Guiltless

by Sten, Viveca

  Grief and bitterness over his wife’s metamorphosis overshadowed everything, and Gottfrid blamed his son for the change in Vendela. Before the child was born, he’d had such high hopes, but the dream of a happy family remained just that—a dream. Neither his wife nor his son met his expectations.

  Thorwald was shy and avoided his father. He kept to himself in the kitchen playing with his toys, mostly sticks and pinecones he’d found in the forest. He absolutely adored a bark boat that his maternal grandfather had made him. They had gone out together one sunny spring day to search for a particularly fine piece of bark, then his grandfather had sat in the sunshine whittling away.

  Vendela’s parents came to visit occasionally, but they didn’t stay long. Their life on Möja didn’t allow for protracted absences; they had animals to care for, the harvest to bring in, and there wasn’t much time left over for excursions to see an unhappy daughter on Sandhamn. Besides which they had five other children, three of whom were still on Möja.

  One day Gottfrid’s father-in-law had taken him aside and made a clumsy attempt to talk to him.

  “She wasn’t very happy when she was a girl, you know,” he said, fumbling with his pipe. The white calluses stood out on the rough hands. “Sometimes she would cry for weeks for no reason. Mother thought we should just let her carry on. It will pass, that’s what she always said.” He pushed a little more tobacco into his pipe. “You’ll see, things will get better.”

  He sucked at the pipe, then shook his head.

  “None of our other children are like Vendela. But she was so beautiful, we were sure everything would sort itself out. Especially when she was old enough to be married, and met you. A wife and mother doesn’t have time for such silliness.”

  The anxiety was clear in his eyes, which were surrounded by deep lines. He was fifty years old, but he could just as easily have been sixty-five.

  Gottfrid didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say. Vendela drifted around the house like a shadow. Most of the time she avoided looking him in the eye. The pretty young girl who had stolen his heart at the midsummer dance no longer existed.

  The long fair curls were tied in a bun at the back of her neck and the rest plastered to her scalp, mercilessly exposing how much hair she had lost during her pregnancy. She still looked pregnant; her belly was swollen, her heavy breasts sagged. Those pretty features had disappeared.

  Gottfrid was filled with revulsion as he watched her waddling around. Why couldn’t she pull herself together? Why had he been unlucky enough to pick a useless wife?

  When he reached for her in the darkness, she obliged. Without a sound, without a movement. He grew accustomed to taking what he needed. Vendela wept afterward, but he grew accustomed to that as well. After all, she cried most of the time anyway.

  One day, Gottfrid got home from work unusually late. There had been many issues to deal with. The war brought with it various directives from Stockholm, and this time, a long document outlining new rules had arrived. His superiors were worried because several weeks had passed since the revised procedures had been introduced, and it had taken time to make the necessary adjustments. Admittedly this was because they had known nothing about the changes, but such excuses rarely cut it with the authorities.

  Gottfrid was very tired by the time he opened the door, but not so tired that he didn’t notice his son slinking away at the sound of his footsteps.

  “Thorwald,” he called. “Aren’t you going to come and say hello?”

  The boy approached him with caution. He rarely sought his father’s company, preferring to hide behind his mother’s skirts.

  The child’s behavior irritated Gottfrid. He would not tolerate his firstborn growing up a mama’s boy. When he was Thorwald’s age his own father had already begun to show the first signs of his illness, and Gottfrid had had to start helping out around the house.

  Vendela was standing at the stove with her back to them. She had barely looked up when her husband walked in.

  Gottfrid softened his tone. “Come to Daddy,” he cajoled, taking a few steps forward. Something crunched beneath his boot. He looked down and realized he had stepped on the beloved bark boat.

  Utter devastation was etched on Thorwald’s little face; his frozen expression suggested that he had just witnessed a terrible tragedy.

  The boat was in pieces, and the mast had snapped off; it was beyond repair. Gottfrid scraped the bits together with his foot and dropped the lot in the garbage pail.

