The Ice Child Read online

  ‘Do you think what’s happened to him could be related to these new interests of his? Or to something in his past?’

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, maybe there was some trouble within the church that got out of hand. Or maybe he went back to hanging out with his old drinking buddies and got mixed up in something illegal. Do you think somebody wanted to harm him?’

  ‘No. And I have a hard time believing he would start drinking again. You can say what you like about that church, but it has kept him sober. And he never had a bad word to say about anybody in the congregation. They gave him love and forgiveness. Those are his words, not mine.’ She couldn’t hold back a sob. ‘I didn’t forgive him. In fact, I’d made up my mind to leave him. But now that he’s gone, I miss him.’ Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Jonas handed her a paper napkin from the holder on the table. She wiped her face.

  ‘Are you okay, Mamma?’ Tyra was standing in the doorway, looking at her anxiously.

  Terese smiled through her tears. ‘I’m okay. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Maybe it was stupid of me to come here,’ said Jonas. ‘I just thought I might be of some help.’

  ‘It was nice of you to think of us. I’m glad you came,’ said Terese.

  At that moment the doorbell rang, startling both of them. It was a shrill sound, and the bell rang again before Tyra managed to open the door. On hearing footsteps approaching, Jonas turned and encountered yet another surprised look.

  ‘Hi, Gösta,’ he hastened to greet the officer. ‘I was just leaving.’ He got up and looked at Terese. ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Don’t hesitate to call.’

  She gave him a grateful look. ‘Thanks.’

  As he left the kitchen, Jonas felt a hand on his arm. In a low voice so Terese wouldn’t hear, Gösta said, ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about. I’ll drop by as soon as I’m done here.’

  Jonas nodded. He felt his mouth go dry. He didn’t like the tone of Gösta’s voice.

  Erica couldn’t stop thinking about Peter, the son that Laila’s mother had taken in. The boy who later vanished. Why had the grandmother agreed to care for him but not his sister? And had he left voluntarily after his grandmother died?

  There were far too many questions surrounding Peter, and it was time for her to try to answer at least some of them. Erica leafed through her notebook until she came to the pages with contact information for all the individuals involved. She always tried to be methodical and keep them all in one place. The problem was that sometimes she had a hard time deciphering her own handwriting.

  From downstairs she heard the children laughing merrily as they played with Gunnar. They had quickly grown fond of their grandmother’s pal, as Maja called him. They were having a great time, so with a clear conscience Erica could continue working a little longer.

  She turned to look out of the window. She’d seen Mellberg drive up in his car and then come to a screeching halt. He jumped out and jogged down to the bathing beach. But no matter how much she craned her neck, she couldn’t see that far, and she’d been given strict orders to stay away. So she would just have to wait patiently until Patrik came home and told her what they’d found.

  Again she glanced at her notebook. She’d jotted down a phone number in Spain next to the name of Laila’s sister. She reached for the phone as she squinted at what she’d written. Was the last digit a seven or a one? She sighed, thinking that if nothing else, she’d just have to try both. She decided to start with the seven, and punched in the phone number.

  She heard a muted ring tone. It always sounded different when she rang a number outside of Sweden, and she wondered why that was.

  ‘¡Hola!’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘Hello. I would like to speak to Agneta. Is she home?’ said Erica in English. She’d studied French in school, not Spanish, so she had almost zero knowledge of the language.

  ‘May I ask who is calling?’ said the man in flawless English.

  ‘My name is Erica Falck.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m calling about her sister.’

  A long silence followed. Then the voice spoke again, this time in Swedish, though with a slight accent.

  ‘My name is Stefan. I’m Agneta’s son. I don’t think my mother wants to talk about Laila. They haven’t been in touch for a long time.’

  ‘I know. Laila told me that. But it still might be important for me to talk to your mother. Tell her it has to do with Peter.’

  Silence again. She could feel resistance streaming towards her through the phone.

