The Preacher

Stefan knew that she was right, and his anger drained out of him. It was just that sometimes it hurt so damn much when Linda talked about her family, because it reminded him of what he himself had lost. He didn’t dare say it to her face, but he often thought that she was pretty ungrateful. She and her family had everything, and his family had nothing. Where was the justice in that?

At the same time he could forgive her for everything. He had never loved anyone so intensely, and the mere sight of her slim body next to his made him burn inside. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it was true. That an angel like Linda would waste her time on him. But he knew better than to question his good fortune. Instead he tried to ignore the future and enjoy the present. Now he pulled her closer and shut his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her hair. He unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, but she stopped him.

‘I can’t, I’ve got my period. Let me instead.’

She unbuttoned his jeans and he lay back in the hay. Behind his closed eyelids heaven flickered past.

Only a day had passed since the dead woman was found, but impatience was already plaguing Patrik. Somewhere somebody was wondering where she was. Pondering, worrying, letting their thoughts run along ever more anxious paths. And the terrible thing was that in this case the worst misgivings had come true. He wanted more than anything else to find out who the woman was so he could inform her loved ones. Nothing was worse than uncertainty, not even death. The work of grieving could not commence until they knew the reason for their grief. It wasn’t going to be easy to be the one who delivered the news – a responsibility that Patrik had already shouldered in his mind – but he knew that it was an important part of his job. To facilitate and offer support. But above all, to find out what had happened to the loved one.

Martin’s fruitless phone calls the day before had demonstrated the task of identification would be more difficult. She had not been reported missing anywhere in the local area, so the search field had to be expanded to all of Sweden, perhaps even to other countries. At the moment the task seemed impossible, but he quickly dismissed that thought. Right now they were the unknown woman’s only advocates.

Martin knocked discreetly on the door.

‘How would you like me to proceed? Widen the search radius, or start with the big-city districts, or …?’ He raised his eyebrows in an enquiring gesture.

At once Patrik felt the weight of the responsibility for the investigation. Actually there was nothing pointing in any direction, but they had to start somewhere.

‘Check with the big-city districts. Göteborg has been taken care of, so start with Stockholm and Malmö. We should be getting the preliminary report from Forensics soon, and if we’re lucky they might be able to come up with something useful.’

‘Okay.’ Martin slapped the door on his way out and headed for his office. A shrill signal from the front hall made him turn on his heel, and he went to let in the visitor. That was usually Annika’s job, but while she was gone they just had to help each other out.

The young woman looked upset. She was thin, with two long blonde braids and an enormous pack on her back.

‘I want to speak to someone in charge,’ she said in English.

She spoke with a thick accent, and he guessed that she was German. Martin opened the door and motioned her to come in. He called down the hall, ‘Patrik, you have a visitor.’

Too late it occurred to him that maybe he should have asked what her business was first, but Patrik had already stuck his head out of his office and the young woman was headed in his direction.

‘Are you the man in charge?’

For a moment Patrik was tempted to send her on to Mellberg, who was technically the chief, but he changed his mind when he saw her desperate expression and decided to spare her that experience. Sending a good-looking girl into Mellberg’s office was like sending a lamb to the slaughter, and Patrik’s natural protective instincts won out.

‘Yes, how can I help you?’

He motioned for her to come in and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. With surprising ease she slipped off the enormous backpack and carefully leaned it against the wall by the door.

‘My English is very bad. You speak German?’

Patrik ransacked his ancient knowledge of school German. His answer depended on how she defined ‘speak German’. He could order a beer and ask for the check, but he suspected that she wasn’t here in the capacity of waitress.

‘Little German,’ he replied haltingly in her mother tongue, wobbling his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture.

She seemed pleased to hear this and spoke slowly and clearly to give him a chance to understand what she was saying. To Patrik’s surprise he found that he knew more than he’d thought at first, and even though he didn’t understand every word, he got the gist of it.

She introduced herself as Liese Forster. Apparently she had been in a week earlier to report her friend Tanja missing. She had spoken with an officer here at the station, who told her that he would contact her when he knew more. Now she’d been waiting a whole week and still hadn’t heard a peep. Anxiety was writ large across her face, and Patrik took her story seriously.

Tanja and Liese had met on the train on the way to Sweden. They were both from northern Germany but hadn’t known each other before. They got along well at once, and Liese said that they became like sisters. Liese had no fixed plans about where to go in Sweden, so Tanja had suggested that she come along with her to a little town on the west coast called Fjällbacka.

‘Why Fjällbacka exactly?’ asked Patrik with his clumsy German grammar.

The answer came with hesitation. Liese admitted that she didn’t really know why. It was the one topic that Tanja had not discussed cheerfully and openly with her. All Tanja had told her was that she had some business to take care of there. When it was done, they could continue their trip through Sweden. But first there was something Tanja needed to find. The subject seemed sensitive and Liese had not pursued it. She was just glad to have a companion on her travels and she happily tagged along. It didn’t really matter to her why Tanja had to go there.

They had been staying at the Sälvik campground for three days when Tanja disappeared. She had set off in the morning, saying that she had something to take care of during the day and that she would come back towards afternoon. Afternoon passed and then it was evening, and Liese’s anxiety had increased as the hours had ticked away. The next morning she went to the tourist bureau on Ingrid Bergman’s Square and asked for directions to the nearest police station. The report was taken and now she wondered what had been done.

