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

  ‘What will I do without her? What will the children do without her?’ said Karim. This time he didn’t cough.

  He fell silent, and Patrik didn’t know what to say. Instead he asked: ‘Can you tell us what you remember about last night? What happened?’

  ‘I … I’m not sure,’ said Karim, shaking his head. ‘It all happened so fast. I was dreaming … At first I thought I was back in Damascus and a bomb had exploded. It took a few seconds before I realized where I was … Then I ran to get the children. I thought Amina was right behind me. I heard her scream when I awoke. But after I’d carried the children outside, I didn’t see her. So I picked up a towel lying on the ground and put it over my mouth and then ran back inside …’

  His voice faded, and he started coughing again. Patrik handed him a glass of water that was on the bedside table, helping Karim to drink the water through a straw.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, leaning back against the pillows. ‘I ran to our bedroom, and she …’ He held back a sob and went on. ‘She was on fire. Amina was on fire. Her hair. Her nightgown. I lifted her up and ran outside and rolled her on the ground. I … I could hear the children screaming …’

  Tears ran down his face as he raised his eyes to look at Patrik.

  ‘They say the children are doing fine. Is that true? They’re not lying to me, are they?’

  Patrik shook his head.

  ‘No, they’re not lying. The children are fine. They’re keeping them here for …’ Frantically he searched for the English word and then realized it was the same as in Swedish. ‘For observation.’

  For a moment Karim looked relieved, but then his expression once again darkened.

  ‘Where will they stay? The doctors say I have to stay here for several days, and Amina …’

  Paula took a step forward.

  She pulled a chair up to the bed and said quietly: ‘I’m not sure whether you’ll like this idea, but I suggested the children could stay with me until you’re well enough to be discharged. I … My mother is a refugee. Like you. From Chile. She came to Sweden in 1973. She understands. I understand. I live with my mother, my two children, and …’ Paula hesitated. ‘And my wife. We’d be happy to take care of your children. If you’ll let us.’

  Karim studied her face for a long moment. Paula silently waited. Then he nodded.

  ‘Yes. I don’t have much choice.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Paula said.

  ‘You didn’t see anyone last night?’ asked Patrik. ‘Or hear anything? Before the fire started?’

  ‘No.’ Karim shook his head. ‘We were tired. After … everything. So we went to bed and I fell asleep at once. I didn’t see or hear anything. Doesn’t anyone know who did this? Why would anyone do something like this? Is it connected to the charges against me?’

  Patrik couldn’t meet his eye.

  ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘But we plan to find out.’

  Sam reached for the phone on the bedside table. His mother hadn’t come to wake him, which was what James always made her do. Instead, he’d awakened because of nightmares. He used to have them only once or twice a month, but now he was waking up every night drenched in sweat. He couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t afraid or haunted by anxiety. Maybe that’s why his mother was always going out running, to tire out her body so she wouldn’t have any energy left to think. He wished he could do the same.

  The faces he’d seen in his dreams were still tormenting him, so he focused his attention on the display of his mobile. Jessie had sent him a text. He felt warmth spread through his groin at the mere thought of her. For the first time in his life someone saw him for who he was and didn’t flinch at the darkness she’d discovered.

  He was filled with something black that was getting stronger every day. They’d made sure of that. He sensed more than felt the notebook hidden under the mattress. Neither James nor his mother would find it there. The notebook was not meant for anyone’s eyes but his own, yet to his surprise he’d been toying with the idea of showing it to Jessie. She was as broken as he was. She would understand.

  She would never find out why he’d taken her along on the boating excursion on Monday. He’d decided not to think about that ever again. But it kept returning in his dreams, joining the other demons that plagued him. Yet none of that mattered now. His future was laid out in his notebook. The road was straight and wide, like Highway 66.

  He no longer thought about being afraid of what might be hiding around the corner. He knew he could show her the notebook. She would understand.

