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

  Chapter Ten

  ‘How are you doing?’ asked Paula, giving Martin a searching look as they drove.

  He wondered how long everyone was going to keep worrying about him.

  ‘Things are good,’ he said, surprised to hear that he actually meant it.

  His grief at losing Pia would never disappear completely. He would always wonder what their life together might have been, and he’d see her like a shadowy presence at all the important occasions in Tuva’s life. Even at the less important occasions, for that matter. After Pia died, people told him a time would come when he’d be able to enjoy life again. That one day he would feel happy and find himself laughing. That his grief would never go away, but he’d learn to live with it, to walk side by side with his sorrow. At the time, when he was wandering in darkness, it had seemed impossible. In the beginning he frequently seemed to be taking one step forward and two steps back, but after a while it became two steps forward and one step back. Until gradually all movement was forward.

  Martin’s thoughts turned to the mother he’d met at the playground yesterday. To be honest, he’d been thinking about her a lot. He realized he should have asked for her phone number. Or at least found out her name. But it was easy to think of things after the event. He’d felt flustered when he realized he’d like to see her again. As luck would have it, they lived in a small community, and he’d been hoping to see her at the playground today. That was his plan, anyway, until Nea was found murdered, and he’d been forced to end his holiday and go back to work.

  Guilt flooded over him. How could he be thinking about a woman at a time like this?

  ‘You look happy, but also a little worried,’ said Paula, as if she’d read his thoughts.

  Before he could stop himself, he told her about the woman at the playground. He nearly missed the exit and had to turn the wheel hard to the left.

  ‘Aha,’ said Paula. ‘She’s so cute you can’t even drive when you think about her!’ She reached for the grab-handle above the car window.

  ‘You probably think I’m a real idiot,’ Martin said, blushing so much that his freckles were even more noticeable against his pale skin.

  ‘I think it’s great,’ said Paula, patting his leg. ‘And don’t feel guilty. Life has to go on. And if you’re feeling good, then you’ll do a better job. So find out who she is and give her a call. We’re not going to be able to work round the clock. If we get too tired we’ll only make mistakes.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Martin, wondering how he should go about finding her.

  He knew the name of her son. That was always a start. Tanumshede wasn’t a big place, so he should be able to find her. Provided she wasn’t a tourist just passing through. What if she didn’t even live in the area?

  ‘Aren’t we going to stop somewhere?’ said Paula as he drove past the first house they’d seen since turning on to the gravel road.

  ‘What? Oh, sorry,’ he said, blushing again.

  ‘I’ll help you track her down later,’ Paula told him with a grin.

  Martin pulled into the driveway of an old, red-painted house with white trim and lots of gingerbread details. He found himself sighing from sheer envy. This was exactly the sort of house he’d dreamed of owning. He and Pia had been saving up for a house, and had almost scraped together enough for a down payment. Every evening they would search the property websites, and they’d even gone to their first viewing. But then came the cancer diagnosis. The money was still in his savings account. His dream of buying a house had died with Pia, along with all his other dreams.

  Paula knocked on the door of the house.

  ‘Hello?’ she called after a moment.

  She glanced at Martin, found the door was unlocked, and stepped into the entryway. In a big city it would have been unthinkable to do such a thing, but here few people ever locked their doors, and friends would often simply go inside. The woman who now came towards them didn’t seem the least bit startled to hear the voices of strangers in her front hall.

  ‘Oh, hello. Looks like the police are paying me a visit, am I right?’ she said, giving them a smile.

  She was so short and tiny and wrinkled that Martin was afraid the draught coming in from the front door might blow her over.

  ‘Come in. I’m watching the third round between Alexander Gustafsson and Daniel Cormier,’ she said.

  Martin gave Paula a puzzled look. He had no clue what the old lady was talking about. He had very little interest in sports. Occasionally he might watch a football match if Sweden was in the semi-finals for the European or world championships, but that was about it. And he knew Paula was even less interested in sports, if such a thing were possible.

