Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1 and 2: The Ice Princess, The Preacher

‘Both you and I could feel that there was something wrong about this. You found the article about Nils’s disappearance at Alex’s house, and there may be more things to find there.’

‘But didn’t the police already go through the house?’

‘Sure, but I’m not sure we were looking for the right things. I just want to test an idea I have. Come on.’

Patrik was already halfway out the door. Erica had to throw on her jacket and run after him.

The house looked small and dilapidated. It was beyond her comprehension that people could live like this. That anyone could endure such a dreary and grey existence, so – impoverished. But that was the way of the world. Some were rich and some were poor. Nelly thanked her lucky stars that she belonged to the former category and not the latter. It wasn’t in her nature to be poor. A woman like her was made for furs and diamonds.

The woman who opened the door had probably never even seen a real diamond. Everything about her was grey and brown. Nelly viewed with disgust Vera’s shabby cardigan and the chapped hands holding it closed over her breast. Vera said nothing, just stood in the doorway.

After nervously looking around, Nelly finally had to say, ‘Well, are you going to invite me in, or shall we stand here all day? I’m sure neither you nor I wants anyone to see me visiting you, am I right?’

Vera still said nothing, just backed into the hallway so that Nelly could come in.

‘We have to talk, you and I, don’t we?’

Nelly elegantly removed the gloves she always wore outdoors and took a look around the house with distaste. The hallway, the living room, the kitchen, and a small bedroom. Vera walked behind her with her eyes cast down. The rooms were dark and dismal. The wallpaper had long since seen its best days. No one had bothered to take up the linoleum to reveal the hardwood floors underneath, as most people did with old houses these days. But everything was shiny clean and neat. No dirt in the corners, only a depressing hopelessness that permeated the house from floor to ceiling.

Nelly sat down cautiously on the very edge of the old wing chair in the living room. As if she were the one who lived there, she motioned to Vera to take a seat on the sofa. Vera obeyed, also sitting on the very edge. She didn’t make a sound, but her hands nervously fidgeted in her lap.

‘It’s important that we continue to keep this to ourselves. You understand that, don’t you?’ Nelly’s voice was urgent. Vera nodded as she kept her eyes on her lap.

‘Well, I can’t say that I feel sorry about what happened to Alex. She got what she deserved, and I think you’ll agree with me about that. That hussy was going to come to grief sooner or later, I’ve always known that.’

Vera reacted to Nelly’s words by casting a hasty glance up at her, but she still didn’t say a word. Nelly felt a great contempt for this plain, sad woman, who didn’t seem to have even an ounce of will left in her body. Typical working-class, with her downcast eyes. Not that she thought it should be otherwise, but she still couldn’t help feeling scorn for these people without class, without style. What irritated her most of all was that she was dependent on Vera Nilsson. But no matter what it cost, she had to secure Vera’s silence. It had worked before, and it would have to work again.

‘It’s unfortunate that things turned out as they did, but now it’s even more important that we don’t do anything hasty. Everything must continue as before. We can’t change the past, and there’s no reason to drag old rubbish out into the open.’

Nelly opened her handbag, took out a white envelope and placed it on the coffee table.

‘Here’s a little something to make your budget go a little further. Come on, take it.’

Nelly pushed the envelope towards her. Vera didn’t pick it up but only stared at it.

‘I’m sorry things have turned out this way with Anders. It might even be the best thing that could have happened to him. There’s not much alcohol to be had in prison, I mean.’

Nelly understood at once that she’d gone too far. Vera slowly got up from the sofa and with a shaking finger pointed towards the front door.

‘Get out!’

‘Now now, dear little Vera, you mustn’t take it –’

‘Get out of my house! Anders isn’t going to prison, and you can take your filthy money and go to hell, you fucking bitch! I know exactly where someone like you comes from, and it doesn’t matter how much perfume you try to pour over it. The smell of shit is still there!’

Nelly shrank back at the naked hatred in Vera’s eyes. Her fists were clenched and she stood erect, staring straight into Nelly’s eyes. Her whole body seemed to be shaking with years of pent-up rage. There was no trace of the subservience she had displayed before, and Nelly began to feel very uncomfortable in this situation. Talk about over-reacting! All she had done was speak the truth. A person ought to be able to stand a little truth. She hurried towards the door.

‘Get out of here and don’t ever show your face here again!’

Vera as good as chased her out of the house, and just before she slammed the door she threw the envelope out. Nelly had to laboriously stoop down and pick it up. Fifty thousand wasn’t something one left lying on the ground, no matter how humiliating it was to see the neighbours pulling their curtains aside. They watched as she practically grovelled in the gravel. What an ingrate! Well, Vera would probably show a little more humility when her money ran out and nobody would hire her as cleaning woman anymore. Her job at the Lorentz home was definitely over, and it probably wouldn’t take much to make her other jobs dry up as well. Nelly would see to it that Vera came crawling on her bare knees to the welfare office before she was done with her. No one insulted Nelly Lorentz with impunity.

It felt like walking through water. His limbs were heavy and stiff after the night spent on the cot in jail, and his head was full of cotton for want of alcohol. Anders looked around the flat. The floor was covered with the dirt of police boots tramping about. But he hardly cared. A little dirt in the corners had never bothered him.

