Unspoken

his office. His new office was twice as big as the old one. Embarrassingly big, he might say. The walls were painted a light color that reminded him of the sand at Tofta beach on a sunny day in July.
    The view was the same as from their conference room next door: the parking lot at Östercentrum and in the distance, the ring wall and the sea.
    On the windowsill stood a healthy-looking white geranium that had only recently stopped blooming in anticipation of winter. Jacobsson had given it to him for his birthday several years earlier. He had brought the potted plant with him from his old office, along with his beloved old desk chair made of oak with a soft leather seat. It spun nicely, and he often made use of that feature.
    He filled his pipe, taking great care. His thoughts were on Henry Dahlström’s darkroom and what he had seen there. When he thought about the man’s crushed skull, he shuddered.
    Everything pointed to a drunken brawl that got out of hand and came to an unusually brutal end. Dahlström had presumably taken a buddy down to the basement to show him some photographs, and they started arguing about something. Most cases of assault and battery started out that way, and every year some drunk or addict on Gotland was murdered.
    In his mind he thought back, trying to summon up a picture of Henry Dahlström.
    When Knutas had joined the police force twenty-five years earlier, Dahlström was a respected photographer. He worked for the newspaper Gotlands Tidningar and was one of the most prominent photographers on the island. At the time Knutas was a cop on the beat, patrolling the streets. Whenever big news events occurred, Dahlström was always the first on the scene with his camera. If Knutas met him at private functions, they would usually have a chat. Dahlström was a pleasant man with a good sense of humor, although he had a tendency to drink too much. Knutas would sometimes meet him heading home from a pub, drunk as a skunk. Occasionally he would give him a ride because the man was too drunk to get home on his own. Back then Dahlström was married. Later on he quit his job with the newspaper and started his own company. At the same time, his alcohol consumption seemed to increase.
    Dahlström was once found passed out inside the thirteenth-century ruin of Saint Karin’s church in the middle of Stora Torget, the central marketplace in Visby. He was lying on a narrow stairway, asleep, when he was discovered by a startled guide and his group of American tourists.
    Another time he walked boldly into the Lindgård restaurant on Strandgatan and ordered a real feast consisting of five courses with wine, strongbeer, aquavit, and cognac. Afterward he asked for a cigar imported directly from Havana, which he puffed on as he enjoyed yet another liqueur. When the bill was presented, he openly admitted that, unfortunately, he was unable to pay due to a shortage of funds. The police were called. They took the sated and tipsy man down to the police station, but he was released a few hours later. Dahlström probably thought all the trouble was worth it.
    Knutas hadn’t seen Dahlström’s wife in years. She had been notified about the death of her exhusband. Knutas hadn’t yet spoken to her, but she was scheduled to be interviewed later in the day.
    He sucked on his unlit pipe and leafed through Dahlström’s file. A few minor misdemeanors, but nothing serious. His friend Bengt Johnsson, on the other hand, had been convicted twenty or more times, mostly on burglary and minor assault charges.
    It was strange that they hadn’t heard from him.
    Emma Winarve sat down on the worn sofa in the teachers’ lounge. She was holding her mug of coffee in both hands to warm them. It was drafty in the old wooden building housing the Kyrk School in Roma. Her mug was inscribed with the words: “World’s Best Mom.” How ridiculous. A mother who had cheated on her husband and who, for the past six months, had also neglected her children because her mind was always on something else. She was fast approaching forty, and also fast losing all control.
    The clock on the wall told her that it was nine thirty in the morning. Her colleagues were already crowding around the table, chatting congenially. The smell of coffee had permanently seeped into the curtains, books, papers, file folders, and the dirty-yellow wallpaper. Emma didn’t feel like taking part in the conversation. Instead, she looked out the window. The leaves on the