Read The Treacherous Net for Free Online

were red-rimmed, and she looked bewildered. Irene bent down a fraction and discreetly took a deep breath. Nothing but perspiration and something unidentifiable. Did grief have an odor of its own? Marina Hallwiin hadn’t been drinking, at any rate.
    The room was large and airy, with a double bed by one wall. Sheer white fabric hung from the ceiling; Irene thought it looked like a malaria net, but she knew that drapes of this kind were popular with young girls. Otherwise the colors in the room were quite bold: a cerise throw; lime green cushions; a cerise, lime green and white striped rug; and white walls. Not that there was very much white to be seen; the walls were covered with pictures of horses. All kinds of horses. One of the pictures had attracted Irene’s attention as soon as she walked into the room: a huge poster of a shimmering coal-black horse that hung above the head of the bed. It was rearing up, its mane flying against the blue of a summer sky. A young man was sitting on its back, his muscles rippling beneath his tanned skin, gleaming in the sunlight. It was clear that he was completely naked.
    On the desk some loose cables and a lonely printer bore witness to the fact that forensics had taken the girl’s computer.
    “Will we . . . will we get her things back?” Marina snuffled.
    Irene could see that she was trying to pull herself together. Once again she placed her hand on Marina’s shoulder.
    “Yes. Everything will be returned once we’ve gone through it. We’re most interested in her computer since we haven’t found her cell phone. Did Alexandra have her own computer?”
    Irene asked the question even though she already knew the answer. Marina Hallwiin nodded and swallowed hard, pointing to her daughter’s desk with a trembling hand.
    “There. That’s where . . . the computer was.”
    Irene looked around as if she had just noticed all the pictures.
    “Alexandra seems to have been pretty keen on horses,” she said.
    “Yes . . . She has her own horse—Prince. The two of them . . .”
    Marina’s voice broke and she let out another sob. She pointed to the wall above the white bookcase, where rosettes of every color were displayed behind a bank of cups of varying sizes.
    “Talented . . . so talented,” Marina murmured, her voice thick with tears.
    “Absolutely. How long had she been riding?”
    “Since she was seven.”
    “But she hasn’t had Prince for that long?”
    “No, he . . . she’s had him for three years.”
    All Irene knew about horses was that one end could bite you and the other end could kick you. Keeping a conversation about horses going felt like tiptoeing across very thin ice. As far as she was concerned, she had already exhausted the topic, so instead she decided to broach a question she had been pondering ever since the morning briefing.
    “Where does Alexandra keep her underwear?” she asked.
    Marina gave a start; she looked directly at Irene for the first time. Slowly she got to her feet and nodded, as if she understood why Irene had asked. She pushed a mirrored sliding door to one side, revealing a stack of wire baskets.
    “That’s something I’d . . . wondered about . . .” she whispered.
    Irene pulled out the baskets one by one until she found one containing bras and thin socks. There were five bras, all size 70A: one red, one black, one pale blue and two white. They were all very similar: the material was smooth and shiny, the cups padded and firm.
    “Did Alexandra have any other type of bra?” Irene asked.
    “No . . . she always thought her bust was too small. She bought these at Lindex . . . I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday . . . that bra she was wearing when she . . . It wasn’t hers!”
    The last few words were almost a scream, and they confirmed what Irene had been thinking. The bra Alexandra had been wearing when she was found was unusually sexy for a fourteen-year-old girl obsessed with horses. It was made of see-through black lace with