Preacher

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘No, my guess is that the last straw was when Johannes stole Pappa’s fiancée.’

  ‘What? Pappa was going to marry Solveig? That fat cow?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen pictures of Solveig from the old days? She was a reallooker, I have to tell you, and she and Pappa were engaged. But one day she told him that she was in love with Uncle Johannes and that she was going to marry him instead. I think that really devastated Pappa. You know how he hates any kind of disarray or drama in his life.’

  ‘Yes, that must have made him flip out completely.’

  Jacob got up from the table as if to signal that the conversation was over. ‘Well, that should be enough family secrets for now. But it should make you understand why things are a bit tense between Pappa and Solveig.’

  Linda giggled. ‘I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall when she showed up to chew Pappa out. What a circus that must have been.’

  Even Jacob showed a hint of a smile. ‘Yes, circus is probably the right word for it. But try to restrain your mirth when you see Pappa, all right? I don’t think he’ll see anything about it.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll be a good girl.’

  She set her plate in the dishwasher, thanked Marita for the meal, and went up to her room. It was the first time in ages that she and Jacob had laughed at anything together. He could be really pleasant if he only tried, thought Linda, adroitly ignoring the fact that she hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs in recent years.

  She picked up the phone and tried to get hold of Stefan. To her astonishment she realized that she actually cared about how he was doing.

  Laine was afraid of the dark. Terribly afraid. Despite all the evenings she had spent at the farm without Gabriel, she had never got used to it. Before, at least, she’d had Linda at home, and before that Jacob,but now she was all alone. She knew that Gabriel had to travel a good deal, yet she couldn’t help feeling bitter. This wasn’t the life she had dreamt of when she married into wealth. Not that the money was so important in and of itself; a sense of security was what enticed her. The security she found in Gabriel’s predictable nature and the security of knowing there was money in the bank. She wanted to lead a life completely different from her mother’s.

  As a girl she had lived in terror of her father’s drunken rages. He had tyrannized the whole family and turned his children into people who felt insecure and thirsted for love and tenderness. Of the three siblings, she was the only one left. Both her brother and her sister had succumbed to the darkness within them, one by turning the darkness inwards, the other by turning it outwards. Laine was the middle child who had done neither. She was merely insecure and weak. Not strong enough to act out her insecurity either internally or externally; she just left it to fester, year after year.

  This was most evident when she wandered alone through the silent rooms in the evenings. That was when she clearly recalled the stinking breath, the beatings and the clandestine caresses at night.

  She had truly believed that she had finally found the key to unlock the dark place inside her heart when she married Gabriel. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew that she was a consolation prize. He had settled for her because he couldn’t have the one he really wanted. But that made no difference. In away it was easier this way. There were no feelings that might ruffle the calm surface. Only boring predictability in the endless chain of days. She thought it was all she wanted. Thirty-five years later she knew how wrong she had been. Nothing was worse than being alone while married. That was what she got when she said ‘I do’ in Fjällbacka Church. They had lived parallel lives. Tended the farm, brought up their children, and talked about the wind and weather in the absence of other topics of conversation.

  She alone knew that there was another man inside Gabriel than the one he showed to the world every day. Over the years she had observed him, studying him in secret, and gradually she came to know the man he could have been. It astonished her what longing that had awakened inside her. Behind that boring, reserved exterior was a passionate man, but he was buried so deep that she didn’t think he even realized it himself. She saw a lot of anger gathering, but believed there was an equal amount of love, if only she’d had the ability to coax it forth.

  Even when Jacob lay sick they hadn’t been able to approach each other. Side by side they had sat with their son, assuming that Jacob was on his deathbed, and yet they could offer each other no consolation. She’doften had the feeling that Gabriel didn’t really want her there.

