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

by Camilla Lackberg

Helen shook her head.

  ‘No, but I’d like some more coffee.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Paula, standing up.

  Patrik and Helen waited in silence for Paula to come back. She brought a whole Thermos of coffee and a carton of milk. She refilled all three cups.

  ‘Nea,’ said Patrik. ‘What happened?’

  There was nothing accusatory about his voice. Nothing aggressive. They might as well have been talking about the weather. He wanted Helen to feel secure. And oddly enough, he didn’t feel any anger towards her. He knew that he should, because she had murdered two children. Yet he felt a reluctant sympathy for this woman sitting at the table across from him.

  ‘She …’ Helen looked up as if trying to picture the scene. ‘She … came over to our place. I was out in the garden and suddenly there she was. She did that sometimes. She would sneak away from home and come over to our house. I used to tell her to go back home so her parents wouldn’t worry, but this time she wanted to show me something … And she was so eager, so happy. That’s why I … I agreed to go with her.’

  ‘What did she want to show you?’ asked Paula.

  She held up the milk carton, but Helen shook her head.

  ‘She wanted me to go with her into the barn. She asked me if I would play with her, and I said no, I had things to do. But she looked so disappointed that I told her she could show me one thing, and then I’d have to go back home.’

  ‘Didn’t you wonder where her parents were? It was awfully early in the morning.’

  Helen shrugged.

  ‘Nea was often outside playing early in the morning. I suppose I thought they’d let her go outdoors after breakfast.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  Patrik cautiously urged her to go on.

  ‘She wanted me to go inside the barn. There was a little cat there, a grey cat that rubbed on my legs. She wanted to show me the loft. I asked her if she was allowed up there, and she said she was. She climbed up the ladder first, and I followed. Then …’

  She took a sip of coffee, carefully setting down her cup as if it were made of the most delicate porcelain.

  ‘I turned my back, and … It was only a second … And somehow she fell. I heard only a muffled scream and a thud. When I looked down, I saw her lying there. Her eyes were open, and blood was running from her head. I knew she was dead. Just as I knew Stella was dead when I heard the rock strike the back of her head. I was in such a panic …’

  ‘Why did you move her?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘I … I don’t know …’ Helen shook her head. Her hands were shaking. ‘I pictured Stella, there at the lake. I … wanted to take the little girl to her. And I wanted to remove all traces that might lead to me. I have a son now. Sam needs me. I couldn’t … I can’t …’

  She blinked away tears, and her hands were shaking harder. Patrik fought off another wave of sympathy for her. He couldn’t understand it; the last thing he wanted was to feel sorry for Helen, but he couldn’t help it.

  ‘So you cleared away all traces?’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘I carried her to the lake. Undressed her, washed her, and placed her under the tree. It was hot, so I wasn’t worried she would freeze …’

  She fell silent, no doubt realizing how irrational that statement was. She clutched her coffee cup.

  ‘I sat there at the lake for a long time before I went home and fetched what I needed to clean up the barn. I saw Eva’s car drive off, so I knew I’d be able to work undisturbed.’

  ‘Nea had chocolate in her stomach when her body was found,’ said Patrik. ‘And biscuits. But there was none in her home.’

  Helen swallowed. ‘No, I gave it to her. She saw me eating a Kex chocolate bar when she came over, and she wanted some too. So I gave her a bite.’

  ‘We found the wrapper in the barn,’ said Patrik.

  ‘Yes, that’s where I gave her the chocolate.’

  ‘Where? On the ground level or up in the loft?’

  Helen paused to think. Then she shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. All I know is that I gave her a chocolate bar.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Patrik, glancing at Paula. ‘I think we’ll take a break now. We’ll talk more later.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Helen.

  ‘Do you need anything?’ asked Paula as they stood up.

  ‘No. There’s nothing I need.’

  Patrik had a feeling that statement referred to more than the present moment. He exchanged looks with Paula. He could tell she had the same feeling. They had received some answers, but they still had more questions.

  Karim looked out the car window. He was feeling more nervous with every passing metre. He was longing to see his children, yet he was also scared to meet them. He couldn’t bear to take on their grief as well as his own. His sorrow was too overwhelming.

  Bill had been kind enough to pick him up at the hospital, and he appreciated that, he really did. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to talk to him. Bill attempted some small talk but gave up after a few minutes and let Karim sit in silence and look out the car window. When he dropped him off, Bill glanced at his bandaged hands and asked if he needed help. Karim merely asked Bill to put the handle of his bag over his arm. He couldn’t stand too many sympathetic looks. Not right now.

  The woman who opened the door did not look Swedish. She had to be the mother of Paula, the police officer who had offered to help him. This must be the woman who fled Chile in 1973. He wondered what she thought of Sweden. Did she get the same looks, did she encounter the same suspicion and hatred? But things had been different back when she arrived here.

  ‘Pappa!’

  Hassan and Samia came running. They threw their arms around his neck, and he almost fell over under their combined weight.

  ‘They missed you,’ said the woman in English with a big smile on her face.

