The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

along with Andrea, but they didn’t find him, of course. Though they did find his backpack up on the bird mountain. The same one where someone pushed him off.’
    ‘What time was that?’ asked Knutas.
    ‘It must have been about five p.m., because shortly after that they rang the police. The officer on duty took the call at five seventeen.’
    Knutas rubbed the tip of his nose.
    ‘OK. They found his belongings at five o’clock. According to the windsurfer, Jakob, he saw Sam Dahlberg get pushed off the cliff around ten or ten thirty in the morning. That’s just an estimate, because he wasn’t wearing a watch. When was Dahlberg last seen? And by whom? What did he do on Sunday morning? His wife said that she didn’t wake up in the night. Is she positive that he slept in their bed at all?’
    ‘Yes. At least that’s what I gathered when we talked to her,’ said Jacobsson. She cast a glance at Wittberg, who nodded agreement.
    ‘OK. That means we have no idea what Dahlberg was doing during the night or in the morning up until ten or eleven o’clock,’ Knutas concluded. He turned to crime tech Erik Sohlman. ‘What sort of evidence do we have?’
    ‘Not much,’ Sohlman admitted, ruffling his red hair, which looked even more dishevelled than usual. ‘But we still have several techs out there, working on site. The crime scene itself is very rocky, and it’s unlikely that we’ll find many traces. Plus that damn rainstorm swept in at just the wrong time and presumably erased any potential evidence. But we did find a few things.’
    He stood up and switched off the light. Then he clicked on a picture of Stora Karlsö that appeared on the screen at the front of the room.
    ‘Here’s the bird mountain,’ said Sohlman, pointing his ballpoint pen at the image. ‘This is the spot where the backpack was found on the slope, just below the crest. We found three cigarette butts there. Gold Blend. And guess who smoked that brand? I’ll give you three guesses.’
    ‘Sam Dahlberg,’ said Jacobsson.
    ‘Gold Blend?’ Wittberg frowned. ‘Does that brand still exist? I haven’t seen it for ages.’
    ‘Yes, it does. So we can assume that he was on the mountain and stayed for a while. Otherwise, we haven’t found a thing at the crime scene. Any footprints or other marks on the ground were washed away by the rain. Since it started to rain before the murder occurred, there weren’t many people out and about. Plus the bird mountain is off the beaten path. And the beach below can only be reached from the water – it’s completely cut off from any land access. Ideal for a murder, in other words. The body was in bad shape when we found it. The birds had been there, having a feast. Feel free not to look,’ Sohlman warned his colleagues, specifically looking at Jacobsson. ‘These photos require a strong stomach.’
    Pictures appeared on the screen, showing the victim from several different angles. The body was ripped to shreds and lay in an unnatural position. Parts of the skeleton jutted out, and several organs lay outside the body. The skull had been crushed. Only two dark holes remained where the eyes should have been. Silence descended on the room as everyone studied the horrible images.
    Knutas surreptitiously glanced at Jacobsson. She was prepared, since she’d seen the actual body, but her face had gone pale under her suntan, and she was partially shading her eyes with one hand. He motioned to Sohlman to stop.
    ‘I think we’ve seen enough for the moment. The perpetrator is most likely one of the visitors to the island or a staff member on Stora Karlsö. Unless the killer arrived by boat, that is. I can’t even venture a guess as to how many people were on the island at the time of the murder.’
    ‘Approximately one hundred,’ said Jacobsson. ‘We have the names,addresses, and phone numbers of the ones that we didn’t talk to personally. Tomorrow we have to start bringing people in.’
    ‘What the hell could the motive be?’ interjected Wittberg. ‘It doesn’t seem credible that it was an accident, does it?’
    ‘I assume that the killer is probably one of his friends from that group,’ said Norrby.
    ‘Maybe we should mention that one person who was with the others on Fårö left the group the day before yesterday,’ said Jacobsson. ‘Her name is Stina Ek, and she’s married to Håkan Ek, who was also with the group. She’s a flight attendant, and she was called in to work at the last