The Ice Child Read online

  ‘Tyra!’ Emma jumped out of the car and rushed over to a girl walking across the yard. She threw herself at Tyra, who gathered her up and swung her around.

  ‘You’ve grown tall since the last time I saw you! Soon you’ll be taller than me,’ said Tyra with a smile. Emma’s face lit up with joy. Tyra was her favourite of the girls who were always hanging about the riding school. She was devoted to her.

  Anna went over to them. Lisen had run straight into the stable as soon as she got out of the car. She wouldn’t reappear until it was time to go home.

  ‘How are you feeling today?’ she asked, patting Tyra on the shoulder.

  ‘Awful,’ said Tyra. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she looked as though she hadn’t slept.

  From the other side of the yard someone approached in the fading afternoon light, and Anna saw that it was Marta Persson.

  ‘Hi,’ she said as Marta came closer. ‘How’s it going?’

  She had always found Marta to be incredibly attractive, with her sharp features, high cheekbones, and dark hair, but today she looked tired and worn out.

  ‘Things are a bit chaotic,’ replied Marta curtly. ‘Where’s Dan? You don’t usually come here voluntarily.’

  ‘He had to work overtime. They’re having teacher evaluations this week.’

  Dan was at heart a fisherman, but since fishing could not provide him with a living in Fjällbacka, he had taken a teaching job in Tanumshede years ago to supplement his income. The fishing had gradually become a sideline, but he struggled to earn enough so he could at least hold on to his boat.

  ‘Isn’t it time for the girls’ lesson?’ asked Anna, glancing at her watch. It was almost five.

  ‘It’s going to be a shorter lesson today. Jonas and I feel it’s important to tell the girls about Victoria. You’re welcome to stay if you like. It might be nice for Emma to have you here.’

  Marta headed indoors. They followed her into the conference room and sat down along with the other girls. Lisen was already there, and she gave Anna a sombre look.

  Marta and Jonas stood next to each other, waiting for the buzz of voices to die down.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve all heard about what happened,’ Marta began. Everyone nodded.

  ‘Victoria is dead,’ said Tyra quietly. Big tears ran down her cheeks, and she wiped them on her shirt sleeve.

  Marta didn’t seem to know what else to say, but then she took a deep breath and went on.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Victoria died in hospital yesterday. We know that you’ve all been very worried about her, that you’ve missed Victoria. The fact that it should end like this … well, it’s terrible.’

  Anna saw Marta turn to her husband for support. Jonas nodded and then spoke.

  ‘It’s terribly difficult for any of us to understand how something like this could happen. I suggest that we hold a minute’s silence to honour Victoria and her family. It’s worse for them than for anyone else right now, and I want them to know that we’re thinking of them.’ He fell silent and bowed his head.

  Everyone followed his example. The clock in the conference room ticked quietly, and when the minute was up, Anna opened her eyes. All the girls were looking scared and anxious.

  Marta took the floor again. ‘We don’t know any more than you do about what happened to Victoria. But the police will probably come here to talk with us again. Then we’ll find out more. And I want everyone to be available to answer the officers’ questions.’

  ‘But we don’t know anything. We’ve already talked to them several times, and nobody knows a thing,’ said Tindra, a tall blonde that Anna had spoken to on one occasion.

  ‘I know it may seem like that, but maybe there’s something you don’t realize might help. Just answer the questions the police ask.’ Jonas fixed his eyes on the girls, one after the other.

  ‘Okay,’ they murmured.

  ‘Good. We all need to do whatever we can to help,’ said Marta. ‘So now it’s time for the riding lesson. We’re all still feeling the shock, but maybe it would be good to think about something else for a while. So let’s get going.’

  Anna took Emma and Lisen by the hand and headed for the stable. The two girls seemed surprisingly calm. With a lump in her throat, Anna watched as they got the horses ready. Then the girls led them into the riding hall and mounted them. She didn’t feel nearly as composed. Even though her son had lived only a week, she knew how desperately painful it was to lose a child.

