The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [28]
“Ola,” he said in a different and more familiar tone of voice. “Please run through an account of the events to date.”
Haver started by giving them greetings from Ann Lindell, which he immediately realized was a mistake. He tried to repair this error by quickly establishing the perimeters of the murder case. He hastily sketched out the contours of the case, which he said he hoped his colleagues would flesh out with the results of the forensic investigation, the distilled results of any questioning that had taken place. Other issues they needed to address were: Had the initial investigation of the crime site yielded anything? Had there been any results from going door to door? What were the results of the autopsy? Had the initial investigation of the crime site yielded anything?
Haver proceeded through the points on his list in a systematic fashion. No one interrupted him, and when he finished there was an unusual silence in the room.
Did I forget something? Haver wondered and quickly consulted his notepad.
“Excellent,” Ottosson said and smiled.
“Over to you, Ryde.”
The forensic specialist spoke in his usual morning drawl. The snow dump in Libro had yielded a number of interesting objects, although of course many of these had nothing to do with the murder: empty cigarette packs, toys, car tires, orange traffic cones, the sidewalk advertisement from a local café, two plastic balls, a dead kitten, three ice scrapers, and so on. The most remarkable object recovered so far was a stuffed bird, a herring gull, according to Hugosson, a technician who was also an avid bird-watcher.
Two of the objects seemed significant: a length of green nylon rope, about eight millimeters in diameter, and a bloodstained work glove. Results of the blood analysis were not in yet. It could turn out to belong to John, but it could also have come from any one of the many trucks that frequented the dump. Ryde speculated that a driver could have injured himself, stained the glove with blood, and then tossed it or dropped it accidentally. It was a lined winter glove of the label Windsor Elite.
However, the length of rope, barely fifty centimeters, could be directly connected with John. The pattern of the rope fit the marks left on his wrists, and furthermore—and this clinched it—some of John’s hairs had become entangled in the rope’s fibers. The rope, which could have been bought at any gas station or corner store, had been recovered three meters from the body.
They had found a number of tire tracks. Most of these belonged to heavy vehicles with wide tires. Trucks, according to Ryde’s personal opinion. Also tracks from another piece of machinery, probably the Cat that the county had brought in to clear the snow.
But one set of tracks was of greater interest. These belonged to a car and had been found close to John’s body. The prints had been somewhat unclear since the ceaseless snow had partially covered them, but because of the relatively sudden swing from mild to cold weather during the night of the murder, one part of the tracks had frozen and the technicians had been able to reconstruct the pattern and the width.
Ryde spread out a series of photocopies on the table.
“Two hundred twenty millimeters wide, a radial tire, with studs, probably from a van or jeep. This is no rusty Ascona,” he added drily.
“Could the car belong to a county official?” Fredriksson asked, touching one of the black photocopies as if he could feel the pattern with his fingers.
“Sure,” Ryde said. “I’m only giving you what we have. You draw the conclusions.”
“Excellent,” Ottosson repeated.
The meeting continued with Riis giving the results of his investigation into the Jonsson family finances. Much of this was preliminary, as all of the data was not yet in, but for Riis the picture was clear: A low-income family who could not afford much in the way of excesses.
John’s unemployment had hit them hard. There had been more purchases made with monthly payment arrangements and there had been three incidents