  He hadn’t yet said hello to the woman, but first he needed to breathe in the scent of his children; Amina’s scent. He saw her in the features of his daughter’s face, in his son’s eyes. They were all he had left of her, and yet they were a difficult reminder of what he had lost.

  Finally he released the children and stood up. They ran back into the living room and sat down on the sofa next to a little boy who was shyly peering at him, with a dummy in his mouth and a comfort blanket on his lap. All three kids turned their attention back to the children’s programme on TV.

  Karim set down his bag and looked around. It was a bright and pleasant flat, but he felt himself a stranger, and at a loss. Where would he go now? He and the children were on their own, without a place to live. They didn’t have even the smallest essentials. They were dependent on the charity of people who didn’t want them here. What if they ended up on the street? He’d seen beggars sitting outside the shops with poorly written cardboard signs and a blank, distant look in their eyes as they held out their hand.

  It was his responsibility to take care of the children, and he’d done everything in his power to give them security and a better future. Yet here he now stood. In a stranger’s front hall, with nothing left. He couldn’t go on.

  He sank to the floor and felt tears fill his eyes. He knew the children would be frightened to see him like this, and he shouldn’t scare them. He should be strong, but he simply couldn’t do it any longer.

  He felt the weight of warm hands on his shoulders. The woman put her arms around him, and her warmth spread over him, loosening the pieces in his chest that had been lodged there ever since they left Damascus. She took him in her arms and rocked him, and he let her do it.

  His longing for home was so sharp, and remorse tore apart all the hope he’d had for a better life. He was shipwrecked.

  ‘Hello?’

  Martin came to an abrupt halt when he saw who was standing in the reception area. He noted with amusement that for once even Annika was speechless. She was silently staring at Marie Wall.

  ‘How can we help you?’ asked Martin.


  Marie seemed to hesitate. Her usual self-assured manner was gone, and she actually looked a little uncertain. Martin couldn’t help thinking this changed attitude suited her. She looked younger.

  ‘Someone at the film shoot said that you had arrested Helen. For the murder of the little girl. I … I need to speak to someone in charge. This can’t be right.’

  She shook her head and her gleaming blond hair, curled in a 1950s style, framed her face. Martin saw that Annika was still staring. Film stars didn’t turn up at the Tanumshede police station very often. In fact, when he thought about it, this was the first time.

  ‘You’ll need to speak to Patrik,’ he said, motioning for her to follow him.

  He paused outside Patrik’s office and knocked lightly on the open door.

  ‘Patrik, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ said Patrik, without looking up from the papers he was reading. ‘I have to write a report about the interview with Helen, and then I—’

  Martin interrupted him.

  ‘I think you’ll want to see this particular visitor.’

  Patrik looked up. The only sign that he was surprised to see Marie was the slight widening of his eyes. He stood up and nodded curtly.

  ‘Of course. Martin, would you please come with us?’

  Martin and Marie followed as Patrik led the way to the room where Helen had been interviewed earlier. The shredded bits of tissue were still lying on the table. Patrik briskly swept them into his hand and tossed them in the rubbish bin.

  ‘Please, have a seat,’ he said, pointing to the chair closest to the window.

  Marie looked around hesitantly.

  ‘It’s been a long time since I was in this room,’ she said.

  Martin realized this was where she must have been questioned thirty years ago, under other circumstances, though there were eerie similarities.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ asked Patrik, but she shook her head.

  ‘No … I … Is it true that you’ve arrested Helen for the murder of Nea Berg? And that she has confessed to killing Stella?’

  Patrik hesitated and cast a quick glance at Martin. Then he nodded.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. We haven’t yet made an official announcement, but news travels fast in this town.’

  ‘I just heard about it,’ said Marie.

  She held up a pack of cigarettes, and Patrik nodded. Smoking wasn’t allowed in these rooms, but if ever there was a time to make an exception, it was now.

  Marie carefully lit a cigarette and took a few drags before she began to talk.

  ‘I have never believed that Helen killed Stella, and I still don’t, no matter what she says. But above all, I know she couldn’t have killed the other little girl.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Patrik, leaning forward.

  He pointed at the tape recorder on the table, and Marie nodded. The machine hummed as he switched it on, and he quickly rattled off the date and time. Even though this was not an official interview, it would be better to record too much rather than too little. The human memory was unreliable and sometimes directly misleading.

  ‘She was with me when the girl died. You wanted to know where I was at eight in the morning on Monday, didn’t you?’ she said, her expression uncertain.

  Martin coughed at the smoke. He’d always had sensitive lungs.

  ‘So where were the two of you?’ asked Patrik.

  Her whole body seemed tense.

  ‘At Helen’s place. You were right. I lied about my alibi. I didn’t take anyone home with me. I was with Helen at eight o’clock. She didn’t know I was coming because I was convinced she would say no if I rang ahead.’

  ‘How did you get there?’ asked Patrik.

  Martin glanced at her sky-high heels under the table. It seemed unlikely she would have walked.

  ‘My rental house includes a car. A white Renault that’s parked in the big space next to the house.’

  ‘There’s no car registered to the owners of the house you’ve rented. We’ve already checked.’

  ‘It’s in his mother’s name. They borrow the car whenever they’re in Sweden, so it was included when I rented the house.’

