The Lost Boy (Patrick Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 7) Read online

  ‘Maybe.’

  Nathalie clearly didn’t want to discuss the subject further, so Patrik took a deep breath before broaching the topic that couldn’t be put off any longer. As he calmly explained what had happened, Nathalie began to shake. She stared at him in disbelief. She didn’t say a word, but she was shaking uncontrollably, as if she might break into a thousand pieces right before their eyes.

  ‘We still don’t know exactly when he was shot, so we’re trying to find out as much as possible about his last days. Gunnar and Signe said that he was planning to come out here to see you last Friday.’

  ‘Yes, he was here.’ Nathalie turned around to look towards the house. Patrik had the feeling that she did that mostly so he wouldn’t see her expression.

  When she turned back to face them, she still looked dazed, but she had stopped shaking.

  Erica impulsively leaned forward to put her hand on Nathalie’s. There was something so fragile and vulnerable about her, and it roused Erica’s protective instincts.

  ‘You were always so nice,’ said Nathalie, and then pulled her hand away without looking at Erica.

  ‘So last Friday …’ said Patrik cautiously.

  Nathalie gave a start and a veil seemed to fall over her eyes.

  ‘He came over in the evening. I didn’t know that he was coming. I hadn’t seen him in years.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw each other?’ asked Erica, unable to resist glancing towards the house. She was afraid that Nathalie’s son might wake up and slip out. Since having kids of her own, she felt as if she’d become the mother of all the children in the world.

  ‘We said goodbye when I moved to Stockholm. I was nineteen, I think. A whole lifetime ago.’ She laughed. A brief, bitter laugh.

  ‘Have you kept in touch over the years?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe a few postcards in the beginning. But we both knew that it wasn’t a good idea. Why prolong the pain by pretending things were otherwise?’ Nathalie brushed a few strands of blond hair out of her face again.

  ‘Whose decision was it to break up?’ asked Erica. She just couldn’t restrain her curiosity. She’d seen them together so many times, seen the golden light that seemed to radiate from the two of them. The golden couple.

  ‘We never really used those words. But it was my decision to move away. I couldn’t stay here. I needed to get out into the world. See things, do things, meet new people.’ She laughed that same bitter laugh that neither Erica nor Patrik understood.

  ‘So last Friday, when Mats came out here, how did you react?’ asked Patrik, wanting to continue the questioning even though he wasn’t sure it would lead to anything. Nathalie seemed so fragile. He felt as if he might break her in two if he said the wrong thing. And in the final analysis, this might have nothing at all to do with the case.

  ‘I was surprised. But Signe had told me that he’d moved back home. So I thought he might turn up.’

  ‘Were you happily surprised?’ asked Erica, reaching for the thermos to refill her cup.

  ‘Not at first. Well, I don’t know. I don’t believe in looking back. Matte belonged to the past. At the same time …’ She seemed to get lost in her own thoughts. ‘At the same time, maybe I never really left him. I don’t know. At any rate, I let him come up to the house.’

  ‘Approximately what time was it when he arrived?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘Hmm … I think it was around six. I’m not really sure. Time isn’t very important out here.’

  ‘How long did he stay?’ Patrik shifted position, grimacing a bit. His body didn’t like sitting on such a hard surface for very long. He found himself yearning for another nice, warm seaweed bath.

  ‘He left sometime later that night.’ The pain was as clearly etched on her face as if she’d screamed it out loud.

  Patrik suddenly felt uncomfortable. What right did he have to ask these questions? What right did he have to go snooping around in something that ought to be kept private, something that had taken place between two people who had once upon a time loved each other? But he forced himself to go on. In his mind he pictured the body lying on its stomach in the hall, with a big, gaping hole in the head, a pool of blood on the floor, and blood spattered over the wall. As long as the killer was on the loose, it was the job of the police to snoop. Murder and the right to privacy were two things that didn’t go together.

  ‘So you’ve no idea what time he left?’ he asked gently.

  Nathalie bit her lip. Her eyes were shiny with tears.

