Having discussed it among themselves, the sisters decided to call their mother in Spain, who confirmed that she had been informed that Rose had left the hospital. She had called Rose without getting through but almost immediately after received a text message from her.
After some difficulty and guidance, their mother managed to forward the message to the sisters and Carl.
Carl read it out to Gordon and Assad:
Dear Mom, I’m on the train just now to Malm?. The connection is bad so I’m texting instead of calling. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I discharged myself today because a good friend in Blekinge has offered to let me stay in their lovely house for a while. It will do me good. Will be in touch when back. Rose
“Have you ever heard about Rose’s friend in Blekinge?” asked Carl.
Neither of them had.
“So what do you make of the message?”
Assad jumped in first. “If she knows someone in Blekinge, it’s strange that she didn’t mention it when you drove to Hallabro in connection with the case about a message in a bottle.”
“Her friend could have moved there since then,” Gordon said in her defense.
Carl was of a different opinion. “Do you really think this is Rose’s style? She wrote ‘dear’ to her mom, but we know how much she hates her. Remember what she wrote about her mom when she left them: ‘Bitch’! And then Rose writes that she’s texting because the connection is bad on the Malm? train. That’s just bullshit! She also mentions her friend’s ‘lovely’ house. This is the same Rose who doesn’t give a damn about orderliness and aesthetics in her own home!”
“So you think that the text message is a diversion?” asked Gordon.
Carl looked out of his tiny window, gauging the weather. Bright sunshine and a clear sky. There was no reason to put his jacket on.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re driving over to her apartment.”
“Could we wait half an hour, Carl?” interrupted Gordon. He looked pained. “We have a visitor in a minute. Have you forgotten?”
“Er, who?”
“I explained that I would try and lure Patrick Pettersson down here after he had been questioned by Bj?rn. And I also have this for you.”
Carl sat back down while Gordon placed a sketch in front of him of a man in a very big jacket.
“This is what the sketch artist makes of the person who the woman on Borgergade saw on her birthday. The day Rigmor Zimmermann was murdered.”
Carl looked at the sketch. Artistically, it was detailed and well executed, but from a police point of view, it was unfortunately useless and anonymous.
“Was that all she remembered about the man? This is just a big coat with a pair of legs underneath seen from behind. It could be any old hobo in a Storm P. picture. But thanks, Gordon, it was worth a try.”
Gordon nodded in agreement.
“And one more thing, Carl.”
“Yes?”
“It’s about the parking meter on Griffenfeldsgade. A brilliant man up in homicide—let’s call him Pasg?rd—had the bright idea that the person who parked the first attack vehicle on the street may have paid the parking ticket with coins. And that is sound enough reasoning given that it would have been rather revealing if the person had used a credit card. So, they’ve already emptied the contents of the parking meter.”
“And now you’re going to tell me that they’re searching the coins for fingerprints?”
Gordon nodded, and Carl couldn’t hold back a roar of laughter.
Did supersleuth Pasg?rd think this would lead him to the killer? That one single fingerprint would have hit-and-run driver written all over it? And on a coin of all things! It was laughable.
“Thanks, Gordon, you’ve made my day.”
Gordon looked flattered and tried to laugh like Carl.
Yes, the people on the second floor were out on a limb in this case. Perhaps they could use some help with a professional questioning.
—
Carl caught a glimpse of a huge guy through the open door to the situation room, where Gordon had arranged to meet him.
Muscular upper arms covered in tattoos of the type that made goofy TV stars look like they were covered in mediocre graffiti.
Carl pulled Gordon to one side and asked him under his breath if he was completely insane, bringing a possible suspect and accomplice to the very room where they had all their notes and photos on display. But Gordon had taken precautions.
“I stapled a sheet in front of the notice board, Carl. Don’t worry.”
“A sheet? Where the heck did you find a sheet?”
“It’s the one Assad uses when he sleeps here once in a while.”
Carl turned to Assad with a questioning expression, as if to ask if he planned to sleep in the office again, but it was apparently not a subject Assad intended to comment on.
Carl nodded to Patrick Pettersson as he sat down opposite him. As could be expected after having been questioned for several hours, he looked somewhat pale, but apart from that he came across as a robust type, and his gaze was steady. Surely that gaze did not indicate the brain of a genius, but he was able to answer all Carl’s initial questions quickly and precisely.
“You’ve probably been asked a hundred times before, but we’ll just try again, Patrick.”
He nodded to Gordon and placed three photos in front of Patrick while Assad came in and put a cup of coffee in front of the guy.
“It’s not your special brew, is it, Assad?” he asked as a precaution.
“No, it’s just Nescafé Gold.”
Carl pointed. “These are photos of Senta Berger, Bertha Lind, and Michelle Hansen, Patrick. All killed by a hit-and-run driver within the last eight days. I understand that you can account for your whereabouts when these incidents happened, so I would like to stress that you are not a suspect.”
Did Patrick look at him gratefully as he lifted the coffee cup to his mouth?
“We haven’t found any direct link between the three women, but as far as I understand, Michelle knew two other young women—let’s call them friends—who you believe she hadn’t known for long. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Was Michelle normally good at keeping secrets?”
“No, I don’t think so. She was pretty straightforward.”
“And yet you say that she left you a few days before she died. Wasn’t that a huge surprise?”
He lowered his head. “We had been fighting because I wanted her to see her caseworker and sort out her mess.”
“What mess?”
“She’d lied about where she was living without telling me. So she needed to set up a repayment schedule with the municipality and accept the work placement she’d been offered.”
“And did she?”
He shrugged. “I met her a few days later at the nightclub where I work as a bouncer, and she told me she’d pay what she owed me, so obviously I thought she’d gotten things sorted.”
He stared at the photo with melancholy eyes.
“You miss her?” asked Assad.
He looked at him, surprised, perhaps at the gentle nature of the question or perhaps because it came from Assad. Then he nodded.
“I thought we had something special together. And then those two bloody girls came on the scene.”
The little bit of moisture that had gathered in the corners of his eyes dried up. He took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know what they dragged her into, but it wasn’t anything good.”