The Girl in the Woods (Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 10)

by Camilla Lackberg

  Helen nodded.

  ‘Our son. He’s fifteen. He was probably up late, playing loud music on his earphones. And once he does fall asleep, nobody can wake him.’

  ‘So none of you heard a thing?’

  Paula knew she sounded sceptical, but she couldn’t hide her surprise.

  ‘No. At least, not as far as I know. James and Sam didn’t say anything about it this morning.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Paula. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that we’ll need to speak to your husband and son too.’

  ‘Of course. They’re not home right now, but you can come back or phone.’

  Paula nodded.

  ‘Did you see Linnea at all yesterday?’

  Helen paused to think as she studied her fingernails, which were not manicured or polished. She had the hands of someone who frequently dug in the soil and pulled weeds.

  ‘I don’t remember seeing her. I go for a run every morning, and if she’s outside, she usually waves. I think she waves to everybody who passes by. But I don’t think I saw her yesterday. I’m not sure. I can’t really remember. I’m very focused when I’m running. I get into the zone, I’m in a world of my own.’

  ‘Do you run for exercise, or do you compete in races?’ asked Martin.

  ‘I run marathons,’ she told him.

  That explained why she looked so thin and trim. Paula tried not to think about all the extra kilos she was carrying. Every Monday morning she thought about working out and changing her diet, but taking care of two small children plus working as a police officer, she never had enough time or energy. And she didn’t feel especially motivated, since she knew Johanna loved her the way she was, love handles and all.

  ‘So you ran past their farm yesterday?’ asked Martin.

  Helen nodded.

  ‘I always take the same route. Except on my two rest days, when I don’t run at all. But that’s Saturday and Sunday.’

  ‘And you don’t recall seeing Nea?’ Paula repeated.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Helen frowned.

  ‘How … what …?’ she began, then fell silent for a moment before trying again. ‘How did she die?’

  Paula and Martin exchanged glances.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ he said.

  Helen again raised her hand to her throat.

  ‘Poor Eva and Peter. I don’t know them very well, but they’re our closest neighbours, so we do talk now and then. Was it an accident?’

  ‘No,’ said Paula, carefully watching Helen’s reaction. ‘Nea was murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘A little girl the same age, from the same farm? I can understand why you’re here.’

  ‘Actually, we came here by chance,’ said Martin honestly. ‘We were planning to speak to the nearest neighbours, to find out if anyone saw anything. We didn’t know you lived here.’

  ‘I thought I remembered hearing that your parents sold their house and moved away,’ said Paula.

  ‘Yes, they did,’ said Helen. ‘They sold the house right after the trial and moved to Marstrand. But the person who bought it, James, was a good friend of my father. And well, when James and I got married, he wanted us to live here.’

  ‘Where is your husband?’ asked Paula.

  ‘He’s out doing errands,’ she said, shrugging.

  ‘And your son?’ asked Martin. ‘Sam?’

  ‘I have no idea. It’s the summer holidays. He was gone when I came home from my run, and his bicycle was gone too. So he probably biked into town to see some friends.’

  For a moment no one spoke. Helen looked at Paula and Martin, her eyes flashing.

  ‘Is everybody … is everybody going to think we did it?’

  She moved her hand from her throat to her hair.

  ‘The newspapers? People will … I assume the whole thing is going to start all over again.’

  ‘We’re looking at all possibilities,’ said Paula, feeling some sympathy for the woman sitting across from them.

  ‘Have you been in contact with Marie since she came back?’ asked Martin.

  He couldn’t help asking the question, even though he knew they should wait with any further questions regarding the old case.

  ‘No, no, we have nothing to say to each other,’ replied Helen, shaking her head.

  ‘So you haven’t seen each other or spoken on the phone?’ asked Paula.