  ‘No, he left while I was asleep. I thought that …’ She swallowed several times, looking as if she were trying to keep her composure, as if she didn’t want to lose control in front of them.

  ‘Did you try ringing him? Or did you phone Signe and Gunnar to ask them?’ said Patrik.

  The sun had slowly moved while they were talking, and the long shadows from the lighthouse were getting closer.

  ‘No.’ She started trembling again.

  ‘Did Mats say anything when he was here that might give us a lead? Something that might tell us who would have wanted him dead?’

  Nathalie shook her head. ‘No, I can’t believe that anyone would ever want to harm Matte. He was … Well, you know, Erica. He was exactly the same now as he used to be back then. Kind, thoughtful, loving. Exactly the same.’ She looked down, running her hand over the blanket.

  ‘Yes, we understand that Mats was well-liked, a very nice person,’ said Patrik. ‘At the same time, there are parts of his life that we need to find out more about. For instance, he was the victim of an assault just before he moved back to Fjällbacka. Did he tell you anything about that?’

  ‘Not much. I saw the scars and asked him about them. He just said that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that it was a bunch of kids who attacked him.’

  ‘Did he mention his job in Göteborg?’ Patrik had hoped to find out more about the assault that might explain the uneasy feeling he had inside. No such luck. Nothing but dead ends.

  ‘He said that he’d loved the job, but found it exhausting. Meeting all those battered women who were so damaged …’ Her voice broke, and again she turned away to look towards the house.

  ‘Did he tell you anything else that we should know about? Was there any particular person that he felt threatened by?’

  ‘No. He just talked about what the job had meant to him. In the end, though, it left him worn out. He didn’t have the strength to keep doing that type of work. And after being in hospital, he decided to come back here.’

  ‘Permanently, or only for a while?’

  ‘I don’t think he knew. He said that he was taking one day at a time. Trying to heal both his body and soul.’

  Patrik nodded and then hesitated before asking the next question.

  ‘Did he tell you whether there was a woman in his life? Or more than one?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask. He didn’t ask me about my husband either. Who we loved now or had loved in the past was of no importance that evening.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Patrik. ‘By the way, the boat is missing,’ he added, as if in passing.

  Nathalie looked confused. ‘What boat?’

  ‘Signe and Gunnar’s boat. The one Mats used to come over here.’

  ‘It’s gone? Stolen? Or what do you mean?’

  ‘We don’t know. It wasn’t tied up at the dock when Gunnar went to look for it.’

  ‘Matte must have taken it to get home,’ said Nathalie. ‘How else could he have got to the mainland?’

  ‘So he did come out here in the motorboat. Nobody gave him a ride, or anything like that?’

  ‘Who would do that?’ asked Nathalie.

  ‘I don’t know. All we can say for sure is that the boat is missing, and we have no idea where it might have gone.’

  ‘Well, he used it to come out here, and he must have gone home in it too.’ She ran her hand over the blanket again.

  Patrik glanced at Erica, who was unusually quiet as she
sat there, listening. ‘I think it’s time for us to go,’ he said, getting up. ‘Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, Nathalie. And please accept our condolences.’

  Erica stood up too. ‘It was nice to see you again, Nathalie.’

  ‘It was nice to see you, too.’ Nathalie gave Erica an awkward hug.

  ‘Take care of Sam, and give us a call if you need anything, or if we can help in any other way. If his cold gets worse, we can arrange for the district doctor to come out here and have a look at him.’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’ Nathalie followed them over to the boat.

  Patrik started the engine and was about to pull the boat away from the dock when he stopped abruptly.

  ‘Do you remember whether Mats had his briefcase with him?’

  Nathalie frowned as she considered the question. Then her face lit up. ‘A brown briefcase? Made of leather?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Patrik. ‘That’s gone missing too.’

  ‘Wait here.’ Nathalie turned on her heel and sprinted towards the house. A few minutes later she came out, holding something. When she got close to the dock, Patrik saw what it was. The briefcase. His heart skipped a beat.

  ‘He forgot it. I haven’t touched it. I hope I haven’t caused any trouble.’ She knelt down on the pier so she could hand the briefcase to Patrik.