  ‘Whatever it is you want, it’ll have to wait. Have a seat on the sofa,’ the woman told them, pointing at a rose-patterned sofa upholstered in some sort of shiny fabric.

  Slowly she lowered herself on to a big wingback chair with a footstool placed right in front of the huge TV. To his surprise, Martin saw that the ‘match’ she was watching consisted of two men in a cage going at each other like crazy.

  ‘Gustafsson had him in an arm lock in the second round, and Cormier nearly caved, but the bell rang just as he was about to give up. And now in the third round Gustafsson is looking tired, while Cormier is recharged. But I haven’t given up yet. Gustafsson has a fierce fighting spirit, and if he can only get him down on the ground, I think he’ll take it home. Cormier is strongest when he’s on his feet, but not as sharp on the ground.’

  Martin found himself speechless as he stared at the woman.

  ‘Mixed Martial Arts, right?’ asked Paula. ‘MMA?’

  The woman looked at her as if she were an idiot.

  ‘Of course it’s MMA. What did you think it was? Hockey?’

  She chuckled. Patrik noticed a glass of whisky on the table next to her chair. When I’m her age, he thought, I’m going to treat myself to whatever I want, and whenever I want it, and never mind what might be considered sensible.

  ‘It’s a title match,’ said the woman, her eyes fixed on the TV. ‘They’re fighting for the world championship. It’s been billed as the match of the year. So you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t give you my full attention right now. I don’t want to miss this.’

  She reached for her glass and took a swig of whisky. On the TV screen the big blond guy knocked down the dark-skinned man with the bizarrely wide shoulders and then pounced on top of him. To Martin it looked like an assault that would have earned him several years in jail in real life. And what about those ears? What had those guys done to their ears? They were big and thick and looked like badly shaped lumps of clay. He suddenly understood what people meant by ‘cauliflower ears’ when they talked about fighters.

  ‘Three minutes to go,’ said the woman, taking another swig of her drink.

  Martin and Paula exchanged glances. He could see she was trying hard not to laugh. This was the last thing they’d expected.

  Suddenly the woman shouted and leapt up from her chair.

  ‘YES!’

  ‘Did he win?’ asked Martin. ‘Did Gustafsson win?’

  The blond giant was racing around the cage like a lunatic. He jumped up on the edge and screamed. Apparently, he was the winner.

  ‘Cormier got beat. He had him in a rear neck choke, and he finally gave up.’

  She downed the last of her whisky.

  ‘Is he the one they’ve been writing about in all the papers? The Mole – isn’t that what they call him?’ asked Paula, looking pleased she’d remembered that much.

  ‘The Mole? No, he’s called The Mauler!’ the woman snorted. ‘Gustafsson is one of the best in the world. Surely you know that – it’s common knowledge.’

  She got up to go to the kitchen.

  ‘I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said both Martin and Paula.

  Having a cup of coffee was part of what they did when they were out talking to pe
ople. If they had a lot of interviews in one day, it was sometimes hard to get to sleep at night.

  They got up and followed the woman into the kitchen. Martin realized they hadn’t even introduced themselves.

  ‘Sorry, we didn’t get a chance to tell you our names. I’m Martin Molin, and this is Paula Morales. We’re from the Tanumshede police station.’

  ‘Dagmar Hagelin,’ said the woman cheerfully as she set a kettle on the hob. ‘Have a seat at the table. It’s more pleasant. I only use the living room when I want to watch TV. I prefer to spend most of my time in here.’

  She pointed to the worn wooden table, which was covered with crossword puzzles. Quickly she gathered them all up and set the pile on the window ledge.

  ‘A workout for the brain. I’ll be ninety-two in September, so I need to keep exercising the old noggin, else dementia will creep in faster than you can say … Oh, er, I forget.’

  She laughed merrily at her own joke.

  ‘How did you get interested in MMA?’ asked Paula.