  ‘No,’ said Helen. ‘Marie belongs to a different time, a different life.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Paula. ‘We’ll need to talk to you again later, but for now we’re just interviewing you since you’re a neighbour of the Berg family. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary over the past few days? Cars? People? Anything that struck you as odd or didn’t feel right? Anything at all?’

  Paula was trying to speak in broad terms, since they didn’t know exactly what to ask about.

  ‘No,’ said Helen after a moment. ‘No, I can’t say that I’ve seen or heard anything strange recently.’

  ‘As I mentioned, we’ll need to ask your husband and son the same questions,’ said Martin as he stood up.

  Paula added: ‘Yes, and we’ll need to come back to ask you other questions, as well.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Helen.

  When they left she was still sitting at the table on the deck, against that backdrop of glorious roses and peonies. She didn’t look up.

  Erica gave Patrik a quick kiss when he met her in the reception area at the station. Annika’s face lit up, and she got up from her desk to come out and give Erica a hug.

  ‘Hi!’ she said warmly. ‘How are the boys? How’s Maja?’

  Erica returned the hug and then asked about Annika’s family. She was fond of this woman who ran the police station, and she respected her more with every passing day. Occasionally they managed to have dinner together, but not as often as they would have liked. Since both of them had young children, the weeks and months flew by, and any social life had to take a back seat to family matters.

  ‘We’ll be in the conference room,’ Annika told Erica, who nodded.

  She’d been to the station countless times before, so she knew where to find the room.

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Annika called after Erica and Patrik as they headed down the corridor.

  ‘Hi, Ernst!’ cried Erica happily when the big dog came towards her, his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging.

  As usual, he’d been asleep under Mellberg’s desk, but he came rushing out at the sound of Erica’s voice. The dog greeted her by licking her hand, and Erica rewarded him by scratching behind his ears.

  ‘Warning, civilians present,’ said Mellberg glumly from where he was standing in the doorway to his office. He’d obviously been having a nap.

  Despite the dour greeting, Erica could tell he was glad to see her.

  ‘I heard you handled the press conference brilliantly,’ she said without a hint of sarcasm.

  Patrik gave her a sharp poke in the side. He knew she was teasing, but Bertil Mellberg beamed with delight.

  ‘Well, I’ve been an expert at such things for a long time now. In a backwater like this, they’re not used to seeing someone with my experience holding a press conference, and maintaining such a high level of professionalism. Those reporters were practically eating out of my hand. When you can handle the press corps the way I do, they can be a very useful tool in an investigation.’

  Erica nodded solemnly as Patrik glared at her.

  They went into the conference room. The file folder in Erica’s briefcase suddenly seemed so heavy. She took it out and placed it on the table in front of her. As she waited for Patrik and Mellberg to take their seats, she went around the table to say hello to Gösta, Paula, and Martin.

  ‘Patrik mentioned that you would help me go over the case details,’ she said to Gösta.

  ‘We’ll have to see how much I can remember,’ he replied, scratching the back of his neck.
‘It was thirty years ago, after all.’

  ‘I’d be grateful for any help you can give me.’

  Annika had put up the big whiteboard and brought a good supply of marker pens. Erica took some papers out of the thick file folder and fastened them to the board using little silver magnets. Then she picked up a pen, wondering where to begin.

  She cleared her throat.

  ‘Stella Strand was four years old when she disappeared from her parents’ farm. Two thirteen-year-old girls, Marie Wall and Helen Persson – now Helen Jensen – were supposed to babysit Stella for a few hours while Stella’s mother, Linda, and her big sister, Sanna, drove to Uddevalla to go shopping.’

  She pointed to the two school photos she’d put up on the whiteboard. One of them showed a dark-haired girl with a serious expression; the other a blonde girl with mischievous eyes, but even back then she was so lovely it could take your breath away. Helen had the undefined features of a teenager, while Marie already had the gaze of a grown woman.

  ‘Both girls lived near the Strand farm. That was how they knew Stella and her family. They had babysat for her many times before, though not on a regular basis, but there was nothing unusual about that.’

