The Hidden Child

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘Yes, you might say that. But it can get really cold in Oslo this time of year.’

  ‘Are you from around here?’ Axel hurried to ask the question before the guard decided to leave.

  The boy hesitated, uncertain whether to reply. He glanced around again, but no one was in sight or within earshot.

  ‘We’ve only been here a couple of years.’

  Axel decided on another question. ‘How long have I been here? It feels like an eternity.’ He laughed but was startled by how harsh and unfamiliar his laugh sounded. It had been a long time since he’d had anything to laugh about.

  ‘I don’t know if I should . . .’ The guard tugged at his uniform collar. He seemed not to feel comfortable yet in the compulsory attire. Over time he’d get used to it, Axel thought. He would learn to accept both the uniform and the way the prisoners were treated. It was human nature.

  ‘What difference will it make if you tell me how long I’ve been here?’ coaxed Axel. There was something extremely upsetting about being in this timeless state. Without clocks, dates, or weekdays around which he could order his life.

  ‘About two months. I’m not really sure.’

  ‘About two months. And this is Wednesday. With overcast skies. That’s good enough for me.’ Axel smiled at the boy and received a cautious smile in return.

  When the guard was gone, Axel sank down on his bunk with the tray on his lap. The food left a lot to be desired. The same slop every day. Potatoes fit for pigs, and disgusting stews. But that was undoubtedly part of their strategy to break down the prisoners. Listlessly he dipped the spoon into the grey mess in the bowl, but his hunger finally forced him to lift it to his mouth. He tried to pretend that he was eating his mother’s beef stew, but that just made matters worse, since his thoughts then strayed to things that he’d forbidden himself to think about: his home and his family, his mother and father and Erik. Suddenly even his hunger wasn’t strong enough; nothing could make him eat. He dropped the spoon in the bowl and leaned his head back against the rough wall. He could see them all quite clearly: his father with the big grey moustache that he meticulously combed every night before going to bed; his mother with her long hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and with her glasses perched on the very tip of her nose as she sat crocheting in the light from the reading lamp in the evenings. And Erik. Probably in his room with his nose in a book. What were they all doing? Were they thinking about him right now? How had his parents reacted to the news that he’d been taken prisoner? And Erik, who was so often silent, keeping his thoughts to himself. His brilliant intellect could analyse texts and facts with impressive speed, but he had a hard time showing his emotions. Once in a while, out of sheer cussedness, Axel would give his brother a big bear hug, just to feel his body go rigid with discomfort at being touched. But after a moment Erik would always relent; there would be a few seconds where he would relax and give in before snarling ‘Let me go’, and tearing himself away. Axel knew his brother so well. Much better than Erik would ever believe. He knew that Erik sometimes felt like an outsider in the family, that he thought he couldn’t compete with Axel. And now things were probably going to be even worse for him. Axel knew that concern for him was going to affect Erik’s daily life, that his brother’s place in the family was going to be even more diminished. He didn’t even dare think about how things would be for Erik if he died.

  Chapter 19

  ‘Hi, we’re home!’ Patrik closed the door and set Maja down on the floor in the hall. She immediately headed off, so he had to grab her jacket to stop her.

  ‘Just a minute, sweetie. We have to take off your shoes and jacket before you go running to see Mamma.’ He got her undressed and then let her go.

  ‘Erica? We’re home!’ he shouted. No reply, but when he stopped to listen, he heard a clacking sound from upstairs. He picked up Maja and went up to Erica’s workroom, setting the little girl down on the floor.

  ‘Hi. So this is where you are.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve rattled off quite a few pages today. And then Anna came over and we had coffee.’ Erica smiled at Maja and held out her arms to her daughter. Maja toddled over to press a wet kiss on Erica’s lips.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. What have you and Pappa been doing today?’ She rubbed her nose against Maja’s, and the little girl gurgled with delight. Eskimo kisses were their speciality. ‘You’ve been gone a long time,’ said Erica, shifting her attention back to Patrik.

