The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime) Page 11
For now, she made herself comfortable in the easy chair and tried to get Maja to nurse. But the baby sensed the tension in the air. She had fretted and fussed most of the morning, and now she stubbornly resisted the milk that would soothe her. Erica was sweating as she fought this battle of wills with her infant daughter. Only when Maja finally gave in and began to nurse did Erica relax. Cautiously, so she wouldn’t have struggled in vain, she switched on the TV. “The Bold and the Beautiful” was on, and Erica tried to immerse herself in Brooke and Ridge’s complex relationship. Kristina glanced at the TV screen as she hurried by with the vacuum cleaner.
‘Ugh, how can you stand to watch such trash? Why don’t you read a book instead?’
Erica retaliated by turning up the volume on the TV. For a second she permitted herself to enjoy the satisfaction of such a spiteful response. But when she saw her mother-in-law’s insulted look, she turned it back down. The price she would have to pay for any attempts at rebellion was too high. She glanced at her watch. Good Lord, it wasn’t even noon. It would be an eternity until Patrik came home. And then another day just like this one would follow, before Kristina packed her bags and went back home, convinced that she had been of invaluable help to her son and daughter-in-law. Two interminable days …
10
Strömstad 1924
The stonecutters’ mood had improved wonderfully with the warmer weather. When Anders arrived at work, he could hear his comrades’ work songs, matching the rhythm of their hammers. They were busy making holes for the gunpowder to blast out the larger blocks of granite. One man held the crowbar, and two took turns striking it until they had made a substantial hole straight into the stone. Then the black powder was poured in and ignited. Attempts had been made with dynamite, but it hadn’t worked properly. The pressure of the detonation was too great and had shattered the granite in all directions.
The men nodded to Anders as he walked by, without interrupting the rhythm of their work.
With joy in his heart, he went over to the place where he was working on carving out the statue. Progress had been painfully slow during the winter, when the cold on many days had made it impossible to work the stone. For long periods he had been forced to stop and wait for warmer weather, making it difficult to earn enough wages. But now he could get started in earnest on the huge piece of granite, and he wasn’t complaining. The winter had brought other reasons to be happy.
Sometimes he could hardly believe it was true, that such an angel had come down to earth and crept into his bed. Every minute they had spent together was a precious memory that he stored in a special place in his heart. But sometimes, his worries about the future clouded his joy. He had tried to bring up the subject with her on several occasions, but each time she would kiss him and whisper that they shouldn’t speak of such things, that everything was bound to work out. He had interpreted this to mean that she too still hoped for a future together. Sometimes he actually permitted himself to believe she was right. Deep inside, he was a romantic, convinced that love could conquer all obstacles. Of course they didn’t belong to the same social class, but he was a skilled, hard-working man, and he would undoubtedly be able to provide a good life for her if he only got the chance. And if she felt for him what he felt for her, then material things would not be so important to her. A life shared with him would be worth some sacrifices on her part. On a day like this, with the spring sunshine warming his fingers, he was convinced that everything would really turn out the way he hoped. Now he was merely waiting to receive her permission to speak with her father. Then he would set about preparing the speech of his life.
With a light heart, he meticulously began hammering out the statue from the stone, his head spinning with images of Agnes.
Arne was studying the obituary in the newspaper. He wrinkled his nose. He suspected as much. They had chosen a teddy bear as an illustration, and that was a custom that he really hated. An obituary should contain the symbols of the Christian church, nothing more. A teddy bear was ungodly. But he hadn’t expected anything else. The boy had been a disappointment from the beginning, and nothing he did surprised Arne anymore. It was unthinkable that such a God-fearing person as himself should have a son who had so stubbornly repudiated the right path. People who didn’t know any better had tried to bring about a reconciliation between them. They insisted that his son, from what they had heard, was a fine and intelligent man, with an honorable profession. Mostly it was women who had come to their door spouting such nonsense. Men knew better than to comment on things they knew nothing about. Of course he had to agree that his son had taken on a proper profession and seemed to be doing well. But if he didn’t have God in his heart, it was all meaningless.
Arne’s greatest dream had been to have a son who would follow his grandfather’s footsteps and become a pastor. He himself had been forced to put aside such ambitions early on, since his father drank up all the money that was supposed to go for his seminary training. Instead he’d had to content himself with working as a verger in the church. At least that still allowed him to spend his days in God’s house.
