Unspoken

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28

The trotting track was located about half a mile from the center of town. When Knutas and Jacobsson drove up the stable hill, they came within a hair’s breadth of colliding with a sulky. The huge gelding snorted and swerved to the side. The driver’s admonishing words calmed the horse. Knutas got out of the car and inhaled the smell of horse and manure. He looked toward the racetrack, which was partially hidden in the cold and damp haze. The grandstands were barely visible through the mist.

On both sides of the stable hill stood rows of stables. A solitary horse was jogging around in an enclosure. A steel contraption of some kind was keeping the horse on the path and regulating its pace.

“It’s called a horsewalker,” said Jacobsson when she saw Knutas’s look of puzzlement. “Horses that aren’t going to be taken out riding can still get exercise. They may have an injury or be suffering from a cold or something else that means they shouldn’t be ridden as hard as usual. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

She led the way into the stable.

The horses had just been given their lunch feed, and the only sound was a pleasant munching along with an occasional stomping. Everything seemed very orderly. The floor was scrubbed clean, and the green-painted stalls were properly closed with locks. Halters hung on hooks outside each door. Shelves were filled with neat rows of supplies: bottles of liniment and baby oil, scissors, rolls of tape, hoof scrapers. Shin guards were stacked in baskets, along with rolls of binding tape, brushes, and other grooming tools. A barrel of sawdust stood in one corner. A black kitten lay on top of a feed box, sound asleep. In one window a radio was playing music at low volume.

They had made an appointment to meet with Sven Ekholm, who was both the trainer and the owner of the stable, but he was nowhere in sight. A stable girl appeared and took them over to a closed door that led to a coffee room.

Ekholm was sitting with his legs propped up on a round coffee table, talking on the phone. He motioned for them to sit down. Daylight was doing its best to penetrate through the dusty windowpanes. Spots of dried coffee marred the red plastic tablecloth. The table was covered with papers, stacks of racing newspapers, vitamin bottles, mugs, glasses, filthy riding shoes, rubber boots, and some threering binders. The ceiling was coated with spiderwebs. In one corner there was a kitchenette with a couple of hot plates, a dirty microwave, and a dusty coffeemaker. The walls were covered with finish-line photos of various horses, and a pile of dried roses lay on top of a cabinet. It wasn’t hard to see what took priority in the world of these people.

Ekholm took his feet off the table and finished his phone conversation.

“Hello, and welcome. Would you like some coffee?”

They both said yes. Ekholm was a handsome man in his forties. He was muscular and moved with grace. His dark hair was tousled. He was wearing black pants and a gray turtleneck sweater. With some difficulty he managed to find clean cups, and after a moment they each had a cup of coffee; a plastic box of gingersnaps sat in front of them on the table.

“Can you tell us about Fanny Jansson?” Jacobsson began. “We understand that she spends a great deal of her free time here at the stable.”

Sven Ekholm leaned back in his chair.

“She’s a smart girl who works hard. Not very talkative, but she has a good way with the horses.”

“How often is she here?” asked Knutas.

“How often is she here at the stable, you mean?” asked the trainer and then went on without waiting for a reply. “Probably four or five times a week, I would guess.”

“When was she last here?”

“Yes, when was she last here?” Ekholm repeated. “I think the last time I saw her was a week ago, maybe on Thursday or Friday.”

“How did she seem?”

“How did she seem?” Ekholm rubbed his chin. “I was busy driving, so I just said a quick hello. It might be better if you talked to the others in the stable-they spend more time with her than I do.”

“Is Fanny paid for her work here?”

“Is she paid? No, that’s how it is with stable girls, you know. They come here because they think it’s fun to be around horses. To groom them and take care of them. That’s how girls are at that age.”

Sven Ekholm took a quick sip of coffee.

“How long has Fanny been coming to the stable?”

“How long has she been coming here? Hmm, maybe a year or so.”

“Does she have a particularly good relationship with any of the employees?” asked Knutas, who was starting to get annoyed by the man’s tendency to repeat every question.

“Any of the employees that she has a particularly good relationship with? Well, yes, that would be Janne. They seem to get along well. Otherwise she’s quite shy, as I said.”

“And how often are you here?” asked Jacobsson.

“Hm, what should I say? Twenty-five hours a day,” he said with a grin. “Well, practically every day. I’ve been trying to take at least one day off every other weekend. I do have a wife and kids, too-I can’t just live at the stable.”

“How well do you know Fanny?”

“Not very well. She doesn’t exactly welcome contact. I always have so much to do that I can’t just sit around chatting with all the young girls who come here.”

Why didn’t Ekholm repeat the questions when Jacobsson asked them? Knutas found it enormously annoying.

