The Preacher

by Camilla Lackberg

  Patrik intervened before the situation had a chance to deteriorate. ‘We don’t care whether you’ve been seeing each other or how often, and as far as we’re concerned, you can keep that to yourself. But there is one occasion we are extremely interested in. Stefan said that you met one evening about two weeks ago, in the hayloft of the barn at Västergården.’

  Gabriel’s face turned beet-red with fury, but he said nothing as he waited for Linda’s reply.

  ‘That’s possible. We’ve met there several times, but I’m not sure exactly when.’

  She was still picking at her fingernails with great concentration and not looking at any of the grown-ups around her.

  Martin took up where Patrik had left off. ‘On this particular evening you saw something special, according to Stefan. You still don’t know what I mean?’

  ‘Since you seem to know, why don’t you tell me instead?’

  ‘Linda! Don’t make matters worse by talking back! Now please answer the officer’s questions. If you know what he’s talking about, then tell us. But if it’s something that that … hoodlum got you into, then I’m going to – ’

  ‘You? You don’t know shit about Stefan. You’re so fucking sanctimonious, but – ’

  ‘Linda …’ Laine’s voice warned her off. ‘Don’t make matters worse for yourself. Do as Pappa says and answer the policeman’s questions. Then we’ll talk about the rest later.’

  After pondering for a moment, Linda seemed to accept her mother’s reprimand and continued sulkily, ‘I assume that Stefan told you that we’d seen that girl?’

  ‘What girl?’ The question mark was evident on Gabriel’s face.

  ‘That German girl, the one who was murdered.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Stefan told us,’ said Patrik. He waited Linda out in silence.

  ‘I’m not as sure as Stefan was that it was her. We saw the photo on the flyers and it looked something like her, but there must be plenty of girls that look something like that. And what would she be doing at Västergården anyway? It’s not exactly on the tourist route.’

  Martin and Patrik ignored the question. They knew precisely what sort of business she had at Västergården. She was following the only clue she had that was linked to her mother’s disappearance – Johannes Hult.

  ‘Where were Marita and the children that night? Stefan said that they weren’t at home, but he didn’t know where they went.’

  ‘They were staying for a few days with Marita’s parents in Dals-Ed.’

  ‘Jacob and Marita do that occasionally,’ Laine explained. ‘When Jacob wants a little peace and quiet to do some carpentry on the house, she and the kids spend a few days with the children’s maternal grandparents. It gives them a chance to see each other a little more often. We live so close by that we see the children almost every day.’

  ‘Let’s forget whether it was Tanja Schmidt or not that you saw. But can you describe what the girl looked like?’

  Linda hesitated. ‘Dark hair, normal build. Shoulder-length hair. Like almost anybody. Not very pretty,’ she added with the superiority of someone who knows she was born good-looking.

  ‘And how was she dressed?’ Martin leaned forward to try and catch the teenager’s eye. He failed.

  ‘Well, I don’t really remember. It was about two weeks ago and it was getting dark outside …’

  ‘Try,’ Martin urged her.

  ‘Jeans, I think. Some sort of tight T-shirt and a jacket. Blue jacket and white T-shirt, I think, or was it the other way round? Oh, and a red shoulder bag.’

  Patrik and Martin exchanged glances. She had described exactly what Tanja was wearing the day she disappeared. The T-shirt was white and the jacket blue, not the other way round.

  ‘What time did the two of you see her?’

  ‘Fairly early in the evening, I think. About six, maybe.’

  ‘Did you see whether Jacob let her in the house?’

  ‘Nobody came to the door. Not when she knocked, at least. Then she went round the house and we couldn’t see her any longer.’

  ‘Did you see whether she left?’ said Patrik.

  ‘No, you can’t see the road from the barn either. And as I said, I’m not as sure as Stefan that the girl we saw was Tanja Schmidt.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who else it could have been? I mean, there aren’t very many strangers who come and knock on the door out here at Västergården, are there?’

