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

  ‘I was actually thinking of looking for books on the archipelago. I want to read up on the history of Gråskär.’

  ‘Ghost Isle?’ said May. She headed for the shelves on the far side of the room. ‘So you’re interested in ghost stories? In that case, you should have a talk with Stellan at Nolbotten. And Karl-Allen Nordblom knows a lot about the archipelago.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll start by seeing what I can find here. Ghosts, the history of lighthouses, and anything of that nature would interest me. Do you think you’ve got any books on those topics?’

  ‘Hmm …’ May was studying the shelves. She pulled out a volume, quickly leafed through it, and then set it back. She took out another, studied the table of contents, and tucked it under her arm. After a few minutes she’d found four books, which she handed to Erica.

  ‘These might be useful. It won’t be easy to find any published volumes specifically about Gråskär, but you could talk to the staff at the Bohuslän Museum,’ she said as she took her place behind the library counter.

  ‘I’ll start with these,’ said Erica, nodding towards the four books she was holding. After making sure that the twins were still asleep, she sat down and began to read.

  ‘What is it?’ Their classmates had gathered around them in the schoolyard, and Jon felt the thrill of being the centre of attention.

  ‘I found it. I think it’s some kind of sweets,’ he said, proudly holding out the bag.

  Melker pushed him aside.

  ‘What do you mean, you found it? We found it together.’

  ‘Did you take that out of a rubbish bin? Yuck, that’s disgusting! Throw it away, Jon.’ Lisa wrinkled her nose and then moved on.

  ‘But it’s inside a bag.’ Carefully he opened the seal. ‘And by the way, it was in a litter bin, not in a rubbish bin.’

  Girls were so pathetic. When he was younger he’d played a lot with girls, but ever since starting school, things had changed, and the girls seemed totally different. As if aliens had taken them over. All they did was make a fuss and giggle.

  ‘God, girls are so ludicrous,’ he said out loud, and all the other boys crowding around him agreed. They knew exactly what he meant. The sweets were probably perfectly fine, since they’d been tossed into a litter bin.

  ‘And they’re inside a bag,’ exclaimed Melker, echoing what Jon had said. All the boys nodded.

  They had waited until the lunch break to retrieve the bag. Sweets were forbidden at school, so what they’d found looked especially exciting – sort of like the powdered white liquorice that came in a tin shaped like a hockey puck. The fact that they’d discovered the discarded sweets all on their own made them feel like adventurers, like Indiana Jones. Jon – or rather Jon, Melker, and Jack – would be the heroes of the day. Now it was just a matter of working out how much they’d have to share with the others in order to maintain their hero status. The other boys would be cross if they didn’t get any. But if they gave away too much, there wouldn’t be enough left over for the three of them.

  ‘You can all have a taste. Three dips with the finger each,’ Jon finally decided. ‘But we get to go first, since we found it.’

  Melker and Jack each solemnly licked an index finger and then reached for the bag. Their fingers came away covered with white powder, and with a delighted expression they stuck them in their mouths. Would it taste salty, like powdered liquorice? Or sour, like the sherbert sweets that came in those saucer shapes? They were greatly disappointed.

  ‘It doesn’t taste of anything. Do you think it’s flour?’ said Melker, and then he walked away.

  Jon was crestfallen as he looked at the bag. He licked his finger as the others had done and stuck it deep inside the powder. Hoping that Melker was wrong, he stuck his finger in his mouth. It tasted of nothing. Absolutely nothing. Although he did feel a slight tingling on his tongue. Furious, he tossed the bag into a litter bin and headed for the school. He had a weird sensation in his mouth. He stuck out his tongue and wiped it on his shirt sleeve, but that didn’t help. Now his heart began pounding very fast. He was sweating, and his legs didn’t seem to want to obey him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Melker and Jack had fallen to the ground. They must have stumbled on something, or else they were just playing around. Then he felt the ground come rushing up towards him. Everything went black before he even hit the pavement.

  Paula wished Patrik had taken her with him to Göteborg instead of Martin. On the other hand, it gave her the opportunity to examine the contents of Mats Sverin’s briefcase in peace and quiet. She had immediately sent the laptop over to the technical division; the personnel there were much more computer-savvy than she was and would know how to deal with it properly.

  ‘I hear the briefcase has been found,’ said Gösta, sticking his head in the door to her office.

  ‘Yup. I’ve got it here.’ She pointed to the brown leather briefcase lying on her desk.

  ‘Have you had a chance to examine it?’ Gösta came in, pulled up a chair, and sat down next to her.

  ‘Well, I haven’t done much yet, other than to remove the laptop and send it over to the tech guys.’

  ‘Good thinking. It’s best to let them handle it. I expect it’ll take a while before we hear back from them though,’ said Gösta with a sigh.

  ‘There’s not a lot we can do about that. I didn’t want to risk wrecking the data by doing it myself. But I’ve had a look at the mobile phone. It didn’t take long. He had hardly any numbers stored on it, and the only calls seem to have been to and from his office and his parents’ house. No pictures, no saved text messages.’

