The Stone Cutter

by Camilla Lackberg

  The bell over the door rang as she entered. The shop was filled with everything that do-it-yourself handymen and boat lovers could ever possibly need. She checked the shopping list Markus had given her to see what she was supposed to buy. He'd promised to put up the rest of the shelves in the nursery this weekend if she picked up the necessary hardware.

  Mia was happy to be getting the nursery done at last. Months had flown by, and despite the fact that Liam was already six months old, his room still looked like it was under construction. It was not like the cosy, snug children's room she had always dreamt of. The only problem was that she was depending on her boyfriend to fix up the room. She'd never held a hammer in her life and he was actually quite handy once he put his mind to it; unfortunately that didn't happen very often.

  Sometimes she wondered whether the rest of her life would be like this. When they first met, she'd thought his philosophy was wonderful: always have a good time and never do anything boring. She had latched on to his lifestyle, and for almost a year they had lived a marvellously carefree life with lots of partying and spur- of-the-moment decisions. But eventually she had grown tired of all that. She felt the responsibilities of adult life growing more insistent - especially since she'd had Liam. In the meantime Markus kept on living in his little bubble; she felt like she now had two children to raise. He didn't contribute anything towards food and rent either. If she hadn't been living at home and getting money from her parents, they would have starved to death.

  Markus was good at talking his way into jobs, that wasn't the problem. No, the problem was that no job ever lived up to his expectations, or his demands that everything always had to be cool, so he usually quit after a couple of weeks. Then he would loaf about for a while, living off her until he succeeded in charming his way into a new job. He slept most of the day as well, so he almost never helped out, either with the housework or with Liam. Instead he stayed up all night playing computer games.

  To be honest, Mia had begun to tire of the way they were living. She was twenty years old and felt like forty. She kept hearing herself harping and nagging, and sometimes to her horror she sounded just like her mother.

  Mia sighed as she walked down one aisle of shelves. She looked at the list. Nails and some of the other things he needed she found quite easily, but she had to ask for help to find the screws. When she was finished at last and about to pay Berit at the checkout, she glanced at the clock. A quarter of an hour had flown by while she was ticking off the items on the list, and she felt sweat starting to trickle from her armpits. She hoped Liam hadn't woken up. She hurried to the door with her purchases, and as soon as she stepped outside she heard his piercing screams, just as she had feared. But they sounded different from the way they were when he was angry, hungry, or upset. This was a scream of sheer panic, and it echoed shrilly off the rock wall of Veddeberget.

  Mia's maternal instinct told her that something was wrong, and she dropped her bags and ran to the pram. When she looked down at him her heart stopped for an instant as she tried to understand what she was seeing. Liam's face was black with something that looked like ashes, or soot. In his open, shrieking mouth she also saw a clump of ashes, and he kept sticking out his tongue in an attempt to get rid of the nasty stuff. The inside of the pram was coated with the black powder, and when Mia lifted up her panic-stricken son and pressed him to her breast, her coat became covered with it too. Her mind could still not form any sensible theory of what had happened, but with Liam in her arms she ran back inside Järnboden. All she knew was that someone had done something to her son. As the clerk rang for help, Mia tried desperately to get the ashes out of Liam's mouth using a paper napkin.

  Only an insane person would have done something like this.

  By two o'clock they had all the information they needed. Annika had done the legwork, and Patrik thanked her in a low voice as he gathered up all the pages that had come in by fax in a steady stream. He knocked on Martin's door but walked in without waiting for him to answer.

  'Hello,' said Martin, and managed to make the casual greeting sound like a question. He knew what Patrik and Annika had been working on, and he only needed to see Patrik's face to know that their efforts had paid off.

  Patrik didn't reply to the greeting but sat down in the chair in front of Martin's desk and placed the faxes on his desktop without commenting.

  'I presume you've come up with something,' said Martin, reaching for the stack of paper.