  ‘Well, I had to jump in and do a little work,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘The new officer seems great, but they hadn’t really thought through all the angles, so I drove over to Fjällbacka with them to make a house call, which gave us a lead so we were able to pinpoint the two-day time frame when Erik Frankel was most likely murdered . . .’ He trailed off mid-sentence when he saw Erica’s expression, realizing that he should have given it more thought before he opened his mouth.

  ‘And where was Maja while you “jumped in to do a little work”?’ asked Erica with ice in her voice.

  Patrik squirmed. This would be a good time for the smoke alarm to go off. But no such luck. He took a deep breath and launched right in.

  ‘Annika took care of her for a while. At the station.’ He couldn’t understand why it sounded so bad when he said it out loud. Until now it hadn’t even occurred to him that it might not be such a good idea.

  ‘So Annika took care of our daughter at the police station while you drove out on a job for a couple of hours? Am I understanding this correctly?’

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ said Patrik, searching frantically for a way to turn the situation to his advantage. ‘She had a great time. She had a big lunch, and then Annika went for a walk with her so she fell asleep in the pushchair.’

  ‘I’m sure that Annika did a super job as the babysitter. That’s not the point. What makes me upset is the fact that we agreed you would take care of Maja while I worked. It’s not that I expect you to spend every minute with her until January; of course we’ll need babysitters once in a while. But I think it’s a bit much to start leaving Maja with the station secretary so you can run off on a job after only one week of paternity leave. What do you think?’

  Patrik wondered for a second whether Erica’s question was purely rhetorical, but when she seemed to be waiting for him to answer, he realized that wasn’t the case.

  ‘Well, now that you put it that way, I . . . okay, it was a stupid thing to do. But they hadn’t even checked to see if Erik had . . . and I got so involved that . . . All right, it was stupid!’ he concluded his confused excuse. He ran his hand through his hair, making it stick straight up.

  ‘From now on. No working. Promise me. Just you and Maja. Now give me a thumbs up.’ He stuck up both thumbs, trying to look as trustworthy as he could.

  Erica let out a big sigh and got up from her chair. ‘Okay, sweetie, it doesn’t look as if you’ve suffered any. Shall we forgive Pappa and go downstairs to fix dinner?’ Maja nodded. ‘Pappa can cook carbonara for us, to make up for today,’ said Erica, heading downstairs, balancing Maja on her hip. Maja nodded eagerly. Pappa’s carbonara was one of her favourite dishes.

  ‘So did you reach any conclusions?’ asked Erica later as she sat at the kitchen table watching Patrik fry bacon and boil water for the spaghetti. Maja was installed in front of the TV watching Bolibompa, so the adults had some peace and quiet to themselves.

  ‘He most likely died sometime between the fifteenth and the seventeenth of June.’ Patrik moved the bacon around in the pan. ‘Damn it!’ Some of the grease spattered his arm. ‘That hurts! Good thing I don’t fry bacon naked.’

  ‘You know what, darling? I agree. It’s a good thing you don’t fry bacon naked.’ Erica gave him a wink, and he went over to kiss her on the lips.

  ‘So I’m your “darling” again, eh? Does that mean I’m out of the doghouse?’

  Erica pretended to think about it for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but you might be soon. If the carbonara is really good,
I might reconsider.’

  ‘So how was your day?’ asked Patrik, returning to his cooking. He cautiously lifted out the pieces of bacon and placed them on a paper towel to absorb the grease. The trick to making a good carbonara was really crisp bacon; there was nothing worse than limp bacon.

  ‘Where should I begin?’ said Erica, sighing. First she told him about Anna’s visit and her problems as the stepmother to a teenager. Then she recounted what had happened when she went to see Britta. Patrik put down the spatula and stared at her in surprise.

  ‘You went over to her house to ask her questions? And the old woman has Alzheimer’s? No wonder her husband yelled at you. I would have too.’

  ‘Oh, thanks a lot. Anna said the same thing, so I’ve heard enough criticism about that, thank you very much.’ Erica sulked. ‘I didn’t actually know about her condition when I went over there.’

  ‘So what did she say?’ asked Patrik, putting spaghetti into the boiling water.

