The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

intentions, the whole summer had now passed and he hadn’t yet decided what to do about Karin. A feeling of guilt kept nagging at him, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. If only that double murderer, Vera Petrov, could be found, he thought. Then everything could be looked at in a new light – it could be worked out. But so far that hadn’t happened, and there was no indication that an arrest was imminent. The police still had no idea where in the world Petrov and her husband, Stefan Norrström, might be. The international authorities were looking for her, but most likely she was staying put in one place. And as long as she stayed away from Sweden and didn’t draw attention to herself, she would probably remain free.
    Knutas stood up with a heavy sigh and went over to the window. He opened it to let the warm night air sweep into the room. He lit his pipe and exhaled smoke into the darkness.
    The murder investigation had taken a toll on him, as usual. The whole story about Andrea Dahlberg’s past was so sad. The tragedy that had struck her family. Her father’s betrayal. And the pastor’s too. Then, as anadult, she had experienced the same sort of betrayal all over again. She had truly believed that she had everything she could possibly want, but it turned out to be an illusion.
    And Ingmar Bergman had wound up in the middle of the whole case. Actually, he didn’t have anything to do with the investigation, but there did seem to be parallels between his depictions of people and the individuals whom Knutas had encountered while investigating the homicides this summer.
    Knutas was reminded of a picture that hung on the wall in the Dahlberg home. It was a big, black-and-white movie poster for the Bergman film
Persona
. It showed the actresses Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann in a tender pose, with their faces close together. Next to the poster was a small card with a quote from the film:
Can you be one and the same person, at exactly the same time? I mean, be two people?
That quote sums up this whole sodding case, he thought.
    Knutas took one last puff on his pipe, then he tapped out the embers and put it away in his desk drawer. It was time to go home.
    Just then his phone rang. He cast a glance at the clock on the wall. Twelve forty-five. Who would ring at this time of night?
    There was a crackling sound on the phone and someone rattled off a string of words in a foreign language. It sounded like Spanish. Then he heard a voice that he recognized.
    ‘Hi, Anders. It’s Kurt.’
    Kurt Fogestam, inspector with the Stockholm police. They’d known each other for a very long time.
    ‘I’m here on holiday in Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic.’
    ‘Did you say the Dominican Republic?’
    ‘Yes, and wait till you hear this. Do you know who I just saw get into a car outside the hotel?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Stefan Norrström.’
    Knutas sank on to his chair. His head was spinning. Vera Petrov’s husband. So the tip they’d received earlier from the tourist was correct afterall. They’d dismissed the information because the man had been drunk and the photograph was too blurry to make a conclusive identification. But had he really heard right?
    ‘Who did you say?’
    ‘Stefan Norrström, Vera Petrov’s husband. I’m certain it was him. But I didn’t see the number plate and I couldn’t follow him. I was coming back from the beach, on foot, with my wife, and I caught sight of him just as he got in the car. At first I wasn’t sure, so I ran towards the street and got a good look at his face as he drove past. I’m a hundred per cent positive. It was him.’

Acknowledgements
    This story is entirely fictional. Any similarities between the characters in the novel and actual individuals are coincidental. Occasionally I have taken artistic liberties to change things for the benefit of the book. This includes Swedish TV’s coverage of Gotland, which in the book has been moved to Stockholm. I have the utmost respect for SVT’s regional news programme Östnytt, which covers Gotland with a permanent team stationed in Visby.
    The locations used in the book are usually described as they actually exist in reality, although there are a few exceptions.
    Any errors that may have slipped into the story are mine alone.
    First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband, journalist Cenneth Niklasson, for his support, love, and encouragement.
    Special thanks to:
    Magnus Frank, detective superintendent with the Visby