The killer's art

28

Knutas awoke with an aching head. He had slept badly. The image of the dead Egon Wallin had haunted his dreams, and he spent the hours he lay awake thinking about the murder investigation. During the day there was hardly any time to ponder matters, so it was at night that he worked through his impressions. The investigation was constantly being interrupted by so many other things that were a daily part of police work, and it was driving him crazy. The fact that the media seemed so well-informed was worrisome.

Sometimes he wondered how wise it had been to allow his deputy superintendent, Lars Norrby, to be the police spokesman. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t know so much. The more involved a spokesman was in the actual investigative work, the greater the risk that he might reveal more than he should. It would really be best to take him off the investigative team, but that would undoubtedly provoke an outcry.

The famous photograph of the victim hanging from Dalman Gate had opened a can of worms. Not surprisingly, the picture had been taken by Pia Lilja. She and Johan Berg were a team that he would have preferred to avoid. Of course he respected Johan; the reporter was aggressive but never asked irrelevant questions that led nowhere. And several times in the past he had offered help that had allowed the police to solve a case much faster. That inevitably meant that the officers at headquarters, including himself, were more inclined to accommodate Johan. To top it all off, during the last murder investigation, Johan had risked his own life, which only served to increase the goodwill of the police towards him. In many ways that was not a good thing. Berg was a reporter to be avoided if Knutas wanted to do his job undisturbed.

Even worse was Johan’s cameraperson, Pia Lilja. Humility and respect for police integrity were not exactly watchwords for her. She tramped about, never bothering to show any consideration for anyone else. Her looks alone were alarming, with her black hair sticking out like a scrubbing brush, the worst sort of warpaint on her eyes, and then that ring in her nose, although he’d noticed that lately it had been replaced by a tiny gemstone. That at least was an improvement. Of course, Knutas understood the value of maintaining a good relationship with the press, but sometimes journalists encroached so much on his work that he wished they’d all go to hell.

Knutas reached for the alarm clock. It was only 5:45. Another few minutes before it went off. He lay on his side, facing Lina. She had on her pink nightgown with the big orange flowers. On the arm raised above her head, he could see thousands of freckles sprinkled over her pale skin. He loved every one of them. Her curly red hair was spread out over the pillow.

‘Good morning,’ he whispered in her ear. She merely grunted in reply. Cautiously he pressed his hand on her waist to see how she would react.

‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled in Danish. When she was tired she sometimes spoke her native language. She was from the Danish island of Fyn, but they had met in Copenhagen fifteen years earlier. It was said that love changed over the years. That a relationship became something else, that the feeling of being in love disappeared and was replaced with something deeper, though not as obvious. Some people said that spouses became good friends, that the passion died out and was transformed into a feeling of security. That was not true of Knutas and his wife. They quarrelled and made love with the same frenzy as they had from the very beginning.

Lina loved her job as a midwife, although being surrounded all day long by blood and pain, both indescribable joy and the deepest despair, did take its toll. She cried often, but she was also quick to laugh; she spoke frankly, and nobody could claim that she didn’t make her opinions and feelings clear. In many ways that made it easy to live with her. At the same time, Knutas occasionally tired of her emotional outbursts and stormy moods. Her ‘unmotivated ire’, as he called it, which just made her even more angry whenever he made the mistake of saying it out loud.

But right now she lay here next to him, sleepy and relaxed. She turned to face him, looking at him with her green eyes. ‘Good morning, sweet-heart. Is it already time to get up?’

He kissed her forehead. ‘We’ve got a while yet.’

Fifteen minutes later he got up and put on the coffee. It was still dark outside. The cat rubbed against his leg, and he lifted her on to his lap, where she immediately curled up. He thought about the previous day’s conversation with the victim’s widow. Why didn’t she say anything about her affair with Rolf Sanden? She should have realized that it was bound to come out sooner or later.

I need to ring her again, he thought, reaching for his old notebook. He used it for writing down ideas relating to his police work and reminders of things he didn’t want to forget. He skimmed through his notes from their conversation, but could hardly make out what he’d written. And the book was getting so worn that several pages had already fallen out. He was going to have to buy another one.

He glanced at the kitchen clock on the wall. The daily meeting had been postponed from eight to nine, since Knutas had agreed to participate in the live broadcast of Swedish Television’s morning talk show. Now he wondered why he’d said yes. Being on TV made him nervous, and afterwards he always thought that he looked awkward and indecisive. He had a hard time finding the right words when he stood there under the relentless spotlight, expected to spout perfectly formulated, well-balanced and thoughtfully weighed replies that would satisfy both the TV reporter and his police superiors. And that was really an impossible task. Not to reveal too much, yet at the same time to say enough so that the police might get some tips.

The truth was that right now the police needed help from the general public. They had little concrete evidence to go on. So far not a single witness with anything substantial to say had come forward, and nothing in Egon Wallin’s life had surfaced that might indicate a possible perp. There was no apparent motive. No one thought it was a robbery, even though both his wallet and mobile had yet to be found.

Egon Wallin had tended to his gallery for all these years, working hard and with a purpose. He had good relationships with his employees and had never been in trouble with the law. And by all accounts he had never had any quarrel with anyone else.

The interview went better than expected. Knutas sat in a small TV studio, with a direct hook-up to the host of the morning show. The interviewer was suitably cautious and didn’t ask any probing questions. When the three-minute interview was over, Knutas was completely sweaty, but quite satisfied with how it had gone. The county police commissioner rang his mobile just a few minutes after the show, confirming that he had managed to successfully manoeuvre his way through the interview.

When Knutas got back to police headquarters, he rang the forensic psychologist that he’d consulted the previous year. He was hoping that she would be able to interpret the perpetrator’s modus operandi and help them to move on. But she thought it was too early in the investigation and asked him to contact her again later. And no doubt she was right. Yet Knutas did manage to squeeze some information out of her.

She didn’t rule out the possibility that it might be a first-time criminal. On the other hand, she didn’t think it was a random murder; rather, a good deal of planning had been involved, perhaps undertaken over a long period of time. The killer was probably aware that Egon Wallin was thinking of leaving the house again, and that he would be alone. That meant, in turn, that the perp had been keeping his victim under surveillance.

They needed to have another talk with everyone who knew him. Someone might have noticed something, maybe seen a new, unfamiliar face around Wallin. And the fact that he must have known his killer — that definitely narrowed the field of interest. It was true that Egon Wallin’s circle of acquaintances was unusually large, but it made things significantly easier knowing that the perp was probably somebody close to him.