The Girl in the Woods (Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 10) Page 58

  ‘Given that it was thirty years ago …’ Gösta sounded as if he’d given up before they’d even started.

  ‘Well, it seems Leif was right: the girls were innocent. They have must gone through hell.’

  A phone was ringing in the background. The phones hadn’t stopped ringing since the tape of the anonymous caller was released.

  ‘I still don’t get why Marie lied about her alibi for the night of Nea’s disappearance,’ said Gösta. ‘At least we know that James wasn’t in Fjällbacka then, so he couldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘No, his alibi is watertight,’ said Paula. ‘He left the night before, and the Scandic Rubinen hotel have confirmed that he stayed there. The staff remember checking him in and seeing him at breakfast. He was in meetings until late afternoon, and then he drove home. Assuming Nea’s watch stopped at the time of her death, James was in Gothenburg when she was killed. Of course it’s possible Nea died earlier, and the watch was damaged when she was moved at eight a.m., but James is still out of the frame because he was in Gothenburg from Sunday night until Monday afternoon.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gösta, scratching his head in frustration.

  Paula picked up the notebook.

  ‘I don’t seem to be making progress on anything today. I’ve read and reread Dagmar’s notes and I can’t work out what’s troubling me about them,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d ask Patrik to have a look. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will see it.’

  ‘Do that,’ he said as he stood up, his joints creaking. ‘I think I’ll head home. Don’t stay too late. We’ll give it another try tomorrow.’

  ‘Hmm …’ said Paula.

  She kept leafing through the notebook and didn’t even notice when Gösta left. What was it she’d missed?

  James went into the bedroom. The police were a bunch of amateurs – they couldn’t even search a house properly. He blamed all that Swedish red tape that insisted law enforcement officers had to tiptoe around, taking care not to upset anybody. Whenever James and his men received orders to carry out a search, they ripped the place apart and didn’t stop searching until they found what they were looking for.

  He would miss the Colt, but he didn’t care about the two other guns. So long as the rest of his arsenal was still safely in place, in the cabinet behind a row of shirts and a removable panel in the wardrobe wall. The police hadn’t even knocked on the wall to see if it was hollow!

  James took his time surveying his guns, debating which ones he should take with him. He couldn’t stay here much longer. He’d burned his bridges. He would put all this behind him. He felt no pang of conscience; everyone had played the role assigned to them. Played the game to the end.

  The time had come to face the fact he was getting old. His military career was winding down anyway, so it wouldn’t be such a hardship to quit. He had the financial means, thanks to the money he’d made on the side while serving his country – money that he’d had the foresight to stash in overseas accounts.

  He gave a start when he heard Helen’s voice at the door.

  ‘What are you doing, sneaking around?’ he demanded. She knew better. ‘How long have you two been home?’

  He closed the door to the gun cabinet and placed the panel back in the wall. He’d have to leave most of the guns here. That bothered him, but there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, he wouldn’t need them.

  ‘Half an hour. Me, anyway. Sam got home about fifteen minutes ago. He’s in his room.’

  Helen wrapped her arms around her thin torso and looked at him.

  ‘You’re going, aren’t you? You’re planning to leave us. Not just for military duty. You’re leaving us for good.’

  There was no sadness in her voice. No emotion at all. She was merely stating a fact.

  At first James didn’t reply. He didn’t want her to know his plans, didn’t want to give her the power. Then he reminded himself that he was the one with power in this house, not her. That hierarchy had been established long ago.

  ‘I’ve done the paperwork, signing over the house to you. The two of you can get by for a while on the money in the bank account.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked.

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. He closed the wardrobe door and turned to face her.

  ‘You know why,’ he said. ‘For your father’s sake. I promised him.’

  ‘So none of it was ever my fault?’

  James didn’t answer.

  ‘And Sam?’

  ‘Sam,’ he snorted. ‘Sam was a necessary evil as far as I was concerned. I’ve never pretended anything else. If I’d cared about him, I would never have allowed you to raise him like this. A mamma’s boy who’s been clinging to your skirts since he was a baby. He’s worthless.’

