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

  ‘Pappa, I know they’re not really supposed to watch Frozen, because it’s too scary, and only big kids are allowed to watch it this late at night … But I told them you might consider making an exceptional this time, and …’

  Then she gave him an exaggerated wink. Patrik could hardly keep from laughing. She was a sneaky one, that girl. No doubt she got it from her mother. And she sounded so grown up, even though she’d said ‘an exceptional’ instead of ‘an exception’. He didn’t have the heart to correct her, and he forced himself to look serious. The twins were watching him expectantly.

  ‘Hmm … I don’t know … Daytime is one thing, but like you said, the film is a little too scary for small kids at night. But, all right, we’ll make an exceptional. Just this one time!’

  The twins cheered, and Maja looked pleased. Good lord, what was that girl going to be like when she grew up? Patrik had visions of the prime minister’s official residence in Stockholm.

  ‘Did you hear all that?’ he asked, laughing, when he joined Erica in the kitchen.

  She gave him a big smile. She was standing at the worktop chopping vegetables for a salad.

  ‘I certainly did. What’s to become of her?’

  ‘I was thinking she’d make a good prime minister,’ he replied, putting his arms around Erica from behind and nuzzling her neck.

  He loved the scent of her.

  ‘Sit down. Dinner will be ready in a minute,’ she said, giving him a kiss. ‘I’ve poured you a glass of red wine, and one of your mother’s homemade lasagnes is in the oven.’

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t really complain about her spoiling us,’ said Patrik as he sank on to a kitchen chair.

  His mother, Kristina, was always worrying that the children – as well as Erica and Patrik, for that matter – would die of malnutrition from eating too many ready-made dinners. At least once a week she would stop by with some homemade food to put in their freezer. And even though they muttered that it was time she started treating them like adults, on occasions like this, her food was a lifesaver. Besides, Kristina was a great cook, and the lasagne smelled delicious.

  ‘What do you think? Was my report of any help?’ asked Erica as she sat down across from Patrik and poured herself some wine. ‘Have you made any progress in the investigation?’

  ‘So far there’s nothing concrete to go on,’ said Patrik as he swirled the wine in his glass.

  The flames from two candles were reflected in the red wine, and for the first time in nearly forty-eight hours, he allowed his shoulders to relax. But he wouldn’t be able to relax completely until they found out what had happened to Nea.

  ‘Have you heard anything from Helen or Marie?’ he asked.

  Erica shook her head. ‘No, nothing yet. Much will depend on what advice Marie’s received from the publisher she’s negotiating with, and whether they think she should agree to an interview with me or not. Personally, I think my book would actually help promote hers and boost sales, but the publisher may feel differently.’

  ‘What about Helen?’

  ‘She hasn’t answered either. I think it’s fifty–fifty whether she’ll agree. Most people have an innate need to unburden themselves. Yet Helen has managed to create a new life for herself here in Fjällbacka, even though she’s done it by staying in the shadows. I’m not sure she would voluntarily step into the spotlight again. Although, after what just happened, she may be forced to. Everyone is going to be looking at her and Marie.’

  ‘What’s your view of it all?’ asked Patrik as he got up to open the oven and check on the lasagne.

  It was bubbling but still needed some time for the cheese to turn brown. He sat down again and looked at Erica, who was frowning. After a moment she said:

  ‘I honestly don’t know. When I started the research for this book, I was convinced they were guilty. The fact that they both confessed weighs heavily against them, even though they later retracted their confessions and have maintained their innocence ever since. I had planned to write a book in which I tried to understand how such young girls could kill a four-year-old. But now I’m not so sure … When I found out that Leif Hermansson thought they were innocent, I began looking at everything from a different angle. After all, he was the person most involved with the case. And the whole thing was based on the confessions of the two girls. The police didn’t look any further. When the girls retracted their confessions, there was no interest in re-opening the case. Not even Leif wanted to do that. Any doubts he had came later.’

  ‘So what do you suppose made Leif change his mind and believe in their innocence?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Erica, shaking her head so the blond locks fell softly around her face. ‘But I’m going to find out. I’ll start by interviewing people who knew Marie and Helen thirty years ago, while I wait to hear back from them.’

  Erica got up to take the lasagne out of the oven.

  ‘I rang Helen’s mother, and she was willing to let me come over to ask her some questions.’

  ‘What do you think Helen will say about that?’ asked Patrik. ‘The fact that her mother is going to talk to you?’

  Erica shrugged.

  ‘According to what I’ve heard about Helen’s mother, she mostly cares about herself. I doubt she’d even give a thought to whether or not she had her daughter’s approval.’

  ‘What about Marie’s family? Her parents are dead, but she has two brothers, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. One lives in Stockholm and is apparently a junkie. The other brother is in prison for armed robbery in Kumla.’

  ‘I’d rather you stayed away from those two,’ said Patrik, even though he knew his words would fall on deaf ears.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Erica, since she knew that Patrik knew he couldn’t control her.

  They silently agreed to change the subject as they began eating their lasagne.

  From the living room they heard ‘Let It Go’ playing full blast on the TV.

