Unspoken

might have been one of many children being exploited. We might have a pedophile ring right around the corner, and we don’t have the faintest idea about it.”
    “The Internet. We have to check the Internet. I have a friend who’s working on a big pedophile investigation in Huddinge. I’ll ask her whether there might be anyone in that ring who has connections to Gotland.”
    “Good idea,” said Knutas approvingly. “This could be about almost anything at all.”
    He was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. The others listened in silence to his murmuring. When he was finished, he looked at his colleagues alertly.
    “That was Nilsson at SCL. The samples taken from Fanny Jansson’s bedroom have been examined. No match was found in the police records, but the blood and hairs that were taken from her bed have been compared with the evidence from Dahlström’s place. There’s no doubt whatsoever—they match.”
    Late that evening Knutas went back home and found his entire family gathered in front of the TV. They answered his greeting by saying, “Shh—this is so exciting!”
    He sighed and went out to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a plate of leftovers, which he heated up in the microwave. The only one who wanted to keep him company was the cat, who rubbed against his leg and then hopped onto his lap and curled up. The cat seemed completely unaware of the problem she caused him. It wasn’t easy to lean forward to eat with a cat curled up on his lap.
    The idea that a murderer and sexual predator was on the loose on Gotland gave him goose bumps. At first the perpetrator had given in to Dahlström’s demands and made two payments, but after that it clearly got to be too much. But actually deciding to murder the man who was blackmailing him was a big step. Maybe the killer thought he could get away with it if he made it look like a drunken brawl. And then there was the money from the racetrack. Most likely he knew about it and made use of the fact. He probably stole the money to mislead the police. The fact that Dahlström’s apartment had been searched must mean that he was looking for the photos. The same with the darkroom. But his search had been in vain. The package was hidden inside a vent, and no one had bothered to look there, neither the killer nor the police.
    After the murder the perpetrator left the scene. He tossed the murder weapon and the camera into a grove of trees some distance away. He presumably had a car parked farther away, near the next apartment complex.
    Knutas poked at his food: meatballs with reheated pasta. He poured on some more ketchup and aimlessly stirred it into his food. He took a gulp of milk. Not a sound from the living room. The movie must be very exciting.
    And then Fanny was killed. Although maybe that’s where they really ought to start, since it was where the whole thing began. The story of the fourteen-year-old girl. How had the man met her in the first place? He must somehow be part of her world.
    Knutas put that question aside for the time being and continued his train of thought. The man was using her sexually; there was no doubt about that. It was anyone’s guess how long it had been going on. No one seemed to know that she was seeing anybody. He doubted that this was a love relationship in the usual sense. The man might have threatened her, or else she was dependent on him in some way. But what had prompted him to kill her? He had already gotten rid of Dahlström, so he wasn’t being blackmailed anymore.
    He was taking a big risk by committing another murder. It might not have been planned, of course. Maybe it happened as a result of some sex game. Fanny appeared to be tied up in the photos. Maybe the killer had strangled her by mistake and then dumped her body in the woods.
    There was another alternative. Maybe Fanny had become so difficult that he found it necessary to kill her. Maybe she was threatening to expose him, or simply wanted to end the relationship.
    The strange thing was that no one had noticed anything—not a single person.
    His heart lurched when he thought about the body in the woods. The faces of various people flashed through his mind. Fanny’s mother. How was she responsible for what had happened? Why hadn’t she paid more attention to her daughter? Fanny had been all alone with this problem. She had felt so bad that she had even tried to harm herself. She was only fourteen and still a child. Yet no grown-up had cared