Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

It’s never been like that for me.’
    ‘Why do you think that is?’
    ‘Maybe because I’m older and had time to get to know Pappa before my parents were divorced and he disappeared out of our lives. I managed to form my own impression of him, and of Mamma and their relationship. I’ve always known that things weren’t nearly as one-sided as Mamma tries to make them out to be.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I can’t explain it. And I don’t really want to talk about it.’
    ‘Do you know whether your mother has ever received any threats, or whether someone would want to harm her?’
    ‘Threats? I’ve never heard about anything like that. And she would have mentioned it, because she always wants to get us involved in the smallest details of her daily life. Like telling us that she burned the soup or that she can’t find her slippers.’
    ‘What about someone who might want to harm her?’
    Andreas gave Knutas an inscrutable look.
    ‘A person may have the will, but that’s not always enough,’ he said tersely.
    Then he went back to his work. The next sheep was waiting to be weighed.

WALPURGIS EVE WAS the most beautiful it had been in years. Usually the day was cold with a strong wind, but this time the sun was shining and it was so warm that it felt as if summer was just around the corner.
    Johan had worked all weekend putting together reports for both Regional News and the national news broadcasts, so he’d been given the day off. It had been hectic for both Johan and Pia after Alexander Almlöv died. The outcry about the assault case had overshadowed the murder of Viktor Algård. Big demonstrations were staged in Visby, protesting against violence and the politicians’ lack of interest in providing services for young people. Instead, they had voted to shut down recreation centres, lay off school counsellors and cut funding for education, after-school programmes and sports activities. The investment in the new conference centre had once again come under fire. How could anyone justify spending millions of kronor for that sort of building when the island’s young people had nowhere to go when they weren’t in school?
    Johan and Pia had compiled reports that were broadcast as part of the national news seen all over Sweden. The series they had planned was now put on the fast track; at the same time, it was given much more space in the news programmes than they could ever have imagined. Johan noted with satisfaction that so much attention was being focused on youth violence that now all the editorial pages and news programmes were concentrating on how to deal with the problem. But everything came at a price. This time it had cost a sixteen-year-old boy his life.
    Johan had hardly even had time to miss Emma and Elin. But now that he was on his way out to Fårö, he could barely contain himself. He stood on the deck of the ferry with the sea wind blowing in his face, finally relaxed enough that he could stop thinking about work. He was going to devote himself to what was most important – namely, his family.
    Emma’s parents lived at the northernmost tip of the island, near the great sand dune called Norsta Auren. Their white limestone house stood all alone, with only a low wall separating the property from the beach. On one side was a bird promontory, which attracted ornithologists wanting to study the enormous number of seabirds that occupied the spit of land. On the other side of the house was the long, sandy beach, which extended for several kilometres. The light-coloured, fine-grained sand on the beach, which was several hundred metres wide in places, reminded visitors of sun-drenched July days in the Caribbean or South Pacific. The shoreline curved in a gentle arc, reaching all the way to the lighthouse, which was Fårö’s furthest outpost.
    When Johan turned his car on to the bumpy, narrow road leading to the house, Emma and Elin came walking towards him, hand in hand. He stopped the car and jumped out. He saw Elin’s joyous face and Emma’s warm eyes. He pulled both of them into his arms, giving them a big hug.
    After dinner with Emma’s parents, they took a bike ride out to Ekeviken, a lovely beach and summer-house area about a kilometre to the south. All the preparations for Walpurgis Eve had been carefully made, and the bonfire would be lit at eight o’clock. During the past month, people who lived in the vicinity had gathered wood for the pyre, which now loomed, tall and stately, in