‘What are you going to do now?’ Erica asked. She glanced over at Maja; to her shock, her daughter had fallen asleep on her own in the bouncer. That had never happened before.
‘I don’t know. I can’t face dealing with it right now. And in a way, it feels like it doesn’t matter. Sara is gone, and nothing Niclas does or says can hurt anywhere near as much as that does. Niclas wants us to start over, find our own place and move out of Mamma and Stig’s house as soon as we can. But I have no idea what to do right now …’
She bowed her head. Then she abruptly got to her feet.
‘I have to go home. Mamma has spent enough time watching Albin today. Thanks for letting me unload all this on you.’
‘You’re always welcome here, you know that.’
‘Thanks.’ Charlotte gave Erica a quick hug and then vanished as quickly as she’d come.
Erica wandered back into the living room. In amazement she stopped in front of the bouncer and looked down at her sleeping daughter. Maybe there was hope for her life after all.
Unfortunately, she didn’t know whether Charlotte could say the same thing.
Morgan had come to his favorite part of the computer game he was working on. The part where the first blow of the sword fell. The character’s head rolled off, and according to the script there should be plenty of extreme effects. His fingers raced across the keyboard, and on the screen the scene emerged gracefully. He admired and envied the people who could write the stories, which he then was commissioned to bring to life on the screen. If there was anything he wished for, it was the imagination that most other people had, allowing them to burst all boundaries and let ideas flow freely. Naturally he had tried. Writing compositions in school, for instance. Those had been a nightmare. Sometimes the students were given a topic, sometimes only an image, and from that they were expected to spin a whole web of events and characters. He’d never gotten farther than the first sentence. Then his mind just seemed to shut down. It was blank. The paper lay empty before him, absolutely screaming to be filled with words, but none came. The teachers had berated him. At least until Mamma went and talked to them, after his parents had received the diagnosis. Then the teachers merely watched him with curiosity, as if he were an alien life form. They didn’t know how right they were. That was how he felt as he sat at his school desk, with the blank paper in front of him and the sound of his classmates’ scratching pens all around. Alien.
When Morgan discovered the world of computers, he felt at home for the first time. This was something that came easy to him, that he could master. If he was an odd piece of the puzzle, then he had finally found another piece that was a perfect fit.
When he was younger, he had gone in for code languages just as manically. He had read everything he could find about the subject and could reel off what he’d learned for hours on end. There was something about combinations of numbers and letters that had appealed to him. But once his interest in computers took over, overnight he lost his fascination with codes. The knowledge was still there, and whenever he liked he could pull out everything he’d ever learned about the topic, but it simply didn’t interest him anymore.
The blood running down the edge of the virtual sword made him think of the girl again. He wondered whether her blood had congealed inside her now that she was dead. Whether it was just a dense mass filling her blood vessels. Maybe it had also turned brown like dried blood; he’d seen it once when he’d tried cutting his wrist. In fascination he’d stared at the blood trickling out, watching the way the flow gradually slowed, coagulated and began to change color.
His mother had been shocked when she came into his room that time. He’d tried to explain again that he just wanted to see what it was like to die, but she rushed him into the car and drove him to the medical clinic. Although actually it wasn’t necessary. It hurt to cut himself, so he hadn’t made a deep cut and the blood had already coagulated. But his mother still got hysterical anyway.
Sometimes he envied the girl. Because now she knew what death was like. Knew the solution to the riddle.
He forced himself to concentrate on the computer game again. Sometimes thinking about death could make several hours vanish before he knew it. And that screwed up his schedule.
Ernst sat sullenly in front of Patrik, refusing to meet his gaze. Instead he studied his unpolished shoes.
‘Answer me, damn it!’ Patrik yelled at him. ‘Did you get a call from Göteborg about child pornography?’
‘Yes,’ Ernst muttered.
‘And why didn’t we ever hear about it?’
There was a long silence.
‘I repeat,’ said Patrik in an ominously low voice, ‘why didn’t you report it to us?’
‘I didn’t think it was that important,’ said Ernst evasively.
‘You didn’t think it was that important!’ Patrik’s tone was ice-cold and he slammed his fist on the desk so hard that his keyboard jumped.
‘No,’ said Ernst.
‘And why not?’
‘Well, there was so much else going on at the time … And it felt a bit improbable, I mean, that’s the sort of thing they’re into in the big cities.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Patrik without being able to conceal his contempt. He’d got up from his chair and was now towering behind his desk. His rage made him look four inches taller. ‘You know as well as I do that child pornography has nothing to do with geography. It happens in small towns too. So stop talking bullshit and tell me the real reason. And believe me, if it’s what I think, you’re going to be in serious hot water!’
Ernst looked up from his shoes and glared defiantly at Patrik, but he knew it was time to lay his cards on the table.
‘I just didn’t think it sounded plausible. I mean, I know the guy, and it didn’t seem like something he’d be involved in. So I thought the Göteborg cops must have made a mistake, and an innocent person would have to suffer if I passed on the information. You know how it is,’ he said, glaring at Patrik. ‘It wouldn’t change anything if they called again after a while and said, “Oh, excuse us, but there’s been a mistake here and you can forget about that name we gave you”—his name would still be mud in this town. So I thought I’d wait a while and see what happened.’