  Gabriel’s uncommunicativeness could be blamed in large part on his father. Ephraim Hult had been an imposing man who made everyone with whom he came in contact join one of two camps: friend or foe. No one was unimportant to the Preacher, but Laine understood how difficult it must have been to grow up in the shadow of such a man. His sons couldn’t have been more different. Johannes was like a big baby his entire life, brief though it was. He was a hedonist who took what he wanted and never paused long enough to notice the chaos he left in his wake. Gabriel had chosen the opposite course. Laine had seen how ashamed he was of his father and Johannes, of their sweeping gestures, their ability to shine like a beacon in any setting. Gabriel wanted to disappear behind an anonymity that would show the world that he had nothing in common with his father. Gabriel strove for respectability, order and justice more than anything else. He never talked about his childhood and the years he spent travelling with Ephraim and Johannes. Laine knew a little about it, though, and she understood how important it was for her husband to hide that part of his past, which was so discordant with the image he wanted to project to the outside world. The fact that it was Ephraim who had brought Jacob back to life had aroused mixed feelings in Gabriel. His joy at finding a way to vanquish Jacob’s illness had been clouded by the fact that it was his father, and not himself, who was the knight in shining armour who came to the rescue. He would have given anything for the chance to be his son’s hero.

  Laine’s meditations were interrupted by a sound from outside. Out of the corner of eye she saw a shadow, then two, rapidly passing through the garden. Terror seized her once again. She went searching for the cordless phone and managed to work herself into a panic before she finally found it in its place in the charger. With trembling fingers she dialed the number of Gabriel’s mobile. Something struck the window and she screamed. The window was shattered by a rock, which now lay among shards of glass on the floor. Another rock came through the window next to it. With a sob she dashed out of the room and upstairs, where she locked herself in the bathroom while she desperately waited to hear Gabriel’s voice. Instead she got the monotone of a phone voicemail, and she heard the terror in her own voice when she left an incoherent message for him.

  Shaking, she sat down on the floor with her arms tightly wrapped round her knees and listened for sounds outside the door. Nothing more was heard, but she didn’t dare budge from the spot.

  When morning came she was still sitting there.

  The ring of the telephone woke Erica. She glanced at the clock. Ten thirty in the morning. She must have dozed off after tossing and turning half the night, sweating and uncomfortable.

  ‘Hello.’ Her voice was heavy with sleep.

  ‘Hi, Erica. Sorry, did I wake you?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter, Anna. I shouldn’t be lying down to sleep in the middle of the morning like this anyway.’

  ‘Sure you should –sleep as much as you can. Soon sleep will be a luxury. How are you feeling, anyway?’

  Erica took a moment to grumble about all the hardships of pregnancy to her sister, who knew what Erica was talking about having two kids of her own.

  ‘You poor thing … the only consolation is that you know it will pass, sooner or later. How’s it going having Patrik around the house? Aren’t you getting on each other’s nerves? I remember that I just wanted to be left in peace the last few weeks.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I was almost climbing the walls, I have to admit. So I didn’t object too l
oudly when he got a homicide case and he had to go in and work.’

  ‘A murder case? What happened?’

  Erica told her about the young German woman who’d been murdered and the two missing women that were now found.

  ‘Jesus, that’s terrible.’ The connection crackled.

  ‘Where are you, anyway? Are you having a good time on the boat?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re having a great time. Emma and Adrian love it, and they’re going to be full-fledged sailors soon if Gustav has anything to say about it.’

  ‘Ah, Gustav. How’s it going between the two of you? Will he be ready to present to the family soon?’

  ‘That’s actually why I’m calling. We’re in Strömstad now and thought we’d sail down to your neck of the woods. Be sure to tell me if you’re not up for it –otherwise we planned to stop in Fjällbacka tomorrow and come by to say hello. We’re sleeping on the boat, so we won’t be any trouble. Just say the word if you think it’s too much. It would just be so great to see you.’

  ‘Of course you can come by. We’re having Dan and his girlfriend over for a barbecue tomorrow, so it’s no trouble to sling a couple of extra burgers on the grill.’

  ‘Oh, that’s cool, then I can finally meet the lambchop.’

