The Stone Cutter

by Camilla Lackberg

  He could hear murmuring voices upstairs and knew that Lilian must be up in Stig's room. Thank goodness. He didn't want to face her barrage of questions again, and he closed the door as quietly as he could.

  Charlotte looked up in astonishment when he came down to the cellar flat.

  'You're home early.'

  'Yes, I thought we should talk.'

  'Haven't we talked enough?' she said indifferently and continued to fold the laundry. Albin was sitting next to her on the floor, playing with his toys. Charlotte looked worn out. He knew that she didn't get many hours of sleep at night; she lay in bed tossing and turning, although he'd pretended not to notice. He hadn't talked to her about it, hadn't caressed her cheek or taken her in his arms. The skin under her eyes had dark smudges, and he could see how she'd grown thin. How many times had he angrily muttered that she ought to pull herself together and lose some weight. Now he'd give anything for her to get back some of her former plumpness.

  Niclas sat down on the bed next to her and took her hand. Her shocked expression told him that it was something he did far too seldom. He felt awkward and fumbling, and for an instant he wanted to flee again. But he kept her hand in his and said, 'I'm so dreadfully sorry, Charlotte. For everything. For all the years I've been distant, both physically and mentally; for everything I've blamed you for in my mind even though it was actually my own fault; for the affairs I've had; for the physical closeness I've stolen from you and given to others; for not finding a way for us to get out of this house sooner; for not listening to you; for not loving you enough. I'm sorry for all that and more. But I can't change the past, only promise you that everything will be different starting now. Do you believe me? Please, Charlotte, I have to hear that you believe me!'

  She raised her eyes and looked at him. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled out as she fixed her gaze on him.

  'Yes, I believe you. For Sara's sake, I believe you.'

  He simply nodded, unable to go on. Then he cleared his throat and said, 'Then there's one thing we have to do. I've thought about this, and we can't keep living with a secret. Monsters live in the dark.'

  After a brief pause she nodded. With a sigh she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he felt as though she were falling into him.

  They sat that way for a long time.

  He made it home in five minutes. He hugged Erica and Maja long and hard, and then shook Dan's hand gratefully.

  'What a stroke of luck you were here,' he said, adding Dan to the list of people he had to be thankful for.

  'Right. But I don't understand it. Who would take it into their head to do something like this? And why?'

  Patrik sat next to Erica on the sofa, holding her hand. After casting a hesitant glance at Erica he said, 'It probably has some connection with Sara's murder.'

  Erica gave a start. 'What? Why do you think that? Why would…?'

  Patrik pointed at Maja's overalls on the floor. That looks like ashes.' His voice broke and he had to clear his throat to go on. 'Sara had ashes in her lungs, and there was also a…' he searched for the right word, 'an attack on another small child. Ashes were again involved.'

  'But what does it mean?' Erica looked bewildered. Nothing she was hearing made any sense.

  'I don't know,' said Patrik wearily, passing his hand over his eyes. 'We don't understand it either. We've sent off the ashes we found on the other child's clothing to the lab, to see whether it has the same chemical composition as the ashes inside Sara, but we haven't got an answer back yet. And now I want to send off Maja's clothes too.'

  Erica nodded mutely. Her panic had metamorphosed into a shocked, trance-like state. Patrik gave her a hug. 'I'll call in and tell them I'm staying home for the rest of the day. I just have to get Maja's clothes sent off so they can start the analysis as soon as possible. We have to catch whoever is doing this,' he said grimly. It was a promise he was making to himself as much as to Erica. His daughter was unhurt, true, but the mental cruelty behind the deed gave him an uneasy feeling that the person they were searching for was extremely disturbed.

  'Can you stay until I get back?' he asked Dan, who nodded.

  'Absolutely. I'll stay as long as you need me to.'

  Patrik kissed Erica on the cheek and patted Maja tenderly. Then he picked up Maja's overalls, put on his jacket and hurried off. He wanted to get back home soon.