  ‘Don’t you ever wonder how your relatives in Sweden are doing?’ Erica couldn’t help asking.

  ‘What relatives?’ replied Stefan. ‘Laila is the only one left, and I’ve never even met her. Mamma moved to Spain before I was born, so we’ve never had any contact with her side of the family. And I think that’s what my mother wants.’

  ‘Could you ask her? Please?’ Erica could hear the pleading tone in her voice.

  ‘Okay. But don’t count on her saying yes.’

  Stefan put down the phone and carried on a murmured conversation with someone. Erica thought he spoke excellent Swedish. His accent was barely noticeable, just a hint of a lisp, which she knew came from Spanish.

  ‘You can talk to her for a few minutes. Here she is.’

  Erica was startled to hear Stefan’s voice again. She’d been far away, thinking about linguistic differences.

  ‘Hello?’ said a woman’s voice.

  Erica quickly pulled herself together and introduced herself. She said that she was writing a book about her sister’s case, and she would be extremely grateful if she could ask a few questions.

  ‘I don’t know what I could tell you. Laila and I broke off all contact years ago, and I know nothing about her or her family. I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to.’

  ‘Laila told me the same thing, but I have a few questions about Peter, and I was hoping you could answer them.’

  ‘What is it you want to know?’ said Agneta, sounding resigned.

  ‘I’ve been wondering why your mother didn’t take in both Peter and Louise. It seems like it would have been only natural for the grandmother to take care of both children instead of splitting them up. Louise ended up in a foster home.’

  ‘Louise needed … special care. And that wasn’t something my mother could do.’

  ‘But what sort of special care? Was it because she’d been so traumatized? And didn’t any of you ever suspect that Vladek was abusing his family? Your mother lived here in Fjällbacka. Didn’t she notice that something wasn’t right?’ The questions poured out of Erica, and at first she heard only silence on the phone.

  ‘I really don’t want to talk about this. It happened so long ago. It was a dark time, and I’d prefer to forget all about it.’ Agneta’s voice sounded faint and hesitant. ‘My mother did everything she could to protect Peter. That’s all I can say.’

  ‘What about Louise? Why didn’t she try to protect her?’

  ‘Vladek took care of Louise.’

  ‘Was it because she was a girl that she suffered the most? Was that why they always referred to her as simply the Girl? Did Vladek hate women, but not men, and so he treated his son better? Laila also suffered injuries.’ She continued to ask questions because she was afraid that at any second Agneta would end the conversation.

  ‘It was … complicated. I can’t answer your questions. And I have nothing more to say.’

  It sounded as if Agneta was about to hang up, so Erica hurried to change tack.

  ‘I realize it must be painful to talk about this, but what do you think happened after your mother died? According to the police report, her death was due to a burglary gone wrong. I’ve read the report and talked to the officer who was in charge of the investigation. But I wonder if that’s really what happened. It seems quite a coincidence for two murders to occur in one family, even with many years in between.’

  �
�Things like that do happen. It was a burglary, just as the police decided. A thief, or possibly several thieves, broke into the house during the night. My mother woke up, and the thieves panicked and killed her.’

  ‘With a poker?’

  ‘Yes, they must have been in a hurry, and that was the only weapon they could find.’

  ‘There were no fingerprints. None whatsoever. They must have been exceedingly careful thieves. It seems a bit odd that they’d planned the break-in so well but then panicked when someone inside the house woke up.’

  ‘The police didn’t think it was odd. They did a thorough investigation. They even theorized that Peter might have had something to do with it, but he was completely cleared of any involvement.’

  ‘And then he disappeared. What do you think happened to him?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe he’s living on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. It’s a nice thought, but I’m afraid I don’t believe it. I think the trauma of his childhood, and the fact that another person close to him was murdered, ended up being too much for him.’

  ‘So you think … you think he committed suicide?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Agneta. ‘Unfortunately. But I hope I’m wrong. Now I’m afraid I have no more time to talk with you. Stefan and his wife are about to leave, and I’m going to babysit for their boys.’

