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

by Camilla Lackberg

  No one looked in their direction as they got out of the car. They approached in a wide arc so as to reach the back of the building without drawing attention. They dragged along the jerrycans and the bag. Nobody noticed as they crossed the lawn. It was dark inside the building. Most of the windows were covered with dark cloth or plastic. The music was blasting at full volume as they opened the back doors. Disco lights were pulsing on the dance floor in front of the stage.

  They placed the cans and bag inside the door and then left, fastening a chain and padlock on the door handle outside. Now all they carried was the money for the entrance fee and another chain and padlock. They walked purposefully around the building and joined the queue at the entrance. No one paid any attention to them. Everyone was in high spirits and slightly intoxicated after partying somewhere else before coming here.

  Sam and Jessie paid the fee and went in. By now the place was packed with a dancing, howling, many-headed crowd. Sam whispered to Jessie. She nodded. They walked along the wall. A boy and a girl were making out near the back exit. Sam recognized them from school. They were totally focused on each other, fumbling under each other’s clothing and unaware of anyone else. Sam and Jessie opened the bag and quickly stuffed the guns under their clothes. They had taken care to wear loose, oversized clothing. They left the jerrycans where they were, since they weren’t yet needed. They had to lock the entrance doors before the fun could begin.

  They headed back to the front, and out of the corner of his eye Sam saw Vendela and Nils in the middle of the dance floor with a group of friends. But no Basse. Sam looked for him, and eventually spotted him in at the other end of the room. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, staring at Nils and Vendela.

  There was still a ten-metre queue of lively party-goers waiting at the entrance. The ticket seller was standing just outside the doors. Sam went over to him.

  ‘We need to make sure we can close the doors. It’s a security measure. It’ll only take two minutes.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the guy. ‘Sure.’

  Sam pulled the doors closed from inside and quickly attached the chain and padlock. He relaxed his shoulders and forced himself to take a deep breath. Focus. No one was leaving now. No one was coming in. They had total control of the place. He turned to Jessie and nodded. Someone had started pounding on the doors from outside, but he ignored them. The music was loud, so nobody else could hear the noise.

  The cabinet with the electrical control panel was in a small hallway to the left of the entrance. He went over to it, threw one last look at Jessie, who was ready with her hands stuck under her clothing. He switched on the lights and pulled out the plug for the music. Now there was no going back.

  As light flooded the room and the music stopped, there was a moment of stunned silence. Then someone started shouting, and a girl jeered. Soon lots of voices joined in. All the kids looked pale and pathetic in the glaring light. Sam felt his self-confidence surge. He allowed all the emotions he’d kept bottled up for years pour out. He went over to stand with his back to the front doors, facing the dance floor so everyone could see him.

  Jessie came over and stood next to him.

  Slowly he took out the guns. They had decided they would each have two pistols. A shotgun would have been too cumbersome and hard to hide.

  He fired a shot into the air and some of the girls began to scream. Everyone was staring at them. Finally the situation was reversed. He’d always known he was better than these kids with their petty lives and their banal thoughts. They would soon be forgotten. But no one would forget him or Jessie.

  Sam walked towards the dance floor. Nils and Vendela were stupidly staring at him. Sam enjoyed seeing the terror in Nils’s eyes. He could tell Nils knew what was going to happen. With a steady hand, Sam raised the gun. Slowly, wanting to enjoy every second, he squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Nils right in the middle of the forehead, and he dropped to the floor. He lay on his back, with his eyes open. A trickle of blood ran from the perfectly round hole.

  Adnan and Khalil walked and walked. Every night they went out walking. The air in the basement felt as if it would suffocate them, and the walls seemed to close in on them when it was time for bed. The sound of the TV upstairs continued until two or three in the morning. The old woman never seemed to sleep. The only thing that helped was to go out and walk. For hours. They walked until they were worn out and had inhaled enough oxygen to last them a whole night in the basement.

