The Stonecutter
The Stonecutter
Camilla Lackberg
For the first time in English, the third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Läckberg.The remote resort of Fjällbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But this was no accidental drowning…Local detective Patrik Hedström has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the murder of a child both he and his partner Erica knew well.What he does not know is how the case will reach into the dark heart of Fjällbacka and tear aside its idyllic façade, perhaps forever.
CAMILLA LACKBERG
The Stonecutter
Translated from the Swedish
by Steven T. Murray
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2005
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden
English translation © Steven T. Murray 2008
Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover Design © www.blacksheep-uk.com (http://www.blacksheep-uk.com/)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007253975
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007351855
Version: 2017-10-18
To UlleAll possible happiness
Table of Contents
Title Page (#u939d29a6-24c4-5185-8f3d-40d4add61d1c)
Copyright (#u2891b7b5-bef9-50a1-ad39-ad9a37670213)
Dedication (#u2eecd72e-bbea-5915-adcc-1c7733b5bc1f)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_c13afba5-55d9-57e8-ae63-06026a1b72c7)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_3b7c02e2-8259-5da1-8395-5ca692d0f07a)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_81d529ad-d147-5b5b-8e4b-e7f7b09bf914)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_93034ac0-e213-5790-9b25-c52c75c53b61)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_b6a75232-7b81-59d8-8543-958039469a75)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_af260914-69c3-557c-ab39-2c45cc864325)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_8f48e9fb-0b16-5191-b645-d5896d2917be)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_8cdcfea6-3c1e-5a1a-85be-2ddc797f7217)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_e4d9276b-f5ee-5fd1-8ac7-b90b2f45f54e)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_f1b6796c-d69a-5aa5-acd6-89c4ed875bc8)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
The Stranger (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1
The lobster fishery was not what it once was. Back then, hard-working, professional lobstermen trapped the black crustaceans. Now, summertime visitors spent a week fishing for lobsters purely for their own enjoyment. And they didn’t obey the regulations either. He had seen plenty of it over the years. Brushes discreetly used to remove the visible roe from the females to make the lobsters look legal, poaching from other people’s pots. Some people even dived into the water and plucked the lobsters right out of the pots. Sometimes he wondered where it would all end and whether there was any honour left among lobstermen. On one occasion there had even been a bottle of cognac in the pot he pulled up, instead of the unknown number of lobsters that had been stolen from it. At least that thief had some honour, or a sense of humour.
Frans Bengtsson sighed deeply as he stood hauling up his lobster-pots, but his face brightened when he saw two marvellous lobsters in the first pot. He had a good eye for where lobsters tended to congregate, as well as a number of favourite spots where the pots could be placed with the same luck from one year to the next.
Three pots later and he had accumulated a passable heap of the valuable creatures. He didn’t really understand why they commanded such scandalous prices. Not that they were unappetizing in any way, but if he had to choose he’d rather have herring for dinner. They were tastier and a better buy. But the income from the lobster fishery was a more than welcome addition to his pension at this time of the year.
The last pot seemed to be stuck, and he stood with his foot on the rail of the boat for a bit more support as he tried to wrench it loose. He felt the pot slowly begin to give, and he hoped it wasn’t damaged. He peered over the rail of his old wooden snipa to see what sort of shape it was in. But it wasn’t the pot that came up first. A white hand broke the heaving surface of the water, looking for a moment like it was pointing at the sky.
His first instinct was to release the line and let whatever was floating beneath the surface vanish into the depths again along with the lobster-pot. But then his expertise took over, and he resumed pulling on the line that was attached to the pot. He still had a good deal of strength in his body, and he needed it. He had to haul with all his might to manoeuvre his macabre find over the rail. He didn’t lose his composure until the pale, lifeless body fell to the deck with a thud. It was a child he’d pulled up from the sea. A girl, with her long hair plastered round her face, and lips just as blue as her eyes, which now stared unseeing at the sky.
Bengtsson threw himself against the rail and vomited.
Patrik was more exhausted than he’d ever thought possible. All his illusions that babies slept a lot had been thoroughly crushed in the past two months. He ran his hands through his short brown hair but managed only to make it look even more tousled. And if he thought he was tired, he couldn’t even imagine how Erica must feel. At least he didn’t have to keep getting up at night to nurse. Besides, he was really worried about her. He couldn’t recall seeing her laugh since she came home from the maternity ward, and she had dark circles under her eyes. When he saw Erica’s look of despair in the morning, it was hard for him to leave her and Maja. And yet he had to admit that he felt a great relief at being able to drive off to his familiar adult world. He loved Maja more than anything, but bringing home a baby was like stepping into a foreign, unfamiliar world, with all sorts of new worries lurking behind every corner. Why won’t she sleep? Why is she shrieking? Is she too hot? Too cold? What are those strange spots on her skin? Grown-up hooligans were at least something he knew about, something he knew how to handle.
He stared vacantly at the papers in front of him and tried to clear the cobwebs out of his brain enough to keep working. When the telephone rang, he almost jumped out of his seat, and it rang three times before he collected himself enough to pick up the receiver.
‘Patrik Hedström.’
Ten minutes later, he grabbed his jacket from a hook by the door, dashed over to Martin Molin’s office and said, ‘Martin, some old guy out pulling up lobster pots, a Frans Bengtsson, has brought up a body.’
‘Whereabouts?’ Martin said, looking confused. The dramatic news had broken the listless Monday morning at Tanumshede police station.
‘Outside Fjällbacka. He’s moored at the wharf by Ingrid Bergman Square. We have to get moving. The ambulance is on the way.’
Martin didn’t have to be told twice. He too grabbed his jacket to face the bitter October weather and then followed Patrik out to the car. The trip to Fjällbacka went quickly, and Martin had to hold on anxiously to the handle above the door when the car careened onto the verge around the sharp curves.
‘Is it a drowning accident?’ Martin asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’ said Patrik, instantly regretting snapping at Martin. ‘Sorry – not enough sleep.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Martin. Thinking about how worn-out Patrik had looked the past few weeks, he was more than willing to forgive him.
‘All we know is that she was found about an hour ago. According to the old man, it didn’t look like she’d been in the water very long. But we’ll see about that soon,’ Patrik said as they drove down Galärbacken towards the wharf, where a wooden snipa was moored.
‘Did you say “she”?’
‘Yes, it’s a girl, a kid.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Martin, wishing he’d followed his first instinct and stayed in bed with Pia instead of coming in to work this morning.
They parked at Café Bryggan and hurried over to the boat. Incredibly enough, no one had yet noticed what had happened, so there was no need to ward off the usual gawkers.
‘The girl’s lying there in the boat,’ said the old man who came to meet them on the wharf. ‘I didn’t want to touch her more than necessary.’
Patrik had no trouble recognizing the pallor on the old man’s face. It was the same on his own face whenever he had to look at a dead body.
‘Where was it you pulled her up?’ asked Patrik, using the question to postpone having to confront the dead girl for another few seconds. He hadn’t even seen her yet, and already his stomach was turning over uneasily.
‘Out by Porsholmen. The south side of the island. She got tangled in the line of the fifth pot I pulled up. Otherwise it would have been a long time before we found her. Maybe never, if the currents had swept her out to sea.’
It didn’t surprise Patrik that Bengtsson knew how a dead body would react to the effect of the sea. All the old-timers knew that a body first sank, then slowly came up to the surface after it was filled with gases, until finally, after more time passed, it sank back into the deep. In the old days drowning had been a real risk for a fisherman, and Bengtsson had surely been out searching for unfortunate victims before.
As if to confirm this the lobsterman said, ‘She couldn’t have been down there long. She hadn’t begun to float yet.’
Patrik nodded. ‘You said that when you called in the report. Well, I suppose we’d better have a look.’
Martin and Patrik walked very slowly out to the end of the wharf where the boat was moored. Not until they were almost there did they have enough of a view over the rail to discern what was lying on the deck. The girl had landed on her back when the old man pulled her into the boat, and her wet, tangled hair covered most of her face.
‘The ambulance is here,’ said Patrik.
Martin nodded feebly. His freckles and reddish-blond hair seemed several shades redder against his white face, and he was fighting to keep his nausea in check.
The greyness of the weather and the wind that had begun to gust created a ghastly backdrop. Patrik waved to the ambulance team, who seemed in no hurry to unload a gurney from the vehicle and roll it towards them.
‘Drowning accident?’ The first of the two EMTs nodded inquiringly towards the boat.
‘Looks like it,’ replied Patrik. ‘But the Medical Examiner will have to make that call. There’s nothing you can do for her, in any case, besides transporting her.’
‘No, we heard that,’ said the man. ‘We’ll start by getting her up on the gurney.’
Patrik nodded. He had always thought that situations in which children had fallen victim to misfortune were the worst things a police officer could encounter on the job. Ever since Maja was born the discomfort he felt seemed multiplied a thousandfold. Now his heart ached at the thought of the task that lay before them. As soon as the girl had been identified they would have to destroy her parents’ lives.
The medics had hopped down into the boat. They carefully picked the girl up and lifted her onto the wharf. Her wet red hair fell on the planking like a fan around her pale face, and her glazed eyes seemed to be watching the scudding grey clouds.
At first Patrik had turned away, but now he reluctantly looked down at the girl. Then a cold hand gripped his heart.
‘Oh no, oh no, Jesus God.’
Martin looked at him in dismay. Then it dawned on him what Patrik meant. ‘You know who she is?’
Patrik nodded mutely.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Agnes never would have dared to say it out loud, but sometimes she thought it was lucky that her mother had died when she was born. That way she’d had her father all to herself, and considering what she’d heard about her mother, she wouldn’t have been able to wrap her round her little finger so easily. But her father didn’t have the heart to deny his motherless daughter anything. Agnes was well aware of this fact and exploited it to the utmost. Certain well-meaning relatives and friends had tried to point this out to her father, but even if he made half-hearted attempts to say no to his darling, sooner or later her lovely face won out. Those big eyes of hers could so easily well up with heavy tears that would run down her cheeks. When things reached that point, his heart would relent, and she usually got what she wanted.
As a result she was now, at the age of nineteen, an exceptionally spoiled girl. Many of the people who had known her over the years would probably venture to say that she had quite a nasty side to her. It was mostly girls who dared say that. The boys, Agnes had discovered, seldom looked further than at her beautiful face, big eyes, and long, thick hair, all of which had made her father give her anything she wanted.
Their villa in Strömstad was one of the grandest in town. It stood high up on the hill, with a view over the water. It had been paid for partly with her mother’s inherited fortune and partly with the money her father had made in the granite business. He had been close to losing everything once, during the strike of 1914, when to a man the stonecutters rose up against the big companies. But order was eventually restored; after the war, business had begun flourishing anew. The quarry in Krokstrand outside Strömstad, in particular, began pulling in big profits with deliveries primarily to France.
Agnes didn’t care much about where the money came from. She was born rich and had always lived as rich people do. It made no difference whether the money was inherited or earned, as long as she could buy jewellery and fine clothes. She knew that not everyone viewed things this way. Her mother’s parents had been horrified when their daughter married Agnes’s father. His wealth was newly acquired, and his parents had been poor folk. They didn’t fit in at big dinner parties; they were only invited when no one outside the immediate family was present. Even these gatherings were embarrassing. The poor things had no idea how to behave in the finer salons, and their contributions to the conversation were hopelessly meagre. Agnes’s maternal grandparents had never understood what their daughter could see in August Stjernkvist, or rather Persson, which was his surname at birth. His attempt to move up the social ladder by simply changing his last name was nothing that could fool them. But they were enchanted with their granddaughter, and they competed with her father in spoiling Agnes after her mother died so suddenly after giving birth.
‘Sweetheart, I’m driving down to the office.’
Agnes turned round when her father came into the room. She had been playing the grand piano that stood facing the window, mostly because she knew how lovely she looked sitting there. Musicality was not her strong point. Despite the expensive piano lessons she had taken since she was little, she could only struggle passably through the sheet music on the stand in front of her.
‘Father, have you thought about that dress I showed you the other day?’ She gave him an entreating look and saw how he was torn, as usual, between his desire to say no and his inability to do so.
‘My dear, I just bought you a new dress in Oslo …’
‘But it had a quilted lining, Father. You can’t expect me to wear a dress with a quilted lining to the party on Saturday, when it’s so warm outside, can you?’
She gave him a vexed frown and waited for his reaction. If contrary to habit he put up more resistance, she would have to make her lip quiver, and if that didn’t help, well, a few tears usually did the trick. But today he looked tired, and she didn’t think it would take any more effort on her part. As usual she was correct.
‘Yes, all right, run down to the shop tomorrow and order it, then. But you’re going to give your old father grey hair one day.’ He shook his head but couldn’t help smiling when she bounded over to him and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Now look,’ he said, ‘you’d better sit down and practice your scales. It’s possible that they might ask you to play a little on Saturday, so you’d better be prepared.’
Satisfied, Agnes sat back down on the piano bench and obediently began practising. She could already picture the scene. Everyone’s eyes would be fixed on her as she sat at the piano in the flickering candlelight, wearing her new red dress.
2
The migraine was finally beginning to subside. The iron band across her forehead was gradually releasing its grip, and she could cautiously open her eyes. It was quiet upstairs. Good. Charlotte turned over in bed and closed her eyes again, enjoying feeling the pain fade. Slowly it was replaced by a relaxed feeling in her limbs.
After resting for a while she gingerly sat up on the edge of the bed and massaged her temples. They were still a bit tender after the attack, and she knew from experience that the soreness would linger for a couple of hours.
Albin must be taking a nap upstairs. That meant that in good conscience she could wait a bit before going up to him. God knows she needed all the rest she could get. The increased stress in recent months had made the migraines come on more often, sapping her of every last ounce of energy.
She decided to give her fellow sufferer a ring and hear how she was doing. Even though Charlotte was stressed out at the moment, she couldn’t help worrying about Erica’s state of mind. The two women hadn’t known each other long. They’d started talking because they kept running into each other when they were out walking with the baby prams. Erica with Maja, and Charlotte with her eight-month-old son Albin. After they had discovered that they only lived a stone’s throw from each other, they began meeting almost every day. But Charlotte soon began to worry about her new-found friend. Of course, she had never met Erica before Maja arrived, but her intuition told her that it was unusual for her friend to be as apathetic and depressed as she most often was these days. Charlotte had even carefully brought up the subject of postnatal depression with Patrik. But he had dismissed the idea, saying that having a new baby was a big adjustment and that everything would be fine as soon as they got into a routine.
She reached for the phone on the nightstand and punched in Erica’s number.
‘Hi, it’s Charlotte.’
Erica sounded groggy and subdued when she replied, and Charlotte felt even more uneasy. Something wasn’t right. Not right at all.
But after a while Erica perked up a bit. Even Charlotte thought it felt good to be able to chat for a few minutes and postpone the inevitable a little longer. But soon she would have to go upstairs to the reality that awaited her there.
As if sensing what Charlotte was thinking, Erica asked how the house-hunting was going.
‘Slow. Much too slow. Niclas is working all the time, it seems. He never has time to drive around and look at houses. And there isn’t much to choose from right now anyway, so I suppose we’re stuck here for a while longer.’ She gave a deep sigh.
‘It’ll all work out, you’ll see.’ Erica’s voice was comforting, but unfortunately Charlotte didn’t put much faith in her reassurance. She, Niclas and the children had already been living with her mother and Stig for six months. The way things looked now, they were going to have to stay for another half a year. That might be all right for Niclas, who was at the clinic from morning to night, but for Charlotte being cooped up with the kids was unbearable.
In theory it had sounded so good when Niclas suggested the idea. A position for a district physician had opened up in Fjällbacka, and after five years in Uddevalla they had felt ready for a change of scene. Besides, Albin was on the way, conceived as a last attempt to save their marriage. So why not start their life over completely? The more he had talked about the plan, the better it had sounded. And the thought of having close access to babysitting, now that they were going to have two kids, had also sounded tempting. But reality was an entirely different story. It took no more than a few days before Charlotte remembered exactly why she had been so eager to leave her parents’ house. On the other hand, a few things had definitely changed the way they had hoped. But this wasn’t a topic she could discuss with Erica, no matter how much she would have liked to. It had to remain a secret, otherwise it might destroy their whole family.
Erica’s voice interrupted her reverie. ‘So how’s it going with your mum? Is she driving you nuts?’
‘To say the least. Everything I do is wrong. I’m too strict with the kids, I’m too lenient with the kids, I make them wear too many clothes, I make them wear too few clothes, they don’t get enough to eat, I stuff them with too much food, I’m too fat, I’m too sloppy … The list never ends, and I’ve had it up to here,’ she said, holding her hand at chin level.
‘What about Niclas?’
‘Oh no, Niclas is perfect in Mamma’s eyes. She coos and fawns all over him and feels sorry that he has such a worthless wife. He can do no wrong as far as she’s concerned.’
‘But doesn’t he see how she treats you?’
‘Like I said, he’s almost never at home. And she’s on her best behaviour whenever he’s around. You know what he said yesterday when I had the audacity to complain? “But Charlotte, dear, why can’t you just give in a little?” Give in a little? If I gave in any more I’d be completely obliterated. It made me so mad that I haven’t said a word to him since. So now he’s probably sitting there at work feeling sorry for himself because he has such an unreasonable wife. No wonder I came down with the world’s worst migraine this morning.’
A sound from upstairs made Charlotte get up reluctantly.
‘Erica, I’ve got to run upstairs and see to Albin. Otherwise Mamma will be doing the whole martyr bit before I get there … But remember, I’m coming by this afternoon with some pastries. Here I’ve been going on about myself, and I haven’t even asked how you’re doing. But I’ll be over later.’
She hung up and combed her fingers quickly through her hair before she took a deep breath and went upstairs.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. She had ploughed through lots of books about having a child and what life would be like as a parent, but nothing she’d read had prepared her for the reality of the situation. Instead, she felt that everything that had been written was part of a huge plot. The authors raved about happy hormones and floating on a pink cloud as you held your baby, feeling a totally overwhelming natural love-at-first-sight towards the little bundle of joy. Of course it was mentioned, in passing, that you would probably be more exhausted than you’d ever been in your life. But even that fact was surrounded by a romantic halo and deemed to be part of the wondrous motherhood package.
Bullshit! was Erica’s honest assessment after two months as a mother. Lies, propaganda, utter crap! She had never in her entire life felt so miserable, tired, angry, frustrated and worn out as she had since Maja arrived. And she hadn’t experienced any all-consuming love when the red, shrieking, and yes, ugly bundle was placed on her breast. Even though her maternal feelings had crept in ever so slowly, it still felt as though a stranger had invaded their home. Sometimes she almost regretted she and Patrik had decided to have a child. They’d been getting along so well, just the two of them. Then the selfishness they shared with the rest of humanity had combined with their desire to see their own excellent genes reproduced. In one stroke they had changed their lives and reduced her to a round-the-clock milking machine.
How such a little baby could be so ravenous was beyond her comprehension. Maja was constantly clinging to Erica’s breasts, swollen with milk, which had also exploded in size so that she felt that she was just two huge walking breasts. Nor was her physique in general anything to cheer about. When she came home from the maternity hospital she still looked very pregnant, and the kilos had not dropped away as fast as she wanted. Her only consolation was that Patrik had also gained weight when she was pregnant, eating like a horse. Now he too carried a few extra kilos around the middle.
Thank goodness the pain was almost gone by now, but she still felt sweaty, bloated, and generally lousy. Her legs had not seen a razor in several months, and she was in desperate need of a haircut and maybe some highlights to get rid of the mousy-brown colour of her normally blonde, shoulder-length hair. Erica got a dreamy look in her eye, but then reality took over. How the hell could she get out of the house to do that? Oh, how she envied Patrik. For at least eight of the hours in the day he could be in the real world, the world of grown-ups. Nowadays her only company was Ricki Lake and Oprah Winfrey, as she listlessly zapped the remote while Maja sucked and sucked.
Patrik assured Erica that he would rather stay home with her and Maja than go to work, but she could see in his eyes that what he really felt was relief at being able to escape their little world for a while. And she sympathized. At the same time she could feel bitterness growing inside her. Why did she have to bear such a heavy load when it had been a mutual decision and should have been a mutual project? Shouldn’t he carry an equal share of the burden?
So every day she kept close tabs on the time he had promised to come home. If he was only five minutes late she would be consumed by annoyance, and if he lingered even longer he could expect a real onslaught of fury. As soon as he came in the door she would dump Maja into his arms, if his arrival coincided with one of the rare breaks in her breast-feeding schedule. Then Erica would fall into bed wearing earplugs, just to get away from the shrieks of the baby for a while.
Erica sighed as she sat holding the phone in her hand. Everything seemed so hopeless. But her chats with her friend were a welcome break in the gloom. As the mother of two kids Charlotte was a steady rock to lean on, and full of calm assurances. Erica was ashamed to admit that it was also rather nice to listen to her hardships instead of always focusing merely on her own.
Of course, there was one other source of concern in Erica’s life – her sister Anna. She had only talked to her a few times since Maja was born, and she felt that something was not as it should be. Anna sounded subdued and distant when they talked on the phone, but claimed that everything was fine. And Erica was so wrapped up in her own misery that she didn’t feel like pressing her sister for more information. But something was wrong, she was sure of that.
She pushed aside the troubling thoughts and shifted Maja from one breast to the other, which made the baby fuss a bit. Listlessly she picked up the remote and changed the channel. ‘Glamour’ was about to start. The only thing she had to look forward to was this afternoon’s coffee break with Charlotte.
Lilian stirred the soup with brisk strokes. She had to do everything in this house. Cook, clean, and take care of the kids. At least Albin had finally gone to sleep. Her expression softened at the thought of her grandson. He was a little angel. Hardly made a peep. Not at all like the other one. She frowned and stirred even faster, making little drops of soup splash over the edge to sizzle and stick to the surface of the stove.
She had already prepared a tray on the worktop with glasses, soup plates, and spoons. Now she carefully took the pot from the stove and poured the hot soup into the bowl. She inhaled the aroma rising up with the steam and smiled contentedly. Chicken soup, that was Stig’s favourite. She hoped that he would eat it with a good appetite.
She cautiously picked up the tray and, using her elbow, pushed open the door to the stairs. Always this dashing up and down stairs, she thought peevishly. Some day she’d end up lying at the bottom with a broken leg, and then they’d see how hard it was to get along without her. She did everything for them, like a house slave. At this very moment, for instance, Charlotte was downstairs in the basement loafing in bed, with some lame excuse about a migraine. What bloody rubbish. If there was anyone with a migraine around here it was Lilian herself. She couldn’t imagine how Niclas could stand it. All day long he worked hard at the clinic, doing his best to support the family, and then came home to a basement where it looked like a bomb had gone off. Just because they were living there only temporarily didn’t mean they couldn’t clean up and keep the place tidy. And Charlotte had the nerve to insist that her husband help her take care of the kids when he came home in the evening. What she ought to do instead was let him rest after a hard day’s work, sit in peace in front of the TV and keep the kids away as best she could. No wonder the older girl was so impossible. No doubt she could see how little respect her mother showed her father. It could lead to only one thing.
With determined steps Lilian ascended the last steps to the top floor, taking the tray to the guest room. That was where she installed Stig when he was sick. It wouldn’t do to have him moaning and groaning in the bedroom. If she was to take care of him properly, she had to get a good night’s sleep.
‘Dear?’ She cautiously pushed open the door. ‘Wake up now, I’m bringing you a little something. It’s your favourite: chicken soup.’
Stig wanly returned her smile. ‘I’m not hungry, maybe later,’ he said weakly.
‘Nonsense, you’ll never get well if you don’t eat properly. Come on, sit up a little and I’ll feed you.’
She helped him up to a half-sitting position and then sank down on the edge of the bed. As if he were a child, she fed him soup, wiping off any dribbles at the corners of his mouth.
‘See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I know exactly what my darling needs, and if you just eat properly you’ll be back on your feet in no time, you’ll see.’
Once again the same weak smile in reply. Lilian helped him lie back down and pulled the blanket over his legs.
‘The doctor?’
‘But, sweetie, have you entirely forgotten? It’s Niclas who’s the doctor now, so we have our very own doctor right here in the house. I’m sure he’ll look in on you this evening. He just had to go over his diagnosis again, he said, and consult with a colleague in Uddevalla. It will all work out very soon, you’ll see.’
Lilian fussily tucked in her patient one last time and took the tray with the empty soup bowl. She headed for the stairs, shaking her head. Now she had to be a nurse as well, on top of everything else that needed her attention.
She heard a knock at the front door and hurried downstairs.
Patrik’s hand struck the door with a sharp rap. Around them the wind had come up quickly to gale force. Droplets of rain were landing on them, not from above but from behind, as the stormy gusts whipped up a fine mist from the ground. The sky had turned dark, its light-grey hue streaked with darker grey clouds, and the dirty brown of the sea was far from its summery blue sparkle, with whitecaps now scudding along. There were white geese on the sea, as Patrik’s mother used to say.
The door opened and both Patrik and Martin took deep breaths in order to summon extra reserves of strength. The woman standing before them was a head shorter than Patrik and very, very thin. She had short hair curled in a permanent wave and tinted to an indeterminate brown shade. Her eyebrows were a bit too severely plucked and had been replaced by a couple of lines drawn with a kohl pencil, which gave her a slightly comical look. But there was nothing funny about the situation they were now facing.
‘Hello, we’re from the police. We’re looking for Charlotte Klinga.’
‘She’s my daughter. What is this regarding?’
Her voice was a bit too shrill to be pleasant. Patrik had heard enough about Charlotte’s mother from Erica to know how trying it must be to listen to her all day long. But such trivial matters were about to lose any importance.
‘We’d appreciate it if you could tell her that we’d like to talk to her.’
‘Of course, but what’s this all about?’
Patrik insisted. ‘We would like to speak with your daughter first. If you wouldn’t mind —’ He was interrupted by footsteps on the stairs, and a second later he saw Charlotte’s familiar face appear in the doorway.
‘Well, hi, Patrik! How nice to see you! What are you doing here?’
All at once an expression of concern settled on her face. ‘Has something happened to Erica? I spoke to her recently and she sounded all right, I thought …’
Patrik held up his hand. Martin stood silently at his side with his eyes fixed on a knothole on the floor. He usually loved his job, but at the moment he was cursing the day he’d decided to become a cop.
‘May we come in?’
‘Now you’re making me nervous, Patrik. What’s happened?’ A thought struck her. ‘Is it Niclas, did he have an accident in the car, or something?’
‘Let’s go inside first.’
Since neither Charlotte nor her mother seemed capable of budging from the spot, Patrik took charge and led them into the kitchen with Martin bringing up the rear. He noted absently that they hadn’t taken off their shoes and were surely leaving wet footprints behind. But a little mud wouldn’t make much difference now.
He motioned to Charlotte and Lilian to take a seat across from them at the kitchen table, and they silently obeyed. Patrik and Martin sat down across from them.
‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I have …’ he hesitated, ‘terrible news for you.’ The words lurched stiffly out of his mouth. His choice of words already felt wrong, but was there any right way to say what he had to say?
‘An hour ago a lobsterman found a little girl drowned. I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte …’ Then he found himself incapable of going on. Even though the words were in his mind, they were so horrific that they refused to come out. But he didn’t need to say any more.
Charlotte gasped for breath with a wheezing, guttural sound. She grabbed the tabletop with both hands, as if to hold herself upright, and stared with empty eyes at Patrik. In the silence of the kitchen that single wheezing gasp seemed louder than a scream. Patrik swallowed to hold back the tears and keep his voice steady.
‘It must be a mistake. It couldn’t be Sara!’ Lilian looked wildly back and forth between Patrik and Martin, but Patrik only shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘but I just saw the girl and there’s no doubt that it’s Sara.’
‘But she said she was just going over to Frida’s to play. I saw her heading that way. There must be some mistake. I’m sure she’s over there playing.’ As if in a trance Lilian got up and went over to the telephone on the wall. She checked the address book hanging next to it and briskly punched in the numbers.
‘Hello, Veronika, it’s Lilian. Listen, is Sara over there?’ She listened for a second and then dropped the receiver so it hung from the cord, swaying back and forth.
‘She hasn’t been there.’ She sat down heavily at the table and stared helplessly at the police officers facing her.
The shriek came out of nowhere, and both Patrik and Martin jumped. Charlotte was screaming, motionless, with eyes that didn’t seem to see. It was a loud, primitive, piercing sound. The raw pain that pitilessly forced out the scream gave both officers gooseflesh.
Lilian threw herself at her daughter, trying to put her arms round her, but Charlotte brusquely batted her away.
Patrik tried to talk over the scream. ‘We’ve tried to get hold of Niclas, but he wasn’t at the clinic. We left him a message to come home as soon as he can. And the pastor is on his way.’ He directed his words more to Lilian than to Charlotte, who was now beyond their reach. Patrik knew that he’d handled the situation terribly. He should have made sure that a doctor was present to administer a sedative if needed. Unfortunately the only doctor in Fjällbacka was the girl’s father, and they hadn’t been able to get hold of him. He turned to Martin.
‘Ring the clinic on your mobile and see if you can get the nurse over here at once. And ask her to bring a sedative.’
Martin did as he asked, relieved to have an excuse to leave the kitchen for a moment. Ten minutes later Aina Lundby came in without knocking. She gave Charlotte a pill to calm her down, and then with Patrik’s help led her into the living room, so she could lie down on the sofa.
‘Shouldn’t I be given a sedative too?’ asked Lilian. ‘I’ve always had bad nerves, and something like this …’
The district nurse, who looked to be about the same age as Lilian, merely snorted and continued tucking a blanket round Charlotte with maternal care as she lay there, teeth chattering as if she were freezing.
‘You’ll survive without it,’ she said, gathering up her things.
Patrik turned to Lilian and said softly, ‘We’ll probably have to talk to the mother of the friend Sara was going to visit. Which house is it?’
‘The blue one just up the street,’ said Lilian without looking him in the eyes.
By the time the pastor knocked on the door a few minutes later, Patrik felt that he and Martin had done all they could. They left the house which had been plunged into grief with their news and got into their car in the driveway. But Patrik didn’t start the engine.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Martin.
‘Bloody hell indeed,’ said Patrik.
Kaj Wiberg peered out of the kitchen window facing the Florins’ driveway.
‘I wonder what the old cow’s up to now?’ he muttered petulantly.
‘What?’ his wife Monica called from the living room.
He turned halfway in her direction and shouted back, ‘There’s a police car parked outside the Florins’. I bloody well bet there’s some mischief going on. I’ve been saddled with that old woman as a neighbour to pay for my sins.’
Monica came into the kitchen with a worried look. ‘You really think it’s about us? We haven’t done anything.’ She was combing her smooth, blonde page-boy but stopped with the comb in mid-air to peer out of the window.
Kaj snorted. ‘Try to tell her that. No, just wait till the small claims court agrees with me about the balcony. Then she’ll be standing there with egg on her face. I hope it’ll cost her a bundle to tear it down.’
‘Yes, but do you think we’re really doing the right thing, Kaj? I mean, it only sticks over a few centimetres into our property, and it’s not really bothering us. And now poor Stig is sick in bed and everything.’
‘Sick, oh yeah, thanks a lot. I’d be sick too if I had to live with that damn bitch. What’s right is right. If they build a balcony that infringes on our property, they’re either going to have to pay or tear the bleeding thing down. They forced us to cut down our tree, didn’t they? Our fine old birch tree, reduced to firewood, just because Lilian Florin thought it was blocking her view of the sea. Or am I wrong? Did I miss something here?’ He turned spitefully towards his wife, incensed by the memory of all the injustices that had been done to them in the ten years they had been the Florins’ neighbours.
‘No, Kaj, you’re quite right.’ Monica looked down, well aware that retreat was the best defence when her husband got in this mood. For him Lilian Florin was like a red flag to a bull, and it was no use talking to him about common sense and reason when her name came up. Though Monica had to admit that it wasn’t only Kaj’s fault there had been so much trouble. Lilian wasn’t easy to take, and if she’d only left them in peace it never would have come to this. Instead she had dragged them through one court appearance after another, for everything from incorrectly drawn property lines, a path that went through the lot behind her house, a garden shed that she claimed stood too close to her property, and not least the fine old birch tree they’d been forced to cut down a couple of years ago. And it had all started when they began building the house they lived in now. Kaj had just sold his office supply business for several million kronor, and they had decided to take early retirement, sell the house in Göteborg, and settle down in Fjällbacka where they had always spent their summers. But they certainly hadn’t found much peace. Lilian had voiced a thousand objections to the new construction. She had organized petitions and collected complaints to try and put obstacles in their way. When she failed to stop them, she’d begun to quarrel with them about everything imaginable. Exacerbated by Kaj’s volatile temperament, the feud between the neighbours had escalated beyond all common sense. The balcony that the Florins had built was only the latest bone of contention in the battle. The fact that it looked as though the Wibergs would win had given Kaj the high ground, and he was happy to exploit it.
Kaj whispered excitedly as he stood peering out behind the curtain. ‘Now two guys are coming out of the house and getting in the police car. Just you wait, now they’re going to come knock on our door any minute. Well, whatever it’s about, I’m going to tell them the facts. And Lilian Florin isn’t the only one who can file a police report. Didn’t she stand there screaming insults over the hedge a couple of days ago, saying she’d make sure I got what I deserved? Illegal intimidation, I think that’s what it’s called. She could go to jail for that …’ Kaj licked his lips in anticipation and prepared for the coming battle.
Monica sighed and went back to the easy chair in the living room. She picked up a women’s magazine and began to read. She no longer had the energy to care.
‘We might as well drive over and talk to the friend and her mother, don’t you think? As long as we’re here.’
‘All right,’ said Patrik with a sigh, backing out the driveway. They didn’t really need to take the car since it was only a few houses up the street to the right, but he didn’t want to block the Florins’ drive with Sara’s father on his way home.
Looking solemn, they knocked on the door of the blue house, which was only three houses away. A girl about the same age as Sara opened the door.
‘Hello, are you Frida?’ asked Martin in a friendly voice. She nodded in reply and stepped aside to let them in. They stood awkwardly in the hall for a moment as Frida observed them from under her fringe. Ill at ease, Patrik finally said, ‘Is your mother at home?’
The girl still didn’t say a word but ran a little way down the hall and turned left into a room that Patrik guessed was the kitchen. He heard a low murmur and then a dark-haired woman in her thirties came out to meet them. Her eyes flitted nervously and she gave the two men standing in her hall an inquisitive look. Patrik saw that she didn’t know who they were.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Karlgren. We’re from the police,’ said Martin, apparently thinking the same thing. ‘May we have a word with you? In private?’ He gave Frida a meaningful glance. Her mother blanched, drawing her own conclusions about why they didn’t think what they had to say was suitable for her daughter’s ears.
‘Frida, go up and play in your room.’
‘But Mamma —’ the girl protested.
‘No arguments. Go up to your room and stay there until I call you.’
The girl looked as if she had a mind to object again, but a hint of steel in her mother’s voice told her that this was one of those battles she was not going to win. Sullenly Frida dragged herself up the stairs, casting a few hopeful glances back at the adults to see whether they might relent. No one moved until she reached the top of the stairs and the door to her room slammed behind her.
‘We can sit in the kitchen.’
Veronika Karlgren led them into a big, cosy kitchen, where apparently she’d been making lunch.
They shook hands politely and introduced themselves, then sat down at the kitchen table. Frida’s mother took some cups out of the cupboard, poured coffee, and put some biscuits on a plate. Patrik saw that her hands were shaking as she did so, and he realized that she was trying to postpone the inevitable, what they had come to tell her. But finally there was no putting it off any longer, and she sat down heavily on a chair across from them.
‘Something has happened to Sara, hasn’t it? Why else would Lilian ring and then hang up like that?’
Patrik and Martin sat in silence a few seconds too long, since both hoped the other would start. Their silence was a form of confirmation that made tears well up in Veronika’s eyes.
Patrik cleared his throat. ‘Yes, unfortunately we have to inform you that Sara was found drowned this morning.’
Veronika gasped but said nothing.
Patrik went on, ‘It seems to have been an accident, but we’re making inquiries to see whether we can determine exactly how it happened.’ He looked at Martin, who sat ready with his pen and notebook.
‘According to Lilian Florin, Sara was supposed to come over here and play with your daughter Frida today. Was that something the girls had planned? It is Monday, after all, so why weren’t they in school?’
Veronika was staring at the tabletop. ‘They were both ill this weekend, so Charlotte and I decided to keep them home from school, but we thought it was okay if they played together. Sara was supposed to come over sometime before noon.’
‘But she never arrived?’
‘No, she never did.’ Veronika said no more, and Patrik had to keep asking questions to get more information.
‘Didn’t you wonder why she never showed up? Why didn’t you ring and ask where she was?’
Veronika hesitated. ‘Sara was a little … what should I say? … different. She more or less did whatever she liked. Quite often she wouldn’t come over as agreed because she suddenly decided she felt like doing something else. The girls sometimes quarrelled because of that, I think, but I didn’t want to get involved. From what I’ve heard, Sara suffered from one of those problems with all the initials, so it wouldn’t be good to make matters worse …’ She sat there shredding a paper napkin to bits. A little pile of white paper was growing on the table before her.
Martin looked up from his notebook with a frown. ‘A problem with all the initials? What do you mean by that?’
‘You know, one of those things that every other child seems to have these days: ADHD, DAMP, MBD, and whatever else they’re called.’
‘Why do you think something was wrong with Sara?’
She shrugged. ‘People talked. And I thought it fit quite well. Sara could be utterly impossible to deal with, so either she was suffering from some problem or else she hadn’t been brought up right.’ She cringed as she heard herself talking about a dead girl that way, and quickly looked down. With even greater frenzy she resumed tearing up the napkin, and soon there was nothing left of it.
‘So you never saw Sara at all this morning? And never heard from her by phone either?’
Veronika shook her head.
‘And you’re sure the same is true for Frida?’
‘Yes, she’s been at home with me the whole time, so if she had talked to Sara I would have known. And she was a bit peeved that Sara never showed up, so I’m quite sure they didn’t talk to each other.’
‘Well then, I don’t suppose we have much more to ask you.’
With a voice that quavered a bit Veronika asked, ‘How is Charlotte doing?’
‘As can be expected under the circumstances,’ was the only answer Patrik could give her.
In Veronika’s eyes he saw the abyss open that all mothers must experience when for an instant they picture their own child a victim of an accident. And he also saw the relief that this time it was someone else’s child and not her own. He couldn’t reproach her for feeling that way. His own thoughts had all too often shifted to Maja in the past hour. Visions of her limp and lifeless body had forced their way in and made his heart skip a few beats. He too was grateful that it was someone else’s child and not his own. The feeling may not have been honourable, but it was human.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
He made a practised judgement of where the stone would be easiest to cleave and then brought the hammer down on the chisel. Quite rightly, the granite split precisely where he had calculated it would. Experience had taught him well over the years, but natural talent was also a large part of it. You either had it or you didn’t.
Anders Andersson had loved the stone since he had first come to work at the quarry as a small boy, and the stone loved him. But it was a profession that took its toll on a man. The granite dust bothered his lungs more and more with each passing year, and the chips that flew from the stone could ruin a man’s eyesight in a day, or cloud his vision over time. In the cold of winter it was impossible to do a proper job wearing gloves, so his fingers would freeze until they felt like they would fall off. In the summer he would sweat profusely in the broiling heat. And yet there was nothing else he would rather do. Whether he was cutting the four-inch cubic paving stones called ‘two-örings’ used to construct roads, or had the privilege of working on something more advanced, he loved every laborious and painful minute. He knew this was the work he was born to do. His back already ached at the age of twenty-eight, and he coughed interminably at the least dampness, but when he focused all his energy on the task before him, his ailments were forgotten and he would feel only the angular hardness of the stone beneath his fingers.
Granite was the most beautiful stone he knew. He had come to the province of Bohuslän from Blekinge, as so many stonecutters had done over the years. The granite in Blekinge was considerably more difficult to work with than in the regions near the Norwegian border. Consequently the cutters from Blekinge enjoyed great respect thanks to the skill they had acquired by working with less tractable material. Three years he had been here, attracted by the granite right from the start. There was something about the pink colour against the grey, and the ingenuity it took to cleave the stone correctly, that appealed to him. Sometimes he talked to the stone as he worked, cajoling it if it was an unusually difficult piece, or caressing it lovingly if it was easy to work and soft like a woman.
Not that he lacked offers from the genuine article. Like the other unmarried cutters he’d had his amusements when the occasion presented itself, but no woman had attracted him so that his heart leaped in his breast. He’d learned to accept that. He got along fine on his own. He was also well-liked by the other lads in his crew, so he was often invited home for a meal prepared by a woman’s hand. And he had the stone. It was both more beautiful and more faithful than most of the women he had encountered. He and the stone had a good partnership.
‘Hey, Andersson, can you come over here for a moment?’