“Where do you live?” Jacobsson went on.

“Right nearby. We’ve taken over my father’s farm. Well, my father still lives there, in the guesthouse.”

“Does your wife work at the stable, too?”

“Yes, she does. We have six full-time employees, and she’s one of them.”

“How is the work divided up?”

“We all help each other, training the horses and taking care of them, and lending a hand around the stable. It’s a full-time job all year-round, even when the racing season is over.”

“We’d like to talk to everyone. Can you arrange that?”

“Sure, no problem. Right now it’s just me and Jan, I’m afraid. But later in the day, or tomorrow.”

Knutas realized that he would have to ask one more question, just to see if the trainer had decided to stop repeating them.

“How many others work at the stable? Girls who work for free after school, and so on?”

“Girls who work for free after school, and so on? Well, we have quite a few of them. We used to have more, but it doesn’t seem to be as popular as it once was. Or else maybe they have too much homework lately,” said the trainer, giving Knutas a smile.

As they left the coffee room, Jacobsson noticed that her colleague’s expression was as dark as a thundercloud.

The interview with the stable hand, Jan Olsson, went better.

The man was slightly older than the trainer, maybe forty-five, Knutas guessed. He was darker than most Swedes. Brown eyes that were almost black, distinct eyebrows that grew together, and a stubble that looked to be several days old. Wiry and muscular from years of working with horses. Not an ounce of fat on his body-that was evident from the shirt and dirty pants that he had on. He was not wearing a wedding ring. Knutas wondered if he lived with anyone but decided to wait to ask that question. Instead, he asked him to tell them once again what happened when Fanny left the stable. Olsson gave the same account as had been recorded in the previous report.

“Try to recall any details you can,” said Knutas. “Anything that might seem insignificant could actually be important.”

Jan Olsson ran his hand over the stubble on his face. He made a very frank and sympathetic impression.

“No, I really can’t think of anything. She takes care of the horses and doesn’t usually talk much. When she came back from her ride, she was happier than I’ve seen her in a long time. Her eyes were actually shining. After grooming Calypso and taking care of the harness, she said good-bye and left on her bike.”

“What do you think might have happened to her?”

“I don’t think she committed suicide, at any rate. She was much too happy and upbeat when she left here. I have a hard time imagining her going off to kill herself.”

“How well do you know her?”

“Quite well, I think. She seems to like being here, but I understand that she doesn’t have an easy home life. She’s always in a hurry to rush home because she has to take the dog out. As I understand it, her mother is rather difficult, but I’ve never met her.”

“Has Fanny ever talked about any friends or anyone she hung out with?”

“She doesn’t seem to have any friends, since she spends all her time over here. Those of us who work in the stable are much older. Although she sometimes talks to Tom, who works in the next stable.”

“Is that right?”

“I’ve seen them talking to each other on the stable hill once in a while. They seem to get along. Fanny isn’t exactly the most open person, so I notice when she talks to anyone.”

“Are they the same age?”

“God, no. He must be thirty, at least. He’s American but I think he’s lived in Sweden for a long time. You can tell because of the way he speaks Swedish.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Kingsley.”

“And how long has he worked here?”

“At least a year, maybe more.”

Tom Kingsley was busy wrapping the hind leg of a horse when they entered the adjoining stable. Knutas and Jacobsson kept back a safe distance.

“We’ve heard that you know Fanny Jansson, the girl who has disappeared. Is that right?” Knutas began.

“Well, I can’t say that I really know her. I’ve talked to her once in a while.”

He didn’t look up, just went on with his work.

“We need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Sure, I just need to finish this. I’m working on the last leg right now.”

In spite of a distinctly American accent, his Swedish was fluent. When he was done, he stood up with a grimace and stretched out his back.

“What do you want to know?”

“How well do you know Fanny Jansson?”

“Not very well. We talk occasionally.”

“How did you happen to meet each other?”

“Good Lord, we both work here. Of course we would see each other around the stables. We’re always running into each other.”

“What do you talk about?”

“Mostly about the horses, of course. But other things, too. How she’s doing in school and about her home, and things like that.”

“How do you think she’s doing?”

“Not great, actually.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She complains about her mother, says that things are tough at home.”

“In what way?”

“She told me that her mother drinks too much.”

“So she has actually confided in you a great deal?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Have you seen each other outside the stable?”

“No, no. Just here.”

“Do you know whether she has met anyone new lately? A boyfriend, maybe?”

“I have no idea.”

“When did you last see her?”

“It was on Saturday.”

“Where?”

“Here, outside.” He nodded toward the stables.

“How did she seem?”

“The same as usual.”

“Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“Not a clue.”

There was no one else at the stable to question. They left Tom Kingsley and went back to their car.

