The Girl in the Woods (Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 10) Page 52

  ‘My father did the same thing,’ said Gösta. ‘I wonder why. Do you suppose it’s a way of trying to maintain control when life starts feeling precarious?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Paula. ‘But I think it’s a Swedish phenomenon. You’re the only ones who allow the elderly to live all alone. In Chile, that would never happen. People take care of their ageing family members until they die.’

  ‘So does that mean you and Johanna will have your mother and Mellberg living with you for the rest of their lives?’ asked Gösta with a chuckle.

  Paula stared at him in horror. ‘When you put like that … the Swedish model actually sounds rather enticing.’

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ replied Gösta.

  They had reached the house where Helen and James lived, and Paula parked next to the family’s car. Helen opened the front door as soon as they knocked. Her expression remained impassive when she saw them.

  ‘Hi, Helen,’ said Gösta. ‘We’d like to speak to James. Is he home?’

  Gösta thought he saw her gaze waver for a moment, but it happened so quickly, he might have imagined it.

  ‘He’s doing some target practice out back.’

  ‘Can we go over there without putting our lives in danger?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Sure. Just give a shout to warn him you’re coming. Then it’ll be okay.’

  Gösta and Paula headed towards the sound of scattered gunshots.

  ‘Do I even dare count up all the laws he’s breaking by doing target practice out here?’ said Paula.

  Gösta shook his head. ‘No, it’s best we don’t mention that at the moment. But on some other occasion we should have a talk with him about how inappropriate this is.’

  The shots got louder and louder as they approached.

  Gösta raised his voice and called: ‘James! It’s Gösta and Paula from the Tanumshede police station. Don’t shoot!’

  The gunshots ceased. Just to be on the safe side, Gösta again shouted: ‘James! Please confirm that you heard we’re coming!’

  ‘I hear you!’ yelled James.

  They picked up the pace and soon caught sight of him up ahead. He had his arms crossed. He’d set his gun down on a tree stump. Even unarmed, there was something about his demeanour that Gösta found unnerving. Perhaps it was the man’s fondness for dressing as if he were in an American war film.

  ‘I know, I know. I’m not allowed to practise here,’ said James, holding up his hands.

  ‘You’re right, but we can have a conversation about that some other time,’ said Gösta. ‘We’re here about something else.’

  ‘Let me just put my weapon away,’ said James, picking up the gun from the stump.

  ‘Is that a Colt?’ asked Paula.

  James nodded proudly.

  ‘Yes. A Colt M1911. Standard sidearm used by the US military between 1911 and 1985. It was used in both world wars and also in the Korean and Vietnam wars. It’s the first gun I ever owned. My father gave it to me when I was seven, and it’s the one I used when I learned to shoot.’

  Gösta refrained from commenting on how inappropriate it was to give a seven-year-old a gun. He didn’t think James would understand.

  ‘Have you taught your son to shoot?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Yes, he’s an excellent shot,’ said James as he carefully, almost tenderly, returned the gun to its case. ‘Apart from that, he’s not much good at anything. But he can shoot. He’s been practising pretty much daily, in fact. He’d make a good sharpshooter, except he’s too feeble to pass the military’s physical tests.’

  Gösta cast a surreptitious glance at Paula. Her expression revealed what she thought of the way James spoke of his son.

  ‘So, what’s this about?’ James asked, setting the gun case on the ground.

  ‘It has to do with Leif Hermansson.’

  ‘The police officer who set my wife up for murder?’ said James, frowning. ‘Why do you want to talk about him?’

  ‘What do you mean by “set up”?’ asked Paula.

  James stretched and again crossed his arms, which made them look gigantic.

  ‘Look, I’m not saying he did anything illegal, but he worked awfully hard to prove my wife was guilty of a murder she didn’t commit. And I don’t think he seriously considered any other option.’

  ‘Apparently he began to have doubts towards the end of his life,’ said Paula. ‘And we have reason to believe that he had contact with you on the day he died. Do you recall anything about that?’