  ‘You realize that’s enough for a small army, right?’ Erica said when she saw that he’d put almost two-thirds of the packet into the pot.

  ‘Am I cooking dinner or are you?’ said Patrik, pointing the spatula at her. ‘Okay, so what did she say?’

  ‘Well, first of all it seems that they spent a lot of time together when they were young, Britta and my mother. Apparently they were a close-knit group, the two of them and Erik Frankel and somebody named Frans.’

  ‘Frans Ringholm?’ asked Patrik as he stirred the spaghetti.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s his name. Frans Ringholm. Why? Do you know him?’ Erica gave him a quizzical look, but Patrik just shrugged.

  ‘Did she say anything else? Has she had any contact with Erik or Frans? Or Axel, for that matter?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Erica. ‘It didn’t seem as though any of them had kept in touch with each other, but I could be wrong.’ She frowned, rerunning the conversation in her mind. ‘There was something . . .’ she said hesitantly.

  Patrik stopped stirring as he waited for her to go on.

  ‘She said something . . . something about Erik and “old bones”. About how they should be left in peace. And that Erik had said . . . No, then she slipped into a fog and I couldn’t understand anything else. She was really confused, so I don’t know how much weight to attach to what she said. It was probably just nonsense.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Patrik. ‘Not necessarily. That’s the second time today I’ve heard those words in connection with Erik Frankel. Old bones . . . I wonder what it could mean?’

  And as Patrik pondered, the pasta water started to boil over.

  Frans had carefully prepared before the meeting. The board convened once a month, and there were numerous issues they needed to discuss. It would soon be an election year, and their biggest challenge lay ahead of them.

  ‘Is everyone here?’ He glanced around the table, silently surveying the other five board members. They were all men. Equality between the sexes hadn’t yet reached the neo-Nazi organizations. And presumably it never would.

  The premises in Uddevalla had been leased from Bertolf Svensson, and they were now seated in the basement room of the block of flats that he owned. The space was otherwise used as a community hall, and there were still traces of the party that one of the tenants had held over the weekend. The group also had access to an office in the same building, but it was small and ill-suited to board meetings.

  ‘They haven’t cleaned up properly. I’m going to have a talk with them when we’re done here,’ muttered Bertolf, kicking an empty beer bottle and sending it rolling across the floor.

  ‘Let’s call this meeting to order,’ said Frans sternly. They didn’t have time for superfluous chatter. ‘How far along are we with the preparations?’

  Frans turned to Peter Lindgren, the youngest member of the board. In spite of Frans’s loudly voiced objections, he’d been chosen to coordinate the campaign efforts. He simply didn’t trust the man. Only last summer Lindgren had been in jail for assaulting a Somali at the marketplace in Grebbestad, and Frans didn’t believe he’d be able to maintain his composure to the degree that would now be necessary.

  As if to confirm Frans’s suspicions, Peter evaded the question and said instead: ‘Have you heard what happened in Fjällbacka?’ He laughed. ‘Someone apparently decided to do away with Frankel – that fucking traitor to his race.’

  ‘Since I assume that none of us had anything to do with that, I suggest we get back to the agenda at hand,’ said Frans, fixing his eyes on Peter. For a moment the two men fought a silent battle for power.

  Then Peter looked away. ‘We’re making good progress. We’ve brought in some new recruits, and we’ve made sure that everyone, new and old, is prepared to do some of the footwork to spread our message over a wide area leading up to the election.’

  ‘Good,’ said Frans curtly. ‘What about the registration of the party? Has that been done? And the ballots?’

  ‘All under control.’ Peter drummed his fingers on the table, clearly annoyed at being interrogated like a schoolboy. Unable to resist a dig at Frans, he added: ‘So it looks as though you couldn’t protect your old pal. What was so important about that old guy that you thought it was worth sticking your neck out for him? People have been talking about it, you know. Questioning your loyalty.’

