“IT DOESN’T GET ANY better than this.” Ragnar Palm threw one arm out toward the prison’s common area, which had been placed at their disposal.
Tuvesson’s eyes scanned the room. “It still feels pretty jail-like.”
“Maybe because that’s exactly what it is.”
She sighed. “How many bathrooms do they have access to?”
“Two. And what’s the gender breakdown?”
“Five and five.”
The ten cots were lined up across from each other along two walls, with a few metres between them. There were chairs between the cots, which were meant to act as nightstands. Tuvesson sat down on one of the cots and asked herself whether she would have agreed to sleep here, even if it was only for one weekend; although truthfully, they had no idea how long they would end up staying.
Palm sat down on the cot across from hers. “Do you think it’ll work?”
“It has to work. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“I hope you realize that if this gets out — ”
“Ragnar, it can’t get out under any circumstances, not before the killer has been caught. How many of your people know about it?”
“Only those who need to know: my boss and some of the staff, who are definitely not a problem. They have to abide by confidentiality. But the prisoners don’t.”
Tuvesson’s phone started ringing. It was Klippan.
“I’ve called everyone and I’m going to start picking them up now.”
“Did everyone agree to it?”
“Yes, but they all have a bunch of questions I can’t answer. How are things at your end?”
“I’m at the jail and... well, let’s hope that they don’t have to stay very long.”
“Did you get hold of everyone?”
“Everyone but Seth Kårheden. He was supposed to land at Kastrup two and a half hours ago, so he should be home anytime now.”
“He still hasn’t turned on his cell?”
“No, it doesn’t seem like it.”
“Where does he live?”
“Domsten. I’ll start picking up the others, and I’ll keep calling. If he doesn’t answer I guess I’ll just go over there.” Tuvesson hung up, got up from the cot, and headed for the exit.
*
FABIAN RISK HAD BEEN absolutely certain that he was about to die just like his classmates, but he’d just come to, albeit with a bad headache, so it looked like it wasn’t his turn to go — yet. Waking up felt like a punishment even worse than death: a waking nightmare, where he was alive and Theodor was dead.
He could hear a faint, barely audible buzzing, and felt his head vibrate slightly. Then the vacuum-like silence returned. He tried to move, but he realized that he was bound to an old dentist’s chair. His feet, legs, and arms were held down with straps, and his head... he couldn’t see how it was fastened, but when he tried to move it, the pain at his temples increased. Whatever the contraption was, it stuck out on both sides of his face, like two blinders that prevented him from looking in any direction other than straight ahead. All he could see was a dark screen hanging on the wall in front of him that curved round to the right.
The faint buzzing returned and he felt his head vibrate again. At the same time, the screen in front of him lit up with a black-and-white portrait of a young Torgny Sölmedal. The picture must have been taken sometime during his middle-grade years; they had been done by a photographer in a real studio, with professional lighting. Sölmedal was sitting on a tall stool with his hair neatly parted down the middle and was wearing what looked to be his nicest shirt; he looked straight into the camera with a warm smile.
How could he never have noticed him? Fabian didn’t understand. How come no one in the class had noticed him, not even their teacher, Monika Krusenstierna? And now he had been forced to take her place in the windowless little room with its curved, dark-curtained walls, where the only light came from the screen. He heard the faint buzzing once again. This time, minor as it was, he noticed that his field of vision had shifted slightly to the right.
Fabian had figured out what was happening. Torgny Sölmedal was right: he was guilty of the very same thing as Monika.
But the victim was his own son.
*
IRENE LILJA SAT BEHIND Molander and watched as he scanned the fingerprints and checked them against the database. Her exhaustion seemed to have vanished; the same went for Molander’s bad mood. Clearly both of them had the feeling they were close to a breakthrough, but it might take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours before they knew the answer.
“Is there anything we can do to speed up the search?” Lilja asked.
“Yes — limit it to look for men born between 1965 and 1967.”
“And how long will that take?”
“You tell me,” Molander replied. He dropped a pillow to the floor, stretched out on it, and closed his eyes.
Lilja knew that Molander was doing the right thing, but she would never be able to fall asleep now, not when they were so close. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the screen, where the database of stored fingerprints was flickering away as if it would never stop. But she could feel it. She could feel it in her bones.
Any second now, the flickering would stop.