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

‘We really appreciate this,’ said Patrik as they both stood up to go.

On the way out they had to jog to keep up with Kjell.

‘Are you driving back tonight?’ he asked as they reached the front entrance.

‘No, we booked a room at the Scandic. So we can go over the material at our leisure before our next stop tomorrow.’

‘Nyköping?’ All at once Kjell looked very serious. ‘It’s not very common for a killer to strike over such a wide area.’

‘No,’ said Patrik with the same gravity. ‘It’s not very common. Not common at all.’

‘Which one would you like? Tracking down the bow-wows or going through Marit’s file?’ Gösta couldn’t hide his frustration at the work assignments that they’d drawn. Hanna didn’t seem exactly cheerful either. She’d probably been looking forward to a relaxing Saturday morning at home with her husband. But Gösta reluctantly had to admit that if ever there was a reason to draw overtime, this was certainly it. An investigation involving five murders was not everyday fare at the station.

He and Hanna had installed themselves at the kitchen table to tackle the work that Patrik had asked them to do, but neither of them felt the least bit enthusiastic. Gösta looked at Hanna as she stood at the worktop pouring coffee. By no means plump when she started working at the station, she now looked downright gaunt rather than just slim. He wondered again what her home life was like. There was something about her expression that seemed tense, almost tormented, lately. Maybe she and her husband couldn’t have children, he speculated. She was forty and still childless. He wished he could offer to lend an ear to anything she wanted to tell him, but he had a feeling that such an offer would not be well received. Hanna pushed back a strand of her blonde hair. He suddenly thought there was so much vulnerability, so much uncertainty in that simple gesture. Hanna Kruse was truly a woman of contradictions. On the surface she was strong and brave. At the same time for brief moments, in certain gestures, he could read something else entirely, something … broken; that was the closest he could come to describing it. But when she turned to face him he wondered whether he’d read too much into things. Her expression was now stony. No weakness in evidence.

‘I’ll take Marit’s documents,’ she said as she sat down. ‘You take the doggies, okay?’ She looked at him over the edge of her cup.

‘Fine with me. I said you could choose.’

Hanna smiled, and the way it softened her face made him feel even more doubtful about his speculations. ‘It’s a shame that we have to work, don’t you think so, Gösta?’ she said with a wink.

He couldn’t help smiling back. He pushed aside his meditations about her home life and decided simply to enjoy the company of his new colleague.

‘Okay, I’ll take the mutts,’ he said as he stood up.

‘Woof,’ she replied with a laugh. Then she started leafing through the folder before her.

‘I heard there was a bit of a drama going on here,’ said Lars with a stern look at the cast members sitting around him in a circle. Nobody said a word. He tried again. ‘Could somebody please clue me in on what happened?’

‘Tina made a fool of herself,’ muttered Jonna.

Tina gave her a dirty look. ‘The fuck I did!’ She looked around the circle. ‘You’re all just jealous because you didn’t find it and think of the same thing!’

‘I never would have done anything that despicable,’ said Mehmet, looking at the tips of his shoes. He’d been unusually subdued the past few days. Lars shifted his focus to him.

‘How are you doing, Mehmet? You seem pretty down.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, still staring intently at his shoes. Lars gave him a searching look but didn’t press him. Mehmet was apparently unwilling to share his feelings. Maybe things would go better in the individual session. Lars went back to Tina.

‘What was in the diary that was so upsetting to you?’ he said gently. Tina pretended to zip her lips shut. ‘What made you feel you were justified in hanging Barbie … Lillemor out to dry like that?’

‘She wrote in her diary that Tina doesn’t have any talent,’ said Calle helpfully. His relationship with Tina had been extremely frosty since the discussion at the Gestgifveri, and he gladly seized the opportunity to take a dig at her. The comment that she had flung at him still stung, so his voice had a nasty undertone. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to hurt her. ‘And you can’t blame Barbie,’ he said coldly. ‘She was just stating the facts.’

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Tina shrieked. Saliva sprayed out of her mouth.

‘Let’s all calm down,’ said Lars, his voice harsh. ‘Lillemor wrote something disparaging about you in her diary, so you felt you had the right to defame her memory.’ He gave Tina a stern look, and she averted her eyes. It sounded so … wicked and nasty when he said it like that.

‘She wrote shit about all of you,’ she said, looking round the group in the hope of shifting some of Lars’s displeasure from herself to the others. ‘She wrote that you were a spoilt rich brat, Calle. And she said that you, Uffe, were one of the stupidest people she’d ever met, and that Mehmet was so fucking insecure and worried about not pleasing his family that he ought to realize he should get himself some backbone!’ She paused but then turned her gaze on Jonna. ‘And you … She said it was so pathetic that you kept on cutting yourself like that. Nobody was spared. Now you know. Is there still anyone who thinks that “we should honour Barbie’s memory” or whatever the fuck drivel you’ve been talking about? If you feel guilty about all the shit you said to her at the party, forget it! She got what she deserved!’ Tina flung her hair back, challenging anyone to contradict her.

