run the investigation of the Enskede killings.
Bublanski was fifty-two and had been on the force since he was twenty-three. He had spent six years in patrol cars and served in both the weapons division and the burglary division before he took additional courses and advanced to the violent crimes division of the county criminal police. By all accounts, he had taken part in thirty-three murder or manslaughter investigations in the last ten years. He had been in charge of seventeen of these investigations, of which fourteen were solved and two were considered closed, which meant that the police knew who the killer was but there was insufficient evidence to bring the individual to trial. In the one remaining case, now six years old, Bublanski and his colleagues had failed. The case concerned a well-known alcoholic and troublemaker who was stabbed to death in his home in Bergshamra. The crime scene was a nightmare of fingerprints and DNA traces left over a period of years by several dozen people who had gotten drunk or been beat up in the apartment. Bublanski and his colleagues were convinced that the killer could be found among the man's prodigious network of fellow alcoholics and drug addicts, but despite their intensive work whoever it was had continued to elude the police.
Bublanski's statistics were good in terms of the number of cases he had solved, and he was held in high esteem by his colleagues. But they also considered him a bit odd, partly because he was Jewish. On certain high holy days he had been seen wearing a yarmulke in the corridors of police headquarters. This had occasioned a comment from a police commissioner, soon after retired, who was of the opinion that it was inappropriate to wear a yarmulke in police headquarters, in the same way he found it inappropriate for a policeman to wear a turban on duty. There was no further discussion about the matter. A journalist heard the comment and started asking questions, at which point the commissioner quickly repaired to his office.
Bublanski belonged to the Soder congregation and ate vegetarian food if kosher fare was unavailable. But he was not so Orthodox that he refused to work on the Sabbath. He immediately recognized that the killings in Enskede were not going to be a routine investigation. Ekstrom had taken him aside as soon as he appeared, just after 8:00.
"This seems to be a miserable story," Ekstrom said. "The two who were shot were a journalist and his partner, a criminologist. And that's not all. They were found by another journalist."
Bublanski nodded. That effectively guaranteed that the case would be closely watched by the media.
"And to add a pinch more salt to the wound, the journalist who found the couple was Mikael Blomkvist of Millennium magazine."
"Whoops," Bublanski said.
"Well known from the circus surrounding the Wennerstrom affair."
"What do we know about the motive?"
"So far, not a thing. Neither of the victims is known to us. They seem to have been a conscientious pair. The woman was going to get her doctorate in a few weeks. This case gets top priority."
For Bublanski, murder always had top priority.
"We're putting together a team. You'll have to work fast, and I'll ensure that you have all the resources you need. You've got Faste and Andersson. You'll have Holmberg. He's on the Rinkeby murder case, but it seems that the perp has skipped the country. You can also draw on the National Criminal Police as required."
"I want Sonja Modig."
"Isn't she a little young?"
Bublanski raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"She's thirty-nine, just about your age, and besides, she's exceedingly sharp."
"OK, you decide who you want on the team, but do it quickly. The brass are already after us."
Bublanski took that to be an exaggeration. At this hour, the brass would be at breakfast.
The investigation formally began with a meeting just before 9:00, when Inspector Bublanski assembled his troops in a conference room at county police headquarters. He studied the group, not altogether happy with its composition.
Modig was the one he had the most confidence in. She had twelve years' experience, four of them in the violent crimes division, where she had been involved in several of the investigations led by Bublanski. She was exacting and methodical, but Bublanski had observed in her the trait he regarded as the most valuable in tricky investigations: she had imagination and the ability to make associations. In at least two complex cases, Modig had discovered peculiar and improbable connections that all the others