Jeanette looks completely exhausted as she ends the call. But Hurtig reflects that this is nothing to worry about, seeing as she works best when they’re under pressure. ‘What did ?hlund say?’ He glances at the printout and sees that Jeanette has written the word ‘surgeon’.
‘Carsten M?ller used to be a paediatric doctor before he moved to Cambodia. The trail ends there. And Anders Wikstr?m doesn’t own a cottage in ?nge. But on the other hand he was reported missing in Thailand six months ago.’
‘So at least there is an Anders Wikstr?m,’ Hurtig says. ‘Lundstr?m was a bit confused, wasn’t he? Maybe he got them muddled up? Anders Wikstr?m was in the film, whereas someone else might own a cottage in ?nge. That could be it …’
Jeanette agrees, and Hurtig looks around the room. I hate them, he thinks, all the bastards who do things that mean a room like this has to exist.
‘So,’ Jeanette says, ‘how did your talk with Annette Lundstr?m go?’
He thinks about the film of the girls at Sigtuna College. It hadn’t looked like Annette Lundstr?m was enjoying her role as a bully. She had been sick.
‘Annette’s deep in psychosis,’ he says. ‘But she did confirm most of what Sofia Zetterlund told you, and I think there’s a pattern in what she said, even though she isn’t well. She wants to go to Polcirkeln, and she reeled off a list of the people who would be there …’ He pauses to get his notepad out. ‘P-O, Charlotte and Madeleine Silfverberg, Karl and Linnea Lundstr?m, Gert Berglind, Fredrika Grünewald and Viggo Dürer.’
Jeanette looks at him. ‘God, I’m so sick of all those names.’
She stands and begins to gather up the films. ‘I just want to get out of here.’
Hurtig adds that Annette Lundstr?m had repeated what she had previously said about Dürer being involved in adoptions.
‘He had foreign children at the farm in Struer and up in Polcirkeln.’
‘Shit.’ Jeanette sighs. ‘Polcirkeln …’
‘I know the geography up there pretty well,’ Hurtig says, ‘and it won’t take long for our colleagues in the Norrbotten force to go door-to-door in Polcirkeln. I mean, it’s just a few houses.’
On the way down to the car Jeanette’s phone rings again. She looks at the screen. ‘Forensics,’ she says as she answers.
The conversation is over in less than thirty seconds.
‘Any news?’
Jeanette takes a deep breath. ‘The samples of paint we took from the car at Dürer’s villa are identical to the traces found out in Svartsj?landet. So the lawyer could have been the person who dumped the boy out there by the jetty back in the spring, and –’ She breaks off and slaps her forehead. ‘Fuck!’ she exclaims. ‘?hlund told me Dürer had been treated for cancer –’
‘So those could be Dürer’s fingerprints that were found –’
‘In Ulrika’s flat.’
‘Which means that Dürer might still be alive …’
Hundudden – Island of Djurg?rden
‘SO WHO WAS found dead on the boat if it wasn’t Viggo?’
Jeanette has her suspicions, and gets her phone out again.
Detective Superintendent Gullberg of the Sk?ne police answers after seven long rings, and she explains the situation.
He immediately adopts a defensive attitude and does what a lot of people do when they feel threatened. He goes on the attack. ‘Are you questioning the autopsy?’ he says irritably. ‘Our medical officers are good.’
‘Have you got their report to hand?’
‘Yes,’ he mutters grouchily. ‘Give me a moment.’ She hears him rustling some papers before he returns. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Does it say anything about the man having cancer?’
‘No … Why should it?’
‘Because he had been treated for cancer.’
Gullberg falls silent. ‘Oh shit … It says here that he was in excellent health for his age. The physique of a fifty-year-old, apart from being slightly overweight –’
‘He was almost eighty.’
Gullberg clears his throat, and she realises that he has worked out that they might have made a mistake. ‘Autopsies are performed quickly after accidents,’ he says. ‘The lab in Malm? does what they’re told, but they aren’t infallible. And we had no reason to –’
‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to explain. Does it say anything else in their report?’
‘Now I come to look at it more closely, it mentions that some of the fillings in the dead man’s teeth were done in South-East Asia.’
Thailand, Jeanette thinks. Anders Wikstr?m.
The police van with tinted windows pulls up behind them and the head of the response unit jumps out from the passenger seat. He slaps the side of the van hard and walks over to Jeanette as the back doors open and nine masked police officers get out in total silence. They divide themselves into three groups. Eight of them are armed with sub-machine guns, and the ninth has a bolt-action rifle.
The officer in charge is unmasked, and as he walks up he introduces himself and says they’re ready to go in. As a result of the evidence from the paint samples, Dennis Billing has agreed to authorise a search of Viggo Dürer’s villa at Hundudden. The new information they have received from Sk?ne and the fact that they’ve found what could be Dürer’s fingerprints in Ulrika Wendin’s apartment helped to convince him.
‘Is that really necessary?’ Jeanette asks, nodding towards the man with the rifle.
‘PSG-90. In case the operation demands a sniper,’ the officer in charge replies officiously.
‘Let’s just hope it doesn’t,’ Hurtig mutters.
‘OK, let’s go in.’ Jeanette turns and glances at Hurtig.
‘Just one question.’ The head of the unit clears his throat. ‘Well, this has all been a bit quick, so our advance information is somewhat sketchy. What’s the primary target, and what sort of resistance can we expect?’
Before Jeanette has time to answer, Hurtig steps forward. ‘We believe that objective number one, a young woman, could be in the building,’ he says. ‘The objective’s name is Ulrika Wendin, and we suspect that objective number two, the homeowner, has kidnapped objective number one and is holding her captive. Objective number two is an approximately eighty-year-old lawyer, and as far as resistance is concerned, we haven’t got a fucking clue.’
Jeanette gives Hurtig a shove. ‘Stop it,’ she hisses, then turns to the head of the unit. ‘I apologise for my colleague. He can be rather trying at times. But most of what he said is correct. We suspect that the owner of the house, a lawyer named Viggo Dürer, is holding Ulrika Wendin captive in there. Obviously he could be armed, but we don’t know.’
‘Good,’ the man says with a stiff smile. ‘Let’s do it,’ he says, and jogs back to his subordinates.
‘You need to lose that attitude.’ Jeanette goes and stands by the car and waits for the heavily armed officers to enter the house ahead of them. The officer in charge raises his right arm to get his men’s attention, then gives his orders. ‘Alpha to the front and the main entrance. Bravo will go in through the rear, and Charlie will secure the garage to the side of the house. Any questions?’
The masked officers don’t say a word.