  Today he’d take along everything to show Jessie. All that he’d gathered over the years. He’d already put the files and folders in a bag and placed it by the door.

  He sent a text asking her to meet him in half an hour and received an ‘okay’ in reply. He quickly dressed and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Before he headed for the door to pick up the heavy bag, he turned and looked at his bed. He could almost make out the shape of the notebook hidden there.

  Then he swallowed several times, went over to the bed, and lifted the mattress.

  Jessie opened the door to find Sam standing there, smiling. The smile he reserved for her alone.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  He’d brought a backpack, and he was carrying a bag in his hand.

  ‘Wasn’t it hard to cycle with all that stuff?’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘It was fine. I’m stronger than I look.’

  He set the backpack and bag on the floor and then put his arms around her. He breathed in the scent of her freshly washed hair. She loved knowing that he liked the way she smelled.

  ‘I’ve brought a few things to show you,’ said Sam, going over to the big kitchen table. He started taking items out of the two bags. ‘I promised to show you more – about our mothers and the case.’

  Jessie looked at the files and folders he’d set on the table. They were labelled with ‘Maths’ and ‘Swedish’ and other school subjects.

  ‘James and Mamma thought these files were for school,’ said Sam, sitting down on a chair. ‘I was able to collect all this material without them noticing.’

  Jessie sat down across from him, and together they opened the ‘Maths’ folder.

  ‘Where did you get all this information?’ she asked. ‘Aside from the Internet, I mean.’

  ‘Mostly from the newspaper archives at the library.’

  Jessie was looking at pictures of her mother, Marie, and Sam’s mother, Helen. School photos of the two girls.

  ‘Imagine – they were younger than we are now,’ she said.

  Sam ran his index finger over the article.

  ‘They must have been carrying a darkness inside them,’ he said. ‘Just like you and I do.’

  Jessie shivered. She leafed through the other material in the folder and caught sight of a photo showing a smiling Stella.

  ‘But what made them do it? How could anyone get so angry at … a child?’

  Jessie tapped on the photo, and Sam stood up. His face was flaming red.

  ‘Because of … the darkness, Jessie! Bloody hell, don’t you understand? Why can’t you UNDERSTAND?’

  Jessie flinched. All she could do was stare at him. Where was this sudden anger coming from? She couldn’t keep back her tears.

  The anger faded from Sam’s face. He knelt down in front of her.

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ he said, hugging her legs as he buried his face in her lap. ‘I didn’t mean to lose my temper. I’m just so damn frustrated. I have all this fury boiling inside me, and sometimes it gets so bad I want … I want to blow up the whole world.’

  Jessie nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. There was only one person in the world she cared about, and it was Sam. Everyone else seemed to want to humiliate her, make her feel small and powerless.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, wiping away her tears. ‘I would never do anything to hurt you. You’re the only one I don’t want to harm.’


  The wooden planks of the dock felt warm against her legs, almost hot. The ice cream was melting faster than Vendela could eat it. But Basse was having even more trouble than she was. He was frantically licking the chocolate ice cream from his arm. Sometimes he seemed such a child.

  Vendela couldn’t help laughing. She leaned closer to Nils, who put his arm around her. When she was this close to him, everything seemed good again. It made her forget the images she’d seen on the Internet this morning. The buildings on fire. How did it get so out of hand? That couldn’t possibly have anything to do with them, could it?

  Basse had finally had enough of the melting ice cream and threw the rest in the water, where a seagull instantly dived after it.

  He turned away from the bird to look at them.

  ‘Mamma and Pappa won’t be coming home this weekend, like they planned,’ he said. ‘They’ll be away for another week.’

  ‘Time to party,’ said Nils, smiling at Basse, whose face took on that uncertain look, which could be so annoying.

  Vendela sighed, and Nils grinned.

  ‘Hey, come on! Think of it as a pre-celebration to the school dance next Saturday! We’ll invite over some people, get some booze, and make a bonfire.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  But Nils had already won. Vendela knew that.

