Karolina nodded. ‘My birthday is the week after midsummer and I’ve always wanted a tattoo. I know it’s not really my style, as Eric has never failed to point out whenever I’ve brought it up. But then he suddenly wanted to give me one. He’d designed it himself and told me the line symbolized me and his love for me was represented by the arrow. That I was number one, the first and most important thing in his life. I thought it was his way of apologizing. But that was before I became aware I was just the first in a long line of women.’

Fabian thanked her for her help and got to his feet. Almost all his questions had been answered. The one remaining unknown was what had made Jacobsén decide to commit murder.

72

‘How are you getting on? Find anything?’ Lilja said, trying to stretch in the cramped space at the back of Molander’s van.

‘That depends on what you mean by something,’ Molander replied, studying the screens, which were filled with zoomed-in audio curves, equalizers and audio clips from the recorded conversation. ‘I can’t find any signs of there being a little girl present.’

‘What? Are you telling me she’s not there?’

‘No, I’m telling you I can’t hear any signs of her still being alive.’

‘She might be unconscious or gagged,’ Klippan said.

‘Or just in another room,’ Lilja added, and she dropped three lumps of sugar in her tepid coffee before stirring it and knocking it back.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Molander said. ‘Speaking of rooms, I think we can skip anything we’d label a “normal room”, like hotel rooms, offices, shops and residences.’

‘Why?’

Molander sighed. ‘It’s a bit difficult to explain to a novice such as yourself.’

‘Maybe you could just tell us what you’ve heard?’

‘I don’t know about heard. It’s more about what I haven’t heard, or, to be more precise, what I can hear in the silence. But I obviously have no idea how well-versed you are in the wondrous science of sound waves.’

‘True, but I know you’re desperate to draw things out for dramatic effect. Maybe you can hold off on that until some other time, though, since we’re dealing with a six-year-old girl for whom every second probably feels like several hours in hell. So, I’d appreciate it if you—’

‘The acoustics of the room,’ Molander cut her off. ‘Or rather, the so-called reverberation time – it’s unusually long. Just listen to this.’

‘What, why? She’s mine. The girl belongs to me.’

‘It sounds like he’s in a basement.’ Lilja could tell from the look on Klippan’s face that he was asking himself the same question she was. How could they have missed that?