Unspoken

from diarrhea.”
    “So?”
    “Anna Larsson lives alone, and she doesn’t have a balcony. She was just about to go to bed when her cat shit on the floor. It smelled so bad that she didn’t want to have the garbage bag containing the shit in her apartment. She had already put on her nightgown and didn’t want to go downstairs to the trash cans, for fear of running into one of her neighbors. So she put the bag on the landing outside her door for the time being. She thought that nobody would notice if she tossed it out first thing in the morning.”
    “Get to the point,” said Knutas impatiently. Norrby’s tendency to present too many details was sometimes annoying.
    “Well, at the very moment that she opens her door, she hears Dahlström coming out wearing his slippers. He locks his door and goes downstairs to the basement.”
    “Okay,” said Knutas, tapping his pipe on the table.
    “Mrs Larsson doesn’t think any more about it. She goes to bed and falls asleep. In the middle of the night she’s awakened by her cat meowing. This time the cat has made a mess on the floor of her bedroom. That animal had a really bad stomachache.”
    “Hmm.”
    “She gets out of bed and cleans up everything. She now has another bag of cat shit that has to be put outside on the landing. When she opens the door, someone comes in the entrance one floor down and stops at Dahlström’s door. But this time she doesn’t hear Dahlström’s shuffling slippers; this person is wearing real shoes. She’s curious, so she stands there listening. The stranger doesn’t ring the doorbell but the door opens and the person goes inside, and she doesn’t hear any voices.”
    Now Knutas’s interest was aroused. His pipe froze in midair.
    “Then what happened?”
    “Then everything was quiet. Not a sound.”
    “Did she have the impression that someone had opened Dahlström’s door from the inside? Or did the person outside open it?”
    “She thinks that the person outside opened it.”
    “Why didn’t she tell us about this earlier?”
    “She was interviewed on the evening when Dahlström’s body was found. She says that she felt stressed and upset, so she mentioned only that she had heard him go down to the basement. Afterward I got to wondering how she could be so sure about it. That’s why I went back to talk to her again.”
    “Good job,” Knutas said. “It might have been the killer that she heard, but it could just as well have been Dahlström coming in from somewhere. This was several hours later, wasn’t it?”
    “Definitely, but it seems quite unlikely that he would have gone out, don’t you think?”
    “Maybe. Did the woman notice anything else after the person went inside?”
    “No, she went back to bed and fell asleep.”
    “Okay. The question is whether the person had a key—assuming that it wasn’t Dahlström, that is.”
    “There’s no sign that the lock was forced.”
    “Maybe it was someone he knew.”
    “That seems most plausible.”
    When the investigative team met again that afternoon, Jacobsson and Wittberg started off by reporting on their encounter with Doris Johnsson and what she had told them about the winnings at the racetrack.
    “Now at least we have a motive,” said Jacobsson, concluding her report.
    “That explains why the apartment was ransacked,” said Knutas. “The murderer apparently knew that Dahlström had won big at the track.”
    “The money still hasn’t turned up,” added Sohlman, “so presumably the perpetrator found it.”
    “Bengt Johnsson comes immediately to mind,” said Jacobsson. “I think we need to put out an APB on him.”
    “Considering that this involves a homicide, I have to agree.” Knutas turned to Norrby. “We’ve obtained some new information from a witness.”
    His colleague told everyone about Anna Larsson and her sick cat in the apartment above.
    “Damn,” said Wittberg. “That indicates that the perp had a key. Which reinforces our suspicions about Johnsson.”
    “Why is that?” Jacobsson objected. “The perp could just as easily have killed Dahlström, then stolen his keys and gone up to his apartment.”
    “Or he might have just picked the lock,” Sohlman interjected. “Dahlström had a regular cylinder lock on his door. A skilled burglar could have gotten it open without leaving any sign of forced entry. We didn’t find any damage on first examination, but we’ll take another look at the lock.”
    “I agree with Wittberg,”