  ‘Just one more question,’ Erica begged. ‘What sort of relationship did you have with your sister? Were you close when the two of you were growing up?’ She wanted to end with a more neutral question so that Agneta wouldn’t refuse to speak to her if she phoned again.

  ‘No, we weren’t,’ said Agneta after a long pause. ‘We were incredibly different and had very little in common. And I’ve chosen not to get mixed up in Laila’s life and the choices she made. None of the Swedes in our social circle here know that she’s my sister, and I don’t want you to tell anyone that we’ve talked. Not even Laila.’

  ‘I promise not to say anything,’ replied Erica. ‘Just one last question. Laila has been collecting newspaper clippings about the girls who have disappeared during the past two years in Sweden. One of them went missing from here in Fjällbacka. She turned up again last week, but then she was struck by a car and died. She had suffered terrible injuries during the time she was held captive. Do you know why Laila would be so interested in these cases?’ When Erica stopped speaking she heard only the sound of Agneta breathing.

  ‘No,’ she said curtly and turned away to shout something in Spanish. ‘I need to take care of my grandsons now. And as I told you: I have no wish to be linked to any of this.’

  Erica again assured Agneta that she wouldn’t mention their talk to anyone, and then the conversation was over.

  Just as she was about to type up her notes, she heard a loud commotion from downstairs in the front hall. Quickly she got up from her desk and dashed out of the room to peer over the railing.

  ‘What on earth?’ she said, and then ran downstairs. There stood Patrik pulling the wet clothes off a grumbling Bertil Mellberg. His lips were blue, and he was shaking with cold.

  Martin stepped inside the station and stomped the snow off his boots. As he passed the reception area, Annika glanced up at him, peering over the rims of the glasses she wore for using the computer.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘About the same as usual whenever Mellberg gets involved.’

  Seeing the inquisitive look on Annika’s face, he told her about Mellberg’s latest exploits.

  ‘Good Lord.’ Annika shook her head. ‘That man never ceases to amaze me. What did Torbjörn say?’

  ‘He said that unfortunately it’s going to be hard to secure footprints or anything else after Mellberg tramped around so much. But he took samples of the blood, and it should be possible to see if it matches Lasse’s blood type. They can also compare it to his sons’ DNA, so we should know whether it’s his blood or not.’

  ‘That’s good, at least. Do you think he’s dead?’ asked Annika cautiously.

  ‘There was a lot of blood on the dock and on the ice next to the hole cut for the bathers, but no blood traces leading away from the site. So if it’s Lasse’s blood, the chances are that he’s dead.’

  ‘How sad.’ Annika’s eyes filled with tears. She’d always been soft-hearted, and ever since she and her husband Lennart had adopted a little girl from China, she’d become even more sensitive to all the injustices in life.

  ‘Yes, it is. We hadn’t imagined it would turn out like this. We thought we’d probably find him drunk somewhere.’

  ‘What a sorry fate. His poor family.’ Annika took a moment to regain her composure. ‘By the way, I managed to get hold of all the investigators working on the missing girl cases, and the meeting is scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten o’clock in Göteborg. I’ve already told Patrik, and Mellberg’s going with him. What about you and Gösta? Do you want to go?’

  Martin had started to sweat in the heat inside the station. He took off his jacket and ran his fingers through his red hair, which was already feeling damp.

  ‘I wish I could go. I know Gösta would like to be there too. But we’ll stay here. We can’t leave the station unmanned. Especially now that we have another murder investigation on our hands.’

  ‘That’s probably smart. And speaking of smart: Paula is down there in the archives again. Would you mind checking on her?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll do it now,’ said Martin, though he first made a detour to his office to take off his coat.

  Down in the cellar the door to the archives stood open. Even so, he knocked before entering, because he could see that Paula was deeply immersed in her work. She was skimming through the contents of the boxes set in front of her as she sat on the floor.