  'Yes, after we succeeded in getting a warrant, it was like opening Pandora's box. There's all sorts of information. See for yourself.'

  Patrik leaned back in the chair and waited for Martin to finish skimming through the printouts.

  'This doesn't look good,' said Martin after a while.

  'No, it doesn't,' said Patrik, shaking his head. 'A total of thirteen times Albin was taken to the clinic with some sort of injury. Broken leg, cuts, burns, and God knows what else. It's like reading a textbook on child abuse.'

  'And you think it's Niclas and not Charlotte who did all this?' Martin nodded at the stack of faxes.

  'First of all, there's no proof that it is actually child abuse. No one has found any reason to start asking questions before now, and theoretically he might just be the unluckiest kid in the world. That said, both you and I know that's very unlikely. It's possible that someone abused Albin on repeated occasions. Whether it's Niclas or Charlotte, well, that's impossible to say for sure. But at the moment Niclas is the one we have the most questions about, so I'm assuming he's the more likely candidate, at least.'

  'Could it be both of them? There have been cases like that, as you know.'

  'Absolutely,' said Patrik. 'Anything is possible, and we can't rule it out. But considering the fact that Niclas lied about his alibi - and also attempted to get someone else to lie for him - I'd like to bring him in for a serious talk. Are we agreed on that?'

  Martin nodded. 'Yes, definitely. Let's get him in here and present this information to him and then see what he has to say.'

  'Good, that's what we'll do, then. Should we go over there right away?'

  Martin nodded. 'I'm ready if you are.'

  An hour later they had Niclas sitting across from them in the interview room. He looked obdurate, but he hadn't protested when they fetched him from the clinic. It was as though he had no energy to make any objections. At no time during the trip to the station had he asked why they wanted to talk to him. Instead he had stared out at the passing landscape and let the silence speak for itself. For a brief moment Patrik felt a pang of sympathy. It looked as though Niclas's brain had only now registered the fact that his daughter was dead, and for the present he was devoting all his energy trying to cope with that knowledge. Then Patrik remembered the contents of the physician's reports, and his sympathy was quickly and effectively extinguished.

  'Do you know why we want to talk with you?' Patrik began calmly.

  'No,' Niclas replied, studying the tabletop.

  'We've received some information that is…' Patrik paused for effect, 'disturbing.'

  No response from Niclas. His whole body slumped forward, and his hands resting on the table were trembling slightly.

  'Don't you want to know what sort of information we have?' said Martin kindly, but Niclas didn't respond to that either.

  'Then we'll tell you,' Martin went on, glancing at Patrik to take over, who cleared his throat.

  'First of all, it turned out that the statement you gave us about where you were on Monday morning was not correct.'

  Here Niclas looked up for the first time. Patrik thought he saw a glint of surprise, which disappeared just as rapidly. In the absence of any verbal reply, Patrik continued.

  'The person who gave you an alibi has retracted her statement. In plain Swedish: Jeanette has now told us that you were not with her at all, as you claimed, and she also says that you asked her to lie about it.'

  No reaction from Niclas. It seemed as though all emotion had drained out
of him, leaving behind only a vacuum. He showed no anger, astonishment, consternation, or any of the feelings that Patrik had expected. He waited him out, but silence prevailed.

  'Would you like to comment?' Martin coaxed him.

  Niclas shook his head. 'If that's her story…'

  'Perhaps you'd like to tell us where you were during the hours in question.'

  Niclas merely shrugged. Then he said in a low voice, 'I have no intention of making any statement. I don't even understand why I'm here and being asked these questions. It's my daughter who is dead. Why would I have harmed her?' He raised his eyes and looked at Patrik, who saw a suitable avenue to the next question.

  'Perhaps because you have a habit of abusing your children. At least Albin.'

  Now Niclas gave a start, and he stared at Patrik with his mouth open. A slight quiver of his lower lip was the first indication of emotion they'd seen. 'What do you mean?' said Niclas uncertainly, and his eyes flicked between Patrik and Martin.