  The boy still hadn’t said a word, but his lower lip was trembling. Fat tears were caught in his pale eyelashes.

  “We’ll make you a new boat,” Gottfrid said, trying to smooth over his faux pas. “Or we’ll ask Grandpa to make one next time he comes to see us.”

  Thorwald still didn’t say anything, but the tears poured down his cheeks, and his whole body was shaking. He was crying exactly like Vendela did, silent and terrified, and Gottfrid couldn’t stand it.

  “Don’t cry. There’s nothing to get upset about.”

  He turned away and took off his uniform coat. He spent a minute or so hanging it up neatly, then turned back to his son.

  Thorwald hadn’t moved and was staring at his father like he was the devil incarnate. The loathing in his eyes sent Gottfrid into a rage, as if a match had been put to a bonfire on Walpurgis Night.

  “Stop it!” he roared, slamming his fist down on the kitchen table.

  Vendela stiffened and Thorwald inhaled sharply, as if he really was trying to calm down. His body shuddered, and the tears kept on squeezing their way out. A string of snot dangled from his nose.

  Gottfrid was furious. He was tired and hungry, it had been a trying day, and he had no intention of putting up with this nonsense.

  “Stop that right now!” he bellowed, raising a warning hand—a gesture with which Vendela was very familiar by now. It was usually enough to make her do what he wanted; Gottfrid didn’t make empty threats.

  And yet, this time he hesitated. He had never struck his son, but this defiance must be quashed. A boy of his age shouldn’t be mewling like a girl. It was only a toy boat, after all.

  “For the last time—stop that!”

  Thorwald let out a hiccupping sob, and that was enough for Gottfrid to lose control. The blow made the child lose his balance; he fell over and lay there on the floor. Vendela cried out; she ran over to her son and knelt down beside him, whimpering. She put her arms around him, glaring reproachfully at her husband.

  “Leave him alone! Don’t you touch him!” she shouted.

  Gottfrid gave her a hard shove.

  “Shut your mouth. Boys don’t cry—that’s what girls do.” He turned to Thorwald. “Are you a girl?”

  He seized the boy’s wrist and tore him away from Vendela. He dragged him over to the closet in the corner of the room, where his mother had kept the clothes belonging to his sister, who had died at the age of eight. Incandescent with rage, he grabbed a pale blue dress and forced it over Thorwald’s head. The child had stopped crying, but was staring at his father in sheer terror. Vendela was still on her knees, swaying back and forth with her hands pressed to her belly.

  Roughly, Gottfrid yanked the dress down over the skinny body, then adjusted the frill.

  “If you behave like a girl, you can dress like a girl.”

  He flung the front door open. The bright evening sun took them all by surprise. Thorwald blinked; he seemed totally confused, as if he had no idea where he was.

  The sound of the neighbor children playing outside filtered into the room. Instinctively Thorwald pressed his back against the wall, looking around like an animal desperate for somewhere to hide.

  Gottfrid was having none of it. He took his son by the shoulders and pushed him out onto the steps.

  “Don’t come back until you can behave like a normal boy.”

  The door slammed shut. He turned to Vendela, who was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. Her red-rimmed eyes did nothing to improve his mood
.

  “What are you gaping at? The child needs discipline. If you can’t provide it, then it’s up to me.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table. He knew he had acted in haste, but what was done was done, and the boy had to be taught right from wrong. Vendela’s constant weeping was no good for him; it was making him weak.

  Thorwald must be hardened, just as he himself had been hardened when he was young.

  CHAPTER 14

  They were planning on traveling back to the mainland on a police motorboat, which would take them to Stavsnäs.

  The doctor had given Marianne Rosén something to calm her down, and she had gone home with her husband, Anders, who arrived shortly after his wife. Ashen-faced, he too had identified the watch on the pathetic little wrist. It was Lina’s birthday watch; they could confirm it with the inscription on the back.