  Another indifferent shrug. After a moment Linda said, ‘I have no idea who it might have been. For all I know, it could have been someone selling something.’

  ‘But Jacob didn’t mention a visitor later?’

  ‘No.’

  She didn’t embellish her answer, and both Patrik and Martin understood that she was considerably more worried about what she’d seen than she wanted to let on. Either to them or to her parents.

  ‘May I ask what it is you’re looking for?’ said Gabriel. ‘As I said before, I think this is beginning to look like harassment of my family. As if it’s not bad enough that you dug up my brother! How did that go, anyway? Was the coffin empty?’

  Gabriel’s tone was scornful, and Patrik couldn’t help taking the bite of his criticism personally.

  ‘We did find a body in the coffin. Probably your brother Johannes.’

  ‘Probably,’ Gabriel snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Are you going to start pestering poor Jacob too?’

  Laine shot her husband a dismayed look. Only now did she seem to understand the implications of the officers’ questions.

  ‘You don’t think that Jacob …’ Laine’s hands wandered up to her throat.

  ‘We don’t think anything just yet. But we’re extremely interested in finding out where Tanja went before she disappeared. So Jacob may be an important witness.’

  ‘Witness! You’re certainly trying to wrap things up nice and neat, I have to give you that. But don’t think for a moment that we’re going to fall for it. You’re trying to clear up what your clumsy-ass colleagues started in ’79, and it doesn’t matter who you throw in jail, as long as it’s a Hult, am I right? First you make it look like Johannes is still alive and started murdering girls here after twenty-four years. Then when he turns up dead as a doornail in his coffin, you start in on Jacob.’

  Gabriel stood up and pointed to the door. ‘Get out! I don’t want to see you here again unless you have the proper warrant and I’ve had a chance to ring my lawyer. Until then you can go to hell!’

  The curse words had begun to roll off his lips with ease, and a foam of spit had formed in the corners of his mouth. Patrik and Martin knew when their presence was no longer welcome, so they packed up and headed for the door. As the front door closed with a dull thud behind them, the last thing they heard was Gabriel’s voice yelling at his daughter, ‘Now what the hell have you been up to, young lady?’

  ‘Even in the calmest waters …’

  ‘Yes, I wouldn’t have believed that there was such a volcano smouldering beneath that surface,’ said Martin.

  ‘Although I can’t say that I blame him. Seen from his perspective …’ Patrik’s thoughts slipped away again to the morning’s monumental fiasco.

  ‘I told you not to think about that any more. You did the best you could. You can’t keep wallowing in self-pity forever,’ Martin said curtly.

  Patrik looked at him in astonishment. Martin saw the look and shrugged his shoulders in apology. ‘I’m sorry. The stress is starting to get to me too, I think.’

  ‘No, no. You’re quite right. This is no time to be feeling sorry for myself.’ He took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at his colleague. ‘And don’t ever apologize for being honest.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They rode in embarrassed silence for a moment. When they passed the Fjällbacka golf course Patrik lightened the mood by saying, ‘Aren’t you going to get that green club card soon, so we can go out and shoot a round?’

  Martin smiled impishly. ‘Are you sure you
dare? I might turn out to be a born golfer and mop the floor with you.’

  ‘I doubt it. I’m a bit of a talent with a golf ball.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to hurry, because there won’t be much time later for games.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Patrik looked truly baffled.

  ‘Maybe you forgot, but you’ve got a kid on the way in a couple of weeks. Then there won’t be much time left over for amusing yourself, you know.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll all work out. They sleep so much, those little babies, so we could probably squeeze in a round of golf. And Erica understands that I have to get out and do something on my own once in a while. We agreed on that when we decided to have a baby. We agreed to give each other space to do our own thing and not just be parents all the time.’

  By the time Patrik finished his sentence, Martin’s eyes were filled with tears of laughter. He chuckled and shook his head at the same time.

