Unspoken

if she had been tied to something. The man was bending over her, almost covering the girl’s body with his, but one of her legs was visible. She had dark skin.
    Sohlman and Knutas looked at each other.
    “It must be Fanny Jansson,” Knutas said at last. “But who’s the man?”
    “God only knows.”
    Sohlman ran a hand over his forehead. He took out a magnifying glass and began scrutinizing the photos.
    “Look at this. There’s a painting hanging on the wall behind them. You can see a bit of red and a . . . What’s that? Maybe a dog?”
    He handed the magnifying glass to Knutas. One corner of the painting was visible.
    “It looks like a dog lying on something red. It could be a cushion or a sofa.”
    Sohlman eagerly looked through the other pictures, but none of them revealed anything more.
    Both men sank down on their chairs. Knutas dug his pipe out of his pocket.
    “Well, we now have the connection,” muttered Knutas. “Dahlström took pictures of someone who had a sexual relationship with Fanny Jansson. He must have photographed them on the sly and then blackmailed the man for money. That’s where the twenty-five thousand came from. That would explain everything: the man at the harbor, the money, Fanny . . .”
    “That means that the man we’re looking at in these pictures is the perpetrator,” said Sohlman, tapping his gloved index finger on the man’s pale back.
    “Presumably. It’s easy to figure out why he killed Dahlström. But why Fanny? If it is her, that is. We can’t be completely positive.”
    Knutas picked up one of the photographs and held it out.
    “Who the hell is he?”
    Knutas summoned the investigative team to a meeting to discuss the surprising discovery. The mood was one of nervous elation—rumors about the contents of the package had quickly spread through the corridors. Sohlman had scanned the photos so that he could project them on the screen at the front of the room. Wittberg was the first to speak.
    “Are we positive that the girl in the photos is Fanny Jansson?”
    “Her mother was just here, and she identified her. You can see the girl’s watch on her left wrist. Fanny got that watch as a birthday present last year.”
    “How did the mother react?” asked Jacobsson.
    “She fell apart,” said Knutas with a sigh. “And who wouldn’t, seeing their child in that sort of situation?”
    “What kind of damn pervert is this guy?” growled Norrby.
    “The only thing we’ve been able to determine so far is that we’re dealing with a grown man—definitely not a boy her own age.”
    “It looks like she’s tied up,” Kihlgård interjected. “Her arms are stretched above her head. She’s tied to something.”
    “Look at this,” said Sohlman, putting up the most detailed of the photos. “There seems to be a painting in the background. The only thing we can really make out is the image of a dog lying on a red sofa or something similar. Yellow-patterned wallpaper with a faint border is visible in the background, as well as a glimpse of the back of a chair. It looks like an antique chair with a high back and carved decorations. The photographer took all the pictures from the same angle. The fact that they’re so blurry could be because they were taken from outside, through a window. The question is: Where were the photos taken? It has to be somewhere in town or nearby, at some easily accessible place. Otherwise how would Dahlström have discovered Fanny and the unidentified man?”
    “Maybe it’s a storeroom,” suggested Norrby. “Or a meeting room. Or it could be in the home of somebody that Dahlström knew.”
    “The room looks brightly lit. Can you see how the daylight is coming through the window? I have the impression that it’s a big room,” Jacobsson said.
    “I really wonder how the man met Fanny,” said Wittberg. “Could he be a friend of her mother?”
    “How disgusting, if that’s the case. That would be horrible.” Jacobsson grimaced.
    “I think the pictures look pornographic,” said Kihlgård, holding one up. “It might very well be a sex ring. Maybe there was a whole gang of guys who were exploiting Fanny, and this is just one of them. Maybe she got drawn into prostitution and was forced to sell her body to the neighborhood men.”
    “Up until now we’ve been lucky to be spared that type of activity here on Gotland. At least as far as we know,” said Knutas with a sigh.
    “Or pedophiles,” murmured Jacobsson. “Fanny