  The area would need to remain cordoned off for some time. And Margit and Thomas knew the entire island would have to be searched again. Which wouldn’t be easy, Thomas thought grimly. The ground was frozen and covered in a thick layer of snow.

  Staffan Nilsson, a forensic technician Thomas had worked with on several occasions, had taken him aside while Margit was comforting Lina’s mother.

  “It looks like the hole was dug before the temperature dropped below freezing,” Nilsson said, squatting down at the makeshift grave. “As you can see, the bottom is frozen. It would be almost impossible for anyone to dig when it’s this cold.”

  He pointed to the uneven sides, where traces that could have been claw marks were just visible.

  “I think the murderer buried the bag before the frost penetrated the ground. Then an animal came along, a fox maybe, picked up the scent, and dug it up. Again, must’ve been before the dirt froze. And you see those roots? That’s probably why the perp couldn’t dig any deeper. The whole island is crisscrossed with undergrowth; hard to get anywhere with only a spade.”

  “So he had to give up?”

  “Well, he didn’t make any effort to go deeper. Maybe he misjudged how tricky it would be. Anyway, the shallow hole explains how predators got at the bag.”

  He waved toward the arm, still lying on the tarpaulin behind them.

  “It looks like there was more in the bag,” Nilsson went on. “Obviously we need to carry out a detailed examination, but if I’m right, it could have contained other body parts, which might have been taken by the fox.”

  Thomas pushed away the image of a predator gnawing at the young girl’s remains, but if Nilsson’s theory held, it would explain why Adam had gotten his foot stuck. An animal had dug out the hole the murderer had tried to fill, then the snow had covered the traces. Until the boy stumbled upon the hiding place.

  But in that case, where was the rest of Lina Rosén?

  “From a purely theoretical point of view, of course, she could still be alive,” Nilsson pointed out. “A forearm is not a vital organ; people can survive perfectly well without one, or indeed both.”

  “You think someone chopped off her arm and has kept her hidden for all these months?” There was no mistaking the skepticism in Thomas’s voice.

  “That’s not what I said.” Nilsson sounded offended, as if he’d offered important information and expected praise rather than doubt. “I just wanted to stress that the loss of a limb is not in itself a cause of death. I’m sure the pathologist will make the same observation in his autopsy report.”

  Thomas knew he was right. They couldn’t be absolutely certain that Lina was dead until they found more body parts, or unless the report confirmed that the arm had been removed after death. Still, it was difficult to believe she was still alive.

  “Hard to imagine she could be hidden on the island, particularly with such a severe injury.”

  “No, but it’s theoretically possible,” Nilsson persisted.

  “So why chop off one arm? And why bury it?”

  “You’re the detective.”

  Thomas rubbed his cold hands together, hoping to regain some feeling. His fingers were like lumps of ice inside his gloves. He studied the hole for a few minutes longer, his mind wandering.

  “Can you tell me anything about the time frame?”

  “It’s tricky,” Nilsson said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But as I said, the hole was dug before the temperature fell below freezing.”

  “The cold set in pretty late last year,” Thomas said. “Around Christmas, if I remember correctly. I know it rained in the middle of December.”

  “When did the girl disappear?”

  “She was reported missing on November 4.”

  “In that case, the murderer had six weeks to bury her. Maybe he was cold-blooded enough to wait until the searches ended before he got to work.”

  “Why here?” Thomas wondered, looking around him. “Why not put a heavy stone in the sack and dump it in the sea?” He was surprised at how dense and extensive the forest was, given that they were on an island. There were no buildings in sight, and the spot felt pretty desolate; in fact, it was easy to imagine that they were all alone on Sandhamn.

  Nilsson shook his head. “Who knows how crazy people think. Whoever did this wasn’t right in the head, that’s for sure.” He took out a tin of snuff and tucked a plug under his top lip. “Maybe he thought it was simpler just to head into the forest and dig a hole where no one could see him. Or maybe his conscience was bothering him, and he decided to give the girl a burial.”