  Again she pictured the smouldering ruins. She wanted to erase it from her mind, along with the headline that screamed: ‘Woman seriously injured.’ And suddenly she knew what she wanted to do.

  Nils had wanted to wait to post Jessie’s naked picture until school started, in order to get maximum attention. But what if they put it up a little early?

  ‘I have an idea,’ she said.

  Bengt came out to the yard to meet Gösta as he parked the police car. He took a deep breath before getting out of the vehicle. He already knew what direction this conversation would take.

  ‘Is it true that you’ve arrested one of those refugees?’

  Bengt was pacing back and forth.

  ‘I heard he even participated in the search party! They’ve got no bloody conscience at all, those guys. You should have listened to me from the start!’

  ‘We don’t know anything for certain yet,’ replied Gösta, heading for the house.

  He felt his stomach lurch, as it always did, when he saw Nea’s clothes still hanging on the line to dry at the side of the house. He found the spiteful glee on Bengt’s face unpleasant, especially now, after the fire, yet he felt a certain empathy for the grieving man. And he also understood the human desire for a simple solution. The problem was that simple answers were rarely the right ones. Reality had a tendency to be more complicated.

  ‘Mind if I go in?’ he asked Bengt, who opened the front door for him.

  ‘Could you ask Peter and Eva to come downstairs?’ Bengt said to his wife, who nodded.

  Peter appeared first, followed a minute later by Eva. They looked half-asleep.

  Peter sat down and motioned for Gösta to do the same.

  It was starting to feel very familiar, sitting at this kitchen table. Gösta wished he could come here with news that the case had been solved. Instead, once again he was about to disappoint them. And their faith in him had suffered as a result of yesterday’s search. He no longer knew how to approach the family. He was as upset as Patrik about the fire and the way Mellberg had treated Karim and his family. Yet he could not rule out the possibility that they’d found conclusive evidence in Karim’s home and that he might be the perpetrator. Everything was so muddled and confusing.

  ‘Is it true?’ asked Peter. ‘About the man at the refugee centre?’

  ‘We don’t know anything for sure at the moment,’ Gösta replied cautiously. He saw Bengt’s face turning red, his mouth opening to interrupt, and hurried to finish what he had come to say: ‘We’ve found something, but because of certain … technicalities, we’re not sure at the moment what it might signify.’

  ‘I heard you found Nea’s clothes at his place. Is that true?’ asked Peter.

  ‘People have been ringing us,’ said Bengt. ‘We find out things from other people, but not from you. It’s—’

  He had raised his voice again, but Peter held up his hand towards his father and then said calmly, ‘Is it true that you’ve found Nea’s clothes at the home of someone living at the refugee centre?’

  ‘We’ve found one item of clothing,’ said Gösta, taking a plastic folder out of his bag. ‘But we need your help to identify it.’

  Eva whimpered, and Ulla patted her arm. Eva didn’t seem to notice as she kept staring at the folder in Gösta’s hand.

  ‘Do you recognize this item of clothing?’ he asked, placing several photographs on the kitchen table.

  Eva gasped.

  ‘Those knickers belong to Nea. Her Frozen knickers.’

  Gösta looked at the pictures of the blue knickers with the blonde princess and asked again: ‘Are you sure? Do these knickers belong to Linnea?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Eva, nodding vigorously.

  ‘And you let him go!’ said Bengt.

  ‘There are certain problems with the way this piece of clothing was found.’

  Bengt snorted. ‘Certain problems? You have a foreigner who comes here and kidnaps a little girl and kills her – and you’re talking about problems?’

  ‘I understand why you’re upset, but we have to—’

  ‘We don’t have to anything! I told you from the beginning that it had to be one of them, but you wouldn’t listen. You’ve been wasting time and keeping us wondering what happened to Nea, and now you’ve let the killer go free! What’s more, you’ve turned this house upside down and treated my son and his wife like suspects. Have you no shame?’

