Page 115 of The Living and the Dead

“Just a little clingy.” Vidar held out his hand to take the binder. “I apologize. I should have come by, but I got stuck here.”

Siri looked relieved to be rid of the burden.

Vidar’s phone rang. He answered and heard the technician’s voice, but the line was staticky and jerky, cutting off her words. It took a lot of concentration to understand her. Even so, he thought her tone sounded strange.

“Hold on,” he said. “One more time.”

“We got the results,” she enunciated.

The forensics unit had just completed their analysis of the fingerprints from the spade that had been used to kill both Söderström brothers. Those prints had been run through the national fingerprint and description databases several times.

“We got a very likely match to an old print,” she said. “One taken from the shift stick of Madeleine Grenberg’s car on the morning of December 18, 1999, during the investigation of Mikael Söderström’s murder.”

Vidar took a breath in the sudden silence. “And the one from the spade is not an old print.”

“No, it’s not. It’s a new one. That’s why the results took so long. They wanted to be sure.”

“That makes sense,” he said, holding his breath.

“I agree, that makes sense. But it’s basically the only thing that does.”

“I need to make a call. Thank you.”

For the first time since the investigation landed on his table, his voice was strained.

“What is it?” Siri asked.

Vidar looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Wait here for a minute, can you do that for me?”

—

The phone rang and rang before Jakob Lindell picked up, almost whispering, as though he were hiding the conversation from someone else.

“Thanks for calling,” he said quietly. “An officer stopped by to pick up the shirt.”

“I know, we got it, thanks.”

Jakob took a breath. “I don’t think it was Filip I saw that night.”

“What?”

“The night of the landslide. It wasn’t Filip.”

Vidar didn’t know what to say. “No?”

“No, it all turned out wrong, everything,I—”

“But you saw someone.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“So who do you think it was?”

Silence on the other end. Siri was standing across the lobby with her arms crossed.

“Jakob,” Vidar said. “Who do you think you saw?”

“I…”