  They didn’t converse as they walked. The risk was always there that they would talk about what had once been, and that in turn might feed their nightmares about buildings in ruins and children who had been blown to pieces. There was also a risk they would start talking about the future and realize that for them it held no hope.

  It felt as if the people inside the houses they passed were living in a different world.

  On the other side of the windowpanes was that part of Sweden they wanted to know, and every evening they tried to learn more about it. They went into the centre of town and looked at the flats with the balconies that were so strangely decorative. No laundry hanging out to dry, no lanterns flickering, although a few of them were adorned with tiny lights. Someone had even set a yucca plant on their balcony. It was such a peculiar sight that Adnan had pointed it out to Khalil.

  Tonight, after passing through town, they headed for the school. The Swedish school fascinated them. It looked so new. So fancy.

  ‘Looks like a party going on in the red building,’ said Adnan, pointing at the community centre.

  Bill had tried to explain what a community centre was, but they couldn’t come up with a comparable Arabic term, so all the refugees had simply dubbed it the ‘red building’ when they had stayed there after the fire.

  ‘Should we go check it out?’ Adnan asked.

  Khalil shook his head.

  ‘It looks like teenagers. And they’ve probably been drinking. Which means somebody will be looking to pick a fight with the likes of us.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Adnan, touching Khalil’s arm. ‘And maybe we’ll meet some girls.’

  ‘Like I said: it’ll be nothing but trouble if we go there,’ Khalil sighed.

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  Khalil hesitated. He knew he tended to be overly cautious, but who could blame him after what he’d been through?

  Adnan started heading for the building, but Khalil grabbed his arm.

  ‘Listen!’

  Adnan stopped to listen. Then he looked at Khalil, his eyes wide.

  ‘Gunshots,’ he said.

  Khalil nodded. It was a sound they both knew well. And it was coming from inside the community centre. They stared at each other. Then they ran towards the sound.

  ‘What a fabulous wedding that was,’ said Erica, nestling closer to Patrik as they sat on the patio loveseat. ‘I was so surprised when Anna and Dan came into the church yesterday. I had a feeling she was hiding something from me, but never in a million years would I have imagined she was planning a double wedding with Kristina.’

  She was still in shock, but the wedding celebration had turned out to be the most fun of any she’d attended, and that included her own. Everyone had been so amazed by Anna and Dan’s big surprise that a festive mood had started even before they left the church. After a marvellous dinner with plenty of speeches, the dancing had gone on all night.

  Now Erica and Patrik were sitting out on the deck, watching the sun set and savouring the memories.

  ‘You should have seen your face when Dan and Anna came in!’ Patrik chuckled. ‘I thought you were going to dissolve into a big puddle on the floor. I had no idea anyone could cry that hard. You were so sweet. Your make-up was running, and you looked like a cute raccoon. Or a cat. One of those black cats with a sweet little muzzle …’

  ‘Oh great,’ said Erica, but she had to admit he was right.

  She’d been forced to repair her make-up in the ladies’ room as soon as they got to the ho
tel. Her mascara and eyeliner had smeared so badly that she looked like …

  Erica froze. Patrik looked at her in surprise.

  ‘What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Erica got up abruptly. She thought of something else that had been bothering her. Something Patrik had said about Helen.

  ‘Yesterday you mentioned something when you were talking about Helen. Something about the chocolate bar she gave to Nea. Do you remember what you said?’

  ‘Well, Nea had chocolate in her stomach. It was the last thing she ate. Chocolate and biscuit, to be precise. So Pedersen thought she’d been eating a Kex chocolate bar. When I asked Helen about it, she said Nea had seen her eating a Kex and asked for a taste, so she split it with her. And we found a Kex wrapper in the hayloft, so—’

  ‘Helen’s lying. She couldn’t have been eating chocolate – she’s allergic. Was she the first to mention the Kex bar, or was it you?’

  ‘I think it might have been me.’

  ‘And who was it Nea said she played with in the barn?’

