The Killer's Art by Mari Jungstedt

Author:Mari Jungstedt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780552159944
Publisher: Corgi Books
Published: 2011-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

All of the officers from the NCP had gone back to Stockholm for the weekend, except for Martin Kihlgård. Sometimes Knutas wondered whether Kihlgård had a life outside of his police work. At any rate, he knew very little about his colleague. Kihlgård never talked about his family, and he didn’t wear a wedding ring, so Knutas assumed he wasn’t married. But he had no idea what his colleague did in his free time, except eat, of course. Even today, when Knutas dropped by the office temporarily assigned to Kihlgård, he found him munching on a baguette with salami and brie. ‘How are things going?’

‘Great. I’ve checked up on that mysterious code. I started by asking myself a very simple question.’

As usual, Kihlgård was talking with food in his mouth. Knutas waited for him to finish chewing.

‘You see, I wondered how the killer happened to know that Wallin was going to leave the house again.’

Knutas shrugged. ‘It’s possible that it was pure chance. Maybe he was tailing Wallin and waited outside his house until the lights were turned off.’

‘Or maybe he knew that Wallin was going out to meet somebody!’

Kihlgård sounded triumphant, as if he’d come up with something new and revolutionary.

‘Yes, well, we’ve already discussed that possibility at least a hundred times,’ said Knutas impatiently. He had no intention of standing there, wasting valuable time on such drivel.

‘The perp must have known that Wallin was planning to go out later in the evening to meet someone,’ Kihlgård went on, unperturbed. ‘He probably also knew that the person was staying at the Wisby Hotel.’

‘At the Wisby?’ Knutas raised his eyebrows. ‘How do you know that the woman he went out to meet was staying there?’

Kihlgård held out the code that Knutas had copied from the Post-it note earlier in the morning. ‘Why else would he be walking around with the hotel’s night-time code in his wallet?’

‘How did you figure that out?’

‘First I checked the bank to see if it might be his credit-card PIN number. Then I asked his wife if it was a code for the security alarm at their house. They have lots of valuable stuff, after all. But both were dead ends. So I started thinking about the fact that he was on his way to meet someone, possibly at a hotel. I checked to see which hotels had receptionists on duty at night. It so happens that after the female night manager at the Wisby was murdered, the hotel changed their system. If you arrive at the hotel after midnight and before six in the morning, you have to ring the bell and the receptionist will unlock the door for you. So anybody who doesn’t belong there can’t just come in. But if a hotel guest doesn’t want to call the receptionist, possibly because he or she wants to smuggle someone up to their room…’ Kihlgård winked at Knutas with a you-know-what-I-mean look on his face, ‘… all of the guests are given a code they can use instead of ringing the bell.

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