Anders interrupted his work on the big block and turned round. It was the foreman calling him, and as always he felt a mixture of anticipation and alarm. If the foreman wanted something from you, it was either good news or bad. Either an offer of more work, or notification that you could go home from the quarry with your cap in hand. In fact, Anders believed more in the former alternative. He knew that he was skilled at his profession, and there were probably others who would get the boot before him if the workforce were cut back. On the other hand, logic did not always win out. Politics and power struggles had sent home many a good stonecutter, so nothing was ever guaranteed. His strong involvement in the trade-union movement also made him vulnerable when the boss had to get rid of people. Politically active cutters were not appreciated.
He cast a final glance at the stone block before he went to see the foreman. It was piecework, and every interruption in his work meant lost income. For this particular job he was getting two öre per paving stone, hence the name ‘two-örings’. He would have to work hard to make up for lost time if the foreman was long-winded.
‘Good day, Larsson,’ said Anders, bowing with his cap in hand. The foreman was a stern believer in protocol. Failing to show him the respect he felt he deserved had proven to be reason enough for dismissal.
‘Good day, Andersson,’ muttered the rotund man, tugging on his moustache.
Anders waited tensely for what would come.
‘Well, it’s like this. We’ve got an order for a big memorial stone from France. It’s going to be a statue, so we thought we’d have you cut the stone.’
His heart hammered with joy, but he also felt a stab of fright. It was a great opportunity to be given the responsibility to cut the raw material for a statue. It could pay a great deal more than the usual work, and it was both more fun and more challenging. But at the same time it was an enormous risk. He would be responsible until the statue was shipped off, and if anything went wrong he wouldn’t be paid a single öre for all the work he had done. There was a legend about a cutter who had been given two statues to cut, and just as he was in the final stages of the work he made a wrong cut and ruined them both. It was said that he’d been so despondent that he took his own life, leaving behind a widow and seven children. But those were the conditions. There was nothing he could do about it, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Anders spat in his hand and held it out to the foreman, who did the same so that their hands were united in a firm handshake. It was a deal. Anders would be in charge of the work on the memorial stone. It worried him a bit what the others at the quarry would say. There were many men who had considerably more years on the job than he did. Some would undoubtedly complain that the commission should have gone to one of them, especially since unlike him they had families to support. They would have viewed the extra money as a welcome windfall with winter coming on. At the same time they all knew that Anders was the most skilled stonecutter of them all, even as young as he was. That consensus would dampen most of the backbiting. Besides, Anders would choose some of them to work with him, and he had previously shown that he could wisely weigh the pros and cons of who was most skilled and who was in greatest need of extra income.
‘Come down to the office tomorrow and we’ll discuss the details,’ said the foreman, twirling his moustache. ‘The architect won’t be coming until sometime towards spring, but we’ve received the plans and can begin the rough cut.’
Anders pulled a face. It would probably take a couple of hours to go over the drawings, and that meant even more time away from the job he was currently working on. He was going to need every öre now, because the terms stated that the work on the memorial stone would be paid for at the end, when everything was completed. That meant that he would have to get used to longer work-days, since he would have to try and make time to cut paving stones on the side. But the involuntary interruption of his work wasn’t the only reason that he was displeased about going down to the office. Somehow that place always made him feel uncomfortable. The people who worked there had such soft white hands, and they moved so gingerly in their elegant office attire, while he felt like a crude oaf. And even though he always did a thorough job of washing up, he couldn’t help the fact that the dirt worked its way into his skin. But what had to be done had to be done. He would have to drag himself down there and look over the drawings; then he could go back to the quarry, where he felt at home.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ said the foreman, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. ‘At seven. Don’t be late,’ he admonished, and Anders merely nodded. There was no risk of that. He didn’t often get a chance like this.
With a new spring in his step he went back to the stone he was working on. The happiness he was feeling made him cleave the stone like butter. Life was good.
3
She was spinning through space. Free-falling among the planets and other heavenly bodies that spread a soft glow all around as she sped past them. Dream scenes were mixed with small glimpses of reality. In her dreams she saw Sara. She was smiling. Her little baby body had been so perfect. Alabaster white with long, sensitive fingers on the tiny hands. Already in the first minutes of life she had grabbed hold of Charlotte’s index finger and held on as if it were her only anchor in this frightening new world. And maybe it was. For her daughter’s firm grip on her index finger would become an even harder grip around her heart in the days to come. A grip that even then she had known would last a lifetime.
Now she passed the sun on her path across the heavens, and its dazzling light reminded her of the colour of Sara’s hair. Red like fire. Red like the Devil himself, someone had said in jest, and she remembered in her dream that she hadn’t appreciated that joke. There was nothing devilish about the child lying in her arms. Nothing devilish about the red hair that had at first stood straight up like a punk-rocker’s, but with the years had grown long and thick till it tumbled down her shoulders.
But now the nightmare pushed away both the feeling of the child’s fingers round her heart and the sight of the red hair that bounced on Sara’s narrow shoulders when she hopped about, full of life. Instead she saw her hair dark with water, the strands floating round Sara’s head like a misshapen halo. It was waving to and fro, and below she saw long green arms of seaweed reaching out for it. Even the sea had found pleasure in her daughter’s red hair, claiming it for its own. In her nightmare she saw the alabaster white darken to blue and purple, and Sara’s eyes were closed and dead. Ever so slowly the girl began to turn in the water, with her toes pointed to the sky and her hands clasped over her stomach. Then the speed increased, and when she was spinning so fast that a small backwash was formed on the grey water, the green arms withdrew. The girl opened her eyes. They were completely, utterly white.
The shriek that woke her seemed to come from a deep abyss. Not until she felt Niclas’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard, did she realize that it was her own voice. For an instant relief washed over her. All that evil had been a dream. Sara was alive and well; it was only a nightmare playing a nasty trick on her. But then she looked into Niclas’s eyes, and what she saw made a new scream build up in her breast. He forestalled this by pulling her close to him, so that the scream metamorphosed into deep sobs. His shirt was wet in front and she tasted the unfamiliar salt of his tears.
‘Sara, Sara,’ she moaned. Even though she was now awake she was still in freefall through space. The only thing holding her back was the pressure of Niclas’s arms round her body.
‘I know, I know.’ He rocked her, his voice thick.
‘Where have you been?’ she sobbed quietly, but he just kept rocking her and stroking her hair with a trembling hand.
‘Shh, I’m here now. Go back to sleep …’
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes you can. Shh …’ And he rocked her rhythmically until the darkness and the dreams again descended upon her.
The news had spread through the police station while they were out. Dead children were a rarity, the victims of the occasional, rare car accident, perhaps. Nothing else could cast such a pall of sadness over the whole building.
Annika gave Patrik a questioning look when he and Martin passed the reception desk, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He just wanted to go to his office and close the door. They ran into Ernst Lundgren in the corridor but he didn’t say anything either, so Patrik quickly slipped into the silence of his little den and Martin did the same. There was nothing in their professional training that prepared any of them for situations like this. Informing someone of a death was one of the most odious tasks of their profession. Informing parents of the death of a child was worse than anything else. It defied all sense and all decency. No one should have to be forced to deliver such news.
Patrik sat down at his desk, rested his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Soon he opened his eyes again, because all he could see in the dark behind his eyelids was Sara’s bluish, pale skin and the eyes that stared unseeing at the sky. Instead he picked up the picture frame that stood before him and brought the glass as close to his face as possible. The first picture of Maja. Exhausted and bruised, resting in Erica’s arms in the maternity ward. Ugly yet beautiful, in that unique way that only those who have seen their child for the first time can understand. And Erica, worn out and smiling feebly, but with a new sense of resolve and pride over having accomplished something that could only be described as a miracle.
Patrik knew that he was being sentimental and maudlin. But it was only now, this morning, that he had understood the scope of the responsibility that had been placed in his hands with his daughter’s birth. Only now did he realize the extent of both his love and his fear. When he saw the drowned girl lying like a statue on the deck of the boat, for a moment he wished that Maja had never been born. Because how could he live with the risk of losing her?
He carefully put the photograph back on his desk and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. It suddenly felt utterly meaningless to continue with the tasks he’d been working on before they got the call from Fjällbacka. Most of all he wanted to drive home, crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the day. A knock on the door interrupted his dismal ruminations. ‘Come in,’ he assented and Annika cautiously pushed open the door.
‘Hi, Patrik, excuse me for disturbing you. But I just wanted to tell you that Forensic Medicine rang and said they’d received the body. We’ll have the autopsy report the day after tomorrow.’
Patrik gave a weary nod. ‘Thanks, Annika.’
She hesitated. ‘Did you know her?’
‘Yes, I’ve met the girl, Sara, and her mother quite a few times lately. Charlotte and Erica have been spending a good deal of time together since Maja was born.’
‘How do you think it happened?’
He sighed and fidgeted absently with the papers before him without looking up. ‘She drowned, as I’m sure you heard. Apparently she went down to the wharf to play, fell in the water, and then couldn’t get out. The water is so cold that she probably got hypothermia very quickly. But driving out to tell Charlotte, that was the most terrible …’ His voice broke and he turned away so that Annika wouldn’t see how the tears threatened to spill out of his eyes.
She tactfully closed the door to his office and left him in peace. She wasn’t going to get much done on a day like this, either.
Erica looked at the clock again. Charlotte should have been here half an hour ago. She carefully shifted Maja, who was snoozing at her breast, and reached for the telephone. It rang many times at Charlotte’s house, but no one answered. How odd. She must have gone out and forgotten that they were supposed to get together that afternoon. Although that really wasn’t like her.
Erica felt that they had become close friends in a very short time. Maybe because they were both in a fragile time of their lives, maybe because they were simply very similar to each other. It was funny, really. She and Charlotte seemed more like sisters than she and Anna ever had. She knew that Charlotte worried about her, and that gave her a secure feeling in the midst of all the chaos. Her whole life Erica had worried about other people, especially Anna. To be viewed for once as the person who was little and scared felt strangely liberating.
At the same time she knew that Charlotte had her own problems. It wasn’t only that she and her family were forced to live at home with her parents, Lilian and Stig. Lilian, especially, didn’t seem easy to live with. But something unsure and tense came over Charlotte’s face each time she talked about her husband Niclas. Erica had only met him briefly on a few occasions, but her spontaneous impression was that there was something unreliable about the man. Or perhaps unreliable was too strong a word. Maybe it was more a feeling that Niclas was one of those people who has good intentions but, in the end, will always allow his own needs and desires to take precedence over everyone else’s. Charlotte had told her a few things that had confirmed this impression, even though she mostly had to read between the lines, since her friend usually spoke of her husband in adoring terms. Charlotte looked up to Niclas and, on several occasions, had said straight out that she couldn’t understand how she had been so lucky. It seemed inconceivable to her that she was married to someone like him.
Erica could see, of course, that from a purely objective point of view he rated higher on the looks scale than Charlotte. Tall, blond and handsome was the ladies’ assessment of the new doctor. And he certainly had an extensive academic background, unlike his wife. But if one looked at their inner qualities, Erica realized that the situation was just the opposite. Niclas ought to be thanking his lucky stars. Charlotte was a loving, wise, gentle human being and as soon as Erica managed to pull herself out of this listless state, she was going to do everything she could to make Charlotte realize her own strong points. Unfortunately, at the moment, Erica had no energy to do more than ponder her friend’s situation.
A couple of hours later darkness had fallen, and the storm had reached full force outside her window. Erica saw by the clock that she must have dozed off for an hour or two with Maja, who was using her breast as a dummy. She was just about to reach for the phone to ring Charlotte when she heard the front door open.
‘Hello?’ she called. Patrik wasn’t due home for an hour or two, so perhaps it was Charlotte finally showing up.
‘It’s me.’ Patrik’s voice had an empty sound to it, and Erica was instantly uneasy.
When he entered the living room she was even more concerned. His face was grey, and his eyes had a dead expression that didn’t vanish until he caught sight of Maja, still asleep in Erica’s arms. With two long strides he came over to them, and before Erica could react he had swept up the sleeping baby, pressing her hard to his chest. He didn’t even stop when Maja woke up from the shock of being picked up so abruptly and started shrieking as loud as she could.
‘What are you doing? You’re scaring Maja!’
Erica tried to take the screaming baby from Patrik to calm her down, but he fended off her attempt and just hugged the infant even harder. Maja was now screaming hysterically, and for lack of any better idea Erica slapped him on the arm and said, ‘Stop that! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see that she’s terrified?’
Then Patrik seemed to snap out of it. He cast a confused look at his daughter, who was bright red in the face from anger and fright.
‘Sorry.’ He handed Maja over to Erica, who did her best to soothe the baby. After a few minutes she succeeded, and Maja’s screams gave way to low sobbing. Erica looked at Patrik, who had sat down on the sofa and was staring out at the storm.
‘What’s happened, Patrik?’ said Erica, now in a kinder tone. She couldn’t prevent a hint of uneasiness from creeping into her voice.
‘We got a report of a drowned child today. From here in Fjällbacka. Martin and I took the call.’ He paused, unable to go on.
‘Oh my God, what happened? Who was it?’
Then her thoughts began whirling until they all fell into place at once, like tiny puzzle pieces.
‘Oh my God,’ she repeated. ‘It’s Sara, isn’t it? Charlotte was supposed to come over for coffee this afternoon, but she never showed up and there was no answer when I rang her at home. That’s it, isn’t it? It was Sara you found, right?’
Patrik could only nod. Erica sank into the easy chair to prevent her legs from buckling under her. Before her she could see Sara jumping on their living room sofa as recently as two days ago. With her long red hair flying about her head and laughter bubbling up inside her like an unstoppable primal force.
‘Oh my God,’ Erica said again, putting her hand to her mouth as she felt her heart sink like a stone to her stomach. Patrik just stared out of the window, and she saw in profile his jaw clenching tight.
‘It was so horrible, Erica. I haven’t seen Sara that many times, but seeing her lying there in that boat, totally lifeless … I kept picturing Maja in my mind. Since then my thoughts have been churning round in my head. I can’t stop imagining if something like that happened to Maja. And then having to tell Charlotte what happened …’
Erica uttered a whimpering, tormented sound. She had no words to describe the depth of the sympathy she felt for Charlotte, and Niclas too. She understood at once Patrik’s reaction, and found herself holding Maja even closer. She was never going to let her go. She would sit here holding her tight, keeping her safe, for ever. But Maja squirmed restlessly, intuiting as most children can that things were not as they should be.
Outside the storm continued to rage. Patrik and Erica just sat there for a long time, watching the wild play of nature. Neither of them could stop thinking about the child who was taken by the sea.
Medical examiner Tord Pedersen began the task with an unusually resolute expression on his face. After many years in his profession he had developed a hardened attitude – either desirable or loathsome, depending on how one wanted to view it – which meant that most of the ghastly things he observed in his work left little trace at the end of the day. But there was something about cutting open a child that conflicted with primal instinct and disrupted all routine, undermining the objective professionalism that his years as a medical examiner had given him. The defencelessness of a child tore down all the defensive walls that his psyche could put up, so his hand shook a bit as he moved it towards the girl’s chest.
When she was brought in he had been told that drowning was the presumed cause of death. Now it was up to him to confirm or reject that hypothesis. But so far there was nothing he could see with the naked eye to contradict it.
The mercilessly bright glare in the post-mortem room emphasized her blue pallor so that it looked like she was freezing. The aluminium table beneath her seemed to reflect the cold, and Pedersen shivered in his green scrubs. She was naked as she lay there, and he felt as though he were violating her as he prized open and cut into the defenceless body. But he forced himself to shake off that feeling. He knew that the task he was performing was important, both for the girl and her parents, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. It was necessary for the grieving process to have a final determination of the cause of death. Even though there didn’t seem to be any ambiguities in this case, the rules were in place for a reason. He knew this on a professional level, but as a human being and father with two boys at home, he sometimes wondered in cases like this how much humanity there was in the work he was doing.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
‘Agnes, I have nothing but tedious meetings today. It’s not a good idea for you to come along.’
‘But I want to go with you today. I’m so bored. There’s nothing to do.’
‘What about your girlfriends?’
‘They’re all busy,’ Agnes replied, sulking. ‘Britta’s getting ready for her wedding, Laila’s going to Halden with her parents to visit her brother, and Sonja has to help her mother.’ In a sad voice she added, ‘Imagine having a mother to help …’ She peered at her father from under her fringe. Yes, the ploy had worked, as usual.
He sighed. ‘Well then, come along if you like. But you have to promise to sit still and be quiet, and not run about like a whirlwind talking to the staff. The last time you completely confused those poor old men; it took them several days to get over it.’ He couldn’t help smiling at his daughter. She was unruly, certainly, but a more dazzling girl could not be found on this side of the Norwegian border.
Agnes gave a happy laugh, having once again emerged victorious, and she rewarded her father with a hug and a pat on his big belly.
‘Nobody has a father like mine,’ she cooed, and August Stjernkvist chuckled with pleasure.
‘What would I do without you?’ he said half in earnest, half in jest, pulling her close.
‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘No, not at the moment, anyway,’ he said sombrely, caressing her dark hair. ‘But it won’t be long before some man is going to come and steal you away from me. If you can find one who’s good enough, that is,’ he laughed.
‘Well, I can’t just take any man who comes along,’ Agnes laughed in reply. ‘Not with the example I’ve had. So it’s no wonder I’m particular.’
‘Look here, my girl, enough flattery,’ August preened. ‘Get a move on if you’re coming with me to the office. It wouldn’t do for the boss to arrive late.’
Despite his admonishing words it took almost an hour before they were on their way. First there was the whole business of tending to her hair and clothes, but by the time Agnes was ready, her father had to admit that the result was worth it.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ said August as he swept into the room where three men were sat waiting. ‘But I hope you’ll forgive me when you see the reason for my tardiness.’ He gestured towards Agnes, who was close behind him. She was wearing a red dress that clung to her body, accentuating her slim waist. Although many girls had let their hair fall to the scissors in a bob, as was the fashion in the twenties, Agnes had been smart enough to resist the temptation. Her thick black hair was done up in a simple chignon at her neck. She was well aware of the impression she made, thanks to the mirror at home. Now she exploited it fully as she paused in front of the men, slowly removing her gloves, and then letting them shake her hand, one by one.
With great satisfaction she could tell she was having an effect. Two of them sat there gaping like fish, as they held on to her hand a trifle too long. But the third man was different. To her astonishment Agnes felt her heart give a leap. The big, burly man hardly looked up at her and only took her hand briefly. The hands of the other two men had felt soft and almost feminine against hers, but this man’s hand was different. She could feel the calluses scraping against her palm, and his fingers were long and strong. For a moment she considered not letting go of his hand, but she caught herself and merely nodded to him demurely. His eyes, which only looked into hers fleetingly, were brown, and she guessed there was Walloon blood in his family.
After the introductions, she hurried to sit down on a chair in the corner and clasped her hands in her lap. She could see that her father hesitated for a moment. He probably would rather have sent her out of the room, but she put on her most angelic expression and gave him an entreating look. As usual he did as she wished. Wordlessly he nodded that she could stay. She decided for a change to sit as quiet as a little church mouse so as not to risk being sent out of the room like a child. She didn’t want to be subjected to that sort of treatment in front of this man.
Normally, after an hour of silent participation she would have been almost in tears from boredom, but not this time. The hour flew past, and by the time the meeting was over, Agnes was sure of her cause. She wanted this man, more than she had ever wanted anything else.
And what she wanted, she usually got.
4
‘Shouldn’t we visit Niclas?’ Asta implored her husband. But she saw no sign of sympathy in his stony expression.
‘I told you his name must never be mentioned in my house again!’ Arne stared hard out of the kitchen window, and there was nothing but granite in his gaze.
‘But after what happened to the girl …’
‘God’s punishment. Didn’t I tell you that would happen someday? No, this is all his own fault. If he’d listened to me it would never have happened. Nothing bad happens to God-fearing people. And now we shall speak no more of this!’ His fist slammed the table.
Asta sighed to herself. Of course she respected her husband, and he did usually know best, but in this case she wondered if he might not be wrong. Something in her heart told her that this couldn’t be consistent with God’s wishes. Surely they should rush to their son’s side when such a terrible blow had struck him. True, she had never got to know the girl, but she was still their own flesh and blood, and children did belong to the kingdom of God, that’s what it said in the Bible. But these were only the thoughts of a lowly woman. Arne was a man, after all, and he knew best. It had always been that way. Like so many times before, she kept her thoughts to herself and got up to clear the table.
Too many years had passed since she had seen her son. They did run into each other occasionally, of course; that was unavoidable now that he had moved back to Fjällbacka, but she knew better than to stop and talk to him. He had tried to speak to her a few times, but she always looked away and walked off briskly, as she had been instructed to do. But she hadn’t cast down her eyes quickly enough to avoid seeing the hurt in her son’s eyes.
Yet the Bible said that one should honour one’s father and mother, and what had happened on that day so long ago was, as far as she could see, a breach of God’s word. That’s why she couldn’t let him back into her heart.
She gazed at Arne as he sat at the table. His back was still as straight as a fir tree, and his dark hair had not thinned, in spite of a few flecks of grey. But they were both over seventy. She remembered how all the girls had run after him when they were young, but Arne had never seemed the least bit interested. He had married her when she was just eighteen, and as far as she knew he had never even looked at another woman. Not that he had been particularly keen on carnal matters at home either. Asta’s mother had always said it was a woman’s duty to endure that aspect of marriage. It was not something to enjoy, so Asta had considered herself fortunate since she had no great expectations.
Nevertheless, they did have a son. A big, splendid, blond boy, who was the spitting image of his mother but had few traits from his father. Maybe that was why things had gone so wrong. If he’d been more like his father, then Arne might have had more of a connection with his son. But that was not to be. The boy had been hers from the start, and she had loved him as much as she could. But it wasn’t enough. Because when the decisive day arrived and she was forced to choose between the boy and his father, she had let her son down. How could she have done otherwise? A wife must stand by her husband, she had been taught that since childhood. But sometimes, in bleak moments, when the lamp was off and she lay in bed looking up at the ceiling, the thoughts would come. She would wonder how something she had learned to be right could feel so wrong. That was why it was such a relief that Arne always knew exactly how things should be. Many times he had told her that a woman’s judgement was not to be trusted; it was the man’s job to lead the woman. There was security in that. Since her father had been like Arne in many ways, a world in which the man decided was the only world she knew. And he was so smart, her Arne. Everyone agreed on that.
Even the new pastor had praised Arne recently. He had said that Arne was the most reliable sexton he had ever had the privilege to work with, and God could be grateful to have such loyal servants. Arne had told her this, swelling with pride, when he had come home. But it was not for nothing that Arne had been the sexton in Fjällbacka for twenty years. Not counting the unfortunate years when that woman was the pastor here, of course. Asta would not want those years back for anything in the world. Thank goodness the woman finally understood that she wasn’t wanted, and stepped aside to make way for a real pastor. How poor Arne had suffered during that woman’s tenure. For the first time in more than fifty years of marriage, Asta had seen her husband with tears in his eyes. The thought of a woman in the pulpit of his beloved church had almost destroyed him. But he’d also said that he trusted that God would finally cast the moneylenders out of the temple. And this time, too, Arne was right.
Her only wish was that he could somehow find room in his heart to forgive his son for what had happened. Until then, she would never again have a day of happiness. But she also realized that if Arne could not forgive Niclas now, after this terrible incident, there was no hope of reconciliation.
If only she had gotten to know the girl. Now it was too late.
Two days had passed since Sara was found. The prevailing gloom of that day had inexorably dispersed as they were forced to go back to their daily responsibilities which hadn’t disappeared because a child had died.
Patrik was writing up the last lines of a report on an assault case when the telephone rang. He saw from the display who was calling and picked up the receiver with a sigh. Just as well to get it over with. He heard the familiar voice of Medical Examiner Tord Pedersen on the other end. They exchanged polite greetings before they broached the actual reason for the call. The first indication that Patrik was not hearing what he had expected was that a furrow formed between his eyebrows. After another minute it had deepened, and when he had heard everything the M.E. had to report he slammed down the receiver with a bang. He tried to collect himself for a minute as the thoughts swirled in his head. Then he got up, grabbed the notebook he’d been writing in as they talked, and went into Martin’s office. Actually, he should have gone to Bertil Mellberg first, being the chief of police, but he felt that he needed to discuss the information he had received with someone he trusted. Unfortunately his boss was not in that category. Martin was the only one of his colleagues who qualified.
‘Martin?’
He was on the phone when Patrik came in, but he motioned towards a chair. The conversation sounded like it was winding down, and Martin concluded it cryptically with a quiet ‘hmm … sure … me too … hmm … likewise,’ as he flushed from his scalp downwards.
Despite his own concerns, Patrik couldn’t resist teasing his young colleague a little. ‘So who were you talking to?’
He got an inaudible mumble in reply from Martin, whose face flushed even more.
‘Someone calling to report a crime? One of our colleagues in Strömstad? Or Uddevalla? Or maybe Leif G. W. Persson, interested in writing your biography?’
Martin squirmed in his chair but then muttered a bit more audibly, ‘Pia.’
‘Oh, I see, Pia. I never would have guessed. Let’s see, what’s it been – three months, right? That must be a record for you, don’t you think?’ Patrik teased him. Up until this past summer Martin had been known as something of a specialist in short, unhappy love affairs, usually because of his unfailing ability to get mixed up with women who were already taken and were mostly out for a little adventure on the side. But Pia was not only available, she was also an extremely attractive and serious young woman.
‘We’re celebrating three months on Saturday.’ Martin’s eyes sparkled. ‘And we’re moving in together. She just rang to say that she’d found a perfect flat in Grebbestad. We’re going out to look at it this evening.’ His colouring had returned to normal, but he couldn’t hide how obviously head over heels in love he was.
Patrik remembered how he and Erica had been at the start of their relationship. P.B. Pre-baby. He loved her fiercely, but that stormy infatuation, all of a sudden, felt as distant as a woolly dream. Dirty nappies and sleepless nights were no doubt having their effect.
‘But what about you – when are you going to make an honest woman of Erica? And don’t you want to be recognized as Maja’s legal father?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out …’ said Patrik with a grin.
‘So, did you come here to root around in my private life, or did you have something you wanted to tell me?’ By now Martin had regained his composure.
At once Patrik’s face turned serious. He reminded himself that they were facing something that was as far from a joke as one could get.
‘Pedersen just rang. He’s sending the report from Sara’s post-mortem by fax, but he summarized the contents for me. What he told me means that her drowning was no accident. She was murdered.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ Martin threw out his hands in dismay, knocking over his pen-holder, but he ignored the pens that had spilled onto his desk. Instead he focused his undivided attention on Patrik.
‘At first he assumed, as we did, that it was an accident. No visible marks on the body, and she was fully dressed, in clothing appropriate to the season, except that she had no jacket, but it could have floated away. But most important of all: when he examined her lungs he found water in them.’ He fell silent.
Martin threw out his hands again and raised his eyebrows. ‘So what did he find that didn’t fit with an accident?’
‘Bathwater.’
‘Bathwater?’
‘Yes, she didn’t have seawater in her lungs as you might expect if she had drowned in the sea. It was bathwater. Or rather, presumably bathwater, I should say. Pedersen found residue of both soap and shampoo in the water, which suggests that it’s bathwater.’
‘So she was drowned in a bathtub?’ said Martin, sounding sceptical. They had been so convinced that it was a tragic yet normal drowning accident that he was having a hard time adjusting to this new theory.
‘Yes, that’s what it looks like. It also explains the bruises that Pedersen found on the body.’
‘I thought you said there were no injuries to the body?’
‘Well, not at first glance. But when he lifted the hair on the back of her neck and checked more thoroughly, he could clearly see bruises that match the imprint of a hand. The hand of someone who held her head under the surface by force.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Martin looked like he was going to be sick. Patrik had felt the same way when he first heard the news. ‘So we’re dealing with a homicide,’ said Martin, as if trying to make himself face the fact.
‘Yes, and we’ve already lost two days. We have to start knocking on doors, interviewing the family and friends, and finding out all we can about the girl and those who knew her.’
Martin grimaced, and Patrik understood his reaction. This wasn’t going to be fun. The family was already devastated, and now the police would have to go in and stir everything up again. All too often, children were murdered by someone who ought to grieve the most over the death. So Patrik and Martin couldn’t display the sympathy that would normally be expected when meeting with a family that had lost a child.
‘Have you been in to see Mellberg yet?’
‘No,’ Patrik sighed. ‘But I’m going there now. Since we were the ones who took the call the other day, I thought I’d ask you to join me in conducting the investigation. Do you have any objections?’ He knew that the question was merely rhetorical. Neither of them wanted to see their colleagues Ernst Lundgren or Gösta Flygare be put in charge of anything more challenging than bicycle thefts.
Martin nodded curtly in reply.
‘Okay,’ said Patrik, ‘then we might as well get it over with.’
Superintendent Mellberg looked at the letter before him as if it were a poisonous snake. This was one of the worst things that could have happened to him. Even that mortifying incident with Irina last summer paled in comparison.
Tiny beads of sweat had formed on his brow, although the temperature in his office was rather on the cool side. Mellberg wiped off the sweat absentmindedly and at the same time managed to dislodge the few strands left of his hair, which he had carefully wound in a nest atop his bald head. Annoyed, he was trying to put everything back in place when there was a knock on the door. He gave his hair one last pat and called out a surly ‘Come in!’
Hedström seemed unperturbed by Mellberg’s tone of voice, but he had an uncommonly serious look on his face. Normally the superintendent thought that Patrik too often displayed a distasteful lack of decorum. He preferred working with men like Ernst Lundgren, who always treated their superiors with the respect they deserved. When it came to Hedström he always had the feeling that the man might stick his tongue out as soon as he turned his back. But time would separate the wheat from the chaff, Mellberg thought sternly. With his long experience in police work, he knew that the guys who were too soft and the ones who joked around always broke first.
For a second he had managed to forget the contents of the letter, but when Hedström sat down in the chair across his desk, Mellberg remembered that it was lying there in full view. He quickly slipped the letter into his top drawer. He would have to deal with that matter soon enough.
‘So, what’s going on?’ Mellberg could hear his voice quavering a bit from the shock of the letter, and he forced himself to bring it under control. Never show weakness – that was his motto. If he exposed his throat to his subordinates they would soon sink their teeth into it.
‘A homicide,’ Patrik said tensely.
‘What now?’ Mellberg sighed. ‘Has one of our old iron-fisted acquaintances managed to hit his wife in the head a little too hard?’
Hedström’s face was still unusually resolute. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s about the drowning accident the other day. Or rather it wasn’t an accident after all. The girl was murdered.’
Mellberg gave a low whistle. ‘You don’t say, you don’t say,’ he murmured as confused thoughts ran through his head. For one thing, he was always upset by crimes perpetrated against children, and for another he tried to do a rapid evaluation of how this unexpected development would affect him in his capacity as police chief of Tanumshede. There were two ways to look at it: either as a damned lot of extra work and administration, or as a means of advancing his career that might get him back to the excitement of the big city, Göteborg. Although he had to admit that the successful conclusion of the two homicide investigations he had been involved with up to now had not yielded the desired effect. But, sooner or later, something would convince his superiors that he belonged back at the main station. Perhaps this was just the ticket.
He realized that Hedström was waiting for some other type of response from him and hastily added, ‘You mean someone murdered a child? Well, that pervert isn’t going to get away with it.’ Mellberg clenched his fist to stress the gravity of his words, but that only managed to induce a worried expression in Patrik’s eyes.
‘Don’t you want to know the cause of death?’ Hedström asked, as if wanting to lend him a helping hand. Mellberg found his tone of voice extremely irritating.
‘Of course, I was just getting to that. So, what did the M.E. say about the case?’
‘She drowned, but not in the sea. They found only fresh water in her lungs, and since they also found the residue of soap and shampoo, Pedersen assumes it’s probably bathwater. So the girl, Sara, was presumably drowned indoors in a bathtub and then carried down to the sea and thrown in. It was an attempt to make it look like an accident.’
The image that Hedström’s account conjured up in Mellberg’s mind made the chief shiver, and for a moment he forgot all about his own chances of promotion. He assumed he’d seen just about everything during his years on the force. He was proud of being able to maintain a sense of objectivity, but there was something about the murder of children that made it impossible to remain unmoved. It crossed the boundaries of all decency to attack a little girl. The feeling of indignation that the murder awoke inside him was unfamiliar but, he actually had to admit, quite pleasant.
‘No obvious perpetrator?’ he asked.
Hedström shook his head. ‘No, we don’t know of any problems in the family, and there have been no other reported attacks on children in Fjällbacka. Nothing like this. So we should probably start by interviewing the family, don’t you agree?’ asked Patrik tentatively.
Mellberg understood at once what he was getting at. He had no objections. It had worked fine in the past to let Hedström do the legwork, and then he could step into the spotlight when the case was resolved. Not that it was anything to be ashamed of. After all, knowing how to delegate responsibilities was the key to successful leadership.
‘It sounds as though you’d like to head up this investigation.’
‘Well, I’m actually already on the case. Martin and I responded to the call when it came in, and we’ve met with the girl’s family.’
‘Well, that sounds like a good idea, then,’ Mellberg said, nodding in agreement. ‘Just see that you keep me informed.’
‘All right,’ said Hedström with a nod, ‘then Martin and I will get going on it.’
‘Martin?’ said Mellberg in an ominous tone. He was still irritated at the lack of respect in Patrik’s voice and now saw a chance to put him in his place. Sometimes Hedström acted as if he was the chief of this station. This would be an excellent opportunity to show him who made the decisions around here.
‘No, I don’t think I can spare Martin at the moment. I assigned him to investigate a series of car thefts yesterday, possibly a Baltic gang operating in the area, so he’s got plenty to do. But …’ he paused for dramatic effect, enjoying the distressed look on Hedström’s face. ‘Ernst doesn’t have that much work right now, so it would probably be good if you two worked on this case together.’
Now Patrik had started squirming as if in agony, and Mellberg knew that he’d figuratively put his thumb on the most vulnerable spot, right in the middle of the officer’s eye. He decided to assuage Hedström’s agony a bit. ‘But I’m putting you in charge of the investigation, so Lundgren will report directly to you.’
Even though Ernst Lundgren was a more pleasant colleague to deal with than Hedström, Mellberg was smart enough to realize that the guy had certain limitations. It would be stupid to shoot himself in the foot …
As soon as the door closed behind Hedström, Mellberg took out the letter again and read it for at least the tenth time.
Morgan did a few stretching exercises with his fingers and shoulders before he sat down in front of the computer. He knew that sometimes he could disappear so deeply into the world before him that he would sit in the same position for hours. He checked carefully that he had everything he needed in front of him so that he wouldn’t have to get up unless it was absolutely necessary. Yes, everything was there. A large bottle of Coke, a big health bar and a king-size Snickers. That would keep him going for a while.
The binder he’d received from Fredrik felt heavy lying on his lap. It contained everything he needed to know. The whole fantasy world he himself was unable to create was gathered there inside the binder’s stiff covers and would soon be converted into ones and zeros. That was something he had mastered. While emotions, imagination, dreams and fairy tales had, by a caprice of nature, never found space in his brain, he was a wizard at the logical, the elegantly predictable in ones and zeros, the tiny electrical impulses in the computer that were converted into something legible on the screen.
Sometimes he wondered how it would feel to do what Fredrik was able to do. Plucking other worlds out of his brain, summoning up other people’s feelings and entering into their lives. Most often these speculations led Morgan to shrug his shoulders and dismiss them as unimportant. But during the periods of deep depression that sometimes struck him, he occasionally felt the full weight of his handicap and despaired that he had been made so different from everyone else.
At the same time it was a consolation to know that he was not alone. He often visited the websites of people who were like him, and he had exchanged emails with some of them. On one occasion he had even gone to meet one of them in Göteborg, but he wouldn’t be doing that again. The fact that they were so essentially different from other people made it hard for them to relate even to each other, and the meeting had been a failure from beginning to end.
But it had still been great to find out that there were others. That knowledge was enough. He actually felt no longing for the sense of community that seemed to be so important for ordinary people. He did best when he was all alone in the little cabin with only his computers to keep him company. Sometimes he tolerated his parents’ company, but they were the only ones. It was safe to spend time with them. He’d had many years to learn to read them, to interpret all the complex non-verbal communications in the form of facial expressions and body language and thousands of other tiny signals that his brain simply didn’t seem designed to handle. They had also learned to adapt themselves to him, to speak in a way that he could understand, at least adequately.
The screen before him was blank and waiting. This was the moment he liked best. Ordinary people might say that they ‘loved’ such a moment, but he wasn’t really sure what ‘loving’ involved. But maybe it was what he felt right now. That inner feeling of satisfaction, of belonging, of being normal.
Morgan began to type, making his fingers race over the keyboard. Once in a while he glanced down at the binder on his lap, but most often his gaze was fixed on the screen. He never ceased to be amazed that the problems he had coordinating the movements of his body and his fingers miraculously disappeared whenever he was working. Suddenly he was just as dextrous as he always should have been. They called it ‘deficient motor skills’, the problems he had with getting his fingers to move as they should when he had to tie his shoes or button his shirt. He knew that was part of the diagnosis. He understood precisely what made him different from the others, but he couldn’t do anything to change the situation. For that matter, he thought it was wrong to call the others ‘normal’ while people like him were dubbed ‘abnormal’. Actually it was only societal preconceptions that landed him in the wrong group. He was simply different. His thought processes simply moved in other directions. They weren’t necessarily worse, just not the same.
He paused to take a swig of Coca Cola straight out of the bottle, then his fingers moved rapidly over the keys again.
Morgan was content.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Anders lay on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. It was already late, and as always he felt the weight of a long day’s work in his limbs. But this evening he couldn’t seem to relax. So many thoughts were buzzing round in his head that it was like trying to sleep in the midst of a swarm of flies.
The meeting about the memorial stone had gone well, and that was one of the reasons for his ruminations. He knew that the job would be a challenge, and he ran through the different approaches, trying to decide on the best way to proceed. He already knew where he wanted to cut the big stone out of the mountain. In the south-west corner of the quarry there was a sizeable cliff that was as yet untouched. That was where he thought he could cut out a large, fine piece of granite. With a little luck the stone would be free of any defects or weaknesses that might cause it to crack.
The other reason for his musing was the girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. He knew that these were forbidden thoughts. Girls like that were not for someone like him; he shouldn’t even give them a thought. But he couldn’t help it. When he held her little hand in his he’d had to force himself to release it at once. With each second that her skin touched his, he felt it more difficult to let go, and he had never been fond of playing with fire. The whole meeting had been a trial. The hands on the clock on the wall had crept along, and the whole time he’d had to restrain himself from turning round and looking at her as she sat so quietly in the corner.
He’d never seen anyone so beautiful. None of the girls, or women for that matter, who had been a fleeting part of his life could even be mentioned in the same breath. She belonged to a whole other world. He sighed and turned on his side, attempting once again to get to sleep. The new day would begin at five o’clock, just like every other day, and took no account of whether he had lain awake all night mulling over his thoughts or had slept soundly.
There was a sharp noise. It sounded like a pebble hitting the windowpane, but the sound came and went so quickly that he wondered whether he’d just imagined it. In any case it was quiet now, so he closed his eyes again. But then the sound was back. There was no doubt about it. Someone was throwing pebbles at his window. Anders sat bolt upright. It must be one of the friends he sometimes joined for a beer. He thought indignantly that if his widowed landlady woke up, someone would have to answer for it. His lodging arrangement had functioned well for the past three years, and he didn’t need any trouble.
Cautiously he unlatched the window and opened it. He lived on the ground floor, but a big lilac bush partially blocked his view. He squinted to see who was standing in the faint moonlight.
And he couldn’t believe the testimony of his own eyes.
5
She hesitated for a long time. She even put on her jacket and then took it off again, twice. But finally Erica made up her mind. There could be nothing wrong with offering her support; then she could see whether Charlotte wanted to have a visitor or not. It felt impossible just to sit at home when she knew that her friend was mired in her own private hell.
As she walked she saw evidence of the storm from two days earlier still scattered along her route. Trees that had toppled, branches and debris lay strewn about, mixed with small piles of red and yellow leaves. But the wind also seemed to have blown away a dirty autumn layer that had settled over the town. Now the air smelled fresh, and it was as clear as a washed pane of glass.
Maja was shrieking at the top of her lungs in the pram, and Erica walked faster. For some reason the baby seemed to have decided that it was utterly meaningless to lie in the pram if she was awake, and she was again protesting loudly. Her screams made Erica’s heart beat faster, and tiny panicked beads of sweat appeared on her brow. A primitive instinct was telling her that she had to stop the pram at once and pick up Maja to save her from the wolves, but she steeled herself. It was such a short way to Charlotte’s mother’s house, and she would be there soon.
It was odd that a single event could alter so completely the way she looked at the world. Erica had always thought that the houses along the cove below the Sälvik campground stood like a peaceful string of pearls along the road, with a view over the sea and the islands. Now a gloomy mood seemed to have descended on the rooftops and especially onto the house of the Florin family. She hesitated once again, but now she was so close that it seemed foolish to turn round. They could just ask her to leave if they thought she was coming at an inopportune time. Friendships were tested in times of crisis, and she didn’t want to be one of those people who out of exaggerated caution and perhaps even cowardice avoided friends who were having a hard time.