‘You’d wait a while and see what happened!’ Patrik was so furious that he had to force himself to enunciate each syllable to keep from stammering.
‘Well, I mean, you have to agree this whole thing is unreasonable. He’s well known for all the work he does with young people. He does plenty of good things, I have to tell you.’
‘I don’t give a shit what sort of good things he does. If our colleagues in Göteborg call and say that his name came up in an investigation of child pornography, then we have to check it out. That’s our fucking job! And if you two are best friends—’
‘We aren’t best friends,’ Ernst muttered.
‘… or just friends or whatever the fuck, then it makes no difference at all, don’t you see that? You can’t sit there and make decisions about what’s going to be investigated or not based on who you know or don’t know!’
‘After all the years I’ve spent on the force—’ Ernst couldn’t finish his sentence before Patrik cut him off.
‘After all the years you’ve spent on the force you should bloody well know better! And you didn’t think to say anything when his name came up in a murder investigation? Wouldn’t that at least have been a good time to tell us about the call?’
Ernst had gone back to studying his shoes and didn’t feel like getting drawn into an argument. Patrik sighed and sat down. He folded his hands and gave Ernst a somber look.
‘Well, there isn’t much we can do about it now. We’ve received all the data from Göteborg and will be bringing him in for questioning. We’ve also got a warrant to search his home. You’d better pray on bended knee that he hasn’t gotten wind of this and managed to clean out all the evidence. And Mellberg has been informed. I’m sure he’ll want to have
a talk with you.’
Ernst didn’t say a word when he got up from his chair. He knew that he had probably committed the worst blunder of his career. And in his case, that was saying a lot.
‘Mamma, if I promised to keep a secret, how long do I have to keep it?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Veronika. ‘You shouldn’t really ever tell anyone’s secret, should you?’
‘Hmm,’ said Frida, drawing circles in her yoghurt with her spoon.
‘Don’t play with your food,’ said Veronika, wiping off the drainboard with annoyance. Then she stopped and turned to her daughter.
‘Why do you ask, anyway?’
‘Dunno,’ said Frida with a shrug.
‘You certainly do know. Now tell me, why do you ask?’ Veronika sat down on a kitchen chair next to her daughter and studied her face.
‘If you shouldn’t ever tell someone’s secret, then I can’t say anything, can I? But—’
‘What do you mean?’ Veronika coaxed her.
‘But if somebody you promised something to is dead, do you still have to keep the secret? What if you say something and then the person who’s dead comes back and gets really mad?’
‘Sweetheart, is it Sara who made you promise to keep something secret?’ Frida kept drawing circles in her bowl of yoghurt. ‘We talked about this before, and you have to believe me when I say that Sara is never coming back. I’m really sorry. Sara is in heaven and she’s going to stay there for ever and ever.’
‘For ever and ever, for all the eternities of eternity? A thousand million million years?’
‘Yes, a thousand million million years. And as far as the secret goes, I don’t think Sara would be mad if you only told it to me.’
‘Are you sure?’ Frida looked nervously up at the gray sky she could see out of the kitchen window.
‘I’m completely sure.’ Veronika placed a hand on her daughter’s arm to reassure her.
After a moment of silence as Frida apparently pondered what her mother had told her, she said hesitantly, ‘Sara was super scared. There was a nasty old man who scared her.’
‘A nasty old man? When was that?’ Veronika waited tensely for her daughter’s reply.
‘The day before she went to heaven.’
‘Are you sure that’s when it was?’
Upset that her mother would doubt her, Frida frowned. ‘Ye-e-es, I’m absolutely sure. I know all the days of the week. I’m not a baby.’
‘No, no, I know that. You’re a big girl, and of course you know what day it was,’ Veronika said soothingly.
She tried asking a few more questions. Frida was still sulking over her mistrust, but the temptation to share the secret was finally too strong.
‘Sara said that the old man was really disgusting. He came and talked to her when she was playing down by the water and he was mean.’
‘Did Sara say that he was mean?’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said Frida, thinking that was enough of an answer.
Veronika continued patiently. ‘What exactly did she say? How was he mean?’
‘He grabbed her by the arm so it hurt. Like this, she said.’ Frida demonstrated by taking a hard grip with her right hand on her upper left arm. ‘And then he said dumb things too.’
‘What kind of dumb things?’
‘Sara didn’t understand all of it. She just said that she knew it was nasty. It sounded like “double pawn” or something like that.’
‘Double pawn?’ said Veronika, looking bewildered.
‘I told you it was dumb and Sara didn’t understand. But it was nasty, that’s what she said. And he didn’t talk regular with her, he yelled at her. Really loud. So it made her ears hurt.’ Now Frida demonstrated by holding her hands over her ears.
Carefully Veronika took her hands away and said, ‘You know, this may be a secret that you’ll have to tell other people besides me.’
