Patrik Hedstrom 01 - The Ice Princess Page 35

  They had also talked a lot about Patrik, and with Adrian on her arm Erica now gave him a ring. He didn’t answer at home, so she tried his mobile instead. Placing a call turned out to be a bigger challenge than she was used to, since Adrian was overjoyed by the marvellous toy she had in her hand and tried desperately to make it his own. When Patrik answered his mobile after only one ring all the night’s weariness vanished as if by magic.

  ‘Hi, darling.’

  ‘Mmm, I like it when you call me that,’ Erica said.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Okay, thanks. There’s a bit of a family crisis here. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. A lot has happened, and Anna and I stayed up all night talking. Right now I’m watching the kids so she can get some sleep.’

  He heard her stifle a yawn.

  ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘I am tired. Hitting the wall. But Anna needs sleep more than I do, so I have to stay awake a couple more hours. The kids aren’t old enough to take care of themselves yet.’

  Adrian babbled in agreement.

  Patrik made a snap decision. ‘There’s another solution to the problem.’

  ‘Oh yeah, what’s that? Should I tie them to the banister for a couple of hours?’ She laughed.

  ‘I’ll come over and take care of them.’

  Erica gave an incredulous snort. ‘You? Take care of the kids?’

  He put on his most aggrieved voice. ‘Are you implying that I might not be man enough for the job? If I can take down two burglars single-handedly, I can certainly handle two extremely short human beings. Or don’t you trust me?’

  He paused for effect and heard Erica sigh theatrically on the other end.

  ‘All right, you may be able to handle it. But I’m warning you, these are really small wild animals. Are you really sure you can stand the pace, at your age I mean?’

  ‘I’ll try. I should probably bring my heart medicine just in case.’

  ‘Okay, offer accepted. When can you get here?’

  ‘Right now, actually. I was already on my way to Fjällbacka for something else and I’ve just passed the minigolf course. So I’ll see you in about five minutes.’

  She was standing in the doorway waiting for him when he stepped out of the car. On her arm she had a boy with round cheeks and flailing arms. Behind her, scarcely visible, stood a little girl with her thumb in her mouth and her other arm in a cast and sling. He still didn’t know the reason for Anna’s sudden appearance, but from what Erica had told him about her brother-in-law combined with the sight of the little girl’s plaster-wrapped arm, a nasty suspicion emerged. He didn’t ask. Erica would tell him what happened when she had a chance.

  Patrik said hello to all three of them in turn. Erica got a kiss on the mouth, Adrian a pat on the cheek, and then he squatted down to say hello to a solemn Emma. He took her good hand and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Patrik. What’s yours?’

  The reply came after a long delay. ‘Emma.’ Then she stuck her thumb back in her mouth.

  ‘She’ll thaw out,’ said Erica as she handed Adrian to Patrik and turned to Emma.

  ‘Mamma and Auntie have to take a nap, so Patrik came over to take care of you for a while. Is that okay? He’s a friend of mine and he’s very, very nice. And if you’re very, very nice Patrik might take an ice cream bar out of the freezer for you.’

  Emma gave Erica a suspicious look, but the chance for an ice cream bar exerted an irresistible attraction, and she nodded reluctantly.

  ‘So I’ll leave them to you and see you in a while. Try to make sure they’re in one piece when I wake up, if you would.’

  Erica vanished up the stairs.

  Patrik turned to Emma, who was still giving him a suspicious look.

  ‘So, what do you say? Shall we play a game of chess? No? How about having a little ice cream for lunch? You think that sounds fine? Okay. Last one to the fridge gets a carrot instead.’

  Slowly Anna struggled back to consciousness. It felt like she’d been dozing a hundred years, like Sleeping Beauty. When she opened her eyes she had a hard time orienting herself at first. Then she recognized the wallpaper from her childhood room and reality crashed over her like a ton of bricks. She sat up at once. The kids! Then she heard Emma’s happy shriek from downstairs and remembered that Erica was watching them while she slept. She lay back down and decided to snooze for a few more minutes in the warm bed. As soon as she got up, she’d have to deal with everything; this way she could buy herself a few more minutes of escape from reality.

