‘I’ve already talked to her about it, and I don’t think she learned anything new.’
‘Have another talk with her. We need to find out what makes Minna’s case different.’
‘Okay, I’ll do that,’ Patrik acquiesced.
They devoted the next few hours to discussing the cases from all possible angles. Theories were proposed, suggestions considered, and new investigative angles brainstormed and then divided among the various police districts. Crazy ideas were received with the same open-mindedness as more sensible suggestions. They were eager to find something that might move the investigations forward. They all shared a sense of powerlessness since they’d failed to find the missing girls. Everyone present was thinking about their meetings with family members who were all going through such sorrow, despair, anxiety, and horror because they didn’t know what had happened. And then came the even greater horror when Victoria reappeared, and they realized that their daughters might have met the same awful fate.
By the end of the day the subdued but determined detectives dispersed to drive home and continue their investigations. The fate of five girls rested on their shoulders. One girl was dead. Four were still missing.
The prison was calm and quiet when Erica entered. She greeted the guards and after reporting her arrival and signing in, she was escorted to the staff room, where she sat down on a chair. While she waited, she berated herself again for being so careless. She didn’t like making this sort of mistake.
‘Hi, Erica.’ Tina came in and closed the door behind her. In her hand she held several postcards with a rubber band around them. She placed them on the table in front of Erica. ‘Here they are.’
‘Is it okay if I have a look?’
Tina nodded, and Erica reached out to remove the rubber band from the cards. Then she hesitated, worrying about destroying fingerprints. But she quickly realized that the cards had already been handled by so many people that any fingerprints of interest had vanished long ago.
There were four postcards. Erica spread them out with the front picture showing. They were all scenes from Spain.
‘When did the last one arrive?’
‘Hmm … Let me think. Maybe three or four months ago.’
‘And Laila has never said anything about them? Never mentioned who might have sent them?’
‘Not a word. But she gets very upset when they turn up, and it takes her days to calm down.’
‘She doesn’t want to keep them?’ Erica studied the postcards.
‘No. She always tells us to throw them away.
‘Didn’t you think this was all rather strange?’
‘Well, yes …’ Tina hesitated. ‘Maybe that’s why we decided to save them.’
Erica let her eyes wander around the cold and impersonal room as she thought things over. The only attempt to make the room more pleasant was the addition of a withered yucca in a pot on the windowsill.
‘We don’t spend much time in here,’ said Tina with a smile.
‘I can see why,’ said Erica, turning her attention back to the postcards. She flipped them over. Just as Tina had said, they were all blank except for Laila’s name and the address of the prison, stamped in blue ink. The postmarks were from different places, but none of them had a connection with Laila, as far as Erica knew.
Why pictures from Spain? Was it Laila’s sister who had sent the postcards? If so, why? That didn’t seem likely, given that all the postmarks were Swedish. She wondered if she should ask Patrik to check on Agneta’s visits to Sweden. Maybe the two sisters had kept in touch more often than Laila had claimed. But maybe this had nothing at all to do with Agneta.
‘Would you like to ask Laila about them? I can see if she’d be willing to talk to you,’ said Tina.
Erica paused before replying. She glanced at the withered yucca on the windowsill and then shook her head.
‘Thanks, but first I need to spend some time thinking this over. Maybe I can work out what it’s all about.’
‘Good luck,’ said Tina, and stood up.
Erica gave her a wry smile. Luck was exactly what she needed at this point.
‘Could I take the postcards with me?’ she asked.
Tina hesitated. ‘Okay, but only if you promise to bring them back.’
‘I promise,’ said Erica and put them in her bag. Nothing was impossible. There had to be a connection somewhere, and she refused to give up until she found it.
Gösta wondered if he ought to wait for Patrik to return, but he had a feeling that time was of the essence. He decided to follow his instinct and proceed, based on what he knew.
Annika had phoned to say that she’d gone home early because her daughter was ill. Maybe he should go back to the station and hold down the fort. But Martin would probably be back soon, so he said to hell with it and drove to the neighbourhood known as Sumpan.
Ricky opened the door and silently let him in. Gösta had sent him a text message on the way over to make sure the family was at home. The tension was palpable as he went into the living room.
‘Have you come up with something new?’ asked Markus.
Gösta saw the gleam of hope in their eyes. It was no longer hope that Victoria would be found; instead, it was a desire for some sort of explanation and a sense of closure. Gösta felt bad that he was going to disappoint them.
‘No. Or at least, nothing that we can confidently say has anything to do with Victoria’s death. But there’s a strange circumstance that has a connection to the other case we’re investigating right now.’
‘You mean Lasse?’ said Helena.
Gösta nodded. ‘Yes. We’ve discovered a link between Victoria and Lasse. And it has to do with something else I’ve discovered. I’m afraid it’s a bit sensitive.’
He cleared his throat, not sure how to tell them. All three sat in silence, waiting. He could see the anguish in Ricky’s expression, no doubt a result of his guilty conscience, which would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
‘We still haven’t found Lasse’s body, but there was blood on the ground near his car, and we sent it to the lab for analysis. The blood turned out to be Lasse’s.’