“What do you think happened?” asked Knutas as they drove back to police headquarters.

“It’s possible that she might have killed herself.”

“I have a hard time imagining that. She’s too young. Fourteen-year-old girls who commit suicide are rare. They’re usually at least a couple of years older. Besides, she didn’t seem particularly depressed, even though things might have been worse than they seemed on the outside. I think all three men at the stable seem credible, although the trainer was damned irritating.”

“I agree,” said Jacobsson. “I didn’t get any weird vibes from any of them.”

By the afternoon Fanny had still not turned up. Her mother called Knutas to hear how the search was going. She was distraught. Her sister in Vibble, south of Visby, had stepped in to look after her. Knutas decided to begin searching the areas surrounding Fanny’s apartment, her school, and the stable. A bulletin was broadcast on the local radio station and immediately attracted the interest of the media. Radio Gotland and both of the local newspapers, Gotlands Tidningar and Gotlands Allehanda, wanted to interview him.

Knutas tried to be generous with the press and agreed to brief interviews.

He dealt with one journalist after the other, and they all asked basically the same questions. He kept the interviews short, telling them only when Fanny had disappeared, where she was last seen, and what she looked like. He asked the reporters to say that the police were appealing to the public for help.

The search brought results. Fanny’s bicycle was found by a passerby. It had been tossed into a ditch less than a kilometer from the stable. It was immediately taken in so that the techs could examine it.

Johan Berg also called.

“Hi. Am I disturbing you?”

“I’m very busy at the moment.”

“I’m calling about the girl who disappeared. It just came over the wire service. What happened?”

Knutas gave him the same information that he had given to the other journalists, but he also told Johan about the bicycle. He thought he owed him that much.

“Do you suspect foul play?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Do you think she might have committed suicide?”

“We can’t rule out that possibility, of course.”

“What’s her home life like?”

“She and her mother live alone in an apartment here in Visby.”

“Is she an only child?”

“Yes.”

“The description says that she has a dark complexion. Was she adopted, or is her mother from some other country?”

“Her father is from the West Indies.”

“Where does he live?”

“In Stockholm, with his wife and kids. They don’t have any contact with each other.”

“Could she have gone there?”

“We’ve talked to the father, of course. And she’s not there.”

“She could still have gone to Stockholm,” said Johan.

“Sure.”

“Did she take along any money, or her passport?”

“There’s nothing to indicate that. All her belongings are still at home,” replied Knutas impatiently. Why couldn’t Johan Berg ever be satisfied with the same information he gave to all the other journalists? He never gave up asking more questions.

“The fact that her bike was found tossed aside could mean that she got into a car. Was it found near a road?”

“That’s right. I have to go now.”

“I realize that you’ve got your hands full, what with the murder investigation, too. Is there anything to indicate she might have fallen into the hands of the same perpetrator as Dahlstrom?”

“Not at the moment.”

Knutas shook his head as he put down the phone. What a stubborn man that journalist was.

The next second the phone rang again. The switchboard told him that a woman from the youth clinic in Visby wanted to talk to him. He told the operator to put her through.

“Hi, my name is Gunvor Andersson, and I’m a midwife. The girl that I think you’re looking for was here recently.”

“Is that right? How do you know it was her?”

“I recognized her from the description on the radio. She was here several months ago, asking for birth control pills.”

“Did she say why?”

“She said that she had a steady boyfriend. I asked her whether she really felt old enough to have intercourse. I said that we usually don’t recommend the Pill for such young girls. She said that they had already done it. I told her that since she’s under fifteen, it’s a crime to have sexual intercourse with her. On the other hand, we can’t very well refuse to give the Pill to a girl who wants to protect herself. We usually require a parent’s consent in the case of such young girls, but when I said that I would have to call her mother, she didn’t want anything more to do with us. She just got up and left. I tried to stop her, to say that we could talk about it, but before I knew it, she had walked right out the door.”

“Did you find out who her boyfriend was?”

“No, unfortunately. She refused to say anything about him.”

After Knutas finished talking to the woman, he called Majvor Jansson.

“Did you know that Fanny has a boyfriend?”

“No, I’m sure she doesn’t.”

“She went to the youth clinic to ask for birth control pills.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’ve just talked to someone over there. She went there several months ago to get a prescription for the Pill, but when they told her that they would have to contact you, she left. I need you to think about this some more. Was there anything to indicate that she had a boyfriend? Was she spending time with anyone?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“She never said anything about it. But it’s hard to keep tabs on her, because I work nights and I’m a single mother. She could always meet someone in the evening, since that’s when I’m at work.”

Majvor Jansson was clearly about to start crying again.