  Slowly it penetrated her brain that it wasn’t Erica’s voice she heard from downstairs, mixed in with Emma and Adrian’s laughter. In a cold, icy moment she thought that Lucas was here, but then she realized that Erica would rather shoot him on the spot than let him in the front door. She had a hunch who the visitor might be, and in curiosity she crept out to the landing and looked through the bars of the banister. Down in the living room it looked as if a bomb had gone off. The sofa cushions along with four dining room chairs and a blanket: had been turned into a fort, and Adrian’s blocks were scattered all over the floor. On the coffee table were strewn so many ice cream wrappers that Anna hoped Patrik was a big ice cream eater. With a sigh, she realized that it would probably be extremely difficult to get her daughter to eat either lunch or dinner. The daughter in question was riding on the shoulders of a dark-haired man with a pleasant face and warm brown eyes. She was laughing so hard she was practically choking. Adrian apparently shared her glee as he lay on a blanket on the floor, wearing only a nappy. But the one who seemed to be having the most fun was Patrik, and it was at that moment that he forever won a place in Anna’s heart.

  She stood up and cleared her throat to draw the attention of the three playmates.

  ‘Mamma, look, I got a horsie.’

  Emma demonstrated her total power over the ‘horsie’ by pulling hard on his hair, but Patrik’s protests were much too mild for the little tyrant to care.

  ‘Emma, you have to be nice to the horse. Or else you might not be able to ride him anymore.’

  This remark prompted a certain caution in the rider. For safety’s sake she patted Patrik’s mane with her good hand to make sure she wouldn’t lose her riding privileges.

  ‘Hey, Anna, long time no see.’

  ‘I know. I hope they haven’t worn you out too badly.’

  ‘No, we’ve been having a lot of fun.’ He suddenly looked a bit worried. ‘I’ve been very careful with her arm.’

  ‘I believe it. She looks like she’s getting along fine. Is Erica sleeping?’

  ‘Yes, she sounded so tired when we talked on the phone this morning that I offered to step in.’

  ‘And with gusto, obviously.’

  ‘Yes, although it’s got a bit messy. I hope Erica won’t get mad when she wakes up and sees the way I’ve totally sabotaged her living room.’

  Anna found his concern quite charming. It seemed that Erica had already whipped him into shape.

  ‘I’ll help you clean up. But first I need a cup of coffee, I think. Would you like one?’

  They drank coffee and talked like old friends. The way to Anna’s heart was through her children, and the adoration in Emma’s eyes was unmistakable when she climbed all over Patrik, who only waved off Anna’s attempts to tell her daughter to leave him in peace for a while. By the time Erica came down with bleary eyes about an hour later, Anna had quizzed Patrik about everything from his shoe size to why he got divorced. When he finally said that he had to go, all the girls protested, and Adrian would have too if he hadn’t been taking his afternoon nap.

  As soon as they heard his car drive off, Anna turned to Erica with eyes wide.

  ‘God, what a mother-in-law’s dream. He doesn’t have any younger brothers, does he?’

  Erica just laughed happily in reply.

  Patrik had been given a few hours’ reprieve from the task he knew he had to deal with—something that had made him toss and turn all night. He had seld
om dreaded anything as much as he did this, but he knew it was an unavoidable part of the profession he had chosen. He now knew the solution to one of the two murders, but it didn’t make him happy.

  Patrik drove slowly from Sälvik down towards the centre of town. He wanted to postpone this as long as possible, but it wasn’t far and he got there sooner than he wanted to. He parked the car in the lot by Eva’s Foods and walked the rest of the way. The house stood at the top of one of the streets that sloped steeply down towards the boathouses along the water. It was a fine old house, but it looked as though it had been neglected for many years. Before he knocked on the door he took a deep breath, but as soon as his knuckles touched the wood he was the consummate professional. He couldn’t let his personal feelings be involved. He was a cop and as such was bound to do his job, no matter what Patrik the private citizen might feel about the task.

