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

It was delightful to be at home alone. She loved Lars dearly. But when he was home there was always that tension, that unspoken worry in the air. She realized how exhausted that made her feel.

The problem was that she knew their relationship was being drained by something that they could never change. The past was like a wet, heavy blanket smothering everything in their lives. Sometimes she tried to get Lars to understand that they had to try and lift that blanket together, let in a little air, a little light. But he knew of no other way to live except in the dark and the damp. At least it was something familiar.

She often longed for something else. Something different from this miserable vicious circle they had ended up in. In recent years she had felt that a child might be able to erase their past. A child who could light up the darkness, relieve the weight and let them breathe again. But Lars refused. He wouldn’t even discuss the subject. He had his job, he said, and she had hers; that was enough. But she knew it wasn’t. Something was always missing. It never ended. A child would make it all stop. Discouraged, she put her fork down on her plate. She had lost her appetite.

‘How’s it going with you?’ Simon gave Mehmet a look of concern as he sat across the table from him in the corner of the bakery. They had been working hard and were allowing themselves a short break. But it meant that Uffe had to take care of the orders in the shop, so Simon kept glancing uneasily in that direction.

‘He can’t ruin anything in five minutes. I don’t think so, anyway,’ said Mehmet with a laugh.

Simon relaxed and laughed too. ‘Unfortunately I’ve lost all my illusions when it comes to that particular “addition” to my staff,’ he said. ‘I must have drawn the short straw when the cast assignments were made.’ He took a sip of coffee.

‘Could be. But you got me!’ said Mehmet with a big grin. ‘So if you combine Uffe and me you get one middling employee.’

‘Yes, there is that. I got you too!’ said Simon with a laugh. Then he turned serious and gave Mehmet a long look, but Mehmet chose not to respond. There were so many questions and unspoken words in that look, and he couldn’t deal with them at the moment. If ever.

‘You never answered my question. How’s it going with you?’ Simon insisted.

Mehmet felt nervous twitches in his hands. He tried to brush off the question. ‘Oh, I’m okay. I didn’t know her very well. But there’s been such an uproar around everything. At least the TV people are happy. The ratings are breaking all records.’

‘Yes, I see enough of you two in the shop every day, so I haven’t managed to watch a single episode yet.’ Simon had now toned down the intensity of his gaze. Mehmet allowed himself to relax. He took a big bite of a freshly baked bun, enjoying the taste and aroma of warm cinnamon.

‘How was it? Being questioned by the police?’ Simon also reached for a bun and swallowed nearly a third of it in one bite.

‘It wasn’t so bad.’ Mehmet wasn’t comfortable talking about this with Simon. Besides, he was lying. He didn’t want to tell the truth about how humiliating it had felt to sit there while the questions rained down on him, and how the answers he gave were never satisfactory. ‘They were polite. I don’t think they seriously suspect any of us.’ He avoided Simon’s eyes. Images flashed through his mind, but he dismissed them at once. He refused to accept what they wanted to remind him of.

‘That psychologist you all talk to, is he any good?’ Simon leaned forward and took another huge bite of the bun as he waited for Mehmet’s reply.

‘Lars is all right. It’s been good to be able to talk to him.’

‘How is Uffe taking it?’ Simon nodded towards the shop, where they could see Uffe dash past the doorway as he played air guitar with a baguette. Mehmet couldn’t help laughing. ‘What do you think? Uffe is … well, Uffe. But it could have been worse. Even he doesn’t dare bring up every subject with Lars. No, he’s fine.’

An elderly lady came into the bakery, and Mehmet saw her shrink back from Uffe’s wild dance. ‘I think it’s time to rescue the customers.’

Simon turned to see what Mehmet was looking at and got up at once. ‘Oh dear, Mrs Hjertén will probably have a heart attack if we don’t.’

When they stepped into the shop, Simon’s hand happened to brush Mehmet’s. Mehmet pulled his hand back as if he’d been burnt.

‘Erica, I have to go down to Göteborg this afternoon, so I’ll be home a bit late. Around eight, I think.’

As Patrik listened to Erica’s reply, he could hear Maja babbling in the background. All at once he felt an acute homesickness. He would give anything to say the hell with all this, go home, throw himself on the floor and play with his daughter. He’d also grown very close to Emma and Adrian in the past months, and he longed to spend time with them too. And he felt guilty that Erica had to take care of so much before the wedding, but as things looked now, he had no choice. The investigation was in its most intense stage and he had no time for any anything else.

It was lucky that Erica was so understanding, he thought as he got into the car. At first he’d considered asking Martin to come with him, but it wouldn’t take two of them to drive down and see Pedersen. Martin deserved a chance to go home early to Pia. He too had been working hard recently. Just as Patrik put the car in gear and was about to drive off, the phone rang again.

