The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

live with her. That Stina was the one he loved.’
    Knutas hadn’t moved. Her words were starting to sink in, and at last he saw the whole picture.
    ‘They had to die. Don’t you see that? Although that wasn’t my intention at first. I hadn’t planned to kill her. I was just so angry that I wanted to hit her. But she fought back. Screaming hysterically. Saying that she was in love with Sam. Do you understand? And she was my best friend.My very best friend. And there she stood, practically naked, telling me that she loved my husband, that they were together now. She was expecting him, she’d sent him a text message and wanted him to come out there to have sex with her. But the thing is, I happened to see her message while Sam was in the shower. I got in the car and drove over there. She’d even included directions.
    ‘When I saw her, wearing only a bra and sitting on the veranda in a deckchair, I hit her. I hit her over and over again. She fought back and screamed like crazy. She tried to get away, but I chased her over to the property next door. That’s where I picked up a big rock and slammed it against her head. Finally she stopped screaming. But suddenly her body went limp. She wasn’t moving at all, and blood was running from her head. Lots of blood. My clothes were totally soaked with it. And her eyes were blank, as if the light had gone out of them. I had killed her.
    ‘Then I heard someone shouting behind me. It was that fisherman. He’d seen everything from out on the water and had rowed ashore. He was standing up in his boat, yelling and waving his arms about. I hit him on the head with a shovel, and he collapsed into the boat. I saw an anchor lying on the bottom, one of those collapsible kinds. I picked it up and slammed it against his head as he lay there. Then I pushed the boat out into the water as far as I could. I don’t know why I did that, but I wanted to separate those two from each other.
    ‘But that’s what I regret the most. Killing that poor man. He just happened to get in the way.’
    She gave Knutas a pleading look now, as if seeking his understanding. He gave her a slight nod.
    ‘Well, then I realized how late it was. I had to go back to the others and clean myself up because I was covered in blood.’
    ‘What about Sam? Why did you kill him too?’
    ‘We went for a morning walk. I’d brought along the card that was my gift for him. For the trip to Florence. I’d hidden Stina’s body so well that she would never be found. And then I wanted everything to go back to normal. We were standing here, in this very spot, and then I started talking about Stina. Of course I didn’t tell him that I’d killed her, but I saidthat I knew about their relationship, or at least that they’d been sleeping together. I was so sure that he’d tell me it didn’t mean anything …’
    ‘Then what happened?’
    ‘He said that he loved Stina and wanted to live with her. That our marriage was over. Then he took out a cigarette and was just about to light it. That’s when something snapped inside of me. I just stepped forward while he was fumbling with the cigarette and shoved him as hard as I could. So hard that he fell off the cliff and plummeted straight down, all the way down. That’s what happened.’
    Andrea fell silent. Knutas’s face was stony.
    ‘What about the sleeping bag?’
    ‘I panicked after killing Sam. I thought I needed to do something that would shift the blame to Stina. I had her hair ribbon, and I thought her body might never be found. So the police would think she was the one who did it.’
    A trembling sigh escaped from her lips. She didn’t say another word.
    Finally Knutas spoke.
    ‘Shall we go home now?’
    Andrea simply nodded.

THE NEWS THAT a man had been arrested for the three murders was out within the hour. Lars Norrby had insisted that the police send out a press release at once. Finally they’d had a breakthrough in this high-profile case. It would calm down the governor, the county police chief, and the chairman of the municipal board, not to mention everyone who was involved with tourism on the island. The murders had not exactly been good PR for Gotland as an idyllic holiday paradise. The public needed to be reassured.
    Pia and Johan hurried over to police headquarters as soon as they read the press release. As they were driving, Pia got a phone call. Her face changed colour as she listened to the person on the line.
    ‘What are you saying? The