  ‘The black cat,’ said Patrik with a laugh. ‘Kids are so funny.’

  ‘Patrik,’ said Erica, giving him a sombre look. ‘I know how it all fits together. I know who did it.’

  ‘Did what?’

  Erica was about to answer when Patrik’s mobile rang.

  Patrik listened grimly, then ended the call and turned to her.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘That was Martin. They’ve had reports of gunshots at the community centre in Tanumshede.’

  ‘What do we know?’ asked Martin, turning to look at Paula and Mellberg in the back seat. He’d been the officer on duty and had gone to pick them up after phoning Patrik. ‘Do we know yet who the shooter is?’

  Paula met his eye in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’m in contact with Annika. More calls have been coming in to the station, so hopefully we’ll know more soon.’

  ‘Could it be related to the refugees?’ asked Mellberg. ‘Again?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Martin, shaking his head. ‘It seems there was some sort of dance tonight to celebrate the end of the school holidays. So we’re talking about secondary school students.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Teenagers?’ said Mellberg. ‘How much further?’

  ‘Come on, Bertil. You’ve driven this way as often as I have,’ said Martin impatiently.

  ‘Do we need reinforcements?’ asked Paula. ‘Should I ring Uddevalla?’

  Martin didn’t need to check with Mellberg; he instinctively knew the answer. His gut told him this was bad. Really bad.

  ‘Yes, ring Uddevalla,’ he said, stomping on the accelerator. ‘We’re almost there. Do you see Patrik and Gösta anywhere?’

  ‘No, but they’re on the way,’ said Paula.

  When Martin pulled up in front of the community centre, he saw two young guys come running from the direction of the building. He parked the car and jumped out to stop them.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Someone is shooting in there!’ said one of the young men in English. Martin recognized him from the refugee centre. ‘It’s crazy! People are panicking!’

  The words came pouring out of him as he mixed English with Swedish. Martin held up one hand to get him to slow down.

  ‘Do you know who it is?’

  ‘No, we couldn’t see anything. We just heard shots and people screaming.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. Get out of here now,’ said Martin, motioning for them to leave.

  He looked at the building and then turned to Paula and Mellberg.

  ‘We need to find out what’s happening. I’ll go closer,’ he said, gripping his gun.

  ‘We’re right behind you,’ said Paula and Mellberg.

  More young people came running towards them, but they didn’t appear to have emerged from inside the building. The main doors were closed, as were the windows.

  ‘Let’s split up,’ he said. ‘Try to get as close to the windows as possible. We need to get an idea of what’s going on in there.’

  His colleagues nodded and the three of them approached the building in a crouched run. With nerves on high alert, Martin looked in one of the windows that wasn’t entirely covered. He froze at what he saw.

  He now knew what they were dealing with, but that didn’t mean he knew how to handle the situation. Patrik and Gösta couldn’t be far away, but it might take almost an hour before the reinforcements from Uddevalla arrived. And from what he’d seen, they couldn’t wait that long.

  The screams got louder. Sam fired a shot into the air.

  ‘Shut up!’

  Everyone fell silent, although muted sobbing could still be heard. Sam nodded to Jessie, and she walked past him to the back exit. With an effort she picked up the jerrycans and carried them over, then placed them at Sam’s feet.

  ‘You,’ said Sam, pointing to a big guy wearing a white shirt and brown chinos. ‘Take that can and start pouring the petrol out over there.’

  He pointed to the left wall.

  ‘And you,’ he said, nodding at a stocky black kid wearing a pink shirt. ‘Take the other side. Make sure the window coverings get really soaked.’

  He pointed at the pieces of cloth hanging in front of the panes.

  Both boys remained where they were, as if paralysed, but when Sam raised his gun, they got moving. Each picked up a jerrycan and made their way to the windows on either side of the hall. Again they hesitated.

  ‘Move it!’ yelled Sam.

  He turned to Jessie.

  ‘Watch them – make sure they do it right. If they don’t, shoot them.’

