Unseen

FRIDAY, JUNE 22

When Gunilla didn’t answer the phone on Thursday evening or on the morning of Midsummer Eve, Cecilia started to worry. It was true that Gunilla sometimes seemed unusually naive and up in the clouds, but before, on those occasions when they had agreed to meet, she had always been punctual. Gunilla was also a morning person, and she had said that she would be leaving by eight. She had joked about waking Cecilia up with breakfast in bed, but Cecilia had just finished eating her Midsummer breakfast.

Why doesn’t she phone? she thought. Gunilla had said she would give her a call last night. Maybe she had been working and then it got to be too late. Cecilia knew how that could happen. She was an artist herself.

Cecilia was already at the cabin in Katthammarsvik. She had arrived the night before, loaded down with food and wine. They were going to have herring and new potatoes for lunch and later grilled salmon burgers for supper. No dance floor, no party, and above all no other people. Just the two of them. They would drink wine and discuss art, life, and love. In that order.

She had made a little Midsummer pole that they could decorate with flowers and birch leaves. They would sit outside and eat, enjoying the peace and quiet. The weatherman on the radio had promised high pressure all weekend.

Where on earth was Gunilla? It was past eleven, and Cecilia had called several times. She had tried her house, her studio, and her cell phone.

Why wasn’t she answering? Maybe she had fallen ill suddenly, or even injured herself. Anything could have happened. Cecilia grappled with these thoughts in her mind as she worked on the preparations for Midsummer. When the clock struck twelve, she decided to go over to Gunilla’s house, fifteen miles away.

Cecilia got into her car with a growing sense of trepidation.

When she turned into the yard, all the geese were running back and forth, cackling hysterically. The door to the ceramics workshop was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and went in.

The first thing she saw was the blood. On the floor, on the walls, on the potter’s wheel. Gunilla lay on her back in the middle of the workshop, stretched out on the floor with her arms above her head. Cecilia’s scream caught in her throat.

Knutas’s eyes were filled with tenderness as he looked at his wife. He stroked her sunburned, freckled cheek. She had more freckles than anyone else he had ever known, and he loved every single dot on her. The sun was warming the ground, so the children could run around barefoot. The long table was set with the blue-flowered Rorstrand dishes, the napkins had been festively stuck in the glasses, and the silverware shone. Ceramic pitchers were filled with summer wildflowers: daisies, cranesbills, almond blossoms, and fiery red poppies. The herring was arranged on a platter: herring in mustard sauce and in aquavit, pickled herring, and his own homemade herring in sherry, which burned sweetly on the tongue. The new potatoes that had just been set on the table were steaming in their deep bowls, white and tender, with green sprigs of dill that brought out the sweet taste of summer.

The bread basket was filled with crisp bread, rye crackers, and his mother’s famous unleavened flat bread that could entice people to come to Gotland just for the sake of buying some of it. It was sold only at his parents’ farm in Kappelshamn.

He looked out at the yard, where the guests were decorating the Midsummer pole. It rose up, tall and stately, in the middle of the lawn. The children were eagerly helping.

His sister and brother had come with their families. Both his parents and parents-in-law were there, along with some neighbors and good friends. It was a tradition for him and his wife to give a Midsummer party at their summer house.

Something was tickling his hand. A ladybug was crawling up toward his wrist. He brushed it off. This Midsummer celebration was a badly needed break from the murder investigations, especially since he didn’t feel that they were making any progress. It was frustrating not to be getting anywhere while at the same time the perpetrator might be planning his next murder. We need to go farther back in time, thought Knutas.

He had discussed this with Kihlgard. His colleague clearly had his own theory: He seemed convinced that the perpetrator was someone the women had met quite recently, yet he hadn’t succeeded in producing any concrete proof. On the other hand, the good inspector from the National Criminal Police didn’t hesitate to comment on the work of the Visby police. Kihlgard had an opinion on everything, from petty little routines to their interrogation methods and the way they conducted their investigative work. He had even complained that the coffee from the headquarters vending machines was too weak. Ridiculous, all of it. Right now the important thing was to focus on the hunt for the killer.