  James shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember being in contact with him that day. We had very little to do with each other. Why would we?’

  ‘We thought he might have contacted you first,’ said Gösta, ‘in order to get in touch with Helen. I’m guessing she wouldn’t have been favourably disposed towards him.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ said James. ‘If he wanted to talk to her, it probably would have been easier to go through me. But he never did. And I’m not sure how I would have handled it. So many years had gone by, and we were trying to put the whole thing behind us.’

  ‘It must be difficult, given the current situation,’ said Paula, studying his expression.

  He calmly met her eye.

  ‘Yes. It’s a tragedy. But it’s much worse for the girl’s family than for us. It would be presumptuous of us to complain, though it’s obviously tempting to do so because of all the media attention. Reporters have even turned up at our house. But they won’t be coming back.’

  James smiled slyly.

  Gösta decided not to ask why. He was inclined to take the view that journalists had only themselves to blame. They’d been getting steadily more intrusive, and all too often they overstepped the boundaries of common decency.

  ‘Okay. There’s nothing else we need to discuss right now,’ said Gösta, glancing at Paula, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘If I think of anything, I’ll give you a call,’ said James obligingly.

  He pointed towards the house that was visible through the trees.

  ‘I’ll walk you out.’

  He led the way as Gösta exchanged glances with Paula. Clearly she didn’t believe a word James had said either.

  As they passed the house, Gösta looked up at a window on the second floor. A teenage boy was watching him, his face expressionless. Something about his black-dyed hair and all the eye make-up made him look like a ghost. Gösta shivered. Then the boy was gone.

  When Marie came home, Jessie was sitting on the dock. She had smeared her face and body with lotion she’d found in the bathroom. No doubt expensive stuff. Her skin was still bright red, but it didn’t itch as much. Jessie wished she could have found some sort of lotion for her soul. Or whatever it was that had broken inside her.

  She had washed her vaginal area several times, but it still felt dirty. And disgusting. She’d thrown out the clothes belonging to Basse’s mother. Now she had on an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. She was staring at the evening sun. Marie came over to stand behind her.

  ‘What have you done to your face?’

  ‘Sunburn,’ she said tersely.

  Marie nodded. ‘Well, a little sunshine is probably good for spots.’

  Then she went back inside. Not a word about the fact that Jessie hadn’t come home yesterday. Had she even noticed? Probably not.

  Sam had been wonderful. He’d offered to go home with her and stay over. But Jessie needed to be alone for a while. She needed to sit in one place and feel the hatred growing inside her. She was guarding it. Somehow it felt liberating to finally give in and hate without restraint. For all these years she’d fought against it, not wanting to believe the worst of people. She had been so naive.

  Her phone had been flooded with text messages all day. She couldn’t understand how they’d got her number. But it had probably been shared along with all the photos. She had opened only the first one, then pressed delete whenever more texts came in. They were all the same. Whore.
Slut. Pig. Fatso.

  Sam had received the same texts. And photographs. They’d started coming in while he was removing the last of the words from her body. He’d put away his mobile and kissed her. At first she’d pulled away. She felt so disgusting, so dirty. She knew her breath must stink from vomit even though she’d brushed her teeth in the bathroom belonging to Basse’s parents. But Sam didn’t care. He gave her a long kiss, and she felt the blazing ball of hatred surge between them. They shared it.

  The question was, what should they do now?

  As the sun turned red, Jessie raised her face to the glow. Inside the house she heard Marie opening a bottle of champagne. Everything was exactly the same. And yet everything had changed.

  Patrik was on his third cup of coffee since he’d talked to Torbjörn Ruud. He still hadn’t heard from the pathologist.

  He sighed and looked out to the corridor where Martin was slowly approaching, holding a cup in his hand.

  ‘You look a little tired,’ he said, and Martin stopped.