‘Hedström,’ he said, slightly irritated because he was expecting another barrage of questions from a reporter. When he heard who it was he regretted his impatient tone of voice.

‘Hi, Kerstin,’ he said, turning off the motor. The vague sense of guilt that he’d felt for over a week now struck him full force. He’d neglected the investigation of Marit’s death because he’d been working on Lillemor’s case. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but the media pressure in the wake of the girl’s murder had been too relentless to do otherwise. With a grimace he listened to what Kerstin had to say and then replied, ‘We … we haven’t found out much yet, I’m afraid.’

‘I understand, you must have been rather busy lately.’

‘Let me assure you that we haven’t lost our focus on investigating Marit’s death.’ He grimaced again, finding it distasteful that he had to lie. But all he could do now was try and make up for lost time. He sat for a moment in thought after he clicked off the call. Then he rang another number and spent the next five minutes talking with someone who sounded very confused by what he had to say. Relieved, Patrik then headed off towards Göteborg.

Two hours later he arrived at Forensic Medicine HQ. He quickly found his way to Pedersen’s office and knocked on the door. They usually communicated by fax or phone, but this time Pedersen had insisted on discussing the autopsy results in person. Patrik suspected that the media furore had made them even more cautious than usual.

‘Hello, it’s been a while,’ said Pedersen when Patrik came in. He stood up and shook hands. Though big and tall, he had a gentle nature that was in stark contrast to the brutality he encountered in his profession. His glasses were constantly sliding down to the tip of his nose, and his slightly greying hair was always rather dishevelled. His appearance might fool an observer into believing that he was absent-minded and sloppy. But that was far from the truth. The papers on his desk lay in neat stacks, and the folders and binders were carefully labelled on the shelves. Pedersen was meticulous with details. Now he picked up a bunch of papers and studied them before he looked up at Patrik and spoke.

‘The girl was strangled, without a doubt. There are fractures of the hyoid bone as well as the superior cornu of the thyroid cartilage. But she had no furrows from cord, only these bruises on both sides of the neck, which correspond well with manual strangulation.’ He placed a large photograph before Patrik and pointed at the bruises to which he was referring.

‘So you’re saying that somebody strangled her with his hands.’

‘Yes,’ said Pedersen. He always felt great empathy for the victims that ended up on his autopsy table, but he seldom showed it in his tone of voice. ‘An additional indication of strangulation is that she had petechia, or point-bleeding in the conjunctiva of the eyes and in the skin around the eyes.’

‘Does it require a lot of strength to strangle someone in this way?’ Patrik couldn’t take his eyes off the pictures of Lillemor, her face pale and slightly bluish.

‘More than one might think. It takes quite a while to strangle someone, and one would have to keep a strong, constant pressure on the throat. But in this case,’ he coughed and turned away for a moment before continuing, ‘in this case the perpetrator made it a bit easier on himself.’

‘How do you mean?’ Patrik leaned forward with interest. Pedersen skimmed through the pages until he found the place he was looking for.

‘Here – we found traces of a sedative in her system. Apparently she fell asleep first, and was then strangled.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Patrik, again looking at the photos of Lillemor. ‘Was it possible to determine how the sedative was administered?’

Pedersen shook his head. ‘Her stomach contents were a real devil’s cocktail. I have no idea what she drank, but the odour of alcohol was striking. The girl was extremely drunk at the time of her death.’

‘Yes, we heard she was partying hard that evening. Do you think she was given the sedative in one of her drinks?’

Pedersen threw out his hands. ‘Impossible to say.’

‘Okay, so she fell asleep and was then strangled. We know that much. Is there anything more to go on?’

Pedersen looked through his papers again. ‘Yes, there were other injuries. She seems to have taken some blows to the body, and one cheek also had a subcutaneous bleed as well as in the musculature, as if she’d been given a powerful slap.’

‘That corresponds well with what we know about that evening,’ said Patrik grimly.

‘She also had some deep cuts on her wrists. They must have bled heavily.’

‘Cuts,’ said Patrik. He hadn’t noticed that when he saw her in the rubbish truck. On the other hand, he hadn’t got a good look at her. He’d glanced at the body and then quickly turned away. This information was undeniably of interest.

‘What can you tell me about the cuts?’

‘Not much.’ Pedersen roughed up his hair, and Patrik had a sense of déjà vu, thinking about his own image that he’d seen in the mirror the past few days.

‘Judging by the location of the wounds I don’t believe they were self-inflicted. Even though it’s rather popular these days, particularly among young girls, to cut themselves.’

Patrik saw the image of Jonna in the interview room, with her arms lacerated all the way from her wrists to her elbows. An idea was beginning to take shape. But that would have to wait until later.

‘And the time?’ Patrik asked. ‘Can you say about what time she died?’

‘The temperature of her body when she was found indicates that she died sometime after midnight. Around three or four is my professional guess.’