The black inflatable is rounding the island. She can clearly hear the roar of its motor. Bjorn grimaces in pain, but after several attempts, he finally manages to wrap his elbow around the boat hook, and Penelope hauls him as quickly as she can to the swimming platform. He reaches the edge and holds on. She lets go of the boat hook and it drops into the water and drifts away.
Viola is dead! she screams, and hears the panic and despair in her own voice.
As soon as Bjorn grabs the ladder tight she runs back to the steering console and hits the gas.
He climbs over the railing and she hears him yell that she should steer straight across to the island of Orno and its spit.
She can hear the rubber boat draw closer. She turns in a tight curve and the boat thuds heavily underneath the hull.
Penelope cant speak, she can only whimper. That man killed Viola!
Watch out for the rocks! Bjorn warns through chattering teeth.
The inflatable has rounded Stora Kastskar and is now picking up speed on the smooth open water.
Blood runs down Bjorns face.
They are swiftly reaching the large island. Bjorn turns to see that the rubber boat is now only three hundred meters behind.
Head for the dock!
She hits reverse, and shuts off the motor as the prow of the boat slams the dock with a crunching sound. The waves of their wake race toward the rocky shore and roll back, making the boat tip to the side. Its ladder breaks to pieces. Water sloshes over the railing. Penelope and Bjorn jump off and race across the dock toward land as the rubber boat roars closer. Behind them they can hear the hull knock against the dock in the swells. Penelope slips and steadies herself with her hand, then clambers up the steep rocks that edge the forest. The motor of the rubber boat falls silent and Penelope knows their head start is insignificant. She rushes into the trees with Bjorn. They head deeper into the woods as her thoughts whirl in panic and her eyes dart back and forth for a place where they can hide.
4
Paragraph 21 of the police law states that a police officer may enter any building, house, room, or other place if there is reason to believe that a person has died, is unconscious, or is otherwise unable to call for help.
Paragraph 21 of the police law states that a police officer may enter any building, house, room, or other place if there is reason to believe that a person has died, is unconscious, or is otherwise unable to call for help.
The reason Criminal Assistant John Bengtsson has received the assignment to examine the top-floor apartment in the building at Grevgatan 2 on this Saturday in June is that Carl Palmcrona, the general director of the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products, has not appeared at work and has missed an important meeting with the foreign minister.
This is certainly not the first time that John Bengtsson has had to enter buildings to search for deceased or injured persons. He remembers silent, fearful parents waiting in the stairway while he enters rooms to find young men barely alive after heroin overdoses, or worse, murder scenes: women in their living rooms, battered to death by spouses as the TV drowns out the sound.
Bengtsson carries his breaking-and-entering tools and his picklock through the entry door and takes the elevator to the top floor. He rings the bell and waits. He examines the lock on the outer door. After a while, he hears shuffling. It sounds as if it is coming from the stairwell one floor below. It sounds as if someone is sneaking away.
Bengtsson listens for a moment, then tries the door handle. The door swings open silently.
Anyone home? he calls out.
Nothing. He drags his bag over the threshold, wipes his feet on the doormat, closes the door behind him, and steps into a large hallway.
Gentle music can be heard from one of the rooms so he continues in that direction, knocks at the door, and enters. Its a large drawing room, sparsely furnished-three Carl Malmsten sofas, a low glass coffee table, and a tiny painting of a ship in a storm on the wall. An ice-blue sheen comes from a music system with a modern flat, transparent design. Meandering, melancholy music comes from the speakers.
Across the room is a set of double doors. Bengtsson swings them open to reveal a salon with tall Art Nouveau windows. The late-spring light is broken by the multiple small panes at the top.
A well-dressed man swings in the middle of the white room.
John Bengtsson stands quietly in the doorway and stares at the dead man for an eternity before he notices the laundry line fastened to the ceiling-lamp hook.
The body seems poised at the moment of a jump into the air. His ankles are stretched and his toes point to the ground. Hes hanged-but theres something that does not fit. Something is not as it should be.
Bengtsson cannot step through the double doors; he must keep the crime scene intact. His heart pounds and he feels the heavy rhythm of his pulse. He finds he cannot look away from the swaying man in the empty room.
The whisper of a name begins to echo in Bengtssons brain: Joona. I have to talk to Joona Linna immediately.