Without a Trace Read Online Free

that.’
    ‘Can’t or won’t?’
    The policeman had had enough. He turned to go back to the house. His hair was plastered to his head, and his jacket was streaked dark with rain.
    ‘Are you aware of any possible motives for the assault?’ the woman yelled after him. ‘Had Lerberg received any threats? Are there any signs of a break-in?’
    The policeman stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. ‘The answer to all your questions is no,’ he said, then hunched his shoulders and hurried towards the house.
    Annika put the camera down again and turned back to the group of people gathered by the police cars. There was no sign of Nina Hoffman.
    ‘Do you want a lift into the city?’ she asked the radio reporter.
    ‘Thanks, but I’ve got to do a live broadcast at two o’clock.’
    ‘Have you heard about Schyman?’ Bosse said.
    Annika gave him a quizzical look. Bosse looked like a cat that had just caught a canary.
    ‘He faked his way to the Award for Excellence in Journalism – the series of articles about the billionairess who disappeared?’
    Annika raised her eyebrows. ‘Says who?’
    ‘New information on the internet.’
    Dear God, she thought. ‘It was a television documentary,’ she said, getting out her car keys.
    Bosse blinked several times.
    ‘Schyman got the award for a documentary on television,’ she repeated. ‘On both occasions.’
    She went to her car, gave Insect Man a wave and got in. While the fan dealt with the condensation on the windscreen, Nina Hoffman drove past and disappeared into the rain.
     
    Editor-in-chief Anders Schyman studied Ingemar Lerberg’s familiar smiling face on the computer screen: chalk-white teeth, dimples, neon-blue eyes. He was standing on a quayside in front of a large oil-tanker wearing an open sports jacket, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, wind in his hair.
    They had known each other for ten years, possibly more. Fifteen? For a couple of years they had both been on the Rotary Club’s committee, but since the revelations about Lerberg’s tax affairs, contact between them had been sporadic. Schyman liked him, though, and wondered who on earth could have wanted to beat the crap out of him.
    He refreshed the page to read the latest news on the attack. Annika Bengtzon had posted a picture of the crime scene on Twitter: media coverage of the case seemed to be pretty extensive. There was no motive, no acknowledged threat and no sign of a break-in.
    He went back to Lerberg’s website – or, rather, his company’s, International Transport Consultancy. Lerberg was a smart businessman, active in shipping and sea transport, something to do with digital systems for the coordination of maritime shipments. He was also pushing for the development of a new marina in Saltsjöbaden, a luxury harbour for yachts and cruisers. But, of course, he was best known as a politician.
    Schyman typed in a search for ‘lerberg politician saltsjöbaden’. A number of articles in the
Evening Post
came up – always a source of satisfaction to him, even if he knew that the search results were adapted to suit his own preferences. He glanced down the page, and found a thread on a discussion forum that made him lean forward: Gossip about powerful people in Saltsjöbaden. With Lerberg’s and several others, he found his own name: Anders Schyman, Crusader for Truth.
    What was this? He didn’t usually Google himself, not often, anyway, but he’d never seen this before. Curious, he clicked on the link. A short video appeared on the screen, a lit candle and a picture of him taken at some party. He was standing with a glass in his hand, smiling broadly at the camera, his eyes and forehead glowing slightly. Could it have been taken after some debate at the Publicists’ Club?
     
We know him, everyone knows him, our hero, the defender of reality, the Man Who Saves Us from Corruption and Abuses of Power, the great editor and legally accountable publisher of the
Evening Post
.
     
    He leaned