  Frans stood up and glared at Peter. Werner Hermansson, who was sitting on the other side of Frans, took hold of his arm. ‘Don’t listen to him, Frans. And for God’s sake, Peter, take it easy. This is ridiculous. We should be talking about how to proceed, not sitting here flinging shit at each other. Okay now, shake hands.’ Werner looked first at Peter, then at Frans. Aside from Frans, he was the longest-serving member of Sweden’s Friends; he’d also known Frans longer than any of the others. It was Peter’s welfare and not Frans’s that he was looking out for now. He’d seen what Frans was capable of.

  For a moment everything hung in the balance. Then Frans sat down.

  ‘At the risk of sounding repetitive, I will again suggest that we return to the agenda. Any objections? Are there any other extraneous subjects that we need to waste time on? Well?’ He stared at each of the board members until they looked away. Then he went on:

  ‘It seems that most of the practical matters are falling into place. That being the case, shall we move on and talk about the issues that should form the party platform? I’ve been listening to what people have to say here in town, and I really think we can win a seat on the municipal council this time around. People realize how lax the national government and the county have been with regard to immigration issues. They can see how their jobs are going to non-Swedes. They can see how the municipal finances are being squandered on social services handouts to that same group. There is widespread dissatisfaction about how things are being run at local level, and that’s what we need to exploit.’

  Frans’s mobile rang shrilly in his trouser pocket. ‘Shit! Sorry, I forgot to switch it off. Just a second.’ He took out the phone and glanced at the display. He recognized the number. Axel’s home phone. He turned off his mobile without answering.

  ‘Sorry. Okay, now where were we? Oh, right. We have a fantastic opportunity to exploit the ignorance that the town has demonstrated with regard to the refugee problem.’

  Frans continued to talk as everyone around the table looked at him attentively. But his thoughts were racing in a completely different direction.

  The decision to skip his maths class was a no-brainer. If there was one subject he never even considered showing up for, it was maths. There was something about numbers and all that stuff that made his skin crawl. He just didn’t get it. His mind turned to mush the minute he tried to add or subtract. And what good was arithmetic to him anyway? He was never going to become one of those finance guys, so it would be a complete waste of time.

  Per lit another cigarette as he surveyed the school playground. The others had left for Hedemyr’s for a spot of shoplifting, but he had
n’t felt like going along. He’d stayed over at Tomas’s place last night, and they’d played Tomb Raider until five in the morning. His mother kept ringing his mobile until finally he switched it off. He would have preferred to stay in bed, but Tomas’s mother had thrown him out when she left for work, so they’d come over here to the school, for want of a better idea.

  Right now he was feeling really, really bored. Maybe he should have gone with the rest of the gang after all. He got up from the bench to saunter after them, but then sat down again when he saw Mattias come out of the school with that stupid bird in tow, the one everybody was always running after for some reason. He’d never understood why they thought Mia was so hot. He didn’t go for that innocent-looking blonde type.

  He pricked up his ears to listen in on what they were saying. Mattias was doing most of the talking, and it must be something interesting because Mia was hanging on every word, looking at him with those eyes of hers, baby-blue behind all the make-up. As they came closer, Per could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. He sat very still. Mattias was so focused on getting into Mia’s knickers that he didn’t even notice Per.

  ‘You should have seen how white Adam went when he saw him. But I realized immediately what had to be done and told Adam to back out of there so we wouldn’t disturb any evidence.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Mia admiringly.

  Per laughed to himself. Jesus, Mattias was really laying it on thick to get her in the sack. Her knickers were probably wet.

  ‘. . . And the cool thing is that nobody else dared go over there. Some of the others talked about it, but we all know it’s one thing to talk about something, and another to actually do it.’

  Per had heard enough. He leapt up from the bench and ran towards Mattias. Before Mattias knew what was happening, Per had flung himself at the boy from behind and knocked him to the ground. Per sat on his back, twisting his arm up until Mattias screamed with pain, and then he grabbed hold of his hair. That pathetic surfer hairstyle was made to be yanked. Then Per very deliberately lifted Mattias’s head and slammed it against the asphalt. He ignored the fact that Mia was screaming a few metres away. As she ran off to the school for help, Per slammed Mattias’s head against the hard surface again.