  A scraping sound came from behind the wall, and they both looked in that direction. Then James turned his back on her.

  ‘I’ll stay until Sunday,’ he said. ‘After that, you’re on your own.’

  For a few seconds she didn’t move. Then he heard her footsteps as she slowly walked away.

  ‘I’m beat,’ said Patrik, sinking on to the sofa next to Erica.

  She handed him a glass of wine, which he gratefully accepted. Martin was on duty, so Patrik could treat himself to some wine with a clear conscience.

  ‘How did it go with James?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll never be able to break him without some concrete evidence. And that’s going to take time. We sent in the bullets for comparison, but there’s a backlog at the lab – as usual.’

  ‘Too bad you couldn’t find a match for the fingerprints. But at least you got it confirmed that the prints on Nea’s body match the prints on the chocolate wrapper.’

  Erica leaned closer to give Patrik a kiss.

  Her familiar soft lips made all the tension seep out of his body.

  Patrik leaned his head back against the sofa cushion and let out a deep sigh.

  ‘You’ve no idea how good it feels to be home. But I still have some work to do if I’m going to make sense of all this.’

  ‘Try thinking out loud,’ said Erica, brushing her hair back. ‘Things usually seem clearer if you say them out loud. And by the way, I also have something to tell you about today …’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’ asked Patrik.

  But Erica shook her head and took a sip of wine.

  ‘No, you go first. I’m listening.’

  ‘Well, the problem is some things seem clear, some things seem hazy, and some things I simply can’t understand at all.’

  ‘Explain,’ said Erica.

  ‘Okay. I have no doubt that James shot Leif with his Colt. He then placed Leif’s gun in his right hand, since he assumed he was right-handed.’

  He paused for a moment, then went on.

  ‘This probably happened because Leif contacted him about the Stella case. James agreed to meet him, then shot him.’

  ‘As I see it, there are two questions,’ said Erica, holding up two fingers. ‘One: What was his motive for shooting Leif? Did he do it to protect his wife, or to protect himself?’

  ‘My guess is he did it to protect himself. We’re fairly certain he was the one Stella used to run into in the woods. He’s always been something of a lone wolf.’

  ‘Have you asked Nea’s parents if she ever mentioned something similar? Meeting someone in the woods?’

  ‘They said she always played in the barn, not the woods,’ said Patrik. ‘And she didn’t have an imaginary friend, she spent her time playing with a grey kitten – cute little thing; I met it when we were doing the search of their property. Although I suppose there was a bit of fantasy involved, because Nea called it the “black cat”.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Erica, who seemed to be pondering rather than listening. ‘Let’s say you’re right, and it was James who killed Stella, and then killed Leif to cover up the murder – that throws up more questions. Why did the girls confess? Why did James then marry Helen?’ />
  ‘Now you see what I’m up against,’ said Patrik. ‘It feels like there’s a lot more to this story that we still don’t know. And I’m afraid we’ll never be able to work it out. Gösta is convinced James will flee the country before we have a chance to arrest him.’

  ‘Can’t you prevent that from happening? Apply for a travel ban, or something? As they say in American films: “You are not allowed to leave town …”’

  ‘I wish!’ Patrik laughed. ‘Unfortunately, without evidence, my hands are tied. I was hoping we would find some illegal weapons when we searched his house. That would have been enough to take him into custody for a while. So, what was the second? You said there were two questions.’

  ‘Right. I’m wondering why he thought such a clumsily executed murder would go undiscovered. He couldn’t have known that the pathologist would screw up. If the post-mortem had been done properly, they would have realized the bullet that killed him was a different calibre to the gun found with the body.’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ said Patrik, twirling his wine glass. ‘But after meeting James, I reckon you can put it down to sheer arrogance. He thinks everyone involved in law enforcement is incompetent.’

