‘Oh, you know how women are. Blowing everything all out of proportion. I didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all, but now I feel better.’ The pain forced him to clench his jaws, but he refused to let it show.
Niclas gave him a suspicious look but then took out some paraphernalia from a large doctor’s bag he had brought along.
‘I’m not sure I believe you, but let’s start by taking your blood pressure and checking your vitals. Then we’ll see.’
He fastened the blood-pressure cuff round Stig’s skinny arm and pumped it up until it was tight. He watched the gauge as it fell and then removed the cuff.
‘150 over 80, not too bad. Unbutton your shirt and I’ll have a listen to your chest.’
Stig obeyed and unbuttoned his shirt with fingers that were oddly stiff and unwilling. The cold stethoscope against his chest made him gasp for breath, and Niclas said gruffly, ‘Long, deep breaths.’
Each breath hurt, but he managed through sheer willpower to do as Niclas asked. After listening for a moment, Niclas removed the stethoscope from his ears. He looked Stig straight in the eye.
‘Well, there’s nothing definite to go on, but if you’re feeling worse then it’s important that you let me know. Shouldn’t we do a proper check-up on you? If I send down you to Uddevalla, they can do some tests and see whether there’s anything wrong that I’m missing.’
With a shake of his head, Stig showed his aversion to the suggestion. ‘No, I’m feeling pretty good now. It’s not necessary to waste time and money on me. I’ve probably just picked up some bug, but I’ll get better soon. It’s happened before, right?’ A tone of entreaty slipped into his voice.
Niclas shook his head and sighed. ‘Well, just don’t say I didn’t warn you. One can’t be too careful when the body starts signaling that something’s wrong. But I’m not going to force you. It’s your health, so it’s up to you. Although I’m not looking forward to going downstairs and confronting Lilian, I must say. She was practically ready to call for the ambulance when I came home.’
‘Yes, she’s a real hothead, my Lilian,’ Stig chuckled, but fell silent quickly when the knives again stuck him in the stomach.
Niclas looked suspicious again as he closed up his bag. ‘Do you promise to tell me if there’s something wrong?’
Stig nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
As soon as he heard Niclas’s footsteps going down the stairs he slid painfully back into a recumbent position. The pain would soon pass. Just so he stayed out of the hospital. He had to avoid that at all costs.
Lilian’s face showed a broad range of emotions when she opened the door. Patrik and Martin stood in front, with a three-man team of technicians, or rather two men and one woman, behind them.
‘What’s this crowd for?’
‘We have a warrant to examine your bathroom.’
Patrik had a hard time meeting her gaze. It was strange how often his profession made him feel like an insensitive shithead.
Lilian gave them a look as hard as granite. But after a moment she stepped aside and let them in.
‘Don’t make a mess in there. I just cleaned,’ she snapped.
The comment made Patrik once again regret that he hadn’t ordered this done sooner. Judging from what he’d seen of the Florins’ home earlier in the week, she cleaned house almost constantly. If there had been any viable evidence in the room, it was surely gone by now.
‘We have a bathroom down here, with a shower, and one upstairs with a tub.’ Lilian pointed up the stairs. ‘Take off your shoes,’ she commanded, and everyone obeyed. ‘And don’t bother Stig. He’s resting.’ With undisguised fury she went into the kitchen and began noisily clattering as she washed the dishes.
Patrik and Martin exchanged a look and led the techs upstairs. Careful to stay out of the way, they let the team get started on the bathroom and waited outside in the hall. The door to Stig’s room was closed, and they spoke softly.
‘Do you really think this is necessary?’ said Martin. ‘I mean, there’s nothing to indicate that the perp wasn’t a stranger, and … well, the family is going through a difficult enough time as it is.’
‘You’re quite right, of course,’ replied Patrik, almost whispering. ‘But we can’t rule anyone out simply because it makes us uncomfortable. Even if the family doesn’t understand, we’re doing this with their best interests in mind. If we can eliminate them from the list of suspects, we can devote more energy to other lines of inquiry. Don’t you agree?’