  ‘There’s a white Renault in Dagmar’s notes for that morning,’ Martin confirmed for Patrik.

  ‘Helen didn’t want to let me in, but I can be … very persuasive, and in the end she gave in. We’d spoken on the phone the night before, and she’d mentioned that her husband was out of town. I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise. I had the feeling she told me he was away because subconsciously she wanted me to come over.’

  ‘What about her son? Sam?’

  Marie shrugged and took another drag on her cigarette.

  ‘I don’t know. He was either asleep or not at home. At any rate, I didn’t see him. But I’ve met him when he was with my daughter. By some strange twist of fate, they’ve become friends. Maybe more than friends … They’re both misfits.’

  ‘Why did you go to see Helen?’ asked Patrik.

  He coughed discreetly. The smoke was getting to him too.

  The vulnerable look on Marie’s face returned. She stubbed out her cigarette.

  ‘I wanted to know why she abandoned me,’ she said quietly. ‘I wanted to know why she stopped loving me.’

  Silence descended over the room. The only sound was a fly buzzing at the window. Patrik’s face was impassive. Martin tried to take in what Marie had just said. He glanced at Patrik, who was silently studying Marie without knowing how to follow up on her statement.

  ‘The two of you were in love …’ he said slowly.

  Random phrases, vague hints, a facial expression, a glance, so many things suddenly took on meaning.

  ‘Tell us,’ he said.

  Marie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  ‘At the time, we didn’t understand what we were experiencing. You know how it is when you’ve grown up here, and … well, those were different times. A family consisted of a mother, a father, and children. I had never heard about women loving women, or men loving men. So it took a long time before we realized we’d fallen in love with each other. We’d never been in love before. We had hardly left childhood behind. We were teenagers and we talked about boys just like all the other girls did. Slowly we began pushing the boundaries. Touching each other, caressing each other. We played and explored, and the feeling was stronger than anything we’d ever experienced. We had a world that included only the two of us, and that was enough. We needed nothing more. But then … I think Helen’s parents began to sense something was going on, something that was unacceptable to them, that would have caused talk in the social circles they moved in. So they decided to separate us.

  ‘Our world collapsed. We cried for weeks. We were in despair. All we thought about was being together. And not being able to touch each other was … it tore us up. I know it sounds ridiculous. We were so young, just girls, not women. But people always say that first love is the strongest. And ours burned day and night. Helen stopped eating, and I quarrelled with everyone. My situation at home got worse than ever, and my family did their best to pound some sense into me. Literally.’

  Marie lit another cigarette.

  Patrik got up to open the window, and the fly that had been buzzing flew out.

  ‘So you can understand what a special day it was when we were allowed to babysit Stella together. Oh, we’d managed to see each other in secret, but only a few times and only briefly. Helen’s parents never let her out of their sight.’

  ‘Helen told us that the two of you took Stella into town to buy ice cream, then walked back through the woods, and left her at the farm when you saw her father’s car. Is that right? And then you went swimming?’

  Marie nodded.

  ‘Yes. We were in a hurry to drop Stella off so we could have some time to ourselves. We went swimming and we kissed and … Well, I think you get the picture. That was when I thought I heard someone el
se in the woods, and I had the feeling we were being watched.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘We got dressed. I went home, and Helen did too. The fact that she says she killed Stella after I left …’ She shook her head. ‘I have a hard time believing it. Good lord, we were only thirteen! It must have been the person I heard in the woods. And I think I can guess who it was. James was horrible, even back then, and he was always hanging around in the woods. Sometimes we’d find dead animals, shot by James. He’d always been obsessed with guns and war and killing. Everybody knew. Everybody knew there was something wrong with him. Except for Helen’s father. Those two were inseparable. Whenever James wasn’t in the woods, he was visiting Helen’s family. The fact that he ended up marrying Helen … well, it borders on incestuous.’

  ‘So why did you confess?’ asked Patrik. ‘Why did you confess to a murder you didn’t commit?’

  He wondered whether Marie’s answer would be different from Helen’s.

  ‘I was naive. And I didn’t really understand how serious the situation was. Or how real. I remember thinking it was exciting. My plan was for us to be together. I had some romantic notion that Helen and I would both be sentenced and sent away together. Then I’d be rid of my family, and I’d be allowed to stay with Helen. And when we were released, we’d share the world. The fantasies of a thirteen-year-old, but I believed they would come true. I could never have imagined the consequences of my stupidity. I confessed and hoped that Helen would understand my plan and do the same, which she did. By the time I realized we wouldn’t be sent to the same juvenile institution the way I’d imagined, it was too late. No one believed us. They had solved the case, everything was tied up nicely. Like a little gift box with a red ribbon. Nobody was interested in continuing the investigation.’

  She paused and swallowed several times.

  ‘They separated us. I ended up with various foster families while Helen moved to Marstrand with her family after a short stint at a youth home. But I was counting the seconds until we both turned eighteen.’

  ‘What happened when you were eighteen?’ asked Martin.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off Marie. The story issuing from her lips was incredible and yet completely plausible and clear. It filled in all the gaps that had had them mystified.