Free Dark Angel by Mari Jungstedt Page A

sometime today. The only people we’ve talked to so far are employees of his company, which specialized in PR and event planning. Algård had two people on staff and his company is called Go Gotland. The office is located on Hästgatan and the client list includes major players, such as Wisby Strand, Kneippbyn and the municipality of Visby itself. I’ve talked to the two employees, a young guy named Max and a girl called Isabella. They had only good things to say about Algård as a boss. In addition, both of them are positive that he was having an affair. They hadn’t seen him with another woman, but apparently he’d exhibited all the signs of being in love. They said that he’d started having lunch with someone, but he refused to tell them who it was. He was gone from the office for long periods of time, and would return looking flushed and very pleased with himself. He’d started going to a gym – apparently he used to work out, but had let it lapse – and he’d even hired a personal trainer just a few weeks ago. He’d told his employees that he was going to take a trip to Paris in May, and he’d contacted an estate agent to help him find a large flat in the centre of Visby, since he was planning to sell his small pied-à-terre.’
    ‘So now we have another motive,’ said Smittenberg, twirling the ends of the moustache he’d recently affected. ‘The mysterious mistress.’
    Knutas wrote
Mistress
on the whiteboard and then turned again to Thomas Wittberg.
    ‘You might as well write
Wife
, while you’re at it,’ Smittenberg suggested. ‘From what I gather, Elisabeth Algård doesn’t have an alibi, does she?’
    Knutas did as the prosecutor requested.
    ‘There’s one theory that may be a long shot, but we still can’t rule it out,’ Wittberg interjected. ‘The fact is, the conference centre has been a very controversial construction project. It’s possible that someone murdered Algård to protest against the dedication of the building.’
    ‘A statement from rabid environmentalists, maybe? That sounds really credible,’ Jacobsson teased him.
    ‘We need to keep all avenues open,’ Knutas countered, his voice sharp.
    He added the words
Conference Centre
to the list and again turned to Wittberg.
    ‘What have you found out so far from talking to the waiters and service personnel?’
    ‘According to a bartender, shortly after midnight Algård told him that he was going to take a break. It was the first time all evening that he left the party. After that no one saw him again.’
    ‘And no one missed him?’ asked Jacobsson in surprise.
    ‘The dinner was over by the time he took a break, and then the dancing started up and there was a lot of commotion. We’re talking about more than five hundred guests, after all. The people that we’ve interviewed so far seem to have taken it for granted that Algård was on the scene somewhere, but none of them can pinpoint exactly the last time they saw him.’
    ‘Was he alone when he left?’
    ‘Yes, he headed downstairs to the section of the building that was closed off for the evening.’
    ‘The perp could have been someone he worked with,’ said Jacobsson. ‘What do we know about any problems on the job? We should look into that.’
    Knutas wrote
Work Colleague
on the board.
    ‘As of now, we haven’t come up with anything significant other than the trouble at his club,’ said Wittberg. ‘We need to keep working.’

THE GROUP FROM the National Criminal Police in Stockholm arrived in the afternoon. There was none of the hullabaloo that always ensued whenever Martin Kihlgård was part of the group, and Knutas reluctantly had to admit that he missed his charismatic colleague. Even though Kihlgård frequently drove Knutas crazy, at least he was entertaining. Jacobsson politely greeted their newly arrived associates, but displayed what seemed like a deliberate lack of interest in talking to them. Knutas found that annoying. It wasn’t their fault that