Puffing, she pushed the pram up the hill. The Florins’ house was partway up the slope, and she paused for a second at their driveway to catch her breath. Maja’s yells had reached a decibel level that would have been classified as unlawful in a workplace, so she hurried to park the pram and picked her up in her arms.
For several long seconds she stood at the front door with her hand raised and her heart pounding. Finally she gave the wood a sharp rap. There was a doorbell, but sending that shrill sound into the house seemed somehow too intrusive. A long moment passed in silence, and Erica was just about to turn and go when she heard footsteps inside the house. It was Niclas who opened the door.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hi,’ said Niclas, grief evident in his red-rimmed eyes, glistening with tears in his pale face. Erica thought that he looked like someone who had died but was still condemned to walk the earth.
‘Pardon me for bothering you, it’s not what I intended, I just thought …’ She sought for words but found none. A heavy silence settled between them. Niclas fixed his gaze on his feet, and for the second time since she knocked on the door Erica was about to turn on her heel and flee back home.
‘Would you like to come in?’ he asked.
‘Do you think it would be all right?’ Erica asked. ‘I mean, do you think it would be any …’ she searched for the right word, ‘help?’
‘She’s been given a sedative and isn’t really …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘But she said several times that she should have rung you, so it would be good if you could reassure her on that point.’
The fact that Charlotte had worried about not ringing to cancel, after what had happened, told Erica something about how confused her friend must be. But when she followed Niclas into the living room she still couldn’t help uttering a startled cry. If Niclas looked like the walking dead, Charlotte looked like someone who’d been buried long ago. Nothing of the energetic, warm, lively Charlotte was left. It was as though an empty shell were lying on the sofa. Her dark hair, which usually formed a frame of curls around her face, now hung in lank wisps. The extra weight that her mother had always criticized had seemed becoming in Erica’s eyes, making Charlotte look like one of Zorn’s voluptuous Dalecarlian women. Yet as she lay huddled up under the blanket her complexion and body had taken on a doughy, unhealthy look.
She wasn’t asleep. Rather, her eyes stared lifelessly into empty space, and under the blanket she was shivering a little as if from the cold. Without taking off her jacket, Erica instinctively rushed over to Charlotte and knelt down on the floor by the sofa. She put Maja down on the floor beside her, and the baby seemed to sense the mood and lay perfectly still for a change.
‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m so sorry.’ Erica was crying and took Charlotte’s face in her hands, but there was no sign of life in her empty gaze.
‘Has she been like this the whole time?’ Erica asked, turning to Niclas. He was still standing in the middle of the room, swaying a little. Finally he nodded and wearily rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘It’s the medication. But as soon as we stop the pills she starts screaming. She sounds like a wounded animal. I just can’t stand that sound.’
Erica turned back to Charlotte and stroked her hair tenderly. She didn’t seem to have bathed or changed her clothes in days, and her body gave off a faint odour of sweat and fear. Her mouth moved as if she wanted to say something, but at first it was impossible to make out anything from the mumbling. After trying for a moment, Charlotte said in a hoarse voice, ‘Couldn’t make it. Should have called.’
Erica shook her head vigorously and continued stroking her friend’s hair.
‘That doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Sara, gone,’ said Charlotte, focussing her gaze on Erica for the first time. Her eyes seemed to burn right through her, they were so full of sorrow.
‘Yes, Charlotte. Sara is gone. But Albin is here, and Niclas. You’re going to have to help each other now.’ She could hear for herself that it sounded like she was simply mouthing platitudes, but maybe the simplicity of a cliché could reach Charlotte. Yet the only result was that Charlotte gave a wry smile and said in a dull, bitter voice: ‘Help each other.’ The smile looked more like a grimace, and there seemed to be some sort of underlying message in her bitter voice when she repeated those words. But maybe Erica was imagining things. Strong sedatives could produce strange effects.
A sound behind them made her turn round. Lilian was standing in the doorway, and she seemed to be choking with rage. She directed her flashing gaze at Niclas.
‘Didn’t we say that Charlotte wasn’t to have any visitors?’
The situation felt incredibly uncomfortable for Erica, but Niclas apparently took no notice of his mother-in-law’s tone of voice. Getting no answer from him, Lilian turned to look at Erica, who was still sitting on the floor.
‘Charlotte is feeling much too frail to have people running in and out. I should think everyone would know better!’ She made a gesture as if wanting to go over and shoo Erica away from her daughter like a fly, but for the first time Charlotte’s eyes showed some sign of life. She raised her head from the pillow and looked her mother straight in the eye. ‘I want Erica here.’
Her daughter’s protest merely increased Lilian’s rage, but with an obvious show of will she swallowed what she was about to say and stormed out to the kitchen. The commotion roused Maja from her temporary silence, and her shrill cries sliced through the room. Laboriously Charlotte sat up on the sofa. Niclas snapped out of his lethargy and took a quick step forward to help her. She brusquely waved him away and instead reached out to Erica.
‘Are you sure you’re all right sitting up? Shouldn’t you lie down and rest some more?’ Erica said anxiously, but Charlotte merely shook her head. Her speech was a bit slurred, but with obvious effort she managed to say ‘… lain here long enough.’ Then her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, ‘Not a dream?’
‘No, it was not a dream,’ said Erica. Then she didn’t know what else to say. She sat down on the sofa next to Charlotte, took Maja on her lap, and put one arm around her friend’s shoulders. Her T-shirt felt damp against her skin, and Erica wondered whether she dared suggest to Niclas that he help Charlotte take a shower and change her clothes.
‘Would you like another pill?’ asked Niclas, not daring even to look at his wife after being so roundly dismissed.
‘No more pills,’ Charlotte said, again shaking her head vigorously. ‘Have to keep a clear head.’
‘Would you like to take a shower?’ asked Erica. ‘I’m sure Niclas or your mother would be happy to help you.’
‘Couldn’t you help me?’ said Charlotte, whose voice was now sounding stronger with each sentence she uttered.
Erica hesitated for a moment, then she said, ‘Of course.’
With Maja on one arm she helped Charlotte up from the sofa and led her out of the living room.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Erica asked. Niclas pointed mutely to a door at the end of the hall.
The walk to that door felt endless. When they passed the kitchen, Lilian caught sight of them. She was just about to open her mouth and fire off a salvo when Niclas stepped in and silenced her with a look. Erica could hear an agitated muttering issuing from the kitchen, but she didn’t pay it much attention. The main thing was for Charlotte to feel better, and she was a firm believer in the restorative properties of a shower and a fresh change of clothes.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
It wasn’t the first time Agnes had sneaked out of the house. It was so easy. She just opened the window, climbed out on the roof and down the tree, whose thick crown was right next to the house. It was a piece of cake. But after careful consideration she’d decided not to wear a dress, which could make tree-climbing difficult. Instead she chose a pair of trousers with narrow legs that hugged her thighs.
She felt as if driven by an enormous wave, which she neither wanted to, nor could resist. It was both frightening and pleasant to feel such strong feelings for someone, and she realized that the fleeting infatuations she had previously taken seriously had been nothing but child’s play. What she felt now were the emotions of a grown woman, and they were more powerful than she could ever have imagined. During the many hours she’d spent pondering since that morning, she had occasionally been clear-sighted enough to understand that a longing for forbidden fruit was largely responsible for the heat in her breast. Nevertheless, the feeling was real, and she was not in the habit of denying herself anything. She was not about to start now, even though she had no precise plan. Only an awareness of what she wanted, and she wanted it now. Consequences were not something she ever took into consideration, and after all, things had always tended to work out for her, so why wouldn’t they now?
She did not even entertain the notion that Anders might not want her. To this day she had never met a man who was indifferent to her. Men were like apples on a tree, and she only needed to reach out her hand to pick them, though she was inclined to admit that this apple might present a slightly greater risk than most. She had kissed married men without her father’s knowledge, and in some instances had even gone farther than that, but they were all safer than the man she was about to meet. At least they belonged to the same class as she did. Even though it might have initially caused a scandal if her relations with any of them had come out, such affairs would have been regarded with a certain indulgence. But a man from the working class. A stonecutter. No one even dared think such a thought. It simply would never occur to them.
But she was tired of men from her own class. Spineless, pale, with limp handshakes and shrill voices. None of them was a man in the same way as the man she was about to meet. She shivered when she remembered the feeling of his callused hand against hers.
It hadn’t been easy to find out where he lived. Not without arousing suspicion. But a glance at the wage slips during an unguarded moment had provided his address, and then she had been able to work out which room was his by peering in the windows.
The first pebble produced no response, and she waited a moment, afraid of waking the old landlady. But no one moved inside the house. She paused to preen in the ethereal moonlight. She had chosen simple, dark clothing so as not to emphasize the difference in their social standing. For that reason she had also plaited her hair and wound it atop her head in one of the simple hairdos that were common among the working-class women. Pleased with the result, she picked up another pebble from the gravel walkway and tossed it against the window. Now she saw a shadow moving inside, and her heart skipped a beat. The euphoria of the chase pumped adrenaline into her body, and Agnes felt her cheeks flush. When he opened the window, puzzled, she sneaked behind the lilac bush that partly covered the window and took a deep breath. The hunt was on.
6
It was with a heaviness in both his heart and his step that Patrik left Mellberg’s office. What a damned old fool! That was the thought that immediately popped into his mind. He understood quite well that the superintendent had forced Ernst on him merely out of spite. If it wasn’t so bloody tragic it would almost be comical. How stupid.
Patrik went into Martin’s office, his body language signalling that things hadn’t gone the way they had imagined.
‘What did he say?’ asked Martin with dark foreboding in his voice.
‘Unfortunately he can’t spare you. You have to keep working on some car-theft mess. But he apparently has no problem getting along without Ernst.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Martin said in a low voice, since Patrik hadn’t closed the door behind him. ‘You and Lundgren are going to work together?’
Patrik nodded gloomily. ‘Looks that way. If we knew who the killer was we could send him a telegram and congratulate him. This investigation is going to be hopelessly sunk if I can’t keep him out of it as much as possible.’
‘Well, shit!’ said Martin, and Patrik could do nothing but agree. After a moment’s silence he slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up, trying to muster a little enthusiasm.
‘I suppose there’s nothing for it but to get to work.’
‘Where did you intend to start?’
‘Well, the first thing will be to inform the girl’s parents about the recent developments and cautiously try to ask a few questions.’
‘Are you taking Ernst along?’ Martin asked sceptically.
‘No, I think I’ll try to slip off by myself. Hopefully I can wait to inform him about his change of assignment until a little later.’
But when he came out in the corridor he realized that Mellberg had foiled his plans.
‘Hedström!’ Ernst’s voice, whiny and loud, grated on his ears.
For an instant Patrik considered running back into Martin’s office to hide, but he resisted this childish impulse. At least one person on this newly formed police team would have to behave like a grown-up.
‘Over here!’ He waved to Lundgren, who came steaming towards him. Tall and thin, and with a perpetually grumpy expression on his face, Ernst was not a pretty sight. What he was best at was sucking up and kicking down. He had neither the temperament nor the ability for regular police work. And after the incident of the past summer, Patrik considered his colleague downright dangerous because of his foolhardiness and desire to show off. And now he was forced to be partners with him. With a deep sigh he went to meet him.
‘I just talked to Mellberg. He said the little girl was murdered and that we’re going to lead the investigation together.’
Patrik looked nervous. He sincerely hoped that Mellberg hadn’t decided to subvert his authority behind his back.
‘What I think Mellberg said was that I’m going to lead the investigation and you’re going to work with me. Isn’t that right?’ said Patrik in a voice soft as velvet.
Lundgren looked down, but not fast enough for Patrik to miss a quick glimpse of loathing in his eyes. He had taken a gamble, but apparently it had worked. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s right,’ Ernst said crossly. ‘Well, where do we start – boss?’ He said the last word with deep contempt, and Patrik clenched his fists in frustration. After five minutes of this partnership he already wanted to throttle the fellow.
‘Come on, let’s go into my office.’ He led the way and sat down behind the desk. Ernst sat down in the visitor’s chair with his long legs stuck out in front of him.
Ten minutes later Ernst had been brought up to speed on all the information, and they grabbed their jackets to drive over to the house where Sara’s parents lived.
The drive to Fjällbacka took place in total silence. Neither of them had anything to say to the other. When they turned up the hill and into the family’s driveway Patrik recognized the pram standing outside. His first thought was: oh shit! But he quickly revised his reaction. It might be good for the family if Erica was there. At least for Charlotte. She was the one he was most worried about; he had no idea how she was going to take the news they were bringing. People responded so differently. He had actually met relatives who thought it was better that their loved one had been murdered than that the death was accidental. It gave them someone to blame, and they were able to centre their grief on something specific.
With Ernst at his heels, Patrik went up to the front door and knocked cautiously. Charlotte’s mother opened it, and he could see that she was upset. Her face was flushed, and her eyes had a glint of steel that made Patrik hope he never had to cross her.
When she recognized Patrik she made a visible effort to control herself and instead put on an inquiring expression.
‘The police?’ she said, stepping aside to let them in.
Patrik was just about to introduce his colleague when Ernst said: ‘We’ve met.’ He nodded to Lilian, who nodded back.
Well, well, Patrik thought. Of course, with the number of police reports flying back and forth between Lilian and the next-door neighbour, most people at the station should have met her by now. But today they were here on a more serious errand than a petty dispute between neighbours.
‘May we come in for a moment?’ Patrik asked. Lilian nodded and led them into the kitchen, where Niclas was sitting at the table. He too had the flush of anger on his cheeks. Patrik looked around for Charlotte and Erica. Niclas noticed and said, ‘Erica is helping Charlotte take a shower.’
‘How is Charlotte doing?’ Patrik asked as Lilian poured coffee for him and Ernst and placed the cups in front of them on the kitchen table.
‘She’s been completely out of it. But it worked wonders for Erica to come over. It’s the first time Charlotte’s been able to get up and take a shower and change her clothes since …’ he hesitated, ‘it happened.’
Patrik was wrestling with himself. Should he speak to Niclas and Lilian in private and ask Erica to break the news to Charlotte, or was she strong enough to join them? He decided on the latter option. If she was on her feet now, and also had the support of the family, then it ought to go all right. And Niclas was a doctor, after all.
‘Why exactly are you here?’ said Niclas in confusion, giving first Ernst and then Patrik a puzzled look.
‘I think we should wait until Charlotte can join us.’
Both Lilian and Niclas seemed content to wait, but they exchanged a hasty, inscrutable glance. Five minutes passed in silence. Small talk would have felt out of place under the circumstances.
Patrik looked around the kitchen. It was pleasant enough, but obviously the domain of a world-class obsessive-compulsive. Everything was sparkling clean and arranged in straight lines. A bit different to his and Erica’s kitchen, he mused, where there was most often total chaos in the sink while the dustbin overflowed with packaging from frozen meals that could be heated in the microwave. Then he heard a door open, and there stood Erica holding Maja asleep in one arm. Beside her stood Charlotte, fresh from the shower. The astonished look on Erica’s face quickly changed to concern, and she slipped her other hand under Charlotte’s elbow to guide her friend to a kitchen chair. Patrik didn’t know how Charlotte had looked before, but now she had a little colour in her face and her eyes were clear and alert.
‘What are you doing here?’ Charlotte asked in a voice that was still hoarse from several days spent alternating between shrieks and silence. She looked at Niclas, who shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he didn’t know either.
‘We wanted to wait for you before we …’ Patrik’s words failed him as he searched for a good way to present what he had to say. Thankfully Ernst kept his mouth shut and let him handle the situation.
‘We’ve received some new information about Sara’s death.’
‘You’ve found out something else about the accident? What is it?’ said Lilian excitedly.
‘It looks as though it wasn’t an accident.’
‘What do you mean? Why wouldn’t it look like an accident?’ demanded Niclas in obvious frustration.
‘It wasn’t an accident at all. Sara was murdered.’
‘Murdered? What do you mean? She drowned, didn’t she?’ Charlotte looked confused, and Erica grabbed her hand. Maja was still asleep in Erica’s arms, unaware of what was playing out around her.
‘She was drowned, but not in the sea. The medical examiner didn’t find seawater in her lungs as he’d expected. It was fresh water, apparently from a bathtub.’
The silence around the table felt explosive. Patrik looked with concern at Charlotte, and Erica fixed her big eyes on her husband’s face, obviously alarmed.
Patrik understood that the family was in shock, and he began cautiously asking questions to bring them back to reality. Right now he thought that was the best approach. Or at least he hoped it was. In any case, that was his job, and for the sake of both Sara and her family he had to get on with the interview.
‘So now we need to go over in detail the chronology of everything Sara did that morning. Which of you saw her last?’
‘I did,’ said Lilian. ‘I saw her last. Charlotte was lying down in the basement resting, and Niclas had driven off to work, so I was taking care of Sara for a while. Just after nine she said she was going over to Frida’s house. She put on her coat and went out. She waved as she left,’ said Lilian in an empty, mechanical tone of voice.
‘Could you be more precise than just past nine o’clock? Was it twenty after? Five after? How close to nine was it? Every minute will have to be accounted for,’ said Patrik.
Lilian thought it over. ‘I suppose it was about ten after nine. But I can’t say for sure.’
‘Okay, we’ll check and see if any of the neighbours saw anything, so maybe we can get the time corroborated.’ He made a note in his book and went on: ‘And after that no one saw her?’
They shook their heads.
Ernst asked brusquely, ‘So what were the rest of you doing at that time?’
Patrik cringed inside and cursed his colleague’s less than sensitive interviewing technique.
‘What Ernst means is that procedural routine requires us to ask both you and Charlotte the same thing, Niclas. Purely routine, as I said, just to be able to rule you out as suspects as quickly as possible.’
His attempt to dilute the impact of his colleague’s question seemed to work. Both Niclas and Charlotte replied without showing great emotional distress, and they seemed to accept Patrik’s explanation for this uncomfortable question.
‘I was at the clinic,’ said Niclas. ‘I start work at eight.’
‘And you, Charlotte?’ Patrik asked.
‘As Mother said, I was lying down in the basement, resting. I had a migraine,’ she replied in a surprised voice. As if she were shocked that a couple of days earlier she could have viewed that as a big problem in her life.
‘Stig was at home too. He was upstairs resting. He’s been bedridden for a couple of weeks,’ Lilian explained. She seemed annoyed that Patrik and Ernst dared to ask about her family’s activities.
‘Ah yes, Stig, we’ll need to talk to him too eventually, but that can wait a bit,’ said Patrik, who had to admit that he had completely forgotten about Lilian’s husband.
A long silence followed. There was the shriek of a child from another room, and Lilian got up to go and fetch Albin. Like Maja he had slept through all the commotion. He still looked half asleep and wore his usual serious expression as Lilian carried him into the kitchen. She sat down on her chair again and let her grandson play with the gold chain she wore round her neck.
Ernst took a breath and seemed about to ask some more questions, but a warning glance from Patrik made him stop. Patrik continued instead, cautiously. ‘Can you think of anyone at all who you think might have wanted to harm Sara?’
Charlotte gave him an incredulous look and said in her hoarse voice, ‘Who would want to hurt Sara? She was only seven years old.’ Her voice broke, but she was making an obvious effort to control herself.
‘So none of you can think of any motive? Nobody who wanted to hurt you, nothing like that?’
That last question prompted Lilian to speak. The red patches of anger she’d had on her face when they arrived flared up again.
‘Somebody who wanted to hurt us? I should say so. There’s only one person who fits that description, and that’s our neighbour Kaj. He hates our family and has done everything to make our life a living hell for years!’
‘Don’t be stupid, Mamma,’ said Charlotte. ‘You and Kaj have been fighting with each other for years, and why would he want to hurt Sara?’
‘That man is capable of anything. He’s a psychopath, I have to tell you. And take a closer look at his son Morgan. He’s not right in the head, and people like that are capable of anything. Just look at all those psychos that have been let back out on the streets and what they’ve done. He’d be locked up if anyone had any sense!’
Niclas put his hand on her arm to calm her down, but it had no effect. Albin whimpered at the tone of their voices.
‘Kaj hates me, simply because he’s finally met somebody who dares to contradict him. He thinks he’s a big shot just because he was the manager of a company and has plenty of money. That’s why he and his wife can move here and everyone in town treats them like some sort of royalty. He’s totally inconsiderate, so I wouldn’t put anything past him.’
‘Stop it, Mamma!’ Charlotte’s voice now had a new sharpness to it, and she glared at her mother. ‘Don’t go making a scene.’
Her daughter’s outburst made Lilian stop talking. She clenched her jaws hard with anger, but she didn’t dare contradict her daughter.
‘So,’ Patrik hesitated, a bit shocked by Lilian’s vehement remarks, ‘besides your neighbour you can’t think of anyone who has anything against your family?’
They all shook their heads. He closed his notebook.
‘Well then, we have no more questions for the time being. Once again, I just want to say that I’m truly sorry for your loss.’
Niclas nodded and got up to show the policemen out. Patrik turned to Erica.
‘Are you staying, or would you like a lift home?’
With her eyes fixed on Charlotte, Erica replied, ‘I’ll be here for a while yet.’
Outside the front door Patrik paused to take a deep breath.
Stig could hear voices rising and falling downstairs. He wondered who had come to visit. As usual nobody bothered to inform him about what was going on. But maybe that was just as well. To be honest he didn’t know whether he could handle all the details about what had happened. In a way it was nicer to lie up here in bed, in his private cocoon, and let his mind process in peace and quiet all the feelings that Sara’s death had provoked. His illness somehow made it strangely easier for him to deal with the grief. The physical pain was always assaulting his consciousness and pushed away some of the emotional torment.
With an effort Stig turned over in bed and stared blankly at the wall. He had loved the girl as if she were his own granddaughter. Naturally he saw that she could be difficult and moody, but never when she came up to see him. It was as if she instinctively sensed the full extent of the illness that was ravaging his body. She showed respect for both him and his illness. She was probably the only one who knew what a bad state he was in. With the others he made every effort not to show how great the pain was. Both his father and grandfather had died a miserable and humiliating death in a crowded hospital room, and that was a fate he intended to do everything to avoid. So to Lilian and Niclas he always managed to call up his last reserves of energy and put on a relatively controlled façade. And the illness seemed to be doing its part to help him stay out of the hospital. At intervals he would get better, perhaps feeling a little weaker and more tired than usual, but fully capable of functioning in everyday circumstances. But he always took sick again and ended up back in bed for a couple of weeks. Niclas had begun to look more and more concerned, but thank goodness Lilian had so far managed to convince him that it was best for Stig to be at home.
She was truly a gift from God. Of course they’d had their clashes during the more than six years they’d been married, and sometimes she could be a very hard woman, but the best and most tender side of her seemed to come out in caring for him. Since he’d taken ill they had lived in an exceedingly symbiotic relationship. She loved taking care of him, and he loved having her do it. Now he had a hard time imagining that they had been so close to going their separate ways. There was nothing so bad that it didn’t bring some good with it, he always told himself. But that was before the worst of all possible evils had befallen them. And he couldn’t find anything good in that.
The girl had understood the state he was in. Her soft hand on his cheek had left a warmth that he could feel even now. She would sit on the edge of his bed and tell him about everything that had happened that day, and he would nod and listen intently. He didn’t treat her like a child, but as an equal. She had appreciated that.
That she was gone was inconceivable.
He closed his eyes and let a strong new wave of pain carry him away.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
It was a strange autumn. Anders had never before felt so exhausted, and yet so full of energy. Agnes seemed to infuse him with new strength, and sometimes he wondered how he’d been able to make his body function before she came into his life.
After that first evening, when she plucked up her courage and came to his window, his whole life had changed. Now-a-days the sun didn’t shine until Agnes arrived, and it went out when they parted. The first month they had approached each other cautiously. She was very shy and quiet, and he was still astonished that she had dared take that first step. It was unlike her to be so forward, and he felt a warmth come over him at the thought that she had made such a departure from her principles for his sake.
He would willingly admit that at first he had hesitated. He had sensed problems on the horizon and could see only how impossible the situation was. Yet the feeling inside him was so strong that he somehow managed to convince himself that everything would work out in the end. And she was brimming with confidence. When she leaned her head on his shoulder and rested her slender hand in his, he felt as though he could move mountains for her.
There weren’t many hours when they could meet. He didn’t get home from the quarry until late in the evening, and then he had to get up early in the morning to go to work again. But she always found a way, and he loved her for it. They took many long walks round the edge of town under cover of darkness, and despite the raw autumn cold they always found some dry spot where they could sit and kiss. By the time their hands began venturing under each other’s clothes it was already far into November, and he knew they had reached a crossroads.
He cautiously brought up the subject of the future. He didn’t want her to get in trouble, he loved her too much for that, but at the same time his body was urging him to choose the path that would lead them to a union. Yet his attempts to talk about his torment were silenced by a kiss from her.
‘Let’s not talk about that,’ she said, kissing him again. ‘Tomorrow, when I come to your place, don’t come outside to me. Instead let me come inside.’
‘But what about the widow —’ he said before she interrupted him again with a kiss.
‘Shh,’ she said. ‘We’ll be as quiet as two mice.’ She caressed his cheek and went on, ‘Two quiet mice who love each other.’
‘But what about —’ he continued, nervous, but at the same time excited.
‘Don’t think so much,’ she said with a smile. ‘Let’s just live in the present. Who knows, tomorrow we could be dead.’
‘Oh no, don’t talk like that,’ he said, pulling her close. She was right. He thought too much.
7
‘It’s probably just as well we get this over with right away.’ Patrik sighed.
‘I don’t see the point,’ Ernst muttered. ‘Lilian and Kaj have been fighting for years, but I have a hard time believing that was reason enough for him to kill the girl.’
Patrik was taken aback. ‘It sounds as if you know them. I got the same impression when Lilian opened the door.’
‘I only know Kaj,’ said Ernst sullenly. ‘Some of us old guys get together to play cards occasionally.’
Patrik frowned. ‘Is that something I need to worry about? To be quite honest, I’m not sure you should even be taking part in the investigation under the circumstances.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Ernst sourly. ‘If we couldn’t work on a case because of some minor objection, we wouldn’t be able to investigate shit. Everybody knows everybody else in this town, you know that as well as I do. And I’m quite capable of keeping my work and my private life separate.’
Patrik wasn’t really satisfied with that answer, but he also knew that Ernst was right to some extent. The town was so small that everyone had some connection to everyone else, so it wouldn’t be possible to use that as an excuse for removing an officer from an investigation. If that did happen, it would be because of a considerably closer relationship. But it was a shame. For a second he had smelled the morning air and seen a chance of getting rid of Lundgren.
Walking side by side they approached the house next door. A curtain fluttered in the window next to the door but fell back into place so fast that they couldn’t see who was standing behind it.
Patrik studied the house, the ‘showplace’, as Lilian had called it. He’d seen it every day as he drove back and forth from his home but had never given it a closer look. He agreed that it wasn’t very attractive. It was a modern design with lots of glass and artificial angles. It seemed that an architect had been given a free hand, and Patrik had to admit that to some extent Lilian had a point. The house was perfect for Beautiful Homes magazine, but it fitted in as poorly with the old neighbourhood as a teenager at a party for pensioners. Whoever said that money and taste went hand in hand? The town architect must have been blind the day he approved that building permit.
Patrik turned to his colleague. ‘What sort of job does Kaj do? Since he’s home on a weekday, I mean? Lilian said something about managing director.’
‘He sold the company and took early retirement,’ said Ernst, whose tone was still grouchy after having his professionalism questioned. ‘But he also coaches the football team. He’s very good at it, actually. He would have turned pro when he was young, but he had some kind of accident that made it impossible. And I say again, this is a waste of time. Kaj Wiberg is one of the really good guys, and anyone who says different is lying. All this is just ridiculous.’
Patrik ignored his comments and kept climbing the front steps.
They rang the doorbell and waited. Soon they heard footsteps and the door was opened by a man Patrik assumed was Kaj. He brightened up when he saw Ernst.
‘Hi, Lundgren, how are things? There’s no card game today, is there?’
His broad smile faded quickly when he saw that neither of them reacted. He rolled his eyes. ‘So what’s the old bitch come up with this time?’ He showed them in to the big, open living room and sat down heavily in an easy chair, motioning them to have a seat on the sofa.
‘Well, not that I don’t feel sorry about what’s happened to them; it’s a real tragedy. But it’s incredible that she has the stomach to keep quarrelling with us even under these circumstances. I think that says a good deal about what sort of person she is.’
Patrik ignored this comment and studied the man before him. He was thin, of average height, with the physique of a greyhound and silver hair cut short. Nevertheless there was actually something quite nondescript about him – he was the sort of man witnesses would never be able to describe if he decided to rob a bank.
‘We’re going round to all the neighbours who might have seen anything. It has nothing to do with your disputes.’ Patrik had already decided, before they came in, not to say anything about Lilian having singled out her neighbour.
‘I see,’ said Kaj in a tone that had a slight hint of disappointment. A clear indication that the feud with his neighbour had become a constant and almost essential element in his life.
‘But why the questions?’ he went on. ‘It’s tragic that the little girl drowned, but there can’t be anything for the police to investigate further. Surely there can’t be much else for you to do,’ he chuckled, but quickly altered his expression when he saw that Patrik did not find the situation the least bit amusing. Then something dawned on him.
‘Am I wrong about that? People are saying that the girl drowned, but you know how people talk. If the police are going around asking questions, that can only mean that it’s a different cause of death. Am I right or not?’ he asked excitedly.
Patrik gave him a look of distaste. What was the matter with people? How could they view the death of a little girl as something exciting? Didn’t people have any common decency any more? He forced himself to maintain a neutral expression when he answered Kaj.
‘Well, that’s partially right. I can’t go into the details, but it turns out that Sara Klinga was murdered, so it’s of the utmost importance that we find out everything she did that day.’
‘Murdered,’ said Kaj. ‘Wow, that’s horrible.’ His expression was sympathetic, but Patrik could sense, rather than see, that the sympathy did not run very deep.
Patrik had to repress a desire to slap Kaj in the face. He found the man’s phoney sympathy disgusting, but he merely said, ‘As I mentioned, I can’t go into the details, but if you saw Sara on Monday morning then it’s important that we find out where and when. As precisely as you can remember.’
Kaj frowned and thought hard. ‘Let me see now, Monday. Yes, I did see her sometime that morning, but I can’t say exactly when. She came out of the house and scampered off. That kid could never walk like regular people, she always bounced up and down like a blasted rubber ball.’
‘Did you see which direction she went?’ said Ernst, speaking for the first time during their visit. Kaj looked at him in amusement; apparently he found it funny to see his card-playing buddy in his professional role.
‘No, I just saw her go down the driveway. She turned and waved at someone before she bounded off, but I didn’t see which way she went.’
‘And you don’t recall what time this was?’ asked Patrik.
‘Not really, but it must have been sometime around nine. I’m sorry I can’t be more exact.’
Patrik hesitated a moment before he continued. ‘I understand that you and Lilian Florin are not on a friendly footing.’
Kaj snorted out loud. ‘No, you could certainly say that. There’s probably nobody who could stay on a “friendly footing” with that hag.’
‘Is there any special reason for this …’ Patrik searched for the right word, ‘antagonism?’
‘Not that there needs to be any special reason to quarrel with Lilian Florin, but I do happen to have a very good excuse. The trouble began as soon as we bought the lot and were about to build a house here. She had objections to the design and did everything she could to try and stop construction. She stirred up a small storm of protest, I must say.’ He chuckled. ‘A storm of protest in Fjällbacka. Can you hear my knees shaking?’ Kaj opened his eyes wide and pretended to look scared, and then burst out laughing. Then he collected himself and went on, ‘Well, we managed, of course, to take the wind out of that little commotion, even though it cost us both time and money. But since then it’s been one thing after another. And I’m sure you know the extremes she’s willing to go to. It’s simply been hell all these years.’ He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.
‘Couldn’t you have sold the house and moved somewhere else?’ Patrik asked cautiously, but the question sparked a fire in Kaj’s eyes.
‘Move? Not on your life! I would never give her the satisfaction. If anyone should move, she should. Now I’m just waiting for word from the court of appeal.’
‘The court of appeal?’ Patrik asked.
‘They built a balcony on their house without checking the building code first. And it sticks out two centimetres onto my property, so it’s against the law. They’re going to have to tear that balcony down as soon as the verdict comes in. It should be coming any day now, and I can’t wait to see Lilian’s face,’ Kaj beamed.
‘Don’t you think that they have bigger concerns at the moment than the existence or non-existence of a balcony?’ Patrik couldn’t help interjecting.
Kaj’s face darkened. ‘Certainly I’m not insensitive to their tragedy, but fair’s fair. And such things are of no concern to Lady Justice,’ he added, looking to Ernst for support. Ernst nodded appreciatively, giving Patrik yet another reason to worry about the suitability of his participation in this investigation. There was enough cause for concern even before it turned out that Ernst was mates with one of the persons on their interview list.
They split up to cover the houses in the vicinity. Ernst muttered as he trudged through the biting wind. His tall body seemed to catch the wind quite effectively, and his lankiness made him sway back and forth, fighting to keep his balance. He could taste the gall at the back of his mouth. Once again he had to take orders from a snot-nosed kid who was scarcely half his age. It was a mystery to Ernst. Why were his years of experience and skill constantly overlooked? A conspiracy was the only explanation he could come up with. He was a bit fuzzy as to the motive or the brains behind it all, but that didn’t bother him. Apparently he was regarded as a threat precisely because of the qualities he knew he possessed.
Knocking on doors was deadly boring, and he wished he were inside where it was warm. People had nothing sensible to say, either. No one had seen the little girl that morning, and all they could say was how terrible it all was. And Ernst had to agree. It was lucky that he’d never been stupid enough to have kids. He’d managed to keep his distance from women too, he thought, effectively suppressing the fact that it was the women who had never shown much interest in him.
He glanced over at Hedström, who was covering the houses to the right of the Florins. Sometimes his fingers itched to give his colleague a punch in the nose. He had seen the look in Hedström’s eyes when he was forced to take him along this morning. That had actually given Ernst a brief moment of satisfaction. Otherwise Hedström and Molin were as thick as thieves, and they refused to listen to older colleagues like himself and Gösta. Well, Gösta was probably not the best example of a good cop, Ernst had to admit, but his many years on the force deserved respect. And it was no wonder that he’d lost interest in putting any energy into his job under the current conditions. When Ernst thought about it more closely, it was probably the fault of the younger officers that he often didn’t feel like working and instead made a point of sneaking off on breaks whenever possible. It was a comforting thought. Naturally it wasn’t his fault. Not that he hadn’t had pangs of guilt about his lacklustre work performance, but it felt good that he’d finally put his finger on the source of the problem. The crux of the matter, so to speak. It was all because of those snot-nosed kids. All at once life felt much, much better. He knocked on the next door.
Frida was carefully combing the doll’s hair. It was important for her to look good because she was going to a party. The table in front of her was already set with coffee and cakes. Tiny little plastic cups with fancy red plates. Naturally they were only pretend cakes, but dolls couldn’t eat real ones, so that didn’t matter.
Sara had always thought it was dumb to play with dolls. She said they were too old for that. Dolls were for babies, Sara had said, but Frida loved playing with dolls. Sara could be so tiresome sometimes. She always had to be the one to decide. Everything had to be the way she wanted it, or else she would sulk and break things. Mamma would get really mad at Sara when she broke Frida’s things. Then Sara would have to go home, and Mamma would ring Sara’s mamma and her voice sounded so angry. But when Sara was nice then Frida liked her a lot, so she still wanted to play with her. Just hoping that she’d be nice.
She didn’t understand what had happened to Sara. Mamma had explained that she was dead, that she’d drowned in the sea, but where was she then? In heaven, Mamma had said, but Frida had stood for a long, long time looking up at the sky, and she hadn’t seen Sara. She was sure that if Sara had been in heaven she would have waved to her. Since she hadn’t, that must mean she wasn’t there. So the question was: where was she? She couldn’t just disappear, could she? Imagine if Mamma disappeared like that. Frida felt scared all over. If Sara could disappear, could mammas disappear too? She hugged her doll tight to her chest, trying to push away that nasty idea.
There was something else she wondered about too. Mamma had said that the old men who rang the doorbell and told them about Sara were police officers. Frida knew that you were supposed to tell the police everything. You could never lie to them. But she had promised Sara not to tell anybody about the nasty old man. Did she have to keep her promise to someone who was gone? If Sara was gone, then she wouldn’t find out that Frida had told about the old man. But what if she came back and heard that Frida had tattled? Then she’d be madder than she ever was before. She might even smash everything in Frida’s room, including her doll. Frida decided that it was best not to say anything about the nasty old man.
‘Flygare, have you got a minute?’ Patrik had been careful to knock on Gösta’s door, but he saw his colleague hastily shut down a golf game on his computer.
‘Sure, I probably have a minute,’ said Gösta sullenly, painfully aware that Patrik had glimpsed his less than noble pursuit during working hours. ‘Is this about the girl?’ he went on in a more pleasant tone. ‘I heard from Annika that it wasn’t an accident. Bloody awful,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Yes, Ernst and I have just been out talking with the family,’ Patrik said, taking a seat in the visitor’s chair. ‘We told them that it’s now a murder investigation. We asked all the family members where they were at the time Sara disappeared, and whether they knew anyone who’d want to harm her.’
Gösta gave Patrik an inquisitive look. ‘Do you think that someone in the family might have killed her?’
‘Right now I don’t think anything. But in any case, it’s important to eliminate them from the investigation as soon as possible. At the same time we’ll have to check whether there are any known sex offenders in the area.’
‘But I thought the girl hadn’t been violated, from what Annika told me,’ said Gösta.
‘Not according to what the M.E. could see, but a little girl who’s been murdered …’ Patrik didn’t finish his sentence, but Gösta understood what he meant. There had been far too many stories in the media about the exploitation of children for them to ignore that possibility.
‘On the other hand,’ Patrik went on, ‘to my surprise I got an immediate answer when I asked whether they knew anyone who might wish them harm.’
Gösta held up his hand. ‘Let me guess: Lilian threw Kaj to the wolves.’
Patrik gave a little frown at the expression. ‘Well, I suppose you could put it that way. In any event there doesn’t seem to be any love lost between them. We canvassed the neighbourhood and had an informal interview with Kaj as well. You might say there are plenty of old grudges beneath the surface.’
Gösta snorted. ‘Beneath the surface isn’t the expression I’d use. It’s a drama that’s been going on in broad daylight for almost ten years. And, personally, I’m fed up with it.’
‘Well, I gathered from Annika that you’re the one who has taken the reports they’ve filed against each other over the years. Could you tell me a bit about them?’
Without answering at once, Gösta turned round and took a binder from the bookshelf behind his desk. He hastily paged through it and found what he was looking for.
‘I only have stuff from the most recent years here; the rest is down in archives.’
Patrik nodded.
Gösta leafed through the binder, skimming over some of the pages he found.
‘You might as well take this binder. There’s a bunch of good details in here. Complaints from both sides about everything you could imagine.’
‘About what, for example?’
‘Trespassing – Kaj apparently cut across their property on one occasion, and his life was actually threatened – Lilian clearly said to Kaj that he should watch out if he valued his life.’ Gösta kept paging through the binder. ‘And then we have a number of complaints about Kaj’s son, Morgan. Lilian claimed that he was spying on her, and I quote, “boys like that have an overdeveloped sex drive, I’ve heard, so he’s surely planning to rape me”, end quote. And this is just a small selection.’
Patrik shook his head in astonishment. ‘Don’t they have anything better to do?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Gösta dryly. ‘And for some reason they always insist on coming to me with their woes. But I’ll gladly let you take over for the time being,’ he said, handing the binder to Patrik, who took it with some misgivings.
‘But even if both Kaj and Lilian are quarrelsome devils, I find it hard to believe that Kaj would have gone so far as to kill the girl.’
‘No doubt you’re right,’ said Patrik, getting up with the binder in his arms, ‘but, as I said, now his name has been brought up, so I’m at least going to have to examine that possibility.’
Gösta hesitated. ‘Let me know if you need any more help. Mellberg couldn’t have been serious when he said that you and Ernst were supposed to take care of this by yourselves. It’s a homicide investigation, after all. So if I can be of any assistance …’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it. And I think you’re right. Mellberg was probably just trying to rile me. Not even he could have meant that you and Martin wouldn’t be allowed to help out. So I thought I’d call everyone in for a briefing, probably tomorrow. If Mellberg has anything against it, he’ll have to speak up. But as I said, I don’t think he will.’
He thanked Gösta with a nod before he left the office and turned left towards his own. Settled in his desk chair, he opened the binder and began to read. It turned out to be a journey through the pettiness of humankind.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Her hand shook a bit as she cautiously knocked on his window pane. The window was opened at once, and she thought with satisfaction that he must have been sitting there waiting for her. It was warm in the room, and she didn’t know whether his cheeks were flushed from the warmth or from the prospect of the hours they had before them. Probably the latter, she thought, because she felt the same heat in her own face.