  ‘What about Nea’s murder? How is it connected with Stella’s? If James killed Stella and then murdered Leif in order to cover it up, how does Nea come into the picture?’

  ‘That’s the million-dollar question,’ said Patrik. ‘That’s one murder that definitely wasn’t down to James. He has a watertight alibi: he was in Gothenburg when she died.’

  ‘So who could have done it? Whose fingerprints are on the chocolate wrapper and her body?’

  ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here, I’d be on my way to arrest Nea’s killer.’ Patrik realized how exasperated he sounded; it wasn’t directed at Erica. She was only voicing the question that had been nagging at him all day. ‘I’d like to compare the prints with Marie’s and Helen’s. But since I don’t have enough evidence to detain them, I can’t demand their fingerprints.’

  Erica stroked Patrik’s cheek then got to her feet.

  ‘I can’t help you with both. But I can help you with one of them.’

  ‘What?’ said Patrik.

  Erica headed for the kitchen. She came back carrying a coffee cup, using a plastic bag to prevent her hand from touching it.

  ‘Here – you wanted Helen’s fingerprints.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Patrik.

  ‘She came over earlier. Yes, I know. I was surprised too. But she phoned, and I now realize this must have been while you were searching their house.’

  ‘What did she want?’ asked Patrik, staring at the cup that Erica set down on the coffee table.

  ‘She wanted to talk about Stella,’ said Erica, sitting down next to him again. ‘Once she started talking, the words just came pouring out. It felt as if she was going to say something important, but like a total idiot, I interrupted her and asked whether James was involved … And then she more or less fled.’

  ‘But you confiscated her coffee cup,’ said Patrik, raising his eyebrows sceptically.

  ‘Okay, okay. I just didn’t get around to doing the dishes,’ said Erica. ‘But you wanted Helen’s fingerprints, and here they are. I’m afraid you’ll have to get Marie’s on your own. If I’d known about this earlier, I could have swiped the champagne glass she drank from at Café Bryggan.’

  ‘It’s easy to think of things in hindsight,’ said Patrik with a laugh. He gave Erica another kiss.

  Then his expression turned serious.

  ‘Paula asked me to help her with something. To cut a long story short, there’s a charming old lady who lives in a house near the turn-off to the Berg farm and Helen and James’s house. You know, that nice red house?’

  ‘Sure. I know which one you mean. It’s for sale, right?’ said Erica, demonstrating once again her uncanny knack for keeping track of everything that went on in Fjällbacka.

  ‘Exactly. She’s in the habit of sitting at the window in the mornings and doing crossword puzzles. At the same time she jots down notes about everything going on outside. In this notebook.’

  He picked up Dagmar’s dark blue notebook and placed it on the coffee table.

  ‘Paula says something didn’t seem right when she went through it, but she can’t for the life of her work out what it is. Maybe something about the cars? Dagmar jotted down only the colour and the make, not licence plate numbers, so we can’t look up whose vehicles passed by. The thing is, Paula’s been right through the notebook, and I have too, and neither of us can see anything that stands out.’

  ‘Let me have a look,’ said Erica, picking up the notebook with the crabbed handwriting.

  She took her time. Patrik didn’t want to stare at Erica while she was reading, so he sipped his wine and zapped through the TV channels. Finally she set the notebook on the table, open to the day Nea died.

  ‘You’ve been focusing on the wrong things. You’re looking for what stands out, not what’s missing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Patrik, frowning.

  Erica pointed to the notes from Monday morning.

  ‘Here. Something is missing here. Something that was there every other weekday morning.’

  ‘What?’ said Patrik, staring at the notes.

  He flipped the pages, going back a couple of weeks, and read the jotted notes. Only then did he see what Erica was getting at.

  ‘On all the other weekday mornings, Dagmar made a note that Helen had run past. But on Monday, she didn’t run past until lunchtime.’

  ‘Right. That’s odd, isn’t it? I think that’s what Paula’s subconscious must have picked up on.’

