Margit gave Thomas an encouraging smile.
“You’ll do a great job. Give me a call if you have any questions. And remember not to come to any conclusions until forensics have had their say.”
Thomas pulled on the leather jacket he always wore, irrespective of the weather.
“Do you think the helicopter could drop me off on Harö when we’re done?” he asked in passing on his way out.
“Of course. If the official government plane could fly Thomas Bodström to Greece for his summer holiday, I’m sure the Stockholm Police can fly Thomas Andreasson out to his summer cottage.”
The DCI grinned at his own wit.
Margit shook her head but couldn’t help smiling. “Talk later. Say hello to the islands for me.”
She waved good-bye.
CHAPTER 3
“Hello.”
Nora Linde automatically answered her cell phone before realizing it was the phone alarm sounding, not the phone ringing. Nora stretched. She turned over and looked at her husband lying in bed next to her.
Henrik was breathing peacefully, like a child. Nora envied his ability to sleep undisturbed through absolutely anything. The only thing that woke him was his hospital pager—when it went off, he was wide awake in a second.
He still looked almost the same as when they’d gotten married nearly ten years ago. Dark-brown hair, muscular abs and biceps from years of competitive sailing, sensitive doctor’s hands with long, beautiful fingers. Nora didn’t begrudge Henrik his stylish profile with its elegant, almost classical Greek nose. On the other hand, she thought it was wasted on a man. At least that’s what she used to say to cheer herself up, because her own nose was far too short and stubby for her taste. A few strands of gray were visible in Henrik’s dark hair, a reminder that he had recently turned thirty-seven, just as she had.
Her cell phone buzzed again.
Nora sighed. Getting up at a quarter to eight Monday through Friday wasn’t her idea of a vacation, but if you had children on an island like Sandhamn, those children attended swimming lessons at the times available.
With a yawn she pulled on her robe and walked into the children’s room. Simon, who was six, was lying with his bottom in the air and his head buried deep in the pillow. It was hard to believe he could actually breathe in that position.
Adam, who had just turned ten, had kicked off the covers and was sprawled diagonally across the bed. His white-blond hair was damp with sweat, curling slightly at the back of his neck.
Both were fast asleep.
Simon’s swimming lesson began at nine o’clock, Adam’s at ten thirty, so she just had time to get home with Simon and make sure Adam had some breakfast before he set off on his bike.
Perfect timing, in other words.
In spite of everything, she would probably miss the contact with the other mothers and fathers when Simon was also old enough to cycle there on his own. It was pleasant, sitting by the edge of the pool chatting as the children practiced their strokes.
She had attended swimming lessons as a child with many of the parents, so she knew most of them. At that time there had been no question of using a heated pool and warming up in the sauna afterward. They had shivered their way into the water at Fläskberget, the beach on the north side of the island where the swimming school had been until the pool area was built.
She could still remember how incredibly cold it was. But she had gained her swimming badges in water with a temperature of sixty-one degrees; those badges were still around somewhere. Presumably at her parents’ house, just a few hundred yards away.
Nora went into the bathroom to get ready. As she brushed her teeth, she sleepily examined her reflection in the mirror. Tousled reddish-blond hair cut into a bob. Snub nose. Gray eyes. A body shaped by plenty of exercise; some might even call it boyish.
She was quite happy with her appearance, for the most part. Above all she liked her long, shapely legs, the result of many years of jogging. She found it so easy to think while she jogged. Her breasts weren’t exactly something to shout about, particularly after two children, but then again, you could get push-up bras these days. That helped a bit.
As she showered she thought about all the things that had changed on Sandhamn since she’d been a child attending those swimming lessons. As the summer population had increased, so had the traffic to the island. Now the tourists could take a half-hour flight over the archipelago, and there was a helicopter service flying hungry diners out to the Sailors Restaurant. The conference center, situated in the Royal Swedish Sailing Society’s former clubhouse, built in 1897 in the National Romantic style, was open year-round. It was also possible to hire kayaks and old-fashioned bikes to travel around the island.
The beautiful people loved coming out to Sandhamn, hobnobbing whenever there was a regatta or an international yacht race. The Gucci quota had shot up by several hundred percent, as Henrik would remark with some amusement as the big jetty in front of the clubhouse filled up with elegant women in expensive clothes and middle-aged men who carried both their rotundity and their bulging wallets with an air of authority and assurance.
Some of the residents complained about the increased traffic and the number of tourists on the island, but the majority, who depended on the employment opportunities they provided for their survival, had a positive attitude toward the development.
The contrast between the summer months, however, with two to three thousand more people staying on the island and a hundred thousand day visitors, and the winter, with its hundred and twenty residents, could not have been greater.
Despite the fact that Thomas had spent every summer of his life in the Stockholm archipelago, he still found it remarkably stunning in the clear morning air.
Traveling to Sandhamn by helicopter was an unexpected privilege. The view from the wide windscreen was unparalleled. The contours of the islands, strewn across the glittering water, were razor-sharp.
They had flown over Nacka and out toward Fågelbrolandet. Once they had left Grinda behind them and reached the outer islands, the character of the landscape changed. The gentler green of the inner archipelago, with its leafy trees and open meadows, changed to rocky islands with low-growing, windblown pine trees and bare expanses of rock.
When they were level with Runmarö, the characteristic view of Sandhamn opened out in front of them—a closely packed collection of red- and buff-colored houses, just where the sound between Sandhamn and Telegrafholmen began.
Thomas never tired of that first sight of the familiar outline of the little community out on the edge of the archipelago. It had existed as a post for customs and pilot boats ever since the end of the sixteenth century, through Russian devastation, bitter winters, the arrival of steamboats, and the isolation of the war years. It was still a vibrant community.
Thomas squinted through his sunglasses and looked down.
Motorboats and yachts were tied to the wooden jetties, and behind them he could just see the old pilot tower rising up from the highest point on the island. White buoys bobbed out beyond the landing stages, with green-and-red markers showing the way for both commercial traffic and leisure sailors. It was early in the morning, but the channel was already full of white sails on their way out to sea.