  Patrik had already noticed it at the morning meeting, but he hadn’t wanted to say anything to Martin in front of the others. He knew Martin had been having a hard time sleeping since Pia passed away.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Martin, coming into Patrik’s office.

  Patrik gave a start. Martin was blushing.

  ‘What are you not telling me?’ he asked, leaning back in his desk chair.

  ‘It’s … it’s just …’ stammered Martin, staring at his shoes.

  He seemed to be having trouble deciding which foot to stand on.

  Patrik studied him with amusement.

  ‘Sit down and tell me all about it. What’s her name?’

  Martin sat down and gave him an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Her name is Mette.’

  ‘And?’ Patrik persisted.

  ‘She’s separated from her husband. She has a son who’s a year old. She’s from Norway and works as a financial assistant in an office in Grebbestad. We had our first date yesterday, but I’m not sure what will come of it.’

  ‘Judging by how worn out you look, the date must have gone well, in any case,’ Patrik said, grinning.

  ‘Er, uh …’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘At the playground,’ said Martin, squirming on his chair.

  Patrik decided to give Martin a break and not ask any more questions.

  ‘I’m glad you’re dating again,’ he said. ‘And that you’re at least open to the possibility of meeting someone. Whatever happens, happens. And that’s okay. No one can ever replace Pia. It will be something different.’

  ‘I know,’ said Martin, again fixing his eyes on his shoes. ‘I actually think I’m ready.’

  ‘All right then.’

  The phone started ringing, and Patrik raised a finger to indicate Martin should stay.

  ‘Well, you were right, Hedström,’ grumbled Torbjörn.

  ‘What are you saying? Are the prints from the same person?’

  ‘Without a doubt. But I checked the database, and unfortunately there was no match. I also compared them to the parents’ prints, and they didn’t match either.’

  Patrik sighed. Why had he allowed himself to think this would be easy? But if nothing else they could now rule out Nea’s parents.

  ‘At least we have something to go on now. Thanks.’

  He ended the call and looked at Martin.

  ‘The fingerprints on Linnea match the ones on the chocolate wrapper.’

  Martin raised his eyebrows.

  ‘So let’s see if they’re in the database.’

  Patrik shook his head.

  ‘Torbjörn has already checked and didn’t find a match.’

  He’d never believed the murderer had chosen his victim at random. This felt more deliberate, more personal. And the parallels with the Stella case were impossible to ignore. No, he wasn’t surprised they hadn’t found the owner of the fingerprints in the police files.

  ‘There are a number of people we ought to check,’ said Martin. Then he paused. ‘I don’t like saying this, but the girl’s parents, for example. And—’

  ‘And Helen and Marie,’ Patrik interjected. ‘Yes, believe me, I’ve thought of that, but we have to have a high degree of suspicion in order to request their fingerprints. We asked for Peter’s and Eva’s prints when we interviewed them about the barn, and Torbjörn has already checked. They don’t match.’

  ‘But don’t we have Helen’s and Marie’s prints on file?’ asked Martin. ‘From the previous investigation.’

  Patrik shook his head.

  ‘No. They were children when the murder was committed. They were never sentenced, and their fingerprints are not on file. But I would certainly have liked to do a comparison. Especially now that Marie’s alibi has gone up in smoke. And the mere fact that she lied to us makes me wonder …’

  ‘Yes, I agree. Something isn’t right,’ said Martin. ‘By the way, have you heard from Gösta and Paula?’

  ‘Yes. Paula phoned. James is adamant that he never had any contact with Leif. Gösta and Paula aren’t convinced he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘But without anything concrete to go on, we can’t force the point.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Patrik.

  ‘Let’s hope Leif has a few secrets to tell us. When will we hear back about the exhumation request?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Patrik. ‘In the meantime, there’s nothing more we can do today, so let’s sleep on it. If we rack our brains, maybe we can work out how best to make use of this information.’

  He gathered up the printouts and placed them in a plastic folder, which he stuffed into his briefcase.

