The Ice Child Read online

  ‘Well, if the money was from gambling, for instance, the amounts would be different each time. The same would be true if he was being paid for odd jobs, since he’d probably get an hourly wage, which wouldn’t have generated the same amount every time. But if we’re talking about blackmail, it would be reasonable for him to receive a specific amount at regular intervals.’

  ‘I think Paula is right,’ said Gösta. ‘Maybe Lasse was blackmailing someone who finally got tired of it all.’

  ‘In that case, the question is: what was the reason for the blackmail? His family doesn’t seem to know anything, so we need to expand our search and talk to Lasse’s circle of friends. We have to find out if anybody knows anything …’ Patrik paused before adding, ‘Let’s talk to everyone who lives in the surrounding area, and that mostly means my neighbours. Knock on the doors of all the houses on the road to Sälvik. Find out if anyone saw a car driving towards the beach. There’s not a lot of traffic this time of year, but there are plenty of nosy people watching from behind the curtains.’

  He wrote down the tasks on the whiteboard. He’d hand out the assignments later. Right now he just wanted to put together a list of everything that needed to get done.

  ‘Okay, now let’s consider Victoria’s case. Tomorrow is the big meeting in Göteborg with all the police departments involved. Thanks, Annika, for making the arrangements.’

  ‘No problem. It wasn’t difficult. Everyone was very positive about the idea, and they seemed surprised that they hadn’t thought of having this kind of meeting earlier.’

  ‘Better late than never. So what are the latest developments?’

  ‘The most interesting,’ said Gösta, ‘is probably the fact that Victoria’s brother claims she was having an affair with Jonas Persson.’

  ‘Have we found anyone else who could confirm Ricky’s suspicions?’ asked Martin. ‘And what does Jonas have to say?’

  ‘No, not yet. And Jonas denies it, of course. But I don’t think he’s telling the truth. I thought I’d have a talk with some of the girls at the stable. It would be hard to keep that sort of relationship secret.’

  ‘Did you talk to his wife too?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘I’d prefer not to say anything to Marta until we know more. I don’t want to cause any trouble if it turns out not to be true.’

  ‘All right. That’s fine. But sooner or later we’re going to have to talk to her too.’

  Paula cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, but I don’t understand why this would have anything to do with the case. We’re looking for someone who kidnapped girls in other parts of Sweden too. Not just here in Fjällbacka.’

  ‘True,’ said Patrik. ‘But if Jonas hadn’t had an alibi for the time when Victoria disappeared, why couldn’t he be the perpetrator, just as well as anybody else? Maybe it will turn out that Jonas wasn’t the one she was having an affair with. Maybe it was someone else, and that person also kidnapped her. Basically we need to work out how Victoria came in contact with the kidnapper. And what was it in her life that made her vulnerable? It could be anything. We know now that someone was watching her family’s house. If it was the perpetrator, he may have had her under surveillance for quite a while, which means he could have done the same thing with the other girls. Anything in Victoria’s personal life could be significant in terms of why she was chosen.’

  ‘She had also received anonymous letters that were far from pleasant,’ said Gösta, turning to Paula. ‘Ricky found them, but unfortunately he threw them out. He was worried his parents might see them.’

  ‘Okay, I get it now,’ she said. ‘That sounds reasonable.’

  ‘Have we had word from the lab about the cigarette butt?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ said Patrik. ‘And it won’t be of any interest until we have something to compare it to. What else?’ he said, looking around at his colleagues. It seemed like there were more and more question marks.

  He fixed his gaze on Paula, suddenly remembering that she and Martin had said they’d found something to report. He could see that Martin was eager to speak, so he nodded at him.

  ‘Well,’ said Martin, ‘Paula and I have both felt there was something familiar about Victoria’s injuries, especially the fact that her tongue had been cut out.’

  ‘So that’s why you’ve been spending all that time in the archives,’ said Patrik. His curiosity increased when he saw Paula’s cheeks flush bright red.

  ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Except I was on the wrong track. What I was looking for was not in the archives, but I knew I’d seen it somewhere.’ She came forward to stand next to Patrik so everyone could see her.

  ‘And you thought it was in a report from an old case?’ said Patrik, hoping that she’d quickly get to the point.

  ‘Exactly. But I was in Martin’s office, looking at his books, when it suddenly came to me. I remembered reading about the case in Nordic Crime Chronicles.’

  Patrik felt his pulse quicken. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Twenty-seven years ago, on a Saturday evening in May, a young and newly married woman named Ingela Eriksson disappeared from her home in Hultsfred. She was only nineteen, and her husband immediately came under suspicion because he’d previously been charged with beating up both Ingela and his former girlfriends. There was an intensive police investigation, and her disappearance got a lot of coverage in the media since at that time the evening papers happened to be publishing a lot of articles about domestic violence. Then Ingela was found dead in a wooded area behind her home, and that was the nail in the coffin for her husband. The ME determined that she’d been dead for some time, but her body was intact enough to conclude that she’d been subjected to horrific torture. Her husband was found guilty of homicide, but he continued to maintain his innocence until he died in prison five years later. He was killed by a fellow prisoner in a fight over a gambling debt.’

  ‘So what’s the connection?’ asked Patrik, though he had an idea what she was going to say.

  Paula opened the book she was holding and pointed to the passage describing Ingela’s injuries. Patrik silently read what it said on the page. Her injuries were exactly the same as Victoria’s, down to the smallest detail.

  ‘What does it say?’ Gösta took the book from Paula and swiftly read the passage. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Patrik remarked. ‘It seems we’re dealing with a perpetrator who has been active much longer than we first thought.’

  ‘Or he’s a copycat killer,’ said Martin.

  After that no one said a word.

  Helga glanced at Jonas, who was sitting at the kitchen table. Upstairs she could hear Einar grunting and moving about in bed.

  ‘What did the police want?’

  ‘Gösta just wanted to ask me about something,’ said Jonas, rubbing his face.

  She could feel the knot forming in her stomach. Her uneasiness had slowly grown over the past few months, and her anxiety was now so great that she was practically suffocating.

  ‘What about?’ she insisted, sitting down across from him.

  ‘Nothing special. Just something about the break-in.’

  She felt hurt by the sharpness of his tone. He didn’t usually snap at her like that. Even though they had an unspoken agreement not to discuss certain topics, he’d never used that tone of voice with her before. She looked down at her hands. They were gnarled and wrinkled, with brown spots on top. The hands of an old woman, like her mother’s hands. When had they started looking like this? She’d never thought about it until now, as she sat here at the kitchen table while the world she had so carefully constructed was slowly collapsing around her. She couldn’t let that happen.

  ‘How’s Molly?’ she asked instead. She had a hard time hiding her disapproval. Jonas refused to allow the slightest criticism of his daughter, but sometimes Helga wanted to shake the spoiled girl, to make her understand how lucky she was, how privileged.

  ‘She’s okay now,’ said Jonas, and his face lit
up.

  Helga felt a pang in her heart. She knew she had no right to be jealous of Molly, but she still wished she would see the same love in Jonas’s eyes when he looked at her as when he looked at his daughter.

  ‘We’re going to the jump racing next Saturday.’ He avoided meeting her eye.

  ‘Do you have to?’ she said, hearing the entreaty in her voice.

  ‘Marta and I have agreed.’

  ‘It’s always Marta this and Marta that. I wish the two of you had never met. You should have stayed with Terese. She was such a nice girl. And then everything would have been different!’

  Jonas gave her a stunned look. He’d never heard her raise her voice before, at least not since he was a child.

  She knew she should have kept quiet. She should have carried on in the same way as always, the way that had made it possible for her to survive all these years, but it felt like some strange force had seized hold of her.

