The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

stopped abruptly when they caught sight of Sam Dahlberg. Or what was left of him.

WITH GROWING SURPRISE Knutas had listened to Jacobsson’s report from Stora Karlsö when she called from the island ranger station. Knutas organized the efforts from police headquarters and did what he could to handle the press without saying too much. The police spokesperson, Lars Norrby, had gone home long ago. It was past 9 p.m. when Jacobsson rang to relay the news. Journalists are like vultures, Knutas thought. They’re hovering at the door before the police have even gathered all the information.
    The dead man’s mangled body had been taken by police helicopter to the mortuary in Visby. The windsurfer Jakob Ekström ended up in the building right next door, in the emergency ward of Visby hospital. X-rays showed that his leg was broken, just as Jacobsson had assumed, and it needed to be put in a cast. Knutas had managed to get the attending physician, whom he’d actually known since primary school, to agree to allow the police to have a few words with Ekström that same evening. According to Jacobsson, when they found the young man on the beach, he’d reported that he’d witnessed a murder. But at the time he was in such bad shape that it had been hard to get too many details out of him.
    A meeting of the investigative team was postponed until 11 p.m. Jacobsson and Wittberg were expected to be back by then.
    Knutas cast a glance at his watch as he hurried to the hospital entrance. He had a little less than an hour.
    Jakob Ekström was in a private room on the third floor.
    Knutas grabbed a chair and brought it over to the bed.
    ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘Not so good. My leg hurts like hell. I broke it when I tried to go ashore.’
    ‘Can you tell me what happened? Start from the very beginning.’
    Knutas took out his notebook and a ballpoint pen. He gave a nod of encouragement to Ekström, who grimaced with pain when he tried to sit up straighter.
    ‘I went out early this morning. It was only nine or nine thirty. I’d been surfing for about an hour when I saw what happened … up there on the bird mountain.’ He fidgeted and looked away. ‘It was … it was horrible.’
    ‘I understand,’ said Knutas, patting his arm sympathetically. ‘Take your time. Just tell me as many details as you can. The smallest thing might be important.’
    The young man reached for the glass of water on the table next to his bed. He took several sips. Then he looked out of the window for a moment before going on.
    ‘Well, first I saw two people way up there on top of the cliff.’
    Knutas studied his face.
    ‘Try to remember exactly what you saw.’
    ‘They were standing at the very edge and quite close to each other. I was holding on to the boom and had to keep my eye on the waves because the wind had started to gust, and right about then it began to rain. I couldn’t have been watching those people up there for more than a few seconds when suddenly one of them took a couple of steps forward and gave the other person a big shove so that he was thrown off the cliff. It was terrible … He fell straight down. His body ricocheted off several rocks before it hit the ground. And the birds were flying in all directions.’
    ‘Are you positive that it was a deliberate push? Could it have been an accident? Or could he have jumped on purpose?’
    ‘I’m a hundred per cent sure. There’s no doubt in my mind. The other person ruthlessly pushed him over the edge.’
    ‘Could you tell that it was a man who fell?’
    Ekström shuddered, as if to get rid of the image that appeared in his mind.
    ‘No, I couldn’t tell from so far away. But now I know that it was a man. The director, Sam Dahlberg. At the time I had no idea. I couldn’t tell whether the people on top of the slope were men or women.’
    ‘Could you make out any details? Their height? Body shape? Clothing? Did you notice anything else?’
    Ekström slowly shook his head.
    ‘No. It all happened so fast.’
    ‘So when the person fell, what did you do then?’
    ‘I looked up at the top again, and I shouldn’t have done that. Because that’s when I rammed into a boulder and broke my leg.’ He grimaced again and looked at his right leg, which was elevated in a metal contraption attached to the bed.
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘I guess I passed out for a while because all I remember is an awful bang and then everything went black. When I came to, I was lying in the water