John heard the footsteps coming down the stairs as he waited in the kitchen. Alicia Bjelke was coming down and this time he was going to look her in the eye. The scars on her face had taken him by surprise, and he was ashamed of his reaction.
When she sat down at the table, the robe had been replaced with a pair of black jeans and a gray t‑shirt with a ruffled border around the neckline. Her eyes were still red. John had heard her crying as he stood on the stairs.
“As I’m sure you can understand, I’ve got some questions I need to ask you, Alicia. But if you’d prefer me to come back later then I can,” he said, not really meaning it.
He needed to progress this investigation and ideally put it behind him. The hunters were waiting outside the house in a white Toyota. At least that was what he thought. The car had followed him from the police station all the way here.
“You mentioned slashes to the throat,” she said. “What does that actually mean? Did someone stab her to death with a knife?”
Her voice was surprisingly calm and controlled. As if it belonged to a woman other than the one who had been bawling upstairs moments ago.
“The medical examiner hasn’t concluded their report. But yes, it’s possible, although it may not have been a knife.”
“No?”
“No,” said John, falling silent.
“So what do you think it was?”
“My guess is something blunter. The edges of the wounds weren’t clean,” he said, regretting it right away.
He had already said more than he should.
“Like what?” she said, continuing to apply pressure.
“A screwdriver or maybe a glass bottle.”
John saw her glance out of the window at the trees hibernating under a blanket of snow outside.
“Where was she found?”
“In a room at the Löfbergs tower,” he said. “It’s a construction site, really. They’re renovating it.”
Alicia turned back to him again. The scars made it difficult to read her expression, but he thought she looked surprised.
“What was she doing there?”
“Well, you might know better than I do. Did she know anyone who worked at the roastery?”
“No, I don’t think so. But Stella knew lots of people, I can’t keep track of them all.”
“Do you know what she was doing last night?” said John.
“She was going to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, and it seemed like she didn’t either.”
John leaned forward, looking for a suitable spot on the grubby table to rest his elbows.
“I’m not sure I’m with you there,” he said.
“She was going on a date,” Alicia explained.
“A date? With someone she didn’t know?”
“Yes, that was how I interpreted it—they hadn’t met before. Except online, I guess.”
“So, your sister did online dating?”
“She dated in all sorts of ways.”
“Did she use Raw? That’s what your service is called, right?”
“Yes, Stella was active on our service. But she was also on several other platforms.”
“I guess she was trying to keep track of your competitors,” John suggested.
“I don’t think that was the main reason. She quite simply liked meeting people—men and women.”
“You’re saying she was bisexual?”
Alicia nodded.
“But she didn’t have a regular boyfriend or girlfriend?” John asked.
“No, she didn’t have time for that.”
John remembered the footage from the CCTV camera outside Löfbergs. The woman getting out of the taxi undeniably looked like she’d dressed up for adventure. But it didn’t make sense. Who arranged a romantic encounter on a construction site?
“Was she meeting a man or a woman yesterday?” said John.
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Do you know where or when they were meeting?”
“No, only that it must have been after In Depth. The TV show. It was taped in advance but went out last night. Stella watched it at work with her colleagues.”
“Were you there too?”
“No, I had a prior engagement.”
“Do you know whether she was planning to meet anyone else that evening?” John said. “Other than her date, I mean.”
“Why do you ask?” said Alicia. “Don’t you think it was her date who killed her?”
“It’s too early to say. I’m just thinking about where she was found. If it was a date, wouldn’t she have agreed to meet up in a restaurant or bar?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
John waited for her to continue, but Alicia hesitated. It was behavior he recognized from previous murder investigations. No one wanted to speak ill of the dead. At the same time, it was precisely these kinds of sensitive details that the police needed to find the killer.
“Is there something in particular you have in mind?” he said, trying to prize it from her.
“It might sound dumb, but Stella said a few things about a date that might well happen on a construction site. Have you heard of Black Tantra?”
John shook his head.
“Nor had I until I looked it up,” Alicia said. “It’s a form of dating that takes place in pitch-black rooms. It’s apparently about meeting on a deeper level rather than allowing visual impressions to become obstacles to the other senses.”
“Does that also include . . .”
John didn’t finish his sentence.
“Sex? Yes, sometimes,” she said.
John sighed. A woman who had met a stranger in a dark room of her own volition so they could fuck. What could possibly go wrong?
“I know it’s crazy,” said Alicia. “I wish I’d known what Black Tantra was when she mentioned it. I might have been able to persuade her not to go. She of all people should be careful.”