He took a six-pack of strong beer out of the fridge and flopped down on the mattress in the living room. Leaning on his left elbow, he opened the beer with his right hand and greedily took long, deep swallows until the tin was empty to the last drop. Then he tossed it in a wide arc through the living room. It landed with a clank on the floor in the far corner. With his most acute need temporarily quenched, he lay down on the mattress with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling as he allowed himself to sink for a while into memories from long ago. It was only in the past that he could sometimes find a little respite for his soul. Between these brief moments when he allowed himself to reminisce about better days, the pain would cut through his heart with ceaseless intensity. It amazed him that past events could feel simultaneously so remote and so near.

In his memory the sun was always shining. The asphalt felt warm on his bare feet, and his lips were still salty from swimming in the sea. Oddly enough he could never remember anything but summertime. No winters. No overcast days. No rain. Only sunshine from a clear blue sky and a light breeze that broke the shining mirror of the sea.

Alex in her light summer dresses that clung to her legs. Her hair that she refused to cut, so it hung blonde and straight all the way down to the small of her back. Sometimes he could even recall her fragrance so strongly that he felt it in his nostrils, tickling and awakening a sense of longing. Strawberries, salt water, shampoo with Timothy-grass. Sometimes mixed with a smell of sweat that was not at all unpleasant as they raced their bicycles or climbed the rocky hills until their legs gave out. Then they might lie on their backs at the top of Veddeberget, with their feet pointing out to sea and their hands clasped on their stomachs. Alex in the middle between them, with her hair spread out and her eyes looking up at the sky. On rare, precious occasions she would take their hands in hers and for a moment it was as if they were one instead of three.

They were careful not to let anyone ever see them together. That would ruin the magic. The spell would be broken and they would no longer be able to keep reality at bay. Reality was something that had to be warded off at all costs. It was ugly and grey and had nothing to do with the sun-drenched dream-world they could construct when they were together. Reality was nothing they ever spoke about. Instead their days were filled with frivolous games and frivolous conversation. Nothing could be taken seriously. Then they could pretend that they were invulnerable, unconquerable, unreachable. Each of them alone was nothing. Together they were the Three Musketeers.

The grown-ups were only peripheral dream creatures, mere extras who moved about in their world without affecting them. Their mouths moved, but no sound came out. They made gestures and faces that supposedly had meaning but seemed stilted and meaningless, taken out of context.

Anders smiled faintly at the memories, but slowly he was forced out of his catatonic dream state. Nature called, and he was once again back in his own anxiety. He got up to take care of the problem.

The toilet was located below a mirror covered with dust and dirt. When he relieved his bladder he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass, and for the first time in many years he saw himself the way other people saw him. His hair was greasy and matted. His face was pale with a sickly grey hue to his skin. Years of neglect had given him a couple of gaps in his front teeth, which made him look decades older than he actually was.

The decision was made without him really being aware of it. As he fumbled to do up his fly, he understood what the next step would have to be. The look in his eyes was resolute when he went into the kitchen. After searching through the drawers he found a big kitchen knife that he wiped off on his trouser leg. Then he went into the living room and began methodically taking down the paintings from the walls. One by one, he lifted down the paintings that were the result of many years’ work. Those he had kept and hung up were only the ones he was most satisfied with. He had thrown out many others because they didn’t really pass muster in his eyes. Now the knife slashed through the canvas of one painting after another. He worked slowly and with a steady hand, slicing the paintings into thin strips until it was impossible to see what they had once depicted. It was surprisingly hard work to cut through the canvases, and when he was done beads of sweat lined his brow. The room looked like a battlefield of colours.

Strips of canvas covered the living room floor, and frames gaped empty like toothless gums. He looked around in satisfaction.

‘How do you know that it wasn’t Anders who murdered Alex?’ asked Erica.

‘A girl who lives in the same building as Anders saw him coming home just before seven o’clock, and Alex talked to her mother at quarter past. It would have been impossible for him to make it back there in such a short time. Which means that Dagmar Petrén’s testimony can only tie him to the house while Alex was still alive.’

‘But what about the fingerprints and footprints you found in the bathroom?’

‘Those don’t prove that he murdered her, only that he was in the house after she died. In any case it’s not enough to hold him in custody any longer. Mellberg will no doubt bring him in again; he’s still convinced that Anders is the killer, but for the time being he has to release him, otherwise an attorney could make mincemeat of him. I’ve always thought that something didn’t feel quite right, and this confirms it. Anders is still under suspicion, but there are enough question marks that there’s reason to keep looking.’

‘And that’s why we’re on the way to Alex’s house? What is it you hope to find there?’ asked Erica.

‘I don’t really know. I just feel that I need to get a clearer picture of how things happened.’

‘Birgit said that Alex couldn’t talk to her because she had a visitor. If it wasn’t Anders, then who was it?’

‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’

Patrik was driving a bit too fast for Erica’s taste. She was holding on tight to the handle over the door. He almost missed the turn-off by the sailing club and turned right at the very last second, which meant he was a hair’s-breadth from taking out a fence as they zipped past.

‘Are you afraid that the house might not be there if we don’t get there fast?’ Erica gave him a wan smile.

‘Oops, sorry. I just got a little excited.’

He slowed down considerably, and on the last bit of road to Alex’s house Erica dared let go of the handle. She still didn’t understand why he wanted her to come along, but she had agreed. It might provide some information for her book.

Outside the door Patrik stopped with a sheepish look on his face.

‘I forgot that I don’t have a key. I’m afraid we won’t be able to get in. Mellberg wouldn’t appreciate it if one of his cops was caught red-handed climbing in through a window.’