  * * *

  GÖTEBORG 1954

  The girl was hopeless. Agnes sighed. So many hopes she'd had for her, so many dreams. She had been so sweet when she was little, and with her dark hair she was easily taken for her daughter. Agnes had decided to call her Mary. Partly because it would remind everyone of her years in the States and the status she'd accrued from living abroad, and partly because it was a lovely name for a charming child.

  But after a couple of years something had happened. The girl had begun to swell out in all directions, and the fat covered her sweet features like a mask. It disgusted Agnes. By the time the girl was four her thighs were quivering and her cheeks drooped like on a Saint Bernard, but nothing seemed to stop her from eating. And God knows that Agnes had sincerely tried. But nothing did any good. They hid the food and put locks on the cupboards, but Mary was like a mouse who could always sniff out something that she could stuff into her mouth. Now, at the age of ten, she was a regular mountain of fat. The hours in the cellar didn't seem to have any deterrent effect; instead she always came up from there hungrier than ever.

  Agnes simply didn't understand it. She had always placed enormous importance on her own appearance, not least because her looks made it possible for her to obtain the things she wanted in life. It was inconceivable that a girl would want to destroy her chances in that way.

  Sometimes she regretted her decision to take the girl with her from the dock in New York. But only partly. It had actually worked exactly the way she'd imagined. Nobody could resist the rich widow with the delightful little daughter, and it had taken her only three months to find the man who could give her the lifestyle she deserved. Äke had come to Fjällbacka for a week in July to enjoy a little recreation; instead he was caught so efficiently by Agnes that he proposed after knowing her for only two months. With a becoming demureness she had accepted, and after a quiet wedding she and her daughter moved to Göteborg, where Äke had a huge flat on Vasagatan. The house in Fjällbacka had once again been rented out, and she heaved a sigh of relief at escaping the isolation that living in the little town involved.

  Nor had she been happy about the fact that people still insisted on bringing up her past. It was so long ago, and yet Anders and the boys seemed to live so vividly in everyone's memory. She couldn't understand their need to keep harping on what had happened. One lady had even had the cheek to ask Agnes how she could bring herself to live on the very site where her family had been killed. By then she already had Äke dangling on the hook, so she had allowed herself the liberty to ignore the comment, simply turning on her heel and walking away. There would surely be talk about that, but it no longer mattered to her. She had achieved her goal. Äke had a prestigious position in an insurance firm and would be able to provide her with a comfortable life. Unfortunately, he didn't seem much interested in a social life, but she would soon change that. For the first time in years, Agnes would be the centre of attention at a glittering party. She wanted to have dancing, champagne, beautiful clothes and jewellery, and no one would ever be able to take those things from her again. She erased the memories of her past so effectively that it often felt merely like a distant and unpleasant dream.

  But life had one more trick up its sleeve for her. The glittering parties turned out to be few, and she wasn't exactly swimming in beautiful jewels. Äke proved to be notoriously stingy, and she had to fight for every öre. He had also exhibited an unbecoming disappointment when, six months after the wedding, a telegram arrived, saying that all the assets she had inherited from her wealthy late husband had unfortunately been lost through a bad investment by the man appointed
to administer them for her. She had sent it to herself, of course, but she was very proud of the theatrical performance she put on when it arrived, including the dramatic fainting scene. She hadn't counted on Äke reacting as strongly as he did, and it made her suspect that the prospect of acquiring her financial assets had played a greater role in convincing him to propose marriage than she'd thought. But what was done was done for both of them, and they now attempted to tolerate each other as best they could.

  At first she had felt only a slight irritation at his miserliness and his absolute lack of initiative. What he enjoyed most was sitting at home, night after night, eating the dinner that was set before him on the table, reading the newspaper and perhaps a couple of chapters in a book, and then changing into his old-man pyjamas and slipping into bed just before nine. When they were newly- weds he had occasionally fumbled for her in the bed at night, but now to her relief his lovemaking had decreased to twice a month, always with the light off and without even bothering to remove his pyjama top. But Agnes had noticed that the morning after it was always easier to procure a modest sum for her own use, and she never let such an opportunity go to waste.