  The Stella Case

  Leif tried to gather his thoughts before he entered the small interview room. It made sense. And yet it didn’t. It was Marie’s composure that had convinced him more than anything else. Her voice hadn’t quavered at all when she confessed to the murder.

  Marie was a child. She could never manage to dupe an experienced police officer. How could a child possibly lie about such an unimaginable crime? Calmly and matter-of-factly she had recounted the whole story from beginning to end while her mother sobbed and screamed and her father roared at her to shut up.

  As her girlish voice recounted step by step what happened, Leif had looked at the clasped hands on her lap and her blond hair lit by a ray of sunlight from the window. It was hard to believe someone who so resembled an angel could have done something this evil, but he had no doubt she was telling the truth. Now all he needed to do was put the last puzzle pieces – or rather, puzzle piece – in place.

  ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long,’ he said as he went into the other interview room, closing the door behind him.

  KG nodded curtly, placing his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

  ‘We’re getting a little tired of all this,’ said Harriet, shaking her head.

  Leif cleared his throat.

  ‘I’ve just had a talk with Marie,’ he said.

  Helen slowly raised her head. Her eyes had a slightly veiled look, as if she were somewhere else.

  ‘Marie has confessed. She said the two of you did it.’

  KG gasped for air, and Harriet put her hand to her mouth. For a moment Leif thought he saw surprise on Helen’s face. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared, and later he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all.

  For several seconds she didn’t say a word. Then she nodded.

  ‘Yes, we did it.’

  ‘Helen!’

  Harriet reached out her hand, but KG sat motionless. His face was a mask.

  ‘Should we be contacting a lawyer?’ he asked.

  Leif hesitated. Much as he
wanted to get to the bottom of things, he couldn’t deny them the right to have a lawyer present.

  ‘You’re entitled to do that, if you wish,’ he said.

  ‘No, I want to answer the questions,’ said Helen, turning to look at her father.

  A silent battle seemed to take place between them. Much to Leif’s surprise, Helen came out the winner.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked, looking at Leif.

  Point by point he went over Marie’s account. At times Helen merely nodded, and then he had to remind her to answer verbally for the sake of the tape recorder. She displayed the same unnatural calm as Marie, and he couldn’t decide what to make of her composure. Over the years he had questioned many criminals. Everything from bicycle thieves to wife-beaters to a woman who had drowned her newborn child in the bathtub. They had shown a wide range of emotions. Anger, sorrow, panic, rage, resignation. But never had he interviewed anyone whose demeanour was completely neutral. Let alone two such suspects. He wondered if it was because they were children; maybe they were too young to fully understand what they’d done. Their lack of emotion as they recounted their horrifying story had to be based on something other than evil.

  ‘So afterwards you went swimming, is that right? Marie said you needed to wash off the blood.’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. There was blood on us, so we went swimming.’

  ‘What about your clothes? Wasn’t there blood on them too? How did you get rid of the bloodstains?’

  She bit her lip.

  ‘We rubbed off most of it in the water. Our clothes dried fast in the sun. And Mamma and Pappa didn’t get a good look at my clothes when I came home. I slipped inside and changed before dinner. Then I threw the clothes in the washing machine.’

  Behind her, Harriet was weeping with her face buried in her hands. Helen didn’t look at her. KG was sitting as if turned to stone. He seemed to have aged twenty years.

  Helen’s incredible air of calm made her seem more like Marie. They no longer seemed such an odd pair. They moved the same way, talked the same way, and Helen’s expression reminded Leif of Marie’s. There was a nothingness to her face. A silent emptiness.

  For a moment Leif shuddered as he stared at the child sitting in front of him. Something had been set in motion that would echo for many years to come, maybe for the rest of his life. His questions had been answered, but they had led to other, bigger questions. Questions that would probably never be fully answered. Helen’s gaze was unfathomable and blank as she looked at him.

  ‘You’ll send us to the same place, won’t you? We’ll get to be together, right?’

  Leif didn’t reply. He simply stood up and went out to the corridor. He was suddenly finding it very hard to breathe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Karim was sitting on a smooth rock, but he still kept shifting position. The sun felt warm, yet he shivered now and then. There were so many strange terms to learn all at once that his head was spinning: in irons, tiller, running downwind, beam reach, close haul. Left and right were replaced with port and starboard. It wasn’t even ten o’clock, and he was already feeling exhausted.

  ‘If you end up in irons, it means the front of the boat, the bow, is heading straight into the wind.’

  Bill was wildly gesturing as he used both Swedish and English words. Farid translated everything he said into Arabic. Karim was glad to see that the others looked as bewildered as he felt. Bill pointed at the boat he was standing next to, moving the sail this way and that. All Karim could think was that the boat looked awfully small and flimsy against the vast blue backdrop. The slightest gust of wind and it would capsize, and they’d all end up in the water.

  Why had he agreed to participate? He knew why. It was an opportunity to get out into the Swedish community, to meet Swedes and find out how they operated, and maybe put an end to all the suspicious looks directed at him.

