The Girl in the Woods (Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 10) Read online

  ‘Social services will determine what would be best for the girls, and I have no idea what their recommendation will be.’

  ‘But if you had to make a guess?’

  ‘If I had to make a guess, I think Helen will be allowed to remain with her family while Marie will be placed in foster care.’

  ‘And do you think that would be the right decision?’ she asked, taking another drag on her cigarette.

  Leif pondered her question. He wanted to say yes, but something was bothering him. It had been bothering him ever since he’d interviewed the girls, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the right decision,’ he said.

  Kate stopped kneading the dough. ‘You don’t sound too convinced. Do you have doubts about their guilt?’

  ‘No, I see no reason why two thirteen-year-old girls would confess to a murder if they didn’t do it. It’s the right decision. Helen has a stable home environment, while Marie’s home … well, it was probably what set her on this path, turned her into the instigator.’

  ‘Instigator?’ said Kate, her eyes filling with tears. ‘She’s a child. How can a child be … an instigator?’

  How should he explain this to Kate? How could he tell her about the eerily calm manner in which Marie had confessed to killing Stella and described step by step what had happened? Kate always saw the good in everyone.

  ‘I think this will be best. For both of them.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Kate. ‘You’ve always been a good judge of character. That’s what makes you such a good police officer.’

  ‘You’re the one who makes me a good police officer. Because you make me a good person,’ he replied simply.

  Kate stopped what she was doing. Her strong hands suddenly began to shake. She raised a floury hand to her head. Then she burst into tears.

  Leif got up and put his arms around her. She was as thin as a bird. He pressed her head to his chest. They had so little time left. Maybe only a year. Nothing else mattered. Not even the two children who were about to enter the social services system. He’d done his job. Now he needed to focus on what was most important.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘I’ve called this meeting because we need to get to the bottom of what happened.’

  Patrik looked at his colleagues as Mellberg patted his stomach.

  ‘Okay, I can see you’re all a little surprised,’ said Mellberg. ‘You obviously haven’t been keeping up with developments. But that’s how it is with solid police work. If you do the groundwork, sooner or later you get to that decisive moment when it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. And if I say it myself, I happen to have a talent for doing precisely that.’

  He fell silent and surveyed the others. No one spoke. Mellberg furrowed his brow.

  ‘Would it kill you to offer a few words of praise? Not that I expect a standing ovation or anything, but this blatant display of jealousy isn’t very becoming.’

  Patrik was seething. He was so angry he didn’t trust himself to speak. Even for someone of Mellberg’s monumental stupidity, this latest exploit beggared belief.

  ‘Bertil. First of all, it was a flagrant blunder not to inform your colleagues that you’d received an anonymous phone call. We can all be reached by mobile phone, so you could easily have contacted one of us. Second, I don’t understand how you could drive to the refugee centre without any sort of backup or at least an interpreter. I’m dumbfounded that someone with your experience could make an error like that. Third: waving a veterinary certificate and forcing your way into a woman’s house when she has no idea what you’re saying is so … so …’

  Patrik stopped himself. He clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Then he looked around the room.

  It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. All the others had their eyes fixed on the table, not daring to look at either Patrik or Mellberg.

  ‘What the hell!’ exploded Mellberg. His face was white with fury. ‘I deliver a child killer on a silver platter, and I get stabbed in the back by my own colleagues! Don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing this. Sheer jealousy, all because I’ll be the one who’ll get the credit for solving the case! Well, let me tell you: I deserve the credit! While you lot were hounding the child’s own family, even though it was perfectly obvious to everybody around here that we have a whole damned centre filled with criminals right around the corner, I relied on my policeman’s instinct to lead me straight to the guy who did it. That’s what none of you can stand: I did what you couldn’t do. You always have to be so damned politically correct, but sometimes a spade is a spade! You can all go to hell, the whole lot of you!’

  Mellberg jumped up from his seat, his comb-over dangling over his left ear, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard that the windows rattled.

  For a moment no one spoke. Then Patrik took a deep breath.

  ‘So, that went well,’ he said. ‘How shall we proceed? We’re sitting here with a big mess on our hands, and we need to sort it out somehow.’

  Martin held up his hand, and Patrik nodded for him to speak.

  ‘Do we have any reason to hold Karim?’

  ‘Yes, we do, since we found a pair of knickers in his home that match the description Eva Berg gave. However, despite the fact they have the Frozen illustration on them, we have no proof as yet that they belonged to Nea, or that Karim was the one who hid them there. We need to proceed cautiously. From the way Karim and his wife reacted when we brought him in, it’s obvious they’ve been through a traumatic time in their own country.’

  ‘But what if he really is the perpetrator?’ said Paula.

  Patrik paused for a moment before replying.

  ‘It’s possible, but the fact that the tip-off came from an anonymous caller raises doubts in my mind. The murderer could have put the knickers there in order to shift the blame to someone else. We need to stay objective and make a thorough job of the police work. Everything has to be done by the book.’

  ‘Before we get started,’ said Gösta, ‘I need to update you on a phone call that came in from Uddevalla regarding the sex offender Tore Carlson. According to his neighbours, he hasn’t been home the past few weeks, and nobody knows where he is.’