  ‘Helen …’ he said, staring at the cup on the table. ‘I’ll send this cup over to the lab first thing in the morning. But it’ll take a while before I know if the fingerprints match the ones on the chocolate wrapper and on Nea.’

  Erica looked at him and raised her glass.

  ‘Helen doesn’t know that.’

  He realized his wife was right. As she so often was.

  Bohuslän 1672

  The witnesses had come and gone. Elin had fallen into a sort of daze and no longer took any notice of all the made-up stories about her devilish activities. She yearned for the whole thing to be over. But after breakfast on the third day, a murmuring passed through the spectators, and Elin was aroused from her torpor. What was causing such a stir?

  Then she saw her. With her blond plaits and bright face.

  Her life. Her dear one. Her Märta. Holding Britta’s hand, she came into the courtroom and looked around in bewilderment. Elin’s heart skipped a beat. What was her daughter doing here? Were they attempting to humiliate her further by allowing Märta to listen to what was being said about her? Then she saw Britta lead Märta to the witness chair and leave her there. At first Elin didn’t understand. Why would the girl be seated there and not among the crowd? Then she realized what was intended, and she wanted to scream.

  ‘No, no, no. Do not do this to Märta,’ she said in despair.

  Märta looked at her in confusion, and Elin stretched out her arms towards the girl. Märta was about to get up and run to her mother, but Hierne grabbed her arm and firmly kept her in the chair. Elin wanted to tear him to pieces for laying a hand on her daughter, but she knew she had to restrain herself. She did not want Märta to see the guards drag her away.

  So she held her temper and smiled at her daughter, though she could feel her eyes filling with tears. The child looked so small, and so defenceless.

  ‘Am I correct in saying that she is your mother? Elin Jonsdotter?’ asked Hierne.

  ‘Yes. My mother’s name is Elin, and she is sitting over there,’ said Märta, her voice bright and clear.

  ‘I understand you have told your aunt and uncle a few things about what you have done with your mother,’ Hierne went on, looking at the gathered spectators. ‘Would you tell us about that?’

  ‘Yes, Mamma and I used
to go to the witches’ sabbath at Blåkulla,’ said Märta excitedly.

  Screams issued from the crowd, and Elin closed her eyes.

  ‘We used to fly there with our cow Rosa,’ she said happily. ‘To Blåkulla. And there we had such fun and games. Everything was backwards. We sat at the table with our backs turned and we ate over our shoulders and the plates were turned upside down and the meal was served with dessert first. Oh, they were such fun dinners. I have never had anything like it.’

  ‘Fun and games? My word,’ said Hierne, with a nervous laugh. ‘Could you tell us more about these feasts? Who was there? What did you do?’

  Elin listened with growing amazement and horror as her daughter vividly described these journeys to Blåkulla. Hierne even succeeded in getting the girl to say she had seen her mother fornicate with the devil.

  Elin could not understand how they had made Märta come up with such stories. She looked at Britta, who had a big smile on her face. She was wearing yet another fine dress. She waved and winked at Märta, whose face lit up as she waved back. Britta must have done her utmost to win over Märta after Elin was sent to gaol.

  Märta clearly did not understand what she was doing. She smiled at Elin as she sat in the witness chair and happily told her stories. For Märta these were mere fairy tales. Encouraged by Hierne, she continued to talk of witches they had met at Blåkulla and children she had played with.

  The devil had taken a particular interest in Märta. She had sat on his knee and watched as her mother danced without wearing a stitch of clothing.

  ‘And the next room was called Vitkulla, and that was where angels played with us children, and they were so beautiful and lovely. I could hardly believe my eyes!’

  Märta clapped her hands in delight.

  As Elin looked around and saw everyone around her gaping, wide-eyed, her heart sank more and more. What could she possibly say to all this? Her own daughter was testifying about journeys to Blåkulla and seeing her mother fornicate with the devil. Her Märta. Her lovely, naive, innocent Märta. She looked at the girl’s profile as she told her stories to an enthusiastic audience, and she felt her heart burst with longing.