Finally they had arrived at the moment she had been longing for ever since she had thrown that first pebble against his window. She had instinctively known that she needed to proceed cautiously with him. And if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to read men. Read them and then give them the woman they wanted. In Anders’s case that meant she would have to play the shrinking violet for a couple of interminable weeks, even though she wanted to creep into his room and slip into his bed that very first evening. But she knew he would have been scared off by such behaviour. If she wanted to win him she would have to play the game. Whore or madonna. She could give men both.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked her as she sat next to him on his narrow bed.
She forced back a smile. If he knew how well-versed she was in what was now about to take place, he would be the one shaking with alarm. But she couldn’t show her true self. Not now, when for the first time she wanted a man as much as he wanted her. So she looked down at the floor and just nodded feebly. When he tried to reassure her by putting his arms around her, she couldn’t help smiling against his shoulder.
Then she sought out his mouth with her own. When the kiss deepened and got serious, she felt him carefully unbuttoning her blouse. He moved at a devastatingly slow pace. She wanted to grab hold of her blouse and tear it off. Yet she knew that would destroy the image that she had spent weeks creating. Soon enough she’d be able to show the passionate side of her nature, but by then he’d be able to credit himself with having enticed her. Men were so simple.
When the last piece of clothing fell, she pulled the covers modestly over herself. Anders caressed her hair and looked into her eyes, silently asking her permission. Then he waited for her affirmative nod before he crept in beside her.
‘Could you blow out the candle?’ she asked, making her voice sound tiny and frightened.
‘Yes, of course, absolutely,’ he said, embarrassed that he hadn’t realized she might prefer the cover of darkness. He reached towards the nightstand and pinched off the flame with his fingers. In the dark she felt him turn towards her and, unbearably slowly, begin to explore her body.
At precisely the right moment she let out a whimper of feigned pain, hoping that he wouldn’t take the absence of blood as a telltale sign. But judging from his tender solicitude afterwards, he had no suspicions, and she felt satisfied with her performance. Since she’d had to stifle her natural instincts, it had been somewhat more boring than she’d expected, but the potential was there. Soon she’d be able to blossom in a way that would be a pleasant surprise for him.
Lying in the hollow of his arm, she thought about whether she might cautiously initiate a second round, but decided she’d better wait a while. For the time being she would have to be content at having played her part well. She had him right where she wanted him. Now it was merely a question of recouping the maximum dividend from all the time she’d invested in him. If she played her cards right, she could look forward to an entertaining pastime this winter.
8
Monica went round with her cart, replacing books on the shelves. She had loved books her whole life. Having almost died of boredom the first year at home after Kaj sold the business, she had seized the opportunity when she heard that the library needed someone to help out part-time. Kaj thought she was barmy, working when she didn’t need to, and she suspected that he considered it a loss of prestige for him. But she was enjoying herself too much to care. There was a good atmosphere at work, and she needed some feeling of community to see any meaning in her life. Kaj had grown more and more short-tempered and grumpy with each passing year, and Morgan didn’t need her any more. There probably weren’t going to be any grandchildren either; in any case she thought it highly unlikely. Even that joy had been denied her. She couldn’t help feeling a consuming envy when the others at work talked about their grandchildren. The light in their eyes made Monica shrink inside with jealousy. Not that she didn’t love Morgan. She did, even though he hadn’t made it easy for them to love him. And she believed that he loved her too. He just didn’t know how to show it. Maybe he didn’t even know that what he felt was called love.
It had taken many years before they understood that there was something wrong with him. Or rather, they knew that something wasn’t as it should be, but there was nothing in their experience that jibed with what they observed in Morgan. He wasn’t mentally challenged, but instead extremely intelligent for his age. She didn’t think that he was autistic, because he didn’t withdraw inside his shell and had no aversion to being touched – all reactions that were often associated with autism, according to what she’d read. Morgan had gone to school long before ADHD and DAMP became household words, so such diagnoses had never even been considered. And yet Monica realized that something wasn’t quite right. He behaved strangely and seemed resistant to any guidance. He simply didn’t seem to comprehend the invisible communication between people, and the rules that governed social intercourse were like Hebrew to him. He kept doing and saying the wrong thing, and Monica knew that people whispered behind her back, assuming that her son’s behaviour was due to lax discipline on her part. But she knew that it was more than that. Even his motor skills were erratic. He kept causing mishaps both big and small, because of his clumsiness. Sometimes the accidents weren’t even accidents but something he did on purpose. That was what worried her most, that it seemed impossible to teach him the difference between right and wrong. They had tried everything: punishment, bribery, threats and promises, all the tools that parents use to instil a conscience in their children. But nothing had worked. Morgan could do the most awful things without showing any remorse when he was discovered.
But fifteen years earlier they’d had an improbable stroke of luck. One of the many teachers they had visited over the years had a real passion for his profession, and he read everything he could find about new research in the field. One day he told them that he’d discovered a diagnosis that fitted Morgan’s condition: Asperger’s syndrome. A form of autism, but with normal to high intelligence in the patient. The burden of all those years of hardship seemed to lift from Monica’s shoulders the minute she heard the term for the first time. She had tasted it, rolled it around on her tongue with pleasure: Asperger’s. It wasn’t something they had simply imagined, nor were they at fault in failing to bring up their child properly. She had been right that it was difficult if not impossible for Morgan to comprehend what made daily life so much easier for everyone else: body language, facial expressions, and implicit meanings. None of this registered in Morgan’s brain. For the first time they were finally able to offer him serious help. Or rather she was. To be honest, Kaj hadn’t been particularly involved with Morgan. Not since he coldly stated that his son would never live up to his expectations. After that, Morgan had become Monica’s boy. So it was she who read everything she could find about Asperger’s and developed some basic tools that would help her son get through the day. Little cards that described various scenarios and how one was supposed to behave, role-playing games in which they practised various situations, and conversations to try and get him to understand intellectually what his brain refused to assimilate intuitively. She also took great pains to speak clearly with Morgan. To clear away all the metaphors, exaggerations and figures of speech that people used in order to give colour and meaning to language. To a large degree, she had been successful. At least he had learned to function tolerably in the world, but he still kept mostly to himself. With his computers.
That was why Lilian Florin had managed to transform Monica’s vague sense of irritation into hatred. She was able to put up with everything else. She didn’t give a damn about building codes and infringements and threats about one thing and another. As far as she was concerned, Kaj was just as much to blame in the feud, and she even believed that he sometimes enjoyed it. But the fact that Lilian had gone after Morgan, time after time, had aroused the ferocity of a tigress in Monica. Just because her son was different it seemed to give Lilian, and many others for that matter, a free hand to mock him. God forbid that anyone should be the least bit different. The mere fact that he still lived, if not at home, then on the same lot as his parents, grated on many people. But none of them was as malicious as Lilian. Some of the accusations she concocted made Monica so angry that she could hardly see straight. Many times she regretted moving to Fjällbacka. She had even taken up the matter with Kaj a few times, but she knew that it was pointless. He was far too bull-headed.
She shelved the last books from the cart and went back to see whether there were any more to collect. But her hands shook with rage when she replayed in her mind all the malicious attacks on Morgan that Lilian had instigated over the years. Not only had she run to the police a few times, she had spread false rumours in town as well, and that kind of gossip was almost impossible to refute. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say. Even though practically everybody knew that Lilian Florin was a regular gossipmonger, her words gradually became accepted as truth, through the sheer force of repetition.
Now she was also garnering a large amount of sympathy in town. Much of Lilian’s nastiness had been forgiven in one blow. She had lost a grandchild, after all. But even that couldn’t make Monica feel sorry for her. No, she was saving her sympathy for the daughter. How Charlotte could be Lilian’s child was a mystery to her. It would be hard to find a nicer person, and Monica felt so sorry for Charlotte that she thought her heart would break.
But she didn’t intend to waste a single tear on Lilian.
Aina looked surprised when the doctor showed up at the clinic at his usual time, eight in the morning.
‘Hi, Niclas,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I thought you were going to come in late today.’
He just shook his head and went into his examination room. He didn’t have the energy to explain. He simply couldn’t stand to be at home for a minute longer, even though the guilt he felt at leaving was like a weight on his shoulders. Because it was a different and worse sort of guilt that made him leave Charlotte alone with her despair at home with Lilian and Stig. A guilt that made his throat tighten so he found it hard to breathe. If he had stayed there any longer he would have suffocated, he was sure of it. He couldn’t even look at Charlotte’s face, or meet her gaze. The pain in her eyes, together with his own guilt-ridden conscience, was more than he could bear. That’s why he had fled to his job instead. It was cowardly, he knew that. But he had long since lost all illusions about himself. He was not a strong or courageous person.
But he hadn’t intended for Sara to be affected. He hadn’t intended for anyone to be affected. Niclas pressed his hand to his chest as he sat as if paralysed behind his big desk, cluttered with casebooks and other papers. The pain was so sharp that he could feel it racing up and down his veins and collecting in his heart. Suddenly he understood how a heart attack must feel. That pain surely couldn’t be any worse than this.
Niclas ran his hands through his hair. What had happened, what needed to be resolved, lay before him like a baffling riddle. And yet he had to solve it. He was forced to do something. Somehow he had to get out of the bind he was in. Everything had always gone so well before. Charm, adroitness and an open and honest smile had saved him from most of the consequences of his actions over the years, but perhaps he had finally come to the end of the road.
The telephone began to ring in front of him. Consultation hours had begun. Although he felt so devastated, he had to go and heal the sick.
With Maja in a baby sling on her stomach, Erica made a desperate attempt to clean house. She had her mother-in-law’s previous visit fresh in her mind, so she almost manically pushed the vacuum cleaner round the living room. Hopefully Kristina would have no reason to go upstairs, so if Erica managed to make the ground floor presentable before she arrived, everything would be fine.
The last time Kristina came over, Maja had been three weeks old, and Erica was still in a stunned fog. The dust bunnies had been as big as rats, and the dirty dishes were piled up in the sink. Of course Patrik had made some attempts to start cleaning up, but since Erica flung Maja into his arms as soon as he came home, he had got no further than to take the vacuum cleaner out of the broom cupboard.
As soon as Kristina came in the door her face took on a disgusted expression, which disappeared only when she caught sight of her granddaughter. For the next three days Erica listened through her fog as Kristina muttered that it was certainly good she had come, or else Maja would soon develop asthma in all this dust. She said that in her day nobody sat staring at the TV all day long. Women managed to take care of a baby and a number of siblings, clean the house, and also see to it that a good meal was on the table when the husband came home. Fortunately Erica had been much too weak to be irritated by her mother-in-law’s remarks. In fact, she had been grateful for the moments she had to herself when Kristina proudly went out with Maja in the pram or helped bathe and change the baby. But by now Erica had regained some of her strength, and combined with her constant melancholy it made her instinctively understand that it would be better to try as much as possible to avoid drawing any criticism from her mother-in-law.
Erica looked at the clock. An hour before Kristina was scheduled to come waltzing in, and she still hadn’t done the dishes. She probably ought to dust as well. She glanced down at her daughter. Maja had gone to sleep contentedly in the sling to the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and Erica mused whether this might be something that would work in future when putting the baby to bed. So far all such attempts had been accompanied by loud protests, but she had read that babies liked to fall asleep to monotonous sounds, like the vacuum cleaner or a clothes dryer. It was worth a try, at least. For the time being the only way to get their daughter to sleep was to have her lie on Erica’s stomach or at her breast, and that was beginning to be intolerable. Maybe she ought to test the methods she’d read about in The Baby Book, the excellent childcare manual by nine-time mother Anna Wahlgren. She had read it before Maja arrived, and a stack of other books for that matter, but when a real baby appeared on the scene, all the theoretical knowledge she had assimilated flew out of the window. Instead she and Patrik practised a sort of ad hoc survival philosophy with Maja. Erica felt that it might be time to retake control. It didn’t make sense that a baby two months old could control the whole house to such a large extent. If Erica could have handled such a situation, that would be one thing, but she could feel how she was gradually slipping further into the darkness.
A quick rap at the door interrupted her thoughts. Either an hour had passed in record time, or her mother-in-law had arrived early. The latter was more likely, and Erica looked around the room in dismay. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. She just had to put on a smile and let her mother-in-law in. She opened the front door.
‘But my dear, you’re standing there with Maja in the draught! She’ll catch a cold, you know.’
Erica closed her eyes and counted to ten.
Patrik hoped that things would go well when his mother came to visit. He knew that she could be a bit … overwhelming, one might say. Even though Erica usually had no problem dealing with her mother-in-law, she hadn’t been herself since Maja was born. At the same time she badly needed a break, and since he couldn’t provide it for her, they had to make use of the resources that were available. Once again he wondered whether he ought to try and find someone Erica could talk to, a professional. But where could he turn? No, it was probably best to let her work through things on her own. The depression would surely pass as soon as they got a routine established. At least that was what he tried to believe. But he couldn’t prevent a little nagging suspicion from creeping in, a suspicion that maybe he was choosing to believe this because it required the smallest amount of effort on his part.
He forced himself to stop thinking about home and return to the notes he had before him. He had called a meeting in his office for nine o’clock, five minutes from now. As he suspected, Mellberg hadn’t objected to involving additional personnel; he seemed to view it as inevitable. Anything else would have been idiotic, even by Mellberg’s standards. How could they conduct a homicide investigation with just two detectives, Ernst and himself?
First to arrive was Martin, who sat down in the only visitor’s chair in the room. The others would have to bring their own chairs.
‘How’d it go with the flat?’ Patrik asked. ‘Was it any good?’
‘It was fantastic!’ said Martin, his eyes shining. ‘We took it on the spot. Weekend after next you can come and help carry cartons.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ Patrik laughed. ‘How nice of you. I’ll have to get back to you on that, after conferring with the boss at home. Erica’s being a little stingy with my time right now, so I can’t promise you anything.’
‘I understand,’ said Martin. ‘I have a number of favours I can call in from people I’ve helped move, so we’ll probably manage fine without you.’
‘What’s this I hear about moving?’ Annika asked, sweeping in with a coffee cup in one hand and notebook in the other. ‘Should I really believe my ears? Are you finally going to join the rest of us and settle down, Martin?’
Martin flushed, as he always did when Annika teased him, but he couldn’t help smiling.
‘Yeah, you heard right. Pia and I found a flat in Grebbestad. We’re moving in two weeks from today.’
‘Well, I’m certainly glad to hear it,’ said Annika. ‘It’s about time too. I’d been worrying that you were going to end up gathering dust on the shelf. So … when are we going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet?’
‘Oh, give me a break,’ said Martin. ‘I remember the way you badgered Patrik when he met Erica, and now look how things have turned out for him. That poor guy felt so much pressure to propagate with his woman, and now he sits here looking ten years older.’ He winked at Patrik to show that he was joking.
‘Well, let me know if you need any tips on how to do it,’ Patrik offered cheerfully.
Martin was just about to come back with a witty rejoinder when Ernst and Gösta simultaneously tried to wedge through the doorway with their chairs. Grumbling, Gösta slipped past Ernst, who nonchalantly took a place in the middle of the room.
‘It’s going to be tight with the whole crowd in here,’ said Gösta, glowering at Martin and Annika, who scooted their chairs over.
‘There’s always room for one more, as my mother used to say,’ Annika commented a bit sarcastically.
Mellberg came sauntering in last of all; he was content to lean against the door jamb.
Patrik spread out his papers on his desk and took a deep breath. The full force of what it meant to head a homicide investigation suddenly struck him. This wasn’t the first time, but still he was nervous. He didn’t like being the centre of attention, and the gravity of the task caused his shoulders to slump. But the only other option was for Mellberg to take charge, and Patrik wanted to avoid that at all costs. So it was just a matter of getting started.
‘As you know, we’ve now received confirmation that Sara Klinga’s death was not an accident, but a murder. She did drown, but the water in her lungs was fresh, not saltwater, which indicates that she was drowned somewhere else and then dumped in the sea. I know this is nothing new, but all the details are in the report from Pedersen, the M.E. Annika has made copies for you.’ He passed a stack of stapled reports around the table, and they each took one.
‘Can anything be deduced based on the water in her lungs? For example, it says here that there were remnants of soap in the water. Could we find out what sort of soap it was?’ asked Martin, pointing at an item in the autopsy report.
‘Yes, hopefully we can,’ replied Patrik. ‘A water sample was sent off to the National Forensic Laboratory for analysis, and in a few days we’ll know more about what they’ve been able to find.’
‘What about the clothes?’ Martin went on. ‘Can we say whether she was dressed or not when she was drowned in the bathtub? Because we can almost certainly assume it was a bathtub she was drowned in, can’t we?’
‘I’m afraid the answer is the same. Her clothes were also sent off, and until we get the results back I don’t know any more than the rest of you.’
Ernst rolled his eyes and Patrik gave him a sharp look. He knew precisely what was going on inside the man’s head. He was jealous because it was Martin and not him who had thought of some intelligent questions to ask. Patrik wondered whether Ernst would ever understand that they worked together in a team in order to solve a task, and that it wasn’t a matter of a contest between individuals.
‘Are we dealing with a sex crime here?’ Gösta asked, prompting Ernst to look even more annoyed, if possible. Even his partner in lethargy had managed to come up with a relevant question.
‘Impossible to say,’ replied Patrik. ‘But I’d like Martin to start checking whether there’s anyone on our list who’s been convicted of sex crimes against children.’
Martin nodded and made a note.
‘Then we also have to look more closely at the family,’ Patrik said. ‘Ernst and I had a preliminary talk with them when we informed them that Sara had been murdered. We’ve also spoken with the individual that Sara’s mother pointed out as a possible suspect.’
‘Let me guess,’ said Annika acidly. ‘Could it possibly have been a certain Kaj Wiberg?’
‘That’s right,’ said Gösta. ‘I gave Patrik all the documents I have about their contacts with us over the years.’
‘A waste of time and resources,’ said Ernst. ‘It’s completely absurd to believe that Kaj had anything to do with the girl’s death.’
‘Oh, right, you two know each other,’ said Gösta and gave Patrik a questioning look to see whether he was aware of this. Patrik confirmed with a nod that he knew.
‘At any rate,’ Patrik interrupted when Ernst again tried to say something, ‘we’ll continue to investigate Kaj to decide as soon as possible whether he was involved. And we need to keep all options open at this stage. First we have to find out more about the girl and her family. I thought Ernst and I would begin by talking to the girl’s teachers to see whether they know of any problem concerning the family. Since we know so little, we might need to get some help from the local press as well. Would you be able to help with that, Bertil?’
He got no answer and repeated a bit louder: ‘Bertil?’ Still no answer. Mellberg seemed far away in his own thoughts as he stood leaning on the door jamb. After raising his voice another notch, Patrik finally got a reaction.
‘Oh, sorry. What did you say?’ asked Mellberg. Patrik once again had a hard time believing that he was the one playing the part of chief in this building.
‘I just wondered whether you might consider talking to the local press. Tell them it was a murder and that anyone’s information is of interest. I have a feeling we’re going to need the public’s help on this case.’
‘Oh, uh, of course,’ said Mellberg, who still had a dazed look on his face. ‘Okay, I’ll talk to the press.’
‘All right. That’s about all we can do for now,’ said Patrik, slapping his hands on his desk. ‘Any more questions?’
No one said a word, and after a few seconds of silence everyone began gathering up their things as if on command.
‘Ernst?’ Patrik stopped his colleague just as he was heading out the door. ‘Will you be ready to go in half an hour?’
‘Go where?’ Ernst demanded with his usual grumpiness.
Patrik took a deep breath. Sometimes he wondered whether he just thought he was talking while really it was only his lips moving. ‘To Sara’s school. To talk to her teachers,’ he said, carefully enunciating each word.
‘Oh right, that. Sure, I can be ready in half an hour,’ said Ernst, turning his back to Patrik.
Patrik gave him a dirty look. He would give this unwelcome partner of his a couple more days before he dared to defy Mellberg and discreetly take Molin along instead.
STRÖMSTAD 1924
The pleasure of novelty had truly begun to wear off. The whole winter had been filled with trysts, and at first Agnes had enjoyed every moment. But now that winter was in retreat and spring was quietly approaching, she felt indolence beginning to creep in. To be honest, she no longer saw what it was about him that she had found so attractive. Of course he was good-looking, she couldn’t deny that, but his speech was crude and uneducated and there was a constant odour of sweat about him. It had also become harder and harder to sneak down to his place, now that the winter darkness was relinquishing its protective cover. No, she would have to put an end to this, she decided as she sat in front of the mirror in her room.
She attended to the last details of her dress and went down to have breakfast with her father. She had seen Anders yesterday, so her body was still overwhelmed by a great weariness. She sat down at the breakfast table after kissing her father on the cheek and began listlessly cracking open the shell of a soft-boiled egg. Her exhaustion made the smell of the egg turn her stomach.
‘What is it, my heart?’ August asked in concern, gazing at her across the large table.
‘Just a little tired,’ she replied miserably. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’
‘You poor thing,’ he said in sympathy. ‘See that you eat something, then you can go back to bed for a while. Perhaps we should take you to see Dr Fern. You’ve been rather out of sorts all winter.’
Agnes couldn’t help smiling, though she had to hide the smile hastily behind her serviette. With a downcast look she answered her father, ‘Yes, I have been a bit worn out. But it was probably mostly because of the winter darkness. Just wait, once spring comes I’ll be more lively again.’
‘Hmm, well, we shall see. But think about it. Perhaps the doctor should have a look at you all the same.’
‘Yes, Father,’ she said, forcing herself to take a bite of egg.
She shouldn’t have done that. The instant she put the boiled egg-white in her mouth she felt her stomach turn over and something rose up in her throat. She jumped up from the table and with her hand to her mouth she dashed to the toilet they had on the ground floor. She had scarcely raised the lid before a cascade of yesterday’s dinner mixed with gall splashed into the toilet bowl. She felt her eyes fill with tears. Her stomach turned inside out several more times. She waited a while, and when there didn’t seem to be any more coming, she wiped her mouth in disgust and left the little room on shaky legs. Outside stood her father, looking worried.
‘Dear heart, how are you?’
She just shook her head and swallowed to get rid of the repulsive taste of vomit in her mouth.
August put his arm round her shoulders, led her into the parlour, and sat her down on one of the sofas. He put his hand on her forehead.
‘Agnes, you’re in a cold sweat. No, I’m going to ring Dr Fern at once and ask him to come over and have a look at you.’
Agnes managed only a feeble nod, then lay down on the sofa and shut her eyes. The room was spinning behind her closed eyelids.
9
It was like living in a shadow world with no connection to reality. Anna hadn’t really had a choice, and yet she was consumed by doubt that she had done the right thing. She knew that nobody else would understand. After she’d finally succeeded in breaking away from Lucas, why had she gone back to him? Especially when he’d done what he had to Emma. The answer was that she went back because she thought it was the only chance for her and her children to survive. Lucas had always been dangerous, yet he kept himself restrained. Now it was as though something had snapped inside him, and his self-control had yielded to a brooding insanity. That was the only way she could describe it: insanity. That had always been part of him; she’d sensed. Indeed, perhaps it was that underlying current of potential danger that had attracted her to him in the first place. Now it had risen to the surface and she feared for her life.
The fact that she had left him and taken the kids wasn’t the only reason that his madness had come to light. Several factors had combined to flip that little circuit-breaker inside him. Even his job, which had always been his biggest arena of success, had now betrayed him. A few failed business deals and his career was over. Just before Anna went back to him she had run into one of his colleagues, who had told her that Lucas was starting to act more and more irrationally on the job when things didn’t go well. He gave in to sudden outbursts of anger and aggressive attacks. Finally he had shoved an important client up against the wall and been fired on the spot. The client had pressed charges, so there would be an investigation as soon as the police got round to it.
The reports of Lucas’s mental condition had worried her, but it wasn’t until she came home one day to a totally vandalized flat that she realized she no longer had a choice. He was going to harm her, or even worse, harm the kids, if she didn’t humour him and come back. The only way to create a bit of security for Emma and Adrian was to stay as close to the enemy as possible.
Anna knew this, and yet it felt as though she were going from the frying pan into the fire. She was practically a prisoner in her own home, her jailer an aggressive and irrational Lucas. First, he forced her to quit her part-time job at Stockholm Auction House, a job she had loved and found deeply satisfying. He wouldn’t allow her to leave the flat except to shop for food or take the kids to day care. Meanwhile he hadn’t been able to find another job, nor did he even try. He’d had to give up the big, elegant flat in Östermalm, and now they were squeezed into a little two-room flat outside the city. But as long as he didn’t hit the children, she could put up with anything. She herself once again had bruises on her body, but in a way it felt like putting on an old, familiar dress. She had lived that way for so many years that her brief period of freedom now seemed unreal, a dream that just happened one time. Anna also did her best to hide what was going on from the children. She had managed to convince Lucas that they should keep going to daycare, and she tried to pretend that their daily life was the same as always. But she wasn’t sure that she was fooling them. At least not Emma, who was now four years old. At first she’d been ecstatic that they were moving in with Pappa again, but Anna had begun to notice her daughter giving her puzzled looks.
Despite the fact that Anna kept trying to convince herself that she had made the right decision, she still realized that they couldn’t live the rest of their lives this way. The more irrational Lucas got, the more frightened of him she became. She was sure that one day he would cross the line and actually kill her. The question was how she could make her escape. She had thought about ringing Erica and asking for help, but Lucas watched the telephone like a hawk. And there was something inside her that held her back. She had relied on Erica so many times before, and for once she felt that she had to tackle this problem herself, like an adult. Gradually, she had worked out a plan. She needed to gather enough evidence against Lucas so that the abuse could no longer be denied. Then she and the children would be given safe haven and new identities. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the desire to take the kids and simply flee to the nearest women’s shelter, but she knew full well that without evidence against Lucas it would only be a temporary solution. Then they would be back in hell again.
So she had started to document everything she could. In one of the department stores on her way to the day-care centre, there was a photo booth. She would sneak in there and take pictures of her injuries. She wrote down the date and time when she received them and hid the notes and photos inside the frame of the wedding photo of her and Lucas. There was a symbolism in this that she appreciated. Soon she would have enough material to entrust her fate and that of her children to the authorities. Until then she simply had to put up with Lucas. And survive.
It was recess when Patrik and Ernst turned into the car park at the school. Crowds of children were outside playing in the biting wind, bundled up and seemingly unconcerned with the cold. But Patrik shivered and hurried to get inside.
Their daughter would be going to this school in a few years. It was a pleasant thought, and he could picture Maja scampering about, here in the hall, with blonde pigtails and a gap between her front teeth, just the way Erica looked in the picture taken when she was a kid. He hoped that Maja would be like her mother. Erica had been incredibly cute as a little girl. She still was, in his eyes.
They took a chance and headed for the first classroom they saw, knocking on the door which stood open. The room was bright and pleasant, with big windows and children’s drawings on the walls. A young teacher sat at a desk immersed in the papers in front of her. She jumped when she heard the knock.
‘Yes?’ Despite her young age she had already managed to acquire that perfect teacher’s tone of voice, which made Patrik suppress a desire to stand at attention and bow.
‘We’re from the police. We’re looking for Sara Klinga’s teacher.’
A shadow crept over her face and she nodded. ‘That’s me.’ She got up and came over to shake their hands. ‘Beatrice Lind. I teach first through third grade.’ She motioned for them to take a seat on one of the small chairs next to the school desks. Patrik felt like a giant as he cautiously sat down. The sight of Ernst trying to co-ordinate all parts of his gangly frame to fit in the tiny chair made him smirk. But as soon as Patrik turned his gaze to the teacher his expression turned sombre again and he focused on the task at hand.
‘It’s so terribly tragic,’ said Beatrice, her voice quavering. ‘That a child can be here one day and gone the next …’ Now her lower lip was trembling too. ‘And drowned …’
‘Yes, especially since it turns out that her death was not an accident.’ Patrik had thought the news would have spread to everyone in town, but Beatrice looked undeniably shocked.
‘What? What do you mean? No accident? But she drowned, didn’t she?’
‘Sara was murdered,’ said Patrik, hearing how brusque that sounded. In a gentler tone of voice he added, ‘She didn’t die from an accident, so we have to find out more about Sara. What she was like as a person, whether there were any problems in the family, that sort of thing.’
He could see that Beatrice was still upset at the news, but she seemed to be pondering what it might mean. After a while she collected herself and said, ‘Well, what is there to say about Sara? She was …’ she searched for the right word, ‘a very lively child. And that was both good and bad. There wasn’t a quiet moment when Sara was around, and to be honest it could be difficult to maintain order in the classroom sometimes. She was something of a leader, pulling the others along, and if I didn’t put a stop to it, utter chaos could result. At the same time …’ Beatrice hesitated again and looked as though she were weighing each word very carefully, ‘at the same time, it was precisely that energy that made her so creative. She was incredibly talented in drawing and every other artistic pursuit, and she had the most active imagination I’ve ever seen. She was quite simply a very creative child, whether she was playing pranks or producing a work of art.’
Ernst squirmed in the little chair and said, ‘We heard that she had one of those problems with initials, DAMP or whatever it’s called.’
His disrespectful tone prompted Beatrice to give him a sharp look, and to Patrik’s amusement his colleague actually cringed.
‘Sara did have DAMP, that’s correct. She was given special tutoring for it. We have a good deal of experience in this field, so we can give these children what they need to function optimally.’ It sounded like a lecture, and Patrik understood that this was something of a pet topic for her.
‘How did the problems manifest themselves for Sara?’ Patrik asked.
‘In the way I described. She had a very high energy level and could sometimes throw terrible tantrums. But as I said, she was also a very creative child. She wasn’t mean or nasty or badly brought up, as many ignorant people might say of children like her. She simply had a hard time controlling her impulses.’
‘How did the other children react to her behaviour?’ Patrik was truly curious.
‘It varied. Some couldn’t get along with her at all and retreated. Others seemed to be able to handle her outbursts with equanimity and got along fine with her. I would say that her best friend was Frida Karlgren. They happened to live near each other.’
‘Yes, we’ve spoken with her,’ said Patrik with a nod. He twisted on the chair once again. He had begun to get pins and needles in his legs, and he could feel a cramp forming in his right calf. He sincerely hoped that Ernst was feeling equally uncomfortable.
‘What about her family?’ Ernst interjected. ‘Do you know if Sara had any problems at home?’
Patrik had to suppress a smile when he saw that his colleague was indeed massaging his calves.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t help you there,’ said Beatrice, pursing her lips. It was obvious that she wasn’t in the habit of telling tales about the home life of her pupils. ‘I’ve only met her parents and her grandmother once. They seemed to be stable, pleasant people. And I never had any indication from Sara that anything was wrong.’
A bell rang shrilly to signal that recess was over, and a lively commotion in the corridor revealed that the children had obediently responded to the call. Beatrice got up and held out her hand as a sign that the conversation was finished. Patrik managed to extricate himself from the chair and stand up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ernst massaging one leg, which had evidently gone to sleep. Like two old men they tottered out of the classroom after saying goodbye to the teacher.
‘Damn, what uncomfortable chairs,’ said Ernst as he limped out to the car.
‘Well, I guess we’re not that limber anymore,’ said Patrik, sinking into the driver’s seat of the car. All of a sudden the comfortable seat with plenty of leg room felt like an incredible luxury.
‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Ernst. ‘My physical condition is just as good as when I was a teenager, but nobody is built to sit on that bloody miniature furniture.’
Patrik changed the subject. ‘We certainly didn’t find out much of any use from that visit.’
‘Sounds to me like the girl was a hell of a pest,’ said Ernst. ‘Nowadays it seems that any kid who doesn’t know how to behave is excused with some damn variant of DAMP. In my day that sort of behaviour would get you a couple of raps with the ruler. But now the kids have to be medicated and soothed by psychologists and pampered. No wonder society is going to hell.’ Ernst stared gloomily out of the window on the passenger side and shook his head.
Patrik didn’t acknowledge his comment with an answer. There was really no point.
‘Are you really going to feed her again? In my day we never nursed more often than every four hours,’ said Kristina, giving Erica a critical look as she sat down in the easy chair to nurse Maja after a mere two and a half hours.
In this situation Erica knew better than to argue, so she simply ignored Kristina’s remark. It was only one of many that had been hurled through the air that morning, and Erica felt that soon she would reach her limit. Her failed attempts to clean the house adequately had been noticed, just as she had predicted. Now her mother-in-law was dashing about with the vacuum cleaner like a madwoman, muttering comments on her favourite topic: dust causing asthma in small children. Before this she had demonstratively gone into the kitchen and washed all the dishes in the sink and on the drainboard, all the while instructing Erica in the correct way to wash up. The dishes had to be rinsed off promptly so that remnants of food wouldn’t stick, and it was just as well to do the washing up at once. Otherwise the dishes would just pile up. Clenching her teeth, Erica tried to focus on the long catnap she’d be able to take when Kristina went out with the pram. Although she was starting to wonder whether it was worth the trouble.
She made herself comfortable in the easy chair and tried to get Maja to nurse. But the baby sensed the tension in the air. She had fretted and fussed most of the morning, and now she stubbornly resisted the little milk offered to soothe her. Erica was sweating as she fought this battle of wills with her infant daughter. Only when Maja finally gave in and began to nurse did Erica relax. Cautiously, so she wouldn’t have struggled in vain, she switched on the TV. The Bold and the Beautiful was on, and Erica tried to immerse herself in Brooke and Ridge’s complex relationship. Kristina glanced at the TV screen as she hurried by with the vacuum cleaner.
‘Ugh, how can you stand to watch such trash? Why don’t you read a book instead?’
Erica retaliated by turning up the volume on the TV. For a second she permitted herself to enjoy the satisfaction of such a spiteful response. But when she saw her mother-in-law’s insulted look, she turned it back down. She knew she would pay a high price for any attempts at rebellion. She glanced at her watch. Good Lord, it was only a little before noon. It would be an eternity until Patrik came home. And then another day just like this one would follow, before Kristina packed her bags and went home, convinced that she had been of invaluable help to her son and daughter-in-law. Two more interminable days …
STRÖMSTAD 1924
The milder weather worked wonders for the mood of the stonecutters. When Anders arrived at work he could hear how his comrades had already started the rhythmic work songs that accompanied the sound of their hammers striking the crowbars. They were busy making holes for the gunpowder to blast out the larger blocks of granite. One man held the crowbar, and two took turns striking it until they had made a substantial hole straight into the stone. Then the black powder was poured in and ignited. Attempts had been made with dynamite, but it hadn’t worked properly. The pressure of the detonation was too great and pulverized the granite, making it shatter in all directions.
The men nodded to Anders as he walked by, without interrupting the rhythm of their work.
With joy in his heart he went over to the place where he was carving out the statue. Progress had been painfully slow during the winter; on many days the cold had made it well-nigh impossible to work the stone. For long periods he had been forced to simply stop and wait for the weather to improve, making it difficult to earn enough wages. But now he could get started in earnest on the huge piece of granite, and he wasn’t complaining. The winter had brought other reasons to be happy.
Sometimes he could hardly believe it was true, that such an angel had come down to earth and crept into his bed. Every minute they had spent together was a precious memory that he stored in a special place in his heart. But at times, thoughts of the future could cloud his joy. He had tried to bring up the subject with her on several occasions, but she always silenced him with a kiss. They shouldn’t speak of such things, she said, often adding that everything was bound to work out. He had interpreted this to mean that she, like him, still hoped for a future together. Sometimes he actually permitted himself to believe her words, that everything was going to work out. Deep inside he was a true romantic, and the belief that love could conquer all obstacles was firmly rooted in his soul. Of course they didn’t belong to the same social class, but he was a skilled, hard-working man. He would undoubtedly be able to provide a good life for her if he only got the chance. And if she felt for him what he felt for her, then material things would not be so important to her. A life shared with him would be worth some sacrifices on her part. On a day like this, with the spring sunshine warming his fingers, he was convinced that everything really would turn out the way he hoped. Now he was merely waiting to receive her permission to speak with her father. Then he would set about preparing the speech of his life.
With a pounding heart he meticulously hammered out the statue from the stone. In his head the words kept spinning round. Along with images of Agnes.
10
Arne was carefully studying the obituary in the newspaper. He wrinkled his nose. He suspected as much. They had chosen a teddy bear as an illustration, and that was a custom that he really hated. An obituary should contain the symbols of the Christian church, nothing more. A teddy bear was simply ungodly. But he hadn’t expected anything else. The boy had been a disappointment from beginning to end, and nothing he did surprised Arne any more. It really was a crying shame that such a God-fearing person as himself should have progeny who had so stubbornly repudiated the right path. People who didn’t know any better had tried to bring about a reconciliation between them. They had said that his son, from what they had heard, was a fine and intelligent man. He also had an honourable profession, since he was a doctor, after all. Mostly it was women who had come to their door spouting such nonsense. Men knew better than to comment on things they knew nothing about. Of course he had to agree that his son had taken on a proper profession and seemed to be doing well. But if he didn’t have God in his heart it was all meaningless.
Arne’s greatest dream had been to have a son who would follow his grandfather’s footsteps and become a pastor. He himself had been forced to put aside such ambitions early on, since his father drank all the money that was supposed to go towards his seminary training. Instead he’d had to content himself with working as a verger in the church. At least that still allowed him to spend his days in God’s house.
But the church was no longer what it had once been. Things used to be different. Back then everyone knew his place, and the pastor was shown the proper respect. People also followed the words of Pastor Schartus as best they could, and they did not occupy themselves with things that even pastors appeared to enjoy nowadays: dancing, music and living together out of wedlock, to name just a few vices. But the hardest thing for Arne to accept was that females now had the right to act as God’s representatives. He just couldn’t understand it. The Bible was perfectly clear on this point: ‘Woman shall be silent in the congregation.’ What was there to discuss? Women had no business being members of the clergy. They could offer good support as pastors’ wives or even as deaconesses, but otherwise they should remain silent in the congregation. It had been a sorry time when that female had taken over Fjällbacka Church. Arne had been forced to drive to Kville on Sundays to worship, and he had simply refused to show up for work. He had paid a high price, but it was worth it. Now the hideous creature was gone. Of course, the new pastor was a bit too modern for his taste, but at least he was a man. Now all that remained was to make sure that the female cantor became a temporary chapter in the history of Fjällbacka Church. A female cantor wasn’t as bad as a female pastor, of course, but still.
Arne morosely turned the page in the regional paper, Bohusläningen. Asta was continuing to go about the house with a long face. He knew that it was for the little girl’s sake. It bothered her that their son now lived so close by. But he had explained that she had to be strong in her faith and true to their conviction. He could agree that it was a shame about the girl, but that just proved his point. Their son had not kept to the straight and narrow, and sooner or later he was bound to be punished. He turned back to look again at the teddy bear in the obituary. It was a crying shame, it certainly was …
Mellberg didn’t feel the same sense of satisfaction that he usually did when he was the focus of media attention. He hadn’t even called a press conference, but had simply gathered some reporters from the local newspapers in his office. The memory of the letter he’d received overshadowed everything else right now, and he was having a hard time concentrating on anything else.
‘Do you have any solid leads to follow up on?’ A cub reporter was eagerly awaiting his reply.
‘Nothing that we can comment on in the present situation,’ the chief said.
‘Is anyone in the family a suspect?’ The question came from a reporter from the competing paper.
‘We’re keeping all options open right now, but we have nothing concrete that points in a specific direction.’
‘Was it a sex crime?’ The same reporter again.
‘I can’t go into that,’ Mellberg said vaguely.
‘How did you confirm it was murder?’ the third journalist interjected. ‘Did she have external injuries that indicated it was homicide?’
‘For investigative reasons I can’t comment on that,’ said Mellberg, seeing the frustration grow on the reporters’ faces. It was always like walking a slack line where the press was concerned. Give them just enough so that they felt the police were doing their job, but not so much that it hurt the investigation. Usually he regarded himself as a master of this balancing act, but today he was having a hard time with it. He didn’t know what to do about the information he had received in the letter. Could it really be true?
One of the reporters gave him a querulous look, and Mellberg realized he’d missed a question.
‘Pardon me, could you please repeat the question?’ he said in confusion, and the reporter’s expression turned quizzical. They had met at several of these types of meetings, and the superintendent usually acted grandiose and boastful, rather than low-key and absent-minded as he was today.
‘All right. I asked whether there is any reason for parents in the area to worry about the safety of their children.’
‘We always recommend that parents keep a close eye on their children, but I want to emphasize that this shouldn’t lead to any sort of mass hysteria. I’m convinced that this is an isolated event and that we will soon have a suspect in custody.’
He stood up as a sign that the meeting was over. The reporters obediently put away their notebooks and pens and thanked him. They all felt that they might have questioned the superintendent a bit harder, but at the same time it was important for the regional press to maintain a good relationship with the local police. They would leave the hard-hitting questions to their colleagues in the big cities. Here in Bohuslän they were often neighbours with subjects of their interviews. They had children in the same sports leagues and schools, so they had to forgo any desire to get the big scoop for the sake of harmony in the community.
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Camilla Lackberg
For the first time in English, the third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Läckberg.The remote resort of Fjällbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But this was no accidental drowning…Local detective Patrik Hedström has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the murder of a child both he and his partner Erica knew well.What he does not know is how the case will reach into the dark heart of Fjällbacka and tear aside its idyllic façade, perhaps forever.
