The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

the window, she slowly set her glass on the coffee table and turned off the lamp. Darkness settled over the room. Reflected in the windowpanes she saw only the fading embers in the fireplace. Now it would be much harder to see her from outside. Cautiously she got up from the sofa and crept over to the far wall, pressing herself against the surface to hide.
    It was quiet outside. Nothing moved. Her heart was pounding hard, but she tried to reason with herself. It was probably just a bird. Or a cat. Or a hedgehog, now that the heat of the day lingered into the night. One evening when she’d turned off the outside lights before going to bed, she’d seen dark little shapes dotting the lawn. A hideous sight. As if they were sitting there, biding their time. Just waiting to come towards her.
    The shrill sound of the phone suddenly broke the silence. She jumped. Who could be calling so late? It was almost 1 a.m. None of their friends would ever ring in the middle of the night. Her first thought was that it must be the police. Had something happened? Had they found Stina? Her whole being urged her to answer the phone, but she wasn’t sure that she dared. What if somebody was still out there? She assumed that she couldn’t be seen from where she was standing, but if she picked up the phone, she’d give herself away. All she had to do was turn her head towards the window to sense the threat lurking outside. It couldn’t be just her imagination; the feeling was too strong.
    The phone stopped ringing. Then it started up again. The caller was trying again, so it must be important. She strained to see something in the dark, but in vain. Nothing moved. What should she do? She cursed herself for not switching on the security system. Anybody could get inside the house without being noticed. She took a deep breath, and then rushed from her hiding place and grabbed the phone on the wall between the living room and kitchen.
    ‘Hello?’
    She heard someone breathing.
    ‘Hello?’ she repeated. ‘Who is this?’
    Silence. Breathing. A faint wheezing sound.
    Fear flashed through her body, but she also felt her anger growing. Who had the right to terrorize her like this in the middle of the night?
    ‘Who is this?’ she said, harshly.
    Finally a voice. Sounding horribly hollow.
    ‘I can see you. I’m out here. You look so lovely in your robe. Shall I come in and take it off?’
    ‘Tell me who you are,’ she pleaded.
    ‘Shall I come in and …?’
    Whispering in her ear. Sexual. Very close. She held her breath, turned towards the dark window. Someone was out there. Someone was watching her. Someone knew what she had done. Her hand was shaking as she put down the phone.

IT WAS ONLY eight o’clock when Jacobsson picked up Kihlgård outside his hotel on Saturday morning. They had a lot to do that day. Their first topic of conversation was the request for information about Stina Ek, which had appeared in the media and had already resulted in numerous calls from the public.
    ‘The most interesting tip is from a man on Fårö named Arne Gustavsson,’ Karin told Martin. ‘He lives in Hammars, and Stina rode past him on her bike the day that she disappeared. She was heading straight for Bergman’s property.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘At least it confirms that she was cycling in that area. Whether she disappeared from that part of the island is another matter. At any rate, he tried to stop her since she was approaching private land, but she just kept on going.’
    Kihlgård whistled.
    ‘Interesting. He may have been the last one to see her. Do we have time to talk to him?’
    ‘Of course. But it’ll have to be after lunch. He couldn’t meet with us until then. Something else has happened that we need to check out. Andrea Dahlberg rang the duty officer in the middle of the night to say that some idiot was making nuisance phone calls.’
    ‘What? What do you mean?’
    ‘It started with her hearing strange noises outside late at night. The children were asleep upstairs, and she was sitting on the sofa in the livingroom watching TV. Several times she thought she saw someone moving about the property, but she decided it was just her imagination. Then the phone rang. By then it was really late, around one a.m. At first she heard only someone breathing, but then a man started making sexual remarks.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘Something about how he could see she was wearing only a robe, and then he suggested that he could come in