Not today, though. He needed this break, a few hours of congenial socializing with family and friends. He was even planning to get loaded. The homicide investigation could wait until tomorrow. Then he would urge the team to search further back in the past of the victims.

A sense of unease came over him, but it vanished when his wife brought out the frosty bottles of ice-cold aquavit and set them on the table. He felt a rumbling in his stomach. He sliced off a piece of ripe Vasterbotten cheese and quickly stuffed it into his mouth before ringing the old cowbell they always used to announce that it was time to eat.

“Come and get it, everybody,” he shouted.

After the guests had helped themselves from the platters, they all raised their glasses of aquavit, and Knutas welcomed everyone by making a toast to summer.

Just as he put the glass to his lips, the cell phone in the inside pocket of his jacket started ringing. Reluctantly he lowered his arm.

Who the hell would be calling me now, in the middle of the Midsummer holiday? he thought angrily. It could only be someone from work.

His summer house was way up in Lickershamn, in the northwestern part of Gotland. The murdered Gunilla Olsson’s house was in Nar, in the southeast. It would take Knutas an hour and a half to drive there.

It was just after one in the afternoon, and it was the warmest Midsummer in many years. The thermometer said that it was eighty-four degrees. Along the way he picked up Karin Jacobsson and Martin Kihlgard in Tingstade, where Karin’s parents lived. She had invited Kihlgard to their Midsummer celebration.

The other group members from the NCP had gone home to Stockholm for the holiday. Kihlgard had stubbornly insisted on staying on the island. After all, something might happen.

“This is exactly what we needed,” he said in the car as the summer landscape, covered with flowers, rushed past the windows. “Something new had to happen before we could make any progress. We were at a complete standstill.”

Kihlgard had consumed both herring and aquavit, and alcohol fumes enveloped him as he talked. Knutas’s face turned white as chalk. He pulled over to some trash cans standing along the road and came to an abrupt stop. He jumped out of the car, tore open the back door where Kihlgard was sitting, and hauled him out.

“How can you sit there and say that? Are you out of your mind?” he yelled.

Kihlgard was so flabbergasted that he didn’t know how to react. Then he got defensive.

“What the hell are you doing? I’m right, you know. Something had to happen, for God’s sake, because we weren’t getting anywhere.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” bellowed Knutas in reply. “How the hell can you stand there and say that it’s a good thing a young woman was killed by some deranged lunatic? Are you off your rocker, too?”

Jacobsson, who was still sitting in the car, now got out to intervene. She grabbed hold of Knutas, who had a firm grip on Kihlgard’s shirt collar. Two buttons had flown off somewhere.

“Are you both crazy?” she shouted. “How can you act like this? Don’t you see that people are watching?”

Both men backed off and turned their glaring eyes toward the road. On the other side was a farm, and a group of people, all dressed up with flower wreaths on their heads, were staring at the police car and the angry men.

“Oh, shit,” said Knutas, and pulled himself together.

Kihlgard straightened his clothes, gave the audience a little bow, and climbed back into the car.

They continued on in silence. Knutas was furious, but he decided it would be best to leave this discussion until a later time. They were all undoubtedly feeling the frustration of failing to capture the killer.

Jacobsson was now sitting in the front passenger seat. She didn’t say a word. Knutas could tell that she was mad.

To avoid listening to Kihlgard’s muttering, Knutas turned on the radio. Then he rolled down the window. Another murder. This was terrible. One more woman. Axe wounds and panties in her mouth. When would it all end? They had gotten nowhere. On that point he had to agree with Kihlgard. He began mentally preparing himself for the sight that would soon greet him. He glanced to his right. At Karin. She was sitting there in silence, looking straight ahead.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“We have to catch this guy. Now,” she said resolutely. “This is going to scare people to death.”