CAMILLA LACKBERG
The Stonecutter
Translated from the Swedish
by Steven T. Murray
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2005
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden
English translation © Steven T. Murray 2008
Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover Design © www.blacksheep-uk.com (http://www.blacksheep-uk.com/)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007253975
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007351855
Version: 2017-10-18
To UlleAll possible happiness
Table of Contents
Title Page (#u939d29a6-24c4-5185-8f3d-40d4add61d1c)
Copyright (#u2891b7b5-bef9-50a1-ad39-ad9a37670213)
Dedication (#u2eecd72e-bbea-5915-adcc-1c7733b5bc1f)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_c13afba5-55d9-57e8-ae63-06026a1b72c7)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_3b7c02e2-8259-5da1-8395-5ca692d0f07a)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_81d529ad-d147-5b5b-8e4b-e7f7b09bf914)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_93034ac0-e213-5790-9b25-c52c75c53b61)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_b6a75232-7b81-59d8-8543-958039469a75)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_af260914-69c3-557c-ab39-2c45cc864325)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_8f48e9fb-0b16-5191-b645-d5896d2917be)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_8cdcfea6-3c1e-5a1a-85be-2ddc797f7217)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_e4d9276b-f5ee-5fd1-8ac7-b90b2f45f54e)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_f1b6796c-d69a-5aa5-acd6-89c4ed875bc8)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
The Stranger (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1
The lobster fishery was not what it once was. Back then, hard-working, professional lobstermen trapped the black crustaceans. Now, summertime visitors spent a week fishing for lobsters purely for their own enjoyment. And they didn’t obey the regulations either. He had seen plenty of it over the years. Brushes discreetly used to remove the visible roe from the females to make the lobsters look legal, poaching from other people’s pots. Some people even dived into the water and plucked the lobsters right out of the pots. Sometimes he wondered where it would all end and whether there was any honour left among lobstermen. On one occasion there had even been a bottle of cognac in the pot he pulled up, instead of the unknown number of lobsters that had been stolen from it. At least that thief had some honour, or a sense of humour.
Frans Bengtsson sighed deeply as he stood hauling up his lobster-pots, but his face brightened when he saw two marvellous lobsters in the first pot. He had a good eye for where lobsters tended to congregate, as well as a number of favourite spots where the pots could be placed with the same luck from one year to the next.
Three pots later and he had accumulated a passable heap of the valuable creatures. He didn’t really understand why they commanded such scandalous prices. Not that they were unappetizing in any way, but if he had to choose he’d rather have herring for dinner. They were tastier and a better buy. But the income from the lobster fishery was a more than welcome addition to his pension at this time of the year.
The last pot seemed to be stuck, and he stood with his foot on the rail of the boat for a bit more support as he tried to wrench it loose. He felt the pot slowly begin to give, and he hoped it wasn’t damaged. He peered over the rail of his old wooden snipa to see what sort of shape it was in. But it wasn’t the pot that came up first. A white hand broke the heaving surface of the water, looking for a moment like it was pointing at the sky.
His first instinct was to release the line and let whatever was floating beneath the surface vanish into the depths again along with the lobster-pot. But then his expertise took over, and he resumed pulling on the line that was attached to the pot. He still had a good deal of strength in his body, and he needed it. He had to haul with all his might to manoeuvre his macabre find over the rail. He didn’t lose his composure until the pale, lifeless body fell to the deck with a thud. It was a child he’d pulled up from the sea. A girl, with her long hair plastered round her face, and lips just as blue as her eyes, which now stared unseeing at the sky.
Bengtsson threw himself against the rail and vomited.
Patrik was more exhausted than he’d ever thought possible. All his illusions that babies slept a lot had been thoroughly crushed in the past two months. He ran his hands through his short brown hair but managed only to make it look even more tousled. And if he thought he was tired, he couldn’t even imagine how Erica must feel. At least he didn’t have to keep getting up at night to nurse. Besides, he was really worried about her. He couldn’t recall seeing her laugh since she came home from the maternity ward, and she had dark circles under her eyes. When he saw Erica’s look of despair in the morning, it was hard for him to leave her and Maja. And yet he had to admit that he felt a great relief at being able to drive off to his familiar adult world. He loved Maja more than anything, but bringing home a baby was like stepping into a foreign, unfamiliar world, with all sorts of new worries lurking behind every corner. Why won’t she sleep? Why is she shrieking? Is she too hot? Too cold? What are those strange spots on her skin? Grown-up hooligans were at least something he knew about, something he knew how to handle.
He stared vacantly at the papers in front of him and tried to clear the cobwebs out of his brain enough to keep working. When the telephone rang, he almost jumped out of his seat, and it rang three times before he collected himself enough to pick up the receiver.
‘Patrik Hedström.’
Ten minutes later, he grabbed his jacket from a hook by the door, dashed over to Martin Molin’s office and said, ‘Martin, some old guy out pulling up lobster pots, a Frans Bengtsson, has brought up a body.’
‘Whereabouts?’ Martin said, looking confused. The dramatic news had broken the listless Monday morning at Tanumshede police station.
‘Outside Fjällbacka. He’s moored at the wharf by Ingrid Bergman Square. We have to get moving. The ambulance is on the way.’
Martin didn’t have to be told twice. He too grabbed his jacket to face the bitter October weather and then followed Patrik out to the car. The trip to Fjällbacka went quickly, and Martin had to hold on anxiously to the handle above the door when the car careened onto the verge around the sharp curves.
‘Is it a drowning accident?’ Martin asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’ said Patrik, instantly regretting snapping at Martin. ‘Sorry – not enough sleep.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Martin. Thinking about how worn-out Patrik had looked the past few weeks, he was more than willing to forgive him.
‘All we know is that she was found about an hour ago. According to the old man, it didn’t look like she’d been in the water very long. But we’ll see about that soon,’ Patrik said as they drove down Galärbacken towards the wharf, where a wooden snipa was moored.
‘Did you say “she”?’
‘Yes, it’s a girl, a kid.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Martin, wishing he’d followed his first instinct and stayed in bed with Pia instead of coming in to work this morning.
They parked at Café Bryggan and hurried over to the boat. Incredibly enough, no one had yet noticed what had happened, so there was no need to ward off the usual gawkers.
‘The girl’s lying there in the boat,’ said the old man who came to meet them on the wharf. ‘I didn’t want to touch her more than necessary.’
Patrik had no trouble recognizing the pallor on the old man’s face. It was the same on his own face whenever he had to look at a dead body.
‘Where was it you pulled her up?’ asked Patrik, using the question to postpone having to confront the dead girl for another few seconds. He hadn’t even seen her yet, and already his stomach was turning over uneasily.
‘Out by Porsholmen. The south side of the island. She got tangled in the line of the fifth pot I pulled up. Otherwise it would have been a long time before we found her. Maybe never, if the currents had swept her out to sea.’
It didn’t surprise Patrik that Bengtsson knew how a dead body would react to the effect of the sea. All the old-timers knew that a body first sank, then slowly came up to the surface after it was filled with gases, until finally, after more time passed, it sank back into the deep. In the old days drowning had been a real risk for a fisherman, and Bengtsson had surely been out searching for unfortunate victims before.
As if to confirm this the lobsterman said, ‘She couldn’t have been down there long. She hadn’t begun to float yet.’
Patrik nodded. ‘You said that when you called in the report. Well, I suppose we’d better have a look.’
Martin and Patrik walked very slowly out to the end of the wharf where the boat was moored. Not until they were almost there did they have enough of a view over the rail to discern what was lying on the deck. The girl had landed on her back when the old man pulled her into the boat, and her wet, tangled hair covered most of her face.
‘The ambulance is here,’ said Patrik.
Martin nodded feebly. His freckles and reddish-blond hair seemed several shades redder against his white face, and he was fighting to keep his nausea in check.
The greyness of the weather and the wind that had begun to gust created a ghastly backdrop. Patrik waved to the ambulance team, who seemed in no hurry to unload a gurney from the vehicle and roll it towards them.
‘Drowning accident?’ The first of the two EMTs nodded inquiringly towards the boat.
‘Looks like it,’ replied Patrik. ‘But the Medical Examiner will have to make that call. There’s nothing you can do for her, in any case, besides transporting her.’
‘No, we heard that,’ said the man. ‘We’ll start by getting her up on the gurney.’
Patrik nodded. He had always thought that situations in which children had fallen victim to misfortune were the worst things a police officer could encounter on the job. Ever since Maja was born the discomfort he felt seemed multiplied a thousandfold. Now his heart ached at the thought of the task that lay before them. As soon as the girl had been identified they would have to destroy her parents’ lives.
The medics had hopped down into the boat. They carefully picked the girl up and lifted her onto the wharf. Her wet red hair fell on the planking like a fan around her pale face, and her glazed eyes seemed to be watching the scudding grey clouds.
At first Patrik had turned away, but now he reluctantly looked down at the girl. Then a cold hand gripped his heart.
‘Oh no, oh no, Jesus God.’
Martin looked at him in dismay. Then it dawned on him what Patrik meant. ‘You know who she is?’
Patrik nodded mutely.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Agnes never would have dared to say it out loud, but sometimes she thought it was lucky that her mother had died when she was born. That way she’d had her father all to herself, and considering what she’d heard about her mother, she wouldn’t have been able to wrap her round her little finger so easily. But her father didn’t have the heart to deny his motherless daughter anything. Agnes was well aware of this fact and exploited it to the utmost. Certain well-meaning relatives and friends had tried to point this out to her father, but even if he made half-hearted attempts to say no to his darling, sooner or later her lovely face won out. Those big eyes of hers could so easily well up with heavy tears that would run down her cheeks. When things reached that point, his heart would relent, and she usually got what she wanted.
As a result she was now, at the age of nineteen, an exceptionally spoiled girl. Many of the people who had known her over the years would probably venture to say that she had quite a nasty side to her. It was mostly girls who dared say that. The boys, Agnes had discovered, seldom looked further than at her beautiful face, big eyes, and long, thick hair, all of which had made her father give her anything she wanted.
Their villa in Strömstad was one of the grandest in town. It stood high up on the hill, with a view over the water. It had been paid for partly with her mother’s inherited fortune and partly with the money her father had made in the granite business. He had been close to losing everything once, during the strike of 1914, when to a man the stonecutters rose up against the big companies. But order was eventually restored; after the war, business had begun flourishing anew. The quarry in Krokstrand outside Strömstad, in particular, began pulling in big profits with deliveries primarily to France.
Agnes didn’t care much about where the money came from. She was born rich and had always lived as rich people do. It made no difference whether the money was inherited or earned, as long as she could buy jewellery and fine clothes. She knew that not everyone viewed things this way. Her mother’s parents had been horrified when their daughter married Agnes’s father. His wealth was newly acquired, and his parents had been poor folk. They didn’t fit in at big dinner parties; they were only invited when no one outside the immediate family was present. Even these gatherings were embarrassing. The poor things had no idea how to behave in the finer salons, and their contributions to the conversation were hopelessly meagre. Agnes’s maternal grandparents had never understood what their daughter could see in August Stjernkvist, or rather Persson, which was his surname at birth. His attempt to move up the social ladder by simply changing his last name was nothing that could fool them. But they were enchanted with their granddaughter, and they competed with her father in spoiling Agnes after her mother died so suddenly after giving birth.
‘Sweetheart, I’m driving down to the office.’
Agnes turned round when her father came into the room. She had been playing the grand piano that stood facing the window, mostly because she knew how lovely she looked sitting there. Musicality was not her strong point. Despite the expensive piano lessons she had taken since she was little, she could only struggle passably through the sheet music on the stand in front of her.
‘Father, have you thought about that dress I showed you the other day?’ She gave him an entreating look and saw how he was torn, as usual, between his desire to say no and his inability to do so.
‘My dear, I just bought you a new dress in Oslo …’
‘But it had a quilted lining, Father. You can’t expect me to wear a dress with a quilted lining to the party on Saturday, when it’s so warm outside, can you?’
She gave him a vexed frown and waited for his reaction. If contrary to habit he put up more resistance, she would have to make her lip quiver, and if that didn’t help, well, a few tears usually did the trick. But today he looked tired, and she didn’t think it would take any more effort on her part. As usual she was correct.
‘Yes, all right, run down to the shop tomorrow and order it, then. But you’re going to give your old father grey hair one day.’ He shook his head but couldn’t help smiling when she bounded over to him and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Now look,’ he said, ‘you’d better sit down and practice your scales. It’s possible that they might ask you to play a little on Saturday, so you’d better be prepared.’
Satisfied, Agnes sat back down on the piano bench and obediently began practising. She could already picture the scene. Everyone’s eyes would be fixed on her as she sat at the piano in the flickering candlelight, wearing her new red dress.
2
The migraine was finally beginning to subside. The iron band across her forehead was gradually releasing its grip, and she could cautiously open her eyes. It was quiet upstairs. Good. Charlotte turned over in bed and closed her eyes again, enjoying feeling the pain fade. Slowly it was replaced by a relaxed feeling in her limbs.
After resting for a while she gingerly sat up on the edge of the bed and massaged her temples. They were still a bit tender after the attack, and she knew from experience that the soreness would linger for a couple of hours.
Albin must be taking a nap upstairs. That meant that in good conscience she could wait a bit before going up to him. God knows she needed all the rest she could get. The increased stress in recent months had made the migraines come on more often, sapping her of every last ounce of energy.
She decided to give her fellow sufferer a ring and hear how she was doing. Even though Charlotte was stressed out at the moment, she couldn’t help worrying about Erica’s state of mind. The two women hadn’t known each other long. They’d started talking because they kept running into each other when they were out walking with the baby prams. Erica with Maja, and Charlotte with her eight-month-old son Albin. After they had discovered that they only lived a stone’s throw from each other, they began meeting almost every day. But Charlotte soon began to worry about her new-found friend. Of course, she had never met Erica before Maja arrived, but her intuition told her that it was unusual for her friend to be as apathetic and depressed as she most often was these days. Charlotte had even carefully brought up the subject of postnatal depression with Patrik. But he had dismissed the idea, saying that having a new baby was a big adjustment and that everything would be fine as soon as they got into a routine.
She reached for the phone on the nightstand and punched in Erica’s number.
‘Hi, it’s Charlotte.’
Erica sounded groggy and subdued when she replied, and Charlotte felt even more uneasy. Something wasn’t right. Not right at all.
But after a while Erica perked up a bit. Even Charlotte thought it felt good to be able to chat for a few minutes and postpone the inevitable a little longer. But soon she would have to go upstairs to the reality that awaited her there.
As if sensing what Charlotte was thinking, Erica asked how the house-hunting was going.
‘Slow. Much too slow. Niclas is working all the time, it seems. He never has time to drive around and look at houses. And there isn’t much to choose from right now anyway, so I suppose we’re stuck here for a while longer.’ She gave a deep sigh.
‘It’ll all work out, you’ll see.’ Erica’s voice was comforting, but unfortunately Charlotte didn’t put much faith in her reassurance. She, Niclas and the children had already been living with her mother and Stig for six months. The way things looked now, they were going to have to stay for another half a year. That might be all right for Niclas, who was at the clinic from morning to night, but for Charlotte being cooped up with the kids was unbearable.
In theory it had sounded so good when Niclas suggested the idea. A position for a district physician had opened up in Fjällbacka, and after five years in Uddevalla they had felt ready for a change of scene. Besides, Albin was on the way, conceived as a last attempt to save their marriage. So why not start their life over completely? The more he had talked about the plan, the better it had sounded. And the thought of having close access to babysitting, now that they were going to have two kids, had also sounded tempting. But reality was an entirely different story. It took no more than a few days before Charlotte remembered exactly why she had been so eager to leave her parents’ house. On the other hand, a few things had definitely changed the way they had hoped. But this wasn’t a topic she could discuss with Erica, no matter how much she would have liked to. It had to remain a secret, otherwise it might destroy their whole family.
Erica’s voice interrupted her reverie. ‘So how’s it going with your mum? Is she driving you nuts?’
‘To say the least. Everything I do is wrong. I’m too strict with the kids, I’m too lenient with the kids, I make them wear too many clothes, I make them wear too few clothes, they don’t get enough to eat, I stuff them with too much food, I’m too fat, I’m too sloppy … The list never ends, and I’ve had it up to here,’ she said, holding her hand at chin level.
‘What about Niclas?’
‘Oh no, Niclas is perfect in Mamma’s eyes. She coos and fawns all over him and feels sorry that he has such a worthless wife. He can do no wrong as far as she’s concerned.’
‘But doesn’t he see how she treats you?’
‘Like I said, he’s almost never at home. And she’s on her best behaviour whenever he’s around. You know what he said yesterday when I had the audacity to complain? “But Charlotte, dear, why can’t you just give in a little?” Give in a little? If I gave in any more I’d be completely obliterated. It made me so mad that I haven’t said a word to him since. So now he’s probably sitting there at work feeling sorry for himself because he has such an unreasonable wife. No wonder I came down with the world’s worst migraine this morning.’
A sound from upstairs made Charlotte get up reluctantly.
‘Erica, I’ve got to run upstairs and see to Albin. Otherwise Mamma will be doing the whole martyr bit before I get there … But remember, I’m coming by this afternoon with some pastries. Here I’ve been going on about myself, and I haven’t even asked how you’re doing. But I’ll be over later.’
She hung up and combed her fingers quickly through her hair before she took a deep breath and went upstairs.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. She had ploughed through lots of books about having a child and what life would be like as a parent, but nothing she’d read had prepared her for the reality of the situation. Instead, she felt that everything that had been written was part of a huge plot. The authors raved about happy hormones and floating on a pink cloud as you held your baby, feeling a totally overwhelming natural love-at-first-sight towards the little bundle of joy. Of course it was mentioned, in passing, that you would probably be more exhausted than you’d ever been in your life. But even that fact was surrounded by a romantic halo and deemed to be part of the wondrous motherhood package.
Bullshit! was Erica’s honest assessment after two months as a mother. Lies, propaganda, utter crap! She had never in her entire life felt so miserable, tired, angry, frustrated and worn out as she had since Maja arrived. And she hadn’t experienced any all-consuming love when the red, shrieking, and yes, ugly bundle was placed on her breast. Even though her maternal feelings had crept in ever so slowly, it still felt as though a stranger had invaded their home. Sometimes she almost regretted she and Patrik had decided to have a child. They’d been getting along so well, just the two of them. Then the selfishness they shared with the rest of humanity had combined with their desire to see their own excellent genes reproduced. In one stroke they had changed their lives and reduced her to a round-the-clock milking machine.
How such a little baby could be so ravenous was beyond her comprehension. Maja was constantly clinging to Erica’s breasts, swollen with milk, which had also exploded in size so that she felt that she was just two huge walking breasts. Nor was her physique in general anything to cheer about. When she came home from the maternity hospital she still looked very pregnant, and the kilos had not dropped away as fast as she wanted. Her only consolation was that Patrik had also gained weight when she was pregnant, eating like a horse. Now he too carried a few extra kilos around the middle.
Thank goodness the pain was almost gone by now, but she still felt sweaty, bloated, and generally lousy. Her legs had not seen a razor in several months, and she was in desperate need of a haircut and maybe some highlights to get rid of the mousy-brown colour of her normally blonde, shoulder-length hair. Erica got a dreamy look in her eye, but then reality took over. How the hell could she get out of the house to do that? Oh, how she envied Patrik. For at least eight of the hours in the day he could be in the real world, the world of grown-ups. Nowadays her only company was Ricki Lake and Oprah Winfrey, as she listlessly zapped the remote while Maja sucked and sucked.
Patrik assured Erica that he would rather stay home with her and Maja than go to work, but she could see in his eyes that what he really felt was relief at being able to escape their little world for a while. And she sympathized. At the same time she could feel bitterness growing inside her. Why did she have to bear such a heavy load when it had been a mutual decision and should have been a mutual project? Shouldn’t he carry an equal share of the burden?
So every day she kept close tabs on the time he had promised to come home. If he was only five minutes late she would be consumed by annoyance, and if he lingered even longer he could expect a real onslaught of fury. As soon as he came in the door she would dump Maja into his arms, if his arrival coincided with one of the rare breaks in her breast-feeding schedule. Then Erica would fall into bed wearing earplugs, just to get away from the shrieks of the baby for a while.
Erica sighed as she sat holding the phone in her hand. Everything seemed so hopeless. But her chats with her friend were a welcome break in the gloom. As the mother of two kids Charlotte was a steady rock to lean on, and full of calm assurances. Erica was ashamed to admit that it was also rather nice to listen to her hardships instead of always focusing merely on her own.
Of course, there was one other source of concern in Erica’s life – her sister Anna. She had only talked to her a few times since Maja was born, and she felt that something was not as it should be. Anna sounded subdued and distant when they talked on the phone, but claimed that everything was fine. And Erica was so wrapped up in her own misery that she didn’t feel like pressing her sister for more information. But something was wrong, she was sure of that.
She pushed aside the troubling thoughts and shifted Maja from one breast to the other, which made the baby fuss a bit. Listlessly she picked up the remote and changed the channel. ‘Glamour’ was about to start. The only thing she had to look forward to was this afternoon’s coffee break with Charlotte.
Lilian stirred the soup with brisk strokes. She had to do everything in this house. Cook, clean, and take care of the kids. At least Albin had finally gone to sleep. Her expression softened at the thought of her grandson. He was a little angel. Hardly made a peep. Not at all like the other one. She frowned and stirred even faster, making little drops of soup splash over the edge to sizzle and stick to the surface of the stove.
She had already prepared a tray on the worktop with glasses, soup plates, and spoons. Now she carefully took the pot from the stove and poured the hot soup into the bowl. She inhaled the aroma rising up with the steam and smiled contentedly. Chicken soup, that was Stig’s favourite. She hoped that he would eat it with a good appetite.
She cautiously picked up the tray and, using her elbow, pushed open the door to the stairs. Always this dashing up and down stairs, she thought peevishly. Some day she’d end up lying at the bottom with a broken leg, and then they’d see how hard it was to get along without her. She did everything for them, like a house slave. At this very moment, for instance, Charlotte was downstairs in the basement loafing in bed, with some lame excuse about a migraine. What bloody rubbish. If there was anyone with a migraine around here it was Lilian herself. She couldn’t imagine how Niclas could stand it. All day long he worked hard at the clinic, doing his best to support the family, and then came home to a basement where it looked like a bomb had gone off. Just because they were living there only temporarily didn’t mean they couldn’t clean up and keep the place tidy. And Charlotte had the nerve to insist that her husband help her take care of the kids when he came home in the evening. What she ought to do instead was let him rest after a hard day’s work, sit in peace in front of the TV and keep the kids away as best she could. No wonder the older girl was so impossible. No doubt she could see how little respect her mother showed her father. It could lead to only one thing.
With determined steps Lilian ascended the last steps to the top floor, taking the tray to the guest room. That was where she installed Stig when he was sick. It wouldn’t do to have him moaning and groaning in the bedroom. If she was to take care of him properly, she had to get a good night’s sleep.
‘Dear?’ She cautiously pushed open the door. ‘Wake up now, I’m bringing you a little something. It’s your favourite: chicken soup.’
Stig wanly returned her smile. ‘I’m not hungry, maybe later,’ he said weakly.
‘Nonsense, you’ll never get well if you don’t eat properly. Come on, sit up a little and I’ll feed you.’
She helped him up to a half-sitting position and then sank down on the edge of the bed. As if he were a child, she fed him soup, wiping off any dribbles at the corners of his mouth.
‘See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I know exactly what my darling needs, and if you just eat properly you’ll be back on your feet in no time, you’ll see.’
Once again the same weak smile in reply. Lilian helped him lie back down and pulled the blanket over his legs.
‘The doctor?’
‘But, sweetie, have you entirely forgotten? It’s Niclas who’s the doctor now, so we have our very own doctor right here in the house. I’m sure he’ll look in on you this evening. He just had to go over his diagnosis again, he said, and consult with a colleague in Uddevalla. It will all work out very soon, you’ll see.’
Lilian fussily tucked in her patient one last time and took the tray with the empty soup bowl. She headed for the stairs, shaking her head. Now she had to be a nurse as well, on top of everything else that needed her attention.
She heard a knock at the front door and hurried downstairs.
Patrik’s hand struck the door with a sharp rap. Around them the wind had come up quickly to gale force. Droplets of rain were landing on them, not from above but from behind, as the stormy gusts whipped up a fine mist from the ground. The sky had turned dark, its light-grey hue streaked with darker grey clouds, and the dirty brown of the sea was far from its summery blue sparkle, with whitecaps now scudding along. There were white geese on the sea, as Patrik’s mother used to say.
The door opened and both Patrik and Martin took deep breaths in order to summon extra reserves of strength. The woman standing before them was a head shorter than Patrik and very, very thin. She had short hair curled in a permanent wave and tinted to an indeterminate brown shade. Her eyebrows were a bit too severely plucked and had been replaced by a couple of lines drawn with a kohl pencil, which gave her a slightly comical look. But there was nothing funny about the situation they were now facing.
‘Hello, we’re from the police. We’re looking for Charlotte Klinga.’
‘She’s my daughter. What is this regarding?’
Her voice was a bit too shrill to be pleasant. Patrik had heard enough about Charlotte’s mother from Erica to know how trying it must be to listen to her all day long. But such trivial matters were about to lose any importance.
‘We’d appreciate it if you could tell her that we’d like to talk to her.’
‘Of course, but what’s this all about?’
Patrik insisted. ‘We would like to speak with your daughter first. If you wouldn’t mind —’ He was interrupted by footsteps on the stairs, and a second later he saw Charlotte’s familiar face appear in the doorway.
‘Well, hi, Patrik! How nice to see you! What are you doing here?’
All at once an expression of concern settled on her face. ‘Has something happened to Erica? I spoke to her recently and she sounded all right, I thought …’
Patrik held up his hand. Martin stood silently at his side with his eyes fixed on a knothole on the floor. He usually loved his job, but at the moment he was cursing the day he’d decided to become a cop.
‘May we come in?’
‘Now you’re making me nervous, Patrik. What’s happened?’ A thought struck her. ‘Is it Niclas, did he have an accident in the car, or something?’
‘Let’s go inside first.’
Since neither Charlotte nor her mother seemed capable of budging from the spot, Patrik took charge and led them into the kitchen with Martin bringing up the rear. He noted absently that they hadn’t taken off their shoes and were surely leaving wet footprints behind. But a little mud wouldn’t make much difference now.
He motioned to Charlotte and Lilian to take a seat across from them at the kitchen table, and they silently obeyed. Patrik and Martin sat down across from them.
‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I have …’ he hesitated, ‘terrible news for you.’ The words lurched stiffly out of his mouth. His choice of words already felt wrong, but was there any right way to say what he had to say?
‘An hour ago a lobsterman found a little girl drowned. I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte …’ Then he found himself incapable of going on. Even though the words were in his mind, they were so horrific that they refused to come out. But he didn’t need to say any more.
Charlotte gasped for breath with a wheezing, guttural sound. She grabbed the tabletop with both hands, as if to hold herself upright, and stared with empty eyes at Patrik. In the silence of the kitchen that single wheezing gasp seemed louder than a scream. Patrik swallowed to hold back the tears and keep his voice steady.
‘It must be a mistake. It couldn’t be Sara!’ Lilian looked wildly back and forth between Patrik and Martin, but Patrik only shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘but I just saw the girl and there’s no doubt that it’s Sara.’
‘But she said she was just going over to Frida’s to play. I saw her heading that way. There must be some mistake. I’m sure she’s over there playing.’ As if in a trance Lilian got up and went over to the telephone on the wall. She checked the address book hanging next to it and briskly punched in the numbers.
‘Hello, Veronika, it’s Lilian. Listen, is Sara over there?’ She listened for a second and then dropped the receiver so it hung from the cord, swaying back and forth.
‘She hasn’t been there.’ She sat down heavily at the table and stared helplessly at the police officers facing her.
The shriek came out of nowhere, and both Patrik and Martin jumped. Charlotte was screaming, motionless, with eyes that didn’t seem to see. It was a loud, primitive, piercing sound. The raw pain that pitilessly forced out the scream gave both officers gooseflesh.
Lilian threw herself at her daughter, trying to put her arms round her, but Charlotte brusquely batted her away.
Patrik tried to talk over the scream. ‘We’ve tried to get hold of Niclas, but he wasn’t at the clinic. We left him a message to come home as soon as he can. And the pastor is on his way.’ He directed his words more to Lilian than to Charlotte, who was now beyond their reach. Patrik knew that he’d handled the situation terribly. He should have made sure that a doctor was present to administer a sedative if needed. Unfortunately the only doctor in Fjällbacka was the girl’s father, and they hadn’t been able to get hold of him. He turned to Martin.
‘Ring the clinic on your mobile and see if you can get the nurse over here at once. And ask her to bring a sedative.’
Martin did as he asked, relieved to have an excuse to leave the kitchen for a moment. Ten minutes later Aina Lundby came in without knocking. She gave Charlotte a pill to calm her down, and then with Patrik’s help led her into the living room, so she could lie down on the sofa.
‘Shouldn’t I be given a sedative too?’ asked Lilian. ‘I’ve always had bad nerves, and something like this …’
The district nurse, who looked to be about the same age as Lilian, merely snorted and continued tucking a blanket round Charlotte with maternal care as she lay there, teeth chattering as if she were freezing.
‘You’ll survive without it,’ she said, gathering up her things.
Patrik turned to Lilian and said softly, ‘We’ll probably have to talk to the mother of the friend Sara was going to visit. Which house is it?’
‘The blue one just up the street,’ said Lilian without looking him in the eyes.
By the time the pastor knocked on the door a few minutes later, Patrik felt that he and Martin had done all they could. They left the house which had been plunged into grief with their news and got into their car in the driveway. But Patrik didn’t start the engine.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Martin.
‘Bloody hell indeed,’ said Patrik.
Kaj Wiberg peered out of the kitchen window facing the Florins’ driveway.
‘I wonder what the old cow’s up to now?’ he muttered petulantly.
‘What?’ his wife Monica called from the living room.
He turned halfway in her direction and shouted back, ‘There’s a police car parked outside the Florins’. I bloody well bet there’s some mischief going on. I’ve been saddled with that old woman as a neighbour to pay for my sins.’
Monica came into the kitchen with a worried look. ‘You really think it’s about us? We haven’t done anything.’ She was combing her smooth, blonde page-boy but stopped with the comb in mid-air to peer out of the window.
Kaj snorted. ‘Try to tell her that. No, just wait till the small claims court agrees with me about the balcony. Then she’ll be standing there with egg on her face. I hope it’ll cost her a bundle to tear it down.’
‘Yes, but do you think we’re really doing the right thing, Kaj? I mean, it only sticks over a few centimetres into our property, and it’s not really bothering us. And now poor Stig is sick in bed and everything.’
‘Sick, oh yeah, thanks a lot. I’d be sick too if I had to live with that damn bitch. What’s right is right. If they build a balcony that infringes on our property, they’re either going to have to pay or tear the bleeding thing down. They forced us to cut down our tree, didn’t they? Our fine old birch tree, reduced to firewood, just because Lilian Florin thought it was blocking her view of the sea. Or am I wrong? Did I miss something here?’ He turned spitefully towards his wife, incensed by the memory of all the injustices that had been done to them in the ten years they had been the Florins’ neighbours.
‘No, Kaj, you’re quite right.’ Monica looked down, well aware that retreat was the best defence when her husband got in this mood. For him Lilian Florin was like a red flag to a bull, and it was no use talking to him about common sense and reason when her name came up. Though Monica had to admit that it wasn’t only Kaj’s fault there had been so much trouble. Lilian wasn’t easy to take, and if she’d only left them in peace it never would have come to this. Instead she had dragged them through one court appearance after another, for everything from incorrectly drawn property lines, a path that went through the lot behind her house, a garden shed that she claimed stood too close to her property, and not least the fine old birch tree they’d been forced to cut down a couple of years ago. And it had all started when they began building the house they lived in now. Kaj had just sold his office supply business for several million kronor, and they had decided to take early retirement, sell the house in Göteborg, and settle down in Fjällbacka where they had always spent their summers. But they certainly hadn’t found much peace. Lilian had voiced a thousand objections to the new construction. She had organized petitions and collected complaints to try and put obstacles in their way. When she failed to stop them, she’d begun to quarrel with them about everything imaginable. Exacerbated by Kaj’s volatile temperament, the feud between the neighbours had escalated beyond all common sense. The balcony that the Florins had built was only the latest bone of contention in the battle. The fact that it looked as though the Wibergs would win had given Kaj the high ground, and he was happy to exploit it.
Kaj whispered excitedly as he stood peering out behind the curtain. ‘Now two guys are coming out of the house and getting in the police car. Just you wait, now they’re going to come knock on our door any minute. Well, whatever it’s about, I’m going to tell them the facts. And Lilian Florin isn’t the only one who can file a police report. Didn’t she stand there screaming insults over the hedge a couple of days ago, saying she’d make sure I got what I deserved? Illegal intimidation, I think that’s what it’s called. She could go to jail for that …’ Kaj licked his lips in anticipation and prepared for the coming battle.
Monica sighed and went back to the easy chair in the living room. She picked up a women’s magazine and began to read. She no longer had the energy to care.
‘We might as well drive over and talk to the friend and her mother, don’t you think? As long as we’re here.’
‘All right,’ said Patrik with a sigh, backing out the driveway. They didn’t really need to take the car since it was only a few houses up the street to the right, but he didn’t want to block the Florins’ drive with Sara’s father on his way home.
Looking solemn, they knocked on the door of the blue house, which was only three houses away. A girl about the same age as Sara opened the door.
‘Hello, are you Frida?’ asked Martin in a friendly voice. She nodded in reply and stepped aside to let them in. They stood awkwardly in the hall for a moment as Frida observed them from under her fringe. Ill at ease, Patrik finally said, ‘Is your mother at home?’
The girl still didn’t say a word but ran a little way down the hall and turned left into a room that Patrik guessed was the kitchen. He heard a low murmur and then a dark-haired woman in her thirties came out to meet them. Her eyes flitted nervously and she gave the two men standing in her hall an inquisitive look. Patrik saw that she didn’t know who they were.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Karlgren. We’re from the police,’ said Martin, apparently thinking the same thing. ‘May we have a word with you? In private?’ He gave Frida a meaningful glance. Her mother blanched, drawing her own conclusions about why they didn’t think what they had to say was suitable for her daughter’s ears.
‘Frida, go up and play in your room.’
‘But Mamma —’ the girl protested.
‘No arguments. Go up to your room and stay there until I call you.’
The girl looked as if she had a mind to object again, but a hint of steel in her mother’s voice told her that this was one of those battles she was not going to win. Sullenly Frida dragged herself up the stairs, casting a few hopeful glances back at the adults to see whether they might relent. No one moved until she reached the top of the stairs and the door to her room slammed behind her.
‘We can sit in the kitchen.’
Veronika Karlgren led them into a big, cosy kitchen, where apparently she’d been making lunch.
They shook hands politely and introduced themselves, then sat down at the kitchen table. Frida’s mother took some cups out of the cupboard, poured coffee, and put some biscuits on a plate. Patrik saw that her hands were shaking as she did so, and he realized that she was trying to postpone the inevitable, what they had come to tell her. But finally there was no putting it off any longer, and she sat down heavily on a chair across from them.
‘Something has happened to Sara, hasn’t it? Why else would Lilian ring and then hang up like that?’
Patrik and Martin sat in silence a few seconds too long, since both hoped the other would start. Their silence was a form of confirmation that made tears well up in Veronika’s eyes.
Patrik cleared his throat. ‘Yes, unfortunately we have to inform you that Sara was found drowned this morning.’
Veronika gasped but said nothing.
Patrik went on, ‘It seems to have been an accident, but we’re making inquiries to see whether we can determine exactly how it happened.’ He looked at Martin, who sat ready with his pen and notebook.
‘According to Lilian Florin, Sara was supposed to come over here and play with your daughter Frida today. Was that something the girls had planned? It is Monday, after all, so why weren’t they in school?’
Veronika was staring at the tabletop. ‘They were both ill this weekend, so Charlotte and I decided to keep them home from school, but we thought it was okay if they played together. Sara was supposed to come over sometime before noon.’
‘But she never arrived?’
‘No, she never did.’ Veronika said no more, and Patrik had to keep asking questions to get more information.
‘Didn’t you wonder why she never showed up? Why didn’t you ring and ask where she was?’
Veronika hesitated. ‘Sara was a little … what should I say? … different. She more or less did whatever she liked. Quite often she wouldn’t come over as agreed because she suddenly decided she felt like doing something else. The girls sometimes quarrelled because of that, I think, but I didn’t want to get involved. From what I’ve heard, Sara suffered from one of those problems with all the initials, so it wouldn’t be good to make matters worse …’ She sat there shredding a paper napkin to bits. A little pile of white paper was growing on the table before her.
Martin looked up from his notebook with a frown. ‘A problem with all the initials? What do you mean by that?’
‘You know, one of those things that every other child seems to have these days: ADHD, DAMP, MBD, and whatever else they’re called.’
‘Why do you think something was wrong with Sara?’
She shrugged. ‘People talked. And I thought it fit quite well. Sara could be utterly impossible to deal with, so either she was suffering from some problem or else she hadn’t been brought up right.’ She cringed as she heard herself talking about a dead girl that way, and quickly looked down. With even greater frenzy she resumed tearing up the napkin, and soon there was nothing left of it.
‘So you never saw Sara at all this morning? And never heard from her by phone either?’
Veronika shook her head.
‘And you’re sure the same is true for Frida?’
‘Yes, she’s been at home with me the whole time, so if she had talked to Sara I would have known. And she was a bit peeved that Sara never showed up, so I’m quite sure they didn’t talk to each other.’
‘Well then, I don’t suppose we have much more to ask you.’
With a voice that quavered a bit Veronika asked, ‘How is Charlotte doing?’
‘As can be expected under the circumstances,’ was the only answer Patrik could give her.
In Veronika’s eyes he saw the abyss open that all mothers must experience when for an instant they picture their own child a victim of an accident. And he also saw the relief that this time it was someone else’s child and not her own. He couldn’t reproach her for feeling that way. His own thoughts had all too often shifted to Maja in the past hour. Visions of her limp and lifeless body had forced their way in and made his heart skip a few beats. He too was grateful that it was someone else’s child and not his own. The feeling may not have been honourable, but it was human.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
He made a practised judgement of where the stone would be easiest to cleave and then brought the hammer down on the chisel. Quite rightly, the granite split precisely where he had calculated it would. Experience had taught him well over the years, but natural talent was also a large part of it. You either had it or you didn’t.
Anders Andersson had loved the stone since he had first come to work at the quarry as a small boy, and the stone loved him. But it was a profession that took its toll on a man. The granite dust bothered his lungs more and more with each passing year, and the chips that flew from the stone could ruin a man’s eyesight in a day, or cloud his vision over time. In the cold of winter it was impossible to do a proper job wearing gloves, so his fingers would freeze until they felt like they would fall off. In the summer he would sweat profusely in the broiling heat. And yet there was nothing else he would rather do. Whether he was cutting the four-inch cubic paving stones called ‘two-örings’ used to construct roads, or had the privilege of working on something more advanced, he loved every laborious and painful minute. He knew this was the work he was born to do. His back already ached at the age of twenty-eight, and he coughed interminably at the least dampness, but when he focused all his energy on the task before him, his ailments were forgotten and he would feel only the angular hardness of the stone beneath his fingers.
Granite was the most beautiful stone he knew. He had come to the province of Bohuslän from Blekinge, as so many stonecutters had done over the years. The granite in Blekinge was considerably more difficult to work with than in the regions near the Norwegian border. Consequently the cutters from Blekinge enjoyed great respect thanks to the skill they had acquired by working with less tractable material. Three years he had been here, attracted by the granite right from the start. There was something about the pink colour against the grey, and the ingenuity it took to cleave the stone correctly, that appealed to him. Sometimes he talked to the stone as he worked, cajoling it if it was an unusually difficult piece, or caressing it lovingly if it was easy to work and soft like a woman.
Not that he lacked offers from the genuine article. Like the other unmarried cutters he’d had his amusements when the occasion presented itself, but no woman had attracted him so that his heart leaped in his breast. He’d learned to accept that. He got along fine on his own. He was also well-liked by the other lads in his crew, so he was often invited home for a meal prepared by a woman’s hand. And he had the stone. It was both more beautiful and more faithful than most of the women he had encountered. He and the stone had a good partnership.
‘Hey, Andersson, can you come over here for a moment?’
Anders interrupted his work on the big block and turned round. It was the foreman calling him, and as always he felt a mixture of anticipation and alarm. If the foreman wanted something from you, it was either good news or bad. Either an offer of more work, or notification that you could go home from the quarry with your cap in hand. In fact, Anders believed more in the former alternative. He knew that he was skilled at his profession, and there were probably others who would get the boot before him if the workforce were cut back. On the other hand, logic did not always win out. Politics and power struggles had sent home many a good stonecutter, so nothing was ever guaranteed. His strong involvement in the trade-union movement also made him vulnerable when the boss had to get rid of people. Politically active cutters were not appreciated.
