The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

parties that the group of friends had evidently indulged in only a year ago.
    Everyone stared in surprise at their boss. Even Kihlgård stopped eating.
    ‘Swinger parties? Good Lord,’ exclaimed Wittberg. ‘Do people really do that sort of thing? And right there in those fancy houses in Terra Nova? Imagine that – it’s actually sort of cool.’
    ‘Maybe so,’ said Jacobsson. ‘But so far this information is just based on rumours. Our first priority is to conduct new interviews and find out if there’s any truth to it. I don’t know how many times we’ve asked these damned Pollyannas – and I’m actually starting to get really fed up with them – whether there’s anything else we should know about their relationships. Even though two members of their group have fallen victim to a murderer, they’ve all been as quiet as mice. I’m going to be bloody pissed off if these rumours are true.’
    ‘Swearing again.’ Kihlgård gave Jacobsson an admonishing look.
    She pretended not to hear him. What was his problem? He was turning into a regular language cop.
    ‘The question is: What does this mean for the murder investigation?’ Jacobsson went on.
    ‘Maybe some of them kept playing the sex games,’ suggested Wittberg. ‘Maybe they simply couldn’t resist.’
    Jacobsson noticed that he seemed delighted by the idea. Wittberg had undoubtedly conjured up a whole bunch of interesting images in his mind.
    ‘Sure, that’s one possibility. Maybe it was Sam and Stina out there near Svaidestugan. He could have borrowed his wife’s car.’
    ‘But who would want to kill them because of that?’ Kihlgård objected. ‘It would have to be one of their spouses, either Håkan or Andrea.’
    ‘What about the other two?’ asked Wittberg. ‘The couple that moved away and were part of the group for only a short period? Apparently that was during the period of time in question. And there was something odd about that. Why were they admitted to the group so easily when other people are rarely let in? And why did they disappear after attending those sex parties? Seems fishy, don’t you think?’
    ‘Definitely. Could you try to track them down? I don’t know what their last name is, or where they live now, but someone in the group must be able to tell us.’
    ‘One possibility is that Stina and Sam continued the sex games with that couple, and then something happened to make them quit. Or one of them, at least. They lived in the neighbourhood for only a short time, so they couldn’t have got to know each other very well. Maybe they were a couple of lunatics.’
    ‘But the others should have known if something like that happened,’ Kihlgård interjected. ‘At least Håkan and Andrea should have known. But they both claimed over and over that they had very happy marriages – which almost makes me suspicious.’
    ‘Exactly,’ murmured Jacobsson. ‘I’ve felt from the beginning that there was something wrong with that whole “one big happy family” idea. I sensed something desperate about all of them. They seemed to be hiding something. And now we know. Sex parties. Bloody hell.’
    ‘You’re swearing again,’ said Kihlgård.
    Jacobsson gave him a furious look. At that moment her mobile rang. Since she saw that the call was from the ME, she answered.
    ‘Hi, am I interrupting anything?’
    ‘We’re in a meeting, but that’s OK.’
    ‘Well, I wanted to call you because we just finished the post-mortem on Stina Ek, and I assume that you’d like to know about this at once.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Stina Ek was pregnant. About three months along.’

KNUTAS WAS STARTING to get impatient. The doctor had insisted that he take sick leave for another week, even though he was feeling perfectly fine. When it came to the murder investigation, Jacobsson had been keeping him updated, but over the weekend he hadn’t heard a thing. She had sounded strange on the phone when he talked to her at the end of the previous week, but she hadn’t wanted to discuss it when he asked what was wrong. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she’d simply said. ‘After you get back.’ Right now there was nowhere he’d rather be than back on the job. In the meantime he’d been doing his own investigative work. It helped to quell the impatience and he was hoping that it might prove useful.
    At the heart of the whole case was the group of friends from Terra Nova, and that ought to be the starting point for the police investigation. It