The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten Page B

She was filled with a warm glow and a sudden surge of confidence. As long as they had each other, they could deal with any setbacks. Together they were strong.

Over the weekend the evening papers had gone for thick black banner headlines: “killer lurks online!” “Do you know who your child is chatting to online?” “the internet—an el dorado for pedophiles!” and so on. They ran interviews with experts from the police, Save the Children and ECPAT. They offered advice to parents on how to talk to their children about the dangers associated with being contacted by someone online. Irene thought it was good that Efva Thylqvist—because it must have been her decision—had spoken to the media. There was no suggestion anywhere that Alexandra and Moa’s killer had contacted the girls online, which was also good. It was an advantage if he didn’t know they were onto him.
    There was an article in Göteborgs Tidningen about a man who worked as an Internet analyst, with youth sites as his specialty. He often pretended to be a twelve- to fourteen-year-old boy or girl. On certain sites he was contacted by adult males as frequently as every two minutes! For the past few years he had been traveling around the country giving talks to students in schools, to parents, teachers, social workers, police officers and judges about the methods used by men who exploit the Internet to try to establish sexual contact with children. He also mentioned the fact that in the UK anyone convicted of online grooming can be sent to jail, while in Sweden it is still legal for an adult to build a close relationship with a child online, with the aim of progressing to sexual abuse at a later stage. Only after the abuse has taken place is it regarded as a criminal offense.
    At one point in the interview he said:
    I know several young people who have been lured into prostitution through these youth sites. They often come from dysfunctional families with a low income. The children received money for supplying sexual services, but some of them were just lonely to begin with, and were slowly drawn into the empathetic web of the man who was grooming them. Eventually he had them exactly where he wanted them. Afterward they felt soiled; they almost had a kind of compulsion to carry on meeting men online. I have encountered several girls in this situation over the years, and even one or two boys. They were all under the age of seventeen.
    Irene put down the newspaper and stared into space as she thought about what she had just read. Kicki Olsson had been very short on cash, yet her fifteen-year-old daughter had an entire closet filled with expensive designer labels—clothes, shoes and bags worth several thousand kronor. Irene did a quick mental calculation, and came up with a figure approaching twenty thousand. A mind-blowing amount for any fifteen-year-old, and completely unattainable for a girl in Moa’s situation. Had she turned to prostitution via the Internet? Was that what she had used her laptop for? It wasn’t out of the question. That would explain how Moa had managed to acquire the money to buy all those exclusive clothes she could never have worn. Her school friends would have started to wonder what was going on if she had turned up in a pair of boots worth three thousand kronor, not to mention designer jeans. Had her mother noticed anything? Maybe not; Kicki Olsson had probably had enough problems of her own.
    “Prostitution? That had crossed my mind,” Hannu said. He pointed to the notebook by his phone. “Forensics just called. They’ve found fibers on the underwear. Nylon fibers probably from a bathroom mat or something similar. Red, around three centimeters long. There were three caught in the hook and eye of the bra Alexandra was wearing, and five in the lace of Moa’s thong.”
    “So that proves the connection. Where do we go from here?” Irene wondered.
    “We speak to your friend,” Hannu said with a smile.
    “My . . .