  'We know,' Martin said calmly, leafing demonstratively through the stack of papers before him. He had made copies of the faxes so that both he and Patrik had a set.

  'What is it you think you know?' said Niclas, and his voice contained a hint of defiance. But he couldn't prevent his gaze from returning to the papers in front of Martin.

  'Thirteen times Albin has been treated for various types of injuries. What does that tell you as a doctor? What conclusion would you draw if someone came in thirteen times with a child who had burns, cuts and broken bones?'

  Niclas pressed his lips together.

  Patrik went on. 'Well, you didn't take him to the same clinic every time. That would have been tempting fate, wouldn't it? But when we gathered reports from the hospital in Uddevalla and the clinics in the region, it makes a total of thirteen times. Is he an unusually accident-prone child, or what?'

  Still no reply from Niclas. Patrik looked at his hands. Were those hands capable of injuring a little child?

  'Perhaps there's an explanation for this,' said Martin in a deceptively gentle voice. 'I mean, I can understand that things can just get to be too much sometimes. You doctors work long hours and are worn-out and stressed. Sara was also a very demanding girl, and having a little baby as well might have been enough to break even the best of us. All the frustrations that need to get out, that have to find an outlet. In spite of everything, we're only human, aren't we? And that could explain why there haven't been any more reports of "accidents" since you moved to Fjällbacka. Getting some help around the house, a less stressful job, and everything suddenly feels easier. There's no longer a need to vent your frustrations.'

  'You know nothing about me or my life. Don't flatter yourself that you do,' Niclas said with unexpected acrimony, staring down at the tabletop. 'I'm not going to talk to you about this anymore, so you can just as well cut out the psychobabble.'

  'You mean you have no comment at all to any of this?' said Patrik, waving his copies of the reports.

  'No, I don't. I already told you that,' replied Niclas stubbornly continuing to study the top of the table.

  'You realize that we have to turn over this data to social welfare, don't you?' said Patrik, leaning towards Niclas. Once again they saw only a slight quiver of his lip.

  'Do what you have to do,' said Niclas in a thick voice. 'Do you intend to hold me here, or can I go now?'

  Patrik stood up. 'You can go. But we're going to have more questions for you.'

  He escorted Niclas to the main entrance, but neither of them made any move to shake hands.

  Patrik went back to the interview room, where Martin was waiting.

  'What do you think of that?' said Martin.

  'I don't really know. To start with I expected a stronger reaction.'

  'Yeah, he seems utterly shut off from the outside world. But I assume it might be the way grief has affected him. According to what you told me, he threw himself back into work as if nothing had happened. Besides, he was forced to be strong at home when Charlotte collapsed. If she's feeling better now, maybe his grief has caught up with him. What I'm saying is that we can't assume that lie might have done something, in spite of the odd way he was behaving. The circumstances are really rather extraordinary.'

  'Yeah, you're right,' said Patrik with a sigh. 'But we also can't ignore certain facts. He did ask Jeanette to lie about his alibi, and we still don't know where he actually was that morning. And I wasn't born yesterday - these reports clearly show that Albin was abused. If I were to guess who the most likely perpetrator is, it would definitely be Niclas.'

  'So we're going to file a report with social welfare, as you said?' asked Martin.

  Patrik hesitated. 'We really ought to do it immediately, but something tells me we should wait a few days, until we know more.'

  'Okay, you're the boss,' said Martin. 'I just hope you know what you're doing.'

  'To be honest, I don't have a damned clue,' said Patrik with a wry smile. 'Not a damned fucking clue.'

  Erica gave a start at the knock on the door. Maja was lying on her back in her baby gym, and Erica had been sitting in a corner of the sofa lost in an exhausted torpor. She jumped up and went to open the door. When she saw who was standing outside, she raised her eyebrows a bit in astonishment.

  'Hello, Niclas,' she said, but made no move to let him in. They had only met a few times, and she wondered why he had decided to drop by.

