Unspoken

have seen or heard anything suspicious, especially during the last few weeks, in connection with the place where the body was found. No information will be considered too insignificant. Everything is of interest.”
    Knutas gave them the number for the police hotline and the press conference was over.
    That evening Johan presented live reports on all the news broadcasts, giving the television viewers the latest update. He and Peter had a late supper at their hotel and then went to bed.
    Again Emma didn’t answer her phone when Johan tried to call her. It had now been more than a week since they had last talked to each other. Her friend Viveka had explained to him that Emma was ill and wanted to be left alone. He would just have to wait until she decided to call.
    The ME was expected on Gotland the following day, but that evening Sohlman was able to present to the investigative team a preliminary report along with some visual images.
    “It’s difficult to say how long she has been lying there, but her body is quite well preserved, as you can see, as a result of the cold weather. The perpetrator also covered the body with moss, so no animal got to her. Fanny was fully dressed when she was found, but her sweater was torn at the neck. Her clothing will be examined more closely when the ME arrives, but we’re leaving her body where it is until he gets here tomorrow. I can make an educated guess and say that she died from lack of oxygen. Do you see the red specks in the whites of her eyes and the bruises on her neck? Without going out on a limb, we can assume that she was strangled.
    “She apparently offered some resistance, since her sweater was torn. I’m hoping that the perpetrator has left some evidence on her clothing—skin particles or saliva, for instance. The body was protected by the woods and the moss. It was also lying in a hollow, so we hope we can find some traces from the killer. We’ve taken scrapings from under her fingernails. There are skin particles that most likely came from him. Everything is being sent to SCL, as usual.
    “When it comes to the location of the body, we can conclude that she was probably killed elsewhere and was then dumped in the woods. There are no traces of blood or anything else that might indicate the murder was committed at the site. We haven’t yet been able to examine the body, but we did discover one thing. She has cuts on her wrists.”
    Sohlman clicked through the photographs until he found the pictures of Fanny Jansson’s hands. Cuts were clearly visible on both of her wrists.
    “Someone has cut her here. She probably did it herself.”
    “So she did try to kill herself, after all,” exclaimed Norrby.
    “Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Sohlman objected. “I think it’s more likely that she was one of those girls who cut themselves. It’s not all that uncommon among teenage girls who are depressed. She had cut herself in other places as well, for instance behind her ears. The cuts are superficial, so there’s no question of a real suicide attempt. It’s possible that there are more cuts hidden under her clothing.”
    “Why would she do that?” asked Wittberg.
    “Girls who cut themselves do it because they don’t know how to handle their fears,” Jacobsson explained. “When they cut themselves, all their anxiety collects in that one spot. It’s also possible that they experience the pain and the blood as liberating. It’s something concrete and controllable. The moment they cut themselves, all their other anxieties disappear; their fear becomes concentrated in the part of their body that is being subjected to pain.”
    “But why would she cut herself in such odd places?”
    “Probably so that it wouldn’t be visible.”
    Knutas switched on the lights and looked at his colleagues with a serious expression on his face.
    “We now have two murders to investigate. The question is whether there is any connection between them. What does a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl have in common with an alcoholic man in his sixties?”
    “As I see it, there are two obvious connections,” said Kihlgård. “First, alcoholism. Fanny’s mother drinks, and Dahlström was an alcoholic. Second is the racetrack. Dahlström bet on the horses, and Fanny worked at a stable at the trotting track.”
    “Those are two reasonable connections,” said Knutas. “Is there anything else that might not be as obvious? Anyone?”
    No one replied.
    “All right,” he said.