  ‘She has destroyed your life! She weaselled her way into our family, and she’s been like a parasite living off of you, off all of us, she’s—’

  Smack! The slap silenced her at once. In shock, Helga raised her hand to her cheek, which stung badly. Her eyes filled with tears, and not just because of the pain. She knew that she’d stepped over a line, and now there was no turning back.

  Without looking at her, Jonas left the kitchen. When she heard the front door slam, Helga knew she could no longer afford to look on in silence. That time was past.

  ‘Let’s get with it, girls!’ The annoyance that was audible in her voice spread through the riding school. All the girls were feeling tense, and that was exactly what Marta intended. Without a certain amount of fear, they’d never learn anything.

  ‘What are you doing, Tindra?’ She glared at the blond-haired girl who was struggling to get her horse to jump over one of the hurdles.

  ‘Fanta is refusing to jump. She keeps balking.’

  ‘You’re the one in charge. Not the horse. Don’t forget that.’

  Marta wondered how many times she’d repeated those words. She shifted her gaze to Molly, who was in full control of Scirocco. Things were looking good for the competition. In spite of everything, the girls were well prepared.

  At that moment Fanta refused for the third time, and Marta began to lose patience.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you today. Either you start focusing, or this lesson is over.’ She noticed with satisfaction the dismay on the girls’ faces. They slowed, turned their horses towards the centre, and brought them to a halt in front of Marta.

  One of the girls cleared her throat. ‘We apologize. But we heard about Tyra’s father … or rather, her stepfather.’

  So that was the explanation for the group’s nervous mood. She should have thought of that, but whenever she entered the stable, she forgot about the world outside. It was as if all thoughts, all memories were swept away. What remained was the smell and sound of the horses, and the respect they showed towards her. It was so much greater than the respect she ever got from people in general. And from the girls, in particular.

  ‘What happened is awful. I can understand that you’re feeling sorry for Tyra, but that sort of emotion has no place here. If you can’t stop thinking about it, if you allow yourselves to be affected by anything other than what’s taking place right here, then you might as well dismount and go home.’

  ‘I have no trouble focusing. Did you see me take that high hurdle?’ said Molly.

  The other girls couldn’t help rolling their eyes. Marta knew that her daughter lacked any sense for what should be said or even thought in certain situations. And that seemed strange. Personally, she had always been a master of the art. Words once spoken could never be taken back, a wrong impression could never be repaired. She didn’t understand how Molly could be so tactless.

  ‘So do you expect me to give you a medal, or something?’ she said now.

  Molly crumpled, and Marta saw that the other girls couldn’t hide their glee. This was exactly what she’d intended. Molly would never be a real winner if she didn’t have a desire for revenge. That was something Jonas didn’t understand. He treated Molly with kid gloves, spoiling her and ruining her chances of ever becoming a true survivor.

  ‘Molly, I want you to trade horses with Tindra. Then we’ll see if things go as well for you, or maybe it was all the horse’s doing.’

  Molly looked like she wanted to protest, but she stopped herself. No doubt the cancelled competition was still fresh in her mind, and she didn’t want to miss a chance to compete in the next one. For now, in spite of everything, it was her parents who decided, and she was well aware of that.

  ‘Marta?’ She turned around when she heard Jonas calling from the stands. He waved for her to come over, and his expression told her it was urgent.

  ‘Keep going, girls. I’ll be right back,’ she said over her shoulder as she climbed up to where her husband was standing.

  ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’ He was rubbing the fingers of his right hand.

  ‘Can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of a lesson,’ she said, even though she could tell what his answer would be.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘We need to talk now.’

  As they left the riding hall, she could hear the sound of the horses behind her.

  Erica pulled into a parking spot in front of the café in Hamburgsund. It was a beautiful drive from Fjällbacka, and she had enjoyed the brief period of peace and quiet in the car. When she’d called to explain her visit, the Wallanders had hesitated at first. They conferred with each other as Erica waited on the phone, listening to their murmured conversation. In the end they had agreed to meet with her, but not at their home. They preferred to meet at a café in town.