  But as the years passed her irritation had grown to hatred, and she had begun to search for a suitable weapon to use against Äke. When she noticed that he was becoming attached to the girl, she realized that she'd found it. She knew that he was strongly opposed to her punishments, but also that he was afraid of conflict and too weak stand up in Mary's defence. And she found the greatest enjoyment in slowly but surely turning the girl against him.

  Agnes was well aware of how much Mary longed for a little attention and tenderness. If she gave it to her at the same time as she dripped poison in her ear in the form of lies about Äke, she could practically see the venom spreading and taking hold. Then she could let it work in peace and quiet.

  Poor Äke had no idea what he was doing wrong. He saw that the girl was growing more distant, and he could hardly fail to notice the contempt in her eyes. He probably suspected that Agnes was to blame, but he could never put his finger on exactly what she did to make the girl detest him so. He spoke with Mary as often as he could and even tried to buy her forgiveness by bribing her with the sweets he knew that she craved. But nothing seemed to help. Inexorably she slipped farther and farther away from him, and as the distance grew his bitterness towards his wife kept pace. Eight years after they married, Äke knew that he'd made a huge mistake, but he couldn't manage to get out of it. And even though Mary now refused to have anything to do with him, he still felt that he was her last chance at security. If he disappeared from her life, he couldn't imagine what his wife might do to the girl. He no longer had any illusions about her.

  Agnes was well aware of all this. Sometimes her intuition was uncanny, and she could read people like an open book.

  She was sitting at her dressing table, doing her make-up. Unbeknownst to Äke, she'd been having a passionate affair for the past six months with one of his closest friends. She pinned up her black hair, which had still not a trace of grey in it, and dabbed a little perfume behind her ears, on her wrists, and down her cleavage. She was dressed in black silk undergarments trimmed with lace; she still had a figure that would make many young girls envious.

  She was looking forward to the rendezvous, which as usual would take place at Hotel Eggers. Per-Erik was a real man, unlike Äke, and she was pleased that he'd begun to talk more and more about leaving his wife. She wasn't so naive as to believe such promises from a married man, but she knew that he appreciated her skills in bed more than was healthy. His chubby little wife simply couldn't compete.

  But there was still the problem of Äke. Agnes's brain began working at high speed. In the mirror she saw her daughter's plump face and the big eyes hungrily watching her.

  * * *

  Despite having taken a long shower and changed his clothes, Martin thought he could still smell the odour of vomit in his nostrils from the day before. The suicide and then the call from Patrik telling him that someone had attacked Maja had shaken him, and he'd been filled with a feeling of helplessness. There were so many threads in this case, so many odd things happening all at once, that for the life of him he couldn't understand how they would ever make any sense of the mess.

  Outside Patrik's door he hesitated. In view of what had happened he wasn't sure that Patrik would be working today. But sounds from inside his office told him that Patrik had already come in. He knocked cautiously.

  'Come in,' Patrik called out.

  'I wasn't sure you'd be here today,' Martin said. 'I thought you might be at home with Erica and Maja.'

  'I wanted to stay home,' said Patrik. 'But more than that, I want to catch the psycho who's doing this.'

  'But did Erica really want to be at home alone?' Martin said tentatively, unsure whether that was the right thing to say.

  'I wanted somebody to come over and stay with them, but she insisted everything was fine. But I did ring and talk to her friend Dan, the guy who was at our house yesterday when it happened, and he promised to drop by and look in on them.'

  'Did they get any prints?' Martin asked.

  'Unfortunately no. It was raining, so all the tracks had been washed away. But I sent Maja's overalls with the ashes to the lab, so we'll see what that turns up. In my view, it's merely a formality; it would be much too big a coincidence if the ashes didn't match the other sample.'

  'But why Maja?'