The police had already cordoned off the area when they arrived at the farm. Sohlman and his colleagues were busy securing evidence.

They parked the car in the gravel-covered yard and then hurried up the steep stone steps. When they entered the studio, all three of them instinctively recoiled. Blood was splattered on the walls, the floor, and the shelves. The sweet, nauseating smell of the corpse made them hold their hands up to their mouths. Jacobsson turned around and threw up on the steps.

“Goddamn it all,” Kihlgard managed to say. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

The woman’s naked body lay on the floor, bathed in blood. The deep wounds on her throat, abdomen, and thighs gaped wide open in the sunlight. With a great effort, Knutas forced himself to walk over to the body. It was true: In her mouth was stuffed a pair of white cotton panties. Jacobsson appeared in the doorway again, leaning on the doorframe. The police officers surveyed the scene, feeling powerless.

There was only one entrance, and that was through the doorway they had just entered. On the floor lay a shattered mirror. The pieces glittered in the sunshine. A short distance away was a lump of clay.

“She must have been sitting here working,” said Knutas. “Do you see that lump of clay over there?”

“Yes,” replied Jacobsson, and then turned to Sohlman, who was squatting down next to the body. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

“The body’s completely rigid. Taking into consideration the rigor mortis, I’d guess she’s been dead at least twelve hours, but not much longer than that. The body is still warm.”

“Who called it in?”

“A friend of hers. Cecilia Angstrom. She’s in the house.”

“I’m going over there,” said Knutas.

From the outside, Gunilla Olsson’s house looked too big to be the home of just one person. It was a two-story limestone building that appeared to be very old.

Knutas went in the front door, trying to shake off the image of the act of violence he had just been forced to see.

At the kitchen table sat a young woman with her head bowed. Her long dark hair hid her face. She was wearing a light-colored summer dress with spaghetti straps. A female uniformed police officer was sitting next to her, holding her hand. Knutas greeted them. He knew the officer slightly. The young woman was about twenty-five, Knutas guessed. She looked at him with a blank expression. Her face was streaked with tears.

Knutas introduced himself and sat down across from her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, Gunilla was supposed to come over to my house today. We were planning to celebrate Midsummer together, at my cabin in Katthammarsvik. She was supposed to arrive right after breakfast. When I didn’t hear from her and she still hadn’t shown up by noon, I started getting worried. She didn’t answer any of the numbers that I called. That’s when I decided to come over here.”

“When did you get here?”

“It must have been close to one.”

“What happened?”

“The door to the studio was open, so I went in. I found her there. She was lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere.”

“What did you do?”

“I went out and got in my car and locked the doors. Then I called the police. I was scared and wanted to leave, but they told me to stay here. The police arrived in about half an hour.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Did you notice anything strange?”

“No.”

“How well did you know Gunilla?”

“Quite well. We’ve been friends for a couple of months.”

“And you were going to celebrate Midsummer together, just the two of you?”

“Gunilla was in the middle of working on a big commission. She’d been working really hard for the past few weeks and just wanted some peace and quiet. I felt the same way. That’s why we decided to spend Midsummer together.”

“When did you last talk to her?”

“The day before yesterday. She was supposed to call me last night, but she never did.”

“Do you know whether she had planned to do anything special yesterday? Or whether she was going to meet anyone?”

“No. She was going to work all day and in the evening, too.”

“Do you know where her family lives? Her parents? Her siblings?”

“Her parents are dead. She has a brother, but I don’t know where he lives. Not on Gotland, at any rate.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“No, not as far as I know. She hadn’t been back home very long. She lived abroad for a long time. She came back to Sweden in January, I think.”

“I see.” Knutas patted Cecilia Angstrom’s arm and asked his colleague to drive her to the hospital. “We’ll talk some more later,” he said to Cecilia. “I’ll be in touch.”

