ELLEN

8.30 A.M.

Ellen was sitting at the Veranda at the Grand Hotel, peeling the shell off a boiled egg. She skimmed through the morning papers, ordered another pot of coffee, and looked out over Stockholm.

Would she dare go home now? Was Didrik still there?

He hadn’t tried to reach her, which was strange — the silence also felt threatening somehow. But that was soon broken by the sound of her phone ringing. It was from a number she didn’t recognise, and she answered.

‘Yes, hi, this is Monika Johnsson from Stentuna.’

‘Hello …’ Ellen wondered whether she was supposed to know who this was, but the name didn’t ring any bells.

‘Yes, we met by the barricade. I was the woman with the dachshund — I don’t know if you remember me?’

She remembered the dog, the one that peed on the condolence flowers at the crime scene. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, digging a pen out of her handbag on the chair beside her.

‘Well, I don’t know if this will be interesting to you, but I saw a police car drive past here the night Liv Lind was murdered.’ Her voice sounded cautious, as if she was telling a secret.

‘Did it have its sirens on?’ Then it wouldn’t have been so strange, considering there’d been a murder in the vicinity, Ellen thought, starting to sketch a timeline.

‘Yes, but it wasn’t a patrol car. It was an ordinary car with sirens.’

‘An unmarked car.’ It must have been the same car that the man at the petrol station had seen that night. ‘What time was it, do you remember?’

‘No, but it was late. I was babysitting for the neighbours and it had gone later than I’d expected.’

‘The neighbours — you mean Hanna and Patrik, or sorry, Stoffe?’

‘Yes, exactly. There was a teachers’ meeting, and Hanna needed help with the kids. Actually, they’re big enough nowadays, but I don’t know, she didn’t seem to want to leave them alone, and I try to help out sometimes — considering that Stoffe travels so much for work. It seemed that the meeting had dragged on, and when Hanna came home, she was extremely intoxicated. Not that it’s any of my business.’

A real little gossip, thought Ellen, even though she rated window-peepers highly. She made notes on the newspaper. ‘Are you sure this was last Sunday?’

‘Yes. I was watching TV, and I went out into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and then I saw the police car driving past at high speed.’

‘Did you get worried?’

‘Yes, it’s not that often you see police cars here, so I wondered what it was doing. That being said, there have been more police cars in the area than usual recently, because of those kids, so I think I mostly reacted to the fact that it was going really fast.’

Ellen had only written Hanna and police on the newspaper so far. She underlined both words twice. ‘Was there anything else that struck you?’

‘No, or I don’t know if this has any significance, but when I went to let Knut out into the yard and opened the door, he didn’t want to go out. He’s never like that. It was a creepy feeling. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I think so,’ she said, but thought to herself that it was easy to say that kind of thing after the fact. It was only when you already knew that something awful had happened that you remembered those creepy feelings.

‘Well, as I said, I just thought it was strange.’

‘Why was it strange?’ Ellen didn’t really understand, and she’d now heard this car mentioned a few times too many to be able to ignore it.

‘I don’t know, but I woke up again when Ahlvarsson was out salting. And considering that he was the person who found the body, maybe that police car ought to have seen something, I don’t know. Do you see what I mean?’

Ellen chose not to comment or analyse until she knew more. ‘Have you spoken with the police about this unmarked car?’ This is getting ridiculous, she thought, as she underlined the word police yet again.

‘Yes. Some policemen came here that morning, after they’d found the woman, and asked if we’d seen anything, and I told them then about the car. I asked them to be in touch and let me know who had been driving — I don’t like the way they drive so fast outside here. We moved from the city to get some peace and quiet, and then the police drive around like lunatics.’

‘Have they called you?’

‘No, I suppose they have other things to deal with, or perhaps they’re embarrassed because they actually had a policeman in the vicinity when something so dreadful happened.’

‘Who did you speak to at the police station?’

‘The man who’s responsible for the investigation. I asked about that specifically.’

‘Börje Swahn?’ It must have fallen between the cracks, thought Ellen. Or else they were evading.

‘Yes, that’s his name. I talked to my husband, and he thought I should call you when we didn’t get any response from the police.’

‘I’m glad you called. How long have you lived in Stentuna?’

‘We moved here five years ago. We lived in Norrköping before that, but after we retired, we wanted to be in the country.’

Ellen couldn’t let go of that thing about Hanna. ‘Do you know Hanna and Stoffe?’

‘Yes, or it depends what you mean, we’re polite to each other. But I try to avoid them — I don’t think the children are nice to Knut. And now we’ve discovered that Stoffe hasn’t just been away working. We never would have believed it. I just wanted to give you this information, but I would prefer to be anonymous. Thanks.’

She hung up. Just like that. Ellen looked at the phone and saw that she had a new voice message. She had to hold it against her other ear to shut out the murmur from the other breakfast guests and strained to hear.

The girl from the McDonald’s in Nyköping had left the message. She said that she’d seen a police officer in an interview on Aftonbladet talking about the murder in Stentuna, and she’d remembered that she had seen the same police officer at the restaurant on that day.

Ellen tried to call her back, but got no answer.

Police, police, police, she thought. That had been the second person who had told her that a police car was driving around Stentuna the night that Liv Lind was murdered. And now there’d been a police officer at the McDonald’s too. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. And Hanna had come home drunk. Where had she been? At a teachers’ meeting? She had to talk to Carola about the ring on Hanna’s finger again.

Without thinking about it, she called Börje Swahn at the Nyköping police department to check with him concerning the car, but of course he didn’t answer. Instead, she entered Carola’s number, who answered on almost the first ring.

Before Ellen even had time to speak, she started talking. ‘How nice that you called, I need to talk to you. Where are you?’ It sounded like she was in her car.

Ellen reluctantly told her where she was. ‘Has something happened?’

‘I don’t want to discuss this on the phone. I’m just nearby.’