Martin nodded. He knew Patrik was right, but it was all just so damned unpleasant. Footsteps on the stairs made them turn round, where they met Charlotte’s pained expression.
‘What’s going on here? Mother said that you showed up with a whole army to look at our bathroom. Why?’ Her voice rose a bit and she made an attempt to go past them. Patrik stopped her.
‘Could we sit down for a moment and talk, please?’
Charlotte cast one last glance at the techs behind them and turned to go back downstairs. ‘We’ll sit in the kitchen,’ she said, with her head turned away from Martin and Patrik. ‘I want Mother to hear what you have to say too.’
Lilian was still angrily clattering the dishes when they entered the kitchen. Albin was sitting on a blanket on the floor, watching his grandmother’s activities with big, serious eyes. He gave a start like a scared rabbit each time she raised her voice.
‘If you’re going to be taking things apart, I presume you’ll put everything back the way it was.’ Lilian’s voice was like frost.
‘I can’t promise anything; they might need to take some things apart. But I can assure you they’ll be as careful as possible,’ said Patrik, taking a seat.
Charlotte picked Albin off the floor and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs with the boy on her lap. He snuggled into his mother’s arms. She had lost weight, and she had dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week—which was possible. He saw her lip quiver as she asked, ‘So, why is there a gang of police in the house all of a sudden? Why aren’t they out looking for Sara’s murderer instead?’
‘We simply need to rule out all possibilities, Charlotte. The thing is, we … we have some new information. I wonder, can you think of any reason at all why someone would have wanted to make Sara eat ashes?’
Charlotte looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. She held on tighter to Albin, making him whimper. ‘Eat ashes? What do you mean?’
He told her what the M.E. had said, and saw her face grow paler with every word.
‘Only a crazy person would do something like that. So I understand even less why you’re spending time here.’ The last word sounded like a scream, and, affected by his mother’s anxiety, Albin began to scream too. She hushed him at once and soothed him enough that he stopped, but she didn’t take her eyes off Patrik.
He repeated what he’d said to Martin a little while ago. ‘It’s important for us to eliminate the family from the investigation. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that anyone in your family had anything to do with Sara’s death. But we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t do everything we could to investigate that possibility. As you know, it has happened in other cases. I’m afraid we can’t always be as considerate as we’d like.’
Lilian gave a snort as she stood at the sink. Her body language showed what she thought of Patrik’s little speech.
‘I do understand, of course I do,’ said Charlotte. ‘Just so you don’t waste time when you could be spending it more effectively.’
‘We’re working full steam ahead, examining all possibilities, I can assure you of that.’ On impulse Patrik leaned over the table and placed his hand on hers. She didn’t pull away but met his gaze with great intensity, as if she wanted to look into his soul and with her own eyes see whether he was telling the truth. Patrik didn’t flinch. And what she saw was evidently satisfactory, for she lowered her eyes and nodded.
‘All right, I suppose I’ll have to trust you. B
ut it’s lucky for you that Niclas isn’t at home.’
‘He was here a while ago,’ said Lilian without turning round. ‘He looked in on Stig but then left again.’
‘Why did he come home? And why didn’t he tell me that he was here?’
‘You were sleeping, I think. And I have no idea why he came home in the middle of the afternoon. He must have needed a break. Well, I did tell him that I thought it was too soon for him to go back to work, but that boy is so conscientious that it’s beyond all understanding. One certainly has to admire—’
A sigh from Charlotte interrupted Lilian’s comments, so she went back to washing dishes with even greater frenzy. Patrik could feel the tension reverberating in the room.
‘In any event, he also ought to hear this. I’ll call the clinic.’
Charlotte set Albin down on his blanket on the floor and used the wall phone in the kitchen. No one said a word while she was on the phone. Patrik wanted nothing more than to get out of there. After a few minutes, Charlotte hung up.