  She went over to sit on a bench. Suddenly she heard someone weeping quietly behind her. When she turned around, she saw Tyra sitting further up, with Tindra beside her.

  ‘What do you think happened to her?’ asked Tyra between sobs.

  ‘I heard that her eyes were gouged out,’ whispered Tindra.

  ‘What?’ Tyra practically shrieked. ‘Who told you that? When I talked with the policeman, he didn’t say anything about that.’

  ‘My uncle was one of the medics in the ambulance that picked her up yesterday. He said both her eyes were gone.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ moaned Tyra, bending forward. It looked like she was going to vomit.

  ‘Do you think it’s someone we know?’ said Tindra with ill-concealed excitement.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said Tyra, and Anna realized that she needed to put an end to this conversation.

  ‘That’s enough,’ she said as she went up to the girls and put her arm around Tyra. ‘It’s no good speculating. Can’t you see that Tyra is upset?’

  Tindra stood up. ‘Well, I think it has to be the same madman who murdered those other girls.’

  ‘We don’t know that they’re dead,’ replied Anna.

  ‘Of course they’re dead,’ said Tindra boldly. ‘And I bet their eyes were gouged out too.’

  Anna shuddered with revulsion as she hugged Tyra’s trembling body even closer.

  Patrik stepped inside the warmth of the front hall. He was bone tired. It had been a long work day, but the fatigue he felt had more to do with the responsibility that weighed him down on an investigation of this nature. Sometimes he wished he had an ordinary nine-to-five job in an office or a factory, and not a profession where someone’s fate depended on how well he did his job. He felt a great responsibility for so many people. Especially for the family members who placed their trust in the police to deliver the answers they needed if they were ever to come to terms with what had happened. Then there was the victim, who seemed to plead with him to find the person who had prematurely put an end to her life. But his greatest responsibility was to the missing girls who might still be alive, and for those who might be at risk from the kidnapper. As long as the perpetrator was on the loose and unidentified, more girls might disappear. Girls who lived, breathed, and laughed, unaware that their days were numbered because of some sadistic murderer.

  ‘Pappa!’ A little human projectile threw himself at Patrik, followed instantly by two more, which meant that they all ended up in a heap on the floor. The melted snow on the doormat was seeping into his trousers, but he didn’t care. It was good to have his children so near. For a few seconds everything was perfect, but then the bickering started.

  ‘Hey!’ Anton screamed. ‘Noel pinched me!’

  ‘No!’ cried Noel. And as if to show that he hadn’t, he gave his brother a pinch. Anton howled and flailed his arms about.

  ‘All right now …’ Patrik separated the boys and tried to look stern. Maja stood off to one side, imitating his expression.

  ‘No pinching!’ she said, wagging her finger at her brothers. ‘If you keep fighting, you’ll get a dime-out.’ Patrik had to stop himself from laughing. When she was much younger, Maja had misunderstood the expression ‘time-out’, and it had been impossible to get her to say it correctly.

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll handle this,’ he said, getting up and holding the twins by the hand.

  ‘Mamma, the twins are fighting,’ called Maja as she ran to Erica in the kitchen. Patrik followed with his sons.

  ‘Rea
lly?’ said Erica, her eyes wide. ‘They’re fighting? Never!’ She smiled and kissed Patrik on the cheek. ‘Dinner is ready, so let’s stop all the fuss. Maybe pancakes will improve everyone’s mood.’

  That did the trick. After the children had finished eating and settled in front of the TV to watch Bolibompa, Erica and Patrik were able to enjoy a rare moment of peace and quiet at the kitchen table.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Erica, sipping her tea.

  ‘We’ve hardly begun.’ Patrik reached for the sugar bowl and dumped five teaspoonfuls into his cup. Right now he didn’t want to think about any diet rules. Erica had been watching his food intake like a hawk ever since he’d developed heart problems at the same time the twins were born. But tonight she didn’t say a word. He closed his eyes, savouring the first taste of the piping hot and very sweet tea.