  Vera opened the door almost immediately. She gave him a questioning look but stepped aside at once when he asked to come in. She preceded him into the kitchen and they sat down at the kitchen table. Patrik was struck by the fact that she didn’t ask him what he wanted, and for a moment he thought it might be because she already knew. Regardless of the reason, he somehow had to present what he wanted to say in as considerate a way as possible.

  She calmly rested her eyes on him, but he saw dark circles under them, a sign of her grief after her son’s death. On the table lay an old photo album, and he guessed that if he opened it he’d see pictures of Anders from his childhood. It was hard for him to come here, to visit a mother who was grieving for a son who had only been dead a few days. But once again Patrik had to push aside his natural protective instincts and instead concentrate on the job he had come to do. To find out the truth about Anders’s death.

  ‘Vera, the last time we met it was under very sad circumstances, and I just want to start by saying that I’m truly sorry about your son’s death.’

  She merely nodded in reply, then waited silently for him to go on.

  ‘But even though I understand how difficult this is for you, it’s my job to investigate what happened to Anders. I hope you understand.’

  Patrik spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child. Why, he didn’t know, but he felt that it was important for him that she really understood what he was saying.

  ‘We’ve investigated Anders’s death as a murder, and we’ve also searched for a connection with the murder of Alexandra Wijkner, a woman with whom we know he had a relationship. We haven’t found any traces of a possible killer, nor have we found evidence as to how the murder itself was committed. This has really put us in a quandary, to be honest. No one has been able to come up with any really good explanation as to how the course of events may have unfolded. But then I found this at Anders’s flat.’

  Patrik placed the photocopy of the piece of paper on the kitchen table in front of Vera, with the text facing her. An expression of astonishment passed over her face and she looked several times from the paper to Patrik’s face and back. She picked up the paper and turned it over. She ran her fingers over the letters and then put the paper down on the table again, still with an expression of shock on her face.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ Her voice was hoarse with sorrow.

  ‘At Anders’s place. You’re surprised because you thought that you took the only copy of this letter, isn’t that right?’

  She nodded.

  Patrik went on, ‘You did, actually. But I found the notepad that Anders wrote the letter on, and when he pressed the pen into the paper it also left an impression on the sheet underneath. That’s how we were able to retrieve the message.’

  Vera gave him a wry smile. ‘I didn’t even think of that, of course. It was clever of you to work it out.’

  ‘I think I know approximately what happened, but I’d really like to hear you tell it in your own words.’

  She fingered the paper for a moment, feeling the words with her fingertips, as if she were reading Braille. A deep sigh, and then she complied with Patrik’s friendly but firm request.

  ‘I went over to Anders’s place with a bag of food. The door was unlocked, but it almost always was, so I just called out and then went in. It was calm, completely quiet. I saw him at once. I felt like my heart stopped that instant. That was exactly how it felt. As if my heart stopped beating and there was only stillness in my chest. He was swaying a little. Back and forth. As if there were a wind inside the room, which of course I knew was impossible.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police? Or an ambulance?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. My first instinct was to run up and get him down somehow, but when I entered the living room I saw that it was too late. My boy was dead.’

  For the first time since she started talking he heard a slight quaver in her voice, but then she swallowed hard and forced herself with uncanny calm to go on.

  ‘I found this letter in the kitchen. You’ve read it, you know what it says. That he couldn’t go on living. That life was one long torment for him and now he couldn’t fight it anymore. All his reasons to continue were gone. I must have sat there in the kitchen for an hour, maybe two, I don’t really know. In an instant I stuffed the letter in my purse, and then I only had to take the chair he used to climb up to the noose and put it back in its place in the kitchen.’

