Unspoken

individuals. We also searched the apartment.”
    The photos of the mess in Dahlström’s place sent a clear message: The apartment had been completely turned upside down.
    “Dahlström must have had something valuable at home, but I wonder what it might be,” said Knutas. “An alcoholic living on welfare doesn’t usually have assets of any great value. Did you find his camera?”
    “No.”
    Sohlman cast another glance at his watch. He seemed eager to get away.
    “You said that you found a cigarette butt in the basement. Could the murderer have waited outside the darkroom for Dahlström to come out?” asked Jacobsson.
    “Quite possibly.”
    Sohlman then excused himself and left the room.
    “In that case, the perp knew that Dahlström was inside the darkroom,” Jacobsson went on. “He may have stood in the entryway for hours. What do the neighbors say?”
    Knutas leafed through the investigative report.
    “We kept knocking on doors until late last night. We haven’t got all the reports in yet, but the neighbors in that stairwell confirm, as I mentioned, that there was a party at the apartment last Sunday. A bunch of people came staggering through the front door around nine p.m. A neighbor who encountered them in the entryway guessed that they had been to the racetrack because he heard some remarks about various horses.”
    “Oh, that’s right, Sunday was the last race day of the season,” Jacobsson reminded herself.
    Knutas looked up from his papers. “Is that right? Well, the track isn’t very far away, so they could have easily walked or bicycled home afterward. At any rate, there was a big racket in the apartment, according to the neighbors. A lot of noise and partying, with both male and female voices.
    “The woman next door reported that the man who is probably Bengt Johnsson rang her doorbell first, to ask her whether she had seen Dahlström. She referred him to the building superintendent.”
    “Does her description of him match what the super told us?” asked Norrby.
    “Yes, for the most part. An overweight man, younger than Dahlström, about fifty, she thought. Mustache and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail—a biker-type hairstyle, as she expressed it. Wearing shabby clothes, she also said.”
    Knutas gave a little smile.
    “He had on dirty, loose-fitting jeans, with his stomach hanging out. A blue flannel shirt, and he was smoking. She recognized the man because she had seen him with Dahlström several times.”
    “Everybody knows who Henry Dahlström is, but what do we actually know about him?” asked Wittberg.
    “He’s been an alcoholic for years,” replied Jacobsson. “He usually hung out at Östercentrum or at the bus station with his buddies. Or at Östergravar in the summer, of course. Divorced, unemployed. He had been living on a disability pension for over fifteen years even though he didn’t seem completely destitute. He paid his rent and bills on time, and he kept mostly to himself, according to the neighbors, aside from the occasional party. His friends say that he was utterly harmless, never got into fights or committed any sort of crime. He apparently kept up his interest in photography. This summer I ran into him one day as I was biking to work. He was in the process of photographing a flower near Gutavallen.”
    “What else do we know about his background?” Wittberg cast a glance at Jacobsson’s papers lying on the table.
    “He was born in 1943 in Visby Hospital,” Jacobsson continued. “Grew up in Visby. In 1965 he married a woman from Visby, Ann-Sofie Nilsson. They had a child in 1967, a girl named Pia. Divorced in 1986.”
    “Okay, we’ll find out more about him today,” said Knutas. “And we’ve got to locate Bengt Johnsson.”
    He looked out the window.
    “Since it’s raining, the winos are probably sitting outside the Domus department store, in the mall. That would be the best place to start. Wittberg?”
    “Karin and I can go.”
    Knutas nodded.
    “I’ve started to collate the interviews with his neighbors, and I’d like to keep working on that,” said Norrby. “And there are a couple of people I’d like to talk to again.”
    “That sounds fine,” said Knutas, and then he turned to the prosecutor. “Birger, do you have anything to add?”
    “No. Just keep me informed and I’ll be happy.”
    “Okay. We’ll stop here. But we’ll meet again this afternoon. Shall we say three o’clock?”
    After the meeting Knutas retreated to