Lundgren looked down, but not fast enough for Patrik to miss a quick glimpse of loathing in his eyes. Apparently his gamble 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 man.
‘Come on, let’s go into my office.’ Patrik 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 Maja’s stroller standing outside. His first thought was: Oh shit! But he quickly realized 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 center their grief on something specific. But he didn’t know how Sara’s parents would react.
With Ernst at his heels, Patrik knocked cautiously at the front door. 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.
‘The police?’ she said inquiringly, 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 neighbor, most people at the station should have met her by now. But today they were here on a much more serious errand.
‘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 seemed flushed and angry. Niclas noticed Patrik looking for the women 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?’ asked 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. Several minutes passed in awkward 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 than 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 microwave dinners. Then he heard a door open, and there stood Erica, holding Maja asleep in one arm. Beside her was 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. They both nodded hello to the two policemen. Patrik didn’t know how Charlotte had looked before, but now she had a little color 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.
‘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 Patrik 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 doesn’t look like it was an accident.’
‘What do you mean? Why not?’ said Niclas in obvious frustration.
‘It wasn’t an accident at all. Sara was murdered.’
‘Murdered? What do you mean? I thought she drowned!’ Charlotte look confused, and Erica grabbed her hand. Maja was still asleep in Erica’s arms, unaware of what was playing out around her.
‘I’m so sorry … She did drown, but not in the sea. The medical examiner found no 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.’ Lilian’s voice sounded empty and mechanical.
‘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 neighbors 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, sounding surprised 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 h
im 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 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 neighbor 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, but she refused to calm down. Albin whimpered.
‘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. 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 finally silenced Lilian. She clenched her jaws, but didn’t dare contradict her.
‘So,’ Patrik hesitated, a bit shocked by Lilian’s outburst, ‘besides your neighbor, you can’t think of anyone who has anything against your family?’
They all shook their heads. He closed up 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 any more 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 Sara’s death in peace and quiet. His illness somehow made it easier for him to deal with the grief, because the physical pain helped push away some of the emotional torment.
With an effort Stig turned over in bed and stared blankly at the wall. He had loved the child as if she were his own granddaughter. Naturally he knew she could be difficult and moody, but never when she came up to see him. She had always showed respect for both him and his illness, and in fact she was probably the only one who knew what a bad state he was in. With everyone else, even his wife, 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 was determined to avoid. So to Lilian and Niclas he always managed to call up his tiny reserves of energy and put on a relatively controlled façade. And it wasn’t always bad. 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.
That woman was truly a gift from God. Of course they’d had their clashes over the past six years, 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 splitting up. In some ways his illness had saved their marriage. There was nothing so bad that it didn’t bring some good with it, he always told himself. But that was before Sara’s death, before the worst of all possible evils had befallen them. There was nothing 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 everything that had happened that day, and he would nod and listen intently. She appreciated that he didn’t treat her like a child, but as an equal.
It was inconceivable to think that she was gone.
He closed his eyes and let a strong wave of pain carry him away.
7
Strömstad 1923
It was a strange autumn. Anders had never before felt so exhausted, and yet so full of energy. His time with Agnes always infused him with new strength, and sometimes he wondered how he’d been able to make his body function before she came into his life.
His whole life had changed after that first evening, when she appeared at his window. Though they only met at night, he felt as if the sun didn’t shine until Agnes arrived, and it vanished 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 could see how impossible the situation was. Yet he needed her so badly that he convinced 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 to go to work again. But she always found a way to come to him, 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 physical need for her was overwhelming. He tried to get her discuss it, but she silenced him with a kiss.
‘Let’s not talk about that,’ she said, kissing him again. ‘Tomorrow when I arrive, don’t meet me out front. Instead let me come inside.’
‘But what about the widow—’ She interrupted him again with a kiss.
‘Shh. 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.
‘We may as well 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 acquaintance, we wouldn’t be able to investigate shit. Everybody knows everybody else in this town. 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 that wasn’t a good enough excuse for removing an officer from an investigation. That would only work if it were a considerably closer relationship. But it was a shame. For a second, he had seen a chance for 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 fit in as well with the old neighborhood 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.
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