Chapter 115
A short while later they have watched all the footage twice more, including the material from above the patio door in slow motion. Daniel is determined that they will not miss a single detail; he has hardly blinked.
The film from the night of the fire shows a brief glimpse of Pontus, so they have the forensic evidence to confirm his guilt. But the fact remains that Filippa’s murderer cannot be identified from the footage.
Daniel can see his own disappointment reflected in Hanna’s eyes across the table.
“What about the IT guys in ?stersund?” Raffe suggests. “Sometimes they can work miracles with this kind of material—pick out details that the human eye can’t see.”
“Good idea—we’ll send everything over to them,” Daniel agrees. “And ask them to work as fast as they can.”
Hanna runs the footage of Filippa one more time. When they reach the frame where the perpetrator is most clearly visible, she freezes the image.
A dark jacket.
“Raffe, do you think the IT guys might be able to identify the jacket? If we knew what brand it was we could check it against William’s and Pontus’s outdoor clothing.”
Daniel is staring at the screen, with the distinct feeling that something isn’t right.
It looks like a perfectly ordinary padded jacket, but there are hundreds of dark-blue or black padded jackets in ?re. And even if they could see a label, that doesn’t mean its owner is guilty of Filippa’s murder.
They have to be able to prove that the perpetrator was wearing that particular jacket at the time of Filippa’s death. It would be very easy for a defense lawyer to claim that someone else had borrowed it late at night. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same person.
He narrows his eyes, hoping to sharpen his focus.
The proportions are distorted; it’s hard to tell how tall or short he is. Although he doesn’t look as if he’s as tall as Emil. Daniel is tending more toward Pontus, who is around five eight.
But they can’t rule out William, even though he is taller. It is quite simply impossible to work out who it is from the footage.
Something is still bothering Daniel, but he can’t quite get a hold of it. He stands up, moves closer to the screen, but it doesn’t help.
“Run it again,” he says to Hanna. “From the moment when Filippa appears.”
By this time he knows the sequence by heart. Filippa staggers into view and sinks down onto the snow with a smile on her face. She spreads her arms and legs in a snow angel. Then a dark figure comes in from the left and kneels down by her side.
Suddenly he knows what doesn’t fit.
Karin Carlsson’s eyewitness statement.
“Freeze the image where the perpetrator appears.”
Hanna does as he asks, and Daniel points to the screen.
“Look. Didn’t Karin Carlsson say that the person she saw through the window seemed to be carrying something heavy?”
Hanna nods. “From what she said, it sounded as though the perpetrator was carrying Filippa’s body. At least that was my interpretation.”
“But that’s not what the footage is showing.” Daniel points to the image again. “Filippa was already lying in the snow. She got there under her own steam.”
Hanna frowns.
“She was probably mistaken,” Raffe says. “It was the middle of the night, and she’d only just woken up. She went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, if I remember correctly.”
“It’s still strange,” Hanna says thoughtfully. “She expressed herself exactly like Daniel said.”
“I think we should go and talk to her, just to be on the safe side,” Daniel says. “We could take a look at William’s and Pontus’s jackets while we’re there. See if either of them owns a black or dark-blue ski jacket.”