Sandra remained standing there, watching him, lost in her own thoughts. She could understand that Hallin wasn’t all that keen on coughing up half a million in child support for a kid he didn’t want to acknowledge. She knew that. It was enough that he had stated it. And it didn’t even need saying; she understood it anyway. But this—what was this supposed to mean? A veiled threat in the form of funeral flowers—it was just downright stupid. And this was the second time—the first lot hadn’t had any impact.

But there was one significant difference: Erik had been personally involved. Was the subtext that a three-year-old boy was going to die and be buried? Because Hallin, despite having the means, had no desire to pay child support? It was horrible.

However, the step from sending flowers to killing was a big one, and Sandra had no intention of being scared off from pursuing the matter further. Her convictions were only strengthened: Jan Hallin was tearing towards his own demise in leaps and bounds. And Sandra had every intention of helping him along.

Time was tight; she needed some time alone at the computer. She couldn’t get her parents or anyone else involved—people who would be guaranteed to object and probably bring the whole enterprise tumbling down. And she needed to get back in touch with Kerstin. Really soon.

41. Jeanette

41

Jeanette

TO BEGIN WITH, she had followed Nanna’s recommendation to the best of her abilities, and had prepared as much as she could. She had turned herself inside out in an attempt to decide how she saw Peter after everything that had happened, and how that would change if it turned out that it was his body that had been found in the Alskogen woods. But it was draining rooting through a past that she preferred to forget, and placing it into some sort of future perspective that didn’t exactly look promising.

Just as usual, one thing led to another. Despite her friends’ support, she felt incredibly lonely in this endeavour, and the only cure she knew for the all-too-familiar anxiety was alcohol. In copious amounts. Which left her numb in a way that partly suppressed the issue, but the result was that she wasn’t especially well prepared when the news came.

That happened on Midsummer’s Eve itself. Jeanette was still in bed when she found out from a news site on her mobile. The body that had been found close to Digerrojr was that of the forty-one-year-old who had been missing since 4 February 2014: Peter Norling. He left behind a wife and two children.

Instead of breaking down immediately, which was what she had hazily expected she would do, she managed in some strange way to push all emotions to one side. This left space for a relatively clear-headed analysis.

Was Jeanette grieving?