Unspoken

recognized Dahlström and knew that this was far away from the places where he usually hung out. What do you think?”
    “If there’s one witness, there could be more,” said Wittberg. “When exactly did this happen?”
    “We don’t know. Only that it was supposedly in the middle of the summer.”
    “Why was the witness down at the harbor so early in the morning?” asked Kihlgård.
    “He was there with a girl who was going to take the morning ferry to Nynäshamn.”
    “So we’re talking about a younger man. It might be one of Dahlström’s neighbors. Wasn’t there a young guy living in the building?”
    “You’re right about that. I think he lives on the floor upstairs.”
    Knutas glanced down at his papers.
    “His name is Niklas Appelqvist. A student.”
    “If the witness, whoever he is, could at least tell us the name of the girl, then we could find out what day she left by looking at the passenger lists of Destination Gotland,” said Jacobsson. “I think they keep the lists for three months.”
    “But how are we going to proceed if the witness doesn’t want to talk to the police?” asked Norrby.
    “Maybe the reporter would have better luck getting the information out of him than we would,” said Jacobsson. “I think we should first ask Johan Berg for help. Maybe the witness is one of those types who’s extremely hostile toward the police. For some inexplicable reason, those sorts of people do exist,” she added sarcastically.
    She turned to Knutas, giving him a big smile.
    “So we’re going to have to suck up to the reporter,” she said gleefully. “And you’re so good at that kind of thing, Anders.”
    Jacobsson gave him a friendly poke in the side. Kihlgård looked equally amused.
    Knutas was annoyed, but he had to admit that she was right. Legally, he couldn’t investigate the young man, but there was nothing to prevent him from asking Johan to find out the name of the girl. So the police were at the mercy of the journalist’s goodwill. And that was a pisser.
    Just as Johan entered the editorial offices of Regional News, his cell phone rang. It was Knutas.
    “I wonder if you’d be willing to help us with something.”
    “What is it?”
    “Do you think the witness would remember the name of the girl he was with when he saw Dahlström and another man down at the harbor?”
    “I don’t know. It sounded as if she was someone he spent only that one evening with.”
    “Could you ask him?”
    “Sure. But it’ll have to wait awhile. I just arrived at the newsroom.”
    The police wanted his help. How nice. This was a switch from the normal situation when, as a journalist, he had to beg, plead, and cajole to get any information. He would keep Knutas waiting for just a bit.
    A pleasantly drowsy Friday mood had settled over the newsroom. Fridays often had a slower pace than usual because half of the evening news program was devoted to a longer story.
    Grenfors was sitting alone at the big table in the middle of the room, the so-called news desk. It was the workplace for editors, anchormen, and broadcast producers—all the key people whose job it was to put together the programs, make decisions, and assign the stories. At this time of day the anchormen and producers hadn’t yet put in an appearance. Most of the reporters were sitting at their own desks with phones pressed to their ears. In the morning they did their research and made appointments for interviews. The day often started off at a leisurely pace, which then accelerated and finally reached a crescendo of stress right before the broadcast. That’s when they had to deal with stories that weren’t finished in time, something in a report that had to be changed at the last minute because the editor wasn’t happy with it, computers that crashed, video-editing machines that broke so that certain images couldn’t be transmitted, and all sorts of other problems. Time was short, and they always worked up until the very last second. Everyone was used to that; it was their normal work tempo.
    “Hi, there,” Grenfors greeted Johan. “That was a good report yesterday. Great that we’ve got the story now. It feels like it’s going to get bigger. We’ll have to wait and see how it develops. Meanwhile . . . something else has come up.”
    The editor shuffled through the documents and newspapers that were heaped in a big, messy pile on the table.
    “The police seized a record amount of Rohypnol in Kapellskär this morning.