  'Hello,' he said uncertainly, and then fell silent. After what felt like a very long time he said, 'May I come in for a moment? I need to talk with you.'

  'Of course,' said Erica, still feeling puzzled. 'Come in and I'll put on some coffee.'

  She went to the kitchen and made coffee while Niclas hung up his coat. Then she picked up Maja from the floor because she had started to fuss, and poured the coffee with her free hand before she sat down at the kitchen table.

  'I certainly recognize that,' Niclas said with a laugh as he sat down facing Erica. 'All mothers seem to have the ability to do anything with one hand as easily as two. I don't know how you manage it.'

  Erica smiled back at him. It was incredible how much Niclas's face changed when he laughed. But then he turned serious again, and his face closed up.

  He sipped his coffee as if to gain time. Erica was filled with curiosity. What did he want from her?

  'You're probably wondering why I'm here,' he said as if reading her mind. Erica didn't reply. Niclas took another swallow from his cup and then went on, 'I know that Charlotte has been here and talked to you.'

  'I can't discuss what we -'

  He held up his hand. 'No, I'm not here to pry about what Charlotte might have told you. I'm here because you're the closest friend she has in this town, and from what I saw when you came over, you're a good friend. And Charlotte will be needing a friend now.'

  Erica gave him a quizzical look. At the same time she had an awful premonition about what he was going to say. She felt a little hand against her cheek and looked down at Maja, who was staring up at her contentedly, reaching for a lock of her hair. To be honest she didn't know whether she wanted to hear any more. Something inside her wanted to stay inside the cocoon she'd been living in the past few months. Even though it often felt as if she were suffocating, at the same time it was safe and familiar. But she repressed the impulse to shrink from what he was going to tell her. She shifted her gaze from Maja to Niclas and said, 'I'll help you in any way I can.'

  Niclas nodded but then seemed to hesitate. After turning the coffee cup in his hands for a while, he took a deep breath and said, 'I've betrayed Charlotte. I've betrayed my family in the worst possible way. But there's something else. Something that has been undermining us, making us drift apart. Things that we now have to confront. Charlotte doesn't know about my cheating yet, but I'll have to tell her, and then she's going to need you.'

  'Tell me,' said Erica softly, and with obvious relief Niclas began pouring out everything in one incoherent and unpleasant mass.

  Whe
n he finished, the relief on his face was evident. Erica didn't know what to say. She caressed Maja's cheek, as if to defend herself against a reality that was too ugly and horrible. Part of her wanted to stand up and tell him to go to hell. Another part of her wanted to hug him and pat his back consolingly. Instead she said, 'You have to tell Charlotte everything. Go home right now and tell her everything you told me. And I'll be here if she needs to talk. Then…' Erica paused, unsure of how to say it, 'then the two of you have to get a grip on your life. If Charlotte, and I'm saying if she can forgive you, then you'll have to make it your responsibility to see to it that the two of you can go on. The first thing you have to do is to arrange things so that you both get out of that house. Charlotte was already being driven crazy by Lilian, and I know that since Sara died it's only got worse. You two have to have your own home. A home where you can find your way back to each other again, where you can grieve for Sara in peace. There you can become a family.'

  Niclas nodded. 'Yes, I know you're right. I should have taken care of that long ago, but I was so involved in my own troubles that I didn't see…'

  He bent forward and stared hard at the tabletop. When he looked up his eyes were filled with tears. 'I miss her so much, Erica. I miss her so much that it feels like I'm falling apart. Sara is gone, Erica. It's only now that I understand it. Sara is gone.'

  The tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the table. His whole body was shaking, and his face was contorted almost beyond recognition. Erica reached across the table and took his hand in hers. For a long time they sat together as he sobbed out his pain.

  That weekend it happened again. A couple of weeks had passed since the last time, so Sebastian had begun to hope that it was all just a dream, or that it had ended once and for all. But then those moments returned. The moments of loathing, denial and pain.