But the church was no longer what it had once been. Things used to be different. Back then, everyone knew his place, and the pastor was shown the proper respect. People also followed the words of Pastor Schartus as best they could, and they did not occupy themselves with other distractions, vices that even pastors appeared to enjoy nowadays: dancing, music, and living together out of wedlock. But the hardest thing for Arne to accept was that females were now allowed to act as God’s representatives. He just couldn’t understand it. The Bible was perfectly clear on this point: ‘Women shall be silent in the congregation.’ What was there to discuss? Women had no business being members of the clergy. They could offer good support as pastors’ wives or even as deaconesses, but otherwise they should remain silent in the congregation. It had been a sorry time when that female had taken over Fjällbacka Church. Arne had been forced to drive to Kville on Sundays to attend worship service, and he had simply refused to show up for work. He had paid a high price, but it was worth it. Now the hideous creature was gone. Of course, the new pastor was a bit too modern for his taste, but at least he was a man. Now he just had to make sure that never happened again.
Arne morosely turned the page in the regional paper, Bohusläningen. Asta was still moping about the house. He knew that she was sad about the little girl, and that it bothered her that their son now lived so close by. But he had explained that she had to be strong in her faith and true to their conviction. He could agree that it was a shame about the girl, but that just proved his point. Their son had not kept to the straight and narrow, and sooner or later he was bound to be punished. He paged back to look again at the blasted teddy bear in the obituary. It was a crying shame, it certainly was …
Mellberg didn’t feel the same sense of satisfaction that he usually did when he was the focus of media attention. He hadn’t even called a press conference, but had simply gathered some reporters from the local newspapers in his office. The thought of the letter he’d received overshadowed everything else right now, and he was having a hard time concentrating on anything else.
‘Do you have any solid leads to follow up on?’ A cub reporter was eagerly awaiting his reply.
‘Nothing that we can comment on in the present situation,’ the chief said.
‘Is anyone in the family a suspect?’ The question came from a reporter from the competing paper.
‘We’re keeping all our options open right now, but we have nothing concrete that points in a specific direction.’
‘Was it a sex crime?’ The same reporter again.
‘I can’t go into that,’ Mellberg said vaguely.
‘How did you confirm it was murder?’ the third journalist interjected. ‘Did she have external injuries that indicated it was homicide?’
‘For investigative reasons I can’t comment on that,’ said Mellberg, seeing how the frustration was growing on the reporters’ fac
es. It was always like walking a slack line where the press was concerned. Give them just enough so that they felt the police were doing their job, but not so much that it hurt the investigation. Usually he regarded himself as a master of this balancing act, but today he was having a hard time with it. He didn’t know what to do about the information he had received in the letter. Could it really be true?
One of the reporters was looking at him impatiently, and Mellberg realized he’d missed a question.
‘Pardon me, could you please repeat the question?’ he said in confusion, and the reporter’s expression registered his surprise. They had met at several of these types of meetings, and the superintendent usually acted grandiose and boastful, rather than low-key and absent-minded as he was today.
‘I asked whether there is any reason for parents in the area to worry about the safety of their children.’
‘We always recommend that parents keep a close eye on their children, but I want to emphasize that this shouldn’t lead to any sort of mass hysteria. I’m convinced that this is an isolated event and that we will soon have a suspect in custody.’
He stood up as a sign that the meeting was over. The reporters obediently put away their notebooks and pens and thanked him. They all felt that they might have questioned the superintendent a bit harder, but at the same time it was important for the local press to maintain a good relationship with the local police. They would leave the hard-hitting questions to their colleagues in the big cities. Here in Bohuslän they were often neighbors of the subjects of their interviews. They had children in the same sports leagues and schools, so they had to forgo any desire to get the big scoop, for the sake of harmony in the community.
Mellberg leaned back contentedly. Despite his lack of focus, the newspapers hadn’t received more information than he intended to give, and tomorrow the news would be plastered on the front pages of all the papers in the area. Hopefully that would make the general public wake up and start calling in tips. If the police were lucky, there might even be something they could use among all the gossip that usually came in.
He pulled out the letter and began reading it again. He still couldn’t believe his eyes.
11
Strömstad 1924
She lay in her room with a cold, damp washcloth on her forehead. The doctor had examined her carefully and then ordered bed rest. Now he was downstairs in the parlor talking with her father, and for a moment she worried that there might be something seriously wrong with her. An expression of alarm had appeared in his eyes, briefly, but it was gone the next instant. As he left the room he patted her hand and told her that everything would be all right. She just needed to rest for a while.
She couldn’t tell the good doctor the real reason for her malaise. All those late nights during the winter had affected her health. That was the diagnosis she had come up with herself, but she had to keep it a secret. Hopefully Dr. Fern would write a prescription for some restorative drops for her. Since she had now decided to terminate her escapades with Anders, she should soon be her old self again. In the meantime, it couldn’t hurt to stay in bed and be waited on for a week or two. Agnes pondered what she should ask to have for lunch. Now that she had lost yesterday’s dinner in the toilet, she could feel her stomach growling. Maybe pancakes, or those excellent meatballs the cook made, with boiled potatoes, cream gravy, and lingonberries.
Footsteps on the stairs made her shrink a little farther under the covers and moan a bit. She would ask for meatballs, she decided, the second before the door to her room opened.