  ‘Half the town was out in the woods today helping us, but we didn’t find anything. And then there was the press conference this afternoon. Have you already seen the news about it online?’

  Erica nodded. She hesitated as if debating her next move, then got up and took the last of Kristina’s homemade buns out of the freezer. She put them on a plate and stuck it in the microwave. A minute later the delicious fragrance of butter and cinnamon filled the kitchen.

  ‘Isn’t there a risk of destroying evidence with half of Fjällbacka tramping through the woods?’

  ‘Sure. Of course. But we have no idea how far she walked or where she came from, and by this morning the snow had already obliterated any footprints. I thought it was worth the risk.’

  ‘So how did the press conference go?’ Erica took the plate out of the microwave and set it on the table.

  ‘There’s not much we can tell the press. Mostly it was reporters asking questions that we couldn’t answer.’ Patrik reached for a bun but swore and quickly dropped it back on the plate.

  ‘Let them cool off a bit.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me.’ He blew on his fingers.

  ‘Was it because of the ongoing investigation that you couldn’t answer?’

  ‘I wish that was the reason. But the fact is we haven’t got a clue. When Victoria disappeared it was like she went up in smoke. Not a trace left behind. No one saw anything, no one heard anything, and there were no links to the other missing girls. Then all of a sudden she just reappeared.’

  Neither of them spoke as Patrik touched the buns again and decided they had cooled off enough to eat.

  ‘I heard something about her injuries,’ said Erica cautiously.

  Patrik paused before saying anything. He wasn’t supposed to discuss the girl’s injuries, but obviously word had already spread, and he needed to talk to someone. Erica was not only his wife, she was also his best friend. Besides, she had a much keener mind than he did.

  ‘It’s all true. Although I don’t know what you heard.’ He was buying himself a little time by chewing on a cinnamon bun, but suddenly he lost his appetite, and it didn’t taste as good as it should.

  ‘I heard she had no eyes.’

  ‘Yes, her eyes were … gone. We don’t know how it was done. Pedersen is doing the autopsy early tomorrow morning.’ He hesitated again. ‘And her tongue had been cut out.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Erica. Now she lost her appetite too. She set a half-eaten bun back on the plate.

  ‘How long ago did it happen?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Were the injuries new or had they healed?’

  ‘Good question. But I don’t know. I hope to get all the details from Pedersen tomorrow.’

  ‘Could it be some religious thing? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Or some horrible expression of hatred for women? She wasn’t supposed to look at him, and she was supposed to keep quiet.’

  Erica waved her hands about as she talked, and as always Patrik was impressed with the shrewdness of his wife’s mind. Such thoughts hadn’t occurred to him when he was trying to speculate about a possible motive.

  ‘What about her ears?’ Erica went on.

  ‘What about her ears?’ He leaned forward, getting crumbs on his hands.

  ‘Well, I was just wondering about something … What if the person who did this, the one who took away her ability to see and speak, also damaged her hearing? If so, she would have been in a sort of bubble, without any means to communicate. Think about what power that would give the perpetrator.’

  Patrik stared at her. He tried to imagine what Erica had just described, but the mere idea made his blood run cold. What a horrifying fate. If that was true, then it might have been a blessing that Victoria hadn’t survived, even though it seemed cold-hearted to think such a thing.

  ‘Mamma, they’re fighting again.’ Maja stood in the kitchen doorway. Patrik glanced at the clock on the wall.

  ‘Oh, it’s time for bed.’ He got up. ‘Shall we do rock, paper, scissors?’

  Erica shook her head and got up to kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘If you put Maja to bed, I’ll take care of the boys tonight.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said and took his daughter by the hand. They headed for the stairs as Maja chattered about what she had done during the day. But Patrik wasn’t listening. His thoughts were on the girl inside the bubble.