  ‘My great-grandson is involved at the elite level. He doesn’t compete in the UFC yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s good, and he’s ambitious.’

  ‘I see. But it’s still a little … um, unusual,’ Paula ventured.

  Dagmar didn’t reply at once. She took the kettle off the hob using a crocheted potholder and set it on the table on top of a cork trivet. Then she got out three sweet little cups made of delicate porcelain with a pink pattern and gold rims. She put them on the table and sat down to serve the coffee. Only then did she speak.

  ‘We’ve always been very close, Oscar and I, so I started going to his matches. And it’s easy to get caught up in the whole thing. You can’t help it. I was quite a successful track-and-field athlete in my younger days, so I can relate to the tension and excitement.’

  She pointed to a black-and-white photograph on the wall of a young and sporty-looking woman on her way over the high-jump bar.

  ‘That’s you?’ said Martin, impressed as he tried to match the image of the tall, slender, and muscular young woman with the tiny, stooped grey-haired granny sitting across from him.

  Dagmar seemed to know what he was thinking and gave him a big smile.

  ‘Even I have a hard time believing that’s me. But the strange thing is, I feel the same way inside as I did back then. Sometimes I’m shocked when I look at myself in the mirror, and I find myself saying: “Who’s this old lady?”’

  ‘How long were you involved in sports?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Not long, compared to athletes today, but too long for those days. When I met my husband, I had to put sports aside, and then I had a child and a house to take care of. But I’m not blaming my daughter. That’s the way things were. She’s a fine person. She wants me to come and live with her when I can’t take care of the house any more. She’s getting on in years herself. She’ll be sixty-three this winter, so I think we’d get along all right if we ended up under the same roof.’

  Martin took a sip of coffee from the delicate cup.

  ‘It’s Kopi Luwak coffee,’ said Dagmar when she saw the look of pleasure on his face. ‘My eldest grandchild imports it to Sweden. It’s made from coffee beans eaten by civet cats. The civets poop out the beans, which are then gathered, washed, and roasted. It’s not cheap. Usually costs about six hundred kronor per cup, but as I said, Julius imports the coffee, so he gets it for a better price, and sometimes he gives me some. He knows I love it. You’ll never taste better coffee.’

  Martin looked at the coffee aghast, but then shrugged and took another sip. He didn’t care where it came from when it tasted so divine. He hesitated for a moment but decided it was time to move on from the small talk.

  ‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard the news,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘But a little girl was found murdered up here in the woods.’

  ‘I heard. My daughter came by and told me,’ said Dagmar, her expression darkening. ‘That sweet little blonde girl who was always running around like a tornado. I still go out for a long walk every day, and I often go past the Berg farm. I’d often see her out in the yard.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’ asked Martin, taking another sip of coffee.

  ‘Hmm … when was it?’ said Dagmar, looking pensive. ‘Not yesterday, but the day before, I think. On Sunday.’

  ‘What time of day?’ asked Paula.

  ‘I always take my walk in the morning before it gets too hot. She was out in the yard, playing. I waved to her as I walked past, like I always do, and she waved back.’

  ‘So that was Sunday morning?’ said Martin. ‘But not since then?’

  Dagmar shook her head.

  ‘No. I didn’t see her yesterday.’

  ‘Did you happen to see anything that struck you as unusual? The smallest detail could be important. So even if something seems trivial to you, better to tell us and we’ll decide whether it’s significant or not.’

  Martin drank the rest of his coffee. He felt so clumsy holding the fragile little cup in his hand. He set it carefully down on the saucer.

  ‘No, I can’t say I recall anything that would be of interest. I have a good view out the kitchen window when I’m sitting here, but I don’t remember seeing anything special.’

  ‘If you happen to think of something later on, don’t hesitate to phone us,’ said Paula, getting up after casting an enquiring glance at Martin, who nodded.

  She put her business card on the table and pushed in her chair.

  ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ said Martin. ‘It was excellent and also … an experience.’

