Mari Jungstedt - Unspoken

He fell silent. Knutas clearly sensed that this was a turning point in the interrogation. Now it was starting to get interesting.

“Well, Flash had won all this money at the track, eighty thousand big ones, in thousand-kronor bills. He showed me where he hid the money, in a box in the broom closet. Later, when the others were all in the living room, I just couldn’t resist. I thought he wouldn’t notice if I took a few thousand. I’ve been going through a real cash crunch, and Flash seemed to be really flush lately, so I thought that… well.”

He paused and gave the officers a pleading look.

“But damn it, I didn’t kill him. No, I didn’t. I could never do anything like that. But I did take some of his money.”

“How much?”

“I guess about twenty thousand,” said Johnsson quietly.

“You only had ten thousand in the cabin. What happened to the rest of it?”

“I spent it. On a lot of booze. This thing with Flash really upset me.”

“But why did you run away from the darkroom?” Knutas asked again.

“I was scared that you’d think I killed Flash because I stole his money.”

“What were you doing on the evening of November twelfth?”

“What day was that?”

“Last Monday, when you saw Henry at the bus station.”

“Like I told you, we were there until maybe eight or nine o’clock. Then I went home with Orjan. We spent the night drinking until I passed out on his sofa.”

“What time was it then?”

“Don’t know.”

“Where does he live?”

“On Styrmansgatan, number fourteen.”

“Okay. Then he should be able to back up your story.”

“Sure, although we were both pretty far gone.”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was about the results from the Fingerprint Center. They took a short break and the officers left the room. Johnsson wanted to use the toilet.

Dahlstrom’s fingerprints had been found on the bills. This finding was of little consequence if the police chose to believe Johnsson’s story. Many other prints were also found, but none that matched any in police records.

“What do we do now?” asked Jacobsson as they got coffee from the office coffee machine.

“I don’t know. Do you believe him?”

“Yes, actually, I do,” she said, looking up at Knutas. “I think he sounds very convincing.”

“I do, too. If only there was someone who could corroborate his story, we could release him right away. I think we can disregard the theft of the money for the time being.”

“His pal, this Orjan, seems to keep popping up. We need to get hold of him,” said Jacobsson.

“I’ll talk to Birger about whether we should hold Bengt Johnsson any longer or not. I think we’ll stop the interview here. Would you like some lunch?”

The choice of lunch restaurants in Visby during the wintertime was limited. Most of the pubs were open only in the evening, and so they usually ended up at the same place if they wanted a change from the meager offerings in the police department’s cafeteria. Of course the lunch was more expensive, but it was worth every ore. The Cloister was furnished in classic inn style and had a well-respected chef. The owner, Leif Almlov, was one of Knutas’s best friends. When Knutas and Jacobsson stepped through the door, they were met by a great bustle and clatter and plenty of hurrying waitresses. All the tables were taken.

Leif caught sight of them and waved.

“Hi, how are things going?”

He gave Jacobsson a hug and shook hands with Knutas as he kept an eye on everything going on around them.

“Good. It’s sure crowded in here today,” said Knutas.

“There’s a convention in town. It was like this yesterday, too. Total hysteria. What would you like to eat?”

“Looks like we’re going to have to settle for hot dogs instead.”

“No, no, don’t even think of it. Of course I’ll get you a table. Just wait here. Have a seat at the bar for the time being.”

He called to the bartender to give them something to drink, on the house. As they sat down with glasses of light beer in front of them, Jacobsson lit a cigarette.

“Have you started smoking?” exclaimed Knutas in surprise.

“No, not at all. I only smoke when I go to a party or if I’m having problems.”

“I see, and what would you call this?”

“The latter. I’m having some personal difficulties.”

“Is it something you’d like to talk about?”

“No. Leif is waving to us-we have a table.”

Sometimes Jacobsson could really drive Knutas crazy. She was overly secretive about her private life. She might tell him something about her travels, her relatives, or some social event that she had gone to, but he seldom found out anything important.

They didn’t meet socially, except infrequently at a party. He had been to her place only a few times. She lived on Mellangatan, in a big three-room apartment with a view of the sea. The only male companion she ever talked about at any length was her large cockatoo named Vincent, who was the center of attention in his cage in the living room. The stories about him were legion: for one thing, he was a whiz at playing Ping-Pong with his beak, and he could scare off unwelcome visitors by growling like a dog.

Knutas didn’t actually know very much about Karin Jacobsson except that she was interested in sports. She played soccer in Division Three and was by all accounts very good at it. She could always talk about soccer. She was a midfielder on the Visby P18 team that played in the mainland league, which meant that she often played matches off the island. Knutas imagined that if she operated on the same level as she did on the job, she was undoubtedly a tough player to tackle, in spite of her small size. She shared her interest in sports with Erik Sohlman. They were always talking about soccer.

Jacobsson was from Tingstade parish in the north of the island. Her parents still lived in the same house on the edge of Tingstade swamp, practically right across from the church. Knutas knew that she had a younger brother, but she never talked about him or her parents.

Many times he had wondered why she still lived alone. Karin was both charming and nice, and when she first started working with the Visby police, he had been slightly attracted to her. But that was just when he happened to meet Lina, so he had never fully examined his feelings. He didn’t dare ask Karin about her love life; her sense of privacy blocked all attempts of that sort. Yet Knutas never held back from telling her about his own problems. She knew just about everything about him, and he considered her to be his best female friend.

Their food arrived, and they hungrily focused their attention on eating as they discussed the investigation. They both agreed that they believed Bengt Johnsson’s story.

“Maybe the murder has nothing to do with the money Dahlstrom won at the track,” said Jacobsson. “The perp could have stolen the cash as a diversion. He wants us to think that the murder was the result of a burglary. But then the question is: What was the real motive?”

“Do you know whether he was seeing anyone?”

“Well, that Monica who was at the track with him told us that they sometimes slept together, but it was nothing serious.”

“What about in the past? Maybe there’s a story farther back and none of his current friends knows anything about it.”

“That’s conceivable,” said Jacobsson, drinking the last of the light beer she was having with her fish. “Do you think it might be about an ex-girlfriend who wanted revenge, or a jealous husband whose wife was sleeping with Dahlstrom, or some neighbor who got tired of all the coming and going in the stairwell?”

“I think the explanation could be even simpler than that. The most obvious motive is the track money-someone killed Dahlstrom for the money, plain and simple.”