The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

that collection of friends that wasn’t quite right.
    She summoned up images of the individuals who had gone on the trip together. Most were in their early forties. Håkan Ek was the only one who was significantly older. Sam Dahlberg’s wife Andrea seemed terribly reserved, but that might be her way of coping. Outwardly, she was almost perfect: beautiful long hair; make-up skilfully applied and so natural-looking that it was hardly noticeable; a physically fit body with high, firm breasts that could indicate plastic surgery. She gave the appearance of being a loving wife and devoted mother, but that might not be true at all. Maybe she was putting on an act.
    So what about Håkan Ek? Jacobsson might as well start with those closest to the victims, since it was often in the immediate family that the killer was to be found.
    At the very first interview she had felt a real empathy for him. He was considerably older than his wife – fifty-three compared to Stina’s thirty-seven. So there was a difference of sixteen years between them. How had that affected their marriage? Jacobsson leafed through Håkan Ek’s file.
    The photograph showed a man in his prime, looking fit, energetic and suntanned as he smiled at the camera. Laughter lines around his eyes and white teeth. And it looked as if he dyed his hair, so he was apparently a bit vain. In the photo he radiated a self-confidence that she hadn’t noticed when she met him in person. This picture could have been lifted directly out of an advert for the Dressmann clothing chain, she thought. Håkan had been married twice before, and he had children with two different women, in addition to the two that he and Stina had together. The oldest, a daughter named Klara, was twenty-five years old and lived inthe Östermalm district in Stockholm. The thought of her own daughter flitted through Karin’s mind, causing a pang in her heart. The two young women were the same age. Håkan’s first wife, Ingrid, had remarried and lived in the wealthy Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. He had divorced her in 1985, when their daughter was only two years old. Three years later he had already married his second wife, and they’d had a son named Robin in 1989. Another divorce in 1990, before Håkan married Stina that same year. Jacobsson raised her eyebrows. He was certainly a fast worker. The son must have been only a few months old when his parents parted ways. How awful, thought Jacobsson as she studied the face of the suntanned, smiling man in the photograph.

MY CHILDHOOD HOME was located way out in the Uppland countryside in an area of historic importance, filled with rune stones and burial sites from both the Iron Age and the Viking era. The house stood high on a hill. It was painted brown, a splendid structure with several entrances and a view of the fields and meadows, with Lake Mälaren off in the distance. Outside the imposing main entrance with the circular drive and flagpole was a lush abundance of rhododendron bushes. At the back a stone stairway led down to the garden, which was filled with shrubs, apple trees, and arbours. We children used to cycle over to the church bell tower to play a game that pitted the Swedes against the Danes. We would fight with tree branches, pretending they were swords. Our bikes were horses in the tournaments we held, and pine cones were our ammunition. Out where we lived there were no official playgrounds with swings and roundabouts like in the small town about 30 kilometres away where we went to school. The woods, the mountains and the open fields were our playgrounds. And we didn’t complain. Each morning my sister and I would board the school bus near the bend in the main road and go off to school. By the time we came back home, our mother would often have a snack ready for us – usually milk and some of her homemade cinnamon rolls, which we ate in the kitchen. Then we’d go out to find the local kids. There weren’t many people living out there. Four families lived in the nearby houses, and three of them had children. The narrow gravel road that passed through our little village was used mostly by visitors heading for the nearby country church or the agricultural school. It might seemstrange to find a school in such a remote area, way out in the country, but it had been established by a wealthy woman in Stockholm who donated the money to start a boarding school for poor children. For the past thirty years it had functioned as a secondary