The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

right. We now have a lot of things to discuss,’ she began, looking ather colleagues gathered around the table. ‘We found the body of Stina Ek near Valter Olsson’s home on Fårö. Only twenty metres or so away from Ingmar Bergman’s property. The body was buried in the sand underneath an overturned rowing boat, so there’s no doubt about the fact that she was murdered. What we don’t yet know is when she was killed, but the ME will be able to determine that from the post-mortem. I’ve requested top priority for this case, and the ME has already flown over from the mainland. He’s on the scene right now, along with Erik Sohlman and the other crime techs. Stina Ek was last seen when she cycled past Arne Gustavsson’s farm on the afternoon of Saturday, the twenty-eighth of June. Sometime around three or four o’clock, after leaving her husband behind at the Slow Train Inn. An hour later she phoned him to say that she’d met a childhood friend. Then later that evening, as you know, he received a text message saying that she’d been called in to work.’
    ‘So she must have been killed after sending the text message – if she was the one who sent it, that is,’ said Wittberg. ‘But why did she lie?’
    ‘Why did she want to stay away?’ Jacobsson asked.
    ‘And why did no one besides this Arne Gustavsson notice her?’ interjected Kihlgård. ‘She was quite striking in appearance. Not somebody who could disappear in a crowd.’
    ‘Not a single witness seems to have seen her other than Gustavsson,’ Jacobsson confirmed. ‘And all indications are that she headed straight for Hammars, turned off the main road, and then took only side roads. Sheep are the only living things to be found out there.’
    Wittberg ran his fingers through his blond mane.
    ‘How did she happen to end up at Valter Olsson’s place?’
    ‘Either the perpetrator found her there, or if they ran into each other near Bergman’s house, Stina may have tried to flee through the neighbour’s property. Maybe she was being chased. Or else she was killed on Bergman’s property and then her body was dragged next door, even though that’s a long way. The question is: Who was in the vicinity at the same time Stina was there?’
    ‘Well, it happened during the Bergman festival,’ said Wittberg. ‘So plenty of people could have been out there.’
    Jacobsson was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile. When she saw that it was Sohlman, she took the call.
    The others seated around the table watched her in silence as she listened to the crime tech. When he was done with his report, she turned to her colleagues.
    ‘That was Sohlman. They’ve found blood on Bergman’s veranda and on the wall of the house facing the shore. And one more thing. In a nook of the veranda they found a top and a thong, neatly folded. They seem to be Stina’s size.’
    ‘So they weren’t just tossed there?’ asked Kihlgård. ‘They were folded up, nice and neat?’
    Jacobsson nodded.
    ‘What about the bicycle? Have they found it?’
    ‘No, they haven’t.’
    Kihlgård looked thoughtful. He took a banana from the fruit platter on the table, peeled it slowly, and then said: ‘Maybe Stina Ek contacted someone. She must have been ecstatic about finding Bergman’s house. What would you do in that sort of situation?’ Kihlgård waved the banana in the air as he went on. ‘You’d want to share the experience with somebody. So she phoned someone. The question is: Who? And why did she take off her clothes? Apparently she did it voluntarily. It was planned.’
    ‘Her husband?’ suggested Wittberg. ‘Maybe she was bold enough to want to have a tryst out there.’
    ‘Or … could it have been someone else?’ suggested Jacobsson. ‘Someone she was having an affair with? Sam Dahlberg, for instance? He was such a Bergman fanatic. Maybe that was something they shared.’
    ‘What if he was the one? Who went out there, I mean. Where was Andrea Dahlberg at that time?’
    Jacobsson leafed through her notes.
    ‘She was at the Bergman Centre in the late afternoon. That’s where she ran into an old friend from school. They had coffee together, so she wouldn’t have noticed if her husband slipped away. He could probably have been away for at least a couple of hours without drawing attention.’
    ‘Have we talked to this childhood friend?’ asked Kihlgård.
    ‘It’s been very difficult to get hold of her,’ Jacobsson admitted, noticing to her chagrin that