Mari Jungstedt - Unseen

“We’re here to sum up the situation,” Knutas began. “Helena Hillerstrom was murdered sometime between 8:30 A.M. and 12:30 P.M. yesterday. The shoe tracks, the blood, and the dragging marks down from the beach indicate that the murder was committed near Gustavs, the Baptist summer camp. Which means that the body was not transported there from somewhere else. The preliminary report from the medical examiner says that she died from extensive trauma to the head. The nature of the head wounds indicates that they’re the result of blows from a sharp-edged weapon, presumably an axe. The body was also subjected to numerous blows from the axe. In addition, the perpetrator stuffed her panties into her mouth. Helena Hillerstrom was found naked. We don’t know yet whether she was raped or not. There are no outward signs of sexual assault, nofr were any of the blows directed at her sexual organs. The body is being taken to the forensic medicine lab in Solna. It will take a few days before we have a preliminary autopsy report. The panties were sent to SCL for analysis. No trace of semen was found on the body or the panties, at least not any that the techs could discover. We’ll have to wait and see what the results of the analysis are. Her other clothing has not been found.”

“What about the murder weapon?” asked Wittberg.

“That’s gone, too,” interjected Sohlman. “We’ve searched the area where the body was found. Nothing special turned up except for a few cigarette butts that have also been sent to SCL. We’ve interviewed witnesses in the vicinity, but no one saw anything, no one heard anything. The only real clues we have so far are the shoe prints. The same prints show up both on the beach and in the forest grove. A running shoe of unknown manufacture, size 11?. They had to belong to the perpetrator.”

Sohlman stood up. With some difficulty he unrolled a map and fastened it to the wall. It was a map of the beach at Gustavs and the surrounding area. Sohlman wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and pointed out the scene of the crime.

“This is where the body was found. The tracks show that the victim walked in this direction along the shore. Then she must have turned around and walked back the same way. At the other end of the beach, meaning where she started out, the grass has been trampled down. It looks as if that’s where he stood waiting for her. He may have known which way she would walk and then intercepted her before she could reach the road. There are no tire tracks, so the killer must have been on foot. He most likely murdered her there. The bloodstains on the ground indicate as much. Then he dragged the body over to the grove.”

“What about the dog?” asked Karin Jacobsson.

“It must have been disposed of first. According to the boyfriend, it was an alert and excellent watchdog, who always kept close to Helena, ready to protect her. The dog was struck on the head and the neck with an axe. The head was practically severed. One paw was also chopped off. We can only wonder why.”

The others stirred uneasily. Jacobsson grimaced.

“How many people knew she was here on the island?” asked Norrby.

“About thirty or so, if I’ve counted correctly,” said Jacobsson as she leafed through her notes. “Her family, her work colleagues and a couple of friends in Stockholm, her friend Emma Winarve, the closest neighbors, and the people who were at the party, of course.”

“What leads you to believe that it could be the boyfriend?” Wittberg asked, turning to the prosecuting attorney.

“A fight erupted between him and Helena at the party, and it ended with him slapping her,” replied Smittenberg. “He was jealous. She was apparently dancing with an old school friend, Kristian Nordstrom. In Bergdal’s view, Kristian was groping Helena, and she let him do it. He pulled Helena outside, they started fighting, and he slapped her. He in turn was scratched and bitten by Helena. The fight lasted only a couple of minutes. Then Nordstrom came out to talk to Bergdal, and he got punched, too. The other friends intervened, so it never turned into a real fistfight. They say that everything was calm when they left the house. Bergdal was asleep, and Helena had also gone to bed and was even lying next to him. The most serious strikes against him are that he was the last one to see her alive and the fact that they had a fight on the night preceding the murder. I view that as sufficient grounds for arrest, as things now stand. On the other hand, in order to charge him with a crime, I need something more. If you don’t come up with any new evidence, such as some sort of forensic proof, we’ll have to let him go. You’ve got two days.”

“What do we know about Helena?” asked Jacobsson. “What was her life like?”

Knutas glanced down at his notebook. “Helena seems to have led an ordinary life. She was born on July 5, 1966, so she was thirty-four years old. She would have been thirty-five next month. Born and raised on Gotland. Her whole family moved to Stockholm in 1986, when Helena was twenty. They kept the summer cabin near Frojel, and they came to stay here several times a year. They used to spend every summer here. She was educated in computer science at Stockholm University, and she has worked for a computer company for the past three years. She had lots of friends. Before Bergdal, she seems not to have had any long-term love relationships. Never married or engaged. According to Bergdal, she once had something going with this Kristian who was at the party. That might also be complete nonsense. The boyfriend suffers from jealousy, as you know. None of the friends has been able to confirm that the story was true, and surely at least one of them ought to know something about it. We haven’t been able to interview Nordstrom yet because he flew to Copenhagen the day after the party. That’s where his parents live. I’ve talked to him on the phone, and he’s flying back here tomorrow.”

“Does Helena Hillerstrom have any kind of record?” asked Wittberg.

“No. The question now is how we should proceed. We’ll conduct more interviews with the people who were at the party. Above all, I want to talk to Kristian Nordstrom. Someone needs to go over to Stockholm and interview Helena’s family, colleagues, friends, and other people she knew. We should do that as soon as possible. We need to keep working with an open mind. It’s not at all certain that Bergdal is the killer. If he’s not the one, then we don’t know whether the murderer is on the island or whether he followed her here from the mainland. Or whether it’s someone she didn’t even know, someone she met by chance.”

“I’d be happy to go to Stockholm,” said Jacobsson. “We need to talk to the people she knew as quickly as possible. I can leave this afternoon.”

“Take someone with you. There’s a lot to be done in Stockholm, and plenty of people to interview. I’m sure you’ll have the assistance of the National Criminal Police over there, but I think two of you should go.”

“I’ll go,” said Wittberg.

Jacobsson gave him a grateful smile. “All right, that’s decided, then. By the way, we’re waiting to hear back from SCL. In the meantime, we need to map out Helena’s circle of acquaintances here on the island. Who did she spend time with when she was here? Aside from her best friend. We need to do another round of interviews with the neighbors. I’ll conduct a more intensive interview with Emma Winarve. What did Helena do on the days preceding the murder? Conversations on her cell phone? E-mail messages? The boyfriend says that they switched off their cell phones as soon as they got off the ferry. How do we go about searching for her clothes? We need to expand the area around the crime scene, both in terms of searching the area and talking to the neighbors. Those are what I see as the most pressing matters right now. Any comments?” Knutas concluded.