There was no Sara in the family, nor did they know of Harriet Vanger, other than
that she had been reported in the media as missing. The only vague connection
between Harriet and the Toresson family was that Anders, who was a roofer, had
several weeks earlier put a tiled roof on the school which Harriet attended. So
theoretically there was a chance that they had met, although it might be
considered extremely unlikely.
The remaining three numbers led to similar dead ends. The number 32027 for “R.L.”
had actually belonged to one Rosmarie Larsson. Unfortunately, she had died
several years earlier.
Inspector Morell concentrated a great deal of his attention during the winter of
1966–67 on trying to explain why Harriet had written down these names and
numbers.
One possibility was that the telephone numbers were written in some personal
code—so Morell tried to guess how a teenage girl would think. Since the thirty-two
series obviously pointed to Hedestad, he set about rearranging the remaining three
digits. Neither 32601 or 32160 led to a Magda. As Morell continued his numerology,
he realised that if he played around with enough of the numbers, sooner or later he
would find some link to Harriet. For example, if he added one to each of the three
remaining digits in 32016, he got 32127—which was the number to Frode’s office
in Hedestad. But one link like that meant nothing. Besides, he never discovered a
code that made sense of all five of the numbers.
Morell broadened his inquiry. Could the digits mean, for example, car number
plates, which in the sixties contained the two-letter county registration code and
five digits? Another dead end.
The inspector then concentrated on the names. He obtained a list of everyone in
Hedestad named Mari, Magda, or Sara or who had the initials R.L. or R.J. He had a
list of 307 people. Among these, 29 actually had some connection to Harriet. For
instance, a boy from her class was named Roland Jacobsson—R.J. They scarcely
knew each other and had had no contact since Harriet started preparatory school.
And there was no link to the telephone number.
The mystery of the numbers in the date book remained unsolved.