  ‘We’re just glad to find it. Thanks!’ he said. He was already thinking about what the briefcase might contain.

  After they had backed away from the dock and set off towards Fjällbacka, Patrik and Erica both turned to wave to Nathalie. She waved back. The shadow from the lighthouse was now stretching all the way to the pier. It looked as if it might swallow her whole.

  12

  ‘Can we go out and search for a while?’ Gunnar had a hard time keeping his voice steady as he stood on the wharf.

  Peter looked up from what he was doing and seemed on the verge of saying no. Then he gave in.

  ‘Okay, we can take a short trip around. But it’s Sunday, and I need to get home soon.’

  Gunnar stood in silence, gazing straight ahead, his eyes like two dark holes. With a sigh, Peter went into the wheelhouse to start the engine. He helped Gunnar on board, gave him a life jacket, and with an expert hand steered the boat out of the harbour. After they’d gone some distance, he decreased the speed.

  ‘Where do you want to start searching? We looked around this area when we were out here before, but we didn’t see anything.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Gunnar peered out through the windscreen. He couldn’t just sit at home and wait. He couldn’t bear to see Signe sitting motionless on her chair in the kitchen. She had stopped cooking, baking, and sweeping, stopped doing all the things that made her the person she was. And what about him? Who was he, now that Matte was gone? He had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that he needed some sort of goal in a life that had lost all meaning for him.

  He had to find the boat. That was something he could do, something that would take him away from home, away from the silence and everything that reminded him of his son, away from the house where Matte had grown up. The footprint in the cement in the driveway, which Gunnar had put in when Matte was five. The toothmark on the chest of drawers in the front hall, which happened when Matte came running too fast, slipped on the rug, and struck his front teeth so hard on the drawer that they left two visible dents in the wood. All those small things that showed that Matte had been there, that Matte had been theirs.

  ‘Head towards Dannholmen,’ said Gunnar. He really had no idea where to look. There was nothing to indicate that the boat might be found in that direction. But it was as good a place as any to start their search.

  ‘So how are things at home?’ asked Peter cautiously as he focused his attention on steering. Occasionally he would cast a look around to see if the motorboat might have drifted ashore somewhere.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ said Gunnar.

  That was a lie, because things weren’t fine at all. But what was he supposed to say? How could he describe the emptiness that filled a home after losing a child? Sometimes he was amazed to find himself still breathing. How could he go on living and breathing when Matte was gone?

  ‘Fine,’ he repeated.

  Peter merely nodded. That’s the way it was. People hadn’t a clue what to say. They said the obligatory phrases, the words that were expected of them in such a situation, and they tried to be sympathetic. At the same time, they thanked their lucky stars that they were not the ones who had suffered such a loss. Grateful that their own children, their loved ones, were alive. That was just the way it was. They were only human.

  ‘You don’t think it could have come untied, do you?’ Gunnar wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Peter or to himself.

  ‘I don’t think so. If it had, it would have drifted in among the other boats. No, I think somebody must have taken it. Those old wooden boats have been going up in value, so maybe it was a work-for-hire. If that’s the case, we’re not going to find it out here. They usually take them someplace where they can be pulled out of the water and then carted off on a boat trailer.’

  Peter turned right and headed past Småsvinningarna. ‘Let’s go out to Dannholmen. After that, we’ll have to turn around and go back. Otherwise my family will start to worry.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gunnar. ‘Could we go out again tomorrow?’

  Peter looked at him.

  ‘Sure. Come by around ten, and we’ll go out looking. But only if there are no emergency call-outs for the Coast Guard.’

  ‘Good. I’ll be there,’ Gunnar said as he continued to peer at the islands.

  Mette had invited them over for dinner, as she often did, pretending that it was her turn, even though Madeleine never reciprocated. Madeleine played along, although she felt a pang of humiliation because she was never able to return the invitation. She dreamed of casually saying to Mette: ‘Would you and your kids like to have dinner with us tonight? It won’t be anything fancy.’ But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t afford to invite Mette and her three children to dinner. She hardly had enough food for Kevin, Vilda, and herself.

