The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Have you noticed any mood changes in your wife?’
‘Birte is not depressed, Inspector. She has not gone into the forest and hung herself or thrown
herself into the lake. She’s out there somewhere, and she’s alive. I’ve read that people go missing
all the time, and then they turn up again with a natural and fairly banal explanation. Isn’t that so?’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘Would you mind if I had a look around the house?’
‘Why’s that?’
There was a brusqueness to Filip Becker’s question that made Harry think he was a man who was
used to being in control. To being kept informed. And that argued against his wife having left
without a word. Which, for that matter, Harry had already excluded in his mind. Well-adjusted,
healthy mothers do not abandon ten-year-old sons in the middle of the night. And then there was all
the rest. Usually they used minimal resources at such an early stage of a missing persons case,
unless there were indications which suggested something criminal or dramatic. It was ‘all the rest’
that had made him drive up to Hoff himself.
‘Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it,’ Harry answered. ‘It’s a
methodology.’
He caught Becker’s eyes behind the glasses now. They were, unlike his son’s, light blue and shone
with an intense, clear gleam.
‘By all means,’ Becker said. ‘Go ahead.’
The bedroom was chilly, aroma-free and tidy. On the double bed was a crocheted quilt. On one
bedside table a photograph of an elderly woman. The similarity led Harry to assume this side of the
bed was Filip Becker’s. On the other bedside table was a photograph of Jonas. There was a faint
scent of perfume in the wardrobe containing ladies’ clothing. Harry checked that the corners of the
clothes hangers hung with equal distance from each other, as they would if they had been allowed to
hang undisturbed for a while. Black dresses with slits, short jumpers with pink motifs and glitter. At
the bottom of the wardrobe there was a drawer section. He pulled out the top drawer. Underwear.
Black and red. Next drawer. Suspender belts and stockings. Third drawer. Jewellery placed in holes
in bright red felt. He noticed a large gaudy ring with precious stones that glittered and sparkled.
Everything here was a bit Vegas. There were no empty gaps in the felt.
The bedroom had a door leading into a newly decorated bathroom with a steam shower and two
steel washstands.
In Jonas’s room, Harry sat down on a small chair by a small desk. On the desk there was a
calculator with a series of advanced mathematical functions. It looked new and unused. Above the
desk there was a poster with a picture of seven dolphins inside a wave and a calendar for the whole
year. Several of the dates were ringed and had tiny reminders added. Harry noted birthdays for
Mummy and Grandpa, holiday in Denmark, dentist at 10 a.m. and two July dates with ‘Doctor’
above. But Harry couldn’t see any football matches, cinema trips or birthday parties. He caught
sight of a pink scarf lying on the bed. A colour no boy of Jonas’s age would be seen dead wearing.
Harry lifted the scarf. It was damp, but he could still smell the distinctive fragrance of skin, hair and
feminine perfume. The same perfume as in the wardrobe.
He went back downstairs. Stopped outside the kitchen and listened to Skarre holding forth on
procedures regarding missing persons cases. There was a clink of coffee cups inside. The sofa in the