  ‘When a boat is in irons, the sail merely flutters, but you are in a no-go zone, and the boat stops moving.’ Bill illustrated by tugging on the sails. ‘The boat has to be at an angle of at least thirty degrees in order to move at any speed. And speed is good, since we’re going to be competing in a race!’

  He waved his arms about.

  ‘We must find the fastest way for the boat. Use the wind!’

  Karim nodded even though he didn’t really understand. He felt a prickling at the back of his neck and turned around. Sitting on a rock a short distance away were three teenagers, staring at them. A girl and two boys. Something about their posture unnerved Karim, so he turned his attention back to Bill.

  ‘You adjust, or trim, the sails by using the sheet. That’s what it’s called when you pull the sail closer to the boat or let it out.’

  Bill pulled on what Karim had so far called the rope, and the sail tightened. There was so much to learn; they’d never be able to manage it between now and the race. If ever.

  ‘If you want to sail into the wind without ending up in irons, you do so by tacking. Beating to windward.’

  Karim heard Farid sigh.

  ‘Like a zigzag.’ Bill waved his arms to demonstrate what he meant. ‘You turn the boat and then turn it again, back and forth. That’s called beating.’

  Bill pointed at the small boat again.

  ‘Today I was thinking you should each take a turn going out in the sailboat with me, just for a brief run, so you’ll get a feel for how it’s done.’

  He pointed at the boats moored nearby. At the beginning of the class, Bill had told them the boats were called Laser Class sailing dinghies. They looked ridiculously small.

  Bill smiled at Karim.

  ‘I thought Karim could go first, and then you’ll be next, Ibrahim. The rest of you can look through these photocopies to review the terms I mentioned. I found them on the Internet in English, so we can start there. Then you can learn the Swedish terms later. Okay?’

  The others nodded, but Karim and Ibrahim exchanged looks of alarm. Karim was thinking about the journey from Istanbul to Samos. The seasickness. The surging waves. The boat up ahead that had capsized. The people screaming. The drowned bodies.

  ‘Here’s a life vest,’ said Bill cheerfully, unaware of the storm raging inside Karim.

  Karim pulled on the life vest, which was nothing like the one he had purchased for a large sum before making the journey across the sea.

  Again he felt that prickling sensation on the back of his neck. The three teenagers were still watching them. The girl giggled. Karim didn’t like the look in the eyes of the blond boy. He resisted an urge to say something to the others because they were already feeling tense.

  ‘All right,’ said Bill. ‘Let’s make sure the life vests are properly fastened, and then we can take off.’

  He pulled the straps tight and nodded approvingly. He glanced behind Karim and laughed.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got visitors. The young people have turned out in support!’ Bill waved at the teenagers. ‘Come on over here!’

  The three teens clambered down from the rock and came towards them. The closer they got, the more the expression on the blond boy’s face made Karim’s skin crawl.

  ‘This is my son, Nils,’ said Bill, placing his hand on the shoulder of the boy with the creepy expression. ‘And these are his friends Vendela and Basse.’

  Nils’s friends shook hands with everyone, while he merely continued to glare.

  ‘Be polite and say hello,’ said Bill to his son.

  Karim held out his hand. After several seconds Nils took his hand out of his pocket and shook hands with Karim. His hand was ice-cold, but his expression was even colder. Suddenly the sea seemed like a warm and welcoming refuge.

  Helen bit the inside of her cheek, as she always did when she was trying to concentrate. Cautiously she shifted position as she stood on the small stool. If she took too big a step, she’d fall. She probably wouldn’t hurt herself, but she’d disturb James, who was sitting nearby reading the paper. />
  She arranged all the tins and cartons on the top shelf of the fridge to make sure the labels were facing forward. She could feel James watching her. A single sigh from him when he opened the fridge was enough to make her stomach clench. So she was taking pre-emptive action in order to avoid his wrath.

  She had learned to live with James. His need to control. His moods. There was simply no alternative, she knew that. She’d been so scared during those first years, but then she’d had Sam. And she stopped being afraid for herself; it was for his sake that she was frightened. Most mothers dreaded the day when their children moved away from home. She was counting the seconds to the day when he would be free. And safe.

  ‘How does it look?’ she asked, turning to face the table.

  Breakfast had been cleared away long ago, the dishwasher was quietly humming, and every surface shone.

  ‘It’ll do,’ he said, without looking up from his newspaper.

  James had started wearing reading glasses. She’d found it rather surprising to discover he had any weaknesses. He’d always taken pride in being flawless. Both when it came to himself and to those around him. That was what made her so worried about Sam. In her eyes he was perfect. But even as an infant, Sam had proved to be a disappointment to his father. He was a sensitive boy, timid and nervous. He enjoyed playing quiet games. He didn’t climb high or run fast, he didn’t like fighting with other boys. He preferred to stay in his room, where he spent hours creating fantasy worlds with his toys. When he got older he loved taking things apart and putting them back together. Old radios, tape recorders, an old TV he’d found in the garage – he could dismantle anything and then reassemble it. Strangely enough, James didn’t discourage this hobby. He even allowed Sam to work in a corner of the garage. That was at least one pastime he could understand.

  ‘What else do you need me to do today?’ Helen asked as she got down from the stool.