He left the kitchen and walked through the rest of the house. His courage sank as he looked out a window. Not a neighbor for as far as the eye could see. The living room was big and bright. Colorful paintings hung on the walls, works by artists he didn’t know. He went upstairs and into the bedroom, where there was a big, inviting bed. Next door was a guest room that seemed unused, then a study, a big bathroom, and a sitting room.

He didn’t discover anything unusual, at least not at first glance. No damage or vandalism, from what he could see. Sohlman would go over the house later, so he didn’t want to touch anything.

The downstairs was equally bright and airy. Next to the kitchen was a big dining room with a fireplace. There was also another bedroom and one more room, filled with books and a big armchair for reading. She certainly had a lot of room to herself, he thought.

He was interrupted by Karin Jacobsson, who appeared in the doorway.

“Come here, Anders,” she called out to him breathlessly. “We’ve found something.” No more than five minutes left in the school day. After school he usually went straight home. Hurry up. Hurry up. The key on a string around his neck. Since the only chance he had of escaping his tormentors was to get such a big head start that they couldn’t catch him, he would always start preparing several minutes before the last class was over. Cautiously he began gathering up his things. Quietly he closed his book. Then he put his pencil in the little slot in his pencil case and the eraser in its slot. The whole time he kept his eyes fixed on the teacher, who mustn’t notice anything. Slowly he closed the zipper on his pencil case. He thought it scraped as loudly as thunder through the classroom, but again the teacher didn’t notice a thing. It was normally dead quiet in the room because the teacher was strict and wouldn’t stand for any talking or playing around during class. Now she turned her back. Good. Carefully he opened the desk lid. Just slightly, enough so that he could slide his books inside. Then his pencil case. All right. His heart was thudding, hard and fast. The bell was going to ring soon. If only the teacher wouldn’t notice anything before then. Lisa, who sat next to him, saw what he was up to but didn’t care. She treated him like all the others did, ignoring him completely. Just like all those other chickens. No one dared make friends with him, out of fear that they, too, would fall victim to the hated demons.

Johan slammed down the phone after talking to his source in Nynashamn. How did the old guy find out everything so fast? He wondered who it was that was willing to feed him such good information.

He quickly grabbed his notebook, cell phone, and pens and rushed out of the room. Another murder had been committed. Three homicides in less than three weeks. It was frightening and totally improbable. His editors in Stockholm wanted him to go straight down to the farm in Nar and file a firsthand story from there for both the Aktuellt and Rapport news programs by phone. It was a matter of finding out as much information as possible before the broadcast. According to his source, it was the same scenario as the two previous cases: a murdered woman in her thirties, hacked to death and with a pair of panties in her mouth.

He called Knutas while he waited for Peter to pick him up at the hotel. The cameraman had been out, giving one of Gotland’s many golf courses a try, and Johan had interrupted him in the middle of a game. Knutas didn’t answer. Jacobsson didn’t, either. So he tried the duty officer, but he referred Johan to the head of the investigation, which meant Knutas. Shit. The duty officer would say only that something had happened on a farm in Nar. He refused to give any further details. The police were on the scene and needed to be able to work undisturbed. Johan impatiently lit a cigarette and cast a glance down the street. What was taking him so long?

A reporter from the central desk would be arriving on the first plane he could get. Over the next few days he would represent Swedish TV’s national news while Johan would continue to work for the regional division. The national reporter showed up only when things were hot. Like right now, when the inconceivable had happened: a third murder. Under normal circumstances, Johan would have felt offended that the national news wasn’t satisfied with using his reports in their program. Now he was glad. If he had to be working for all the news broadcasts at once, he wouldn’t have time to see Emma.

“Hurry up. Come on.”

Jacobsson sounded agitated. Knutas followed her out to the yard. In a clump of trees a short distance away, Sohlman and Kihlgard were bending over something. He trotted over to join them.