‘He wasn’t there,’ she said in disbelief.
‘He wasn’t there?’ Lilian turned round. ‘Then where is he?’
‘Aina didn’t know. She said that he’d taken the rest of the afternoon off. She assumed he went home.’
Lilian frowned, still turned toward the others in the kitchen. ‘Well, he wasn’t here more than fifteen minutes. He looked in on Stig for a moment, then he left. And I got the impression he was going back to work.’
Patrik and Martin exchanged a look. They had their own theory about where the grieving father had gone.
The technician in charge stuck his head in the doorway to the kitchen. ‘This is probably going to take a couple of hours. You’ll have the results as soon as we’re finished.’
Patrik and Martin got up, feeling a bit out of sorts, and nodded awkwardly to Charlotte and Lilian.
‘Then we’ll be on our way. And if you think of anything that might be linked to ashes, you know where to find us.’
Charlotte nodded, her face pale. Standing next to the sink, Lilian pretended she was deaf and didn’t even condescend to look at them.
They left the house in silence and walked toward the car.
‘Could you give me a lift home?’ asked Patrik.
‘But you left your car down at the station. Won’t you need it this weekend?’
‘I just can’t face going back there right now. And I still plan to come in and work a little on Saturday or Sunday. I can take the bus in and then drive my car home.’
‘I thought you promised Erica to take the whole weekend off,’ Martin ventured.
Patrik grimaced. ‘Yeah, I know, but I hadn’t counted on being saddled with a homicide investigation.’
‘I’ll be working this weekend too, so tell me if there’s anything I can do.’
‘That’s great, but I think I need to go over everything by myself in peace and quiet.’
‘Well, you’re the only one who knows what you need to do,’ said Martin, getting into the car. Patrik got in on the passenger’s side—but he wasn’t so sure that Martin was right.
Finally she was going to get her mother-in-law out of the house. Erica could hardly believe it. All the admonitions, all the know-it-all comments and underhanded complaints had completely demolished her reserves of patience. She was counting the minutes until Kristina would get into her little Ford Escort and drive back home. If Erica had been suffering from a lack of confidence as a mother before her mother-in-law arrived, it was even worse now. Apparently nothing she did was right. She didn’t know how to dress Maja the right way, or how feed her correctly; she was too blunt, she was too clumsy, she was too lazy, she ought to rest more. There was no end to her shortcomings, and as Erica sat there with her daughter on her lap she felt as though she might as well give up. She would never manage all of this. At night she dreamed that she left Maja with Patrik and took a long trip. Far, far away. Somewhere that was calm and peaceful, with no screaming babies or responsibilities or demands. Somewhere she could curl up and be a little girl again, and someone else would take care of her.
Yet at the same time she felt intensely protective of Maja, and was overwhelmed with the certainty that she would never be able to leave the child she held in her arms. It was just as unthinkable as chopping off a leg or an arm. They were one now, and they would have to get through all this together. And yet she’d begun to think about what Charlotte had been urging her to do, before the terrible nightmare of Sara’s death. Charlotte had said she should talk to someone, someone who understood how she was feeling. Maybe feeling like this wasn’t normal and wouldn’t go away on its own.
Since Sara’s death, she had begun to rethink things. It had put her own depression into perspective, made her see that she, unlike Charlotte, was going through a dark spell that could be dissipated. Charlotte would have to live with her grief for the rest of her life. But Erica might be able to do something about her situation. Before she went to talk to anyone, she ought to try Anna Wahlgren’s baby-care recommendations. If she could get Maja to sleep somewhere other than right on top of her, that would be progress. She just needed to muster some courage before she started that project. And get her mother-in-law out of the house.
