The killer's art

23

Late in the afternoon Knutas received answers to several important questions. Wittberg came into his office and dropped on to the chair in front of his desk. His hair was tousled, his cheeks red with excitement.

‘You’re not going to believe this. There’s so damned much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin.’

‘Just go ahead and start.’

‘I got hold of Sixten Dahl, Mattis Kalvalis and his manager, Vigor Haukas. It’s true that they all travelled together to Stockholm. At the gallery opening Dahl made the artist an offer he couldn’t refuse. Since he still hadn’t signed the contract with Egon Wallin, he agreed to go and see Dahl’s gallery on Sunday, to meet his co-workers and discuss the details of the offer. So far, nothing strange about that. But when it comes to the sale of the gallery here in Visby, it turns out that Egon Wallin sold it to a certain Per Eriksson from Stockholm.’

‘Yes, we already know that.’

‘What we didn’t know was that Per Eriksson is just a front. The real owner is Sixten Dahl.’

Wittberg leaned back with a triumphant smile.

‘You’ve got to be joking.’ Knutas had to take out his pipe. ‘We’re going to have to do some more digging into that. Are those two guys from Lithuania coming back here?’

‘They’re already at the hotel. But they’re leaving for home tomorrow, late in the afternoon. I took the liberty of telling them to be here tomorrow at noon.’

‘Good. What about Sixten Dahl?’

‘The Stockholm police are going to interview him early in the morning.’

‘Great job, Thomas.’

The phone rang. It was the ME, who wanted to give Knutas a preliminary post-mortem report. The superintendent placed his hand over the receiver.

‘Is there anything else?’

‘You can bet there is.’

‘We’ll take it up at the meeting later. I have the ME on the phone.’

Wittberg left.

‘Starting with the cause of death,’ said the ME. ‘Wallin was strangled several hours before he was hanged from the noose. Judging by his injuries, he was probably attacked from behind and strangled with a sharp wire, such as piano wire. He has defensive marks on his arms, skin scrapings under his fingernails, and scratches on his neck, all indications that he fought back. At the same time the wire cut deep into the flesh so that-’

‘Thanks, that will be sufficient. I don’t need to know any more at the moment.’

Knutas had grown more sensitive over the years. He could no longer tolerate hearing detailed descriptions of a victim’s injuries.

‘Of course.’

The ME cleared his throat and then let a slight hint of disappointment enter his voice as he went on. ‘As far as the rest of the injuries go, he has several cuts on his face, a bruise over one eyebrow and a scratch on his cheek. He probably sustained these injuries in connection with the assault and when his body was dragged along the ground.’

‘Can you say anything more about the time of death?’

‘I can’t fix the time any closer than to say he was most likely killed between midnight and five or six in the morning. That’s all I have right now. I’ll fax over a copy of the results right away.’

Knutas thanked the ME for his call and put down the phone. Then he rang the main number for the National Criminal Police office and asked to be connected to Inspector Martin Kihlgard. The relationship between the two of them was complicated, but right now Knutas needed help from the National Police. Since Kihlgard was enormously popular with his Gotland colleagues, it would be foolish to ask for anyone else. Knutas listened to the phone ringing for a long time before Kihlgard answered. It was obvious that he was eating something.

‘Hello?’ he said, his voice muffled.

‘Hi, it’s Anders Knutas. How are things?’

‘Knutie!’ exclaimed his colleague with delight. ‘I was wondering when you were going to ring. Wait just a minute, I need to finish what I’m eating.’

A frantic chewing could be heard on the other end of the line, followed by a couple of gulps of some sort of liquid. That was finished off by a quick belch. Knutas grimaced. Kihlgard’s insatiable appetite always got on his nerves, along with the fact that his Stockholm colleague insisted on calling him Knutie, even though Knutas had repeatedly asked him not to use that nickname.

‘All right, I guess I’ll live now. But I’m glad you rang, because I was starting to think that nothing much was happening over here.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said Knutas drily. ‘We need your assistance.’

Briefly he explained the facts of the case as Kihlgard listened, murmuring his agreement now and then. Knutas could picture him sitting in his cluttered office in the NCP building in Stockholm, his huge body weighing down his chair, his long legs propped up on another chair. Kihlgard was six foot three and must have weighed well over 220 pounds.

‘There’s certainly a lot of action over in your neck of the woods. Sounds like the wild West.’

‘Yes, I keep wondering where this is all heading,’ said Knutas with a sigh.

‘I’ll gather up a few colleagues, and we’ll probably catch the first flight over tomorrow morning.’

‘Fine,’ said Knutas. ‘See you soon.’