The Lost Boy (Patrick Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 7) Read online

  ‘Will you go and pick them up?’ she murmured, and Dan nodded. She didn’t dare look at him, because she knew that his eyes would be filled with pain. ‘I need to lie down and rest for a while.’ She turned away and slowly went upstairs.

  ‘I love you, Anna,’ he called after her.

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Hello?’ Madeleine called out as she came in the door.

  The flat was abnormally quiet. Were the kids asleep? It wouldn’t be so strange if they were. They’d arrived late last night, and Kevin and Vilda had both gotten up early this morning, excited to be visiting their grandparents.

  ‘Mamma? Pappa?’ Madeleine said, lowering her voice. She took off her shoes and hung up her thin coat. For a moment she paused in front of the hall mirror. She didn’t want them to see that she’d been crying. They were worried enough as it was. But it was such a joy to see her parents. Last night, dressed for bed and looking bewildered, they had opened the door. Then the wary expression on their faces had given way to big smiles. It had felt so good to be home again, even though she knew that the sense of security she felt was both an illusion and only temporary.

  Everything was chaos. Matte was dead, and she realized that deep in her heart she had been hoping and praying that somehow they would find a way to be together.

  She stood in front of the mirror, tucked her hair behind her ear, and tried to see herself as Matte had seen her. He’d told her that she was beautiful. She couldn’t understand it, but she knew that he’d meant it. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her, and he’d had so many plans for what their future together could be. Even though she was the one who had made the decision to flee, she had still believed that one day his plans would be realized. Tears welled up in her eyes again. She looked up at the ceiling to prevent them from running down her cheeks. With an effort she blinked the tears away and took a deep breath. For the sake of her children, she needed to pull herself together and do what needed to be done. There was no time for grieving right now.

  She turned and headed for the kitchen. That was where her parents spent most of their time. Her mother liked to knit, while her father sat at the table doing crossword puzzles, although lately he’d switched to sudoku.

  ‘Mamma?’ said Madeleine from the doorway. She stopped abruptly.

  ‘Hi, honey.’ That voice, so gentle yet laced with contempt. She would never be able to escape from it.

  Her mother’s eyes were filled with fear. She was sitting on a chair facing Madeleine, with the muzzle of a gun pressed to her right temple. Her knitting was on her lap. Madeleine’s father sat in his usual place near the window; a muscular arm wrapped around his neck made sure that he didn’t move.

  ‘We’ve been talking about the old days, my parents-in-law and I,’ said Stefan calmly. Madeleine saw how he pressed the gun even harder against her mother’s temple. ‘It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Where are the children?’ asked Madeleine, her voice little more than a croak. Her mouth had gone dry.

  ‘They’re in a safe place. Those poor kids. It must have been traumatic for them to be in the hands of a psychotic woman and not be allowed to see their father. But we’ll make up for lost time now.’ He grinned, and his teeth flashed between his lips.

  ‘Where are they?’ She had almost forgotten how much she hated him. And how scared she was of him.

  ‘I told you, they’re safe.’ He pressed the gun even harder, and her mother winced with pain.

  ‘I was thinking of coming to see you. That’s why we came home,’ she pleaded. ‘I realized that I’d made a mistake. I came back to make things right.’

  ‘Did you get the postcard?’

  It was as if Stefan hadn’t heard a word she said. Madeleine couldn’t understand how she’d ever found him attractive. She’d been so in love with him, convinced that he looked like a movie star with his blond hair, blue eyes, and chiselled features. She was flattered that he’d chosen her, when he could have had any woman he wanted. She was only seventeen and not very worldly. Stefan had courted her, showering her with compliments. The other side of him – his jealousy and need to control – hadn’t come out until later. And by then it was too late. She was already pregnant with Kevin, and her self-esteem was so dependent on Stefan’s opinion and attention that she couldn’t leave him.

  ‘The postcard arrived,’ she said, feeling suddenly very calm. She was no longer seventeen years old, and she had met a man who loved her. She pictured Matte’s face and knew that she owed it to him to be strong. ‘I’ll go with you. Just leave my parents alone.’ She shook her head at her father, who was trying to get up. ‘I need to work this out. I shouldn’t have left. That was the wrong thing to do. We’re going to be a family now.’

  Stefan suddenly took a step forward and struck her across the face with the gun. She felt the steel slam against her cheek and dropped to her knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stefan’s thug force her father back down on to his chair. She wished with all her heart that her parents didn’t have to get involved in this.

  ‘We’ll see about that, you whore.’ Stefan grabbed her by the hair and began dragging her away. She struggled to stand up. The pain was horrible; it felt as if her whole scalp was being torn off. Still gripping her hair, he turned around and aimed his gun towards the kitchen.

  ‘You’re not going to say a word about this. You’re not going to do a fucking thing. Or else this will be the last time you’ll see your daughter. Understand?’ He pressed the gun against Madeleine’s temple and looked first at her mother, then her father.

  They nodded mutely. Madeleine didn’t dare look at them. If she did, she’d lose all courage, lose the picture of Matte that she held in her mind, the image that was telling her to be strong, no matter what. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she felt a burning sensation at the roots of her hair. The gun was cold against her skin, and for a moment she wondered whether she’d feel the bullet boring into her brain or whether the light would simply go out.