‘Did she deserve to die too?’ said Lars calmly.

There was silence in the room. Tina nervously chewed on a fingernail. Then she got up abruptly and ran out. All their eyes followed her.

The road stretched endlessly before them. All this driving had begun to wear Patrik down. He turned his head to look at his colleague in the driver’s seat. Martin had offered to drive today, in the hope that it would keep his nausea in check. So far it had worked, and they had less than a hundred kilometres to go until Nyköping. Martin yawned, and then Patrik did too. They both laughed.

‘I think we stayed up too late last night,’ said Patrik.

‘Yeah, I think so. But there was a lot to go over.’

‘Yep,’ Patrik said. They had spent the evening going over and over the details of the case in Patrik’s hotel room. Martin hadn’t retired to his own room until the wee hours. It had taken another hour for both of them to fall asleep, with all the thoughts and loose threads whirling about in their heads.

‘How’s Pia feeling?’ said Patrik, to change the subject.

‘Great!’ Martin brightened up. ‘The morning sickness has gone away. In fact, she feels fantastic now. I’m so excited I just can’t wait!’

‘Yeah, I know the feeling.’ Patrik was thinking about Maja. He longed so much to be home with her and Erica that it hurt.

‘Is Pia going to have ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby?’ Patrik asked as they turned off the motorway towards Nyköping.

‘Well, I don’t know yet. But I don’t think so,’ Martin said, paying close attention to the road signs. ‘What did you guys do? Did you find out beforehand?’

‘No. It feels sort of like cheating. We wanted it to be a surprise. And with the first child it doesn’t matter that much. But with the second one it’d be nice if it was a boy, so we’d have one of each.’

‘You’re not going to have …?’ Martin turned towards Patrik.

‘No, no, no.’ Patrik laughed. ‘Not yet, thank God. We have our hands full getting used to living with Maja. But maybe later …’

‘What does Erica say about it? Considering how much trouble she had …’ Martin stopped, unsure whether it was okay to bring up that topic.

‘We actually haven’t discussed it. I probably just assumed we’d have two,’ said Patrik pensively. ‘Well, here we are at last,’ he noted, happy to put an end to that subject.

They climbed out of the car with stiff legs and stretched before they went inside the station house. The routine was beginning to feel familiar, at least for Patrik. This was the third time that he had visited a new police station in a new city. When they met the superintendent Patrik was again struck by how non-homogeneous the police force was in Sweden. Nor had he ever met anyone whose appearance differed so much from the image he’d formed based on a name. For one thing, Gerda Svensson was much younger than he had thought, around thirty-five. And despite her extremely Swedish name her complexion was the same colour and lustre as dark mahogany. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. Patrik realized that he was standing there gaping like a fish, and a brief glance at Martin showed that he, too, was making a fool of himself. Patrik gave Martin a poke in the side with his elbow and then held out his hand to Superintendent Svensson.

‘My colleagues are waiting for us in the conference room,’ said Gerda Svensson as she led the way. Her voice was deep and soft at the same time, and extremely pleasant. Patrik could feel that he was having a hard time taking his eyes off her.

They said nothing as they walked towards the conference room. The only sound was the tap of their shoes on the floor. When they entered the room two men got up and came over to them with outstretched hands. One was in his fifties, short and stocky but with a glint in his eye and a warm smile. He introduced himself as Konrad Meltzer. The other was about the same age as Gerda, a big, powerful man with blond hair. Patrik couldn’t help reflecting that he and Gerda made a striking pair. When he introduced himself as Rickard Svensson Patrik realized his intuition had been correct. They were indeed a couple.

‘From what I understand you have a good deal of relevant information about one of our murder cases that has remained unsolved.’ Gerda sat down between Konrad and her husband, and neither of them seemed to mind that she took charge. ‘I was the one who led the investigation of Elsa Forsell’s death,’ she said, as if she’d read Patrik’s mind. ‘Konrad and Rickard worked with me on the team, and we put in a lot of hours on this investigation. Unfortunately we reached a point where we could go no further. Until your query arrived the day before yesterday.’

‘We knew immediately that your case was connected to ours when we read about the page from the book,’ said Rickard, folding his hands on the table. Patrik couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have your wife as your boss. Even though Patrik considered himself a liberated man, he would have had a hard time putting up with Erica as his superior. On the other hand, she wouldn’t have appreciated having him as her boss either.

‘Rickard and I got married after the investigation was terminated. Since then we’ve worked in different units.’ Gerda looked at him and Patrik felt himself blush. For a moment he wondered whether she really could read his mind, but then realized that it probably wasn’t that hard to guess what he was thinking. No doubt he wasn’t the first.

‘Where was the page of the book found?’ he said to change the subject. A tiny smile played at the corners of Gerda’s mouth, signalling that she saw that he got the message, but it was Konrad who spoke now.

‘It was stuck inside a Bible next to her.’

‘Where was she found?’