“Come on, Beate, we know all that,” said Måns.
He suddenly became aware of how drunk he was. He felt stupid, his head full of cotton wool. He decided to have a shower as soon as the news was finished.
They were showing a report on the murder now. A male voice was speaking over pictures. First of all, pale blue wintry pictures of the impressive Crystal Church up on the hill. Then shots of the police shoveling their way through the area around the church. They’d also used some clips from one of the church gatherings, everyone singing, and gave a short summary of who Viktor Strandgård was.
“There is no doubt that this incident has aroused strong feelings in Kiruna,” continued the reporter’s voice. “This was made very clear when Viktor Strandgård’s sister, Sanna Strandgård, arrived at the police station to be interviewed, accompanied by her lawyer.”
The picture was showing a snow-covered car park. A breathless young female reporter dashed up to two women who were climbing out of a red Audi. The reporter’s red hair stuck out from under her cap like a fox’s brush. She looked young and energetic. It was dark, but you could make out a boring redbrick building in the background. It couldn’t be anything other than a police station. One of the women getting out of the Audi had her head down, and all you could see of her was a long sheepskin coat and a sheepskin hat pulled well down over her eyes. The other woman was Rebecka Martinsson. Måns turned up the volume and leaned forward on the sofa.
“What the…?” he said to himself.
Rebecka had told him she was going up there because she knew the family, he thought. Saying she was the sister’s lawyer must be a mistake.
He looked at Rebecka’s set face as she walked quickly toward the police station, her arm firmly around the other woman, who must be Viktor Strandgård’s sister. With her free arm she tried to fend off the woman with the microphone who was trotting along after them.
“Is it true that his eyes had been gouged out?” asked the female reporter in a broad Luleå accent.
“How are you feeling, Sanna?” she went on when she got no reply. “Is it true the children were with you in the church when you found him?”
When they got to the entrance of the police station, the fox placed herself resolutely in front of them.
“My God, girl,” sighed Måns. “What’s going on here? Hard-hitting American journalism á la Lapland?”
“Do you think it might have been a ritual killing?” asked the reporter.
The camera zoomed in on her glowing, agitated cheeks, then there was a close-up of Rebecka’s and the other woman’s faces in profile. Sanna Strandgård was holding her hands up to her face like blinkers. Rebecka’s gray eyes glared straight into the camera first of all, and then she looked straight at the reporter.
“Get out of the way,” she said sternly.
The words and the expression on Rebecka’s face stirred an unpleasant memory in Måns’ head. It had been at the firm’s Christmas party the previous year. He’d been trying to chat and be pleasant, and she’d looked at him as if he were something you might find while cleaning out the urinals. If he remembered rightly, that was exactly what she’d said to him as well. In the same stern voice.
“Get out of the way.”
After that he’d kept his distance. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel embarrassed and resign. And he didn’t want her getting any ideas either. If she wasn’t interested, that was fine.
All at once things were happening very quickly on the screen. Måns paid closer attention, kept his finger poised over the pause button on the remote control. Rebecka raised her arm to get past, and suddenly the reporter had vanished out of the picture. Rebecka and Sanna Strandgård more or less climbed over her and went into the police station. The camera followed them, and the reporter’s furious voice could be heard over the clip.
"Ow, my arm. Christ, did you get that on film?"
The voice of the male reporter from Channel 4 could be heard once again.
“The lawyer is with the well-known firm of Meijer & Ditzinger, but no one at the office was prepared to comment on this evening’s events.”
Måns was shocked to see an archive picture of the company’s offices. He pressed the pause button.
“Too fucking right,” he swore, getting up from the sofa in such a rush that he spilt milk all over his shirt and trousers.
What the hell was she up to? he thought. Was she really acting as this Sanna Strandgård’s lawyer without telling the firm? There must have been some sort of misunderstanding. Her judgment couldn’t be that poor.
He grabbed his cell phone and keyed in a number. No reply. He pressed the bridge of his nose with his right index finger and thumb and tried to think straight. As he was walking into the hall to fetch his laptop he tried another number. No reply there either. He felt sweaty and out of breath. He opened up the computer on the table in the living room and started the video again. Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post was speaking outside The Source of All Our Strength.
“Damn it,” swore Måns, trying to start up the computer and holding his cell phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear at the same time.
His hands felt clumsy and agitated.
Måns found the earpiece and was able to make calls and start up the computer at the same time. Every number rang without anyone picking up the receiver. No doubt the phones had been red hot after the evening news. The other partners were no doubt wondering how the hell one of his tax lawyers could be up there flattening journalists one after the other. He checked his phone and found that he had fifteen messages. Fifteen.
Carl von Post was looking straight at Måns from the television screen and explaining how the investigation was proceeding. It was the usual stuff about how the search was in full swing, door-to-door inquiries, interviewing members of the congregation, looking for the murder weapon. The prosecutor was elegantly dressed in a gray wool coat with matching gloves and scarf.
“Bloody clotheshorse,” commented Måns Wenngren, failing to grasp that von Post was wearing virtually the same as he was.
Finally someone picked up the phone. It was the husband of one of the female partners, and he wasn’t happy. She had remarried the much younger man, who lived well off his successful lawyer wife while he pretended to be studying, or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing.
He doesn’t need to sound quite so miserable, thought Måns.
When his colleague came on the line the conversation was very short.
“We can meet right away, can’t we?” said Mans crossly. “What do you mean, the middle of the night?”
He looked at his Breitling. Quarter past four.
“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll meet at seven instead. Early breakfast meeting. We’ll need to try and get hold of the others as well.”
When he had finished the conversation he sent an e-mail to Rebecka Martinsson. She hadn’t answered the phone either. He shut down the computer, and as he stood up he could feel his trousers sticking to his legs. He looked down and discovered the milk he’d spilt all over himself.
“That bloody girl,” he growled as he pulled his trousers off. “That bloody girl.”
And evening came and morning came, the second day
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella is sleeping restlessly in the darkest hour of the night. Clouds cover the sky, and the room is pitch-black. It is as if God himself has cupped His hand over the town, just as a child places his hand over a scuttling insect. No one who has joined the game shall escape.
Anna-Maria tosses her head from side to side to escape the voices and faces from yesterday that have occupied her sleep. The child kicks angrily in her stomach.