  ‘Precisely the way things in life should be,’ replied Dagmar with a smile.

  He glanced again at the photo of the beautiful young athlete and saw the same glint in her eye as in the eyes of ninety-one-year-old Dagmar. He recognized that glint. Pia had had it too: joie de vivre.

  With great care he closed the lovely old front door behind him.

  Mellberg stretched as he sat at the head of the conference table. An impressive group of reporters had gathered. Not only from the local papers, but from the national media as well.

  ‘Is it the same perpetrator?’ asked Kjell from Bohusläningen.

  Patrik was keeping a close eye on Mellberg. He would have preferred to take over, but Mellberg had put his foot down. A press conference was his moment in the spotlight, and he wasn’t about to give up the opportunity. This was in stark contrast to his readiness to step aside when it came to anything that resembled hard work.

  ‘We can’t rule out the possibility of a link to the Stella case, but we’re not going to get locked into any one theory,’ said Mellberg.

  ‘But surely it’s not a coincidence,’ Kjell insisted.

  His dark beard now had a few streaks of grey.

  ‘As I said, we will of course investigate every angle, but when something seems too obvious, there’s a risk we might not look into other possibilities.’

  Good answer, Mellberg, thought Patrik with surprise. Maybe he’d actually learned a few things along the way.

  ‘Though clearly it does seem a strange coincidence that the film star should come back here right before this happens,’ said Mellberg. All the reporters began feverishly taking notes.

  Patrik had to clench his fists to stop himself from slapping his forehead. He could already guess what the evening headlines would be.

  ‘So, are you planning to question Marie and Helen?’ asked a hack from one of the evening papers.

  The younger reporters were always the most persistent. Hungry to establish themselves at the paper and prepared to do whatever it took to make their name.

  ‘Yes, we plan to talk to them,’ Mellberg confirmed. It was obvious he was enjoying all the attention.

  He gladly turned his face towards the cameras aimed at him, reaching up to make sure his comb-over was in place.

  ‘So are they your prime suspects?’ asked a young female reporter from the other big evening paper.

&nb
sp; ‘Well, I mean … No, I wouldn’t exactly say that …’

  Mellberg scratched his head and seemed to realize he might have turned the conversation in the wrong direction. He looked at Patrik, who cleared his throat and said:

  ‘We have no suspects at this stage of the investigation. As Bertil Mellberg said, we’re not ruling anything out yet. We’re waiting for the technical report, and we’re carrying out interviews on a broad front, talking to people who might provide information regarding the time period when Nea disappeared.’

  ‘So you think it’s merely coincidence that a girl from the same farm disappears and is found dead in the same place as Stella, during the same week when one of the individuals convicted in the Stella case comes back here for the first time in thirty years?’

  ‘The most obvious connections are not always the most significant,’ he replied to the follow-up question. ‘So it would not be wise for us to get locked into one theory right now. As Mellberg has already pointed out.’

  Kjell from Bohusläningen raised his hand to indicate he had another question.

  ‘How did the girl die?’

  Mellberg leaned forward.

  ‘As Patrik Hedström mentioned, we haven’t yet received the technical report, and the post-mortem hasn’t been done. So at this time we can’t address that question.’

  ‘Is there a risk other children might be murdered?’ Kjell went on. ‘Should parents in the area keep their children inside? As you might expect, rumours have been spreading, and people are scared.’

  Mellberg paused before answering. Patrik discreetly shook his head, hoping his boss would get the message. There was no reason to frighten the local population.

  ‘At the present time there is no reason for concern,’ Mellberg said. ‘We’re putting all our resources into this investigation. We will find out who killed Linnea Berg.’

  ‘Was she killed in the same way as Stella?’

  Kjell wasn’t giving up. The other journalists looked from him to Mellberg. Patrik crossed his fingers that Mellberg would stand firm.

  ‘As I said, we won’t know until we have the results of the pathology report.’