  ‘He was an odd fellow from the sounds of it,’ said Gösta. Then he pointed at the briefcase. ‘So, shall we take a look at the rest?’

  Paula pulled over the briefcase and cautiously began emptying it. She spread out all the items on the desk in front of them. When she was sure that the briefcase was completely empty, she set it on the floor. They were looking at several pens, a pocket calculator, paper clips, a pack of Stimorol chewing gum, and a thick stack of documents.

  ‘Shall we divide them up?’ Paula picked up the papers, giving her colleague an enquiring look. ‘I’ll take half, and you can take half. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gösta, reaching for his share. He set the papers on his lap and began leafing through them as he softly hummed to himself.

  ‘Could you possibly take them to your office?’

  ‘Oh, all right. Sure.’ Gösta got up and went to his own office, which was right next door.

  As soon as she was alone, Paula started going through the documents lying on the desk in front of her. She frowned more and more for every page she turned. After half an hour of intense reading, she got up and went to Gösta’s office.

  ‘Do you understand any of this?’

  ‘No, not a word. It’s just a bunch of numbers and terms that I can’t decipher. We’re going to have to ask somebody for help with this. But who?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Paula. She’d been hoping to present Patrik with her findings by the time he got back from Göteborg. But the financial terms used in the documents meant nothing to her.

  ‘We can’t ask anyone at the council, since they probably have a vested interest in this. What we need is an outsider who’s willing to take a look and explain what it all means. We could send the documents over to the financial division, of course, but then we’d have to wait for an answer.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know any economists.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Paula, drumming her fingers on the doorframe.

  ‘What about Lennart?’ said Gösta suddenly, his face lighting up.

  ‘Lennart who?’

  ‘Annika’s husband. Isn’t he an economist?’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, as she stopped drumming her fingers. ‘Come on. Let’s go and ask her.’ She gathered up the papers and headed for the reception area with Gösta on her heels.

  ‘Annika?’ She tapped lightly on the open
door.

  Annika spun her chair around and smiled when she saw Paula.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you with something?’

  ‘Your husband’s an economist, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ said Annika, bemused. ‘He’s head of finance at Extra-Film.’

  ‘Do you think he could help us out? These were in Mats Sverin’s briefcase.’ Paula waved the stack of papers. ‘They’re financial documents. Gösta and I are completely clueless and need help to work out what they say and whether they’re of any importance to the investigation. Do you think Lennart would be willing to take a look?’

  ‘I can ask him. If he says yes, when do you need his help?’

  ‘Today,’ said Gösta and Paula simultaneously, and Annika laughed.

  ‘I’ll give him a call. I’m sure there won’t be a problem. You’ll just need to get the documents over to his office.’

  ‘I can take them over right away,’ said Paula.

  They waited while Annika talked to her husband. They’d met Lennart many times when he dropped by the station to see Annika, and it was impossible not to like the man. He was over six feet tall and the nicest person imaginable. After many years of trying unsuccessfully to have a child, he and Annika had found out that they could adopt a baby girl from China, so they both had a new sparkle in their eyes.

  ‘Okay. He said you can bring the documents over. He’s not too busy at the moment, so he promised to look at them immediately.’

  ‘Great! Thanks!’ Paula gave her a big smile and even Gösta managed a faint smile, which totally transformed his usually gloomy face.

  Paula rushed out and got in the car. It took her only a few minutes to drive over to Lennart’s office and deliver the documents, and she whistled cheerfully all the way back. But she abruptly stopped whistling when she pulled up in front of the station. Gösta was standing outside, waiting for her. And judging by his expression, something had happened.

  Leila opened the door wearing the same worn denims as before, with an equally baggy sweater, although this time it was grey instead of white. Around her neck hung a long silver chain with a heart-shaped charm.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, leading the way to her office. It was as neat as on the previous occasion, and Patrik wondered how people managed to keep everything so tidy. Try as he might to be organized, it was as if gremlins snuck into his office and messed everything up the minute he looked away.

  Leila shook hands with Martin and introduced herself before they all sat down. He cast an interested glance at the children’s drawings on the walls.

  ‘Have you found out who shot Matte?’ asked Leila.

  ‘We’re pursuing various lines of enquiry, but we have nothing further to report at the moment,’ Patrik said evasively.

  ‘But I assume that you think it has something to do with us, since you’ve come back here,’ she said. Her fingers toyed with the necklace, betraying her agitation.

  ‘As I said, we haven’t made a great deal of progress. We’re working several potential leads.’ Patrik spoke calmly. He was accustomed to people acting nervous when he came to see them. It didn’t necessarily mean that they had anything to hide. The mere presence of a police officer was enough to provoke anxiety. ‘We just wanted to ask you a few more questions and take a look at the documentation on the women who were offered shelter while Mats was working here.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can agree to that. It’s sensitive information. If we release details, it might cause trouble for the women.’

  ‘I understand, but the information will be safe with us. And this is a homicide investigation. We have the legal right to see the documents.’

  Leila paused to consider this.