‘But what does that have to do with Victoria?’ asked Markus.
‘Well, as you know, we suspect that someone had been watching your house. We found a cigarette butt in your neighbour’s garden, and it was sent to the lab,’ said Gösta. He was now approaching the topic he wished he could avoid. ‘On his own initiative, the lab tech compared the blood from the dock with the DNA on the cigarette, and they matched. In other words, it was Lasse who had been watching Victoria, and most likely he was also the one who sent her the unpleasant letters, which Ricky told us about.’
‘He told us too,’ said Helena, casting a glance at Ricky.
‘I’m sorry I threw them out,’ he muttered. ‘But I didn’t want you to see them.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Gösta. ‘What’s done is done. At any rate, we’re now working on the assumption that Lasse was blackmailing someone who got tired of paying the money and killed him. And I have an idea who that person might be.’
‘I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me,’ said Helena. ‘What does this have to do with Victoria?’
‘Yes, why was he watching her?’ asked Markus. ‘And what did she have to do with him blackmailing someone? Please explain.’
Gösta sighed and took a deep breath. ‘I think that Lasse was blackmailing Jonas Persson because he knew that Jonas was having an extramarital affair with a much younger girl. With Victoria.’
He felt his shoulders relax now that he’d finally said it. But he held his breath as he waited for Victoria’s parents to react. Their response was not at all what he’d expected. Helena looked up and fixed her eyes on his. Then she smiled sadly.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Gösta,’ she said.
Much to Dan’s surprise, Anna had volunteered to drive the girls over to the stable for their riding lesson. She needed to get out of the h
ouse and get some fresh air. Not even the proximity of the horses could keep her away. She shivered and pulled her jacket closer around her. On top of everything else, she was feeling more and more ill. She was starting to worry that it was no longer something psychosomatic. She might be coming down with the stomach flu that was raging at the kids’ school. So far she’d warded off the worst of the nausea by eating ten white peppercorns, but she could tell that soon she’d be leaning over a bucket to throw up.
Several girls were standing outside the stable, shivering in the cold. Emma and Lisen ran over to them, and Anna followed.
‘Hi. Why are you standing outside?’
‘Marta hasn’t arrived yet,’ said a tall girl with dark hair. ‘She’s never late.’
‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’
‘But Molly is supposed to be here to help out,’ said the girl. The others nodded. She was apparently the leader of the group.
‘Have you gone over to the house to knock on the door?’ asked Anna, looking in that direction. She could see lights on inside, so someone must be home.
‘No, we’d never do that.’ The girl looked horrified.
‘Then I’ll go. Wait here.’
Anna hurried across the yard to Jonas and Marta’s house. Running only made the nausea worse, and she leaned heavily on the railing as she climbed the steps. She had to ring the bell twice before Jonas opened the door. He was drying his hands on a dishcloth, and judging by the cooking smells wafting from inside, he was in the middle of making dinner.
‘Hi,’ he said, giving her an inquisitive look.
Anna cleared her throat.
‘Hi. Is Marta here? And Molly?’
‘No, they must be over at the stable.’ Jonas glanced at his watch. ‘Marta has a lesson right now, and I think Molly was going to help out.’
Anna shook her head. ‘They haven’t turned up. Where do you think they could be?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Jonas. ‘I haven’t seen them since early this morning because I had to go out on an emergency call, and when I got back they weren’t here. Then I took a nap before going over to the clinic. I just assumed that they spent the afternoon at the stable. Molly has an important competition coming up soon, so I thought they were doing some extra training. And the car is here.’ He pointed at the blue Toyota parked in front of the house.
Anna nodded. ‘What should we do? The girls are waiting, and …’
Jonas picked up his mobile from the chest of drawers in the front hall and tapped in a pre-programmed number.
‘Huh. She’s not answering. That’s strange. She always has her mobile with her.’ Jonas was starting to look worried. ‘I’ll check with my mother.’
He rang his mother, and Anna heard him explain the situation. At the same time he assured Helga that there was nothing to be concerned about, everything was fine. It took a moment before he was able to end the conversation.
‘Mothers and phone calls,’ he said with a slight grimace. ‘It’s easier to get pigs to fly than to get mothers off the phone.’
‘Sure. Right,’ said Anna, as if she knew what he was talking about. The truth was that her mother had hardly ever phoned.
‘Apparently they dropped by to visit my mother this morning, but she hasn’t seen them since. Molly stayed home from school today because of a stomach ache, but they were supposed to train this afternoon.’
He put on his jacket. ‘I’ll go with you to look for them,’ he told Anna. ‘They must be somewhere around here.’
They made a big circuit of the grounds, looking inside the old barn and the riding hall and ending up in the common room. But Marta and Molly were nowhere to be seen.
By now the girls had gone inside the stable, and they could be heard talking to the horses and to each other.
‘I suppose we should wait a little longer,’ said Anna. ‘But then we’ll just go home if they don’t turn up. Maybe it was a miscommunication about the schedule.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Jonas, but he sounded doubtful. ‘I’ll take another look around. Don’t give up yet.’