  ‘Listen, Anna. Patrik has already been after me to be nice, so don’t you start in too …’

  ‘Okay, but it does require a little extra preparation. We have to check on what sort of music is in with the kids today and which styles are hot and whether flavoured lip gloss is still popular. Here’s the plan: if you check out MTV, I’ll pick up that teen magazine Weekly Review and do a little research. Is Starlet still publishing, do you think? If it is, that would probably be a good idea too.’

  Erica was holding her stomach, she was laughing so hard. ‘Stop it, I’m dying. Now be nice … You shouldn’t throw stones in glass houses, you know. We haven’t met Gustav, so as far as we know, he might be a real geek. You remember the pastor from that film, don’t you? The one who starts working with real lowlifes?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if “geek” is quite the right word I would associate with Gustav.’

  Erica could hear that her joking had made Anna turn grumpy. To think that her sister could be so thin-skinned.

  ‘I consider myself lucky that someone like Gustav, with his social standing, even looks in my direction, single mother and all. He could have his pick of the girls on the debutante list, yet he chose me, and I think that says a good deal about him.’

  Erica also thought that said a great deal about him, but unfortunately not in the way her sister had intended. Anna had never been a very good judge of men, and the way she was talking about Gustav sounded a bit worrisome. But Erica decided not to judge him in advance. Hopefully her misgivings would come to naught as soon as she had a chance to meet him.

  She said cheerfully, ‘When will you be here?’

  ‘Around four. Is that all right?’

  ‘That’s perfect.’

  ‘I’ll see you then. Hugs. Bye.’

  After Erica hung up she felt a bit concerned. There was something in Anna’s forced tone of voice that made her wonder how good her relationship with the fantastic, upper-class Gustav af Klint really was for Anna.

  She’d been glad when Anna divorced Lucas Maxwell, the children’s father. Anna had then gone back to her dream of studying art and antiquities, and she’d had the great good fortune to find a part-time job at the Stockholm Auction Association. That’s where she had met Gustav. He came from one of Sweden’s most blue-blooded families. He spent his time administering the familyestate in Hälsingland, which back in the sixteenth century had been conferred upon one of his ancestors by King Gustav Vasa. His family mixed socially with the royal family, and if his father was busy, Gustav instead would sometimes be sent the invitation to the King’s annual hunt. Awestruck, Anna had related all this to her sister. Erica felt a bit uneasy, having seen a bit too much of the upper-class louts who frequented the clubs around Stureplan. She had never met Gustav, so perhaps he was different from the rich heirs who, safe behind their wealth and titles, chose to behave like swine in places such as the Riche and the Spy Bar. She would find out tomorrow. She crossed her fingers that she was wrong and that Gustav would be of a completely different calibre. There was nobody who deserved happiness and stability more than Anna.

  Erica turned on the fan and thought about how she was going to spend her day. Her midwife had explained that the hormone oxytocin, more of which is secreted as a woman approaches the time of delivery, creates strong nesting instincts in pregnant women. That explained why Erica in recent weeks had been almost manically sorting, numbering and cataloguing everything in their home as if her life depended on it. She was obsessed with the idea that everything had to be ready and in order before the babyarrived. But now she had reached a stage where there wasn’t much more to organize in the house. The wardrobes were cleaned, the nursery was ready, and the silverware drawers had been tidied. The only thing left to put in order was the cellar, which was filled with junk. No sooner said than done. She got up, puffing, and resolutely stuck the table fan under her arm. She’d better hurry before Patrik discovered what she was doing.

  He’d taken a five-minute break to sit outside the police station and have a choc-ice, when Gösta stuck his head out of one of the open windows and shouted to him.

  ‘Patrik, there’s a call for you. I think you should take it.’

  Patrik quickly finished his Magnum and, went inside. He picked up the receiver on Gösta’s desk and was a little surprised to hear who it was. After a brief conversation while he jotted down some notes, he hung up. To Gösta, who had been watching him from his office chair, he said, ‘As you heard, somebody has broken the windows at Gabriel Hult’s house. Do you want to come along and take a look?’