He cast a final glance at the stone block before he went to see the foreman. It was piecework, and every interruption in his work meant lost income. For this particular job he was getting two öre per paving stone, hence the name ‘two-örings’. He would have to work hard to make up for lost time if the foreman was long-winded.
‘Good day, Larsson,’ said Anders, bowing with his cap in hand. The foreman was a stern believer in protocol. Failing to show him the respect he felt he deserved had proven to be reason enough for dismissal.
‘Good day, Andersson,’ muttered the rotund man, tugging on his moustache.
Anders waited tensely for what would come.
‘Well, it’s like this. We’ve got an order for a big memorial stone from France. It’s going to be a statue, so we thought we’d have you cut the stone.’
His heart hammered with joy, but he also felt a stab of fright. It was a great opportunity to be given the responsibility to cut the raw material for a statue. It could pay a great deal more than the usual work, and it was both more fun and more challenging. But at the same time it was an enormous risk. He would be responsible until the statue was shipped off, and if anything went wrong he wouldn’t be paid a single öre for all the work he had done. There was a legend about a cutter who had been given two statues to cut, and just as he was in the final stages of the work he made a wrong cut and ruined them both. It was said that he’d been so despondent that he took his own life, leaving behind a widow and seven children. But those were the conditions. There was nothing he could do about it, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Anders spat in his hand and held it out to the foreman, who did the same so that their hands were united in a firm handshake. It was a deal. Anders would be in charge of the work on the memorial stone. It worried him a bit what the others at the quarry would say. There were many men who had considerably more years on the job than he did. Some would undoubtedly complain that the commission should have gone to one of them, especially since unlike him they had families to support. They would have viewed the extra money as a welcome windfall with winter coming on. At the same time they all knew that Anders was the most skilled stonecutter of them all, even as young as he was. That consensus would dampen most of the backbiting. Besides, Anders would choose some of them to work with him, and he had previously shown that he could wisely weigh the pros and cons of who was most skilled and who was in greatest need of extra income.
‘Come down to the office tomorrow and we’ll discuss the details,’ said the foreman, twirling his moustache. ‘The architect won’t be coming until sometime towards spring, but we’ve received the plans and can begin the rough cut.’
Anders pulled a face. It would probably take a couple of hours to go over the drawings, and that meant even more time away from the job he was currently working on. He was going to need every öre now, because the terms stated that the work on the memorial stone would be paid for at the end, when everything was completed. That meant that he would have to get used to longer work-days, since he would have to try and make time to cut paving stones on the side. But the involuntary interruption of his work wasn’t the only reason that he was displeased about going down to the office. Somehow that place always made him feel uncomfortable. The people who worked there had such soft white hands, and they moved so gingerly in their elegant office attire, while he felt like a crude oaf. And even though he always did a thorough job of washing up, he couldn’t help the fact that the dirt worked its way into his skin. But what had to be done had to be done. He would have to drag himself down there and look over the drawings; then he could go back to the quarry, where he felt at home.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ said the foreman, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. ‘At seven. Don’t be late,’ he admonished, and Anders merely nodded. There was no risk of that. He didn’t often get a chance like this.
With a new spring in his step he went back to the stone he was working on. The happiness he was feeling made him cleave the stone like butter. Life was good.
3
She was spinning through space. Free-falling among the planets and other heavenly bodies that spread a soft glow all around as she sped past them. Dream scenes were mixed with small glimpses of reality. In her dreams she saw Sara. She was smiling. Her little baby body had been so perfect. Alabaster white with long, sensitive fingers on the tiny hands. Already in the first minutes of life she had grabbed hold of Charlotte’s index finger and held on as if it were her only anchor in this frightening new world. And maybe it was. For her daughter’s firm grip on her index finger would become an even harder grip around her heart in the days to come. A grip that even then she had known would last a lifetime.
Now she passed the sun on her path across the heavens, and its dazzling light reminded her of the colour of Sara’s hair. Red like fire. Red like the Devil himself, someone had said in jest, and she remembered in her dream that she hadn’t appreciated that joke. There was nothing devilish about the child lying in her arms. Nothing devilish about the red hair that had at first stood straight up like a punk-rocker’s, but with the years had grown long and thick till it tumbled down her shoulders.
But now the nightmare pushed away both the feeling of the child’s fingers round her heart and the sight of the red hair that bounced on Sara’s narrow shoulders when she hopped about, full of life. Instead she saw her hair dark with water, the strands floating round Sara’s head like a misshapen halo. It was waving to and fro, and below she saw long green arms of seaweed reaching out for it. Even the sea had found pleasure in her daughter’s red hair, claiming it for its own. In her nightmare she saw the alabaster white darken to blue and purple, and Sara’s eyes were closed and dead. Ever so slowly the girl began to turn in the water, with her toes pointed to the sky and her hands clasped over her stomach. Then the speed increased, and when she was spinning so fast that a small backwash was formed on the grey water, the green arms withdrew. The girl opened her eyes. They were completely, utterly white.
The shriek that woke her seemed to come from a deep abyss. Not until she felt Niclas’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard, did she realize that it was her own voice. For an instant relief washed over her. All that evil had been a dream. Sara was alive and well; it was only a nightmare playing a nasty trick on her. But then she looked into Niclas’s eyes, and what she saw made a new scream build up in her breast. He forestalled this by pulling her close to him, so that the scream metamorphosed into deep sobs. His shirt was wet in front and she tasted the unfamiliar salt of his tears.
‘Sara, Sara,’ she moaned. Even though she was now awake she was still in freefall through space. The only thing holding her back was the pressure of Niclas’s arms round her body.
‘I know, I know.’ He rocked her, his voice thick.
‘Where have you been?’ she sobbed quietly, but he just kept rocking her and stroking her hair with a trembling hand.
‘Shh, I’m here now. Go back to sleep …’
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes you can. Shh …’ And he rocked her rhythmically until the darkness and the dreams again descended upon her.
The news had spread through the police station while they were out. Dead children were a rarity, the victims of the occasional, rare car accident, perhaps. Nothing else could cast such a pall of sadness over the whole building.
Annika gave Patrik a questioning look when he and Martin passed the reception desk, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He just wanted to go to his office and close the door. They ran into Ernst Lundgren in the corridor but he didn’t say anything either, so Patrik quickly slipped into the silence of his little den and Martin did the same. There was nothing in their professional training that prepared any of them for situations like this. Informing someone of a death was one of the most odious tasks of their profession. Informing parents of the death of a child was worse than anything else. It defied all sense and all decency. No one should have to be forced to deliver such news.
Patrik sat down at his desk, rested his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Soon he opened his eyes again, because all he could see in the dark behind his eyelids was Sara’s bluish, pale skin and the eyes that stared unseeing at the sky. Instead he picked up the picture frame that stood before him and brought the glass as close to his face as possible. The first picture of Maja. Exhausted and bruised, resting in Erica’s arms in the maternity ward. Ugly yet beautiful, in that unique way that only those who have seen their child for the first time can understand. And Erica, worn out and smiling feebly, but with a new sense of resolve and pride over having accomplished something that could only be described as a miracle.
Patrik knew that he was being sentimental and maudlin. But it was only now, this morning, that he had understood the scope of the responsibility that had been placed in his hands with his daughter’s birth. Only now did he realize the extent of both his love and his fear. When he saw the drowned girl lying like a statue on the deck of the boat, for a moment he wished that Maja had never been born. Because how could he live with the risk of losing her?
He carefully put the photograph back on his desk and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. It suddenly felt utterly meaningless to continue with the tasks he’d been working on before they got the call from Fjällbacka. Most of all he wanted to drive home, crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the day. A knock on the door interrupted his dismal ruminations. ‘Come in,’ he assented and Annika cautiously pushed open the door.
‘Hi, Patrik, excuse me for disturbing you. But I just wanted to tell you that Forensic Medicine rang and said they’d received the body. We’ll have the autopsy report the day after tomorrow.’
Patrik gave a weary nod. ‘Thanks, Annika.’
She hesitated. ‘Did you know her?’
‘Yes, I’ve met the girl, Sara, and her mother quite a few times lately. Charlotte and Erica have been spending a good deal of time together since Maja was born.’
‘How do you think it happened?’
He sighed and fidgeted absently with the papers before him without looking up. ‘She drowned, as I’m sure you heard. Apparently she went down to the wharf to play, fell in the water, and then couldn’t get out. The water is so cold that she probably got hypothermia very quickly. But driving out to tell Charlotte, that was the most terrible …’ His voice broke and he turned away so that Annika wouldn’t see how the tears threatened to spill out of his eyes.
She tactfully closed the door to his office and left him in peace. She wasn’t going to get much done on a day like this, either.
Erica looked at the clock again. Charlotte should have been here half an hour ago. She carefully shifted Maja, who was snoozing at her breast, and reached for the telephone. It rang many times at Charlotte’s house, but no one answered. How odd. She must have gone out and forgotten that they were supposed to get together that afternoon. Although that really wasn’t like her.
Erica felt that they had become close friends in a very short time. Maybe because they were both in a fragile time of their lives, maybe because they were simply very similar to each other. It was funny, really. She and Charlotte seemed more like sisters than she and Anna ever had. She knew that Charlotte worried about her, and that gave her a secure feeling in the midst of all the chaos. Her whole life Erica had worried about other people, especially Anna. To be viewed for once as the person who was little and scared felt strangely liberating.
At the same time she knew that Charlotte had her own problems. It wasn’t only that she and her family were forced to live at home with her parents, Lilian and Stig. Lilian, especially, didn’t seem easy to live with. But something unsure and tense came over Charlotte’s face each time she talked about her husband Niclas. Erica had only met him briefly on a few occasions, but her spontaneous impression was that there was something unreliable about the man. Or perhaps unreliable was too strong a word. Maybe it was more a feeling that Niclas was one of those people who has good intentions but, in the end, will always allow his own needs and desires to take precedence over everyone else’s. Charlotte had told her a few things that had confirmed this impression, even though she mostly had to read between the lines, since her friend usually spoke of her husband in adoring terms. Charlotte looked up to Niclas and, on several occasions, had said straight out that she couldn’t understand how she had been so lucky. It seemed inconceivable to her that she was married to someone like him.
Erica could see, of course, that from a purely objective point of view he rated higher on the looks scale than Charlotte. Tall, blond and handsome was the ladies’ assessment of the new doctor. And he certainly had an extensive academic background, unlike his wife. But if one looked at their inner qualities, Erica realized that the situation was just the opposite. Niclas ought to be thanking his lucky stars. Charlotte was a loving, wise, gentle human being and as soon as Erica managed to pull herself out of this listless state, she was going to do everything she could to make Charlotte realize her own strong points. Unfortunately, at the moment, Erica had no energy to do more than ponder her friend’s situation.
A couple of hours later darkness had fallen, and the storm had reached full force outside her window. Erica saw by the clock that she must have dozed off for an hour or two with Maja, who was using her breast as a dummy. She was just about to reach for the phone to ring Charlotte when she heard the front door open.
‘Hello?’ she called. Patrik wasn’t due home for an hour or two, so perhaps it was Charlotte finally showing up.
‘It’s me.’ Patrik’s voice had an empty sound to it, and Erica was instantly uneasy.
When he entered the living room she was even more concerned. His face was grey, and his eyes had a dead expression that didn’t vanish until he caught sight of Maja, still asleep in Erica’s arms. With two long strides he came over to them, and before Erica could react he had swept up the sleeping baby, pressing her hard to his chest. He didn’t even stop when Maja woke up from the shock of being picked up so abruptly and started shrieking as loud as she could.
‘What are you doing? You’re scaring Maja!’
Erica tried to take the screaming baby from Patrik to calm her down, but he fended off her attempt and just hugged the infant even harder. Maja was now screaming hysterically, and for lack of any better idea Erica slapped him on the arm and said, ‘Stop that! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see that she’s terrified?’
Then Patrik seemed to snap out of it. He cast a confused look at his daughter, who was bright red in the face from anger and fright.
‘Sorry.’ He handed Maja over to Erica, who did her best to soothe the baby. After a few minutes she succeeded, and Maja’s screams gave way to low sobbing. Erica looked at Patrik, who had sat down on the sofa and was staring out at the storm.
‘What’s happened, Patrik?’ said Erica, now in a kinder tone. She couldn’t prevent a hint of uneasiness from creeping into her voice.
‘We got a report of a drowned child today. From here in Fjällbacka. Martin and I took the call.’ He paused, unable to go on.
‘Oh my God, what happened? Who was it?’
Then her thoughts began whirling until they all fell into place at once, like tiny puzzle pieces.
‘Oh my God,’ she repeated. ‘It’s Sara, isn’t it? Charlotte was supposed to come over for coffee this afternoon, but she never showed up and there was no answer when I rang her at home. That’s it, isn’t it? It was Sara you found, right?’
Patrik could only nod. Erica sank into the easy chair to prevent her legs from buckling under her. Before her she could see Sara jumping on their living room sofa as recently as two days ago. With her long red hair flying about her head and laughter bubbling up inside her like an unstoppable primal force.
‘Oh my God,’ Erica said again, putting her hand to her mouth as she felt her heart sink like a stone to her stomach. Patrik just stared out of the window, and she saw in profile his jaw clenching tight.
‘It was so horrible, Erica. I haven’t seen Sara that many times, but seeing her lying there in that boat, totally lifeless … I kept picturing Maja in my mind. Since then my thoughts have been churning round in my head. I can’t stop imagining if something like that happened to Maja. And then having to tell Charlotte what happened …’
Erica uttered a whimpering, tormented sound. She had no words to describe the depth of the sympathy she felt for Charlotte, and Niclas too. She understood at once Patrik’s reaction, and found herself holding Maja even closer. She was never going to let her go. She would sit here holding her tight, keeping her safe, for ever. But Maja squirmed restlessly, intuiting as most children can that things were not as they should be.
Outside the storm continued to rage. Patrik and Erica just sat there for a long time, watching the wild play of nature. Neither of them could stop thinking about the child who was taken by the sea.
Medical examiner Tord Pedersen began the task with an unusually resolute expression on his face. After many years in his profession he had developed a hardened attitude – either desirable or loathsome, depending on how one wanted to view it – which meant that most of the ghastly things he observed in his work left little trace at the end of the day. But there was something about cutting open a child that conflicted with primal instinct and disrupted all routine, undermining the objective professionalism that his years as a medical examiner had given him. The defencelessness of a child tore down all the defensive walls that his psyche could put up, so his hand shook a bit as he moved it towards the girl’s chest.
When she was brought in he had been told that drowning was the presumed cause of death. Now it was up to him to confirm or reject that hypothesis. But so far there was nothing he could see with the naked eye to contradict it.
The mercilessly bright glare in the post-mortem room emphasized her blue pallor so that it looked like she was freezing. The aluminium table beneath her seemed to reflect the cold, and Pedersen shivered in his green scrubs. She was naked as she lay there, and he felt as though he were violating her as he prized open and cut into the defenceless body. But he forced himself to shake off that feeling. He knew that the task he was performing was important, both for the girl and her parents, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. It was necessary for the grieving process to have a final determination of the cause of death. Even though there didn’t seem to be any ambiguities in this case, the rules were in place for a reason. He knew this on a professional level, but as a human being and father with two boys at home, he sometimes wondered in cases like this how much humanity there was in the work he was doing.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
‘Agnes, I have nothing but tedious meetings today. It’s not a good idea for you to come along.’
‘But I want to go with you today. I’m so bored. There’s nothing to do.’
‘What about your girlfriends?’
‘They’re all busy,’ Agnes replied, sulking. ‘Britta’s getting ready for her wedding, Laila’s going to Halden with her parents to visit her brother, and Sonja has to help her mother.’ In a sad voice she added, ‘Imagine having a mother to help …’ She peered at her father from under her fringe. Yes, the ploy had worked, as usual.
He sighed. ‘Well then, come along if you like. But you have to promise to sit still and be quiet, and not run about like a whirlwind talking to the staff. The last time you completely confused those poor old men; it took them several days to get over it.’ He couldn’t help smiling at his daughter. She was unruly, certainly, but a more dazzling girl could not be found on this side of the Norwegian border.
Agnes gave a happy laugh, having once again emerged victorious, and she rewarded her father with a hug and a pat on his big belly.
‘Nobody has a father like mine,’ she cooed, and August Stjernkvist chuckled with pleasure.
‘What would I do without you?’ he said half in earnest, half in jest, pulling her close.
‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘No, not at the moment, anyway,’ he said sombrely, caressing her dark hair. ‘But it won’t be long before some man is going to come and steal you away from me. If you can find one who’s good enough, that is,’ he laughed.
‘Well, I can’t just take any man who comes along,’ Agnes laughed in reply. ‘Not with the example I’ve had. So it’s no wonder I’m particular.’
‘Look here, my girl, enough flattery,’ August preened. ‘Get a move on if you’re coming with me to the office. It wouldn’t do for the boss to arrive late.’
Despite his admonishing words it took almost an hour before they were on their way. First there was the whole business of tending to her hair and clothes, but by the time Agnes was ready, her father had to admit that the result was worth it.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ said August as he swept into the room where three men were sat waiting. ‘But I hope you’ll forgive me when you see the reason for my tardiness.’ He gestured towards Agnes, who was close behind him. She was wearing a red dress that clung to her body, accentuating her slim waist. Although many girls had let their hair fall to the scissors in a bob, as was the fashion in the twenties, Agnes had been smart enough to resist the temptation. Her thick black hair was done up in a simple chignon at her neck. She was well aware of the impression she made, thanks to the mirror at home. Now she exploited it fully as she paused in front of the men, slowly removing her gloves, and then letting them shake her hand, one by one.
With great satisfaction she could tell she was having an effect. Two of them sat there gaping like fish, as they held on to her hand a trifle too long. But the third man was different. To her astonishment Agnes felt her heart give a leap. The big, burly man hardly looked up at her and only took her hand briefly. The hands of the other two men had felt soft and almost feminine against hers, but this man’s hand was different. She could feel the calluses scraping against her palm, and his fingers were long and strong. For a moment she considered not letting go of his hand, but she caught herself and merely nodded to him demurely. His eyes, which only looked into hers fleetingly, were brown, and she guessed there was Walloon blood in his family.
After the introductions, she hurried to sit down on a chair in the corner and clasped her hands in her lap. She could see that her father hesitated for a moment. He probably would rather have sent her out of the room, but she put on her most angelic expression and gave him an entreating look. As usual he did as she wished. Wordlessly he nodded that she could stay. She decided for a change to sit as quiet as a little church mouse so as not to risk being sent out of the room like a child. She didn’t want to be subjected to that sort of treatment in front of this man.
Normally, after an hour of silent participation she would have been almost in tears from boredom, but not this time. The hour flew past, and by the time the meeting was over, Agnes was sure of her cause. She wanted this man, more than she had ever wanted anything else.
And what she wanted, she usually got.
4
‘Shouldn’t we visit Niclas?’ Asta implored her husband. But she saw no sign of sympathy in his stony expression.
‘I told you his name must never be mentioned in my house again!’ Arne stared hard out of the kitchen window, and there was nothing but granite in his gaze.
‘But after what happened to the girl …’
‘God’s punishment. Didn’t I tell you that would happen someday? No, this is all his own fault. If he’d listened to me it would never have happened. Nothing bad happens to God-fearing people. And now we shall speak no more of this!’ His fist slammed the table.
Asta sighed to herself. Of course she respected her husband, and he did usually know best, but in this case she wondered if he might not be wrong. Something in her heart told her that this couldn’t be consistent with God’s wishes. Surely they should rush to their son’s side when such a terrible blow had struck him. True, she had never got to know the girl, but she was still their own flesh and blood, and children did belong to the kingdom of God, that’s what it said in the Bible. But these were only the thoughts of a lowly woman. Arne was a man, after all, and he knew best. It had always been that way. Like so many times before, she kept her thoughts to herself and got up to clear the table.
Too many years had passed since she had seen her son. They did run into each other occasionally, of course; that was unavoidable now that he had moved back to Fjällbacka, but she knew better than to stop and talk to him. He had tried to speak to her a few times, but she always looked away and walked off briskly, as she had been instructed to do. But she hadn’t cast down her eyes quickly enough to avoid seeing the hurt in her son’s eyes.
Yet the Bible said that one should honour one’s father and mother, and what had happened on that day so long ago was, as far as she could see, a breach of God’s word. That’s why she couldn’t let him back into her heart.
She gazed at Arne as he sat at the table. His back was still as straight as a fir tree, and his dark hair had not thinned, in spite of a few flecks of grey. But they were both over seventy. She remembered how all the girls had run after him when they were young, but Arne had never seemed the least bit interested. He had married her when she was just eighteen, and as far as she knew he had never even looked at another woman. Not that he had been particularly keen on carnal matters at home either. Asta’s mother had always said it was a woman’s duty to endure that aspect of marriage. It was not something to enjoy, so Asta had considered herself fortunate since she had no great expectations.
Nevertheless, they did have a son. A big, splendid, blond boy, who was the spitting image of his mother but had few traits from his father. Maybe that was why things had gone so wrong. If he’d been more like his father, then Arne might have had more of a connection with his son. But that was not to be. The boy had been hers from the start, and she had loved him as much as she could. But it wasn’t enough. Because when the decisive day arrived and she was forced to choose between the boy and his father, she had let her son down. How could she have done otherwise? A wife must stand by her husband, she had been taught that since childhood. But sometimes, in bleak moments, when the lamp was off and she lay in bed looking up at the ceiling, the thoughts would come. She would wonder how something she had learned to be right could feel so wrong. That was why it was such a relief that Arne always knew exactly how things should be. Many times he had told her that a woman’s judgement was not to be trusted; it was the man’s job to lead the woman. There was security in that. Since her father had been like Arne in many ways, a world in which the man decided was the only world she knew. And he was so smart, her Arne. Everyone agreed on that.
Even the new pastor had praised Arne recently. He had said that Arne was the most reliable sexton he had ever had the privilege to work with, and God could be grateful to have such loyal servants. Arne had told her this, swelling with pride, when he had come home. But it was not for nothing that Arne had been the sexton in Fjällbacka for twenty years. Not counting the unfortunate years when that woman was the pastor here, of course. Asta would not want those years back for anything in the world. Thank goodness the woman finally understood that she wasn’t wanted, and stepped aside to make way for a real pastor. How poor Arne had suffered during that woman’s tenure. For the first time in more than fifty years of marriage, Asta had seen her husband with tears in his eyes. The thought of a woman in the pulpit of his beloved church had almost destroyed him. But he’d also said that he trusted that God would finally cast the moneylenders out of the temple. And this time, too, Arne was right.
Her only wish was that he could somehow find room in his heart to forgive his son for what had happened. Until then, she would never again have a day of happiness. But she also realized that if Arne could not forgive Niclas now, after this terrible incident, there was no hope of reconciliation.
If only she had gotten to know the girl. Now it was too late.
Two days had passed since Sara was found. The prevailing gloom of that day had inexorably dispersed as they were forced to go back to their daily responsibilities which hadn’t disappeared because a child had died.
Patrik was writing up the last lines of a report on an assault case when the telephone rang. He saw from the display who was calling and picked up the receiver with a sigh. Just as well to get it over with. He heard the familiar voice of Medical Examiner Tord Pedersen on the other end. They exchanged polite greetings before they broached the actual reason for the call. The first indication that Patrik was not hearing what he had expected was that a furrow formed between his eyebrows. After another minute it had deepened, and when he had heard everything the M.E. had to report he slammed down the receiver with a bang. He tried to collect himself for a minute as the thoughts swirled in his head. Then he got up, grabbed the notebook he’d been writing in as they talked, and went into Martin’s office. Actually, he should have gone to Bertil Mellberg first, being the chief of police, but he felt that he needed to discuss the information he had received with someone he trusted. Unfortunately his boss was not in that category. Martin was the only one of his colleagues who qualified.
‘Martin?’
He was on the phone when Patrik came in, but he motioned towards a chair. The conversation sounded like it was winding down, and Martin concluded it cryptically with a quiet ‘hmm … sure … me too … hmm … likewise,’ as he flushed from his scalp downwards.
Despite his own concerns, Patrik couldn’t resist teasing his young colleague a little. ‘So who were you talking to?’
He got an inaudible mumble in reply from Martin, whose face flushed even more.
‘Someone calling to report a crime? One of our colleagues in Strömstad? Or Uddevalla? Or maybe Leif G. W. Persson, interested in writing your biography?’
Martin squirmed in his chair but then muttered a bit more audibly, ‘Pia.’
‘Oh, I see, Pia. I never would have guessed. Let’s see, what’s it been – three months, right? That must be a record for you, don’t you think?’ Patrik teased him. Up until this past summer Martin had been known as something of a specialist in short, unhappy love affairs, usually because of his unfailing ability to get mixed up with women who were already taken and were mostly out for a little adventure on the side. But Pia was not only available, she was also an extremely attractive and serious young woman.
‘We’re celebrating three months on Saturday.’ Martin’s eyes sparkled. ‘And we’re moving in together. She just rang to say that she’d found a perfect flat in Grebbestad. We’re going out to look at it this evening.’ His colouring had returned to normal, but he couldn’t hide how obviously head over heels in love he was.
Patrik remembered how he and Erica had been at the start of their relationship. P.B. Pre-baby. He loved her fiercely, but that stormy infatuation, all of a sudden, felt as distant as a woolly dream. Dirty nappies and sleepless nights were no doubt having their effect.
‘But what about you – when are you going to make an honest woman of Erica? And don’t you want to be recognized as Maja’s legal father?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out …’ said Patrik with a grin.
‘So, did you come here to root around in my private life, or did you have something you wanted to tell me?’ By now Martin had regained his composure.
At once Patrik’s face turned serious. He reminded himself that they were facing something that was as far from a joke as one could get.
‘Pedersen just rang. He’s sending the report from Sara’s post-mortem by fax, but he summarized the contents for me. What he told me means that her drowning was no accident. She was murdered.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ Martin threw out his hands in dismay, knocking over his pen-holder, but he ignored the pens that had spilled onto his desk. Instead he focused his undivided attention on Patrik.
‘At first he assumed, as we did, that it was an accident. No visible marks on the body, and she was fully dressed, in clothing appropriate to the season, except that she had no jacket, but it could have floated away. But most important of all: when he examined her lungs he found water in them.’ He fell silent.
Martin threw out his hands again and raised his eyebrows. ‘So what did he find that didn’t fit with an accident?’
‘Bathwater.’
‘Bathwater?’
‘Yes, she didn’t have seawater in her lungs as you might expect if she had drowned in the sea. It was bathwater. Or rather, presumably bathwater, I should say. Pedersen found residue of both soap and shampoo in the water, which suggests that it’s bathwater.’
‘So she was drowned in a bathtub?’ said Martin, sounding sceptical. They had been so convinced that it was a tragic yet normal drowning accident that he was having a hard time adjusting to this new theory.
‘Yes, that’s what it looks like. It also explains the bruises that Pedersen found on the body.’
‘I thought you said there were no injuries to the body?’
‘Well, not at first glance. But when he lifted the hair on the back of her neck and checked more thoroughly, he could clearly see bruises that match the imprint of a hand. The hand of someone who held her head under the surface by force.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Martin looked like he was going to be sick. Patrik had felt the same way when he first heard the news. ‘So we’re dealing with a homicide,’ said Martin, as if trying to make himself face the fact.
‘Yes, and we’ve already lost two days. We have to start knocking on doors, interviewing the family and friends, and finding out all we can about the girl and those who knew her.’
Martin grimaced, and Patrik understood his reaction. This wasn’t going to be fun. The family was already devastated, and now the police would have to go in and stir everything up again. All too often, children were murdered by someone who ought to grieve the most over the death. So Patrik and Martin couldn’t display the sympathy that would normally be expected when meeting with a family that had lost a child.
‘Have you been in to see Mellberg yet?’
‘No,’ Patrik sighed. ‘But I’m going there now. Since we were the ones who took the call the other day, I thought I’d ask you to join me in conducting the investigation. Do you have any objections?’ He knew that the question was merely rhetorical. Neither of them wanted to see their colleagues Ernst Lundgren or Gösta Flygare be put in charge of anything more challenging than bicycle thefts.
Martin nodded curtly in reply.
‘Okay,’ said Patrik, ‘then we might as well get it over with.’
Superintendent Mellberg looked at the letter before him as if it were a poisonous snake. This was one of the worst things that could have happened to him. Even that mortifying incident with Irina last summer paled in comparison.
Tiny beads of sweat had formed on his brow, although the temperature in his office was rather on the cool side. Mellberg wiped off the sweat absentmindedly and at the same time managed to dislodge the few strands left of his hair, which he had carefully wound in a nest atop his bald head. Annoyed, he was trying to put everything back in place when there was a knock on the door. He gave his hair one last pat and called out a surly ‘Come in!’
Hedström seemed unperturbed by Mellberg’s tone of voice, but he had an uncommonly serious look on his face. Normally the superintendent thought that Patrik too often displayed a distasteful lack of decorum. He preferred working with men like Ernst Lundgren, who always treated their superiors with the respect they deserved. When it came to Hedström he always had the feeling that the man might stick his tongue out as soon as he turned his back. But time would separate the wheat from the chaff, Mellberg thought sternly. With his long experience in police work, he knew that the guys who were too soft and the ones who joked around always broke first.
For a second he had managed to forget the contents of the letter, but when Hedström sat down in the chair across his desk, Mellberg remembered that it was lying there in full view. He quickly slipped the letter into his top drawer. He would have to deal with that matter soon enough.
‘So, what’s going on?’ Mellberg could hear his voice quavering a bit from the shock of the letter, and he forced himself to bring it under control. Never show weakness – that was his motto. If he exposed his throat to his subordinates they would soon sink their teeth into it.
‘A homicide,’ Patrik said tensely.
‘What now?’ Mellberg sighed. ‘Has one of our old iron-fisted acquaintances managed to hit his wife in the head a little too hard?’
Hedström’s face was still unusually resolute. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s about the drowning accident the other day. Or rather it wasn’t an accident after all. The girl was murdered.’
Mellberg gave a low whistle. ‘You don’t say, you don’t say,’ he murmured as confused thoughts ran through his head. For one thing, he was always upset by crimes perpetrated against children, and for another he tried to do a rapid evaluation of how this unexpected development would affect him in his capacity as police chief of Tanumshede. There were two ways to look at it: either as a damned lot of extra work and administration, or as a means of advancing his career that might get him back to the excitement of the big city, Göteborg. Although he had to admit that the successful conclusion of the two homicide investigations he had been involved with up to now had not yielded the desired effect. But, sooner or later, something would convince his superiors that he belonged back at the main station. Perhaps this was just the ticket.
He realized that Hedström was waiting for some other type of response from him and hastily added, ‘You mean someone murdered a child? Well, that pervert isn’t going to get away with it.’ Mellberg clenched his fist to stress the gravity of his words, but that only managed to induce a worried expression in Patrik’s eyes.
‘Don’t you want to know the cause of death?’ Hedström asked, as if wanting to lend him a helping hand. Mellberg found his tone of voice extremely irritating.
‘Of course, I was just getting to that. So, what did the M.E. say about the case?’
‘She drowned, but not in the sea. They found only fresh water in her lungs, and since they also found the residue of soap and shampoo, Pedersen assumes it’s probably bathwater. So the girl, Sara, was presumably drowned indoors in a bathtub and then carried down to the sea and thrown in. It was an attempt to make it look like an accident.’
The image that Hedström’s account conjured up in Mellberg’s mind made the chief shiver, and for a moment he forgot all about his own chances of promotion. He assumed he’d seen just about everything during his years on the force. He was proud of being able to maintain a sense of objectivity, but there was something about the murder of children that made it impossible to remain unmoved. It crossed the boundaries of all decency to attack a little girl. The feeling of indignation that the murder awoke inside him was unfamiliar but, he actually had to admit, quite pleasant.
‘No obvious perpetrator?’ he asked.
Hedström shook his head. ‘No, we don’t know of any problems in the family, and there have been no other reported attacks on children in Fjällbacka. Nothing like this. So we should probably start by interviewing the family, don’t you agree?’ asked Patrik tentatively.
Mellberg understood at once what he was getting at. He had no objections. It had worked fine in the past to let Hedström do the legwork, and then he could step into the spotlight when the case was resolved. Not that it was anything to be ashamed of. After all, knowing how to delegate responsibilities was the key to successful leadership.
‘It sounds as though you’d like to head up this investigation.’
‘Well, I’m actually already on the case. Martin and I responded to the call when it came in, and we’ve met with the girl’s family.’
‘Well, that sounds like a good idea, then,’ Mellberg said, nodding in agreement. ‘Just see that you keep me informed.’
‘All right,’ said Hedström with a nod, ‘then Martin and I will get going on it.’
‘Martin?’ said Mellberg in an ominous tone. He was still irritated at the lack of respect in Patrik’s voice and now saw a chance to put him in his place. Sometimes Hedström acted as if he was the chief of this station. This would be an excellent opportunity to show him who made the decisions around here.
‘No, I don’t think I can spare Martin at the moment. I assigned him to investigate a series of car thefts yesterday, possibly a Baltic gang operating in the area, so he’s got plenty to do. But …’ he paused for dramatic effect, enjoying the distressed look on Hedström’s face. ‘Ernst doesn’t have that much work right now, so it would probably be good if you two worked on this case together.’
Now Patrik had started squirming as if in agony, and Mellberg knew that he’d figuratively put his thumb on the most vulnerable spot, right in the middle of the officer’s eye. He decided to assuage Hedström’s agony a bit. ‘But I’m putting you in charge of the investigation, so Lundgren will report directly to you.’
Even though Ernst Lundgren was a more pleasant colleague to deal with than Hedström, Mellberg was smart enough to realize that the guy had certain limitations. It would be stupid to shoot himself in the foot …
As soon as the door closed behind Hedström, Mellberg took out the letter again and read it for at least the tenth time.
Morgan did a few stretching exercises with his fingers and shoulders before he sat down in front of the computer. He knew that sometimes he could disappear so deeply into the world before him that he would sit in the same position for hours. He checked carefully that he had everything he needed in front of him so that he wouldn’t have to get up unless it was absolutely necessary. Yes, everything was there. A large bottle of Coke, a big health bar and a king-size Snickers. That would keep him going for a while.
The binder he’d received from Fredrik felt heavy lying on his lap. It contained everything he needed to know. The whole fantasy world he himself was unable to create was gathered there inside the binder’s stiff covers and would soon be converted into ones and zeros. That was something he had mastered. While emotions, imagination, dreams and fairy tales had, by a caprice of nature, never found space in his brain, he was a wizard at the logical, the elegantly predictable in ones and zeros, the tiny electrical impulses in the computer that were converted into something legible on the screen.
Sometimes he wondered how it would feel to do what Fredrik was able to do. Plucking other worlds out of his brain, summoning up other people’s feelings and entering into their lives. Most often these speculations led Morgan to shrug his shoulders and dismiss them as unimportant. But during the periods of deep depression that sometimes struck him, he occasionally felt the full weight of his handicap and despaired that he had been made so different from everyone else.
At the same time it was a consolation to know that he was not alone. He often visited the websites of people who were like him, and he had exchanged emails with some of them. On one occasion he had even gone to meet one of them in Göteborg, but he wouldn’t be doing that again. The fact that they were so essentially different from other people made it hard for them to relate even to each other, and the meeting had been a failure from beginning to end.
But it had still been great to find out that there were others. That knowledge was enough. He actually felt no longing for the sense of community that seemed to be so important for ordinary people. He did best when he was all alone in the little cabin with only his computers to keep him company. Sometimes he tolerated his parents’ company, but they were the only ones. It was safe to spend time with them. He’d had many years to learn to read them, to interpret all the complex non-verbal communications in the form of facial expressions and body language and thousands of other tiny signals that his brain simply didn’t seem designed to handle. They had also learned to adapt themselves to him, to speak in a way that he could understand, at least adequately.
The screen before him was blank and waiting. This was the moment he liked best. Ordinary people might say that they ‘loved’ such a moment, but he wasn’t really sure what ‘loving’ involved. But maybe it was what he felt right now. That inner feeling of satisfaction, of belonging, of being normal.
Morgan began to type, making his fingers race over the keyboard. Once in a while he glanced down at the binder on his lap, but most often his gaze was fixed on the screen. He never ceased to be amazed that the problems he had coordinating the movements of his body and his fingers miraculously disappeared whenever he was working. Suddenly he was just as dextrous as he always should have been. They called it ‘deficient motor skills’, the problems he had with getting his fingers to move as they should when he had to tie his shoes or button his shirt. He knew that was part of the diagnosis. He understood precisely what made him different from the others, but he couldn’t do anything to change the situation. For that matter, he thought it was wrong to call the others ‘normal’ while people like him were dubbed ‘abnormal’. Actually it was only societal preconceptions that landed him in the wrong group. He was simply different. His thought processes simply moved in other directions. They weren’t necessarily worse, just not the same.
He paused to take a swig of Coca Cola straight out of the bottle, then his fingers moved rapidly over the keys again.
Morgan was content.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Anders lay on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. It was already late, and as always he felt the weight of a long day’s work in his limbs. But this evening he couldn’t seem to relax. So many thoughts were buzzing round in his head that it was like trying to sleep in the midst of a swarm of flies.
The meeting about the memorial stone had gone well, and that was one of the reasons for his ruminations. He knew that the job would be a challenge, and he ran through the different approaches, trying to decide on the best way to proceed. He already knew where he wanted to cut the big stone out of the mountain. In the south-west corner of the quarry there was a sizeable cliff that was as yet untouched. That was where he thought he could cut out a large, fine piece of granite. With a little luck the stone would be free of any defects or weaknesses that might cause it to crack.
The other reason for his musing was the girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. He knew that these were forbidden thoughts. Girls like that were not for someone like him; he shouldn’t even give them a thought. But he couldn’t help it. When he held her little hand in his he’d had to force himself to release it at once. With each second that her skin touched his, he felt it more difficult to let go, and he had never been fond of playing with fire. The whole meeting had been a trial. The hands on the clock on the wall had crept along, and the whole time he’d had to restrain himself from turning round and looking at her as she sat so quietly in the corner.
He’d never seen anyone so beautiful. None of the girls, or women for that matter, who had been a fleeting part of his life could even be mentioned in the same breath. She belonged to a whole other world. He sighed and turned on his side, attempting once again to get to sleep. The new day would begin at five o’clock, just like every other day, and took no account of whether he had lain awake all night mulling over his thoughts or had slept soundly.
There was a sharp noise. It sounded like a pebble hitting the windowpane, but the sound came and went so quickly that he wondered whether he’d just imagined it. In any case it was quiet now, so he closed his eyes again. But then the sound was back. There was no doubt about it. Someone was throwing pebbles at his window. Anders sat bolt upright. It must be one of the friends he sometimes joined for a beer. He thought indignantly that if his widowed landlady woke up, someone would have to answer for it. His lodging arrangement had functioned well for the past three years, and he didn’t need any trouble.
Cautiously he unlatched the window and opened it. He lived on the ground floor, but a big lilac bush partially blocked his view. He squinted to see who was standing in the faint moonlight.
And he couldn’t believe the testimony of his own eyes.
5
She hesitated for a long time. She even put on her jacket and then took it off again, twice. But finally Erica made up her mind. There could be nothing wrong with offering her support; then she could see whether Charlotte wanted to have a visitor or not. It felt impossible just to sit at home when she knew that her friend was mired in her own private hell.
As she walked she saw evidence of the storm from two days earlier still scattered along her route. Trees that had toppled, branches and debris lay strewn about, mixed with small piles of red and yellow leaves. But the wind also seemed to have blown away a dirty autumn layer that had settled over the town. Now the air smelled fresh, and it was as clear as a washed pane of glass.
Maja was shrieking at the top of her lungs in the pram, and Erica walked faster. For some reason the baby seemed to have decided that it was utterly meaningless to lie in the pram if she was awake, and she was again protesting loudly. Her screams made Erica’s heart beat faster, and tiny panicked beads of sweat appeared on her brow. A primitive instinct was telling her that she had to stop the pram at once and pick up Maja to save her from the wolves, but she steeled herself. It was such a short way to Charlotte’s mother’s house, and she would be there soon.
It was odd that a single event could alter so completely the way she looked at the world. Erica had always thought that the houses along the cove below the Sälvik campground stood like a peaceful string of pearls along the road, with a view over the sea and the islands. Now a gloomy mood seemed to have descended on the rooftops and especially onto the house of the Florin family. She hesitated once again, but now she was so close that it seemed foolish to turn round. They could just ask her to leave if they thought she was coming at an inopportune time. Friendships were tested in times of crisis, and she didn’t want to be one of those people who out of exaggerated caution and perhaps even cowardice avoided friends who were having a hard time.
Puffing, she pushed the pram up the hill. The Florins’ house was partway up the slope, and she paused for a second at their driveway to catch her breath. Maja’s yells had reached a decibel level that would have been classified as unlawful in a workplace, so she hurried to park the pram and picked her up in her arms.