  No one else said a word. Everyone knew bits and pieces about the case, but this was the first time they were getting a complete overview.

  ‘The girls went over to the Strand farm around one o’clock. No one was ever able to pinpoint the exact time, but it was approximately one. When Linda and Sanna left for Uddevalla, the girls were playing with Sanna outside in the yard. A short time later they began walking to Fjällbacka with Stella in a little pushchair. They’d been given money for ice cream, so they went to the kiosk. After a while they walked back to the farm.’

  ‘That’s a long way to walk,’ said Martin. ‘I don’t know I would have allowed two young girls to go all that way with a four-year-old in tow.’

  ‘Things were different back then,’ said Erica. ‘People didn’t worry about safety the same way they do now. When we were kids, my sister and I used to stand between the seats while my father was driving. We didn’t wear seatbelts. It’s hard to comprehend nowadays, but no one thought anything of it at the time. So, the girls walked back to the farm, with Stella in the pushchair. They got back around four. They’d agreed with Linda that they would hand Stella over to Anders at four thirty, but seeing his car parked in the yard, they assumed he’d come home from work early, and so they just dropped Stella off.’

  ‘But they didn’t see him?’ asked Paula, and Erica nodded towards Gösta.

  ‘He was inside the house,’ he explained.

  Erica glanced at the whiteboard before going on.

  ‘Leif Hermansson was the chief of police here in 1985. I went to see his daughter this morning to find out if she remembered anything about her father’s investigation of the case. She couldn’t recall much about it, and she and her siblings didn’t find any material when they cleared up his estate. However, she did say that during the last few years of his life, he mentioned he had doubts about the guilt of the two girls.’

  Patrik frowned.

  ‘Did he say what his doubts were based on?’

  Erica shook her head.

  ‘No, not that his daughter could recall. Gösta, do you have anything to add?’

  Gösta scratched his neck.

  ‘No, I can’t remember Leif ever expressing any doubt about the outcome of the investigation. I know he thought it was tragic – we all did. So many lives were ruined, not just the lives of Stella and her family.’

  ‘But what about while Leif was working on the case?’ queried Martin. ‘Did he ever express any doubts?’

  ‘No, not that I can recall,’ said Gösta. ‘After the girls confessed, it seemed an open-and-shut case. Leif’s attitude was, the girls retracting their confessions when they realized the seriousness of the situation didn’t change a thing, the case was solid.’

  He looked down at the table, searching his memory. It was clearly news to him that Leif had begun to have doubts during the last few years before he died.

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Patrik impatiently. ‘After the girls dropped Stella at the farm because they thought her father was there.’

  ‘Was the father ever a suspect?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Anders Strand was questioned several times,’ replied Gösta. ‘Leif turned his statement inside out, checking the chronology over and over. He also interviewed the mother and sister to see if …’

  He hesitated, and Martin chimed in: ‘To see if there were any problems at home, such as abuse or assaults.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gösta. ‘It’s never pleasant when you have to ask those kinds of questions.’

  ‘We do what we have to do,’ said Patrik in a low voice.

  ‘Nothing of that sort was found,’ said Erica. ‘There was never any indication of problems. They were an ordinary, loving family. No sign that things weren’t as they should be. So the investigation entered the next phase: looking for someone outside the immediate family.’

  ‘And that produced no results whatsoever,’ said Gösta. ‘No strangers had been seen in the vicinity of the farm, either before the murder or around the time Stella was killed. We found no known paedophiles in the area. Nothing.’

  ‘What was the cause of death?’ asked Paula as she absentmindedly scratched Ernst behind the ears.

  ‘Blunt trauma to the head,’ said Erica, pausing a moment before she fastened another photo to the whiteboard.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ said Annika, blinking away tears.

  Gösta had to look away. He had seen these pictures before.