  'Who knows?' said Patrik. 'Presumably it was a warning directed at me. Something I did, or didn't do, during the course of the case. Oh, I don't know,' he said in frustration. 'But the best we can do now is to keep working full speed ahead, so that we get this solved as soon as possible. Until then none of us can relax.'

  'What do we do first, interrogate Kaj?'

  'Yes,' Patrik said grimly, 'we interrogate Kaj.'

  'You do realize that Kaj was in custody yesterday when -'

  'Yeah, of course I do,' Patrik said, sounding annoyed. 'But it doesn't mean that he isn't mixed up in this somehow. Or that he won't have to answer to other things.'

  'Okay, I was just checking,' said Martin, holding up his hands defensively. 'I'll just hang up my jacket and meet you there.' He headed for his office.

  Patrik was gathering up his things to go to the interrogation room when the phone rang. He saw from the display that it was Annika and picked it up, hoping that it wasn't anything important. He was really looking forward to getting into it with the shithead they had in custody. Now more than ever.

  'Yes?' He could hear that his tone was curt, but Annika had a thick skin and wouldn't be offended. At least he hoped not.

  But Patrik ended up listening with increasing interest and then said, 'Okay, send them in.'

  He dashed over to Martin's office. 'Charlotte and Niclas are here, looking for me. We'll have to wait a bit with the interrogation until I hear what they want.'

  Without waiting for a reply he ran back to his office. A few seconds later he heard footsteps and a low murmur in the corridor. When Sara's parents stepped into the room, Patrik was shocked to see how Charlotte looked. In the short time since he'd seen her last she had aged considerably, and her clothes hung loosely on her body. Niclas, too, looked tired and worn out, but not as bad as his wife. They sat down in the visitors' chairs, and during the silence that followed Patrik had time to wonder what was so important that they would come here unannounced.

  It was Niclas who spoke first. 'We… we lied to you. Or rather, there are some things we didn't tell you, and that's probably almost as bad as lying.' Patrik felt his interest rising, but decided to wait Niclas out. After a moment he went on.

  'Albin's injuries. The ones you thought, or believed, that I gave him. It was, it was…' He seemed to be searching for words, and Charlotte took over for him.

  'It was Sara.' Her voice sounded mechanical and empty of all emotion. Patrik recoiled in his chair. That wasn't what he was expecting to hear.

  'Sara?' he said,
baffled.

  'Yes,' said Charlotte. 'You know already that Sara had problems. She had a hard time controlling her impulses and would get the most terrible attacks of rage. Before Albin was born she turned her anger on us, but we were big enough to defend ourselves and make sure she didn't hurt herself or us. But when Albin arrived…' Her voice broke and she looked down at her hands, which lay trembling in her lap.

  'Everything escalated out of our control after Albin was born,' Niclas said. 'We thought, foolishly, that maybe it would be a positive influence on Sara to have a little brother. Someone she could feel responsible for and protect. But in hindsight that was probably naive of us. She hated him and the time he demanded from us. She took all the opportunities she could to do him harm, and even if we tried to be there and watch them every second, it was impossible. She was quick…' He looked at Charlotte, who nodded feebly.

  Niclas went on. 'We tried everything. A social worker, a psychologist, aggression management, medication. There was nothing we didn't try. We experimented with changing her diet, took away all sugar and all fast carbohydrates because some findings suggested that might have a positive effect. But nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed to work. Finally we were at the end of our rope. Sooner or later she was going to do serious harm to someone. We just didn't want to have to send her away. And where would we send her? So when this position at the clinic in Fjällbacka was advertised, we thought that might be the solution. A complete change of scene, with Charlotte's mother and Stig close by to help relieve some of the pressure. It sounded perfect.'

  Now it was Niclas's voice that broke. Charlotte put her hand on his and squeezed it. Together they had been to hell and back, and in a way they were still there.

  'I'm truly sorry,' said Patrik. 'But I also have to ask: do you have any proof of what you're telling me?'