The Ice Child Read online

  Ricky stood there as if frozen in place. His face white, he had stopped behind his mother while Markus carried on walking. Gösta swallowed hard and went to meet them. But Markus passed him with unseeing eyes, as if he hadn’t seen the same bad news in Gösta’s expression that his wife had seen. He kept on walking along the corridor with no apparent goal in mind.

  Gösta didn’t move to stop him. Instead, he went over to Helena and gently lifted her to her feet. Then he put his arms around her. That was not something he usually did. He had let only two people into his life: his wife, and the little girl who had lived with them for a brief time and who now, through the inexplicable workings of fate, had come into his life again. So it didn’t feel particularly natural for him to be standing there, embracing a woman whom he’d known for such a short time. But ever since Victoria disappeared, Helena had rung him every day, alternating between hope and despair, anger and grief, to ask about her daughter. Yet he’d been able to give her only more questions and more worry. And now he had finally extinguished all hope. Holding her in his arms and allowing her to weep on his chest was the least he could do.

  Gösta looked over Helena’s head to meet Ricky’s eye. There was something odd about the boy. For the past few months he had been the family’s mainstay, keeping them going. But now he stood there in front of Gösta, his face white and his eyes empty, looking like the young boy he actually was. And Gösta knew that Ricky had lost for ever the innocence granted only to children, the belief that everything would be okay.

  ‘Can we see her?’ asked Ricky, his voice husky. Gösta felt Helena stiffen. She pulled away, wiped her tears on the sleeve of her coat and gave him a pleading look.

  Gösta fixed his gaze on a distant point. How could he tell them that they wouldn’t want to see Victoria? And why.

  Her entire study was cluttered with papers: typed notes, Post-it notes, newspaper articles, and copies of photographs. It looked like total chaos, but Erica thrived in this sort of working environment. When she was writing a book, she wanted to be surrounded by all the information she’d gathered, all her thoughts on the case.

  This time, however, it felt as if she might be in over her head. She had accumulated plenty of background details and facts, but it had all been obtained from second-hand sources. The quality of her books and her ability to describe a murder case and answer all the questions readers might have relied on her ability to secure first-hand accounts. Thus far she had always been successful. Sometimes it had been easy to persuade those involved to talk to her. Some had even been eager to talk, happy for the media attention and a moment in the spotlight. But occasionally it had taken time and she’d been forced to cajole the person, explaining why she wanted to dredge up the past and how she intended to tell the story. In the end she had always won out. Until now. She was getting nowhere with Laila. During her visits to the prison she had struggled to get Laila to talk about what happened, but in vain. Laila was happy to talk to her, just not about the murder.

  Frustrated, Erica propped her feet up on the desk and let her thoughts wander. Maybe she should ring her sister. Anna had often been a source of good ideas and new angles in the past, but she was not herself these days. She had gone through so much over the past few years, and the misfortunes never seemed to stop. Part of her suffering had been self-imposed of course, yet Erica had no intention of judging her younger sister. She understood why certain things had happened. The question was whether Anna’s husband could understand and forgive her. Erica had to admit that she had her doubts. She had known Dan all her life. When they were teenagers they’d dated for a while, and she knew how stubborn he could be. In this instance, the obstinacy and pride that were such a feature of his personality had proved self-destructive. And the result was that everyone was unhappy. Anna, Dan, the children, even Erica. She wished that her sister would finally have some happiness in her life after the hell she had endured with Lucas, her children’s father.

  It was so unfair, the way their lives had turned out so differently. She had a strong and loving marriage, three healthy children, and a writing career that was on the upswing. Anna, on the other hand, had encountered one setback after another, and Erica had no idea how to help her. That had always been her role as the big sister: to protect and support and offer assistance. Anna had been the wild one, with such a zest for life. But all that vitality had been beaten out of her until what remained was only a subdued and lost shell. Erica missed the old Anna.

