The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium 3)

She saw that Borgsjo had opened his mouth as if to say something himself.

"That won't happen now, and we're going to go through a period of adjustment. But Morander was editor in chief of a daily newspaper, and this paper will come out tomorrow too. There are now nine hours left before we go to press and four before the front page has to be resolved. May I ask . . . who among you was Morander's closest confidant?"

A brief silence followed as the staff looked at one another. Finally Berger heard a voice from the left side of the room.

"That would probably be me."

It was Gunnar Magnusson, assistant editor of the front page, who had worked on the paper for thirty-five years.

"Somebody has to write an obit. I can't do it . . . that would be presumptuous of me. Could you possibly write it?"

Magnusson hesitated a moment but then said, "I'll do it."

"We'll use the whole front page and move everything else back."

Magnusson nodded.

"We need images." She glanced to her right and met the eye of the photo editor, Lennart Torkelsson. He nodded.

"We have to get busy on this. Things might be a bit rocky at first. When I need help making a decision, I'll ask your advice and I'll depend on your skill and experience. You know how the paper is made, and I still have a lot to learn."

She turned to Fredriksson.

"Peter, Morander put a great deal of trust in you. You will have to be something of a mentor to me for the time being, and carry a heavier load than usual. I'm asking you to be my adviser."

He nodded. What else could he do?

She returned to the subject of the front page.

"One more thing. Morander was writing his editorial this morning. Gunnar, could you get into his computer and see whether he finished it? Even if it's not quite rounded out, we'll publish it. It was his last editorial, and it would be a crying shame not to print it. The paper we're making today is still Hakan Morander's paper."

Silence.

"If any of you need a little personal time, or want to take a break to think for a while, do it, please. You all know our deadlines."

Silence. She noticed that some people were nodding their approval.

"Go to work, boys and girls," she said in English in a low voice.

Holmberg threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. Bublanski and Modig looked dubious. Andersson's expression was neutral. They were scrutinizing the results of the preliminary investigation that Holmberg had completed that morning.

"Nothing?" Modig said. She sounded surprised.

"Nothing," Holmberg said, shaking his head. "The pathologist's final report arrived this morning. Nothing to indicate anything but suicide by hanging."

They looked once more at the photographs taken in the living room of the summer cabin in Smadalaro. Everything pointed to the conclusion that Gunnar Bjorck, assistant chief of the immigration division of the Security Police, had climbed onto a stool, tied a rope to the lamp hook, placed it around his neck, and then with great resolve kicked the stool across the room. The pathologist was unable to supply the exact time of death, but he had established that it occurred on the afternoon of April 12. The body had been discovered on April 19 by none other than Inspector Andersson. This happened because Bublanski had repeatedly tried to get ahold of Bjorck. Annoyed, he finally sent Andersson to bring him in.

Sometime during that week, the lamp hook in the ceiling came away and Bjorck's body fell to the floor. Andersson had seen the body through a window and called in the alarm. Bublanski and the others who arrived at the summer house had treated it as a crime scene from the word go, taking it for granted that Bjorck had been garrotted by someone. Later that day the forensic team found the lamp hook. Holmberg had been assigned to work out how Bjorck had died.

"There's nothing whatsoever to suggest a crime, or that Bjorck was not alone at the time," Holmberg said.

"The lamp?"

"The ceiling lamp has fingerprints from the owner of the cabin--who put it up two years ago--and Bjorck himself. Which indicates that he took the lamp down."

"Where did the rope come from?"

"From the flagpole in the garden. Someone cut off about six feet of rope. There was a Mora sheath knife on the windowsill outside the back door. According to the owner of the house, it's his knife. He normally keeps it in a tool drawer under the kitchen counter. Bjorck's prints were on the handle and the blade, as well as on the tool drawer."

"Hmm," Modig said.

"What sort of knots?" Andersson said.

"Granny knots. Even the noose was just a loop. It's probably the only thing that's a bit odd. Bjorck was a sailor; he would have known how to tie proper knots. But who knows how much attention a person contemplating suicide would pay to the knots on his own noose?"

"What about drugs?"

"According to the toxicology report, Bjorck had traces of a

strong painkiller in his blood. That medication had been prescribed for him. He also had traces of alcohol, but the percentage was negligible. In other words, he was more or less sober."

"The pathologist wrote that there were graze wounds."

"A graze over an inch long on the outside of his left knee. A scratch, really. I've thought about it, but it could have come about in a dozen different ways . . . for instance, if he walked into the corner of a table or a bench."

Modig held up a photograph of Bjorck's distorted face. The noose had cut so deeply into his flesh that the rope itself was hidden in the skin of his neck. The face was grotesquely swollen.

"He hung there for something like twenty-four hours before the hook gave way. All the blood was either in his head--the noose having prevented it from running into his body--or in the lower extremities. When the hook came out and his body fell, his chest hit the coffee table, causing deep bruising there. But this injury happened long after the time of death."

"Hell of a way to die," said Andersson.

"I don't know. The noose was so thin that it pinched deep and stopped the blood flow. He was probably unconscious within a few seconds, and dead in one or two minutes."

Bublanski closed the preliminary report with distaste. He did not like this. He absolutely did not like the fact that Zalachenko and Bjorck had, so far as they could tell, both died on the same day. But no amount of speculating could change the fact that the crime scene investigation offered no grain of support to the theory that a third party had helped Bjorck on his way.

"He was under a lot of pressure," Bublanski said. "He knew that the whole Zalachenko affair was in danger of being exposed and that he risked a prison sentence for sex-trade crimes, plus being hung out to dry in the media. I wonder which scared him more. He was sick, had been suffering chronic pain for a long time. . . . I don't know. I wish he had left a letter."

"Many suicides don't."

"I know. OK. We'll put Bjorck to one side for now. We have no choice."

Berger could not bring herself to sit at Morander's desk right away, or to move his belongings aside. She arranged for Magnusson to talk to Morander's family so that the widow could come herself when it was convenient, or send someone to sort out his things.