“Why she in particular?”
“Stella has a trail of haters who compete to puke all over her on social media. Raw is a controversial company and she loves being provocative.”
“How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad, if you ask me.”
“Death threats?”
“Yes, several times a week. But Stella doesn’t care. She just laughs at the idiots and says it’s good for business.”
During the conversation, John had unconsciously begun to compare Alicia’s face with that of her dead sister. Stella Bjelke’s injuries looked different, but the question was whether that was because they were fresh or for another reason.
“I’m sorry, but there’s one aspect of your sister’s death that I need to discuss with you.”
“What?” said Alicia.
“It seems as if the killer threw acid or something similar at her face.”
John saw the woman recoil—as if the words he had cast over the table had also been corrosive.
“Why would someone do that?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said John. “But I can’t help thinking about your own injuries. How did you get them?”
Alicia didn’t seem to take his forwardness badly.
“You think there might be a connection?”
“Yes; it’s one idea anyway.”
“What happened to me was an accident,” she said. “I was ten years old, and it has nothing to do with my sister.”
John guessed a candle had set her hair alight or an experiment had gone awry in the chemistry lab at school. He was offered no further details and he didn’t want to ask for them either. Doing so would risk the slim trust he had managed to build up with her.
“Well, we don’t know whether this is the case,” he said, changing track. “But if we assume that Stella met someone via Raw, would it be possible to see who she has been in contact with on there?”
“Of course. We can do that via the back end of the system.”
“Who can help me with that?”
Alicia looked at him and pushed back her chair.
“Follow me.”
John followed her upstairs. He was glad he hadn’t taken off his shoes. Had he done so, the dust kitties would have stuck to his socks instead of adhering to the patent leather. Alicia led him into a combined bedroom and home office. By one wall there was an unmade bed and on the opposite side there was a desk with a keyboard and two displays. On the floor the fans of multiple computers were whirring away.
“I built Raw from the ground up,” she said. “There isn’t a line of code I haven’t scrutinized and approved.”
Alicia sat down on the only chair and nodded to him that he should sit on the edge of the bed. It felt uncomfortable entering her personal domain in this way, so John opted to remain in the doorway.
As her fingers moved across the keyboard, he was able to make out the contours of the woman beyond the deformed face and the shock of bad news. Alicia was the technical genius who had laid the foundation of the Bjelkes’ success story. He had never seen anyone type as quickly as she did.
Before long, a printer on the windowsill began to rattle. The tray fed sheet after sheet of paper through it. When it fell silent, Alicia spun around on her chair so they could once again look at each other.
“Stella has been in contact with five users on the site in the last year. I’ve printed out the name and photo of each one. We’ve got a lot more data, but I’m already violating our terms and conditions by giving you this.”
John went over to the printer and retrieved the printouts. Then he spread them out on the desk. The images showed two women and three men. All were in their thirties and strikingly attractive. None of them had a face that was even the slightest bit reminiscent of the perpetrator’s.
“Are you sure these are real people?” he said. “The profiles could be made up, right?”
“Sure, on other sites. But not at Raw. Our users have to verify their ID via their bank account. Once they’ve accepted the user terms and conditions and created their account, the user can log in by other means—but not that first time.”
“Okay, but the images can be faked?”
“No, our users don’t choose their own profile photos. The algorithm searches online for pictures of them and picks the one that is most representative of their appearance.”
“I get it,” said John, although he didn’t really.
The incomprehensible aspect wasn’t the technology—he got that. It was the fact that people were prepared to hand over their privacy to a private corporation so casually.
“Can you tell whether it was any of these five that she was going to see yesterday evening?” he said, pointing to the photos on the desk. “I assume it’s possible to message other people?”
“Afraid not. Stella only used the voice feature.”
“Voice? You mean they were talking to each other?”
“Yes, and those calls aren’t saved. All we do is extract keywords to keep building up the user profiles.”
John asked her to take a long look at the photos.
“Do you recognize any of these people?”
He saw Alicia’s gaze jumping between the photographs.
“No, they’re new to me.”
John slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and took out the picture from the police station CCTV. He pushed the other printouts aside and placed the murderer’s face on the table.
“And what about this man,” he said. “Have you seen him before?”
Alicia took her time before shaking her head.
“Sorry, but I’ve no idea who he is either.”
John’s shoulders slumped; he couldn’t conceal his disappointment. He was back to square one.
He knew what the killer looked like, but not who he was.