The question is whether familial relationships have anything at all to do with the case, Karen thinks. William may be related to both victims, but he won’t inherit a penny. And he has an alibi, at least for Fredrik’s murder, she reminds herself.

The person who does stand to gain from killing first, Fredrik, then his grandson, is Gabriel’s wife, Katja. Since their divorce is not final, she’s going to inherit both the house she and Gabriel shared and the things he inherited from his grandfather before he died. But Karen is far from convinced a mother of two would kill, or hire a hitman to kill, two people for nothing more than 70,000 marks and a couple of houses on Noorö.

Karen closes the family tree and clicks on the next link. Fredrik Stuub has collected a large number of random documents and facts about ship settings, burial mounds and megaliths around the world, along with photographs and various theories about their function and dating. One of the folders also contains a map of the north-eastern part of Noorö, with roads marked in red. The last document is a PDF entitled Environmental impact assessment. Expansion of Gudheim Hotel and Conference Centre.

She sighs and starts to skim the report, registering words like exploited area, cultural impact statement, eastward relocation of road, significant costs, development plan and minor impact. I’m going to have to ask someone else to look at this, too, she realises and leans back in her chair. From what she can gather, the report’s conclusion is that the expansion can be approved on the condition that the original plan for the building of a new road can be amended. More expensive than planned, but still possible, in other words.

If this was the document Fredrik Stuub was planning to use to sink the Groths’ expansion plans, he was probably barking up the wrong tree, she muses and stretches out her stiff neck. A slight headache is beginning to make itself known.

She continues to plough through document after document, alternating from time to time with Fredrik Stuub’s search history. When she gets to the folder entitled ‘Work’ she suddenly sits up straighter. The document she’s staring at is entitled Employment following retirement and is a contract between Ravenby University and Docent Emeritus Fredrik Stuub.

Karen googles the university’s website and reaches for the phone.

Chapter 44

44

‘Jenny speaking!’

The voice sounds cheerfully winded, as though the rector of Ravenby University is in the middle of an Instagram-worthy workout and would love to tell whoever’s calling all about it but as soon as Karen introduces herself and says why she’s calling, Jenny Older’s tone loses some of its eagerness.