Sohlman was using tongs to pick up some object from the ground. It was oblong in shape and made of plastic. He turned it this way and that. Sweat was running down his back in the heat.

“What the hell is it?” grunted Kihlgard.

“It’s an inhaler for asthmatics.”

“Was Gunilla Olsson asthmatic?” asked Knutas.

His colleagues shrugged their shoulders.

Knutas ran back to the house. Cecilia Angstrom and the policewoman were just about to leave.

“Do you know whether Gunilla had asthma?” asked Knutas.

“I don’t think so,” replied Cecilia hesitantly. “No, she didn’t,” she then said more firmly. “She couldn’t have. We were at a party a few weeks ago, visiting some of my friends, and they have both a dog and a cat. Gunilla didn’t say anything about it bothering her.”

“Do you have asthma?”

“No.”

Knutas went back outside to his colleagues, who turned to him with a look of inquiry.

“All right,” he said. “It is very possible that we now know something new about our killer. He might have asthma.”

Johan didn’t know much about Nar, other than that it was the home district of the Ainbusk Singers. In his attempts to find Gunilla Olsson’s farm, he and Peter ended up on the road leading to the windy harbor of Narshamn. The little fishing village reminded them of Norway or Iceland. A wharf jutted out into the sea. On it was a long barracks with fish stalls inside. There were fishing trawlers, stacks of polystyrene fishing crates, and piles of netting. The boats that weren’t out at sea rocked on their moorings beside the wharf. In the distance they saw a couple of tourists pedaling their bikes against the wind, heading for the lighthouse on Narsholmen. The waves broke in a steady rhythm that seemed predetermined.

Johan rolled down the window. The smell of seaweed awakened memories. He felt an urge to walk right out to the end of the wharf and let the wind fill him with energy. Thoughts of Emma floated around him, seizing hold of his heart, his brain, his genitals, and his stomach. Right now, though, a different reality was demanding his attention. Peter turned the car around.

“Goddamn it. We took the wrong road.”

After getting lost two more times, they finally reached the farm. As windy as it had been down at the harbor, it was completely still outside the murdered woman’s house. The police had cordoned off a large area, and a number of curiosity seekers had interrupted their Midsummer celebrations to gather outside the police tape.

From the village came the faint sounds of accordion music. The Midsummer celebrations were in full swing just a short distance away from the murder scene.

Johan made inquiries and learned that Knutas had left the woman’s residence only fifteen minutes earlier. Jacobsson had left, too. They were the only ones he had good contact with among the Visby police.

Johan called Knutas, who confirmed that a thirty-five-year-old woman had been killed at her home. The precise time of the murder was unclear. The police refused to comment on how she had been killed.

Knutas, who knew that the journalists could quickly find out the victim’s identity, asked Johan not to include her name or photo in his report. The police had not yet been able to contact her family.

Before it was time for his report, Johan managed to talk to a young guy in the crowd that had gathered outside the police tape.

Yes, it was true that a girl lived here alone. She was in her thirties, the guy told him. She worked with ceramics.

It was a few minutes before six when he called the Aktuellt editor in Stockholm. He was linked up to the studio and reported live on what he had learned to the TV audience.

When the phone spot was done, he had to try to find more material for the later broadcasts. A press conference at police headquarters was scheduled for 9:00 P.M.

By then the national reporter should have arrived, and they could work together. That suited him fine.

Peter walked around outside the police tape, shooting footage. The police refused to say anything more. Johan decided instead to talk to the people standing on the narrow dirt road outside the farm. Some had arrived on bicycles, a couple of teenagers came on delivery mopeds, and a few cars had stopped and parked along the road. Most of them turned out to be neighbors who had seen the police cars gathering around the farm.

Johan approached a short, plump, middle-aged woman wearing shorts and a polo shirt. She had a dog with her, and she was standing by herself, slightly apart from the other spectators.

He introduced himself.

“Did you know the woman who lived here?” he asked.