  ‘The children need me. They need us. We can be a family again,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Stefan said. His tone of voice scared her more than his grip on her hair, more than the gun pressed to her head. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Then he dragged her towards the front door.

  ‘Everything points to Stefan Ljungberg and his pals,’ said Patrik.

  ‘So his wife is back in town?’ asked Ulf.

  ‘Yes, and his kids too.’

  ‘That’s not good. She should have stayed as far away from that guy as possible.’

  ‘She didn’t want to tell us why she came back.’

  ‘There could be a thousand different reasons. I’ve seen it happen so many times before. They get homesick, they miss their family and friends, or their life after running away doesn’t turn out the way they’d imagined. Or the guy finds them and threatens them, so they decide they might as well come back.’

  ‘Are you aware that organizations like the Refuge sometimes provide help that’s not necessarily legal?’ asked Gösta.

  ‘Yes, but we choose to turn a blind eye to that sort of thing. Or rather, we choose not to waste any resources on it. They step in when society fails. We can’t protect these women and children the way we should, so … Well, what can we do?’ He threw out his hands. ‘So she thinks that her ex might be responsible for the murder you’re investigating?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what she seemed to think,’ said Patrik. ‘And we have enough evidence pointing in that direction that we’d like to have a talk with him.’

  ‘As I told you before, that’s not going to be easy. Partly because we don’t want to jeopardize the ongoing police investigations regarding IE and their activities. And partly because it’s best to stay out of the way of these guys, if at all possible.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ said Patrik. ‘But since the leads we’re following all point
to Stefan Ljungberg, I’d consider it a dereliction of duty not to talk to him.’

  ‘I knew you were going to say that.’ Ulf sighed. ‘Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll bring along one of my best officers, and then the four of us will have a talk with Stefan. Not an interrogation, nothing aggressive that might provoke him. Just a little conversation. We’ll take it nice and easy and see what we can find out. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Okay. We don’t really have much choice.’

  ‘Good. But we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning. Do you have a place to stay tonight?’

  ‘I suppose we can stay with my brother-in-law.’ Patrik cast an enquiring glance at Gösta, who nodded. Then he took out his mobile to ring Erica’s brother Göran.

  Erica was disappointed when Patrik phoned to say that he wouldn’t be home until the following day, but she quickly got over it. What a difference that was from when Maja was the twins’ age. Back then, if he had called to say he was going to be delayed, she would have been seized with panic at the thought of spending a whole night alone with the baby. Now she would miss not having Patrik next to her in bed, but she wasn’t worried about taking care of three children on her own. Things seemed to have settled down, and she was glad that this time she was able to enjoy her babies in a way that had never been possible with Maja. That didn’t mean that she loved her daughter any less – not at all. She just felt calmer and more confident with the twins.

  ‘Pappa will be home tomorrow,’ Erica told Maja, who didn’t answer. She was watching Bolibompa on TV, and wouldn’t have noticed if bombs were falling outside the window.

  Erica had fed the twins and changed their nappies. Content and full, they had fallen asleep in the cot that they shared. And for once the rooms downstairs were reasonably tidy. She’d had a burst of energy and done some cleaning after coming home from the day-care centre. Even now enough energy remained that she was feeling a bit restless.

  Erica went into the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea, and thawed out a few buns in the microwave. After pondering what to do, she fetched the stack of papers about Gråskär and sat down next to Maja with her tea, buns, and ghost stories. Soon she was deeply immersed in the world of phantoms. She longed to show all of this to Nathalie.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going home to your girls?’ said Konrad, looking up at Petra. He could see that outside their office windows in Stockholm’s police headquarters on Kungsholmen, the streetlamps had come on.

  ‘Pelle is taking care of the kids tonight. He’s worked such long hours lately that it will do him good to spend a bit of time at home.’

  Petra’s husband ran a café in Söder, and it was a constant juggling act for the two of them to coordinate their daily schedules. Sometimes Konrad wondered how she and Pelle had ever managed to have five children, since they were so rarely at home at the same time.

  ‘Have you made any progress?’ He stretched out his back. It had been a long work day, and his muscles were starting to ache.

  ‘Her parents are dead, and she has no siblings. I’ll keep looking, but she doesn’t seem to have any relatives to speak of.’

  ‘I can’t help wondering how she ended up with a guy like that,’ said Konrad. He turned his head from side to side to release the tension in his neck.

  ‘I don’t think it’s hard to work out, considering the sort of person she is,’ said Petra drily. ‘One of those women who lives off her good looks and whose only goal in life is to find a man to support her. She doesn’t give a damn where the money comes from and she spends her days shopping and getting beauty treatments and having long lunches with her women friends at Sturehof.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Konrad. ‘Sounds like someone is slightly biased.’

  ‘I will personally strangle any of my daughters who turn out that way. If you ask me, anyone who gets mixed up in that world has only themselves to blame. It’s the price you pay when you choose to close your eyes and ignore the fact that the money smells.’