  Everyone exchanged glances.

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Patrik. ‘It could be just a coincidence. Uddevalla need to keep looking for Tore Carlson while we work on the leads we have here.

  ‘Annika, find out all you can about this anonymous caller. Since he called the station, we’ll have it on tape; we need to listen to what was said and see if it gives us any ideas. Gösta, take a picture of the knickers found in Karim’s home and show it to Eva and Peter. We want to know if they can identify the knickers as belonging to Nea. Martin and Paula, see what you can find out about Karim’s background. Does he have a criminal record? What do the others at the centre say about him? And so on.’

  Once he had given them their assignments, Patrik tried to make himself relax by lowering his shoulders. Anger had made his body as taut as a violin string, and his heart had been beating too fast. Stress and tension could have fateful consequences for him, and the last thing he wanted was to land in hospital again. They simply couldn’t afford that.

  His heart rate now slowed to a more normal rhythm, and Patrik breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘I’m going to see if I can get Karim to talk. He’s in shock, but with a little luck, he’ll be able to help us get to the bottom of all this.’

  He looked around at the discouraged faces. ‘I know exactly how you all feel, but do your best and we’ll get this investigation back on track. Mellberg has pulled stunts like this before, and no doubt he’ll do it again. We have no choice but to deal with it as best we can.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he picked up his notepad and headed for the part of the station where the holding cell was located. As he passed the reception area, the doorbell rang, and he opened the
door. Outside stood an indignant Bill Andersson. Patrik sighed inwardly. As he’d feared, all hell was about to break loose.

  Erica had put the kids to bed early. Now she was comfortably settled on the sofa with a glass of red wine and a bowl of nuts. She was hungry and should have found something more substantial to eat, but she found it so boring to cook dinner just for herself. Patrik had sent a text saying he probably wouldn’t get home until after she’d gone to bed.

  She had brought downstairs several folders from her desk so she could go through them again. It took time to process all the material. Her method was to reread the articles and printouts many times, while she also looked at photos, trying to see everything with new eyes.

  After pondering how to start, she reached for the file labelled ‘Leif’. He would inevitably be one of the main figures in her book, but she still had questions in need of answers. Why did he change his mind? Why did he start out firmly convinced that Helen and Marie had killed Stella, but later begin to have doubts? And why did he kill himself? Was it merely depression after the death of his wife, or was there some other reason?

  She picked up the copies of the post-mortem report and the photos taken of Leif at death. He was leaning over his desk in his home office, with a whisky glass next to him and a gun in his right hand. His face was turned towards the gun, and blood had gushed from his head to form a big, congealed pool. A wound was visible at his temple, his eyes were wide open and glassy. According to the post-mortem report, he’d been dead about twenty-four hours when one of his sons found him.

  His children had stated that the gun was his, and the registration number confirmed this. Leif had applied for a gun permit because after retiring he had taken up shooting as a hobby.

  Erica leafed through the documents, looking for a ballistics report, but she didn’t find one. She frowned. That worried her, because she knew she’d gathered all the material related to his death. Either no analysis had been done on the bullet and gun, or the report had been lost. Erica reached for her notepad and jotted down the words ‘ballistic report’ followed by a question mark. She had no reason to believe there was anything amiss about the investigation into Leif’s suicide, but she didn’t like it when pieces of a puzzle went missing. It was worth looking into, but Leif had died fifteen years ago, so it was going to take a major stroke of luck to locate any of the individuals who had worked on the technical and forensic aspects of the investigation.

  No matter, it would have to wait until tomorrow. It was too late in the evening to do anything about it now. She leaned back on the sofa cushions and propped her feet on the coffee table, on top of the files and documents. The wine tasted divine, but maybe she ought to abstain from drinking for a month after the summer holidays were over. She knew she was not alone in finding excuses to have a daily glass of wine during the summertime, but that didn’t make it any better. She would definitely abstain for a month. In September.

  Pleased with herself for having taken such a healthy decision, she allowed herself another sip of wine and savoured the warmth coursing through her body. She wondered what had happened to make Patrik stay at the station so late, but she knew it would do no good to ask him until he came home.

  Erica leaned forward again to look at the pictures of Leif, lying there with the blood like a red halo around his head. She couldn’t help wondering why he had killed himself. She knew that people often lost the will to live when a beloved spouse died. But he’d had his children, and several years had passed since his wife’s death. And why get involved in an old case if he didn’t want to go on living?

  Bill slammed his fist against the steering wheel as they left the police station in his car. Karim sat next to him in silence, staring out the window. The twilight hour made the sky shimmer with lilac and pink, but Karim could see only the darkness he himself had created. What happened today proved that it was impossible to escape the fact he was guilty, that God had seen what he’d done and was punishing him for it.

  Karim didn’t know how many lives he had on his conscience. The people he had named disappeared without a trace, and no one knew what became of them. Maybe they were alive, maybe they weren’t. The only certainty was that their spouses and children cried themselves to sleep at night.

  Karim had saved his own skin by betraying others. How could he ever have believed this was something he could live with? He’d got lost in their flight to Sweden, in the thoughts of building a new life far away. But the old life, the old country, the old sins, had continued to live inside him.