  ‘So you haven’t given up yet?’ he said, walking over to her.

  She glanced up as she set yet another folder aside.

  ‘I probably won’t find it, but at least I’ve had some time to myself. Who would have thought it could be so much work taking care of a baby? It wasn’t like this with Leo.’

  She unfolded her legs and then started to stand up. Martin held out his hand to help. ‘Well, from what I’ve heard,’ he said, ‘Lisa is a little different. Is she home with Johanna now?’

  Paula shook her head. ‘Johanna took Leo out sledding, so Lisa is home with her grandmother.’ She took several deep breaths and stretched out her back. ‘So, how’s it going otherwise? I heard that you found Lasse’s car and that there was blood nearby.’

  Martin gave her the same report he’d given Annika, telling her about the blood, the hole in the ice, and also about Mellberg’s involuntary bath.

  ‘You’re kidding! How clumsy can that man be?’ Paula stared at her colleague. ‘Is he okay?’ she then added, and Martin was touched that Paula was still able to worry about Mellberg. He knew that Bertil had a close relationship with Paula and Johanna’s son, and there was something about the old guy that made people like him, even though at times he could be difficult.

  ‘Yes, he’s fine. He’s over at Patrik’s house getting thawed out.’

  ‘Something always happens when Bertil gets involved.’ Paula laughed. ‘So, I was just thinking about taking a break. My back gets stiff from sitting on the floor hunched over all these file boxes. Want to keep me company?’

  They went upstairs and were on their way to the kitchen when Martin stopped abruptly. ‘I’ve just got to check on something in my office.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll go with you,’ said Paula, following him.

  He began rummaging through the papers on his desk as she went over to look at the books on the shelves, at the same time keeping a surreptitious eye on what Martin was doing. His desk was incredibly cluttered, as usual.

  ‘Do you miss being at work?’ he asked her.

  ‘You can say that again.’ She tilted her head to read the titles on the spines of the books. ‘Have you read all of these? Psychology books, crime scene techniques … My God, you even have copies of …’ Sh
e didn’t finish her sentence as she studied the series of books neatly lined up on the shelf.

  ‘What an idiot I am. It wasn’t in the archived files that I read about the severed tongue. It was in one of these.’ She pointed to the books, and Martin turned around in surprise to see what she was talking about. Could that be possible? he thought.

  Gösta drove into the yard in front of the stable. It was always difficult to speak to family members. In this instance, he hadn’t had any definite information about Lasse’s death to tell his wife. But there were clear indications that something had happened to him, and it seemed highly likely that he was no longer alive. Terese would be forced to deal with this uncertainty for a while.

  He had been surprised to find Jonas at her flat. Why was he there? He’d looked nervous when Gösta said he wanted to have a talk with him. That was fine. If Jonas was feeling off balance for some reason, it would be easier to get him to reveal the truth. At least, that had been Gösta’s experience in the past.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ he said out loud as he tapped on the front door of Jonas and Marta’s house. He was hoping to speak to Jonas alone, so if Marta or their daughter was at home, he planned to suggest that they go over to the veterinary clinic.

  Jonas opened the door. His face had a grey tinge to it that Gösta hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘Are you home alone? There’s something I need to discuss with you in private.’

  Jonas paused for a few seconds before answering, leaving Gösta waiting on the doorstep. With an air of resignation he then stepped aside, as if he already knew what Gösta was going to say. And maybe he did know. He must have realized that it was only a matter of time before the affair would reach the ears of the police.

  ‘Come in,’ said Jonas. ‘I’m the only one here.’

  Gösta looked around. The house seemed to have been furnished without much care or thought, and it was not particularly inviting. He’d never visited the Persson family before, so he hadn’t known what to expect, but he’d assumed that beautiful people would live in beautiful surroundings.

  ‘It’s awful what happened to Lasse,’ said Jonas. He motioned towards a sofa in the living room.