  ‘Don’t forget, there’s a child involved here too,’ Konrad reminded his colleague. Her expression softened at once. Petra was tough, but she was also more warm-hearted than most, especially when it came to children who were threatened in some way.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She frowned. ‘That’s why I’m sitting here even though it’s ten o’clock at night and Pelle is probably living through a re-enactment of the mutiny on the Bounty at home. It’s certainly not because I’m worried about some rich guy’s wife, at any rate.’

  She continued tapping the computer keys for a few moments and then logged out.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough. I sent off some queries, but I don’t think we’ll make any further progress tonight. We’ve got a meeting with the narcotics team at eight in the morning, so we can all go over the case together. Right now it’s better for us to get a few hours’ sleep so we’ll be awake and alert.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Konrad got up. ‘I hope tomorrow will be more productive.’

  ‘Otherwise we’ll have to call on the media for help,’ said Petra with a look of disgust.

  ‘I’m sure they’ve already got wind of the story.’ Konrad was past getting upset over newspaper reporters meddling in the work the police were doing. And he didn’t have such a black-and-white view of journalists as Petra did. Sometimes they helped, sometimes they interfered. Either way, they weren’t about to disappear, and he didn’t think it did any good to keep tilting at windmills.

  ‘Good night, Konrad,’ said Petra as she strode down the corridor.

  ‘Good night,’ he said and switched off the light.

  FJÄLLBACKA 1873

  Life on the island had changed, though much remained the same. Karl and Julian still had that same malicious glint in their eyes whenever they looked at her, and once in a while they would let drop some hurtful remark. But Emelie didn’t care, because now she had Gustav. She devoted all her attention to her wonderful son; as long as she had him, she could stand anything. She could live on Gråskär until the day she died, if only she was allowed to keep Gustav with her. Nothing else mattered. That knowledge gave her a sense of calm, as did her belief in God. With every day that she spent on that desolate island, she heard God’s word more and more clearly. She spent all of her free time studying the Bible, and its message filled her heart so full so that she was able to shut everything else out.

  To Emelie’s great sorrow Dagmar passed away only two months after she returned to the island. She had died in such a terrible way that Emelie could hardly bear to think about it. One night someone had broken into her house, no doubt to steal what little the old lady owned. The next day one of Dagmar’s friends had found her murdered. Emelie’s eyes filled with tears whenever she thought about her cruel fate. Sometimes it seemed more than she could bear. Who could be so evil and harbour such hatred that he would kill an old woman who had never done anyone any harm?

  At night the dead whispered a name. They knew, and they wanted her to hear what they were saying. But Emelie didn’t want to know, she didn’t want to listen. She missed Dagmar with all her heart. It would have been comforting to know that she was over there in Fjällbacka, even though Emelie wouldn’t have had a chance to visit, since she was not allowed to accompany the two men when they took the boat over to pick up supplies. But now Dagmar was gone, and Emelie and Gustav were once more alone.

  Yet that wasn’t entirely true. When she returned to Gråskär with Gustav in her arms, the dead were standing on the rocks, waiting. They had welcomed her back to the island. Nowadays she could see them without making any effort. Gustav was eighteen months old. At first she wasn’t sure whether he could see them too, but now she was convinced that he could. Sometimes he would laugh loudly and wave his hands about. Their presence made him happy, and his joy was the only thing that mattered in Emelie’s world.

  Her life on the island might have seemed very monotonous, since all the days were so alike, but she had never felt more content. The pastor had come out to pay them anot
her visit. She had the feeling that he was concerned and wanted to see how things were going. But he didn’t need to worry. The isolation, which had previously made her skin crawl, no longer bothered her. She had all the company she needed, and her life had a purpose. Who could ask for more? The pastor had gone back home with a sense of relief. He had seen the calm in her face, seen the much-read Bible that lay open on the kitchen table. He had patted Gustav on the cheek as he slipped him a cough drop. ‘What a splendid little chap,’ he said, making Emelie beam with pride.

  Karl, on the other hand, ignored the boy completely. It was as if his son didn’t exist. He had also moved out of the bedroom for good. He now slept in a room downstairs, while Julian slept on the kitchen bench. Karl claimed that the boy cried too much, but Emelie suspected he just used that as an excuse so he wouldn’t have to share a bed with her. She didn’t care in the least. She slept next to Gustav, with his chubby little arm around her neck and his face pressed against her cheek. That was all she needed. And God.

  20

  They had a pleasant evening with Göran. For most of their lives, Erica and Anna hadn’t known that they had a brother, but he had soon grown close to his younger sisters. Both Patrik and Dan thought very highly of their brother-in-law. His adoptive mother, Märta, who had eaten dinner with them, was a wonderful old woman who had quickly become part of the extended family.

  ‘Are you ready to go?’ said Ulf as they stood in the car park outside police headquarters.

  Without waiting for a reply, he introduced his colleague, Javier. He was even bigger than Ulf, if that was possible, and in considerably better shape. Apparently he wasn’t the talkative type, and he shook their hands in silence.

  ‘Do you want to follow us?’ Ulf squeezed in behind the steering wheel of an unmarked police car.