  Sam looked at the pathetic group of kids in the room. Everyone was shaking and sobbing. Some had started looking for a means of escape, assessing their chances of making a run for it.

  ‘The doors are locked. There’s no way out,’ he said, grinning. ‘Don’t try anything stupid.’

  ‘Why?’ cried Felicia, a girl from his class. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  She was one of the popular kids. Big boobs and lots of blond hair. Dumb as a doornail.

  ‘Why do you think?’ he replied.

  He looked at Vendela, who hadn’t moved from the spot where Nils was lying on the floor. She wore a short skirt and a skimpy camisole. She was shaking.

  ‘Do you have a theory, Vendela? Any idea why we’re doing this?’

  He ran his eyes over the room, stopping when he saw Basse.

  ‘What about you?’

  Basse was silently crying.

  ‘You shouldn’t be standing there all by yourself,’ said Sam. ‘Come over to be with Vendela and Nils. You’re all such good pals. Your old gang.’

  Basse slowly came towards Vendela, who was staring straight ahead. He stood next to her without looking at Nils’s body.

  Sam tilted his head to one side.

  ‘So, who do you think I should shoot first? You can decide, if you want. Or do you want me to decide? It’s not an easy decision to make. Should I start with the slut who likes to boss everyone around, or should I go for the wimp who does everything he’s told?’

  They didn’t answer. Vendela’s cheeks were striped with black from her mascara running.

  Control. It was all his now.

  Sam raised his gun. And fired. Vendela fell to the floor without uttering a sound. Shrill screams echoed off the walls and he shouted:

  ‘QUIET!’

  But he couldn’t stop the kids from sobbing, and a young boy from a lower class threw up. Vendela had landed to the right of Nils. Sam’s aim had been a little off this time, and the bullet had entered Vendela’s right eye. But the result was the same.

  She was dead.

  Erica was in the passenger seat next to Patrik as he drove faster than ever before. He knew it was against all regulations and also against his better judgement, but Erica had convinced him to bring her along. ‘Teenagers’ lives are in danger,’ she’d said. ‘You’ll need lots of adults
on the scene to offer comfort and support.’ And she was right. Of course she was. He reached out to squeeze Erica’s hand as he looked out at the beautiful summer landscape. There was normally something sleep-inducing about racing along these dark, deserted roads, but at the moment he’d never felt more awake.

  When they reached the exit for the community centre he took the turn with screeching tyres and parked next to Martin’s and Gösta’s vehicles. He told Erica to stay in the car and then climbed out to get a report of the situation.

  ‘It’s Helen’s son! And Marie’s daughter!’ said Martin. ‘Sam and …’

  ‘Jessie. Her name is Jessie,’ Patrik told him.

  ‘Sam and Jessie. They’re armed and holding the kids hostage. We saw one person on the floor, not moving, but they were standing in front, so we couldn’t tell how badly the person was injured. An ambulance is on the way, but it’s going to take time.’

  ‘What about reinforcements from Uddevalla?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘At least half an hour before they get here,’ said Paula. ‘I don’t think we can wait that long.’

  A shot was heard from inside the building, startling all of them.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Gösta. ‘We can’t stand here waiting for reinforcements while they shoot more kids.’

  Patrik thought for a second then opened the car door and asked Erica to step out. He told her what was going on.

  ‘You have Sam’s mobile number, right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I got it when I interviewed him.’

  ‘Can I have it? Our only chance is to try and get through to him. If we can talk to him and make him realize what madness this is, maybe we can end this.’

  Erica told him the number, and he tapped it in, his hand shaking. It rang and rang, but no one picked up.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, feeling his panic grow. ‘Maybe if we had Helen here, Sam would take a call from her. But it’ll take too long to bring her.’

  ‘Want me to try?’ Erica asked quietly. ‘Maybe he’ll pick up if he sees it’s me calling. When we met, I thought the two of us connected. He really opened up to me.’

  Patrik gave her a sombre look.