‘But you said …’ Frida sounded upset, and her eyes once again nervously sought out the gray sky outdoors.
‘I know I said that, but you know what? I really think that Sara would want you to tell this secret to the police.’
‘Why?’ asked Frida, still looking worried.
‘Because when somebody dies and goes to heaven, the police want to know all the secrets that person had. And people usually want the police to know all their secrets too. It’s the job of the police to find out everything.’
‘So they’re supposed to know all the secrets?’ said Frida in amazement. ‘Do I have to tell them about the time I didn’t want to eat all my sandwich and hid it under the sofa cushion?’
Veronika laughed gently. ‘No, I don’t think the police need to know that secret.’
‘I don’t mean while I’m alive, but if I die, would you have to tell them about that?’
The smile vanished from Veronika’s face. ‘You don’t have to worry about that, because you’re not going to die.’
‘How do you know that, Mamma?’ asked Frida.
‘I just know.’ Veronika got up abruptly from her chair and went out to the hall. Without turning round, so that her daughter couldn’t see her tears, she called, in a voice that came out unnecessarily brusque, ‘Put on your coat and shoes. We’re going to talk to the police right now.’
Frida obeyed. But when they went out to the car, she looked up suspiciously at the heavy gray sky. She hoped that Mamma was right. She hoped that Sara wouldn’t be mad.
21
Fjällbacka 1928
Lovingly he dressed the boys and combed their hair. It was Sunday, and he was going to take the boys out for a walk in the sunshine. It was hard to get their clothes on because they were crazed with joy at being able to go out with their father, but at last they were dressed and ready to set off. Agnes didn’t answer when the boys called good-bye to her. It cut Anders to the quick to see the thirsting, disappointed look in their eyes when they were with their mother. She didn’t seem to understand it, but they longed for her—longed to feel her arms around them. The idea that she might be aware of this but deliberately denied them was a possibility he didn’t even want to imagine, though it did occur to him. Now that the boys were four years old, he could only surmise that there was something unnatural about the way she related to them. As the years passed, she still hadn’t seemed to bond with them at all.
He himself never felt so rich as when he walked off down the hill with a little child’s hand firmly gripped in each of his own. The boys were still so small that they would rather run than walk. Sometimes he had to jog to keep up with them, even though his legs were so much longer than theirs. People smiled and tipped their hats when they came scurrying along the main street. He knew that they made a pleasant sight—the father, big and tall in his Sunday best, and the boys, as finely dressed as a stonecutter’s sons could be, with their tousled blond hair exactly the same shade as his own. They even had his brown eyes. Anders was often told how they were his spitting image, and he swelled with pride every time. Sometimes he permitted himself a sigh of gratitude that they didn’t take after Agnes. Over the years he’d noticed a hardness in her, which he sincerely hoped the children wouldn’t inherit.
When he passed by the village shop, he hastened his steps and carefully avoided looking in. Naturally he had to go there now and then to buy the things they needed, but since he’d heard the gossip about his wife he tried to limit his visits as much as possible. If only he believed that there was no truth to it, he could have walked in there with his head held high. But he didn’t doubt the rumors for a minute, and even if he had, the shopkeeper’s superior smile would have been enough to convince him. Sometimes Anders wondered if there was any limit to how much he had to take. If it hadn’t been for the boys, he would have cleared out long ago. But he believed he had finally found another option. Anders had a plan. It had taken a year of hard work to carry it out, but now, as soon as some last pieces fell into place, he would be able to offer his family a new beginning, a chance to make everything right. Maybe then
he would then be able to clear the darkness from Agnes’s heart. Their new life would offer all of them so much more than this one.
He squeezed the boys’ hands and smiled at them when they tilted their heads back to look up at him.
‘Pappa, could we get a cola?’ said Johan hopefully, seeing his father’s good mood. Anders nodded his assent, and the boys whooped and jumped up and down in anticipation. Buying a couple of colas would necessitate a visit to the village shop, of course, but for his sons’ happiness it was worth it. Besides, soon he would be quit of all that.
Gösta sat in his office, slumped at his desk. The mood at the station had been tense since Patrik had discovered Ernst’s screw-up. Gösta shook his head. His colleague had made any number of mistakes over the years, but this time he’d gone too far in ignoring his most basic police duties. For the first time, Gösta believed that Ernst actually might be fired. Not even Mellberg could back him up after this.
Despondently he looked out of the window. This was the time of year he hated most. It was even worse than winter. He still had the memory of summer fresh in his mind, which meant he could still reel off the scores of pretty much every round of golf he’d played. By the time winter arrived, at least a merciful forgetfulness had begun to roll in, and he sometimes wondered whether he’d really made those perfect shots on the golf course, or whether it was all just a beautiful dream.
The telephone interrupted his ruminations.
‘Gösta Flygare.’
‘Hi, Gösta, it’s Annika. Look, I’ve got Pedersen on the line and he’s looking for Patrik, but I can’t get hold of him right now. Could you talk to Pedersen?’
The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime) Page 26