Kristina came into the living room and gave Erica and Maja a worried look. ‘Are you nursing her again? It can’t have been more than two hours since last time.’ She didn’t wait for an answer but continued, ‘In any case, I’ve tried to put a little order in things here. All the laundry is washed, and it was quite a load, let me tell you. There are no dishes left to do, and I’ve given everything a good dusting. And by the way, I cooked some hamburgers and put them in the freezer, so you’ll have something to eat besides those horrible frozen dinners. You have to eat properly, you know, and that goes for Patrik too. He works hard all day long, and then he has to take care of Maja large parts of the evening, so he needs all the nourishment he can get. I must say I was quite shocked when I saw him. He looked dreadfully pale and worn out.’
The litany went on and on, and made Erica want to put her hands over her ears and sing, like a little girl. Of course she’d had a few hours free when her mother-in-law was here, she couldn’t deny that, but the drawbacks clearly outweighed the benefits. As her tears began to pool, she stubbornly stared straight ahead at Ricki Lake on the TV. Why couldn’t her mother-in-law just leave?
It seemed as though her prayer had been heard, for Kristina set a packed suitcase in the hall and began putting on her coat and shoes.
‘Are you sure you’ll be able to get along?’
Erica wearily shifted her gaze from the TV and even managed to squeeze out a little smile.
‘Sure, we’ll be fine.’ After an almost Herculean effort, she added, ‘And thanks so terribly much for all the help.’
She hoped Kristina couldn’t hear how false it sounded. Apparently not, for her mother-in-law nodded graciously and said, ‘Well, it’s just nice to be of some use. I’ll come back soon.’
Get your ass out of here, woman, Erica thought feverishly, trying to mentally shove her mother-in-law out the front door. Miraculously it seemed to work, and when the door closed behind her Erica heaved a deep sigh of relief. But it didn’t last long. In the silence after Kristina’s departure, with Maja’s rhythmic snuffling the only sound, thoughts of Anna popped up. She still hadn’t been able to get hold of her sister all week, and Anna hadn’t returned any of her calls. In frustration she punched the number of Anna’s mobile, but as so many times before in recent weeks she got only the voicemail. She left a brief message for the umpteenth time and then broke the connection. Why wasn’t Anna answering? Erica started devising one plan after another to find out what had happened to her sister, but eventually she gave up as she was overcome by fatigue. It would have to wait until another day.
Lucas said he was going out to look for a job, but she didn’t believe him for an instant. Not dressed as he was, slovenly and unshaven with his hair unkempt. She h
ad no idea what he was doing instead. But Anna knew better than to ask. Questions were bad. Questions led to hard blows that left visible marks. Last week she hadn’t been able to take the children to day-care, because the marks on her face had been so obvious that even Lucas realized it would be folly to let her go out.
Her thoughts kept circling around how this was all going to end. Everything had gone downhill so fast that it made her head spin. The time in the elegant flat in Östermalm, with Lucas going off to his job as a stockbroker each day, well-dressed and calm, felt like a distant dream. She could remember that even back then she had wanted to escape, but it was hard to understand why. Compared with her life now, it could hardly have been so bad. Of course she had received the occasional beating, but there were good times as well, and everything had been so nice, so orderly. Now she looked around the cramped two-room flat and felt hopelessness settling over her. The children slept on mattresses on the floor of the living room, and their toys were strewn about everywhere. She couldn’t even face picking them up. The days Lucas came home before she found the energy to clean up, the consequences were harsh. But she simply couldn’t be bothered anymore.
What scared her the most was when she looked into Lucas’s eyes and saw that something vital had disappeared. Something human had slipped away, replaced by something much darker and more terrifying. He had lost almost everything, and nothing was as dangerous as a person who had nothing more to lose.
For a moment she thought about making an attempt to get out of the flat and call for help. Collect the children at day-care, call Erica and ask her to come get them. Or call the police. But she wouldn’t get beyond the thinking stage. She never knew when Lucas might come home, and if he arrived at the moment she was trying to escape her prison, she would never again get a chance to flee. He would almost surely kill her.
The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime) Page 21