It was good to have Siri, at least, although it was a disadvantage that she didn’t know the area. Another disadvantage was her miniature size, and the fact that she probably had to hold tight to a sturdy object if a breeze kicked up, and her lack of experience in general was a third. But even so, Gerd found it was nice to have someone at her side on a morning like this, at the very start of an investigation that already didn’t bode well.
Siri approached the police tape and addressed Kjell.
“I don’t suppose he’s a hunting dog, is he?”
Kjell lit up. “Why, yes he is. Smart as a whip.”
“Do you think he can track blood?”
Well, look at that,Gerd thought.Never judge a book by its cover. Maybe there was a real police officer in that tiny body after all. A small one, at least anatomically speaking, but evenso.
13
Soon Kjell and Bill were being led in a broad circle around the car. Evidence on the ground was marked with numbered black flags.
“Here.” Gerd slowly lowered a creaking knee to the ground next to a few bloodstains the size of one-krona coins. “We’ll start here.”
Kjell blanched. “Is that Mikael’s?”
“We don’t know, but we’d like to find out.” Gerd waved over the dog, who wagged his big tail eagerly. “Shall we try it?”
“If there’s blood to track, Bill will find it,” Kjell said, instantly behaving as though he were at the center of the investigation.
Soon the two officers were trailing the old man and his dog, who kept his nose to the cold ground. His tail in the air, a flag of concentration.
“Here.” Kjell pointed at the slope. “We need to go up into this grove.”
There had been a thaw about a week earlier and most of the snow had melted, but then the cold returned. Here and there, the forest protected a patch of white; hard, crusty slabs.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Kjell said. “There’ve been wild boar around recently. Do you hunt?”
“I don’t,” Gerd said. “But my husband used to.”
“I do,” Siri said. “But it’s been a while.”
Gerd and Kjell stared at her in surprise. Maybe she was kidding;Siri didn’t offer any more information. Instead she stopped next to a patch of snow the size of a dinner plate. In it was a footprint.
“What size shoes do you wear, Kjell?”
“Forty-one.”
“This one is a forty-three, at least. Larger, I’d say.” Siri compared it to her own boot. “Whoever was walking here has gigantic feet, compared to mine.”
Who doesn’t?Gerd thought, sticking another black evidence flag in the ground. Not far away, in a smaller patch of snow, they found an identical print.
“By the way, Kjell, what did you decide to do?” Gerd asked. “About the money, I mean.”
“I withdrew it all last week, and so did Frans Ljunggren. And Bengt Lindell too.”
“That must be an awful lot of money.”
“Oh yes, quite a bit.”
“I don’t want to know where you’re keeping it. But I hope it’s under lock and key, at least—”
“I’ve got a double lock on my front door, and I sleep with the shotgun next to my bed,” Kjell interrupted.
“…in a safe, for instance,” Gerd concluded wearily.
