Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 4-6: The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning

There must be a way. She knew there was. She couldn’t allow the two of them to descend into the dark abyss, together yet still apart. On impulse she leaned forward and took hold of his wrist. She could feel him trembling. Light as an aspen leaf. She stopped the shaking by pressing his arm against the table; she forced him to meet her gaze. It was one of those rare moments in life in which only truths can be spoken. Truths about their life. Truths about the past. She opened her mouth. Then the phone rang. Lars gave a start and pulled his arm free. Then he reached for the butter knife again. The moment had passed.

‘What do you think is going to happen now?’ said Tina quietly to Uffe as they stood outside the community centre, dragging hard on their cigarettes.

‘Damned if I know,’ Uffe said with a laugh. ‘Not a fucking thing, I would think.’

‘But after yesterday …’ She paused and stared down at her shoes.

‘Yesterday doesn’t mean shit,’ said Uffe, blowing a ring of white smoke into the quiet springtime air. ‘It doesn’t mean shit, trust me. Productions like this cost tons of money, and they aren’t about to close it down and lose all they’ve invested up till now. Not a chance.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Tina gloomily, her eyes still lowered. Her cigarette now had a long column of ash, and it dropped straight down onto her suede boots.

‘Shit,’ she said, quickly bending down to brush off the ash. ‘Now these boots are ruined. They were bloody expensive too. Shit!’

‘Serves you right,’ said Uffe with a sneer. ‘You spoilt brat.’

‘What do you mean, spoilt?’ Tina hissed, turning to look at him. ‘Just because my parents worked their arses off instead of living on the dole their whole lives that doesn’t mean I’m spoilt!’

‘Don’t you say a fucking word about my parents! You don’t know shit about them!’ With a menacing gesture Uffe waved his cigarette in front of her face. Tina wasn’t scared off. Instead she took a step towards him.

‘I can see what you are. It’s not so bloody hard to work out what sort of people your parents are!’

Uffe knotted his fists and a vein was pulsing on his brow. Tina realized that she might have made a mistake. She remembered what had happened last night and quickly took a step back. She probably shouldn’t have said what she did. Just as she opened her mouth to smooth things over, Calle came over to them and looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression.

‘What are you two up to? Are you going to fight, or what?’ He laughed. ‘Well, Uffe, you’re a master at beating up chicks, so come on. Let’s see you do it again.’

Uffe just snorted and lowered his arms. He was scowling and he kept on staring at Tina. She took yet another step back. There was something about Uffe that wasn’t quite right. Once again scattered visual and aural impressions from last night came back to her, and she turned nervously on her heel and went inside. The last thing she heard before the door closed was Uffe saying in a low voice to Calle, ‘You aren’t so bloody bad at it yourself, are you?’

She didn’t hear what Calle answered.

A glance in the hall mirror showed Erica that she looked as downhearted as she felt. She slowly hung up her jacket and scarf and then paused to listen. Among the shouts coming from the kids, which were deafening but thank goodness of the happy variety, she also heard an adult voice other than Anna’s. She went into the living room. In a big pile in the middle of the floor lay three kids and two grown-ups, wrestling, shrieking, with arms and legs sticking out like some deformed monster.

‘And what’s going on here?’ she said in her most authoritative voice.

Anna looked up in surprise, her hair uncharacteristically dishevelled.

‘Hi!’ said Dan happily, also looking up, but was then wrestled to the ground again by Emma and Adrian. Maja was laughing so hard she was shrieking as she tried to help by tugging on Dan’s feet with all her might.

Anna stood up and brushed off her knees. Through the windows behind her the ethereal springtime light streamed in, forming a halo round her blonde hair. Erica was struck by how beautiful her sister was. She also saw for the first time how much Anna resembled their mother. That thought caused a stab of pain, followed by the eternal question: Why? Why hadn’t their mother loved them? Why had they never received a kind word, a caress, anything at all, from Elsy? All they ever got was indifference and coldness. Their father had been the direct opposite. Where Elsy was hard, he was soft. Where she was cold, he was warm. He had tried to explain, make excuses for her, compensate for her neglect. And to some extent he’d been successful. But he couldn’t take her place. There was still a gaping emptiness in Erica’s soul, despite the fact that four years had gone by since the car crash that killed them both.

Anna gave her a puzzled look, and Erica realized she’d been staring into the middle distance. She did her best to hide her feelings and smiled at her sister.

‘Where’s Patrik?’ Anna asked, with a last amused glance at the tangle of arms and legs on the floor before she went out to the kitchen. Erica followed her without replying. ‘I just made a fresh pot of coffee,’ Anna said, pouring three cups. ‘And the kids and I baked some buns.’ Only now did Erica notice the inviting aroma of cinnamon that hung in the air. ‘But you’ll have to stick to these,’ said Anna, setting a tray of some small, dry biscuits before Erica.