  Gösta seemed surprised that Patrik asked him instead of Martin, but he nodded.

  As they came up the front drive a few minutes later, they couldn’t help emitting envious sighs. The manor house where Gabriel Hult resided was truly magnificent. It shimmered like a white pearl in the middle of all the greenery, and the alders lining the road to the house bent deferentially in the wind. Patrik thought that EphraimHult must have been a real genius of a preacher to be given such splendour.

  Even the crunching of the gravel beneath their feet as they walked up the path to the front steps sounded luxurious. He was very curious to see the inside of the house.

  It was Gabriel himself who opened the door. Both Patrik and Gösta wiped their feet carefully on the doormat before they entered the foyer.

  ‘Thanks for coming so quickly. My wife is very upset about all this. I was out of town on business last night, so she was at home alone when it happened.’

  As he spoke he led the way to a large, lovely room, with high windows that let in as much sunshine as possible. On a white sofa sat a woman with a worried expression on face. She rose to greet them as they entered the room.

  ‘Laine Hult. I’m grateful you could come so promptly.’

  She sat down again, and Gabriel motioned Patrik and Gösta to take a seat on the opposite sofa. Both of them felt slightly out of place. Neither of them dressed up to go to work so they were wearing shorts. Patrik at least had on a nice T-shirt, while Gösta was wearing a very old short-sleeved shirt made of some synthetic material with a mint-green pattern. The contrast was even greater since Laine was wearing a light dress in natural-coloured linen while Gabriel was dressed in a business suit. Must be hot, thought Patrik, hoping that Gabriel didn’t always have to wear clothes like that in the summer heat. But it was pretty hard to imagine him in anything less formal, and he didn’t even seem to be sweating in his dark-blue suit. Patrik, on the other hand, was getting wet under the arms just thinking about wearing that sort of outfit this time of year.

  ‘Your husband told me briefly on the phone what happened, but perhaps you could tell me in more detail?’

  Patrik gave Laine a reassur
ing smile as he took his little notebook and a pen. He waited.

  ‘Well, I was at home by myself yesterday. Gabriel is often out travelling, so there are quite a few solitary nights for me.’

  Patrik heard the sadness in her voice when she said that, and wondered whether Gabriel did too.

  ‘I know it’s foolish,’ she went on, ‘but I’m very afraid of the dark, so I usually stay in two rooms when I’m by myself, my bedroom and the TV room, which is right next door.’

  Patrik noticed that she said ‘my’ bedroom and couldn’t help reflecting on how deplorable it was that married couples didn’t even sleep in the same bed. That would never happen to him and Erica.

  ‘I was just about to ring Gabriel when I saw something moving outside. The next instant something came flying through one of the windows at the end of the house, to the left of where I was standing. I managed to see that it was a big rock before another one broke thewindow next to it. Then I heard only the sound of running feet outside, and I saw two shadows disappear at the edge of the forest.’

  Patrik took notes using brief keywords. Gösta hadn’t said a thing since they arrived, other than his name when he was introduced to Gabriel and Laine. Patrik gave him an enquiring look to see whether he wanted to have anything clarified regarding the incident, but he sat in silence, carefully studying his cuticles. I couldjust as well have brought along a doorstop, Patrik thought.

  ‘Do you have any idea of a possible motive?’

  The reply came quickly from Gabriel, almost as if he wanted to ward off something that Laine might say.

  ‘No, nothing other than good old envy. It has always been a thorn in the side that my family lives here at the manor, and we’ve experienced a number of drunken attacks over the years. Just innocent pranks. And that’s how this would have ended too, if my wife hadn’t insisted on calling in the police.’

  He cast an ill-humoured glance at Laine, who for the first time during the conversation showed a little energy and angrily glared back. The defiance of her action seemed to ignite a smouldering spark in her. To Patrik she said calmly, without even a glance at her husband, ‘I think you should have a talk with Robert and Stefan Hult, my husband’s nephews, and ask them where they were yesterday.’