Preacher Read online

  ‘Do you think Laine is hiding something too?’ said Gösta.

  ‘I don’t know, but didn’t you see the expression on her face when we said that Jacob had been taken off the list of suspects? It was surprise.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Gösta, stroking his face wearily. It had been a long day.

  ‘We’ll wait until they’ve had a chance to talk to each other in there. Then we’ll go home and have a little food and get some sleep. We won’t be any use if we’re completelyworn out,’ said Patrik.

  They sat down to wait.

  Solveig thought she heard something outside. But then it was quiet again. She shrugged and shifted her concentration back to her albums. After all the emotional upheavals of the past few days, it was lovely to sink into the security of the well-thumbed photographs. They never changed, although they may have become a bit faded and yellowed over the years.

  She looked at the kitchen clock. The boyscame and went as they pleased, but this evening they had promised to be home for supper. Robert was going to bring pizzas from Captain Falck’s, and she could feel hunger pangs beginning to grind in her stomach. All at once she footsteps on the gravel outside and got up to take out glasses and silverware. Plates were not needed. They always ate straight out of the box.

  ‘Where’s Stefan?’ Robert said, setting the pizzas on the bench and looking around.

  ‘I thought you would know. I haven’t seen him in hours,’ said Solveig.

  ‘He’s probably in the shed. I’ll go see if he’s there.’

  ‘Tell him to hurry up, I don’t intend to wait,’ Solveig called after him, greedily lifting the lid of the box to find her pizza.

  ‘Stefan?’ called Robert before he reached the shed, but he got no answer. Oh well, it didn’t have to mean anything; sometimes Stefan seemed practically deaf and blind when he sat in there.

  ‘Stefan?’ He raised his voice another notch, but heard only his own voice in the stillness.

  Feeling annoyed he opened the door of the shed, ready to scold his little brother because he sat there daydreaming. But the thought instantly vanished from his mind.

  ‘Stefan! What the fuck!’

  His brother was lying on the floor with a big red halo round his head. It took a second before Robert realized that it was blood. Stefan didn’t move.

  ‘Stefan!’ Robert’s voice turned plaintive and a sob began to form in his chest. He sank to his knees next to Stefan with his hands hovering irresolutely over his battered body. He wanted to help but didn’t know how, and he was afraid of making the injuries worse if he touched him. A moan from his brother made him take action. He got up from the floor with blood-soaked knees and ran to the house.

  ‘Mamma, Mamma!’

  Solveig opened the door and squinted at him. Her mouth and fingers were greasy since she had already started eating. Now she was annoyed at being disturbed.

  ‘What the hell is all the commotion about?’ Then she saw the spots on Robert’s clothes. She knew that it wasn’t paint. ‘What’s happened? Is it Stefan?’

  She ran towards the shed as fast as her shapeless body could manage, but Robert caught up with her before she got there.

  ‘Don’t go in. He’s alive, but somebody beat the shit out of him. He’s in bad shape. We have to call an ambulance!’

  ‘Who … ?’ sobbed Solveig and collapsed like a loosejointed doll in Robert’s arms. Annoyed, he freed himself and forced her to stand on her own two feet.

  ‘It doesn’t much matter now. First we have to get help for Stefan! Go in and ring right now, and I’ll go back to him. And ring the clinic too, the ambulance has to come all the way from Uddevalla.’

  He barked out his orders with the authority of a general, and Solveig reacted at once. She ran back to the house and, secure in the knowledge that help would soon be on the way, Robert hurried back to his brother.

  When Dr Jacobsson arrived, noneof them gave even a thought to the circumstances under which theyhad met earlier in the day. Robert backed away with relief, grateful that someone who knew what he was doing had now taken control of the situation. He waited tensely to hear the prognosis.

  ‘He’s alive, but we have to get to the hospital as soon as possible. The ambulance is on its way, I hear.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert in a faint voice.

  ‘Go in and fetch a blanket.’

  Robert was smart enough to understand that the doctor’s request was more about giving him something to do than any real need for a blanket. But he was thankful to have a specific task to do and obeyed willingly. Robert had to squeeze past Solveig, who stood in the doorway to the shed crying silently and shaking. He didn’t have enough strength left to offer her any comfort. He was fully occupied keeping himself together. She would have to manage as best she could. In the distance he heard sirens. Never before had he been so glad to see blueflashing lights glimmering among the trees.

  For half an hour Laine sat in the room with Jacob. Patrik would have liked to press his ear to the wall, but he told himself to be patient. His foot jiggling up and down was the only thing that betrayed his eagerness. Both he and Gösta had gone into their respective offices to try and get some work done, but it was difficult. Patrik wished that he knew exactly what it was he hoped to get out of this whole charade, but he really had no idea. He only hoped that Laine would somehow press the right button to make Jacob talk. Although she might also make him close up even more. It could go either way. That was the thing. Weighing the risks against any possible gain often led to actions that in hindsight could not be explained logically.

