The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

Andrea managed to say before Beata angrily stuffed her mobile back in her belt bag.
    ‘Dead as a doornail, of course. Shit. Come on, let’s make another round. We haven’t checked the other bird mountain way over there.’
    ‘What other bird mountain?’
    ‘The one that’s beyond the others. There’s another cliff back there. With lots of guillemots, but it’s not as accessible, so nobody makes an effort to go there. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him hunched over his easel and painting away. He probably forgot all about the time.’
    Andrea’s face lit up. ‘That would be so typical of Sam. He always wants whatever is unobtainable. Anything that feels exclusive.’ She patted Beata’s arm. ‘Thanks for coming with me, Beata. You’re a real friend.’
    They started walking along the road but didn’t meet a single other person. Steam rose up from the damp ground. Up ahead towered theother bird mountain, but so far they could see no guillemots on the slope.
    They stepped off the path and continued towards the cliff. They heard sounds that told them of the birds’ presence; their shrieks rose up to the sky. They rounded a promontory and suddenly the whole scene opened before them. Row upon row of black female guillemots were crowded together, their tiny chicks barely visible beneath their protective wings. Beata pointed to the top.
    ‘Look at that. There’s something up there,’ she shouted eagerly.
    ‘Where?’ Andrea turned to look at her friend.
    ‘There. On the other side of the slope, just below the crest. Do you see it?’
    ‘That looks like Sam’s backpack.’
    They ran back to the path and followed it up the other side of the bird mountain. The backpack was lying in the grass just below the plateau.
    Both women began yelling Sam’s name in unison.
    They turned to look in every direction. Beata went as close to the edge of the cliff as she dared and looked down. The drop was so steep that it took her breath away. Birds were everywhere. All those birds and the terrible din they were making added to her dizziness, and she had to step back. She sank down on to a rock. Now a trace of annoyance was apparent in her voice.
    ‘Where the hell can he be?’
    Andrea shook her head.
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    Beata gave her a solemn look.
    ‘We need to ring the police. What if he fell into the sea?’

KNUTAS HAD JUST left police headquarters and started to walk home when Karin Jacobsson called him.
    ‘Two people have disappeared on Stora Karlsö. One of them is the film director Sam Dahlberg. He’s been missing since this morning, and no one knows where he might have gone. His wife is worried sick.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Apparently there’s a whole group out there. They arrived yesterday morning and are staying in cabins. When his wife woke up this morning, Sam Dahlberg wasn’t in bed, and she couldn’t find him anywhere. Then she noticed his backpack with his painting gear was missing. He’s an artist too, you know. She assumed that Sam had gone out somewhere to paint, but by afternoon he still hadn’t turned up even though a storm had moved in. So she started getting worried. That was when she and a friend went out to look for him.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They found his backpack and a portable easel near the top of a cliff. Evidently there are several slopes that serve as breeding grounds for the guillemots, and not just where the tourists tend to go. This was a rather remote area, beyond the famous bird mountains. It looks like Dahlberg was planning to paint, but then something happened. Maybe he fell off the cliff. Or he might have his own reasons for staying away. What do I know?’
    ‘Has anyone checked out the beach?’
    ‘No, they’ve just started doing a systematic search for him. The thingis that he’s diabetic, so his wife is very worried that he hasn’t taken his insulin.’
    ‘And there’s no chance that he might have left the island?’
    ‘First of all, we have to ask why he would do that when he’s on a holiday trip with good friends. But if, against all odds, he did leave, it wasn’t by taking the regular boat. The ferry made two separate departures from the island during the day, and Dahlberg wasn’t on board either time. The captain knows him well, and he swears that he would have noticed.’
    ‘You said that two people were missing, is that right?’
    ‘Yes. A windsurfer also seems to have disappeared. A twenty-six-year-old man from Stockholm named Jakob