The Stone Cutter

by Camilla Lackberg

  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 in everyone 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 threw 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 slow the passionate side of her nature, but by then he'd be able to credit himself for 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.

  * * *

  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 anymore. 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 made another round of the shelves to see whether there were any more to collect. Hut 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 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 child care 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 (he 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 have conducted a homicide investigation with just two detectives, Ernst and himself?