Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(106)
“How are you, Hanna?”
She tries to summon up a smile, but with limited success.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it . . .” Her voice dies away.
“What happened? Are you up to telling me?”
Hanna blinks a couple of times as if she is trying to recall the course of events. Fear flashes across her face.
“Someone forced me off the road.”
“You mean deliberately?”
She nods. “The car came up from behind. It was way too close and drove into the back of me. I lost control.”
Little by little, Daniel coaxes the whole story out of her.
She tells him about Kristina Risberg, and Zuhra. By the time she has finished, her face is gray with exhaustion.
“The man I glimpsed leaving Zuhra’s apartment . . . I think it was . . .”
She is speaking so quietly that Daniel can hardly hear her. He leans forward, puts his ear close to her mouth.
“Bosse Lundh.”
This doesn’t make any sense to Daniel. Bosse Lundh from Missing People?
Hanna’s eyes close.
“Get some rest,” he says softly. Within a couple of minutes, she is asleep.
Daniel stays where he is, trying to digest what Hanna has told him. Zuhra and Amanda both worked for Fj?ll-st?d.
By chance Zuhra showed up at Hanna’s house, and Hanna’s instinct as a cop told her that something wasn’t right.
She got too close, just like Amanda.
Everything is connected.
All at once Daniel realizes how exhausted he is. It is very late; he needs to drive back to ?re. It will be after three by the time he gets home.
He glances at Hanna’s sleeping form. Her black eyelashes stand out against her pale skin; her hair is spread across the pillow.
He gently strokes her arm, then silently leaves the room.
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21
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120
Daniel’s body is heavy with the lack of sleep but full of adrenaline when he wakes in the restroom at the station at about eight o’clock. He has slept for only a few hours. It was after three by the time he got back to ?re; he couldn’t possibly go home to Ida at that hour, even though he had planned to apologize, make things right.
His life is all over the place right now.
After a quick shower he pulls on the clothes he wore yesterday and calls the hospital.
Hanna is doing well, under the circumstances. She has had a peaceful night. They will be keeping her in for another twenty-four hours to monitor her frostbite injuries.
He asks them to tell her he called, then logs in to his computer and searches for the information about the board of the cleaning company known as Fj?ll-st?d AB. He stares at the list of members, and the whole picture becomes clear.
He hurries along to the conference room to find both the map of Ull?dalen and the names of the property owners.
Then he messages Anton, asks him to track down a few things and meet him at the station in a couple of hours.
When he has finished he goes down to the garage where the two snowmobiles are parked on their trailers. He hooks one trailer to an unmarked police car and sets off into the bitter winter morning.
It is not yet light when Daniel reaches the parking lot by the café in Ull?dalen. There are no other vehicles around; the place is deserted.
He unloads the snowmobile from its trailer, puts on his helmet, and starts the engine. The beam of the headlights slices through the darkness as he speeds through the white landscape, moving easily over the frozen surface. He drives across the lake and continues in a westerly direction toward the mountain before turning off for Holmtj?rn.
The only sound disturbing the inhospitable stillness is his own engine. It frightens a hare that has recently acquired its winter coat. The white animal races away and disappears down a slope.
Daniel stops to orient himself.
The air is clear, the sky cloudless. It is a relief to escape the whirling snow and icy winds that have plagued them all through December.
He takes out the land registry map and studies the placement of the properties. There are supposed to be fifteen to twenty smallish cabins, if you discount Prince Carl’s hunting lodge.
The sky begins to lighten over by R?dkullen in the east.
Daniel turns his face to the glow and thinks of Hanna.
She was the one who found the link with Kristina Risberg, the manager who ferried the women between the houses to be cleaned.
When they went through the list of property owners in Ull?dalen, there was another person with the same surname —Annika Risberg. According to Anton, the Risberg family is one of the largest landowners in the area.
Bosse Lundh’s live-in partner is Annika Risberg, who is Kristina Risberg’s sister.
It can’t be a coincidence.
The murderer came by snowmobile from Ull?dalen, if Tor Marklund is to be believed.
Daniel finds the Risberg family cabin on the map and starts up his snowmobile once more. It will take him about ten minutes to get there.
The sun is rising above the mountain, the first rays sparkling on the snow.
The brown log cabin with its rusty corrugated metal roof is surrounded by low mountain birch. There is a slender chimney on one side and two solar panels on the roof. The place is small, no more than 120 square feet.
Daniel stops by the door. He walks around the outside, peers in through a half-shuttered window. He can just make out the contours of spartan furnishings: a bunk bed with two stained mattresses, a small table, two chairs, and a stove.