Patrik was shocked. As far as he knew, they hadn’t received any missing-persons report. He felt a heaviness gathering in his gut. When he asked what Tanja looked like, his fears were confirmed. Everything Liese had told him about her friend matched the dead woman in the King’s Cleft. With a heavy heart he showed Liese a photograph of the body, and her sobs told him what he already suspected. Martin could stop making phone calls, and someone would have to be called to answer for not reporting Tanja’s disappearance correctly. They had wasted many precious hours for nothing, and Patrik had little doubt where to find the guilty party.

Patrik had already driven off to work when Erica awoke from a sleep that for a change had been deep and dreamless. She looked at the clock. It was nine, and there was not a sound from downstairs.

Soon she had the coffee on, and she started setting the breakfast table for herself and her guests. They trickled into the kitchen one by one, each more bleary than the last, but they came round quickly when they began helping themselves to the breakfast she had prepared.

‘Weren’t you all heading for Koster next?’ Erica’s question was polite, but she was anticipating getting rid of them.

Conny exchanged a swift glance with his wife and said, ‘Well, Britta and I talked it over a bit last night, and we thought that since we’re here, and the weather’s so fine, we might run out to one of the islands here today. You do have a boat, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, we do,’ Erica admitted reluctantly. ‘Although I’m not sure Patrik is terribly anxious to lend it out. Considering the insurance and all that …’ The thought that they would stay even a few more hours than planned made her bones tingle with frustration.

‘We thought that you might be able to give us a lift to some nice spot, then we can ring you when we want to come back.’

Conny took the fact that Erica was speechless at this suggestion as tacit agreement on her part. She called on higher powers for patience and persuaded herself that it wasn’t worth a confrontation with the family just to spare herself a few more hours of their company. Besides, she would get out of being with them during the day, and maybe they would decide to drive on before Patrik came home from work. She had already decided to fix something special for dinner and have a cosy evening at home. After all, Patrik was supposed to be on holiday. And who knew how much time they would have for each other once the baby arrived – it was best to take advantage of their time together.

After much shilly-shallying the whole Flood family finally packed up their sun gear, and they set off for the boat dock. The little blue wooden boat was low and hard to step into from the dock at Badholmen. It took a good deal of effort to squeeze her pregnant body down into the boat. After cruising about for an hour searching for a ‘deserted rock, or preferably a beach’ for the guests, she finally found a tiny cove that other tourists miraculously had seemed to miss. Then she headed for home. Getting up onto the dock without help proved impossible. Feeling humiliated, she had to ask some passing beachgoers for assistance.

Sweaty, hot, exhausted, and furious she drove home but changed her mind just as she was passing the sailing society’s clubhouse. She made a sharp left turn instead of driving straight ahead towards Sälvik. She took the right-hand curve around the hill, past the sports field and the Kullen apartment complex, and parked outside the library. She would go completely insane if she had to sit at home all day with nothing to do. Patrik could protest all he wanted later, but he was going to get help with the investigation whether he wanted it or not!

When Ernst entered the police station he headed reluctantly towards Hedström’s office. As soon as Patrik rang him on his mobile and with granite in his voice ordered him to come to the station at once, Ernst knew that he was in trouble. He ransacked his memory to try and work out what he might have been caught doing, but he had to admit that there were too many possibilities to make an educated guess. He was the de facto master of short cuts, and he had made fiddling about an art form.

‘Sit.’

He docilely obeyed Patrik’s command, then put on a defiant expression to meet the approaching storm.

‘So what’s the big hurry? I was in the middle of something. Just because you happened to be put in charge of an investigation, you can’t just boss me about …’

A good offence was usually the best defence, but judging from Patrik’s ever-darkening expression it was absolutely the wrong way to go.

‘Did you take a report about a missing German tourist a week ago?’

Damn. He had totally forgotten about that. The little blonde girl had come in right before lunch, and he got rid of her in a hurry so he could be on his way and go eat. Most of those reports about missing friends never amounted to anything. Usually the person was dead drunk in some ditch, or else she’d gone home with some guy. Shit. He knew now that he was going to pay for this. He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t connected it with the girl they found yesterday, but hindsight was 20-20. The important thing was to minimize the damage.

‘Yes, well, I suppose I did.’

‘You suppose you did?’ Patrik’s usually calm voice resounded like thunder in the little room. ‘Either you took the report or you didn’t. There’s nothing in between. And if you did take it, where in the … where is it?’ Patrik was so furious that he was stumbling over his words. ‘Do you realize how much time this has cost the investigation?’

‘Well, it’s obviously unfortunate, but how was I supposed to know –’

‘You aren’t supposed to know, you’re supposed to do what you’re assigned to do! I hope I never hear about something like this again. Right now we have precious hours to make up.’

‘Is there anything I can …’ Ernst made his voice as submissive as he could and tried to look contrite. Inside, he was cursing at being addressed like a whippersnapper, but since Hedström now seemed to have Mellberg’s ear it would be stupid to aggravate the situation any further.