  ‘It’s a scandal, but don’t you worry, I will sort this out for you. Okay?’

  Though he couldn’t understand everything he said, it was obvious that Bill’s voice was seething with emotion, and Karim was grateful that somebody believed in him and was on his side. But he didn’t deserve it. Bill’s words were drowned out by the Arabic voices in his head, repeating over and over: ‘Give us the truth.’

  Cockroaches had swarmed across the floor, scurrying over the bloodstains from those who had occupied the cell before him. He had given the interrogators everything they wanted. Sacrificed courageous people to save himself.

  When the Swedish police officer said he would have to come down to the station, he hadn’t offered any resistance. He was guilty, after all. Guilty before God. He had blood on his hands. He was not worthy of this new country. He was not worthy of Amina and Hassan and Samia. Nothing could change that. And he couldn’t understand how he’d ever been able to fool himself into believing anything else.

  When Bill dropped him off at his home, Amina was standing in the doorway, waiting. Her dark eyes were filled with the same fear as on that morning in Damascus when the police had dragged him away. He couldn’t look at her as he walked past her and lay down on the bed.

  He stared at the wall, his back to the door. An hour later he heard her get undressed and then lie down next to him. Cautiously she placed her hand on his back. He didn’t shake it off, pretending to be asleep.

  Karim knew he wasn’t fooling her. He felt her body shaking with sobs, and he heard her murmuring a prayer in Arabic.

  Rita came into the hallway as Mellberg slammed the front door shut.

  ‘Shh,’ she told him. ‘Leo’s asleep on the sofa, and Johanna is downstairs putting Lisa to bed. What’s happened?’

  Mellberg smelled chilli cooking in the kitchen, and for a moment his anger subsided as his stomach took over. Then he remembered the humiliation he’d suffered and his rage surged.

  ‘My so-called colleagues stabbed me in the back today,’ he said, kicking off his shoes so they landed in the middle of the hall rug.

  A glance from Rita made him lean down and pick them up. Then he placed them neatly in the shoe rack to the left of the door.

  ‘Come in and tell me what happened,’ said Rita, heading for the kitchen. ‘I’ve got something on the hob, and I don’t want it to burn.’

  Muttering to himself, Mellberg followed. He sank down on to a kitchen chair, sniffing at the air. Something smelled awfully good.

  ‘So tell me,’ she said. ‘But keep your voice down so you won’t wake Leo.’

  She waved a wooden spoon at him.

  ‘Maybe I should have something to eat first. I’m so upset. I’ve never been so badly treated in my whole career. Well, there was that time back in 1986 in Gothenburg when my boss—’

  Rita held up her hand.

  ‘The chilli will be ready in ten minutes. Why don’t you go snuggle with Leo while you’re waiting? He looks so sweet, sleeping on the sofa. Then you can tell me everything while we eat.’

  Mellberg did as she said and went into the living room. He never had to be asked twice to see to the little boy who was his godson. He’d been present at Leo’s birth, and ever since they’d had a special relationship. The sight of the slumbering child on the sofa made his blood pressure drop. Leo was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Well, besides Rita, of course. Mind you, she was lucky too. Not everyone had such a
commendable man at their side. Sometimes it seemed as if she didn’t fully comprehend or appreciate that fact. But no doubt she would as the years passed. He was the sort of man who improved with the passage of time.

  Leo stirred in his sleep, and Mellberg gently moved him to make room on the sofa. The boy was sunburned and his hair had turned a lighter shade from the sun. He reached out to brush back a lock of hair that had fallen over Leo’s face. What a sweet child he was. Mellberg could hardly believe they weren’t actually related. But there had to be something to what people said about the strong influence of those you surrounded yourself with in life.

  Rita called from the kitchen to tell him dinner was ready, so Mellberg got up without waking Leo. Then he tiptoed to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Rita tasted the food in the saucepan one last time and took two bowls from the cupboard.

  ‘Johanna will come up to eat as soon as Lisa falls asleep. But we might as well start. Where’s Paula?’

  ‘Paula?’ Mellberg snorted. ‘Well, that’s the thing. Wait till you hear this.’

  He told her all about the meeting, about how he’d made a professional and well-thought-out decision to investigate the matter himself, how he’d come up with the idea of using Ernst’s veterinary certificate to get inside the house, how he’d found the child’s knickers hidden behind the toilet, how he’d expected a standing ovation for his excellent police work. And how shocked he was by the atrocious way he’d been treated by his colleagues. Mellberg paused to catch his breath and looked at Rita, expecting to be rewarded with sympathy and the big bowl of chilli she was dishing up.

  But Rita didn’t say a word, and he didn’t like the look in her eyes. Then she picked up his bowl and dumped the food back in the saucepan.

  Five minutes later Mellberg was standing outside on the street. Something came sailing down from their balcony on the third floor and landed with a thump on the pavement. A bag. From the sound of it, the bag probably contained no more than a toothbrush and a pair of underpants. From the balcony he heard a long, loud series of Spanish swear words. Apparently it was no longer important to keep quiet so as not to wake Leo.