  ‘So, have you arranged to see this Mette again?’

  ‘Tonight,’ said Martin. ‘Her son is staying with her ex for two days, so we might as well …’

  ‘Absolutely. But see if you can get a little more sleep tonight,’ said Patrik, putting his arm around Martin’s shoulders as they left the room together.

  They had almost reached the front door when Annika called to them. They turned to see her holding up the phone and pointing.

  ‘It’s the hospital. They’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

  Patrik glanced at his mobile and saw that he’d missed three calls from the same number.

  ‘What do they want?’ he said, but Annika merely motioned for him to come over and take the call.

  She handed him the phone. He listened, replied with a few brief comments and then put the phone down. He turned to Annika and Martin, who were waiting tensely.

  ‘Amina passed away a couple of hours ago,’ he said. It took a lot of effort to keep his voice steady. ‘The fire at the refugee centre is no longer an arson investigation. It’s a homicide case.’

  He turned on his heel and headed for Mellberg’s office. They needed to ask Karim what to do about the children. Their mother was dead. And someone had to tell them.

  They could hear the muted sound of a TV upstairs. Khalil looked at Adnan, who was wiping away his tears. They had asked to continue to be flatmates, and that hadn’t been a problem. The municipality wanted as many people as possible to share living space so there would be enough temporary housing for everyone who needed it.

  So here they were. In a small room in a dark basement in a house built in the 1950s. It smelled damp and mouldy and felt closed-in. But the woman who owned the house was nice. She had invited them to dinner, and that had been pleasant even though they didn’t know many words in common, and the food, which she called mutton with dill sauce, had tasted quite strange.

  After dinner the phone rang, and then they called others, hoping to find solace with friends. Beautiful, happy, temperamental Amina was dead.

  Adnan again wiped away tears.

  ‘Could we go visit Karim? Maybe Bill could drive us there.’

  Khalil followed Adnan’s hollow gaze. He was staring at the stained wall-to-wall carpet. He rubbed the toe of his shoe on s
ome of the stains. They looked old. It seemed as if no one had been down here in a long time.

  ‘He can’t have visitors this late,’ said Khalil. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  Adnan clasped his hands and sighed.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think they’ve told the children?’

  Khalil’s voice echoed off the cold stone walls.

  ‘I think they’ll let Karim do that.’

  ‘If he can bear to tell them.’

  Adnan rubbed his face.

  ‘How could this happen?’

  Khalil didn’t know whether the question was directed at him or at God.

  Sweden. This rich and free country.

  ‘Lots of people have been kind,’ he said. ‘People like Bill. Bill and Gun. And Rolf. And Sture. We shouldn’t forget that.’

  He couldn’t look at Adnan when he said that. He rubbed his toe harder on the carpet stains.

  ‘They hate us so much,’ said Adnan. ‘I don’t understand it. They come in the night and try to burn us alive, even though we haven’t done anything to them. And yes, I know what you always tell me: “They’re scared.” But if somebody tosses a burning torch into a house, hoping the family inside will be burned alive just because they come from a different country, that’s not being scared. That’s something else.’

  ‘Do you regret coming here?’ asked Khalil.

  Adnan was silent for so long that Khalil knew he was thinking about his cousin who he’d seen shot to death, and his uncle whose leg had been blown off in an explosion. Sometimes he shouted their names at night.

  It should have been an easy question to answer. But not any more. Not after Amina.

  Adnan swallowed hard.

  ‘No, I don’t regret it. There was no choice. But I’ve realized one thing.’

  ‘What?’ asked Khalil as they sat in the dark.

  ‘I now know that I will never have a home.’

  Upstairs, the happy music on the TV got a little louder.

  Bohuslän 1672

  Elin moved like a sleepwalker as she was led into the courtroom. She still could not understand how she had been able to float during the water test. All the benches in the room were filled, and Elin realized that more spectators must have been turned away.