For several long seconds she stood at the front door with her hand raised and her heart pounding. Finally she gave the wood a sharp rap. There was a doorbell, but sending that shrill sound into the house seemed somehow too intrusive. A long moment passed in silence, and Erica was just about to turn and go when she heard footsteps inside the house. It was Niclas who opened the door.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hi,’ said Niclas, grief evident in his red-rimmed eyes, glistening with tears in his pale face. Erica thought that he looked like someone who had died but was still condemned to walk the earth.
‘Pardon me for bothering you, it’s not what I intended, I just thought …’ She sought for words but found none. A heavy silence settled between them. Niclas fixed his gaze on his feet, and for the second time since she knocked on the door Erica was about to turn on her heel and flee back home.
‘Would you like to come in?’ he asked.
‘Do you think it would be all right?’ Erica asked. ‘I mean, do you think it would be any …’ she searched for the right word, ‘help?’
‘She’s been given a sedative and isn’t really …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘But she said several times that she should have rung you, so it would be good if you could reassure her on that point.’
The fact that Charlotte had worried about not ringing to cancel, after what had happened, told Erica something about how confused her friend must be. But when she followed Niclas into the living room she still couldn’t help uttering a startled cry. If Niclas looked like the walking dead, Charlotte looked like someone who’d been buried long ago. Nothing of the energetic, warm, lively Charlotte was left. It was as though an empty shell were lying on the sofa. Her dark hair, which usually formed a frame of curls around her face, now hung in lank wisps. The extra weight that her mother had always criticized had seemed becoming in Erica’s eyes, making Charlotte look like one of Zorn’s voluptuous Dalecarlian women. Yet as she lay huddled up under the blanket her complexion and body had taken on a doughy, unhealthy look.
She wasn’t asleep. Rather, her eyes stared lifelessly into empty space, and under the blanket she was shivering a little as if from the cold. Without taking off her jacket, Erica instinctively rushed over to Charlotte and knelt down on the floor by the sofa. She put Maja down on the floor beside her, and the baby seemed to sense the mood and lay perfectly still for a change.
‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m so sorry.’ Erica was crying and took Charlotte’s face in her hands, but there was no sign of life in her empty gaze.
‘Has she been like this the whole time?’ Erica asked, turning to Niclas. He was still standing in the middle of the room, swaying a little. Finally he nodded and wearily rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘It’s the medication. But as soon as we stop the pills she starts screaming. She sounds like a wounded animal. I just can’t stand that sound.’
Erica turned back to Charlotte and stroked her hair tenderly. She didn’t seem to have bathed or changed her clothes in days, and her body gave off a faint odour of sweat and fear. Her mouth moved as if she wanted to say something, but at first it was impossible to make out anything from the mumbling. After trying for a moment, Charlotte said in a hoarse voice, ‘Couldn’t make it. Should have called.’
Erica shook her head vigorously and continued stroking her friend’s hair.
‘That doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Sara, gone,’ said Charlotte, focussing her gaze on Erica for the first time. Her eyes seemed to burn right through her, they were so full of sorrow.
‘Yes, Charlotte. Sara is gone. But Albin is here, and Niclas. You’re going to have to help each other now.’ She could hear for herself that it sounded like she was simply mouthing platitudes, but maybe the simplicity of a cliché could reach Charlotte. Yet the only result was that Charlotte gave a wry smile and said in a dull, bitter voice: ‘Help each other.’ The smile looked more like a grimace, and there seemed to be some sort of underlying message in her bitter voice when she repeated those words. But maybe Erica was imagining things. Strong sedatives could produce strange effects.
A sound behind them made her turn round. Lilian was standing in the doorway, and she seemed to be choking with rage. She directed her flashing gaze at Niclas.
‘Didn’t we say that Charlotte wasn’t to have any visitors?’
The situation felt incredibly uncomfortable for Erica, but Niclas apparently took no notice of his mother-in-law’s tone of voice. Getting no answer from him, Lilian turned to look at Erica, who was still sitting on the floor.
‘Charlotte is feeling much too frail to have people running in and out. I should think everyone would know better!’ She made a gesture as if wanting to go over and shoo Erica away from her daughter like a fly, but for the first time Charlotte’s eyes showed some sign of life. She raised her head from the pillow and looked her mother straight in the eye. ‘I want Erica here.’
Her daughter’s protest merely increased Lilian’s rage, but with an obvious show of will she swallowed what she was about to say and stormed out to the kitchen. The commotion roused Maja from her temporary silence, and her shrill cries sliced through the room. Laboriously Charlotte sat up on the sofa. Niclas snapped out of his lethargy and took a quick step forward to help her. She brusquely waved him away and instead reached out to Erica.
‘Are you sure you’re all right sitting up? Shouldn’t you lie down and rest some more?’ Erica said anxiously, but Charlotte merely shook her head. Her speech was a bit slurred, but with obvious effort she managed to say ‘… lain here long enough.’ Then her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, ‘Not a dream?’
‘No, it was not a dream,’ said Erica. Then she didn’t know what else to say. She sat down on the sofa next to Charlotte, took Maja on her lap, and put one arm around her friend’s shoulders. Her T-shirt felt damp against her skin, and Erica wondered whether she dared suggest to Niclas that he help Charlotte take a shower and change her clothes.
‘Would you like another pill?’ asked Niclas, not daring even to look at his wife after being so roundly dismissed.
‘No more pills,’ Charlotte said, again shaking her head vigorously. ‘Have to keep a clear head.’
‘Would you like to take a shower?’ asked Erica. ‘I’m sure Niclas or your mother would be happy to help you.’
‘Couldn’t you help me?’ said Charlotte, whose voice was now sounding stronger with each sentence she uttered.
Erica hesitated for a moment, then she said, ‘Of course.’
With Maja on one arm she helped Charlotte up from the sofa and led her out of the living room.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Erica asked. Niclas pointed mutely to a door at the end of the hall.
The walk to that door felt endless. When they passed the kitchen, Lilian caught sight of them. She was just about to open her mouth and fire off a salvo when Niclas stepped in and silenced her with a look. Erica could hear an agitated muttering issuing from the kitchen, but she didn’t pay it much attention. The main thing was for Charlotte to feel better, and she was a firm believer in the restorative properties of a shower and a fresh change of clothes.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
It wasn’t the first time Agnes had sneaked out of the house. It was so easy. She just opened the window, climbed out on the roof and down the tree, whose thick crown was right next to the house. It was a piece of cake. But after careful consideration she’d decided not to wear a dress, which could make tree-climbing difficult. Instead she chose a pair of trousers with narrow legs that hugged her thighs.
She felt as if driven by an enormous wave, which she neither wanted to, nor could resist. It was both frightening and pleasant to feel such strong feelings for someone, and she realized that the fleeting infatuations she had previously taken seriously had been nothing but child’s play. What she felt now were the emotions of a grown woman, and they were more powerful than she could ever have imagined. During the many hours she’d spent pondering since that morning, she had occasionally been clear-sighted enough to understand that a longing for forbidden fruit was largely responsible for the heat in her breast. Nevertheless, the feeling was real, and she was not in the habit of denying herself anything. She was not about to start now, even though she had no precise plan. Only an awareness of what she wanted, and she wanted it now. Consequences were not something she ever took into consideration, and after all, things had always tended to work out for her, so why wouldn’t they now?
She did not even entertain the notion that Anders might not want her. To this day she had never met a man who was indifferent to her. Men were like apples on a tree, and she only needed to reach out her hand to pick them, though she was inclined to admit that this apple might present a slightly greater risk than most. She had kissed married men without her father’s knowledge, and in some instances had even gone farther than that, but they were all safer than the man she was about to meet. At least they belonged to the same class as she did. Even though it might have initially caused a scandal if her relations with any of them had come out, such affairs would have been regarded with a certain indulgence. But a man from the working class. A stonecutter. No one even dared think such a thought. It simply would never occur to them.
But she was tired of men from her own class. Spineless, pale, with limp handshakes and shrill voices. None of them was a man in the same way as the man she was about to meet. She shivered when she remembered the feeling of his callused hand against hers.
It hadn’t been easy to find out where he lived. Not without arousing suspicion. But a glance at the wage slips during an unguarded moment had provided his address, and then she had been able to work out which room was his by peering in the windows.
The first pebble produced no response, and she waited a moment, afraid of waking the old landlady. But no one moved inside the house. She paused to preen in the ethereal moonlight. She had chosen simple, dark clothing so as not to emphasize the difference in their social standing. For that reason she had also plaited her hair and wound it atop her head in one of the simple hairdos that were common among the working-class women. Pleased with the result, she picked up another pebble from the gravel walkway and tossed it against the window. Now she saw a shadow moving inside, and her heart skipped a beat. The euphoria of the chase pumped adrenaline into her body, and Agnes felt her cheeks flush. When he opened the window, puzzled, she sneaked behind the lilac bush that partly covered the window and took a deep breath. The hunt was on.
6
It was with a heaviness in both his heart and his step that Patrik left Mellberg’s office. What a damned old fool! That was the thought that immediately popped into his mind. He understood quite well that the superintendent had forced Ernst on him merely out of spite. If it wasn’t so bloody tragic it would almost be comical. How stupid.
Patrik went into Martin’s office, his body language signalling that things hadn’t gone the way they had imagined.
‘What did he say?’ asked Martin with dark foreboding in his voice.
‘Unfortunately he can’t spare you. You have to keep working on some car-theft mess. But he apparently has no problem getting along without Ernst.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Martin said in a low voice, since Patrik hadn’t closed the door behind him. ‘You and Lundgren are going to work together?’
Patrik nodded gloomily. ‘Looks that way. If we knew who the killer was we could send him a telegram and congratulate him. This investigation is going to be hopelessly sunk if I can’t keep him out of it as much as possible.’
‘Well, shit!’ said Martin, and Patrik could do nothing but agree. After a moment’s silence he slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up, trying to muster a little enthusiasm.
‘I suppose there’s nothing for it but to get to work.’
‘Where did you intend to start?’
‘Well, the first thing will be to inform the girl’s parents about the recent developments and cautiously try to ask a few questions.’
‘Are you taking Ernst along?’ Martin asked sceptically.
‘No, I think I’ll try to slip off by myself. Hopefully I can wait to inform him about his change of assignment until a little later.’
But when he came out in the corridor he realized that Mellberg had foiled his plans.
‘Hedström!’ Ernst’s voice, whiny and loud, grated on his ears.
For an instant Patrik considered running back into Martin’s office to hide, but he resisted this childish impulse. At least one person on this newly formed police team would have to behave like a grown-up.
‘Over here!’ He waved to Lundgren, who came steaming towards him. Tall and thin, and with a perpetually grumpy expression on his face, Ernst was not a pretty sight. What he was best at was sucking up and kicking down. He had neither the temperament nor the ability for regular police work. And after the incident of the past summer, Patrik considered his colleague downright dangerous because of his foolhardiness and desire to show off. And now he was forced to be partners with him. With a deep sigh he went to meet him.
‘I just talked to Mellberg. He said the little girl was murdered and that we’re going to lead the investigation together.’
Patrik looked nervous. He sincerely hoped that Mellberg hadn’t decided to subvert his authority behind his back.
‘What I think Mellberg said was that I’m going to lead the investigation and you’re going to work with me. Isn’t that right?’ said Patrik in a voice soft as velvet.
Lundgren looked down, but not fast enough for Patrik to miss a quick glimpse of loathing in his eyes. He had taken a gamble, but apparently it had worked. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s right,’ Ernst said crossly. ‘Well, where do we start – boss?’ He said the last word with deep contempt, and Patrik clenched his fists in frustration. After five minutes of this partnership he already wanted to throttle the fellow.
‘Come on, let’s go into my office.’ He led the way and sat down behind the desk. Ernst sat down in the visitor’s chair with his long legs stuck out in front of him.
Ten minutes later Ernst had been brought up to speed on all the information, and they grabbed their jackets to drive over to the house where Sara’s parents lived.
The drive to Fjällbacka took place in total silence. Neither of them had anything to say to the other. When they turned up the hill and into the family’s driveway Patrik recognized the pram standing outside. His first thought was: oh shit! But he quickly revised his reaction. It might be good for the family if Erica was there. At least for Charlotte. She was the one he was most worried about; he had no idea how she was going to take the news they were bringing. People responded so differently. He had actually met relatives who thought it was better that their loved one had been murdered than that the death was accidental. It gave them someone to blame, and they were able to centre their grief on something specific.
With Ernst at his heels, Patrik went up to the front door and knocked cautiously. Charlotte’s mother opened it, and he could see that she was upset. Her face was flushed, and her eyes had a glint of steel that made Patrik hope he never had to cross her.
When she recognized Patrik she made a visible effort to control herself and instead put on an inquiring expression.
‘The police?’ she said, stepping aside to let them in.
Patrik was just about to introduce his colleague when Ernst said: ‘We’ve met.’ He nodded to Lilian, who nodded back.
Well, well, Patrik thought. Of course, with the number of police reports flying back and forth between Lilian and the next-door neighbour, most people at the station should have met her by now. But today they were here on a more serious errand than a petty dispute between neighbours.
‘May we come in for a moment?’ Patrik asked. Lilian nodded and led them into the kitchen, where Niclas was sitting at the table. He too had the flush of anger on his cheeks. Patrik looked around for Charlotte and Erica. Niclas noticed and said, ‘Erica is helping Charlotte take a shower.’
‘How is Charlotte doing?’ Patrik asked as Lilian poured coffee for him and Ernst and placed the cups in front of them on the kitchen table.
‘She’s been completely out of it. But it worked wonders for Erica to come over. It’s the first time Charlotte’s been able to get up and take a shower and change her clothes since …’ he hesitated, ‘it happened.’
Patrik was wrestling with himself. Should he speak to Niclas and Lilian in private and ask Erica to break the news to Charlotte, or was she strong enough to join them? He decided on the latter option. If she was on her feet now, and also had the support of the family, then it ought to go all right. And Niclas was a doctor, after all.
‘Why exactly are you here?’ said Niclas in confusion, giving first Ernst and then Patrik a puzzled look.
‘I think we should wait until Charlotte can join us.’
Both Lilian and Niclas seemed content to wait, but they exchanged a hasty, inscrutable glance. Five minutes passed in silence. Small talk would have felt out of place under the circumstances.
Patrik looked around the kitchen. It was pleasant enough, but obviously the domain of a world-class obsessive-compulsive. Everything was sparkling clean and arranged in straight lines. A bit different to his and Erica’s kitchen, he mused, where there was most often total chaos in the sink while the dustbin overflowed with packaging from frozen meals that could be heated in the microwave. Then he heard a door open, and there stood Erica holding Maja asleep in one arm. Beside her stood Charlotte, fresh from the shower. The astonished look on Erica’s face quickly changed to concern, and she slipped her other hand under Charlotte’s elbow to guide her friend to a kitchen chair. Patrik didn’t know how Charlotte had looked before, but now she had a little colour in her face and her eyes were clear and alert.
‘What are you doing here?’ Charlotte asked in a voice that was still hoarse from several days spent alternating between shrieks and silence. She looked at Niclas, who shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he didn’t know either.
‘We wanted to wait for you before we …’ Patrik’s words failed him as he searched for a good way to present what he had to say. Thankfully Ernst kept his mouth shut and let him handle the situation.
‘We’ve received some new information about Sara’s death.’
‘You’ve found out something else about the accident? What is it?’ said Lilian excitedly.
‘It looks as though it wasn’t an accident.’
‘What do you mean? Why wouldn’t it look like an accident?’ demanded Niclas in obvious frustration.
‘It wasn’t an accident at all. Sara was murdered.’
‘Murdered? What do you mean? She drowned, didn’t she?’ Charlotte looked confused, and Erica grabbed her hand. Maja was still asleep in Erica’s arms, unaware of what was playing out around her.
‘She was drowned, but not in the sea. The medical examiner didn’t find seawater in her lungs as he’d expected. It was fresh water, apparently from a bathtub.’
The silence around the table felt explosive. Patrik looked with concern at Charlotte, and Erica fixed her big eyes on her husband’s face, obviously alarmed.
Patrik understood that the family was in shock, and he began cautiously asking questions to bring them back to reality. Right now he thought that was the best approach. Or at least he hoped it was. In any case, that was his job, and for the sake of both Sara and her family he had to get on with the interview.
‘So now we need to go over in detail the chronology of everything Sara did that morning. Which of you saw her last?’
‘I did,’ said Lilian. ‘I saw her last. Charlotte was lying down in the basement resting, and Niclas had driven off to work, so I was taking care of Sara for a while. Just after nine she said she was going over to Frida’s house. She put on her coat and went out. She waved as she left,’ said Lilian in an empty, mechanical tone of voice.
‘Could you be more precise than just past nine o’clock? Was it twenty after? Five after? How close to nine was it? Every minute will have to be accounted for,’ said Patrik.
Lilian thought it over. ‘I suppose it was about ten after nine. But I can’t say for sure.’
‘Okay, we’ll check and see if any of the neighbours saw anything, so maybe we can get the time corroborated.’ He made a note in his book and went on: ‘And after that no one saw her?’
They shook their heads.
Ernst asked brusquely, ‘So what were the rest of you doing at that time?’
Patrik cringed inside and cursed his colleague’s less than sensitive interviewing technique.
‘What Ernst means is that procedural routine requires us to ask both you and Charlotte the same thing, Niclas. Purely routine, as I said, just to be able to rule you out as suspects as quickly as possible.’
His attempt to dilute the impact of his colleague’s question seemed to work. Both Niclas and Charlotte replied without showing great emotional distress, and they seemed to accept Patrik’s explanation for this uncomfortable question.
‘I was at the clinic,’ said Niclas. ‘I start work at eight.’
‘And you, Charlotte?’ Patrik asked.
‘As Mother said, I was lying down in the basement, resting. I had a migraine,’ she replied in a surprised voice. As if she were shocked that a couple of days earlier she could have viewed that as a big problem in her life.
‘Stig was at home too. He was upstairs resting. He’s been bedridden for a couple of weeks,’ Lilian explained. She seemed annoyed that Patrik and Ernst dared to ask about her family’s activities.
‘Ah yes, Stig, we’ll need to talk to him too eventually, but that can wait a bit,’ said Patrik, who had to admit that he had completely forgotten about Lilian’s husband.
A long silence followed. There was the shriek of a child from another room, and Lilian got up to go and fetch Albin. Like Maja he had slept through all the commotion. He still looked half asleep and wore his usual serious expression as Lilian carried him into the kitchen. She sat down on her chair again and let her grandson play with the gold chain she wore round her neck.
Ernst took a breath and seemed about to ask some more questions, but a warning glance from Patrik made him stop. Patrik continued instead, cautiously. ‘Can you think of anyone at all who you think might have wanted to harm Sara?’
Charlotte gave him an incredulous look and said in her hoarse voice, ‘Who would want to hurt Sara? She was only seven years old.’ Her voice broke, but she was making an obvious effort to control herself.
‘So none of you can think of any motive? Nobody who wanted to hurt you, nothing like that?’
That last question prompted Lilian to speak. The red patches of anger she’d had on her face when they arrived flared up again.
‘Somebody who wanted to hurt us? I should say so. There’s only one person who fits that description, and that’s our neighbour Kaj. He hates our family and has done everything to make our life a living hell for years!’
‘Don’t be stupid, Mamma,’ said Charlotte. ‘You and Kaj have been fighting with each other for years, and why would he want to hurt Sara?’
‘That man is capable of anything. He’s a psychopath, I have to tell you. And take a closer look at his son Morgan. He’s not right in the head, and people like that are capable of anything. Just look at all those psychos that have been let back out on the streets and what they’ve done. He’d be locked up if anyone had any sense!’
Niclas put his hand on her arm to calm her down, but it had no effect. Albin whimpered at the tone of their voices.
‘Kaj hates me, simply because he’s finally met somebody who dares to contradict him. He thinks he’s a big shot just because he was the manager of a company and has plenty of money. That’s why he and his wife can move here and everyone in town treats them like some sort of royalty. He’s totally inconsiderate, so I wouldn’t put anything past him.’
‘Stop it, Mamma!’ Charlotte’s voice now had a new sharpness to it, and she glared at her mother. ‘Don’t go making a scene.’
Her daughter’s outburst made Lilian stop talking. She clenched her jaws hard with anger, but she didn’t dare contradict her daughter.
‘So,’ Patrik hesitated, a bit shocked by Lilian’s vehement remarks, ‘besides your neighbour you can’t think of anyone who has anything against your family?’
They all shook their heads. He closed his notebook.
‘Well then, we have no more questions for the time being. Once again, I just want to say that I’m truly sorry for your loss.’
Niclas nodded and got up to show the policemen out. Patrik turned to Erica.
‘Are you staying, or would you like a lift home?’
With her eyes fixed on Charlotte, Erica replied, ‘I’ll be here for a while yet.’
Outside the front door Patrik paused to take a deep breath.
Stig could hear voices rising and falling downstairs. He wondered who had come to visit. As usual nobody bothered to inform him about what was going on. But maybe that was just as well. To be honest he didn’t know whether he could handle all the details about what had happened. In a way it was nicer to lie up here in bed, in his private cocoon, and let his mind process in peace and quiet all the feelings that Sara’s death had provoked. His illness somehow made it strangely easier for him to deal with the grief. The physical pain was always assaulting his consciousness and pushed away some of the emotional torment.
With an effort Stig turned over in bed and stared blankly at the wall. He had loved the girl as if she were his own granddaughter. Naturally he saw that she could be difficult and moody, but never when she came up to see him. It was as if she instinctively sensed the full extent of the illness that was ravaging his body. She showed respect for both him and his illness. She was probably the only one who knew what a bad state he was in. With the others he made every effort not to show how great the pain was. Both his father and grandfather had died a miserable and humiliating death in a crowded hospital room, and that was a fate he intended to do everything to avoid. So to Lilian and Niclas he always managed to call up his last reserves of energy and put on a relatively controlled façade. And the illness seemed to be doing its part to help him stay out of the hospital. At intervals he would get better, perhaps feeling a little weaker and more tired than usual, but fully capable of functioning in everyday circumstances. But he always took sick again and ended up back in bed for a couple of weeks. Niclas had begun to look more and more concerned, but thank goodness Lilian had so far managed to convince him that it was best for Stig to be at home.
She was truly a gift from God. Of course they’d had their clashes during the more than six years they’d been married, and sometimes she could be a very hard woman, but the best and most tender side of her seemed to come out in caring for him. Since he’d taken ill they had lived in an exceedingly symbiotic relationship. She loved taking care of him, and he loved having her do it. Now he had a hard time imagining that they had been so close to going their separate ways. There was nothing so bad that it didn’t bring some good with it, he always told himself. But that was before the worst of all possible evils had befallen them. And he couldn’t find anything good in that.
The girl had understood the state he was in. Her soft hand on his cheek had left a warmth that he could feel even now. She would sit on the edge of his bed and tell him about everything that had happened that day, and he would nod and listen intently. He didn’t treat her like a child, but as an equal. She had appreciated that.
That she was gone was inconceivable.
He closed his eyes and let a strong new wave of pain carry him away.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
It was a strange autumn. Anders had never before felt so exhausted, and yet so full of energy. Agnes seemed to infuse him with new strength, and sometimes he wondered how he’d been able to make his body function before she came into his life.
After that first evening, when she plucked up her courage and came to his window, his whole life had changed. Now-a-days the sun didn’t shine until Agnes arrived, and it went out when they parted. The first month they had approached each other cautiously. She was very shy and quiet, and he was still astonished that she had dared take that first step. It was unlike her to be so forward, and he felt a warmth come over him at the thought that she had made such a departure from her principles for his sake.
He would willingly admit that at first he had hesitated. He had sensed problems on the horizon and could see only how impossible the situation was. Yet the feeling inside him was so strong that he somehow managed to convince himself that everything would work out in the end. And she was brimming with confidence. When she leaned her head on his shoulder and rested her slender hand in his, he felt as though he could move mountains for her.
There weren’t many hours when they could meet. He didn’t get home from the quarry until late in the evening, and then he had to get up early in the morning to go to work again. But she always found a way, and he loved her for it. They took many long walks round the edge of town under cover of darkness, and despite the raw autumn cold they always found some dry spot where they could sit and kiss. By the time their hands began venturing under each other’s clothes it was already far into November, and he knew they had reached a crossroads.
He cautiously brought up the subject of the future. He didn’t want her to get in trouble, he loved her too much for that, but at the same time his body was urging him to choose the path that would lead them to a union. Yet his attempts to talk about his torment were silenced by a kiss from her.
‘Let’s not talk about that,’ she said, kissing him again. ‘Tomorrow, when I come to your place, don’t come outside to me. Instead let me come inside.’
‘But what about the widow —’ he said before she interrupted him again with a kiss.
‘Shh,’ she said. ‘We’ll be as quiet as two mice.’ She caressed his cheek and went on, ‘Two quiet mice who love each other.’
‘But what about —’ he continued, nervous, but at the same time excited.
‘Don’t think so much,’ she said with a smile. ‘Let’s just live in the present. Who knows, tomorrow we could be dead.’
‘Oh no, don’t talk like that,’ he said, pulling her close. She was right. He thought too much.
7
‘It’s probably just as well we get this over with right away.’ Patrik sighed.
‘I don’t see the point,’ Ernst muttered. ‘Lilian and Kaj have been fighting for years, but I have a hard time believing that was reason enough for him to kill the girl.’
Patrik was taken aback. ‘It sounds as if you know them. I got the same impression when Lilian opened the door.’
‘I only know Kaj,’ said Ernst sullenly. ‘Some of us old guys get together to play cards occasionally.’
Patrik frowned. ‘Is that something I need to worry about? To be quite honest, I’m not sure you should even be taking part in the investigation under the circumstances.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Ernst sourly. ‘If we couldn’t work on a case because of some minor objection, we wouldn’t be able to investigate shit. Everybody knows everybody else in this town, you know that as well as I do. And I’m quite capable of keeping my work and my private life separate.’
Patrik wasn’t really satisfied with that answer, but he also knew that Ernst was right to some extent. The town was so small that everyone had some connection to everyone else, so it wouldn’t be possible to use that as an excuse for removing an officer from an investigation. If that did happen, it would be because of a considerably closer relationship. But it was a shame. For a second he had smelled the morning air and seen a chance of getting rid of Lundgren.
Walking side by side they approached the house next door. A curtain fluttered in the window next to the door but fell back into place so fast that they couldn’t see who was standing behind it.
Patrik studied the house, the ‘showplace’, as Lilian had called it. He’d seen it every day as he drove back and forth from his home but had never given it a closer look. He agreed that it wasn’t very attractive. It was a modern design with lots of glass and artificial angles. It seemed that an architect had been given a free hand, and Patrik had to admit that to some extent Lilian had a point. The house was perfect for Beautiful Homes magazine, but it fitted in as poorly with the old neighbourhood as a teenager at a party for pensioners. Whoever said that money and taste went hand in hand? The town architect must have been blind the day he approved that building permit.
Patrik turned to his colleague. ‘What sort of job does Kaj do? Since he’s home on a weekday, I mean? Lilian said something about managing director.’
‘He sold the company and took early retirement,’ said Ernst, whose tone was still grouchy after having his professionalism questioned. ‘But he also coaches the football team. He’s very good at it, actually. He would have turned pro when he was young, but he had some kind of accident that made it impossible. And I say again, this is a waste of time. Kaj Wiberg is one of the really good guys, and anyone who says different is lying. All this is just ridiculous.’
Patrik ignored his comments and kept climbing the front steps.
They rang the doorbell and waited. Soon they heard footsteps and the door was opened by a man Patrik assumed was Kaj. He brightened up when he saw Ernst.
‘Hi, Lundgren, how are things? There’s no card game today, is there?’
His broad smile faded quickly when he saw that neither of them reacted. He rolled his eyes. ‘So what’s the old bitch come up with this time?’ He showed them in to the big, open living room and sat down heavily in an easy chair, motioning them to have a seat on the sofa.
‘Well, not that I don’t feel sorry about what’s happened to them; it’s a real tragedy. But it’s incredible that she has the stomach to keep quarrelling with us even under these circumstances. I think that says a good deal about what sort of person she is.’
Patrik ignored this comment and studied the man before him. He was thin, of average height, with the physique of a greyhound and silver hair cut short. Nevertheless there was actually something quite nondescript about him – he was the sort of man witnesses would never be able to describe if he decided to rob a bank.
‘We’re going round to all the neighbours who might have seen anything. It has nothing to do with your disputes.’ Patrik had already decided, before they came in, not to say anything about Lilian having singled out her neighbour.
‘I see,’ said Kaj in a tone that had a slight hint of disappointment. A clear indication that the feud with his neighbour had become a constant and almost essential element in his life.
‘But why the questions?’ he went on. ‘It’s tragic that the little girl drowned, but there can’t be anything for the police to investigate further. Surely there can’t be much else for you to do,’ he chuckled, but quickly altered his expression when he saw that Patrik did not find the situation the least bit amusing. Then something dawned on him.
‘Am I wrong about that? People are saying that the girl drowned, but you know how people talk. If the police are going around asking questions, that can only mean that it’s a different cause of death. Am I right or not?’ he asked excitedly.
Patrik gave him a look of distaste. What was the matter with people? How could they view the death of a little girl as something exciting? Didn’t people have any common decency any more? He forced himself to maintain a neutral expression when he answered Kaj.
‘Well, that’s partially right. I can’t go into the details, but it turns out that Sara Klinga was murdered, so it’s of the utmost importance that we find out everything she did that day.’
‘Murdered,’ said Kaj. ‘Wow, that’s horrible.’ His expression was sympathetic, but Patrik could sense, rather than see, that the sympathy did not run very deep.
Patrik had to repress a desire to slap Kaj in the face. He found the man’s phoney sympathy disgusting, but he merely said, ‘As I mentioned, I can’t go into the details, but if you saw Sara on Monday morning then it’s important that we find out where and when. As precisely as you can remember.’
Kaj frowned and thought hard. ‘Let me see now, Monday. Yes, I did see her sometime that morning, but I can’t say exactly when. She came out of the house and scampered off. That kid could never walk like regular people, she always bounced up and down like a blasted rubber ball.’
‘Did you see which direction she went?’ said Ernst, speaking for the first time during their visit. Kaj looked at him in amusement; apparently he found it funny to see his card-playing buddy in his professional role.
‘No, I just saw her go down the driveway. She turned and waved at someone before she bounded off, but I didn’t see which way she went.’
‘And you don’t recall what time this was?’ asked Patrik.
‘Not really, but it must have been sometime around nine. I’m sorry I can’t be more exact.’
Patrik hesitated a moment before he continued. ‘I understand that you and Lilian Florin are not on a friendly footing.’
Kaj snorted out loud. ‘No, you could certainly say that. There’s probably nobody who could stay on a “friendly footing” with that hag.’
‘Is there any special reason for this …’ Patrik searched for the right word, ‘antagonism?’
‘Not that there needs to be any special reason to quarrel with Lilian Florin, but I do happen to have a very good excuse. The trouble began as soon as we bought the lot and were about to build a house here. She had objections to the design and did everything she could to try and stop construction. She stirred up a small storm of protest, I must say.’ He chuckled. ‘A storm of protest in Fjällbacka. Can you hear my knees shaking?’ Kaj opened his eyes wide and pretended to look scared, and then burst out laughing. Then he collected himself and went on, ‘Well, we managed, of course, to take the wind out of that little commotion, even though it cost us both time and money. But since then it’s been one thing after another. And I’m sure you know the extremes she’s willing to go to. It’s simply been hell all these years.’ He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.
‘Couldn’t you have sold the house and moved somewhere else?’ Patrik asked cautiously, but the question sparked a fire in Kaj’s eyes.
‘Move? Not on your life! I would never give her the satisfaction. If anyone should move, she should. Now I’m just waiting for word from the court of appeal.’
‘The court of appeal?’ Patrik asked.
‘They built a balcony on their house without checking the building code first. And it sticks out two centimetres onto my property, so it’s against the law. They’re going to have to tear that balcony down as soon as the verdict comes in. It should be coming any day now, and I can’t wait to see Lilian’s face,’ Kaj beamed.
‘Don’t you think that they have bigger concerns at the moment than the existence or non-existence of a balcony?’ Patrik couldn’t help interjecting.
Kaj’s face darkened. ‘Certainly I’m not insensitive to their tragedy, but fair’s fair. And such things are of no concern to Lady Justice,’ he added, looking to Ernst for support. Ernst nodded appreciatively, giving Patrik yet another reason to worry about the suitability of his participation in this investigation. There was enough cause for concern even before it turned out that Ernst was mates with one of the persons on their interview list.
They split up to cover the houses in the vicinity. Ernst muttered as he trudged through the biting wind. His tall body seemed to catch the wind quite effectively, and his lankiness made him sway back and forth, fighting to keep his balance. He could taste the gall at the back of his mouth. Once again he had to take orders from a snot-nosed kid who was scarcely half his age. It was a mystery to Ernst. Why were his years of experience and skill constantly overlooked? A conspiracy was the only explanation he could come up with. He was a bit fuzzy as to the motive or the brains behind it all, but that didn’t bother him. Apparently he was regarded as a threat precisely because of the qualities he knew he possessed.
Knocking on doors was deadly boring, and he wished he were inside where it was warm. People had nothing sensible to say, either. No one had seen the little girl that morning, and all they could say was how terrible it all was. And Ernst had to agree. It was lucky that he’d never been stupid enough to have kids. He’d managed to keep his distance from women too, he thought, effectively suppressing the fact that it was the women who had never shown much interest in him.
He glanced over at Hedström, who was covering the houses to the right of the Florins. Sometimes his fingers itched to give his colleague a punch in the nose. He had seen the look in Hedström’s eyes when he was forced to take him along this morning. That had actually given Ernst a brief moment of satisfaction. Otherwise Hedström and Molin were as thick as thieves, and they refused to listen to older colleagues like himself and Gösta. Well, Gösta was probably not the best example of a good cop, Ernst had to admit, but his many years on the force deserved respect. And it was no wonder that he’d lost interest in putting any energy into his job under the current conditions. When Ernst thought about it more closely, it was probably the fault of the younger officers that he often didn’t feel like working and instead made a point of sneaking off on breaks whenever possible. It was a comforting thought. Naturally it wasn’t his fault. Not that he hadn’t had pangs of guilt about his lacklustre work performance, but it felt good that he’d finally put his finger on the source of the problem. The crux of the matter, so to speak. It was all because of those snot-nosed kids. All at once life felt much, much better. He knocked on the next door.
Frida was carefully combing the doll’s hair. It was important for her to look good because she was going to a party. The table in front of her was already set with coffee and cakes. Tiny little plastic cups with fancy red plates. Naturally they were only pretend cakes, but dolls couldn’t eat real ones, so that didn’t matter.
Sara had always thought it was dumb to play with dolls. She said they were too old for that. Dolls were for babies, Sara had said, but Frida loved playing with dolls. Sara could be so tiresome sometimes. She always had to be the one to decide. Everything had to be the way she wanted it, or else she would sulk and break things. Mamma would get really mad at Sara when she broke Frida’s things. Then Sara would have to go home, and Mamma would ring Sara’s mamma and her voice sounded so angry. But when Sara was nice then Frida liked her a lot, so she still wanted to play with her. Just hoping that she’d be nice.
She didn’t understand what had happened to Sara. Mamma had explained that she was dead, that she’d drowned in the sea, but where was she then? In heaven, Mamma had said, but Frida had stood for a long, long time looking up at the sky, and she hadn’t seen Sara. She was sure that if Sara had been in heaven she would have waved to her. Since she hadn’t, that must mean she wasn’t there. So the question was: where was she? She couldn’t just disappear, could she? Imagine if Mamma disappeared like that. Frida felt scared all over. If Sara could disappear, could mammas disappear too? She hugged her doll tight to her chest, trying to push away that nasty idea.
There was something else she wondered about too. Mamma had said that the old men who rang the doorbell and told them about Sara were police officers. Frida knew that you were supposed to tell the police everything. You could never lie to them. But she had promised Sara not to tell anybody about the nasty old man. Did she have to keep her promise to someone who was gone? If Sara was gone, then she wouldn’t find out that Frida had told about the old man. But what if she came back and heard that Frida had tattled? Then she’d be madder than she ever was before. She might even smash everything in Frida’s room, including her doll. Frida decided that it was best not to say anything about the nasty old man.
‘Flygare, have you got a minute?’ Patrik had been careful to knock on Gösta’s door, but he saw his colleague hastily shut down a golf game on his computer.
‘Sure, I probably have a minute,’ said Gösta sullenly, painfully aware that Patrik had glimpsed his less than noble pursuit during working hours. ‘Is this about the girl?’ he went on in a more pleasant tone. ‘I heard from Annika that it wasn’t an accident. Bloody awful,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Yes, Ernst and I have just been out talking with the family,’ Patrik said, taking a seat in the visitor’s chair. ‘We told them that it’s now a murder investigation. We asked all the family members where they were at the time Sara disappeared, and whether they knew anyone who’d want to harm her.’
Gösta gave Patrik an inquisitive look. ‘Do you think that someone in the family might have killed her?’
‘Right now I don’t think anything. But in any case, it’s important to eliminate them from the investigation as soon as possible. At the same time we’ll have to check whether there are any known sex offenders in the area.’
‘But I thought the girl hadn’t been violated, from what Annika told me,’ said Gösta.
‘Not according to what the M.E. could see, but a little girl who’s been murdered …’ Patrik didn’t finish his sentence, but Gösta understood what he meant. There had been far too many stories in the media about the exploitation of children for them to ignore that possibility.
‘On the other hand,’ Patrik went on, ‘to my surprise I got an immediate answer when I asked whether they knew anyone who might wish them harm.’
Gösta held up his hand. ‘Let me guess: Lilian threw Kaj to the wolves.’
Patrik gave a little frown at the expression. ‘Well, I suppose you could put it that way. In any event there doesn’t seem to be any love lost between them. We canvassed the neighbourhood and had an informal interview with Kaj as well. You might say there are plenty of old grudges beneath the surface.’
Gösta snorted. ‘Beneath the surface isn’t the expression I’d use. It’s a drama that’s been going on in broad daylight for almost ten years. And, personally, I’m fed up with it.’
‘Well, I gathered from Annika that you’re the one who has taken the reports they’ve filed against each other over the years. Could you tell me a bit about them?’
Without answering at once, Gösta turned round and took a binder from the bookshelf behind his desk. He hastily paged through it and found what he was looking for.
‘I only have stuff from the most recent years here; the rest is down in archives.’
Patrik nodded.
Gösta leafed through the binder, skimming over some of the pages he found.
‘You might as well take this binder. There’s a bunch of good details in here. Complaints from both sides about everything you could imagine.’
‘About what, for example?’
‘Trespassing – Kaj apparently cut across their property on one occasion, and his life was actually threatened – Lilian clearly said to Kaj that he should watch out if he valued his life.’ Gösta kept paging through the binder. ‘And then we have a number of complaints about Kaj’s son, Morgan. Lilian claimed that he was spying on her, and I quote, “boys like that have an overdeveloped sex drive, I’ve heard, so he’s surely planning to rape me”, end quote. And this is just a small selection.’
Patrik shook his head in astonishment. ‘Don’t they have anything better to do?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Gösta dryly. ‘And for some reason they always insist on coming to me with their woes. But I’ll gladly let you take over for the time being,’ he said, handing the binder to Patrik, who took it with some misgivings.
‘But even if both Kaj and Lilian are quarrelsome devils, I find it hard to believe that Kaj would have gone so far as to kill the girl.’
‘No doubt you’re right,’ said Patrik, getting up with the binder in his arms, ‘but, as I said, now his name has been brought up, so I’m at least going to have to examine that possibility.’
Gösta hesitated. ‘Let me know if you need any more help. Mellberg couldn’t have been serious when he said that you and Ernst were supposed to take care of this by yourselves. It’s a homicide investigation, after all. So if I can be of any assistance …’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it. And I think you’re right. Mellberg was probably just trying to rile me. Not even he could have meant that you and Martin wouldn’t be allowed to help out. So I thought I’d call everyone in for a briefing, probably tomorrow. If Mellberg has anything against it, he’ll have to speak up. But as I said, I don’t think he will.’
He thanked Gösta with a nod before he left the office and turned left towards his own. Settled in his desk chair, he opened the binder and began to read. It turned out to be a journey through the pettiness of humankind.
STRÖMSTAD 1923
Her hand shook a bit as she cautiously knocked on his window pane. The window was opened at once, and she thought with satisfaction that he must have been sitting there waiting for her. It was warm in the room, and she didn’t know whether his cheeks were flushed from the warmth or from the prospect of the hours they had before them. Probably the latter, she thought, because she felt the same heat in her own face.
