burner, hoping in vain that she would come back to him.
She starts the car; can’t help feeling relieved when the gate closes behind her and she drives away from Johnny Miller’s gloomy home.
On the way to Gärdsnäset she meets a dark-coloured Volvo and thinks the driver is gesturing at her, but she can’t make out who it is. In her rear-view mirror she sees the car do a U-turn and set off after her, with blue-and-red lights flashing on the radiator grille.
A police car. She slows down, pulls over onto the verge and stops. The driver gets out and comes up to her side window. It’s Peter.
‘I’ve been trying to call you, but you’re not answering your phone.’
‘No. Work is onto me all the time, so I keep it switched off.’
‘OK – well, I checked the notes on that anonymous call. Back then there was an exchange that put callers through to a different station if there was no one on duty locally, and this one ended up with the neighbouring district of Nedanås instead of Vedarp. So I contacted them.’
‘What did they say?’
‘It turns out that the colleague who dealt with the report in 1987 was a real stickler for procedure. Henry Morell – he actually became Chief of Police eventually. Anyway . . .’
Peter reaches into his inside pocket and brings out an old cassette tape.
‘Morell recorded parts of the conversation. The tape has been in their archive all these years; no doubt it’s as dry as dust, which means there’s a risk it will break if we put it in an ordinary cassette player. However, there’s a sound technician that we sometimes use. He lives half an hour from here – are you up for a little Goonies adventure?’
They take his car and leave hers at Gärdsnäset.
‘I heard you met Elsa,’ he says. ‘She told me someone scratched your car. You ought to report it to the police.’
‘Do you think you’re likely to make any arrests?’
He snorts, a mixture of laughter and resignation.
‘I like Elsa,’ Laura goes on. ‘She’s a cool girl.’
Peter looks pleased. ‘She had a tough time after Victoria’s death.’
‘In what way?’
‘Unauthorised absences from school, poor results, difficulty in making friends. She says she prefers to be by herself. She thinks I don’t know she goes whizzing around in the forest on her motocross bike.’ He shakes his head. ‘I really ought to lock it away.’
They sit in silence for a little while.
‘There’s something I’ve been wondering,’ Laura says. ‘About the fire at the dance hall. And what happened afterwards.’
‘Go on.’
‘Milla and Iben took Jack to the toilet behind the stage to clean him up, but then Iben was alone when the fire started. Why?’
‘According to interviews with both Milla and Jack, he was bleeding heavily and they couldn’t stop it. Milla had a first aid kit in her cabin, so he went off with her.’
‘Just the two of them? Without Iben?’
‘Iben needed the toilet – she said she’d follow them over. Apparently, she was badly shaken after the incident with her brothers, so maybe she was afraid to leave the dance hall. Milla hinted as much when she was questioned.’
‘Which way did they leave?’
‘Through the back door – that was the quickest route from where they were.’
‘Weren’t you heading the same way?’
‘Yes, but the fire spread so fast that I couldn’t get through.’
‘Did you see Tomas?’
He shakes his head, without taking his eyes off the road.
‘Did they ever find out who dropped the bar on the outside of the main door?’
‘In his confession Tomas said he lit the fire then ran out through the back – he didn’t mention the main door. But later, when Sandberg pressed him, Tomas changed his statement and said he was the one who’d dropped the bar. But he never explained why.’
‘And what do you think? Was it him?’
Peter doesn’t answer. Instead, he points to a house up ahead. A small sign tells them that this is HELLREC STUDIOS.
‘Here we are.’
The sound technician is called Lelle. He’s about sixty years old, with thick glasses and thinning hair. His studio is in the garage, and is considerably more impressive than the modest exterior would suggest. He has a huge array of technical kit, including a mixer desk along one wall, linked to three monitors.
He works on the cassette for a while, explains which method he is using to ensure that the fragile spool won’t break when it’s stretched in the tape player. Laura listens with half an ear. She is busy trying to picture Jack in Milla’s cabin, Milla playing the nursemaid, bandaging the wound on his head. Why did Milla do that? Did she feel guilty about the fight?
‘There you go,’ Lelle says. ‘I’ve made a digital copy of the recording. The sound quality is pretty poor, but I’ll try to improve it. I’ll send you copies when I’m done.’
He moves the mouse and a scraping noise can be heard from the speakers, a thud followed by a deep voice speaking in a broad Skåne accent.
‘I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?’
Laura assumes this must be the police officer, who’s just switched on his tape recorder.
A thick, subdued voice speaks, then a rasping sound as something hits the microphone.
‘. . . Källegården . . . his daughter.’
‘Sorry, it’s a bit difficult to hear you,’ says the police officer.
‘Källegården. Near Vedarp. Ulf Jensen. He’s messing with his daughter.’
The voice is still unclear. It sounds like a young man, and Laura tries to compare it with her memories of Jack’s voice.
‘It sounds as if the caller has covered the mouthpiece,’ Lelle explains. He moves the mouse again, makes some adjustments.
‘What do you mean, messing with his daughter?’
‘He forces her to sleep in his bed. He does things to her, terrible things.’
The voice is slightly clearer now. Is she hearing Jack for the first time since 1987? She leans in closer to the speaker, and Peter does the same. There is a mechanical click, and the call ends abruptly.
Lelle replays the last part and manages to enhance the click.
‘A phone box,’ he says with absolute certainty. ‘The old green metal type, if you remember those.’
‘There were only two in Vedarp,’ Peter says. ‘One in the village square . . .’
‘And one behind the main cabin at Gärdsnäset,’ Laura chips in. She pictures Jack standing there, dialling the number for the police, covering the mouthpiece with a scarf.
Lelle goes back to the beginning of the recording, makes one or two further adjustments. This time the caller’s voice is clearer; the muffled effect is almost gone.
‘He forces her to sleep in his bed. He does things to her. Terrible things.’
Laura inhales sharply. Admittedly the voice is deep, as if the caller is making a huge effort to disguise it, but now it’s clear that it belongs to a young woman.