“No,” replied the woman. “Not really. I heard that she was murdered. Is that true? Was it the same person who killed those other two women?”

She kept on talking without waiting for an answer.

“This is crazy. It’s like in a movie. It can’t possibly be true.”

“What was her name?”

“Gunilla Olsson.”

“Did she have any family?”

“No, she lived here alone. She was a potter. She worked in that studio over there.” The woman pointed to a low building with big windows inside the restricted area.

“How old was she?”

“Thirty-four or thirty-five.”

“Do you live around here?”

“Yes, farther up the road.”

“How well did you know each other?”

“I knew her mother when she was alive. We were in the same sewing circle, but I never had much contact with the daughter. We would say hello to each other whenever we happened to meet, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to talk much. She mostly kept to herself. She moved in quite recently. It must be, what, six months ago? She lived abroad for a long time. Far away, in Hawaii. Her parents lived in Ljugarn, so that’s where she grew up. They’ve been dead several years now. They died in a car accident while Gunilla was living so far away. And just imagine, she didn’t even come home for their funeral! They lost nearly all contact with each other after she grew up. She didn’t even want to have the same last name as they did. As soon as she was old enough, she changed her name to Olsson, even though her parents’ name was Brostrom. I know that her mother was very upset about that. She has a brother, too, but he lives on the mainland. I think his name is still Brostrom. It’s the daughter that the parents had the most trouble with.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“She skipped school a lot and wore strange clothes. And every time I saw her, she had changed her hair color. Her father was a pastor. I think it was especially hard for him. She was… what should I say? Rebellious. That was when she was young, of course. Later she moved to Stockholm and went to art school, and then I know she left to live abroad.”

Johan was astonished by this woman who had turned out to be a virtual news bureau all on her own. Peter had joined them, and the camera was rolling as the woman talked.

“In any case, she had a couple of shows this past spring,” she went on. “I think it was all going really well for her. And she did make beautiful things.”

The talkative woman patted her dog. He had started to whine with impatience.

“This whole thing is just so awful. A person hardly even dares go out anymore. I went to one of her exhibits, and I tried to talk to her there, but I didn’t have much luck. She barely answered me.”

“Do you know whether she had any kind of relationship?”

“No. But now that you mention it, I’ve seen a man that I didn’t recognize around here lately. I take a lot of walks with my dogs, and I’ve seen him several times.”

“Is that right? Where was that?”

“The first time was maybe a few weeks ago. I was walking past one evening when he came out of her house.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“No. I don’t think he noticed me.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He was tall with very blond hair.”

“How old was he?”

“I think he was quite young. Maybe about thirty. I’ve seen a man here a couple of times since then, and I’m almost positive he was the same one.”

“When was that?”

“About a week after I saw that man the first time, I caught sight of him again. He was coming from her house and heading down the road toward the bus stop. It seemed like he was in a big hurry, because he was walking really fast. I met him on the road and got a good look at him. He was stylish, very nicely dressed. He was no slacker by any means.”

“He was about thirty, you said?”

“Well, maybe a little younger or a little older than that. It’s hard to tell.”

Johan could feel his pulse quicken. This old lady might actually have seen the killer.

“Do you know whether he had a car?”

“Yes, there’s been a car that I didn’t recognize parked out here a couple of times. A Saab. Quite old. I don’t know what model it was, but it looked like it had at least ten years under its belt.”

After Johan was done with the interview, he and Peter went back to their car to drive to police headquarters, where the press conference was going to be held. He got hold of the reporter for national news, Robert Wiklander, who had already arrived. Aktuellt was going to broadcast live. There weren’t any outside broadcast vans on Gotland that had the technical equipment needed for a live transmission, but a van from Stockholm was due to arrive in time for the nine o’clock news. That meant that Johan and Peter could go over to the editorial offices to put together their material for the later broadcasts that night.