  ‘But why, Vera? Why? What purpose did it serve?’

  Her gaze was steady but Patrik could see from her trembling hands that her outward calm was a sham. He couldn’t even imagine what horror it must have been to see her son hanging from the ceiling, with a thick blue tongue and eyes popping out. It had been hard enough for him to look at Anders, and now his mother would have to live the rest of her life with that image in her mind.

  ‘I wanted to spare him more humiliation. For all these years people have looked at him with contempt. People pointed and laughed. Put their noses in the air when they walked past, feeling superior. What would people say when they heard that Anders had hanged himself? I wanted to spare him that shame, and I did it the only way I could think of.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand. Why would it be worse if he took his own life than if he was murdered?’

  ‘You’re too young to understand. The contempt for suicides still sits deep in people here in the coastal regions. I didn’t want people to talk like that about my little boy. They’ve talked enough rubbish about him over the years.’

  There was a touch of steel in Vera’s voice. For all these years she had devoted herself to protecting and helping her son, and although Patrik still didn’t understand her motive, it was perhaps only natural that she continued to protect him even after his death.

  Vera reached for the photo album on the table and opened it so that both she and Patrik could see. Judging by the clothing, the pictures must have been from the Seventies. Anders’s face smiled at him, open and carefree, from all the slightly yellowing photos.

  ‘He was certainly fine, my Anders.’

  Vera’s voice was dreamy and she stroked a finger across the pictures.

  ‘He was always such a nice boy. There was never any problem with him.’

  Patrik looked with interest at the pictures. It was unbelievable that this was the same person whom he had met only as a wreck. Lucky that the boy in the photos didn’t know what fate had awaited him. One of the pictures aroused his interest even more. A thin, blonde girl stood next to Anders, who was sitting on a bicycle with a banana seat and chopper handlebars. She showed just the hint of a smile as she peered out shyly from under her fringe.

  ‘This must be Alex, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Vera’s tone was curt.

  ‘Did they play much together when they were little?’

  ‘Not often. But sometimes, sure. They were in the same class, after all.’

  Patrik cautiously entered a sensitive area. He mentally tested the water with his toes before each step he took.

  ‘I understood that they had Nils Lorentz as a
teacher for a while?’

  Vera gave him a searching look. ‘Yes, that’s possible. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘There was some talk about Nils Lorentz, from what I hear. Especially since he later simply disappeared.’

  ‘People talk about all sorts of things here in Fjällbacka. So they probably talked about Nils Lorentz as well.’

  It was obvious that he was now poking at a festering wound, but he had to keep going and probe even deeper.

  ‘I spoke with Alex’s parents, who made certain claims about Nils Lorentz. Claims that also affected Anders.’

  ‘I see.’ She was obviously not going to make it easy for him.

  ‘According to them, Nils Lorentz sexually assaulted Alex, and they claimed that Anders was also abused.’

  Vera sat ramrod stiff on the edge of the kitchen chair, and she didn’t reply to Patrik’s statement, which he had intended as a question. He decided to wait her out, and after a moment of internal struggle she slowly closed the photo album and got up from her chair.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about ancient history. I want you to go now. If you want to charge me for what I did when I found Anders, then you know where to find me. But I don’t intend to help you root about in things that would best be left buried.’

  ‘Just one question: did you ever talk to Alexandra about this? From what I understood she had decided to deal with what happened, and it would have been natural for her to speak with you as well.’

  ‘Yes, she did. I sat there in her house about a week before she died, listening to her naive ideas about coming to terms with the past, taking all the old skeletons out of the closet, and so on and so forth. Modern drivel in my opinion. Today, everyone seems obsessed with washing their dirty linen in public, claiming it’s so healthy to reveal all their secrets and sins. But some things should remain private. I told her that as well. I don’t know whether she listened to me, but I hope so. Otherwise, I only had a stubborn bladder inflammation to show for the trouble of sitting there in her freezing house.’