Chapter 60
It is after five when Hanna goes back to the main house to look for Daniel. At least the fog has dispersed; an icy wind stings her cheeks as she knocks on the front door.
She finds Daniel downstairs in the study. He is sitting behind a modern desk made of dark wood, which looks expensive.
“How did it go?” Hanna asks, sinking down in the leather armchair opposite him.
“So-so.” He stretches his arms in front of him and twists his head from side to side a few times. “I’ve spoken to everyone except Amir. They all deny having slept with Filippa on Saturday evening.”
He briefly summarizes what Pontus and William said.
“It can’t have been Emil,” Hanna says. “According to Olivia, he prefers boys.”
She can see that this information comes as a surprise to Daniel.
“We’ll ask him before we leave,” he says. “But if that’s the case, I find it strange that neither Pontus nor William said anything.”
Hanna agrees to a certain extent, but maybe Emil didn’t want to broadcast his orientation? Then again, Olivia passed on the information as if it were something obvious—so surely the other boys must have been aware of his preferences?
Unless Olivia made it up to protect her friend?
Or herself?
Hanna is reluctant to rule anything out at this stage, even though Olivia came across as honest and sincere.
“Olivia is convinced it must have been Amir who had sex with Filippa,” she says. “And she also thinks he’s involved in her death.”
She quickly runs through her conversation with Olivia, highlights the girl’s antipathy toward Amir. She also mentions her feeling that the boys don’t appear to have behaved particularly well toward Olivia on the slopes today, and that something seems to have happened.
“Well, it’s hardly surprising if tensions arise under the circumstances,” Daniel says pensively. “But I’d like us to interview Amir together. See what he has to say.”
What he has to say in his defense, Hanna thinks.