Until then, they were free. Regional wouldn’t be doing a report on Midsummer Eve. Robert and his cameraman would take over for the rest of the evening. Johan had been promised Midsummer Day off, too. Robert had worked on Gotland before and knew the setup. He promised to call Johan the next day only if it was absolutely necessary. Mamma, help. It’s so dark. Mamma, help me. So dark. He was crying with his open mouth pressed against the soft down pillow. Repeating the same words over and over. Snot was running from his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that he saw creepy figures wriggling around in the darkness. On the inside of his eyelids squirmed bright worms, snakes with giant heads, and monsters swaying from side to side. He was lying on his side with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around the pillow, a hard ball of pain in his stomach. Now and then he rocked back and forth as he lay there. The pillowcase was wet with tears and snot. It was four in the afternoon. His sister was out in the barn, and his parents wouldn’t be home until six. It had turned out to be a terrible day. They grabbed him on the way home from school. He had actually been feeling happy. That hadn’t happened in such a long time that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like-a tingle of joy in his stomach, mixed with a touch of hope that his situation might be about to change. He hadn’t been subjected to any teasing or malicious remarks all day long, and at recess a boy from another class had even talked to him. They had agreed to bring their hockey pictures on the following day. When he hurried off, as usual, after the last class and ran across the playground, they were al-ready there, the hated demons. They blocked his way. He tried to escape, but they were faster. They grabbed hold of him and dragged him down the stairs outside the gym. Between the entrance to the gym and the stairwell, there was a broom closet that was never used. That’s where they took him. Panic flung him into a fog. Hard, dry, unrelenting hands were clamped over his mouth. He tasted the salt of his own tears as they ran between the fingers and onto his lips. Two of them were holding his arms and covering his mouth while the others punched him. They beat him all over his body, clawing and biting him. It got worse and worse. When one of them started unbuttoning his pants, he thought he was going to die. Strong arms took hold of him and forced him down on the floor. They whipped his backside with a jumprope. Stinging, persistent lashes. They took turns, one after the other. Everyone wanted a chance. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think about something else. Sunshine, a bath, an ice cream cone. The fishing trips with his grandfather. The beating continued without stopping as they hurled insults at him. Their voices were filled with contempt. You disgusting piece of blubber. You pig. After a while he started having trouble breathing. The hands were pressed so hard over his mouth that he couldn’t get any air. He screamed, but not a sound came out. The scream would sit inside his body for the rest of his life. He felt something warm running between his legs. “Shit, how disgusting. He’s pissed himself,” said a voice. “Let’s get out of here,” said someone else. The beating stopped, the grip loosened, and they were gone from the broom closet. He collapsed onto the cement floor. He didn’t know how long he lay there. Finally he managed to get to his feet, straighten his clothes, and leave. When he reached home, he went up to his room, closed the door, and alternated between crying and screaming. He curled up on his bed. His backside stung and had started to bleed. They never hit him in the face. He thought it was because they didn’t want any marks to show. In the midst of his despair, he felt ashamed. What a loser he was, to be subjected to such abuse. He didn’t dare tell anyone. “Mamma!” he shrieked into the pillow. “Mamma!” At the same time, he knew that when she came home he would act perfectly normal. By then he would have dried his tears and washed his face. He would also drink several glasses of water to calm himself down. Like so many times before, she wouldn’t notice a thing. And he hated her for that.

For the press conference the Visby police had chosen the largest hall available at headquarters. Every last seat in the room was taken. Now the media from the rest of Scandinavia had become interested in this case of the mysterious serial killer who was eluding the Swedish police.

Knutas expressly asked the journalists not to disclose the identity of the victim. All members of her family had not yet been notified. The police had not been able to contact her brother, who was out sailing along the Swedish west coast.

No mention was made of the asthma inhaler.

