That’s the least of it. Everything about what’s happening here is odd”

Liz watched him go. “I take it you’ve met the lawyer, Mags,” she said. I reached for the chicken salad. “When he told me his name, he seemed to expect me to recognise it.” “Well, I’d never heard the name Vandenberg until I read it in the papers last week,” said Mike. “And what did the papers say about him?” “He’s the architect of this schools’ thing. He’s Wilson’s right-hand man, been with him these last few weeks, doing the deal.” Mike piled pasta on to his plate. “So what’s this about his sister overdosing?” “That was in the papers too?” I said, not surprised. “And can someone tell me the rest?”

Liz filled him in briefly.

“I don’t understand,” he said, in a puzzled voice. “If he’s related to Marcia, who Marcellus may have killed, doesn’t it strike you as odd he’s the Bibby lawyer?”

I put my fork down firmly. “That’s the least of it. Everything about what’s happening here is odd.”

I described my recent conversation with Leo Tullis, specifically Sven’s theory that the snowmobile brakes had been deliberately loosened. I left out that he’d concluded it was with the intention of killing someone.

Harry was staring blankly.

Conclusion

Liz’s face was ashen. She would have come to the same conclusion I had. She was one of the people beneath the overhang.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Mike said, under his breath. “I don’t believe it.”

“That there’s a nutter going around loosening brakes?” I said. “And that’s not all. Hallengren told me that Wilson’s diary has been stolen. So what’s that all about?”

Mike sneered. “It’s obvious what’s happened. Now he’s dead, some journalist wants to publish the grand man’s ramblings.”

“It’s not just a diary. His business decisions are recorded in it. And signed and witnessed, which I suppose makes them legally binding.”

Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “So someone wants to know what he’s been doing in Stockholm? But the whole world knows. Why steal his diary? I don’t get it.”

But I got it. I got it in a flash. It was nothing to do with what Wilson had been doing. It was what he was intending to do. Someone had stolen his diary with the express purpose of uncovering his next business move.

But who? A reporter wanting to expose his plans? The diary might well be of interest to someone like Denny Hinckley, who’d probably not be above a little judicious thievery.

Yet the reporters hadn’t arrived until the afternoon and the Locker Room was out of bounds by then.

Whoever had stolen it had taken it on the night Wilson died, or early in the morning before the police were called.

I kept coming back to it: why would the theft of Wilson’s diary be of such interest to Hallengren that he’d trek out to the Excelsior to question me about it?

Harry leant forward, his cowlick flopping over his eyes. “Maggie, getting back to the snowmobiles, if there’s a nutter on the loose, as you so eloquently put it, then don’t you think Leo should tell the police?” “I think he’s already been to see Hallengren.” “You don’t suppose the brakes were loosened with the intention of killing someone?” Mike said.

“Of course not. It was a prank.”

But I was only half listening. My mind was still on the diary.

If Hallengren hadn’t found it by now, he was unlikely ever to. It was too recognisable for a thief to keep it long.

Shaken

My bet was that it was at the bottom of the river. But if Hallengren was so interested in the diary, why hadn’t he taken the Excelsior apart searching for it?

“We’ve the trip to the Sami village this afternoon,” Liz was saying, brushing at the tablecloth. “Are you coming, Mags?”

“I think I’ll go to the church. I’d like to check out that tower.” And I wanted somewhere quiet to sit and think.

She didn’t even try to dissuade me. She turned to the others. “I’ll see you in the Activities Room.” Without waiting for a reply, she left the room, avoiding my gaze.

“I’d better catch her up,” Harry said quickly, getting to his feet. “She seems quite shaken.”

Mike was playing with his coffee cup. “Liz has been smoking non-stop. Is she always this jittery?”

“It’s my fault,” I said wearily. “I should have kept quiet about the brakes. And those stories about the hotel killer coming here can’t have helped. I wish that barman had kept his mouth shut.”

Mike lifted his head. “You don’t think there’s anything in that story, do you?”

“It seems too far-fetched. I thought the Stockholm hotel killer did his work in Stockholm. What’s he doing here? Kiruna’s a long way from anywhere.”

“Jonas Madsen told me he used to stay regularly at the Maximilian,” Mike said, sifting the sugar in the bowl.

“He told me that too. But lots of people stayed there. And they’re not all killers.”

He gave me a strange look. After a brief silence, I said, “Mike, didn’t you say you’d spent much of last year in Stockholm?”

“What of it?” he said quietly.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I had the impression that the first time you’d heard about these murders was when the barman talked about them yesterday.”

“Your impression’s correct, Maggie.”

The muscles of his face tightened. “Where’s this going?”

“I’m just amazed that you missed the story. It’s all anyone talked about, from what Harry said.”

“It must have been a seven-day wonder.” He was looking at me steadily. “And I don’t remember hearing anything.”

I almost believed him. But everyone in Sweden knew, so his denial made no sense. Yet why would he lie?

He gulped his coffee, rose, and left the room.

Grateful

The church was a good 20 minutes from the Excelsior. I walked briskly, grateful for the exercise. Wands of smoke curled from the chimneys of the tightly crowded buildings and disintegrated in the still air.

The houses soon thinned out, giving way to clusters of pine trees.

Every so often, snow fell soundlessly from their oversprung branches as the burdened trees released their load.

I met no one on the road; a flock of birds flapped low, but this served only to enhance the sense of solitude.

The forecast was for good weather, although the colour of the sky suggested otherwise.

A sudden gust of wind blew yesterday’s snow into puffs, which eddied like tiny sandstorms round my ankles.

I took the bend in the road.

More tomorrow.