  ‘Are you sure it’s okay?’ she asked as she sat down at the table in Mette’s bustling kitchen.

  ‘Of course it is. I have to cook a big dinner for my three little pigs, so three more won’t make any difference.’ Mette tenderly ruffled the hair of her middle son, Thomas.

  ‘Cut it out, Mamma,’ he said, annoyed, but Madeleine could tell that he liked it.

  ‘A little wine?’ Without waiting for an answer, Mette poured her a glass from the red wine that came in a box.

  She turned around and stirred the pots on the stove. Madeleine sipped her wine.

  ‘Are you keeping an eye on the kiddies?’ Mette called into the other room. Two voices said ‘yes’ in reply. Her two youngest children, a ten-year-old girl and Thomas, who was thirteen, were watching Kevin and Vilda, who were drawn to them like magnets. Her oldest, a boy of seventeen, was seldom home any more.

  ‘It’s more likely that my kids are bothering yours,’ said Madeleine, taking another sip of her wine.

  ‘Not at all. They love them, and you know it.’ Mette wiped her hands on the tea towel, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down across from Madeleine.

  In terms of appearance, two women couldn’t be less alike, thought Madeleine, briefly picturing the pair of them as if she were an impartial observer. She was short and blond, built more like a child than a woman. Mette looked like that famous stone statue depicting a voluptuous female, which Madeleine remembered from her art classes in school. Big and curvaceous, with thick red hair that seemed to have a life of its own. Green eyes that were always sparkling, even though she too had suffered setbacks in her life that ought to have stripped them of their gleam long ago. Mette seemed to have a fondness for choosing weak men who quickly became dependent on her and then mostly sat around, making demands, like baby birds with their mouths open wide. Eventually Mette would have enoug
h, as she’d told Madeleine. But it wouldn’t be long before the next baby bird would move into her bed. That was why the children each had a different father, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that all three of them had inherited Mette’s red hair, it would have been impossible to tell that they were siblings.

  ‘So how’s it going with you, my dear?’ asked Mette, twirling her glass in her hands.

  Madeleine felt herself freeze. Even though Mette had confided everything in her, openly sharing her life and her shortcomings, Madeleine had never dared do the same. She was so accustomed to living in fear, always scared to say too much. For that reason, she kept everybody at arm’s length. Almost everybody.

  But at this moment, on a Sunday evening in the kitchen with Mette, as the pots simmered on the stove and the wine warmed her from the inside, she could no longer hold herself back. She started telling her story. When the tears came, Mette moved her chair next to hers and put her arms around Madeleine. And in Mette’s safe embrace, she told her everything. Even about him. Despite having moved to a foreign country, a foreign life, he was still so near.

  FJÄLLBACKA 1871

  Karl’s hatred towards her seemed to get worse and worse as the baby inside of her grew. And now she realized that it truly was hatred, though she didn’t understand why. What had she done? Whenever he looked at her, his eyes were filled with disgust. At the same time she thought she could see despair in his glance, like the look in the eyes of a captured animal. As if he was caught and couldn’t get free, as if he was as much a prisoner as she was. But for some reason, he turned this against her, seemingly regarding her as his prison guard. Julian didn’t make things any better. His dark outlook seemed to influence Karl, whose earlier indifference, which in the beginning could have been mistaken for a distracted friendliness, had now disappeared completely. She was the enemy.

  Gradually, Emelie had grown used to their harsh words. Both Karl and Julian complained about everything she did. The food was either too hot or too cold. The portions were too small or too big. The house was never clean enough, and their clothes were never laundered or mended to their liking. Nothing ever met their approval. Yet their critical words she could handle; she’d developed an armour against them. It was the physical abuse that she had a harder time accepting. In the past, Karl had never hit her, but after she told him she was carrying a child, her life on the island changed. She was forced to learn to live with the pain of slaps and blows. And he also allowed Julian to raise his hand to her. She was stunned. Wasn’t this the news they had both wanted to hear?