  I’ll phone her tonight, she resolved as she picked up a stack of newspaper articles and began leafing through them. It was gloriously quiet in the house, and she was grateful that her job made it possible for her to work at home. She had never felt any need for co-workers or an office setting. She worked best on her own.

  The absurd thing was that she was already longing for the hour when she would leave to fetch Maja and the twins. How was it possible for a parent to have such contradictory emotions about the daily routines? The constant alternating between highs and lows was exhausting. One moment she’d be sticking her hands in her pockets and clenching her fists, the next she’d be hugging and kissing the children so much that they begged to be let go. She knew that Patrik felt the same way.

  For some reason thinking about Patrik and the kids led her back to the conversation with Laila. It was so incomprehensible. How could anyone cross that invisible yet clearly demarcated boundary between what was permitted and what was not? Wasn’t the fundamental essence of a human being the ability to restrain his or her most primitive urges and do what was right and socially acceptable? To obey the laws and regulations which made it possible for society to function?

  Erica continued glancing through the articles. What she had said to Laila today was true. She would never be capable of doing anything to harm her children. Not even in her darkest hours, when she was suffering from postnatal depression after Maja was born, or caught up in the chaos following the twins’ arrival, or during the many sleepless nights, or when the tantrums seemed to go on for hours, or when the kids repeated the word ‘No!’ as often as they drew breath. She had never come close to doing anything like that. But in the stack of papers resting on her lap, in the pictures lying on her desk, and in her notes, there was proof that the boundary could indeed be crossed.

  In Fjällbacka the house in the photographs had become known as the House of Horrors. Not a particularly original name, but definitely appropriate. After the tragedy, no one had wanted to buy the place, and it had gradually fallen into disrepair. Erica reached for a picture of the house as it had looked back then. Nothing hinted at what had gone on inside. It looked like a completely normal house: white with grey trim, standing alone on a hill with a few trees nearby. She wondered what it looked like now, how run-down it must be.

  She sat up abruptly and placed the photo back on her desk. Why not drive out there and have a look? While researching her previous books she’d always visited the crime scene, but she hadn’t done that this time. Something had been holding her back. It wasn’t that she’d made a conscious decision not to go out there; more that she had simply stayed away.

  It would have to wait until tomorrow though. Right now it was time to go and fetch her little wildcats. Her stomach knotted with a mixture of longing and fatigue.

  The cow was struggling valiantly. Jonas was soaked with sweat after spending several hours trying to turn the calf around. The big animal kept resisting, unaware that they were trying to help her.

  ‘Bella is our best cow,’ said Britt Andersson. She and her husband Otto ran the farm which was only a couple of kilometres from the property owned by Jonas and Marta. It was a small but robust farm, and the cows were their main source of income. Britt was an energetic woman who supplemented the money they made from milk sales to Arla by selling cheese from a little shop on their property. She was looking worried as she stood next to the cow.

  ‘She’s a good cow, Bella is,’ said Otto, rubbing the back of his head anxiously. This was h
er fourth calf. The previous three births had all gone fine. But this calf was in the wrong position and refused to come out, and Bella was obviously exhausted.

  Jonas wiped the sweat from his brow and prepared to make yet another attempt to turn the calf so it could finally slide out and land in the straw, sticky and wobbly. He was not about to give up, because then both the cow and the calf would die. Gently he stroked Bella’s soft flank. She was taking, short, shallow breaths, and her eyes were open wide.

  ‘All right now, girl, let’s see if we can get this calf out,’ he said as he again pulled on a pair of long rubber gloves. Slowly but surely he inserted his hand into the narrow canal until he could touch the calf. He needed to get a firm grip on a leg so he could pull on it and turn the calf, but he had to do it cautiously.

  ‘I’ve got hold of a hoof,’ he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Britt and Otto craning their necks to get a better look. ‘Nice and calm now, girl.’