“I was thinking of trying to get a different shift, now that she’s getting older. But I didn’t think there was any danger yet. She’s only fourteen, after all.”

In the meantime, the search continued. A hundred volunteers offered to help the search-and-rescue groups that had been organized at various sites. The sense of alarm about what had happened to Fanny was growing with every hour that passed.

At 8:00 p.m. the investigative team gathered for a meeting at police headquarters. The mood was tense. Knutas told them about his phone conversation with the woman from the youth clinic and Fanny’s failed attempt to obtain birth control pills. Sohlman, who looked worn out, told them about the results of searching Fanny’s room.

“We’ve found three packets of morning-after pills hidden among the clothes in Fanny’s closet. Two were empty; one still had both pills. That proves that she has had intercourse with someone.”

“It doesn’t take much detective work to come to that conclusion,” Jacobsson interjected acidly. “But morning-after pills? Aren’t they supposed to be used in extreme emergencies? Surely they’re not meant to be used for birth control?”

She glanced around the room. When she saw the blank expressions on the faces of her colleagues, she realized that she worked with a bunch of middle-aged men who had all been cast from the same mold and who probably knew nothing about how that sort of pill worked.

“How many pills did she take?” asked Jacobsson, turning to Sohlman.

“There are two in each package, and from what I understand, that counts as one dose. So she took four pills, or two doses.”

“Where do you get them? In a drugstore? Can a fourteen-year-old go out and buy them? Don’t you have to be at least fifteen?”

No one at the table could answer Jacobsson’s questions.

“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll call the youth clinic.”

Her colleagues looked relieved to get out of hearing any more embarrassing questions that they couldn’t answer.

Sohlman went on. “Bloodstains and hairs that are not hers were found on the bedspread. They are short, dark, coarse hairs. In her bed we also found sperm and pubic hair, but we can’t say yet who they’re from. Everything has been sent to SCL. We also sent over some things that her mother didn’t recognize and couldn’t explain where Fanny had gotten them.”

He read from a list: “One bottle of perfume, one necklace, several rings, one sweater, one dress, and two pairs of underwear. Quite sophisticated underwear, I might add,” he said, clearing his throat. “We haven’t found anything of interest on her bike.”

When Sohlman fell silent, a heavy mood settled over the room. Their apprehension that Fanny was in trouble had been significantly reinforced by his report.

Wittberg broke the silence. “What the hell should we do?” he said with a resigned sigh. “What do we have to go on?”

“There’s plenty we can do,” Knutas objected. “While we wait for the lab results, we need to expand the search area. Tips have been coming in from the public, and they have to be processed.”

“How should we divide up the work between the Dahlstrom investigation and this case?” asked Norrby.

“We’ll work on them in tandem. We’ve done that before. Don’t forget that we don’t know what’s happened to Fanny Jansson. She might turn up tomorrow.”

When Johan came home from work on Wednesday evening, he found to his surprise that Emma was sitting on the steps. She looked pale and hollow-eyed, wearing her yellow quilted jacket.

“Emma, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed.

“I’m sorry that I was so mad yesterday, Johan. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Come inside.”

She followed him in and without a word sank down on the sofa.

“I’m about to lose my footing altogether. Olle still won’t let me talk to the children. I was thinking of going over to their school yesterday, but the school counselor advised me not to. She thinks that I should wait. I’ve talked to their teachers, and the children seem to be doing all right. The only thing they seem to know is that we’re going through a crisis, and that I’ve taken a leave of absence from my job.”

She pushed back her bangs. “Is it okay if I smoke?”

“Sure, go ahead and smoke. Do you want something to drink?”

“Yes, please. A glass of wine or a beer, if you have any.”

Johan took two beers out of the fridge and sat down next to her.

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“That’s exactly what I don’t know,” she said, sounding annoyed.

He touched her cheek.

“Have you quit your job?”

“I called in sick. Without giving any explanation. My job feels like the least important thing at the moment.”

“Olle will calm down. You’ll see. Don’t worry about that. After a while you’ll be able to talk to each other again.”

“I just don’t understand why he reacted so strongly. He’s shown so little interest in me and our relationship during the past few years. He really shouldn’t be surprised. But to hell with him. The only thing I can think about is Sara and Filip. You have no idea how tough this is.”

He reached out his hand and caressed her cheek.

She grabbed his hand, kissed it, and put it on her breast. When he kissed her, the response was fierce. It was as if she were hungering for him, for physical contact, for solace. He wanted to transmit his own strength to her, to give her the energy she obviously needed. There was something disconsolate and desperate about the way she made love to him that night.

Afterward she fell asleep, curled up in his arms like a child. For a long time Johan lay in the dark, looking at her profile and listening to her breathing.