  Jonas slammed the front door so hard that Marta came rushing out of the kitchen, then stood leaning against the doorjamb with her arms folded. He could tell that she’d been expecting this conversation, and her calm demeanour made him even angrier.

  ‘I just talked to Molly. What the hell were you thinking? Shouldn’t we be making decisions like this together?’

  ‘Yes, we should. But sometimes you don’t seem to understand what has to be done.’

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. Marta knew that a disagreement about Molly was the only thing that could make him lose his temper.

  Jonas lowered his voice. ‘She’s been looking forward to this competition. It’s the first one of the season.’

  Marta turned around and went back into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m making dinner. You’ll have to come in here if you want to argue.’

  He hung up his jacket, took off his boots, and swore as he set his feet on the floor. His socks were instantly soaked from the snow he’d tracked in. It was never a good thing when Marta decided to cook. The smell coming from the kitchen did not bode well.

  ‘I’m sorry for yelling.’ He went over to stand behind his wife, placing his hands on her shoulders. She was stirring something in a pot, and he looked down to see what it was. He couldn’t tell what was simmering inside, but whatever it was, it didn’t look appetizing.

  ‘Sausage stroganoff,’ she said in reply to his unspoken question.

  ‘Could you just explain to me why?’ he said gently as he continued to massage her shoulders. He knew her so well, knew that it would do no good to shout and scream. So he was trying a different tactic. He had promised Molly that he would at least try. She had been inconsolable when she told him about Marta’s decision, and the front of his shirt was still wet from her tears.

  ‘It would look insensitive if we went to the competition right now. Molly needs to learn that the world does not revolve around her.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody would object if she …’ he ventured.

  Marta turned around and looked up at him. He had always found it endearing that she was so much shorter than he was. It made him feel strong, like he was her protector. But in his heart he knew that was not the case. She was stronger than him and always had been.

  ‘But don’t you understand? You know how people talk. It’s obvious we can’t allow Molly to compete after what happened yesterday. The riding school is barely breaking even, and our reputation is our most important asset. We can’t risk it. So we’ll just have to let Molly sulk. You should have heard the way she spoke to me today. It’s not acceptable. You let her get away with far too much.’

  Jonas reluctantly had to admit that she was right. But that was not the whole truth, a
nd she knew it. Jonas pulled her close, feeling her body against his own and the current that passed between them, as always. He would always feel it. Nothing was stronger. Not even his love for Molly.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said with his lips pressed against Marta’s hair. He inhaled her scent, so familiar yet still so exotic. He felt himself responding, and Marta did too. She moved her hand down to his crotch and began stroking him through his trousers. He groaned and leaned down to kiss her.

  The stroganoff on the stove was burning, but they didn’t care.

  UDDEVALLA 1967

  Everything had fallen into place so nicely for them that Laila could hardly believe it. Vladek was not only an excellent lion tamer, he also possessed a talent that was more practical for everyday use. He was an expert at fixing things. It hadn’t taken long before word of his skill had spread through town, and people began coming to Vladek to get help with everything from faulty dishwashers to broken-down old bangers.

  In all honesty, he’d probably attracted a large number of such jobs because of the interest his presence had stirred. Plenty of people wanted to have a look at someone as remarkable as a genuine circus performer. But after the initial curiosity had faded, they retained a solid respect for his handyman skills. Everyone soon grew so accustomed to him that it was as if he had always been part of the community.

  His self-confidence grew, and when he saw an advert for a workshop in Uddevalla, it seemed only natural that they should seize the opportunity and make the move, although Laila was sad not to be closer to Agneta and her mother. Yet Vladek was finally going to turn his dream into reality and start his own business.

  Here in Uddevalla they had found their dream house. They fell in love with it on first sight. It was quite plain and a bit run-down, but for a modest sum they were able to do some renovations and make changes so that it was now their paradise.