Another torrent of words interrupted Olle’s attempt to clarify the situation.
“I know it’s not my call, but Superintendent Göran Krantz and Detective Inspector Embla Nyström from Gothenburg are also here. They’ve checked out the body and they think we’re looking at homicide.”
That wasn’t strictly true, because Göran hadn’t yet seen the dead man, but it was clear from Olle’s tone that he was annoyed with his boss. Maybe it was due to tiredness, given how many hours he’d been on duty, but Embla got the feeling that he was pretty sick of Chief Inspector Johnzén, who barked out a brief question.
“Shot in the head. The CSIs from Gothenburg will be here in—”
The roar at the other end of the phone made Olle hold it away from his ear.
“ . . . the fuck has it got to do with them?”
Both Embla and Göran heard every word. Göran held out his hand, and a smile of pure joy spread across Olle’s face as he passed over the phone.
“Good morning. Superintendent Göran Krantz from the technical department in Gothenburg. My colleague Detective Inspector Embla Nyström was called to the scene by a relative who rents out this cottage. It was this relative who found the body this morning. DI Nyström immediately realized that the victim had been murdered and called me. I happened to be in Trollhättan and was able to get here quickly.”
Once again Embla heard a sharp comment. Göran rolled his eyes, but kept his tone perfectly civil as he answered.
“No, we don’t have too little to do, but the victim is ours. Formal identification has yet to take place, but we’re pretty sure he’s a major criminal from Gothenburg who features in several of our ongoing investigations. That’s why the case falls under our jurisdiction. I believe you have another homicide to deal with.”
Another irate comment came through the ether. Göran winked at his audience and said pleasantly, “I’ll pass that on.”
He ended the call and handed the phone back to Olle.
“Your esteemed boss wants me to tell you, and I quote, to get your ass back there right now.”
“He could do with signing up for a course on how to treat colleagues,” Olle replied with a sigh.
“Absolutely. I’m sure there’s a college course worth two hundred points on sense and sensibility that we could enroll him in,” Göran said with a smile. “Okay, time I took a look at our victim. For real, this time.”
Olle pulled on his cap, headed for the front door, and opened it. A gust of icy wind blew snow all over the rubber doormat.
“When you and your colleagues are questioning witnesses who were at the Lodge or who came along later, could you ask if they saw a car or a person they didn’t recognize? I’m thinking of our murderer,” Embla said quickly.
“No problem,” Olle said. He closed the door behind him and stepped out into the whirling snow.
Göran stood in the bedroom doorway in silence for quite some time, taking in the scene before him. Embla knew from past experience that very little escaped him. She admired him above all for his competence and sharp mind, plus he was an absolute genius when it came to computers. Göran was someone she trusted and respected, which was why she had confided in him just over a week ago.
Göran returned to the table and sat down. He clasped his hands and looked at her; it was hard to read his expression.
“You didn’t put a bullet through his brain, did you?” he asked. There was a hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth, but there was an element of seriousness in his eyes.
“What the . . . Are you crazy?” she exclaimed. “If I were going to kill Milo Stavic I wouldn’t do it here—the sensible option would be to shoot him in Gothenburg. And nobody would find me anywhere near the body, I can promise you that. He’s got plenty of enemies down there, whereas here . . .”
“He only has one. You.”
“Obviously not, as he’s lying dead ten meters from where we’re sitting! And I was fast asleep in my bed at Nisse’s all night. Elliot was in the same room—he would have woken up if I’d left.”
That wasn’t necessarily true; the boy slept like the dead once he’d nodded off.
Göran leaned back in the chair, which creaked in protest, and waved his hands dismissively. “Calm down—I had to ask. You must admit it’s an odd coincidence for him to be murdered here, when you’re only a few kilometers away.”
“Okay, I get that.”
Embla summoned every scrap of self-control to suppress her anger, but at the same time she had to admit that Göran was right—it was weird.
“We’ve got some time before the CSIs arrive. Remind me about your friend’s disappearance.”
Embla nodded. Her guts began to writhe around like a nest of snakes; she didn’t want to go back to that terrible night, but she knew she had to confront her demons at some point.
She began by describing the nightmare that had plagued her for so long. Göran listened attentively, without interrupting.
“I’ve had this nightmare for fourteen and a half years about what happened when Lollo went missing. I saw three men bending over her at the end of a hallway. The man who grabbed me by the throat and threatened to kill me if I told anyone was Milo Stavic. The other two were probably his brothers, Kador and Luca.”
Göran nodded. “I hear you scream in the middle of the night sometimes on work trips. In the past you said you’ve had nightmares ever since you were a little girl, and no one knew why—but now you’re telling me they started after your friend disappeared. Exactly how old were you then?”
“It was the end of August—the last weekend of the summer vacation. My birthday is in July, so I’d just turned fourteen. Lollo was fourteen, too, but she was going to be fifteen in September. She was a year ahead of me in school, but we’d been best friends ever since we used to play in the sandbox.”
“How did you get to know each other?”
“We lived in the same apartment building when we were young; our parents socialized. We went to the same school, and we were together almost all the time, except for a few weeks in the summer when I would come up here to stay with Nisse and Ann-Sofi. When she was twelve, her parents split up. Her father had met someone else—she was already pregnant, and he joined her in London. Lollo’s mother was a children’s book illustrator and worked from home. After a year they moved to a smaller apartment in Högsbo, on Axel Dahlström Square. Lollo didn’t want to change schools; she caught the tram to Nordhem. She said she was afraid we’d lose touch, and I felt the same. We saw each other almost every day, and hung out together in our free time. She usually came to our place for dinner, and she often stayed over.”