Unspoken

said Norrby. “I think it was Bengt Johnsson. He was Dahlström’s closest friend and it’s likely that he had a spare key. Unless it was Dahlström himself who had decided to go out again in the middle of the night. Wearing real shoes this time.”
    “Sure, that’s possible. But if it was Bengan, why would he then contact the super?” said Jacobsson, sounding skeptical.
    “To divert suspicion from himself, of course,” snapped Norrby.
    “If the neighbor woman’s testimony is accurate, then Dahlström was alive twenty-four hours after he went to the racetrack and had a party in his apartment,” said Knutas. “That means he wasn’t killed in connection with the party. The murder most likely took place late on Monday night or in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We’ll soon have a more precise determination of the time from the medical examiner.”
    “By the way, we received another interesting piece of information from a witness,” Norrby went on. “I was out there today, talking with all the neighbors for a second time. One of them who wasn’t home gave me a call later on.”
    “Yes?”
    Knutas leaned his head on his hands, preparing for another lengthy report.
    “It’s a girl who goes to Säve High School. She also heard someone in the stairwell late Monday night. She said it was Arne Haukas, the man who lives across from her on the floor below, meaning the same floor where Dahlström lived. Haukas is a PE teacher, and he usually goes out jogging in the evening. Normally he goes out around eight, but on Monday she heard him leave his apartment around eleven p.m. She also saw him from her window.”
    “Is that so? How can she be so sure of the time and day?”
    “Her older sister from Alva was visiting. They were up late, talking, and they both saw him. This girl has been keeping an eye on him ever since she discovered that he’s a bit of a Peeping Tom. He always looks in her window whenever he runs past. She thinks he goes jogging in the evening as a pretext for peering in people’s windows.”
    “Does she have any proof for her allegations?”
    “No. She actually sounded a little doubtful herself. She said that she wasn’t sure about it, that it was just a feeling she had.”
    “Is this Haukas married?”
    “No, he lives alone. And there could be some basis for the girl’s uneasiness. I’ve only managed to make one phone call about the man so far, and that was to Solberga School, where he works. The principal, whom I happen to know personally, told me that several years ago Arne Haukas was accused of spying on the girls when they changed their clothes. The students claimed that he would barge into the locker room to tell them about something trivial. Four of them thought it was so unpleasant that they filed a complaint with the principal.”
    “What happened?”
    “The principal had a talk with Haukas, who denied the allegations, and that was the end of the matter. It apparently never happened again. No other students have complained.”
    “There seem to be a lot of sleazy individuals living in that building,” Wittberg interjected. “Alcoholics, sick cats, Peeping Toms . . . It makes you wonder what kind of madhouse that place is.”
    His comments prompted some merriment around the table. Knutas raised his hand in admonishment.
    “In any event, we’re not looking for a sex offender; we’re looking for a murderer. But this PE teacher might have seen something since he was out running on the night of the murder. Has he been interviewed?”
    “No, apparently not,” replied Norrby.
    “Then we need to do that today.”
    He turned to Jacobsson. “Anything new on Dahlström?”
    “We know that he was employed as a photographer at Gotlands Tidningar . He worked there until 1980, when he resigned and started his own company, called Master Pictures. The business did well for the first few years, but in 1987 it went into bankruptcy, with major debts. After that, there’s no information that Dahlström had any sort of job. He lived on welfare until he started receiving a disability pension in 1990.”
    “Where are his wife and daughter now?” asked Knutas.
    “His ex-wife still lives in their old apartment on Signalgatan. His daughter lives in Malmö. Single, with no children. Or at least she’s the only person listed at that address. Ann-Sofie Dahlström, his ex-wife, was on the mainland, but she’ll be back home later this afternoon. She promised to come straight here