Chapter 51
Information about a landslide in Skavboke had first reached the overnight editorial crew at Hallandsposten.
Soon thereafter, it spread to the evening papers and national media.
For the first few days, helicopter footage of the disaster was broadcast on TV.
The video was slowed down, stretching the images out, making them thinner, like pulling on a rubber band.
Quick clay. A type of marine clay that’s very stable in solid form and can support houses, farms, and roads, even though it’s mostly made up of water.
The solid structure of this clay is maintained by salts, which help it hold together.
If it’s suddenly disturbed, it can quickly become a liquid sludge.
Since quick clay is covered by topsoil, it can only be discovered by way of geotechnical sampling, and that, as far as anyone knew, had never been done in Skavboke.
The cause of the disturbance to the ground was a box of dynamite in the Soderstroms’ basement. It had been ignited.
This was how the incident was described—in passive terms, as though it had simply happened. No reason to lay the blame on anyone. The detonation had caused the landslide and the fire that consumed the remains of the Soderstroms’ house.
When Siri gazed out over what was left of the village she had been getting to know, her eyes grew moist.
“If only we’d been a little…” she said, then shook her head. “Shit. If we’d just gotten a little further, maybe we could have prevented it.”
“How so?” Gerd asked.
“It’s all connected, right? Mikael, Killian, the explosion—all of it. It has to be.”
“Hmm,” said Gerd. “Yes, maybe. In which case, the question is how?”
And whether we’re up to the task of figuring it out, Siri thought. We might not be.
They were still searching the area and had arrived at the wreckage of Killian’s cabin.
“What’s that?”
Something was peeking out of the rubble like a white brick. When they got closer, they could see what it was: a white plastic bag with the logo of Sennan Carpentry AB, identical to the bag Bengt Lindell had used to wrap up the family’s savings after withdrawing it from the bank the week before.
They gingerly opened it and found a thick bundle of bills inside.
“Oh my,” said Gerd, and went to secure the discovery.
As it turned out when they got it back from forensic analysis, the bag was covered in Killian Persson’s fingerprints. It seemed to have been hidden under some sort of hatch in the floor.
Siri’s phone rang. It was Sander Eriksson.