Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(70)
Harald isn’t sure if he’s heard correctly. He gently closes the living room door to reduce the noise from the TV.
“Do you know if he could have eaten any cigarette stubs, snuff, or tobacco?” The vet pauses. “I don’t want to worry you, but if he hasn’t already vomited and improved, then you need to bring him in. Nicotine in large doses is very dangerous for animals. If he’s consumed nicotine gum, he could also be suffering from xylitol poisoning.”
“Ludde is dead,” Harald says in a flat voice.
“Dead?”
“He died yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” There is genuine compassion in the woman’s voice. “In that case he must have consumed a significant amount all at once.”
Harald stands there with the phone in his hand.
“What about e-cigarettes?” the vet goes on. “There’s so much liquid nicotine in each cartridge that it’s the equivalent of at least two ordinary cigarettes. If Ludde got a hold of a pack of cartridges, that could explain what’s happened. Unfortunately I’ve seen it before.”
It doesn’t matter anymore, Harald thinks. Ludde is dead. Amanda is dead.
When he doesn’t say anything, the vet continues: “Would you like us to perform an autopsy on your dog to find out what he died of? It might be useful to know, for the insurance if nothing else.”
Ludde’s body is still in the garage. Harald has hardly given him a thought over the past twenty-four hours. Wait a minute—what did the vet say about the cause of death?
“What do you mean by poisoned?” he asks.
There is a brief silence.
“The symptoms your wife described on the phone indicate severe nicotine poisoning,” Alina Nilsson reiterates.
She doesn’t seem to realize that she’s talking to the father of the murdered girl who’s been in all the papers. Her voice lacks the note of pity that has been so evident in everyone else who has spoken to him.
Harald tries to digest this new information. “How could that have happened?”
“It’s not that unusual.”
“We don’t smoke. No one in the family smokes, or takes snuff.”
“Oh!” The vet is clearly surprised. “That is strange.
Given how quickly he died, he must have ingested a large amount of nicotine. Chewing the odd cigarette stub out in the street would be nowhere near enough.” She breaks off, thinks for a moment. “In which case you have to wonder if it was accidental.”
Harald remembers arriving home in the morning and seeing Ludde lying helpless on the floor, with whitish drool around his mouth.
He feels unsteady and leans on the kitchen counter for support when he realizes what the vet means.
“Are you saying that someone deliberately poisoned our dog?”
“I can’t say for sure, but it’s hard to rule out the possibility.”
Harald ends the call and remains frozen to the spot. It never occurred to him that Ludde didn’t die of natural causes. He simply took it for granted and cursed the twist of fate that had allowed it to happen on the day after his daughter was found dead.
Now it sounds as though someone deliberately killed his dog too.
The thought horrifies him.
He can’t help glancing out of the window, as if a murderer is lurking in the darkness.
He goes into the hallway and locks the front door, even though they don’t usually bother during the day.
Then he sinks down at the kitchen table, thinking the same thoughts as when he was outside Mira’s house earlier on. There is only one person who would wish him so much harm.
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73
There are no burning torches outside the Landahl family house when Daniel arrives late in the afternoon. However, there are lights in several windows, so it looks as if someone is home this time.
On the other side of the lake, Renfj?llet is barely visible through the snow mist. The clouds are wrapped around the silent mountain.
The doors of the double garage are closed. There should be a Yamaha snowmobile inside, registered to Viktor’s father. Daniel checked the list of snowmobile owners again after his conversation with Tor Marklund. As soon as he confirmed the make and model, he decided to come straight over.
It is safe to assume that Viktor has access to the vehicle, even if he doesn’t have a snowmobile license. He passed his driving test a week after his eighteenth birthday.
The information Hanna provided about Viktor’s past was very helpful. The more Daniel finds out about the kid, the more suspicious he becomes.
According to the school, Viktor hasn’t shown up at all this week.
Daniel locks the car and makes his way up the drive, which has been cleared of snow. His breath looks like a plume of white smoke in the ice-cold air. The temperature is minus seventeen, and white, lacy frost covers the green mailbox.
Viktor opens the door, wearing the same hoodie as before.
Daniel studies his pupils; he appears to be sober.
“You again,” Viktor mutters.
“May I come in? I have a few more questions.”
Viktor steps back and lets him into the hallway, which is noticeably less tidy than on Saturday, when his parents were expecting guests. There are boots and shoes on the floor, and jackets and coats piled messily on a row of hooks on one wall.