  ‘Of course,’ she said at last. ‘But I’d prefer not to allow the documents out of the office. If we can agree that everything stays here, then I’ll let you look through whatever we have.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks very much,’ interjected Martin.

  ‘We’ve just had a meeting with Sven Barkman,’ said Patrik.

  Leila immediately began fiddling with her necklace again. She leaned towards them as she spoke.

  ‘We’re totally dependent on maintaining a good relationship with social services. I hope you didn’t lead him to believe that there’s anything fishy about our organization. We’re already in a rather difficult position, and some people regard us as somewhat unorthodox.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we made the purpose of our visit very clear, and we emphasized that there’s nothing at all suspect about the Refuge.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Leila, but she still looked uneasy.

  ‘Sven estimated that around thirty cases are referred to you from various social services offices every year. Does that sound right?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the number I gave you the last time you were here.’ Her voice took on a more professional tone, and she clasped her hands on the desk.

  ‘How many of these cases would you estimate end up causing … how shall I put it? Problems?’

  Martin had dived in with his question, and Patrik reminded himself that he needed to let him take the lead more often.

  ‘I assume you mean men who turn up here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, none. Most men who beat their wives or children don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. In their eyes, it’s the woman who’s at fault. It’s all a matter of power and control. And if they’re going to threaten anyone, it’s the woman and not the crisis centre.’

  ‘But there is a type of man who might, isn’t there?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘Indeed. A few every year. But mostly we hear about them from the social services staff.’

  Patrik’s attention was caught by one of the drawings on the wall behind Leila, directly above her head. A gigantic figure next to two smaller ones. The big one had fangs and looked angry. He couldn’t understand how anyone could hit a woman; and as for hitting a child … The very thought that someone would hurt Erica or his children made him grip the arms of his chair.

  ‘How do you handle your cases? Let’s start with that.’

  ‘We have a chat with the social worker, and they will summarize the case. Sometimes the woman comes to see us before moving in. Often she’ll be accompanied by someone from social services. Otherwise she might arrive by cab or a friend might bring her here.’

  ‘Then what happens?’ asked Martin.

  ‘That depends. Sometimes it’s enough that the woman stays with us for a while until the situation calms down, and then the problems get resolved. Sometimes, if we think it’s too dangerous for the woman to remain in the area, we have to move her to another crisis facility. We might also offer legal help in arranging that her whereabouts are kept hidden within the system. Some of these women have spent years living in constant fear. They may exhibit many of the same symptoms as prisoners of war. For instance, they may be completely incapable of taking action. In that case, we step in and help them with the practical matters.’

  ‘And the psychological issues?’ Patrik stared at the drawing of the big, dark figure with fangs. ‘Are you able to help with those too?’

  ‘Not as much as we’d like. It’s a question of resources. But we do have a good relationship with several psychologists who donate their services. Our primary concern is to get help for the children.’

  ‘Recently there’s been a lot in the newspapers about women who have been given help to flee the country and are then charged with kidnapping their children. Are you familiar with any cases like that?’ Patrik studied Leila closely, but she gave no indication that the question made her uncomfortable.

  ‘As I said, we depend on maintaining a good working relationship with social services. We can’t afford to take that sort of action. We offer the help that’s permissible within the law. Of course there are women who take matters into their own hands and go underground. But that’s not something the Refuge promotes or is willing to help with.’

&
nbsp; Patrik decided to drop the subject. She sounded convincing enough, and he sensed that he wasn’t going to get any further by pressuring her.

  ‘What about the few cases that give you extra trouble – are those the ones where you have to move the women to a different shelter?’ asked Martin.

  Leila nodded. ‘It happens.’

  ‘What sort of problems are we talking about?’ Patrik felt his mobile vibrating in his pocket. Whoever was trying to reach him would just have to wait.

  ‘We’ve had cases where the men have found out where our shelter is located. For instance, by following our staff members. Each time we’ve learned something from the experience and improved our security measures. But you should never underestimate how obsessed these men can be.’

  Patrik’s mobile continued to vibrate, and he placed his hand over his pocket to mute the sound.

  ‘Did Mats get specifically involved in any of these incidents?’

  ‘No. We make a point of insisting that none of our staff gets too involved in individual cases. We have a system in place so that the woman has a different contact person after a while.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that mean an even greater sense of insecurity for the women?’ Patrik’s mobile had started up again, and he was getting annoyed. How hard was it to understand that he couldn’t take the call at the moment?

  ‘Maybe so, but it’s important, because it allows us to keep our distance. Personal relationships and involvement would only increase the risk for the women. It’s for their own good that we work this way.’

  ‘How safe is the new address when they’re moved somewhere else?’ Martin changed tack after casting an enquiring glance at Patrik.

  Leila sighed. ‘Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the resources in Sweden to provide the security that these women need. As I said, we usually move them to another crisis centre in a different city and keep their personal information as secret as possible. We also provide the women with an emergency signal device, in cooperation with the police.’

  ‘This device, how does it operate? We’ve not come across this in Tanumshede.’