  It also annoyed him that it would take until morning for him to get an answer on the blood tests. He would gladly have worked all night examining evidence relating to Jenny, if only there had been any. Instead the blood samples were the only thing they had to go on at present. He had probably been counting on the likelihood that Jacob’s sample would be a match more than he knew. Now that his whole theory had collapsed, he was staring at a blank piece of paper in front of him, and they were back where they’d started. Jenny was somewhere out there, but it felt as if they knew even less than before. The only tangible result so far was that they might have succeeded in breaking up a family and confirming a 24-year-old murder. Beyond that –nothing.

  For the hundredth time he looked at the clock and in frustration played little drum solos with his pen on the desk. Maybe, just maybe, at this very moment Jacob was recounting details to his mother that would solve the whole case in one blow. Maybe …

  Fifteen minutes later, he knew that all hope of gaining any leads from those two was lost. At the sound of the door to the interrogation room opening he jumped out of his chair and went out to meet them. He was met by two closed faces. Eyes as hard as stones glared at him defiantly, and he instantly knew that whatever Jacob was hiding, he was not going to reveal it voluntarily.

  ‘You said that I could take my son with me,’ said Laine in an icy, frosty voice.

  ‘Yes,’ said Patrik. There was nothing more to say.

  Now they could do what he’d promised Gösta a while ago. They could go home and eat and get some sleep. Hopefully they would be able to come back to work with renewed energy tomorrow.

  10

  SUMMER 1979

  SHE WAS WORRIED about how things would go for Mother who was sick. How would herfather manage to take care ofher all by himself? The hope that they would find her was slowly being worn down by the terror of now being alone in the dark. Without the other girl’s soft skin the darkness seemed even blacker, if that were possible.

  The smell bothered her too. The sweet, cloying smell of death pushed away all other smells. Even the smell of their excrement vanished in the disgusting sweetness, and she had vomited several times, acid eruptions ofgall from the lack offood in her stomach. Now she began to feel a longing for death. It scared her more than anything else. It began to flirt with her, whisper to her, promising to take away pain and torment.

  She kept
listening for footsteps from above. The sound ofthe hatch opening. The boards that were dragged away and then the footsteps again, slowly coming down the stairs. She knew that the next time she heard them, it would be the last. Her body couldn’t stand any more pain, and like the other girl she would give in to the temptation of death.

  As ifon cue she heard the sounds she feared. With sorrow in her heart she prepared herself to die.

  It had been wonderful to have Patrik home a little earlier this evening. But at the same time she hadn’t expected it under the circumstances. With a baby of her own on the way, Erica for the first time could really understand aparent’s worry, and she suffered along with Jenny Möller’s parents.

  All at once she felt a bit guilty because she had been feeling so content all day long. Since the guests had left, peace had descended over the house, which allowed her time to chat with the baby kicking inside, lie down, rest and read a good book. She had also puffed her way up to the market to buy something good to eat, along with a big bag of sweets. The latter was now making her feel a little guilty. The midwife had sternly pointed out that sugar was not a healthful element in a pregnant woman’s diet. In large quantities it could even make the child turn into a little sugar addict. Of course she had muttered to herself that it would take very large quantities for that to happen, but nevertheless the midwife’s words kept churning through Erica’s head. There was a long list on the door of the fridge of things she couldn’t eat. Sometimes it felt like an impossible task to deliver the baby with its health intact. Certain types of fish, for instance, she could not eat at all, while others were okay, but no more than once a week. Then there was the question of whether they were saltwater or freshwater fish … not to mention the cheese dilemma. Erica loved cheese in all its forms, and she had memorized which ones she could and could not eat. To her dismay, mouldy cheeses were on the forbidden list, and she was already having fantasies about how she would gorge on cheese and red wine as soon as she finished nursing.

  She was so into her thoughts of food orgies that she didn’t even hear Patrik come in the door, which startled her so much she almost jumped out of her skin. It took a long while before her heart rate was back to normal.

  ‘Oh, good Lord, you gave me a fright!’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I thought you heard me coming.’

  He plopped down on the living-room sofa beside her. She was shocked to see how he looked.

  ‘Patrik, you’re all grey in the face. Did something happen?’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Did you find her?’ An ice-cold band of steel tightened round her heart.

  Patrik shook his head. ‘No.’

  He didn’t say another word, so she waited patiently. After a while he seemed able to continue.

  ‘No, we didn’t find her. And it feels like we lost a lot of ground today.’

  He suddenly leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. Erica moved closer to him, put her arms round him and leanedher cheek on his shoulder. She felt him, rather than heard him, crying softly.

  ‘Shit, she’s only seventeen years old. Can you fathom that? Seventeen and some sick fuck thinks he can do whatever he wants with her. Who knows what she’s having to endure while we’re busy running about like incompetent bloody fools? We don’t know shit about what we’re doing. Why the hell did we think that we could handle an investigation like this on our own? We usually sit and investigate bicycle thefts and stuff like that. What sort of idiot –me! – allowed us to be in charge of this damned investigation?!’ He threw out his hands in helpless gesture.