Finally they had arrived at the moment she had been longing for ever since she had thrown that first pebble against his window. She had instinctively known that she needed to proceed cautiously with him. And if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to read men. Read them and then give them the woman they wanted. In Anders’s case that meant she would have to play the shrinking violet for a couple of interminable weeks, even though she wanted to creep into his room and slip into his bed that very first evening. But she knew he would have been scared off by such behaviour. If she wanted to win him she would have to play the game. Whore or madonna. She could give men both.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked her as she sat next to him on his narrow bed.
She forced back a smile. If he knew how well-versed she was in what was now about to take place, he would be the one shaking with alarm. But she couldn’t show her true self. Not now, when for the first time she wanted a man as much as he wanted her. So she looked down at the floor and just nodded feebly. When he tried to reassure her by putting his arms around her, she couldn’t help smiling against his shoulder.
Then she sought out his mouth with her own. When the kiss deepened and got serious, she felt him carefully unbuttoning her blouse. He moved at a devastatingly slow pace. She wanted to grab hold of her blouse and tear it off. Yet she knew that would destroy the image that she had spent weeks creating. Soon enough she’d be able to show the passionate side of her nature, but by then he’d be able to credit himself with having enticed her. Men were so simple.
When the last piece of clothing fell, she pulled the covers modestly over herself. Anders caressed her hair and looked into her eyes, silently asking her permission. Then he waited for her affirmative nod before he crept in beside her.
‘Could you blow out the candle?’ she asked, making her voice sound tiny and frightened.
‘Yes, of course, absolutely,’ he said, embarrassed that he hadn’t realized she might prefer the cover of darkness. He reached towards the nightstand and pinched off the flame with his fingers. In the dark she felt him turn towards her and, unbearably slowly, begin to explore her body.
At precisely the right moment she let out a whimper of feigned pain, hoping that he wouldn’t take the absence of blood as a telltale sign. But judging from his tender solicitude afterwards, he had no suspicions, and she felt satisfied with her performance. Since she’d had to stifle her natural instincts, it had been somewhat more boring than she’d expected, but the potential was there. Soon she’d be able to blossom in a way that would be a pleasant surprise for him.
Lying in the hollow of his arm, she thought about whether she might cautiously initiate a second round, but decided she’d better wait a while. For the time being she would have to be content at having played her part well. She had him right where she wanted him. Now it was merely a question of recouping the maximum dividend from all the time she’d invested in him. If she played her cards right, she could look forward to an entertaining pastime this winter.
8
Monica went round with her cart, replacing books on the shelves. She had loved books her whole life. Having almost died of boredom the first year at home after Kaj sold the business, she had seized the opportunity when she heard that the library needed someone to help out part-time. Kaj thought she was barmy, working when she didn’t need to, and she suspected that he considered it a loss of prestige for him. But she was enjoying herself too much to care. There was a good atmosphere at work, and she needed some feeling of community to see any meaning in her life. Kaj had grown more and more short-tempered and grumpy with each passing year, and Morgan didn’t need her any more. There probably weren’t going to be any grandchildren either; in any case she thought it highly unlikely. Even that joy had been denied her. She couldn’t help feeling a consuming envy when the others at work talked about their grandchildren. The light in their eyes made Monica shrink inside with jealousy. Not that she didn’t love Morgan. She did, even though he hadn’t made it easy for them to love him. And she believed that he loved her too. He just didn’t know how to show it. Maybe he didn’t even know that what he felt was called love.
It had taken many years before they understood that there was something wrong with him. Or rather, they knew that something wasn’t as it should be, but there was nothing in their experience that jibed with what they observed in Morgan. He wasn’t mentally challenged, but instead extremely intelligent for his age. She didn’t think that he was autistic, because he didn’t withdraw inside his shell and had no aversion to being touched – all reactions that were often associated with autism, according to what she’d read. Morgan had gone to school long before ADHD and DAMP became household words, so such diagnoses had never even been considered. And yet Monica realized that something wasn’t quite right. He behaved strangely and seemed resistant to any guidance. He simply didn’t seem to comprehend the invisible communication between people, and the rules that governed social intercourse were like Hebrew to him. He kept doing and saying the wrong thing, and Monica knew that people whispered behind her back, assuming that her son’s behaviour was due to lax discipline on her part. But she knew that it was more than that. Even his motor skills were erratic. He kept causing mishaps both big and small, because of his clumsiness. Sometimes the accidents weren’t even accidents but something he did on purpose. That was what worried her most, that it seemed impossible to teach him the difference between right and wrong. They had tried everything: punishment, bribery, threats and promises, all the tools that parents use to instil a conscience in their children. But nothing had worked. Morgan could do the most awful things without showing any remorse when he was discovered.
But fifteen years earlier they’d had an improbable stroke of luck. One of the many teachers they had visited over the years had a real passion for his profession, and he read everything he could find about new research in the field. One day he told them that he’d discovered a diagnosis that fitted Morgan’s condition: Asperger’s syndrome. A form of autism, but with normal to high intelligence in the patient. The burden of all those years of hardship seemed to lift from Monica’s shoulders the minute she heard the term for the first time. She had tasted it, rolled it around on her tongue with pleasure: Asperger’s. It wasn’t something they had simply imagined, nor were they at fault in failing to bring up their child properly. She had been right that it was difficult if not impossible for Morgan to comprehend what made daily life so much easier for everyone else: body language, facial expressions, and implicit meanings. None of this registered in Morgan’s brain. For the first time they were finally able to offer him serious help. Or rather she was. To be honest, Kaj hadn’t been particularly involved with Morgan. Not since he coldly stated that his son would never live up to his expectations. After that, Morgan had become Monica’s boy. So it was she who read everything she could find about Asperger’s and developed some basic tools that would help her son get through the day. Little cards that described various scenarios and how one was supposed to behave, role-playing games in which they practised various situations, and conversations to try and get him to understand intellectually what his brain refused to assimilate intuitively. She also took great pains to speak clearly with Morgan. To clear away all the metaphors, exaggerations and figures of speech that people used in order to give colour and meaning to language. To a large degree, she had been successful. At least he had learned to function tolerably in the world, but he still kept mostly to himself. With his computers.
That was why Lilian Florin had managed to transform Monica’s vague sense of irritation into hatred. She was able to put up with everything else. She didn’t give a damn about building codes and infringements and threats about one thing and another. As far as she was concerned, Kaj was just as much to blame in the feud, and she even believed that he sometimes enjoyed it. But the fact that Lilian had gone after Morgan, time after time, had aroused the ferocity of a tigress in Monica. Just because her son was different it seemed to give Lilian, and many others for that matter, a free hand to mock him. God forbid that anyone should be the least bit different. The mere fact that he still lived, if not at home, then on the same lot as his parents, grated on many people. But none of them was as malicious as Lilian. Some of the accusations she concocted made Monica so angry that she could hardly see straight. Many times she regretted moving to Fjällbacka. She had even taken up the matter with Kaj a few times, but she knew that it was pointless. He was far too bull-headed.
She shelved the last books from the cart and went back to see whether there were any more to collect. But her hands shook with rage when she replayed in her mind all the malicious attacks on Morgan that Lilian had instigated over the years. Not only had she run to the police a few times, she had spread false rumours in town as well, and that kind of gossip was almost impossible to refute. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say. Even though practically everybody knew that Lilian Florin was a regular gossipmonger, her words gradually became accepted as truth, through the sheer force of repetition.
Now she was also garnering a large amount of sympathy in town. Much of Lilian’s nastiness had been forgiven in one blow. She had lost a grandchild, after all. But even that couldn’t make Monica feel sorry for her. No, she was saving her sympathy for the daughter. How Charlotte could be Lilian’s child was a mystery to her. It would be hard to find a nicer person, and Monica felt so sorry for Charlotte that she thought her heart would break.
But she didn’t intend to waste a single tear on Lilian.
Aina looked surprised when the doctor showed up at the clinic at his usual time, eight in the morning.
‘Hi, Niclas,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I thought you were going to come in late today.’
He just shook his head and went into his examination room. He didn’t have the energy to explain. He simply couldn’t stand to be at home for a minute longer, even though the guilt he felt at leaving was like a weight on his shoulders. Because it was a different and worse sort of guilt that made him leave Charlotte alone with her despair at home with Lilian and Stig. A guilt that made his throat tighten so he found it hard to breathe. If he had stayed there any longer he would have suffocated, he was sure of it. He couldn’t even look at Charlotte’s face, or meet her gaze. The pain in her eyes, together with his own guilt-ridden conscience, was more than he could bear. That’s why he had fled to his job instead. It was cowardly, he knew that. But he had long since lost all illusions about himself. He was not a strong or courageous person.
But he hadn’t intended for Sara to be affected. He hadn’t intended for anyone to be affected. Niclas pressed his hand to his chest as he sat as if paralysed behind his big desk, cluttered with casebooks and other papers. The pain was so sharp that he could feel it racing up and down his veins and collecting in his heart. Suddenly he understood how a heart attack must feel. That pain surely couldn’t be any worse than this.
Niclas ran his hands through his hair. What had happened, what needed to be resolved, lay before him like a baffling riddle. And yet he had to solve it. He was forced to do something. Somehow he had to get out of the bind he was in. Everything had always gone so well before. Charm, adroitness and an open and honest smile had saved him from most of the consequences of his actions over the years, but perhaps he had finally come to the end of the road.
The telephone began to ring in front of him. Consultation hours had begun. Although he felt so devastated, he had to go and heal the sick.
With Maja in a baby sling on her stomach, Erica made a desperate attempt to clean house. She had her mother-in-law’s previous visit fresh in her mind, so she almost manically pushed the vacuum cleaner round the living room. Hopefully Kristina would have no reason to go upstairs, so if Erica managed to make the ground floor presentable before she arrived, everything would be fine.
The last time Kristina came over, Maja had been three weeks old, and Erica was still in a stunned fog. The dust bunnies had been as big as rats, and the dirty dishes were piled up in the sink. Of course Patrik had made some attempts to start cleaning up, but since Erica flung Maja into his arms as soon as he came home, he had got no further than to take the vacuum cleaner out of the broom cupboard.
As soon as Kristina came in the door her face took on a disgusted expression, which disappeared only when she caught sight of her granddaughter. For the next three days Erica listened through her fog as Kristina muttered that it was certainly good she had come, or else Maja would soon develop asthma in all this dust. She said that in her day nobody sat staring at the TV all day long. Women managed to take care of a baby and a number of siblings, clean the house, and also see to it that a good meal was on the table when the husband came home. Fortunately Erica had been much too weak to be irritated by her mother-in-law’s remarks. In fact, she had been grateful for the moments she had to herself when Kristina proudly went out with Maja in the pram or helped bathe and change the baby. But by now Erica had regained some of her strength, and combined with her constant melancholy it made her instinctively understand that it would be better to try as much as possible to avoid drawing any criticism from her mother-in-law.
Erica looked at the clock. An hour before Kristina was scheduled to come waltzing in, and she still hadn’t done the dishes. She probably ought to dust as well. She glanced down at her daughter. Maja had gone to sleep contentedly in the sling to the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and Erica mused whether this might be something that would work in future when putting the baby to bed. So far all such attempts had been accompanied by loud protests, but she had read that babies liked to fall asleep to monotonous sounds, like the vacuum cleaner or a clothes dryer. It was worth a try, at least. For the time being the only way to get their daughter to sleep was to have her lie on Erica’s stomach or at her breast, and that was beginning to be intolerable. Maybe she ought to test the methods she’d read about in The Baby Book, the excellent childcare manual by nine-time mother Anna Wahlgren. She had read it before Maja arrived, and a stack of other books for that matter, but when a real baby appeared on the scene, all the theoretical knowledge she had assimilated flew out of the window. Instead she and Patrik practised a sort of ad hoc survival philosophy with Maja. Erica felt that it might be time to retake control. It didn’t make sense that a baby two months old could control the whole house to such a large extent. If Erica could have handled such a situation, that would be one thing, but she could feel how she was gradually slipping further into the darkness.
A quick rap at the door interrupted her thoughts. Either an hour had passed in record time, or her mother-in-law had arrived early. The latter was more likely, and Erica looked around the room in dismay. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. She just had to put on a smile and let her mother-in-law in. She opened the front door.
‘But my dear, you’re standing there with Maja in the draught! She’ll catch a cold, you know.’
Erica closed her eyes and counted to ten.
Patrik hoped that things would go well when his mother came to visit. He knew that she could be a bit … overwhelming, one might say. Even though Erica usually had no problem dealing with her mother-in-law, she hadn’t been herself since Maja was born. At the same time she badly needed a break, and since he couldn’t provide it for her, they had to make use of the resources that were available. Once again he wondered whether he ought to try and find someone Erica could talk to, a professional. But where could he turn? No, it was probably best to let her work through things on her own. The depression would surely pass as soon as they got a routine established. At least that was what he tried to believe. But he couldn’t prevent a little nagging suspicion from creeping in, a suspicion that maybe he was choosing to believe this because it required the smallest amount of effort on his part.
He forced himself to stop thinking about home and return to the notes he had before him. He had called a meeting in his office for nine o’clock, five minutes from now. As he suspected, Mellberg hadn’t objected to involving additional personnel; he seemed to view it as inevitable. Anything else would have been idiotic, even by Mellberg’s standards. How could they conduct a homicide investigation with just two detectives, Ernst and himself?
First to arrive was Martin, who sat down in the only visitor’s chair in the room. The others would have to bring their own chairs.
‘How’d it go with the flat?’ Patrik asked. ‘Was it any good?’
‘It was fantastic!’ said Martin, his eyes shining. ‘We took it on the spot. Weekend after next you can come and help carry cartons.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ Patrik laughed. ‘How nice of you. I’ll have to get back to you on that, after conferring with the boss at home. Erica’s being a little stingy with my time right now, so I can’t promise you anything.’
‘I understand,’ said Martin. ‘I have a number of favours I can call in from people I’ve helped move, so we’ll probably manage fine without you.’
‘What’s this I hear about moving?’ Annika asked, sweeping in with a coffee cup in one hand and notebook in the other. ‘Should I really believe my ears? Are you finally going to join the rest of us and settle down, Martin?’
Martin flushed, as he always did when Annika teased him, but he couldn’t help smiling.
‘Yeah, you heard right. Pia and I found a flat in Grebbestad. We’re moving in two weeks from today.’
‘Well, I’m certainly glad to hear it,’ said Annika. ‘It’s about time too. I’d been worrying that you were going to end up gathering dust on the shelf. So … when are we going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet?’
‘Oh, give me a break,’ said Martin. ‘I remember the way you badgered Patrik when he met Erica, and now look how things have turned out for him. That poor guy felt so much pressure to propagate with his woman, and now he sits here looking ten years older.’ He winked at Patrik to show that he was joking.
‘Well, let me know if you need any tips on how to do it,’ Patrik offered cheerfully.
Martin was just about to come back with a witty rejoinder when Ernst and Gösta simultaneously tried to wedge through the doorway with their chairs. Grumbling, Gösta slipped past Ernst, who nonchalantly took a place in the middle of the room.
‘It’s going to be tight with the whole crowd in here,’ said Gösta, glowering at Martin and Annika, who scooted their chairs over.
‘There’s always room for one more, as my mother used to say,’ Annika commented a bit sarcastically.
Mellberg came sauntering in last of all; he was content to lean against the door jamb.
Patrik spread out his papers on his desk and took a deep breath. The full force of what it meant to head a homicide investigation suddenly struck him. This wasn’t the first time, but still he was nervous. He didn’t like being the centre of attention, and the gravity of the task caused his shoulders to slump. But the only other option was for Mellberg to take charge, and Patrik wanted to avoid that at all costs. So it was just a matter of getting started.
‘As you know, we’ve now received confirmation that Sara Klinga’s death was not an accident, but a murder. She did drown, but the water in her lungs was fresh, not saltwater, which indicates that she was drowned somewhere else and then dumped in the sea. I know this is nothing new, but all the details are in the report from Pedersen, the M.E. Annika has made copies for you.’ He passed a stack of stapled reports around the table, and they each took one.
‘Can anything be deduced based on the water in her lungs? For example, it says here that there were remnants of soap in the water. Could we find out what sort of soap it was?’ asked Martin, pointing at an item in the autopsy report.
‘Yes, hopefully we can,’ replied Patrik. ‘A water sample was sent off to the National Forensic Laboratory for analysis, and in a few days we’ll know more about what they’ve been able to find.’
‘What about the clothes?’ Martin went on. ‘Can we say whether she was dressed or not when she was drowned in the bathtub? Because we can almost certainly assume it was a bathtub she was drowned in, can’t we?’
‘I’m afraid the answer is the same. Her clothes were also sent off, and until we get the results back I don’t know any more than the rest of you.’
Ernst rolled his eyes and Patrik gave him a sharp look. He knew precisely what was going on inside the man’s head. He was jealous because it was Martin and not him who had thought of some intelligent questions to ask. Patrik wondered whether Ernst would ever understand that they worked together in a team in order to solve a task, and that it wasn’t a matter of a contest between individuals.
‘Are we dealing with a sex crime here?’ Gösta asked, prompting Ernst to look even more annoyed, if possible. Even his partner in lethargy had managed to come up with a relevant question.
‘Impossible to say,’ replied Patrik. ‘But I’d like Martin to start checking whether there’s anyone on our list who’s been convicted of sex crimes against children.’
Martin nodded and made a note.
‘Then we also have to look more closely at the family,’ Patrik said. ‘Ernst and I had a preliminary talk with them when we informed them that Sara had been murdered. We’ve also spoken with the individual that Sara’s mother pointed out as a possible suspect.’
‘Let me guess,’ said Annika acidly. ‘Could it possibly have been a certain Kaj Wiberg?’
‘That’s right,’ said Gösta. ‘I gave Patrik all the documents I have about their contacts with us over the years.’
‘A waste of time and resources,’ said Ernst. ‘It’s completely absurd to believe that Kaj had anything to do with the girl’s death.’
‘Oh, right, you two know each other,’ said Gösta and gave Patrik a questioning look to see whether he was aware of this. Patrik confirmed with a nod that he knew.
‘At any rate,’ Patrik interrupted when Ernst again tried to say something, ‘we’ll continue to investigate Kaj to decide as soon as possible whether he was involved. And we need to keep all options open at this stage. First we have to find out more about the girl and her family. I thought Ernst and I would begin by talking to the girl’s teachers to see whether they know of any problem concerning the family. Since we know so little, we might need to get some help from the local press as well. Would you be able to help with that, Bertil?’
He got no answer and repeated a bit louder: ‘Bertil?’ Still no answer. Mellberg seemed far away in his own thoughts as he stood leaning on the door jamb. After raising his voice another notch, Patrik finally got a reaction.
‘Oh, sorry. What did you say?’ asked Mellberg. Patrik once again had a hard time believing that he was the one playing the part of chief in this building.
‘I just wondered whether you might consider talking to the local press. Tell them it was a murder and that anyone’s information is of interest. I have a feeling we’re going to need the public’s help on this case.’
‘Oh, uh, of course,’ said Mellberg, who still had a dazed look on his face. ‘Okay, I’ll talk to the press.’
‘All right. That’s about all we can do for now,’ said Patrik, slapping his hands on his desk. ‘Any more questions?’
No one said a word, and after a few seconds of silence everyone began gathering up their things as if on command.
‘Ernst?’ Patrik stopped his colleague just as he was heading out the door. ‘Will you be ready to go in half an hour?’
‘Go where?’ Ernst demanded with his usual grumpiness.
Patrik took a deep breath. Sometimes he wondered whether he just thought he was talking while really it was only his lips moving. ‘To Sara’s school. To talk to her teachers,’ he said, carefully enunciating each word.
‘Oh right, that. Sure, I can be ready in half an hour,’ said Ernst, turning his back to Patrik.
Patrik gave him a dirty look. He would give this unwelcome partner of his a couple more days before he dared to defy Mellberg and discreetly take Molin along instead.
STRÖMSTAD 1924
The pleasure of novelty had truly begun to wear off. The whole winter had been filled with trysts, and at first Agnes had enjoyed every moment. But now that winter was in retreat and spring was quietly approaching, she felt indolence beginning to creep in. To be honest, she no longer saw what it was about him that she had found so attractive. Of course he was good-looking, she couldn’t deny that, but his speech was crude and uneducated and there was a constant odour of sweat about him. It had also become harder and harder to sneak down to his place, now that the winter darkness was relinquishing its protective cover. No, she would have to put an end to this, she decided as she sat in front of the mirror in her room.
She attended to the last details of her dress and went down to have breakfast with her father. She had seen Anders yesterday, so her body was still overwhelmed by a great weariness. She sat down at the breakfast table after kissing her father on the cheek and began listlessly cracking open the shell of a soft-boiled egg. Her exhaustion made the smell of the egg turn her stomach.
‘What is it, my heart?’ August asked in concern, gazing at her across the large table.
‘Just a little tired,’ she replied miserably. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’
‘You poor thing,’ he said in sympathy. ‘See that you eat something, then you can go back to bed for a while. Perhaps we should take you to see Dr Fern. You’ve been rather out of sorts all winter.’
Agnes couldn’t help smiling, though she had to hide the smile hastily behind her serviette. With a downcast look she answered her father, ‘Yes, I have been a bit worn out. But it was probably mostly because of the winter darkness. Just wait, once spring comes I’ll be more lively again.’
‘Hmm, well, we shall see. But think about it. Perhaps the doctor should have a look at you all the same.’
‘Yes, Father,’ she said, forcing herself to take a bite of egg.
She shouldn’t have done that. The instant she put the boiled egg-white in her mouth she felt her stomach turn over and something rose up in her throat. She jumped up from the table and with her hand to her mouth she dashed to the toilet they had on the ground floor. She had scarcely raised the lid before a cascade of yesterday’s dinner mixed with gall splashed into the toilet bowl. She felt her eyes fill with tears. Her stomach turned inside out several more times. She waited a while, and when there didn’t seem to be any more coming, she wiped her mouth in disgust and left the little room on shaky legs. Outside stood her father, looking worried.
‘Dear heart, how are you?’
She just shook her head and swallowed to get rid of the repulsive taste of vomit in her mouth.
August put his arm round her shoulders, led her into the parlour, and sat her down on one of the sofas. He put his hand on her forehead.
‘Agnes, you’re in a cold sweat. No, I’m going to ring Dr Fern at once and ask him to come over and have a look at you.’
Agnes managed only a feeble nod, then lay down on the sofa and shut her eyes. The room was spinning behind her closed eyelids.
9
It was like living in a shadow world with no connection to reality. Anna hadn’t really had a choice, and yet she was consumed by doubt that she had done the right thing. She knew that nobody else would understand. After she’d finally succeeded in breaking away from Lucas, why had she gone back to him? Especially when he’d done what he had to Emma. The answer was that she went back because she thought it was the only chance for her and her children to survive. Lucas had always been dangerous, yet he kept himself restrained. Now it was as though something had snapped inside him, and his self-control had yielded to a brooding insanity. That was the only way she could describe it: insanity. That had always been part of him; she’d sensed. Indeed, perhaps it was that underlying current of potential danger that had attracted her to him in the first place. Now it had risen to the surface and she feared for her life.
The fact that she had left him and taken the kids wasn’t the only reason that his madness had come to light. Several factors had combined to flip that little circuit-breaker inside him. Even his job, which had always been his biggest arena of success, had now betrayed him. A few failed business deals and his career was over. Just before Anna went back to him she had run into one of his colleagues, who had told her that Lucas was starting to act more and more irrationally on the job when things didn’t go well. He gave in to sudden outbursts of anger and aggressive attacks. Finally he had shoved an important client up against the wall and been fired on the spot. The client had pressed charges, so there would be an investigation as soon as the police got round to it.
The reports of Lucas’s mental condition had worried her, but it wasn’t until she came home one day to a totally vandalized flat that she realized she no longer had a choice. He was going to harm her, or even worse, harm the kids, if she didn’t humour him and come back. The only way to create a bit of security for Emma and Adrian was to stay as close to the enemy as possible.
Anna knew this, and yet it felt as though she were going from the frying pan into the fire. She was practically a prisoner in her own home, her jailer an aggressive and irrational Lucas. First, he forced her to quit her part-time job at Stockholm Auction House, a job she had loved and found deeply satisfying. He wouldn’t allow her to leave the flat except to shop for food or take the kids to day care. Meanwhile he hadn’t been able to find another job, nor did he even try. He’d had to give up the big, elegant flat in Östermalm, and now they were squeezed into a little two-room flat outside the city. But as long as he didn’t hit the children, she could put up with anything. She herself once again had bruises on her body, but in a way it felt like putting on an old, familiar dress. She had lived that way for so many years that her brief period of freedom now seemed unreal, a dream that just happened one time. Anna also did her best to hide what was going on from the children. She had managed to convince Lucas that they should keep going to daycare, and she tried to pretend that their daily life was the same as always. But she wasn’t sure that she was fooling them. At least not Emma, who was now four years old. At first she’d been ecstatic that they were moving in with Pappa again, but Anna had begun to notice her daughter giving her puzzled looks.
Despite the fact that Anna kept trying to convince herself that she had made the right decision, she still realized that they couldn’t live the rest of their lives this way. The more irrational Lucas got, the more frightened of him she became. She was sure that one day he would cross the line and actually kill her. The question was how she could make her escape. She had thought about ringing Erica and asking for help, but Lucas watched the telephone like a hawk. And there was something inside her that held her back. She had relied on Erica so many times before, and for once she felt that she had to tackle this problem herself, like an adult. Gradually, she had worked out a plan. She needed to gather enough evidence against Lucas so that the abuse could no longer be denied. Then she and the children would be given safe haven and new identities. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the desire to take the kids and simply flee to the nearest women’s shelter, but she knew full well that without evidence against Lucas it would only be a temporary solution. Then they would be back in hell again.
So she had started to document everything she could. In one of the department stores on her way to the day-care centre, there was a photo booth. She would sneak in there and take pictures of her injuries. She wrote down the date and time when she received them and hid the notes and photos inside the frame of the wedding photo of her and Lucas. There was a symbolism in this that she appreciated. Soon she would have enough material to entrust her fate and that of her children to the authorities. Until then she simply had to put up with Lucas. And survive.
It was recess when Patrik and Ernst turned into the car park at the school. Crowds of children were outside playing in the biting wind, bundled up and seemingly unconcerned with the cold. But Patrik shivered and hurried to get inside.
Their daughter would be going to this school in a few years. It was a pleasant thought, and he could picture Maja scampering about, here in the hall, with blonde pigtails and a gap between her front teeth, just the way Erica looked in the picture taken when she was a kid. He hoped that Maja would be like her mother. Erica had been incredibly cute as a little girl. She still was, in his eyes.
They took a chance and headed for the first classroom they saw, knocking on the door which stood open. The room was bright and pleasant, with big windows and children’s drawings on the walls. A young teacher sat at a desk immersed in the papers in front of her. She jumped when she heard the knock.
‘Yes?’ Despite her young age she had already managed to acquire that perfect teacher’s tone of voice, which made Patrik suppress a desire to stand at attention and bow.
‘We’re from the police. We’re looking for Sara Klinga’s teacher.’
A shadow crept over her face and she nodded. ‘That’s me.’ She got up and came over to shake their hands. ‘Beatrice Lind. I teach first through third grade.’ She motioned for them to take a seat on one of the small chairs next to the school desks. Patrik felt like a giant as he cautiously sat down. The sight of Ernst trying to co-ordinate all parts of his gangly frame to fit in the tiny chair made him smirk. But as soon as Patrik turned his gaze to the teacher his expression turned sombre again and he focused on the task at hand.
‘It’s so terribly tragic,’ said Beatrice, her voice quavering. ‘That a child can be here one day and gone the next …’ Now her lower lip was trembling too. ‘And drowned …’
‘Yes, especially since it turns out that her death was not an accident.’ Patrik had thought the news would have spread to everyone in town, but Beatrice looked undeniably shocked.
‘What? What do you mean? No accident? But she drowned, didn’t she?’
‘Sara was murdered,’ said Patrik, hearing how brusque that sounded. In a gentler tone of voice he added, ‘She didn’t die from an accident, so we have to find out more about Sara. What she was like as a person, whether there were any problems in the family, that sort of thing.’
He could see that Beatrice was still upset at the news, but she seemed to be pondering what it might mean. After a while she collected herself and said, ‘Well, what is there to say about Sara? She was …’ she searched for the right word, ‘a very lively child. And that was both good and bad. There wasn’t a quiet moment when Sara was around, and to be honest it could be difficult to maintain order in the classroom sometimes. She was something of a leader, pulling the others along, and if I didn’t put a stop to it, utter chaos could result. At the same time …’ Beatrice hesitated again and looked as though she were weighing each word very carefully, ‘at the same time, it was precisely that energy that made her so creative. She was incredibly talented in drawing and every other artistic pursuit, and she had the most active imagination I’ve ever seen. She was quite simply a very creative child, whether she was playing pranks or producing a work of art.’
Ernst squirmed in the little chair and said, ‘We heard that she had one of those problems with initials, DAMP or whatever it’s called.’
His disrespectful tone prompted Beatrice to give him a sharp look, and to Patrik’s amusement his colleague actually cringed.
‘Sara did have DAMP, that’s correct. She was given special tutoring for it. We have a good deal of experience in this field, so we can give these children what they need to function optimally.’ It sounded like a lecture, and Patrik understood that this was something of a pet topic for her.
‘How did the problems manifest themselves for Sara?’ Patrik asked.
‘In the way I described. She had a very high energy level and could sometimes throw terrible tantrums. But as I said, she was also a very creative child. She wasn’t mean or nasty or badly brought up, as many ignorant people might say of children like her. She simply had a hard time controlling her impulses.’
‘How did the other children react to her behaviour?’ Patrik was truly curious.
‘It varied. Some couldn’t get along with her at all and retreated. Others seemed to be able to handle her outbursts with equanimity and got along fine with her. I would say that her best friend was Frida Karlgren. They happened to live near each other.’
‘Yes, we’ve spoken with her,’ said Patrik with a nod. He twisted on the chair once again. He had begun to get pins and needles in his legs, and he could feel a cramp forming in his right calf. He sincerely hoped that Ernst was feeling equally uncomfortable.
‘What about her family?’ Ernst interjected. ‘Do you know if Sara had any problems at home?’
Patrik had to suppress a smile when he saw that his colleague was indeed massaging his calves.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t help you there,’ said Beatrice, pursing her lips. It was obvious that she wasn’t in the habit of telling tales about the home life of her pupils. ‘I’ve only met her parents and her grandmother once. They seemed to be stable, pleasant people. And I never had any indication from Sara that anything was wrong.’
A bell rang shrilly to signal that recess was over, and a lively commotion in the corridor revealed that the children had obediently responded to the call. Beatrice got up and held out her hand as a sign that the conversation was finished. Patrik managed to extricate himself from the chair and stand up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ernst massaging one leg, which had evidently gone to sleep. Like two old men they tottered out of the classroom after saying goodbye to the teacher.
‘Damn, what uncomfortable chairs,’ said Ernst as he limped out to the car.
‘Well, I guess we’re not that limber anymore,’ said Patrik, sinking into the driver’s seat of the car. All of a sudden the comfortable seat with plenty of leg room felt like an incredible luxury.
‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Ernst. ‘My physical condition is just as good as when I was a teenager, but nobody is built to sit on that bloody miniature furniture.’
Patrik changed the subject. ‘We certainly didn’t find out much of any use from that visit.’
‘Sounds to me like the girl was a hell of a pest,’ said Ernst. ‘Nowadays it seems that any kid who doesn’t know how to behave is excused with some damn variant of DAMP. In my day that sort of behaviour would get you a couple of raps with the ruler. But now the kids have to be medicated and soothed by psychologists and pampered. No wonder society is going to hell.’ Ernst stared gloomily out of the window on the passenger side and shook his head.
Patrik didn’t acknowledge his comment with an answer. There was really no point.
‘Are you really going to feed her again? In my day we never nursed more often than every four hours,’ said Kristina, giving Erica a critical look as she sat down in the easy chair to nurse Maja after a mere two and a half hours.
In this situation Erica knew better than to argue, so she simply ignored Kristina’s remark. It was only one of many that had been hurled through the air that morning, and Erica felt that soon she would reach her limit. Her failed attempts to clean the house adequately had been noticed, just as she had predicted. Now her mother-in-law was dashing about with the vacuum cleaner like a madwoman, muttering comments on her favourite topic: dust causing asthma in small children. Before this she had demonstratively gone into the kitchen and washed all the dishes in the sink and on the drainboard, all the while instructing Erica in the correct way to wash up. The dishes had to be rinsed off promptly so that remnants of food wouldn’t stick, and it was just as well to do the washing up at once. Otherwise the dishes would just pile up. Clenching her teeth, Erica tried to focus on the long catnap she’d be able to take when Kristina went out with the pram. Although she was starting to wonder whether it was worth the trouble.
She made herself comfortable in the easy chair and tried to get Maja to nurse. But the baby sensed the tension in the air. She had fretted and fussed most of the morning, and now she stubbornly resisted the little milk offered to soothe her. Erica was sweating as she fought this battle of wills with her infant daughter. Only when Maja finally gave in and began to nurse did Erica relax. Cautiously, so she wouldn’t have struggled in vain, she switched on the TV. The Bold and the Beautiful was on, and Erica tried to immerse herself in Brooke and Ridge’s complex relationship. Kristina glanced at the TV screen as she hurried by with the vacuum cleaner.
‘Ugh, how can you stand to watch such trash? Why don’t you read a book instead?’
Erica retaliated by turning up the volume on the TV. For a second she permitted herself to enjoy the satisfaction of such a spiteful response. But when she saw her mother-in-law’s insulted look, she turned it back down. She knew she would pay a high price for any attempts at rebellion. She glanced at her watch. Good Lord, it was only a little before noon. It would be an eternity until Patrik came home. And then another day just like this one would follow, before Kristina packed her bags and went home, convinced that she had been of invaluable help to her son and daughter-in-law. Two more interminable days …
STRÖMSTAD 1924
The milder weather worked wonders for the mood of the stonecutters. When Anders arrived at work he could hear how his comrades had already started the rhythmic work songs that accompanied the sound of their hammers striking the crowbars. They were busy making holes for the gunpowder to blast out the larger blocks of granite. One man held the crowbar, and two took turns striking it until they had made a substantial hole straight into the stone. Then the black powder was poured in and ignited. Attempts had been made with dynamite, but it hadn’t worked properly. The pressure of the detonation was too great and pulverized the granite, making it shatter in all directions.
The men nodded to Anders as he walked by, without interrupting the rhythm of their work.
With joy in his heart he went over to the place where he was carving out the statue. Progress had been painfully slow during the winter; on many days the cold had made it well-nigh impossible to work the stone. For long periods he had been forced to simply stop and wait for the weather to improve, making it difficult to earn enough wages. But now he could get started in earnest on the huge piece of granite, and he wasn’t complaining. The winter had brought other reasons to be happy.
Sometimes he could hardly believe it was true, that such an angel had come down to earth and crept into his bed. Every minute they had spent together was a precious memory that he stored in a special place in his heart. But at times, thoughts of the future could cloud his joy. He had tried to bring up the subject with her on several occasions, but she always silenced him with a kiss. They shouldn’t speak of such things, she said, often adding that everything was bound to work out. He had interpreted this to mean that she, like him, still hoped for a future together. Sometimes he actually permitted himself to believe her words, that everything was going to work out. Deep inside he was a true romantic, and the belief that love could conquer all obstacles was firmly rooted in his soul. Of course they didn’t belong to the same social class, but he was a skilled, hard-working man. He would undoubtedly be able to provide a good life for her if he only got the chance. And if she felt for him what he felt for her, then material things would not be so important to her. A life shared with him would be worth some sacrifices on her part. On a day like this, with the spring sunshine warming his fingers, he was convinced that everything really would turn out the way he hoped. Now he was merely waiting to receive her permission to speak with her father. Then he would set about preparing the speech of his life.
With a pounding heart he meticulously hammered out the statue from the stone. In his head the words kept spinning round. Along with images of Agnes.
10
Arne was carefully studying the obituary in the newspaper. He wrinkled his nose. He suspected as much. They had chosen a teddy bear as an illustration, and that was a custom that he really hated. An obituary should contain the symbols of the Christian church, nothing more. A teddy bear was simply ungodly. But he hadn’t expected anything else. The boy had been a disappointment from beginning to end, and nothing he did surprised Arne any more. It really was a crying shame that such a God-fearing person as himself should have progeny who had so stubbornly repudiated the right path. People who didn’t know any better had tried to bring about a reconciliation between them. They had said that his son, from what they had heard, was a fine and intelligent man. He also had an honourable profession, since he was a doctor, after all. Mostly it was women who had come to their door spouting such nonsense. Men knew better than to comment on things they knew nothing about. Of course he had to agree that his son had taken on a proper profession and seemed to be doing well. But if he didn’t have God in his heart it was all meaningless.
Arne’s greatest dream had been to have a son who would follow his grandfather’s footsteps and become a pastor. He himself had been forced to put aside such ambitions early on, since his father drank all the money that was supposed to go towards his seminary training. Instead he’d had to content himself with working as a verger in the church. At least that still allowed him to spend his days in God’s house.
But the church was no longer what it had once been. Things used to be different. Back then everyone knew his place, and the pastor was shown the proper respect. People also followed the words of Pastor Schartus as best they could, and they did not occupy themselves with things that even pastors appeared to enjoy nowadays: dancing, music and living together out of wedlock, to name just a few vices. But the hardest thing for Arne to accept was that females now had the right to act as God’s representatives. He just couldn’t understand it. The Bible was perfectly clear on this point: ‘Woman shall be silent in the congregation.’ What was there to discuss? Women had no business being members of the clergy. They could offer good support as pastors’ wives or even as deaconesses, but otherwise they should remain silent in the congregation. It had been a sorry time when that female had taken over Fjällbacka Church. Arne had been forced to drive to Kville on Sundays to worship, and he had simply refused to show up for work. He had paid a high price, but it was worth it. Now the hideous creature was gone. Of course, the new pastor was a bit too modern for his taste, but at least he was a man. Now all that remained was to make sure that the female cantor became a temporary chapter in the history of Fjällbacka Church. A female cantor wasn’t as bad as a female pastor, of course, but still.
Arne morosely turned the page in the regional paper, Bohusläningen. Asta was continuing to go about the house with a long face. He knew that it was for the little girl’s sake. It bothered her that their son now lived so close by. But he had explained that she had to be strong in her faith and true to their conviction. He could agree that it was a shame about the girl, but that just proved his point. Their son had not kept to the straight and narrow, and sooner or later he was bound to be punished. He turned back to look again at the teddy bear in the obituary. It was a crying shame, it certainly was …
Mellberg didn’t feel the same sense of satisfaction that he usually did when he was the focus of media attention. He hadn’t even called a press conference, but had simply gathered some reporters from the local newspapers in his office. The memory of the letter he’d received overshadowed everything else right now, and he was having a hard time concentrating on anything else.
‘Do you have any solid leads to follow up on?’ A cub reporter was eagerly awaiting his reply.
‘Nothing that we can comment on in the present situation,’ the chief said.
‘Is anyone in the family a suspect?’ The question came from a reporter from the competing paper.
‘We’re keeping all options open right now, but we have nothing concrete that points in a specific direction.’
‘Was it a sex crime?’ The same reporter again.
‘I can’t go into that,’ Mellberg said vaguely.
‘How did you confirm it was murder?’ the third journalist interjected. ‘Did she have external injuries that indicated it was homicide?’
‘For investigative reasons I can’t comment on that,’ said Mellberg, seeing the frustration grow on the reporters’ faces. It was always like walking a slack line where the press was concerned. Give them just enough so that they felt the police were doing their job, but not so much that it hurt the investigation. Usually he regarded himself as a master of this balancing act, but today he was having a hard time with it. He didn’t know what to do about the information he had received in the letter. Could it really be true?
One of the reporters gave him a querulous look, and Mellberg realized he’d missed a question.
‘Pardon me, could you please repeat the question?’ he said in confusion, and the reporter’s expression turned quizzical. They had met at several of these types of meetings, and the superintendent usually acted grandiose and boastful, rather than low-key and absent-minded as he was today.
‘All right. I asked whether there is any reason for parents in the area to worry about the safety of their children.’
‘We always recommend that parents keep a close eye on their children, but I want to emphasize that this shouldn’t lead to any sort of mass hysteria. I’m convinced that this is an isolated event and that we will soon have a suspect in custody.’
He stood up as a sign that the meeting was over. The reporters obediently put away their notebooks and pens and thanked him. They all felt that they might have questioned the superintendent a bit harder, but at the same time it was important for the regional press to maintain a good relationship with the local police. They would leave the hard-hitting questions to their colleagues in the big cities. Here in Bohuslän they were often neighbours with subjects of their interviews. They had children in the same sports leagues and schools, so they had to forgo any desire to get the big scoop for the sake of harmony in the community.
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Камилла Лэкберг
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: For the first time in English, the third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Läckberg.The remote resort of Fjällbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman′s net. But this was no accidental drowning…Local detective Patrik Hedström has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the murder of a child both he and his partner Erica knew well.What he does not know is how the case will reach into the dark heart of Fjällbacka and tear aside its idyllic façade, perhaps forever.