  She saw them as soon as she got out of her car and hastily approached their table. They stood up to greet her, looking a bit embarrassed. Tony, the man of the family, was tall and muscular with big tattoos on his forearms. He wore a checked shirt and blue work trousers. His wife Berit was much shorter, but her petite body looked sinewy and strong, and her face was weather-beaten.

  ‘Oh, did you already get coffee for yourselves? I was planning to treat you,’ said Erica, looking at the cups on the table. On a plate were two half-eaten almond pastries.

  ‘We got here a little early,’ said Tony. ‘And we wouldn’t think of letting you treat us.’

  ‘But you must want coffee yourself. We’ll wait while you get a cup,’ said Berit.

  Erica instinctively liked them. Down-to-earth: that was the first phrase that popped into her head to describe the couple. She went over to the counter to get coffee and a piece of pastry. Then she went back to the table to join them.

  ‘Why did you prefer to meet here, if you don’t mind me asking? I could have driven over to your house, and that would have saved you the trouble of coming into town,’ she said. She took a bite of the pastry, which tasted delightfully fresh.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t think that would be appropriate,’ said Berit, fixing her eyes on the table. ‘Our house is so messy and cluttered. Not somewhere we’d invite someone like you.’

  ‘But you really shouldn’t feel that way,’ said Erica. Now it was her turn to be embarrassed. She hated being treated differently, or as somebody more important, just because she occasionally appeared on TV or in the newspapers.

  ‘What did you want to ask us? What do you want to know about Louise?’ said Tony, offering her a way out of the awkward situation.

  Erica gave him a grateful look and took a sip of the strong coffee before replying.

  ‘Well, first of all, I was wondering how you happened to take Louise in as a foster child. Her brother was sent to live with their maternal grandmother.’

  Berit and Tony exchanged a glance, as if to work out who should answer the question. Berit was the one who spoke.

  ‘We never learned exactly why the grandmother didn’t take both children. Maybe she thought she could handle only one. Louis
e was also in much worse shape than her brother. At any rate, the authorities told us that a seven-year-old girl was in urgent need of a new home after going through a traumatic situation. She came to us from the hospital, and later the social worker told us more about the circumstances.’

  ‘How was Louise doing when she came to you?’

  Tony clasped his hands on the table and leaned forward. He fixed his gaze on a spot behind Erica as he thought back to the year when Louise had come to live with them.

  ‘She was terribly emaciated, with bruises and cuts all over her body. But they’d cleaned her up at the hospital and cut her hair, so she didn’t look as wild as in the pictures they’d taken of her.’

  ‘She was so sweet. Really sweet,’ said Berit.

  Tony nodded. ‘Yes, there was no doubt about that. But she needed to put on weight and she needed to heal, in terms of both body and soul.’

  ‘How did she behave?’

  ‘She was very quiet. We hardly heard a word out of her for months. She just sat and watched us.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything?’ Erica wondered if she should be taking notes, but she decided just to listen attentively and write it all down later. Sometimes she missed the nuances if she tried to take notes and listen at the same time.

  ‘Well, yes, she did speak. But mostly one word at a time. Thanks. Thirsty. Tired. Things like that.’

  ‘But she did talk to Tess,’ Berit added.

  ‘Tess? The other girl who lived with you?’

  ‘Yes. Tess and Louise became good friends right from the start,’ said Tony. ‘We could hear them at night as they lay in bed and talked. So I assume it was just us she refused to talk to. Louise never did anything she didn’t want to do.’

  ‘What do you mean? Was she rebellious?’

  ‘Hmm … No, she was actually very quiet.’ Tony scratched his bald head. ‘I don’t really know how to describe it.’ He turned to Berit for help.

  ‘She never talked back, but if you asked her to do something she didn’t want to do, she would simply walk away. And it made no difference if you yelled at her. The words rolled right off of her. Plus it was hard to be as strict as we maybe should have been because we knew Louise had gone through so much.’