  ‘Oh sure, there’ll be plenty of time for you to do your own thing. They sleep so much, those little babies,’ Martin mimicked him. That made him laugh even more.

  Patrik, who knew that Martin’s sister had five kids, began to look a little worried. He wondered whether Martin knew something that he didn’t. But before he could ask, the mobile phone rang.

  ‘Hedström.’

  ‘Hello, it’s Pedersen. Is this a good time to talk?’

  ‘Actually, no. Hold on a second, I have to find someplace to park.’

  They were just approaching the Grebbestad campground, which made a dark cloud pass across Patrik’s face. He drove another couple of hundred metres until he came to the car park at Grebbestad Wharf. There he turned in and stopped so he could talk on the mobile.

  ‘Now I’m parked. Have you found anything?’

  He couldn’t hide the eagerness in his voice, and Martin watched him tensely. Outside, the car tourists were streaming past, going in and out of the shops and restaurants. Patrik looked with envy at their happy and unsuspecting faces.

  ‘Yes and no. We’re going in for a closer look now, but considering the circumstances I thought you might be glad to hear that something good has come of your exhumation order, which was somewhat hastily performed, as I understand it.’

  ‘Yes, I can’t deny that. I feel a bit of an idiot, so anything you’ve got would be of interest.’ Patrik held his breath.

  ‘First of all, we’ve checked the dental records, and the guy in the coffin is without a doubt Johannes Hult, so on that point I can’t give you anything interesting. On the other hand,’ and the pathologist couldn’t resist the temptation to pause for effect, ‘it’s pure nonsense that he was supposed to have died by hanging. His premature demise was more likely caused by something hard striking the back of his head.’

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’ Patrik yelled, making Martin jump. ‘What kind of hard object? Was he clubbed in the head, or what are you telling me?’

  ‘Something along those lines. But he’s lying on the postmortem table right now, so as soon as I know more I’ll ring you again. Until I have a chance to do a more detailed examination, that’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘Thank you for ringing so soon. Let me know as soon as you know more.’

  Triumphantly Patrik flipped shut the lid on his phone.

  ‘What did he say, what did he say?’ Martin was practically dying of curiosity.

  ‘That I’m not a total idiot.’

  ‘Well, it would take a psychiatrist to confirm something like that, but what else did he say?’ replied Martin dryly since he didn’t appreciate being kept on tenterhooks.

  ‘He said that Johannes Hult was murdered.’

  Martin bent his head forward and rubbed his face with both hands in mock despair. ‘I’m resigning from this sodding investigation. This is crazy. You’re telling me that the prime suspect for Siv and Mona’s disappearance, or death as it turns out, was himself murdered?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. And if Gabriel Hult thinks he can yell loud enough to make us stop rooting about in the family’s dirty laundry, he’s got another think coming. If there’s anything that proves they’ve got a skeleton in the closet, then this is it. One of them knows how and why Johannes was murdered, and how his death is connected to the murders of the girls, I’ll bet you that!’ He pounded his fist into his palm, indicating that the morning’s dismal events had now been replaced by renewed energy.

  ‘I just hope we can work it out quickly enough. For Jenny Möller’s sake,’ Martin said.

  His comment acted like a bucket of cold water over Patrik’s head. He mustn’t let his competitive instinct take over. He mustn’t forget why they were doing this job. They sat for a moment and watched the people passing by. Then Patrik started the car and drove off towards the station.

  Kennedy Karlsson believed that it had all started with his name. There wasn’t really much else to blame it on. Many of the other guys had good excuses; their parents drank and beat them. But he had only his name to blame, it seemed.

  His mother had spent a few years in the USA after she graduated. Back then it was still a big deal if somebody in the community went to the States. But in the mid-Thirties, when his mother made the trip, a ticket to the USA was no longer one-way. There were many people who had grown children who went off to the big cities of Sweden or abroad. The only thing that was different was that if someone left the security of the little town, tongues would wag, predicting that things were bound to turn out badly. And in his mother’s case, they had more or less been right. After a couple of years in the promised land, she came back with a baby in her belly.

