“Oh, for Christ’s sake…” Mella groaned.
The whole pack, apart from Stålnacke, looked imploringly at Martinsson.
“We’d be reported to the Parliamentary Ombudsman,” she said. “The Krekula brothers would just love that.”
“We’ll never catch them,” Mella said dejectedly. “It will be another Peter Snell case.”
Fifteen years earlier, a thirteen-year-old girl, Ronja Larsson, had gone missing one Saturday evening after visiting some friends. Peter Snell was an acquaintance of the family. One of the girl’s friends had said that he had made advances, and that Ronja had thought he was “creepy”. The morning after her disappearance, Snell had poured petrol into the boot of his car and set fire to it in the forest. When interrogated, he had denied committing a crime, but could not give a satisfactory explanation for burning his car.
“He doesn’t need to,” Chief Prosecutor Alf Björnfot had said to Mella. “There’s no law to stop you burning your own car if that’s what you want to do. It proves nothing.”
There had been vain attempts to find D.N.A. traces in the burnt-out wreck. The girl’s body was never found. The case was written off, closed as far as the police were concerned. They knew who the murderer was, but couldn’t produce enough evidence to charge him. Snell owned a break-down firm. Before the Ronja Larsson case, the police had frequently used his break-down lorries in connection with traffic accidents and similar situations. Following the case, they cut him off. He threatened to sue.
Martinsson said nothing for a few seconds. Then she smiled mischievously at the Kiruna police officers.
“It’ll be O.K.,” she said. “We’ll establish a link between them and the crime scene. Then we’ll be able to turn their houses inside out.”
“And how will we do that?” Mella said doubtfully.
“They’ll tell me of their own accord,” Martinsson said. “SvenErik?”
Stålnacke looked up in surprise.
“Have you got my direct line on your mobile?”
Stålnacke and Martinsson pulled up outside Tore Krekula’s house at 5.15 on April 28. His wife answered the door.
“Tore’s not at home,” she said. “I think he’s at the garage. I can phone him.”
“No, we’ll go over there,” Stålnacke said with a good-natured smile. “You can come with us and show us the way.”
“You can’t miss it. You just need to drive back through the village and…”
“You can come with us,” Stålnacke said in a friendly voice that clearly expected to be obeyed.
“I’ll just go and get my jacket.”
“No need for that,” Stålnacke said, ushering her gently along. “It’s nice and warm in the car.”
They drove in silence.
“I apologize for the smell,” Martinsson said. “It’s the dog. I’ll give her a good wash this evening.”
Laura Krekula glanced casually at Vera, who was lying in the luggage space.
Martinsson keyed a text message into her mobile. It was to Mella. It said: Laura Krekula out of the house.
The garage was built out of breeze blocks. Standing outside it were several buses, snowploughs and a brand-new Mercedes combi E270.
“In there – the office is on your right as you go in,” Laura Krekula said, pointing to a door remarkably high up in the wall. “Can I walk back? It’s not all that cold.”
Martinsson checked her mobile. A text from Mella. We’re outside now, it said. Martinsson nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Yes, that’ll be O.K.,” Stålnacke said.
Laura Krekula set off. Stålnacke and Martinsson stepped over the high threshold of the staff entrance. There was a faint smell of diesel, rubber and oil.
The office was on the right. The door was open. It was barely more than a cupboard. Just enough room for a desk and chair. Tore Krekula was sitting at the computer. When Martinsson and Stålnacke came in, he swung round to face them.
“Tore Krekula?” Martinsson said.
He nodded. Stålnacke seemed to be embarrassed and was staring at the floor. He had his hands in his jacket pockets. Martinsson was doing the talking.
“I’m District Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson, and this is Inspector Sven-Erik Stålnacke.”
Stålnacke nodded a greeting, his hands still in his pockets.
“We met yesterday,” Krekula said to Martinsson. “You’re a bit of a celeb here in Kiruna, not someone we’d forget easily.”
“I’m investigating the death of Hjörleifur Arnarson,” Martinsson said. “We have reason to believe that it wasn’t accidental. I’d like to ask you if…”
She was interrupted by her mobile ringing, and looked at it.
“Excuse me,” she said to Krekula. “I have to take this call.”
He shrugged to indicate that it did not matter to him.
“Hello,” Martinsson said into the phone as she walked out through the door. “Yes, I sent you the material yesterday…”
The door closed with a click, and they could no longer hear her.
Stålnacke smiled apologetically at Krekula. Neither spoke for a moment.
“So Hjörleifur Arnarson is dead, is he?” Krekula said. “What did she mean, it wasn’t an accident?”
“Huh, it was a nasty business,” Stålnacke said. “It seems that someone killed him. I don’t really know what we’re doing here, but my boss is in league with the prosecutor…”
He nodded in the direction of the door through which Martinsson had disappeared.
“And you seem to have annoyed my boss,” Stålnacke continued. “I don’t know how much of what she’s told me is true, but she has a talent for rubbing people up the wrong way.”
Krekula said nothing.
“Anyway,” Stålnacke said with a sigh, “I assume you know about that bloody shooting at Regla.”
“Of course,” Krekula said. “There was a lot about it in the papers.”
“It was all her fault,” Stålnacke said vehemently. “She exposes her staff to danger without a moment’s thought. I had to take sick leave afterwards…”
He broke off and seemed to be lost in thought.
“And now she can’t wait for the forensic boys to complete their job. If in fact someone has been out at Hjörleifur’s place, we’ll soon know all about it. My God, it’s amazing what the tech wizards can do nowadays. If someone has left a strand of hair behind, you can bet your life they’ll find it. They’re going through Hjörleifur’s house with a fine-tooth comb.”
Tore Krekula ran his hand over his head. His hair had not thinned with age.
“Not that it proves anything even if someone has been there,” Stålnacke said, looking up at the ceiling and speaking as if he had forgotten that Krekula was there. “I mean, you can have paid someone a visit, but that doesn’t mean you killed them.”
At that moment the door opened and Martinsson came back into the office.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “As I was saying, Hjörleifur Arnarson has been found dead in his home. Have you been out there? You and your brother?”
Tore Krekula looked at her slyly.
“I won’t deny that we were there,” he said after a while. “But we didn’t kill him. We simply wanted to know what he’d seen. I mean, the police don’t tell any of us in the village a damned thing. But that was where they lived, after all. My aunt Anni was Wilma’s great-grandmother. You’d have thought they would have given her a bit of information.”
“So you were there,” Martinsson said. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He probably thought you’d be furious with him if he said anything to us. We left none the wiser.”
Martinsson looked at her mobile.
“It’s 5.56. I confirm herewith that the police will search the houses of Tore and Hjalmar Krekula, both of whom we have good reason to suspect of the murder of Hjörleifur Arnarson.”