We Know You Remember (53)

August put a hand on the back of her seat.

“Well, I hope Sofi Nydalen gets done for this,” he said.

“And here we were thinking she left because of the kids,” said Eira, conscious that his hand was somewhere behind her. “But she must’ve been scared after the fire, maybe she realized what she’d started.”

“It should be incitement at the very least.”

“Along with thousands of others, in that case.”

“I helped bring in one of the kids who started the fire,” August continued. “There’s no way they would’ve come up with the idea on their own—they weren’t even born when that girl was murdered. They live in their gaming world. If something’s not online, it doesn’t exist.”

Eira wasn’t sure she should sit so close to him for much longer. It woke the fantasies she only ever let loose late at night, before she fell asleep. Sometimes she woke up to them, too.

“I’ll raise this with GG,” she said, still thinking about getting up. “The social media experts in Sundsvall might already be on it, I don’t actually know.”

“Defamation then?”

“That would require Olof Hagstr?m to wake up, get out of bed, and report her.”

“Shit,” said August.

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For caring. Even if it is a bit dubious, professionally speaking.”

“What is?”

“Using your girlfriend’s account.”

She dared meet his smile only for a brief moment.





Chapter 30





They found the bin bag later that evening. At eleven minutes to ten, as the clouds began to turn pink. Buried ten centimeters deep beside a couple of large rocks that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

A flat stone resting on top of a round one, almost like a hat. Both were overgrown with white moss. The anthill nearby was teeming, the air swarming with blackflies.

The bilberries were almost ripe.

“You have no idea of the junk people dump in these woods,” said one of the men who had joined the search; Eira thought his name was Jonas.

He was one of two police cadets who had driven up from Sundsvall. They were joined by a young police assistant working overtime, not August, and a woman detective from the area whom Eira knew slightly. Several members of the local patrol had also joined in, though they had now been asked to leave.

They didn’t want anyone stomping around unnecessarily.

The cadet pointed to the glade by the snowmobile trail where they had gathered all their finds. Pieces of rusty agricultural machinery. Bike wheels. Two broken rakes and the chain from a chainsaw, crooked reinforcement rods, an old lawn mower. There was even a deer skull, a pile of old bottles, and the corpse of a soccer ball, completely deflated.

The black rubbish bag was still lying where they had found it. One of them had carefully poked it open with a stick, revealing its contents.

Something black or possibly navy blue, made of thick fabric. A piece of clothing of some kind. Could be a pair of overalls.

A yellow rubber glove.

“We don’t know if there’s a second glove,” said the cadet. “We didn’t want to rummage around too much.”

“Good work,” said Eira. She was the first of the murder investigators on the scene. Bosse Ring had already opened a bottle of plonk in his hotel room, but he would be on his way as soon as he could get hold of a cab.

“It had been covered over with branches and last year’s leaves,” said the cadet. “Pretty sloppily done, but enough to hide the fact that someone had been digging.”

Eira crouched down and gently prodded the plastic bag with a stick, opening it wider.

A handle made from different layers of wood. Curly birch and oak, she thought, with leather elements. The blade had a gentle curve, all the better for skinning an elk.

She stood up.

“OK,” she said. “Cordon off the area.”

The forest around them was fairly dense. Several of the spruce trees looked like they were dying, the lowest branches dry and covered in gray lichen. Eira took a few steps to one side and saw the red timber, a window with a painted white frame.

They were no more than twenty meters from the bakehouse.





Chapter 31





“All knives look the same.” Mejan Nydalen was sitting perfectly still in the interview room, eyes steady on the printed image on the table. “It could be anyone’s.”

“It’s identical to the knife we found in your gun cabinet. The brand is Helle, made in Holmedal. Did you buy them at the same time?”

“How am I supposed to remember that? We’ve had a lot of hunting knives.”

“Do you recognize this?” asked Eira, placing another picture on the table. The clothing they had found in the forest.

“Overalls,” said Mejan.

“Does your husband own anything like this?”

“I don’t know if they’re exactly like that, but he’s got something similar for painting and DIY and that kind of thing, of course he does.”

“And where does he usually keep them?”

She scratched her head. “Oh, let me think. In the shed, maybe?”