  ‘Nobody could have done it any better, Patrik. How do you think things would have gone if they sent in some group from Göteborg? What alternative did you have? They don’t know the area, they don’t know the people and they don’t know the way things work here. They couldn’t possibly have done a better job. It would have been even worse. And your team haven’t really been working on this alone, even though I understand why you think so. Don’t forget that Uddevalla sent a couple of men to work with you, to arrange search parties and such. You said yourself the other evening how well the joint effort was working out. Did you forget about that?’

  Erica talked to him like a child, but without patronizing him. She just wanted to be very clear about what she meant. It seemed to be working, because Patrik grew calmer and she could feel his body beginning to relax.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We’ve done all we could do, but it all seems so hopeless. Time is ticking away and here I sit at home while Jenny may be dying at this very moment.’

  The panic began to rise in his voice again, and Erica squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘Shhh, you can’t afford to think that way.’ She let a little sharpness enter her voice. ‘You can’t fall apart now. If there’s anything you owe her and her parents, it’s to keep a cool head and just keep working.’

  He sat quietly, but Erica could see that he was listening to what she said.

  ‘Her parents rang me three times today,’ Patrik said. ‘Four times yesterday. Do you think that’s because they’re about to give up?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Erica said. ‘I just think they’re counting on you to do your job. And right now your job is to gather your forces for another day at work tomorrow. It will serve no good purpose for any of you to wear yourselves out completely.’

  Patrik smiled wanly when he heard his own words to Gösta come like an echo from Erica. Maybe he did know what he was talking about sometimes.

  He decided to listen to his wife’s advice. Despite the fact that he couldn’t even taste his food, he ate what was put on the table in front of him and then got some sleep, though he slept uneasily. In his dreams a young blonde girl kept running away from him. He came close enough that he should have been able to touch her, but when he reached out his hand to grab hold of her, she laughed teasingly and slipped away. When the alarm clock woke him, he was exhausted and in a cold sweat.

  Next to him Erica had spent most of the night wide awake, worrying about her sister Anna. Earlier in the day she had firmly decided not to take the first step. She was equally certain in the grey hours of dawn that she would have to ring Anna as soon as it got light. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

  The smell of the hospital frightened her. There was something final about that sterile odour, the colourless walls and the dreary artwork. After not being able to sleep a single minute during the night, she thought that everyone around her seemed to be moving in slow motion. The rustling of the staff’s clothing was amplified so that in Solveig’s ears it sounded very loud. She expected the world to come crashing down around her at any moment. Sometime near dawn, the doctor had told her that Stefan’s life hung by a thin thread and she had already started to grieve. What else should she do? Everything she’d had in life had run through her fingers like fine grains of sand and been blown away with the wind. Nothing she had ever tried to hold on to remained. Johannes, their life at Västergården, her sons’ future – it hadall faded to nothingness and driven her into a world of her own.

  But now she could no longer flee. Not when reality was pressing in on her, taking the form of visions, sounds and smells. The reality that they were now cutting into Stefan’s body was too palpable for her to flee from.

  She had broken with God long ago, but now she prayed with all the fervour she could muster. She rattled off all the words she could remember from her childhood faith, made promises she would never be able to keep, hoping that they would be enough to give Stefan at least a tiny advantage that might keep him alive. Beside her sat Robert with a shocked expression which didn’t change all night. Solveig wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him, console him, be a mother. But so many years had passed that the chance of displaying any maternal feeling had vanished. Instead, they sat next to each other like strangers, united only by their love for the man who lay in the bed, both of them silent in their certainty that he was the best of all of them.

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nbsp; A familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor. Linda slunk along the walls, unsure of how she would be received –but all desire to quarrel had been beaten out of Solveig and Robert, along with the blows that hadbeen rained down on Stefan.

  Linda sat down quietly next to Robert and waited a while before she dared ask, ‘How’s he doing? I heard from Pappa that you rang him this morning and told him about what happened.’

  ‘Yes, I thought Gabriel ought to know,’ said Solveig, still with her gaze fixed in the distance, ‘because after all, blood is thicker than water. I just thought he should know …’ She seemed to fade away and Linda merely nodded.

  Solveig went on, ‘They’re still operating on him. We don’t know much more than … than it’s possible he might die.’

  ‘But who did this?’ said Linda, determined not to let her aunt escape into silence before she got an answer.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Robert. ‘But whoever the bastard was, he’s going to pay for this!’

  He pounded his hand hard on the armrest and woke up from his state of shock. Solveig said nothing.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, anyway?’ Robert said, only now realizing how odd it was that this cousin they had so little contact with had come to the hospital.

  ‘I…we…I…’ Linda stammered as she searched for words to describe what the relationship actually was between herself and Stefan. It surprised her that Robert didn’t know about it. Stefan had told her that he hadn’t said anything about their relationship to his brother, but she still thought he would have said something. The fact that Stefan had wanted to keep their relationship a secret was proof of how important it must have been for him, and the insight suddenly made her feel ashamed.

  ‘We … we’ve been seeing a lot of each other, Stefan and I.’ She scrutinized her perfectly manicured nails.