  He spoke in a low voice as he began to tug at the leg. Nothing happened. He pulled a little harder but still couldn’t budge the calf.

  ‘How’s it going? Is it turning?’ asked Otto. He kept scratching his head so often that Jonas thought he would end up with a bald spot.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jonas through clenched teeth. Sweat poured off him, and a strand of hair from his blond fringe had fallen in his eyes so he kept having to blink. But right now the only thought in his mind was getting the calf out. Bella’s breathing was getting shallower, and her head kept sinking into the straw, as if she were ready to give up.

  ‘I’m afraid of breaking something,’ he said, pulling as hard as he dared. And something moved! He pulled a bit harder, holding his breath and hoping not to hear the sound of anything breaking. Suddenly he felt the calf shift position. A few more cautious tugs, and the calf was lying on the ground, feeble but alive. Britt rushed forward and began rubbing the newborn with straw. With firm, loving strokes she wiped off its body and massaged its limbs.

  In the meantime Bella lay on her side, motionless. She didn’t react to the birth of the calf, this life that had been growing inside of her for close to nine months. Jonas went over to sit near her head, plucking away a few pieces of straw close to her eye.

  ‘It’s over now. You were amazing, girl.’

  He stroked her smooth black hide and kept on talking, just as he’d done throughout the birth process. At first the cow didn’t respond. Then she wearily raised her head to peer at the calf.

  ‘You have a beautiful little girl. Look, Bella,’ said Jonas as he continued to pat her. He felt his racing pulse gradually subside. The calf would live, and Bella would too. He stood up and finally pushed the irritating strand of hair out of his eyes as he nodded to Britt and Otto.

  ‘Looks like a fine calf.’

  ‘Thank you, Jonas,’ said Britt, coming over to give him a hug.

  Otto awkwardly grasped Jonas’s hand in his big fist. ‘Thank you, thank you. Good work,’ he said, pumping Jonas’s hand up and down.

  ‘Just doing my job,’ said Jonas with a big smile. It was always satisfying when something worked out as it should. He didn’t like it when he wasn’t able to resolve things, either on the job or in his personal life.

  Happy with the final results, he took his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. For a few seconds he stared at the display. Then he dashed for his car.

  FJÄLLBACKA 1964

  The sounds, the smells, the colours. Everything so bedazzling, radiating excitement. Laila was holding her sister’s hand. They were too old for that sort of thing, but instinctively she and Agneta would reach for each other’s hand when anything unusual happened. And a circus in Fjällbacka was undeniably something out of the ordinary.

  They had hardly ever been away from the small fishing village. Two day-trips to Göteborg. That was the furthest they’d gone. The circus brought with it the promise of the big wide world.

  ‘What language are they speaking?’ Agneta whispered, even though they could have shouted without anyone hearing because of the buzz of voices all around them.

  ‘Aunt Edla said the circus came from Poland,’ she whispered back, squeezing her sister’s sweaty hand.

  The summer had consisted of an endless string of sunny days, but this had to be the hottest day so far. Laila had been allowed to take a day off from her job selling sewing accessories. She looked forward to every minute she didn’t have to spend inside that stuffy little shop.

  ‘Look! An elephant!’ Agneta pointed excitedly at the big grey beast ambling past them, accompanied by a man who looked to be in his thirties. The sisters stopped to watch the elephant, which was so impressively beautiful and so completely out of place in the field outside of Fjällbacka, where the circus was setting up.

  ‘Come on, let’s go look at the other animals. I heard they have lions and zebras too.’ Agneta tugged at her sister’s hand, and Laila followed, out of breath. She could feel the sweat running down her back and making damp patches on her thin summer dress with the floral pattern.

