The woman in reception opened the door to let in the officer who had been reading the noticeboard.
‘I think there’s been a breakthrough,’ she said in a low voice, and left.
Birgitta Roslin sat down and leafed through a newspaper. Police officers occasionally came and went through the glass door. Journalists and a television team arrived. She half expected to see Lars Emanuelsson.
A quarter past nine. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Then she gave a start on hearing a voice she recognised. Vivi Sundberg was standing in front of her. She looked very tired, with black shadows around her eyes.
‘You wanted to speak to me.’
‘If I’m not disturbing you.’
‘Of course you’re disturbing me. But I assume it’s important. You know the drill by now.’
Birgitta Roslin followed her through the glass door and into an empty office.
‘This isn’t my office,’ said Sundberg. ‘But we can talk here.’
Birgitta Roslin sat down on an uncomfortable visitor’s chair. Vivi Sundberg remained standing, leaning against a bookcase filled with red-backed files.
Roslin braced herself, thinking that the situation was preposterous. Sundberg had already decided that no matter what she had to say, it would be irrelevant to the investigation.
‘I think I’ve found something,’ she said. ‘A clue, I suppose you could call it.’
Sundberg’s face was expressionless. Roslin felt challenged.
‘What I have to say is so important you should ask someone else to be present.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m convinced of it.’
Vivi Sundberg left the room and returned swiftly with a man who introduced himself as District Prosecutor Robertsson.
‘I’m in charge of the preliminary investigation. Vivi tells me you have something to tell us. You are a judge in Helsingborg, is that right?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Is Prosecutor Halmberg still there?’
‘He’s retired.’
‘But he still lives in Helsingborg, doesn’t he?’
‘I think he’s moved to France. Antibes.’
‘Lucky man. He enjoyed a decent cigar, that one. Jurors often used to faint when he lit up in the back rooms during breaks in a trial. He started to lose cases when they introduced a smoking ban. He thought it was due to melancholy and cigar deprivation.’
‘I’ve heard stories about that.’
The prosecutor sat down at the desk. Sundberg had returned to her place by the bookcase. Birgitta Roslin described in detail what she had discovered. How she had recognised the red ribbon, traced it to the restaurant, then found out that a Chinese man had been visiting Hudiksvall. She put the video cassette on the desk together with the brochure in Chinese and explained what the roughly written characters on the back cover meant.
Robertsson was staring hard at her. Vivi Sundberg was examining her hands. Then Robertsson grabbed hold of the cassette and stood up.
‘Let’s take a look at this. Now, right away.’
They went to a conference room where an Asian lady was clearing away the coffee mugs and paper bags. Birgitta Roslin bristled at the brusque way in which Vivi Sundberg ordered the cleaning woman to leave the room. After a great deal of difficulty and a succession of curses Robertsson eventually managed to make the video recorder work.
Somebody knocked on the door. Robertsson raised his voice and said they couldn’t be disturbed. The Russian women appeared on the screen but soon left. The picture flickered. Wang Min Hao took centre stage, looked at the camera, then left. Robertsson rewound and paused the tape at the moment when Wang looked at the camera. Sundberg had also become interested now. She closed the blinds on the nearest window, and the picture became clearer.
‘Wang Min Hao,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘Assuming that’s his real name. He turns up here in Hudiksvall out of nowhere on the twelfth of January. He spends the night in a little hotel, having first plucked a red ribbon out of a lampshade hanging over a table in a restaurant. That ribbon is later found at the crime scene in Hesjövallen.’
Robertsson had been standing in front of the television screen, leaning over it. He sat down again. Vivi Sundberg opened a bottle of mineral water.
‘Strange,’ said Robertsson. ‘I take it you’ve checked that the red ribbon really did come from that restaurant?’
‘I’m sure it did.’
‘What’s going on?’ said Vivi Sundberg vehemently. ‘Are you conducting some kind of private investigation?’
‘I don’t want to get in your way,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘I know you’re very busy.’
Suddenly Sundberg left the room.
‘I’ve asked them to bring the lamp from that restaurant,’she said when she came back.
‘They don’t open until eleven o’clock,’ said Roslin.
‘This is a small town,’ said Sundberg. ‘We’ll get hold of the owner and order him to open up.’
‘Make sure the media mob doesn’t hear about this,’ warned Robertsson. ‘Just imagine the headlines if they do.“Chinaman behind the Hesjövallen Massacre”?’
‘That’s hardly likely after our press conference this afternoon,’ said Sundberg.
So the girl on the switchboard had been right, Roslin thought. Something has happened and will be made public today. That’s why they’re only half interested.
Robertsson started coughing. It was a violent attack, and he turned red in the face.
‘Cigarettes,’ he said. ‘I’ve smoked so many cigarettes that if they were laid out end to end they would stretch from the centre of Stockholm to somewhere south of Södertälje. From about Botkyrka onwards they had filters. Not that they improved things at all.’
‘Let’s talk this over,’ said Vivi Sundberg, sitting down. ‘You’ve caused a lot of trouble and irritation in this building.’
Now she’s going to bring up the diaries, Roslin thought. Today will end with Robertsson digging up something to charge me with. Hardly obstructing justice, but there are other possibilities.
But Sundberg made no mention of the diaries, and Birgitta Roslin had the feeling there was a mutual understanding between them, despite Sundberg’s attitude. What had happened was nothing her coughing colleague needed to know about.
‘We will definitely look into this,’ said Robertsson. ‘We have no preconceived ideas, but there are no other clues indicating a Chinese man.’
‘What about the weapon?’ Roslin asked. ‘Have you found it?’
Neither Sundberg nor Robertsson answered. They’ve found it, Roslin thought. That’s what’s going to be announced this afternoon. Of course it is.
‘We can’t comment on that at the moment,’ said Robertsson. ‘Let’s wait for the lamp to arrive and compare the ribbons. If they are in fact the same, then this information will become a serious part of the evidence. We’ll keep the cassette, of course.’
He reached for a notepad and started writing.
‘Who has seen this Chinese man?’
‘The waitress in the restaurant.’
‘I often eat there. The young one or the old one? Or the miserable old crank in the kitchen? The one with the wart on his forehead?’
‘The young one.’
‘She varies from being modestly shy to very cheekily flirty. I think she’s bored to tears. Anybody else?’
‘Anybody else who did what?’
Robertsson sighed.
‘My dear colleague, you’ve surprised us all with this Chinaman that you’ve pulled out of your hat. Who else has seen him? The question couldn’t be more straightforward.’
‘A nephew of the hotel owner. I don’t know his name, but Sture Her-mansson said he was in the Arctic.’