The anger had been growing inside him since yesterday. The nerve! That damned woman really had no scruples at all, pointing him out to the police. Kaj wasn’t stupid; he knew that the rumors would soon start flying all over town, so it really didn’t make any difference what he said. The only thing people would remember was that the police had been to his house to ask questions about the girl’s death. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. After hesitating a moment, he put on his jacket and went outside, his face set with determination. The plank fence he’d put up between the lots prevented him from cutting straight across, so he went out to the street and then up the drive toward the Florins’ house. He had checked that both Niclas and Charlotte had left the house before he approached. He was going to give her a piece of his mind, that bitch. Like everyone else in town, Lilian seldom locked her front door, so he walked right in without knocking and stormed into the kitchen. She jumped when he came in but quickly collected herself, and her face took on that snippy, holier-than-thou expression. She really thought she was somebody. As if she were a bloody queen and not just an ordinary old bag in a fucking small town.
‘What the hell’s the meaning of sending the police over to my house?’ he yelled, slamming his fist on the kitchen table.
She gave him a cold stare. ‘They asked if we knew of anyone who might wish our family harm, so I immediately thought of you. And if you don’t hurry up and get out of my house, I’m going to call them again. Then they can see for themselves what you’re capable of.’
He wanted to wrap his hands around her throat. Her apparent calm only intensified his rage, and spots began to dance before his eyes.
‘Just try it, you shitty fucking bitch!’
‘Don’t think I wouldn’t. Because you can bet I will. You’ve continually harassed me and my family and threatened and badgered us.’ Histrionically, she put her hand to her breast and assumed the martyr expression he hated.
Worse yet, he realized she had succeeded in pulling off the same trick, to portray him as the villain and herself as the victim, when it was actually just the opposite. At first he had tried to be the better person, he really had. Tried to remain above the fray, to refuse to sink to her level. But then a couple of years ago he’d decided that if it was war she wanted, it was war she was going to get.
He hissed at her through clenched teeth: ‘You didn’t succeed, at any rate. The police didn’t seem very inclined to believe your lies about me.’
‘Well, there are several other possibilities that the police can investigate,’ Lilian said nastily.
‘What do you mean?’ Kaj asked, before he realized what she was getting at. ‘You leave Morgan out of this, do you hear me?’
‘I hardly need to say a thing.’ Her tone was even more malevolent. ‘The police will no doubt soon discover for themselves that there’s a man living next door who isn’t quite right in the head. And everyone knows what someone like that might do. If not, all they have to do is look at the reports on file.’
‘Those complaints were pure bullshit, and you know it! Morgan has never even set foot on your property, much less run around looking in your windows.’
‘Well, I know what I saw,’ said Lilian. ‘And the police will work it out as well, as soon as they look through the reports.’
He didn’t answer her. There was no use trying.
Then the rage took over.
Deeply engrossed in the papers on his desk, Martin jumped when Patrik knocked on his office door.
‘I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack,’ said Patrik with a smile. ‘Are you busy?’
‘No, come on in,’ he said, waving Patrik in. ‘So, how’d it go? Did you find out anything about the family from the teacher? Did he tell you anything?’
‘She,’ Patrik clarified. ‘No, she didn’t have much to say,’ he said, drumming his hand impatiently on his leg. ‘She didn’t know of any problems in connection with Sara’s family. But we did find out a bit more about Sara. The girl apparently had DAMP and could be quite trying.’
‘In what way?’ said Martin, who had only a vague understanding of this diagnosis that had become so common in recent years.
‘She was excitable, restless, and aggressive if she didn’t get her way. She also had difficulty concentrating.’
‘Sounds like she must have been rather hard to deal with,’ said Martin.
Patrik nodded. ‘Yes, that’s how I interpret
it too, even though the teacher didn’t come right out and say it, naturally.’
‘Did you notice anything like this when you saw Sara before?’
‘Erica was the one who saw her more often. I just saw her a few times, and all I remember is that I thought she seemed lively. But nothing that I reacted to.’
‘So what exactly is the difference between DAMP and ADHD?’ Martin asked. ‘It seems to me I’ve heard both used to describe pretty much the same conditions.’
‘No idea,’ said Patrik with a shrug. ‘And I don’t know whether her problem had anything to do with her murder, but we have to start somewhere, don’t we?’
Martin nodded and then pointed at the papers in front of him. ‘I’ve checked through the reports we’ve received about sex crimes in recent years, and there’s nothing that really matches. A few reports of offences committed against children by a close family member, but we had to drop the charges because of lack of evidence. We do have one conviction in such a case. You probably recall the father who assaulted his daughter, don’t you?’
Patrik nodded. There had been few cases that left such a horrid taste in his mouth. ‘Torbjörn Stiglund, yeah, but he’s probably still in prison, isn’t he?’