Knutas had never felt under such great pressure before. He was dead tired, and furious at being cheated out of his Midsummer party. Furious that a new murder had been committed. Furious that they weren’t any closer to solving the case. Several times he looked to his colleagues for assistance in answering the journalists’ questions-in particular to Karin Jacobsson, but also to Martin Kihlgard, who turned out to be a rock in this kind of situation.

In spite of their failure to catch the murderer, which had proved deadly once again, Knutas was forced to defend the enormous amount of work that had already been accomplished. His words sounded hollow, even to his own ears. The image of the dead Gunilla Olsson had become permanently etched onto his retina, and there it remained during the entire press conference.

All the reporters in attendance did everything they could to refute the police argument and attack the work that had been done so far. Sometimes Knutas wondered how journalists could stand to do their job: their endlessly critical attitude, their eternal search for some type of conflict, and their constant focus on the negative. How could they live with themselves? What did they talk about at the dinner table at home? The war in the Middle East? The situation in Northern Ireland? The monetary union? Prime Minister Persson’s tax policies?

He was suddenly overwhelmed by an enormous sense of fatigue. The questions were buzzing through the air like angry hornets. He was losing his concentration. He downed a whole glass of water and managed to pull himself together.

Afterward, the reporters buttonholed him for individual interviews.

Two hours later it was finally over. He told his colleagues that he didn’t want to be disturbed, and he shut himself up in his office. When he sank down on the chair at his desk, he felt close to tears. Good Lord, he was a grown man-but he was dead tired and starving, and he realized that he’d had nothing to eat since breakfast except for a sandwich, since his Midsummer dinner had been so cruelly interrupted. No wonder hunger was gnawing at his stomach. He called his wife at their summer house in Lickershamn.

“Come home, sweetheart. The guests left a long time ago. The party never really got going. There’s lots of food left over. I’m going to put together a real Midsummer plate for you, and we have cold beer. Doesn’t that sound good? Why don’t you leave right now?”

Her soft voice made him feel warm and vulnerable.

Johan honored the request from the police not to make public the name or photo of the latest murder victim. He didn’t even say that she was a potter.

When Johan and Peter were finally done with their work, they decided to go out, even though it was past midnight and they were dog tired. It was still Midsummer Eve, as Peter pointed out.

Johan agreed. For several days he had called and sent text messages to Emma’s cell phone without getting any reply. She was undoubtedly out in some summer meadow celebrating Midsummer with her entire dear family. It was no use to keep yearning for her. It would never work out. Still, he ached with longing, and the only thing that helped was to drown it in alcohol. He wanted to forget about Emma, about the murders, about his depressed mother, about the whole fucking lot of it.

They went to an inn down by the harbor. Everyone there was having a good time and seemed not to know about the latest homicide. Most people probably have other things to do on Midsummer Eve than watch the news, thought Johan. For the time being they were blissfully ignorant.

They both ordered beer.

“How’s it going with Emma?” asked Peter.

“Oh, I think it’s hopeless. It’ll never work out.”

“But how do you feel about her?”

“I feel too much. That’s the trouble. I just don’t know. We’ve known each other such a short time, but I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s a real pain in the neck,” said Johan, and then he grinned.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I guess the only thing to do is to say to hell with her, pure and simple. I don’t feel like talking about it right now. This day has just been too much to take.”

“Okay. Happy Midsummer,” said Peter. “Cheers.” He drank the rest of his beer in one gulp.

A couple of giggling young girls with long hair, dressed in tight tops with bare midriffs, elbowed their way toward the men to try to order something at the bar. Glossy lips and laughing eyes. Peter seized the opportunity at once.

“It’s on me, girls. What’ll you have?”

The girls exchanged knowing glances. They looked up at Johan and Peter, blinking thick lashes that had been carefully curled.

“A glass of wine, thanks,” they said in unison.

For Peter the night turned out to be more fun than he had expected. Johan made an effort to be drawn into the party mood, but without success. He made the mistake of drinking too much. As Midsummer Day dawned, he was bent over the toilet in his hotel room, throwing up over and over.