  ‘Pappa, calm down,’ said Peter.

  ‘How can it not be him if you found her knickers there? We heard about a fire. Was he trying to hide more evidence? Since you let him go, it’s only logical that he’d try to erase all traces. That must be why he joined the search party in the first place.’

  ‘The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.’

  Gösta considered telling them that Karim had been injured and his wife was in intensive care and it wasn’t known whether she’d ever regain consciousness. But he chose not to say anything. He didn’t think they’d be receptive to anyone else’s sorrow at the moment, and besides, Fjällbacka’s highly efficient gossip grapevine would ensure they were soon informed.

  ‘Are you positive these are the knickers she was wearing when she disappeared?’ Gösta asked, looking at Eva.

  She hesitated for a second but then nodded.

  ‘She had five pairs like that, in different colours. The others are here at home.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gösta.

  He put the photos back in the folder and stood up.

  Bengt clenched his fists.

  ‘Make sure you arrest that damn wog soon, or I’ll take matters into my own hands.’

  Gösta looked at him. ‘You have all my sympathy for what you’re going through. But nobody, I repeat nobody, should do anything that will make the situation worse.’

  Bengt merely snorted, but Peter nodded.

  ‘His bark is worse than his bite,’ he said.

  ‘I hope that’s true. For his sake,’ said Gösta.

  As he drove away from the farm he saw Peter standing in the doorway, watching him. Something was nagging at Gösta. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t for the life of him work out what it could be. It was something he’d missed, but the more he tried to identify it, the more it slipped away. He cast another glance in the rear-view mirror. Peter was still standing there, watching him drive away.

  ‘Hello? Is anyone here?’

  It was Rita’s voice that woke him. Mellberg opened his eyes, not sure where he was. Then he saw Annika standing in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, getting up.

  He rubbed his eyes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’
asked Annika. ‘You nearly scared the living daylights out of me when I heard a noise coming from in here. Why are you here so early?’

  She crossed her arms over her ample breasts.

  ‘Well, er, you might say I’m actually here very late …’ said Mellberg, trying to smile.

  He didn’t want to tell Annika what had happened, but the news would soon spread through the station like wildfire, so he might as well.

  ‘Rita threw me out,’ he said, pointing to his bag.

  Rita hadn’t packed his favourite flannel pyjamas, so he’d had to sleep in his clothes. And the minuscule room here at the station was meant only for a few hours’ rest, not an overnight stay, so it was as stuffy and hot as a steam bath.

  He looked down at his sweaty and wrinkled clothes.

  ‘Well, I would have done the same thing!’ said Annika before turning on her heel and heading for the kitchen. Halfway there, she paused and shouted: ‘I assume you’ve been sound asleep and haven’t heard what happened, right?’

  ‘I can’t say I got a good night’s sleep,’ said Mellberg, limping after her. ‘That camp bed is terribly uncomfortable, and there’s no air conditioning, and my skin is very sensitive, so it itches if the bedclothes aren’t good quality, in fact it felt like they were made of cardboard, so I …’

  He paused and tilted his head to one side.

  ‘Could you get me a cup of coffee, dear, if you’re going to make a fresh pot?’

  He realized he’d said the wrong thing the second the word ‘dear’ crossed his lips, and he steeled himself for Annika’s reaction, but she merely sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Someone set fire to the refugee centre last night,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Karim and his family are in hospital.’

  Mellberg clutched his chest. He sank heavily on to a chair across from Annika.

  ‘Was it because … because of what I did?’

  His tongue felt big and thick in his mouth. It was all he could do to look her in the eye.

  ‘We don’t know. But yes, that may well be the reason, Bertil. People have been ringing the station nonstop, so I switched the phone over to my home last night, and I’ve hardly slept. Patrik is with Martin and Paula at the hospital. Karim’s wife is in a medically induced coma. The burns she suffered are so serious that the doctors don’t know whether she’ll survive, and Karim injured his hands when he pulled her out of the burning building.’