‘What are they?’ she said crestfallen, poking at them.

‘Whole-grain biscuits,’ said Anna, turning her back as she filled a basket with freshly baked buns from the tray on the worktop.

‘But …’ Erica protested lamely, feeling her mouth water at the sight of the big fluffy buns sprinkled with coarse sugar.

‘Well, I didn’t think you’d be back so soon. I was intending to spare you and get these into the freezer before you came home. So you have only yourself to blame. But think about the wedding dress if you need some motivation.’

Erica picked up one of the biscuits and tentatively took a nibble. Just as she thought. She might as well chew on a piece of cardboard.

‘So, where’s Patrik? And why did you come home so early? I thought you were going to relax, go shopping in town, and have lunch.’ Anna sat down at the kitchen table and called to the living room, ‘Coffee is served!’

‘Patrik was called away on a job,’ said Erica. Then she gave up and put the biscuit back on the plate. Her first and only bite was still in her mouth.

‘Job?’ Anna said in surprise. ‘I thought he was off this weekend.’

‘Yes, that’s what they told him,’ said Erica, noticing the bitterness in her voice. ‘But he had to go.’ She paused, wondering how much else to reveal. Then she said brusquely, ‘Leif the rubbish man found a body in his truck this morning.’

Anna’s mouth fell open. ‘In the rubbish truck? How did it get there?’

‘Apparently the body was stuffed into a bin and when he emptied it …’

‘God, how horrible,’ Anna said, staring at Erica. ‘But who was it? And was it murder? I suppose it must have been,’ said Anna, answering her own question. ‘Why would anyone end up in a bin otherwise? God, it’s too horrible.’

Dan came into the kitchen and gave them a puzzled look. ‘What’s horrible?’ he asked, sitting down next to Erica.

‘Patrik had to go in and work. Leif the rubbish man found a body in his truck,’ said Anna, beating Erica to it.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Dan, looking just as perplexed.

‘No, unfortunately,’ Erica said gloomily. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else. It’ll come out soon enough, but we don’t need to supply the gossip mills with extra fodder.’

‘No, of course not, we won’t say a thing,’ said Anna.

‘I don’t understand how Patrik can stand his job,’ Dan said, poking at his cinnamon bun. ‘I could never handle it. Trying to teach grammar to fourteen-years-olds is hard enough.’

‘I couldn’t do it either,’ said Anna, staring into space. Both Dan and Erica were swearing inside. Talking about bodies and murder probably wasn’t the best thing to do in front of Anna.

As if reading their minds she said with a wan smile, ‘Don’t worry about me. It’s okay to talk about it.’ Erica could only imagine what sort of images were whirling round in her mind.

‘Kids, we have cinnamon buns!’ Anna called, breaking the glum mood. They could hear two pairs of feet and a pair of hands and knees drumming across the floor, and in a couple of seconds the first bun enthusiast came round the corner.

‘A bun, I want a bun,’ Adrian shouted, clambering nimbly onto his chair. Emma was right behind him, and Maja came crawling in last. It hadn’t taken her long to learn what the word ‘bun’ meant. Erica started to stand up, but Dan was quicker. He lifted Maja up, unable to resist giving her a kiss on the cheek. Then he placed her carefully in her high chair and began breaking off small bits of a bun to give to her. The appearance of so much sugar in front of her produced a big smile that exposed the two tiny baby teeth in Maja’s lower jaw. The grown-ups couldn’t help laughing. She was just so cute.

There was no more talk of murder and dead bodies. But they couldn’t help wondering what Patrik was facing.

Everyone looked listless as they sat in the station’s break room. Martin’s face was still unnaturally pale, and he looked as exhausted as Hanna. Patrik was leaning against the worktop with his arms crossed, waiting till they all had coffee in their cups. After a nod from Mellberg he began to speak.

‘This morning Leif Christensson, who owns a refuse collection service, found a dead body. The body had been stuffed into a bin, but ended up in his truck when he emptied the bin.’ Patrik paused and took a sip from his coffee cup, then set it back down on the counter next to him. ‘We got to the scene quickly and confirmed that we were dealing with a dead female. Given the circumstances, and the fact that the body showed signs of trauma, we drew the preliminary conclusion that it was homicide. She also had certain trauma on her body indicating violence, which supports that theory. We won’t know for sure until we get the results of the autopsy but for now we’ll proceed on the assumption that she was murdered.’

‘Do we know who –?’ said Gösta, but was interrupted by a glance from Patrik.

‘Yes, we’ve got an ID of the woman.’ Patrik turned to look at Martin, who had to fight the nausea when the photos of the crime scene appeared before him. He didn’t seem able to talk yet, so Patrik went on.

‘It looks like one of the cast of Sodding Tanum. The girl called Barbie. We need to find out her real name. It just doesn’t seem respectful to call her Barbie under the circumstances.’