The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [130]
He opened this morning’s document, created at 8:51, which consisted of three words: “Mallis,” “Sorrow,” and “Threat.”
He understood “Mallis” or Mallorca immediately. That was where Petrus Blomgren had gone on vacation over twenty years ago. “Sorrow” and “Threat” were not as easy. Who felt the sorrow? Petrus seemed the most likely candidate. He had written a farewell letter. Did he also feel threatened? Sammy was struck by the fact that they had found the telephone number of a man who installed alarm systems. He had denied all knowledge about the farmer and that might have been true. Blomgren might have looked up the number in the phone book with the intention of calling but changed his mind.
Had Andersson and Palmblad felt threatened? Nothing they had turned up indicated this.
“Okay,” Sammy muttered. This Petrus guy felt threatened, wanted to install a burglar alarm but instead decided to commit suicide because of his grief.
Who threatened him? The murderer, of course. The woman in the snapshot? He sighed. Ann had gone a step further. Her sleuthing had led her into a minefield and now she had disappeared. Had she been killed? Sammy pushed the chair back from the desk. He didn’t even want to think the thought.
He studied Ann’s desk. As usual it was covered in loose papers, transcripts of witness questioning, and files. It was a miracle that she ever found anything. Sammy maintained a very different level of order, he sorted and filed, threw out or archived material that was no longer relevant. Among the piles on the desk Sammy caught sight of files that pertained to cases they had worked on over six months ago.
He rolled closer to the desk again and started to look through the papers. A manila folder was lying on top. It concerned a man who had gone missing in September. Åsa Lantz-Andersson had written the report. Ulrik Hindersten, seventy, had disappeared without a trace from his home in Kåbo. Åsa had added a few notes. The man’s daughter had called several times during the past month.
Sammy’s cell phone rang. Before he answered he silently prayed for it to be Ann or at least a message that she had turned up, but it was Ottos-son who reported that Ann had not been seen either in Alsike or in Palmblad’s stables in Skuttunge.
Nor had any of their relatives heard from her.
“Are you finding anything?”
“No, Ann wasn’t exactly the best in the world at keeping notes, she . . .”
He had said, “wasn’t.” To judge from Ottosson’s silence he had also caught the use of the past tense.
“She’s alive,” Sammy said. “Isn’t she, Otto?”
His commander was not able to respond immediately.
“Of course she is,” he said finally.
They ended the call. Sammy got up and walked back and forth anxiously although his gaze kept being pulled back to the picture of Erik. It was an enlargement of a day care photo that Ann had pinned to the wall. The boy was looking right into the camera and laughing. He had some of Ann’s features but the dark, curly hair had to be from the unknown father. Sammy had the feeling that Erik was looking at him and following his snooping.
He continued his search of the desk. Under several files there was a newspaper that had run a photo of Ann. Someone, probably Ann herself, had doodled horns and a goatee on her face and written in a speech bubble: “Kiss my ass.”
Sammy smiled. Why not, he thought, and put the newspaper aside. If Ann really was gone for good he wanted to keep that picture.
Forty-three
The driveway was full of leaves. It had been clean that morning. Stig Franklin’s first thought was to get a broom and sweep them out onto the street but he changed his mind. Why should I care, he thought and walked into the house.
Jessica was half lying on the bed. She had piled a bunch of pillows at the head of the bed. A few reports that he recognized from the Haus-mann deal were spread out over the floor.
“Have you been working?”
“Yes,” Jessica said slowly, “I went home