  Kennedy Karlsson had never heard a word about his father. But even that wasn’t a good excuse. Just before he was born, his mother married Christer, and he’d been as good as a real father. No, it was all about the name. He assumed that she wanted to call attention to herself and show that she had been out in the big world, even though she came home with her tail between her legs. He would always be a reminder of that. So she never missed a chance to tell someone that her eldest son was named after John F. Kennedy, ‘because during her years in the USA she had admired that man so much’. He wondered why she couldn’t have simply named him John, in that case.

  His mother and Christer had given his siblings a better fate. For them it sufficed to be called Emelie, Mikael and Thomas. Ordinary, honest Swedish names, which made him stick out even more. The fact that his father had been black didn’t make matters any better, but Kennedy didn’t believe that was what made him so odd. He was convinced it was the fucking name.

  As a child he had actually looked forward to starting school. He remembered it well. The excitement, the joy, the eagerness to begin something new, to see a whole new world open up. It took only a day or two before they had pounded that enthusiasm out of him. Because of the bloody name. He soon learned what a sin it was to stick out from the crowd. A funny name, strange haircut, old-fashioned clothes, were all things that showed someone wasn’t like the others. In his case it was also regarded as an aggravating circumstance that he, according to the others, thought he was superior because he had such an odd name. As if he were the one who picked it. If he’d been able to choose, he would have wanted a typical Swedish name like Stefan or Oskar or Fredrik. Something that gave him automatic entry to the group.

  His hellish first days at school went from bad to worse. The taunts, the beatings, his outsider status all made him build a wall as strong as granite around himself. Soon his actions were affected by his thoughts. All the anger he had built up inside the wall began to escape like steam from little holes that got bigger and bigger until everyone could see his anger. By then it was too late. School was lost to him, as was his family’s confidence in him. And his friends were not the sort of friends he should have had.

  Kennedy himself had resigned himself to the fate that his name had bestowed upon him. ‘Problem’ was tattooed on his brow, and all he needed to do was live down to expectations. An easy but paradoxic
ally difficult way to live.

  All that changed when he reluctantly came to the farm in Bullaren. It was a condition of his probation after he was caught in the unfortunate theft of a car. At first his attitude was to offer the least possible resistance so he could get out of the place as soon as possible. Then he met Jacob. And through Jacob he met God.

  But in his eyes the two were nearly the same.

  It hadn’t happened through any miracle. He hadn’t heard a thundering voice from above, or seen a bolt of lightning strike at his feet to prove that God existed. Instead it happened through the hours he spent with Jacob and their conversations. Little by little, he saw the image of Jacob’s God appear. Like a puzzle that slowly takes the shape of the image shown on the outside of the box.

  At first Kennedy had resisted. He ran off and carried on with his mates. He got roaring drunk and was ignominiously dragged back. The next day with an aching head he encountered Jacob’s kind gaze which always, strangely enough, seemed to lack reproach.

  He had complained to Jacob about his name, explaining that his name was to blame for all the mistakes he’d made. Jacob had countered by explaining to him that his name was something positive and that was actually an indicator of how his life would go. His name was a gift, Jacob had explained. To receive from the first moment of his life such a unique identity could only mean that God had chosen him above all others. The name made him special, not odd.

  With the same enthusiasm that a starving man displays at the dinner table, Kennedy had clung to Jacob’s words. Slowly it dawned on him that Jacob was right. The name was a gift. It made him special and showed that God had a specific plan for him, Kennedy Karlsson. And he had Jacob Hult to thank for finding this out before it was too late.

  It bothered him that Jacob had been looking so worried lately. Kennedy hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the gossip about how the family was connected with the dead girls, and he thought he understood the reason for Jacob’s concern. He himself had felt the ill-will from a community out for blood. Now it was obviously the Hult family’s turn to be the target.