  They ran between the wagons parked around the big tent which was being raised. Strong men in white undershirts were working hard to get everything ready for the next day when Cirkus Gigantus would have its first performance. Many of the locals hadn’t been able to wait until then and had come over to gawp at the spectacle. Now they were staring wide-eyed in wonder, never having seen the like before. Except for the two or three bustling summer months when tourists arrived to spend time on the beach, daily life in Fjällbacka was anything but exciting. One day followed the other with nothing in particular happening. The news that a circus was coming to town for the first time had spread like wildfire.

  Agneta kept on tugging at Laila, drawing her over to the wagons where a striped head was sticking out of a hatchway.

  ‘Oh, look how beautiful it is!’

  Laila had to agree. The zebra was so sweet, with his big eyes and long lashes. She had to restrain herself from going over to pet him. She assumed that touching the animals was not allowed, but it was hard to resist.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ growled a voice in English behind them, making them jump.

  Laila turned around. She had never seen such a big man. Tall and muscular, he towered over them. The sun was at his back, so the sisters had to shade their eyes to see anything, and when Laila met his glance, it felt like an electric current surged through her body. She had never experienced such a sensation before. She felt confused and dizzy; her whole face burned. She told herself that it must be the heat.

  ‘No … We … no touch.’ Laila searched for the right words. Even though she had studied English in school and had learned a good deal from watching American films, she had never needed to actually speak the foreign language.

  ‘My name is Vladek.’ The man held out a calloused fist, and after a few seconds of hesitation, she responded, watching her own hand disappear in his grasp.

  ‘Laila. My name is Laila.’ Sweat was now coursing down her back.

  He shook her hand as he repeated her name, though he made it sound so different and strange. When her name issued from his lips it sounded almost exotic and not like an ordinary, boring name.

  ‘This …’ She frantically searched her memory and then ventured: ‘This is my sister.’

  She pointed at Agneta, and the big man greeted her as well. Laila was a bit ashamed of her stammered English, but her curiosity won out over her embarrassment.

  ‘What … what do you do? Here. In the circus.’

  His face lit up. ‘Come, I show you!’ He motioned for them to follow and then set off without waiting for them to reply. They had to trot to keep up with him, and Laila felt her blood racing. He strode past the wagons and the circus tent that was still being raised, heading for a wagon that stood apart from the others. It was more like a cage, with iron bars instead of walls. Inside two lions were pacing back and forth.

  ‘This is what I do. This is my babies, my lions. I am … I am a lion tamer!’
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br />   Laila stared at the wild beasts. Inside of her something entirely new began to stir, something frightening but wondrous. And without thinking about what she was doing, she reached for Vladek’s hand.

  Chapter Two

  It was early morning at the station. The yellow-painted walls of the kitchen looked grey in the winter haze that hovered over Tanumshede. No one said a word. None of them had slept much, and weariness covered their faces like a mask. The doctors had fought heroically to save Victoria’s life, but without success. At 11.14 yesterday morning, she had been pronounced dead.

  Martin had filled everyone’s coffee cup, and Patrik now cast a glance at his colleague. Since his wife’s death, he rarely smiled, and all their attempts to bring back the old Martin had failed. Pia had clearly taken part of Martin with her when she died. The doctors had thought she would live one more year, but things had progressed much faster than anyone anticipated. Only three months after her diagnosis, she was gone, and Martin was left alone with their young daughter. Fucking cancer, thought Patrik as he stood up to begin the briefing.

  ‘As you know, Victoria Hallberg has died from the injuries she sustained when she was struck by a car. The driver of the vehicle has not been charged with any crime.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Martin interjected. ‘I spoke with him yesterday. David Jansson. According to him, Victoria suddenly appeared in the road, and he had no time to brake. He tried to veer around her, but the road was slippery and he lost control of the car.’

  Patrik nodded. ‘There’s a witness to the accident: Marta Persson. She was out riding when she saw someone come out of the woods and then get hit by a car. She was also the one who called the police and ambulance. And she recognized Victoria. From what I understand, she was suffering from shock yesterday, so we’ll need to talk to her today. Can you handle that, Martin?’