a duty prosecutor to arrive to initiate the pre-investigative stage. Then, since Blomkvist was a good friend of the two victims and since he was the one who had found them, they were asked to follow along to Kungsholmen to assist the investigation.
There they'd had to wait a long time before they were interviewed by an Inspector Nyberg at the station. She had light blond hair and looked like a teenager.
I'm getting old, Blomkvist thought.
By 2:30 he had drunk so many cups of police canteen coffee that he was sober and feeling unwell. He had to interrupt the interview and run to the toilet, where he was violently sick. He still had the image of Johansson's face swimming in his head. He drank three cups of water and rinsed his face over and over before returning to the interview. He tried to pull himself together to answer all of Inspector Nyberg's questions.
"Did Dag Svensson or Mia Johansson have enemies?"
"No, not that I know of."
"Had they received any threats?"
"Not that I know of."
"How would you describe their relationship?"
"They gave every appearance of loving each other. Dag told me that they were thinking of having a baby after Mia got her doctorate."
"Did they use drugs?"
"I don't know for sure, but I don't think so, and if they did it would be nothing more than a joint at a party when they had something to celebrate."
"Why were you visiting them so late at night?"
Blomkvist explained that they were doing last-minute work on a book, without identifying the subject.
"Wasn't it unusual to call on people so late at night?"
"That was the first time it had ever happened."
"How did you know them?"
"Through work."
The questions were relentless as they tried to establish the time frame.
The shots had been heard all over the building. They had been fired less than five seconds apart. The seventy-year-old man in the dressing gown, a retired major from the coastal artillery, as it turned out, was their nearest neighbour. He was watching TV. After the second shot, he went out to the stairwell. He had a hip problem and so getting up from the sofa was a slow process. He estimated that it had taken him thirty seconds to reach the landing. Neither he nor any other neighbour had seen anybody on the stairs.
According to the neighbours, Blomkvist had arrived at the apartment less than two minutes after the second shot was fired.
Calculating that he and Annika had had a view of the street for half a minute while she found the right building, parked, and exchanged a few words before he crossed the street and went up the stairs, Blomkvist figured there was a window of thirty to forty seconds. During which time the killer had left the apartment, gone down three flights of stairs - dropping the weapon on the way - left the building, and disappeared before Annika turned into the street. They had just missed him.
For a dizzying moment Blomkvist realized that Inspector Nyberg was toying with the possibility that he himself could have been the killer, that he had only run down one flight and pretended to arrive on the scene after the neighbours had gathered. But he had an alibi in the form of his sister. His whole evening, including the telephone conversation with Svensson, could be vouched for by a dozen members of the Giannini family.
Eventually Annika put her foot down. Blomkvist had given all reasonable and conceivable help. He was visibly tired and he was not feeling well. She told the inspector that she was not only Blomkvist's sister but also his lawyer. It was time to bring all this to a close and let him go home.
When they got out to the street they stood for a time next to Annika's car. "Go home and get some sleep," she said.
Blomkvist shook his head.
"I have to go to Erika's," he said. "She knew them too. I can't just call and tell her, and I don't want her to wake up and hear it on the news."
Annika hesitated, but she knew that her brother was right.
"So, off to Saltsjobaden," she said.
"Can you take me?"
"What are little sisters for?"
"If you give me a lift out to Nacka I can take a taxi from there or wait for a bus."
"Nonsense. Jump in and I'll drive you."
CHAPTER 12
Maundy Thursday, March 24
Annika Giannini was exhausted too, and Blomkvist managed to persuade her to save herself the hour-long detour round the Lannersta Sound and drop him off in