‘Sure,’ said Anna and went inside the stable, keeping a safe distance from the horses.
They were on their way home. Patrik had insisted on driving, claiming it would help him to unwind.
‘Well, that was certainly intense,’ he said. ‘It was good to have a chance to go through everything, but I was hoping we’d get something more concrete out of the meeting. I was hoping for an “aha” sort of moment.’
‘I’m sure it’ll happen eventually,’ said Mellberg, sounding unusually cheerful. Evidently he was still feeling a rush from all the attention he’d garnered after telling the others about Ingela Eriksson.
He’ll be living off that moment for weeks, thought Patrik. But he realized that he too needed to stay positive. It wouldn’t be a good idea to report to his colleagues in the morning and say they’d come to a dead end.
‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe the meeting will lead to something. Palle is going to put extra manpower into reviewing the Ingela Eriksson case, and if all of us focus on Minna Wahlberg’s disappearance, we should be able to find out what makes it different from the other cases.’
He stepped harder on the accelerator. He was impatient to get home so he could digest what they’d heard and possibly discuss it with Erica. She often managed to see patterns in what looked like nothing but chaos to him. And no one was better at helping him when he needed to make sense of all the ideas whirling through his mind.
He was also considering asking her a favour, but he had no intention of telling Mellberg. His boss was the one who always grumbled the most about Erica’s tendency to get involved in police investigations. Even though Patrik could also get angry with her on occasion, she did have an ability to view things from new angles. Palle had asked him to speak to Erica again, and she was already involved in the case since she had discovered a possible link between Laila and the missing girls. He had considered mentioning this at the meeting, but in the end decided not to. First he wanted to find out more. Otherwise there was a risk of distracting everyone’s attention and derailing the investigation instead of moving it forward. So far Erica hadn’t found anything to support her theory, but Patrik knew it was always worthwhile to listen to her whenever she had a gut feeling about something. She was seldom wrong, which could be extremely annoying at times but also a big help. That was why he wanted to ask his wife to watch the videotaped interviews. So far they had failed to find a common denominator among the girls, and maybe Erica would see something everyone else had missed.
‘I was thinking we should all meet at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to discuss everything,’ he said now. ‘And I want to ask Paula to come in too, if she can.’
Mellberg didn’t reply as Patrik focused on his driving. The road was getting a little too slippery for his taste.
‘What do you think, Bertil?’ he said when there was still no reaction from his boss. ‘Could you find out if Paula could come over to the station tomorrow?’
The only reply was a loud snore. He glanced over at Mellberg and saw that he was sound asleep. Probably exhausted after working a whole day. He wasn’t used to that.
FJÄLLBACKA 1975
The situation had become unbearable. There were too many questions from neighbours and the authorities, and they realized they couldn’t keep living where they were. After Agneta moved to Spain, Laila’s mother had been in touch more often. She was lonely, and when she mentioned to them that a house was for sale outside Fjällbacka for a good price, it was easy to make the decision. They would move back to Fjällbacka.
At the same time, Laila knew it was madness. It would be dangerous to develop closer ties with her mother. Yet she also felt a spark of hope. Maybe she would be able to help them. Maybe everything would be simpler if they were left in peace in their new house, which was in a remote location and far from any neighbours.
Her hope didn’t last long. Vladek’s temper grew worse, and th
ey had row after row. There was nothing left of the relationship they’d once had.
Yesterday her mother had suddenly turned up at their house. Worry was written all over her face, and at first Laila had wanted to throw herself into her mother’s arms and cry like a child. Then she had felt Vladek’s hand on her shoulder and sensed his raw strength. The moment passed. Calmly and quietly she had said what had to be said, even though it hurt her mother terribly.
Her mother gave up. When Laila saw her head back to her car, looking defeated and with slumped shoulders, she had wanted to scream after her. Shout that she loved her, that she needed her. But the words refused to come out.
Sometimes Laila wondered how she could have been stupid enough to think that moving might change things. The problem was theirs, and no one could help them. They were on their own. And she couldn’t allow her mother to enter their private hell.
Occasionally she would move close to Vladek in bed and remember those first years when they’d slept in each other’s arms every night, even when it was too warm under the covers. Now she barely slept at all. She would lie awake next to Vladek, listening to him snoring and breathing deeply. She saw him flinch in his sleep and noticed the way his eyes moved restlessly behind his eyelids.
Chapter Eleven
It was snowing. As if hypnotized, Einar watched the flakes slowly drifting down. From downstairs he heard the usual sounds, which he’d heard day after day over the past years. Helga pottering about in the kitchen, the vacuum cleaner roaring, the clatter of plates being placed in the dishwasher. The endless cleaning which had consumed her whole life.
Good Lord, how he despised her. What a weak and wretched person she was. He had hated women all his life. First his mother, followed by all the others. His mother had loathed him from the very beginning. She had tried to clip his wings and prevent him from being himself. But she’d been laid to rest in the earth long ago.
The Ice Child Page 30