  “Parts of her, you mean,” Thomas said, immediately regretting his acidic response.

  “Well, remember, we don’t know how much of the body was in the bag to begin with. But even if he did divide her up among several bags, that’s hardly surprising. Even this poor kid must have weighed at least a hundred pounds. That’s heavy for anyone. The perp might have realized he needed to dismember the body in order to move it.”

  “You could be right. Anyway, we need to get a new search under way.”

  “Maybe try other locations,” Nilsson suggested. “If the perp found it was too hard to dig here, he probably went to different parts of the island to bury the rest.”

  “Closer to the shore,” Thomas speculated. “It would be easier to dig deep holes in the sand than in the middle of the forest.” He rubbed his hands together in another vain attempt to increase his circulation.

  “When did you actually stop looking for Lina?”

  Thomas thought for a moment. They had searched the entire island intensively for a couple of days, then the police team had left. Thomas had gently explained to Lina’s parents that there was nothing more they could do—they couldn’t justify continuing the search.

  “After a few days,” he said.

  Thomas tried without success to think of a suitable hiding place. Sandhamn was a small island, not a dense city where years could go by without someone being found. Was it really possible that Lina had been here all along? In a way, he hoped not. He wanted to believe that a longer search wouldn’t have made any difference. It was hard to face the alternative: that her life could have been saved if the police had acted differently.

  Staffan Nilsson interrupted his train of thought.

  “We’ll see what the autopsy tells us. The forensics lab is fantastic; they can usually eliminate a lot of question marks.”

  Thomas nodded, then he crouched down and stared at the dark, frozen earth where the remains of Lina Rosén had been concealed beneath a blanket of snow.

  How could a young girl have become the object of such violent rage? And who could have been so angry?

  CHAPTER 15

  The metallic sound of the prerecorded answering service. Nora waited until she reached a real person.

  “St. Erik’s Psychology and Trauma Clinic.”

  “Could I speak to Annie Widell, please?”

  When they had gotten home from the forest, Nora had made hot chocolate and defrosted cinnamon buns in the microwave. She’d called and told Thomas what they’d seen, and he had promised to drop by later to speak w
ith the boys.

  She had done her best to make everything seem normal and secure. She had made a fire in the white-tiled stove in the living room and lit candles so that it would feel safe and snug. They played Monopoly to take their mind off things, getting absorbed in the battle to buy Norrmalmstorg and Kungsgatan, arguing gleefully over the best Chance card.

  Now Adam and Simon were watching an American superhero movie, and Nora had taken her cell phone into the bedroom so they wouldn’t overhear her conversation.

  “Hello? This is Annie Widell.”

  Nora could have wept with relief. If Annie hadn’t been available, she didn’t know what she would have done. Her friend, a trained psychologist, was exactly the person to talk to.

  “It’s Nora.” She couldn’t suppress a sob.

  “What on earth’s the matter, Nora? Are you crying?”

  Nora gripped her phone and tried to pull herself together. Her voice only just held.

  “Something terrible has happened.”

  In a series of disjointed phrases, she described events in the forest that morning. She also told Annie about Henrik and the divorce, and why it seemed impossible to go back to the house in town right now.

  “It sounds like a shocking experience,” her friend replied, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to cause psychological trauma.”

  “What if the boys are damaged for life?” Nora managed to ask. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Calm down.” Annie immediately adopted a composed, professional tone. “The incident is overwhelming, of course, and it’s very unfortunate that the children found the bag. However, it takes a lot for something like this to develop into a trauma.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An experience that’s too hard to process can become a trauma in the long term, particularly if it’s accompanied by a sense of impotence—inability to influence the situation. You could say the mind’s protective mechanism gets overloaded, which triggers a reaction.”

  There was a brief silence, then Annie went on.

  “But you say Simon voluntarily told you what had happened, and so did Adam?”