  ‘Stella had suffered repeated blows to the back of the head. The post-mortem report stated the blows had most likely been inflicted long after she was dead.’

  ‘With two different weapons,’ said Patrik. ‘I had a quick look at the post-mortem report Pedersen sent over, and that detail caught my eye.’

  Erica nodded. ‘Yes, there were traces of both stone and wood in the wounds. One theory was that she was hit with both a tree branch and a rock.’

  ‘That was one of the reasons Leif began to suspect two perpetrators,’ said Gösta, looking up.

  ‘When the girls didn’t arrive with Stella, as planned, her father started getting worried,’ Erica went on. ‘By the time Linda and Sanna returned home at five thirty, Anders was a nervous wreck. He got a phone call from KG, who said that Helen and Marie had dropped Stella off at the farm almost half an hour earlier. Linda and Anders went out looking for her in the woods and along the road, but soon gave up. They called the police around six fifteen, and an official search party was immediately launched. Just like this time, a large number of volunteers from the area turned up to help.’

  ‘I heard the same man who found Stella also found Nea,’ said Martin. ‘Isn’t that something we should look into?’

  Patrik shook his head.

  ‘No, not in my opinion. It was actually fortunate that he decided to do a more thorough search of the area where he’d found Stella.’

  ‘Seems odd the tracker dogs didn’t find her,’ said Paula as she continued to scratch Ernst behind the ear.

  ‘The dog patrols hadn’t yet covered that particular area,’ explained Patrik with a grimace. ‘So tell us more about the two girls.’

  Erica knew what he was getting at. She always put a lot of effort into researching the individuals involved in a case, and she was convinced that was one of the reasons her books were so popular. For most of her readers these were names they’d read in the papers, figures seen in grainy photos under the headlines; Erica’s aim was to flesh them out, give a sense of their character.

  ‘Well, so far I haven’t managed to do as many interviews as I’d like with everyone who knew Helen and Marie back then. But I’ve talked to some of the people, and I can at least partly describe some of the circumstances surrounding them and their families.’

  Erica cleared her throat.

  ‘Both fami
lies were well known in the community, but for completely different reasons. Helen’s family was, to all appearances, perfect. Her mother and father were prominent figures in Fjällbacka’s business and cultural community. Her father was chair of the Rotary Club, her mother was involved with the Home and School Association. They led an active social life, and they were in charge of a number of cultural activities in town.’

  ‘Any siblings?’ asked Paula.

  ‘No, Helen was an only child. A conscientious and quiet girl who did well in school. That was how she was described. A talented pianist, and her parents were always eager to show off her skill, according to what I’ve heard. Marie, on the other hand, came from a family that I’m guessing was all too familiar to the police, even before the murder.’

  Gösta nodded. ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘Fights, drunkenness, burglaries, you get the picture … And it wasn’t only the parents. Marie’s two older brothers were frequently in trouble. She was the only daughter, and she had no police record before Stella’s death. But the names of her brothers often appeared in police records, long before they turned thirteen.’

  ‘No matter what the crime – stolen bicycles, break-ins at a kiosk, etcetera – the first thing we always did was pay a call on the Walls,’ said Gösta. ‘And nine times out of ten, we’d find the bicycle thief, or whatever, right there. They weren’t very bright.’

  ‘But Marie was never involved, was she?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘No, she wasn’t. Except we did receive a report from her school saying they suspected she was being abused. But she always denied it. Said she’d fallen off her bike, or something along those lines.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have intervened regardless?’ asked Paula, frowning.

  ‘Yes, although that was a rare occurrence in those days.’

  Gösta shifted position. Erica noticed he looked uncomfortable. Presumably he knew that Paula was right.

  ‘Those were different times. Bringing in the social services was a last resort. Leif handled the matter by going to see Marie’s father and giving him a stern lecture. After that we didn’t receive any more reports from the school. Of course, we can’t be certain he stopped beating her, or whether he was just more careful about not leaving any visible marks.’