Читать книгу The Girl in the Woods - Camilla Lackberg - Страница 17

Only twenty more to go.

James Jensen was hardly out of breath as he did the next push-up. The same routine every morning, in summer as well as winter. On Christmas Eve and on Midsummer Eve. These sorts of things had meaning. Routines had meaning. Consistency. Order.

Ten left.

Helen’s father had understood the meaning of routines. James still missed KG, although the feeling was a form of weakness he normally didn’t allow himself. KG had suffered a heart attack almost ten years ago, and no one had ever been able to take his place.

The last one. James got up after his hundred push-ups. A long life spent in the military had taught him the value of being in top physical condition.

James glanced at his watch: 08.01. He was behind schedule. When he was home he always had breakfast at eight o’clock sharp.

‘Breakfast is ready!’ called Helen, as if she’d read his mind.

James frowned. The fact she was calling him meant she’d noticed he was late.

He used a towel to dry off the sweat, then left the deck and went into the living room. The kitchen was right next door, and he could smell bacon cooking. He always ate the same breakfast. Scrambled eggs and bacon.

‘Where’s Sam?’ he asked as he sat down and started in on the eggs.

‘He’s still sleeping,’ said Helen as she served him the bacon, which was perfectly crisp.

‘It’s eight o’clock and he’s still asleep?’

Annoyance crept over him, as it always did when he thought about Sam. Sleeping past eight in the morning? He’d always been up by six in the summertime, and then he’d worked until late in the evening.

‘Go wake him,’ he said, taking a swig of coffee, but the next instant he spat it out. ‘What the hell? No milk?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Helen, taking the cup from his hand.

She poured the coffee into the sink, refilled it, and added a dash of whole milk.

Now it tasted the way it should.

Helen hurried out of the kitchen. He could hear her rushing up the stairs, followed by a murmur of voices.

His annoyance returned. The same annoyance he felt when he was deployed with a unit and one or more of the soldiers tried to downplay or avoid situations out of fear. He couldn’t understand that kind of behaviour. If a man chose to join the military, especially in a country like Sweden where it was completely voluntary to deploy to a war zone in another country, then he should do the job he’d been assigned. Fear was something you left at home.

‘Where’s the fire?’ grumbled Sam as he came sauntering into the kitchen, his black hair standing on end. ‘Why do I have to get up at this hour of the morning?’

James clenched his fists under the table.

‘In this house we don’t sleep away the day,’ he said.

‘But I couldn’t find a summer job, so what the hell am I supposed to do?’

‘No swearing!’

Both Helen and Sam flinched. For a moment anger made everything go black before his eyes, and James forced himself to take several deep breaths. He had to maintain control, both over himself and over his family.

‘At nine hundred hours we’ll meet out back for target practice.’

‘Okay,’ said Sam, looking down at the table.

Behind him Helen was still cringing.

They’d been walking all night. Harald was so tired he could hardly see straight, but he had no intention of going home. That would mean giving up. Whenever the fatigue got the better of him, he’d returned to the farm for a short break to warm up and drink some coffee. Each time he’d found Eva Berg sitting mutely in the kitchen, her face grey with worry. That was enough for him to go back out to rejoin the search party.

He wondered whether the others knew who he was. And what role he’d played thirty years ago. He was the one who had found the other little girl. People who had lived in Fjällbacka back then knew about it, of course, but he didn’t think Eva and Peter did. At least, he hoped not.

When they were assigned search areas, he had deliberately chosen the area with the lake where he’d found Stella. And that was the first place he’d gone to search. The small lake had dried up long ago, leaving behind only a patch of wooded land. But the old tree trunk was still there. The huge tree had clearly withstood a good deal of wind and weather, and it looked more brittle and drier than thirty years earlier. But he found no little girl lying there. He caught himself heaving a sigh of relief.

The search party had regrouped several times during the night. Some people had gone home to get a few hours’ sleep, then come back and joined different groups. New volunteers had also arrived as the summer night gave way to morning. Those who had not gone home to rest included the men and boys from the refugee centre. Harald had chatted with them as they searched. They spoke in halting Swedish while he tried out his halting English. But somehow they’d managed to communicate.

He was now part of a small group that included the man who had introduced himself as Karim, and Johannes Klingsby, a local builder whom Harald had hired whenever he needed renovations done at the bakery. They were moving slowly and resolutely through the woods as the sun broke through and the day brightened. The police officers in charge of the search had reminded them several times during the night not to hurry. It was best to make their way forward carefully and methodically.

‘We’ve been searching this area all night,’ said Johannes. ‘She can’t have gone this far.’

He threw out his hands.

‘Last time we spent twenty-four hours searching,’ said Harald.

Once again he pictured Stella’s body in his mind.

‘What?’ asked Karim in English, shaking his head. It was hard for him to understand Harald’s broad Bohuslän accent.

‘Harald was the one who found the dead girl in the woods, thirty years ago,’ Johannes explained in English.

‘Dead girl?’ said Karim, stopping. ‘Here?’

‘Yes. Four years old, same as this girl.’

Johannes held up four fingers.

Karim looked at Harald, who nodded quietly.

‘Yes. It was right over here. But there was water back then.’

He was ashamed of his poor English, but Karim nodded.

‘There,’ said Harald, pointing at the tree trunk. ‘It was not a big lake, it was a … the Swedish word is “tjärn”.’

‘A small lake, more like a pond,’ Johannes chimed in.

‘Yes, yes. A pond,’ said Harald. ‘A pond over there by that tree, and the girl was dead.’

Karim slowly walked towards the tree. He squatted down and placed his hand on the trunk. When he turned to look at the other men, his face was so pale that Harald took a step back.

‘Something is under the tree. I can see a hand. A small hand.’

Harald staggered back another step. Johannes leaned over a bush, and they soon heard him sobbing. Harald met Karim’s eye and saw a reflection of his own despair. They needed to call the police.

Marie held the script on her lap as she tried to learn her lines for the upcoming scene, but she couldn’t concentrate. The scene was going to be filmed indoors, in the big industrial warehouse in Tanumshede. Inside, they’d constructed a number of sets, almost like mini-worlds, ready for the actors to enter. For the most part, the rest of the filming would be done on location, on the island of Dannholmen. Ingrid Bergman had spent a great deal of time on the island when she was married to the theatre director Lars Schmidt. She’d carried on visiting Dannholmen long after she and Lars were divorced.

Marie stretched out her arms and shook her head. She wanted to be rid of all the thoughts that had started haunting her when people began talking about the missing girl. All those memories of a laughing Stella running ahead of her and Helen.

Marie sighed. She was here now, about to play her dream role. This was what she’d been working towards for so many years; it was the thing that had kept her going after the roles in Hollywood dried up. She’d earned this part, and she was a good actress. It didn’t take much effort for her to immerse herself in a role, pretending to be someone else; after all, she’d had plenty of practice, ever since she was a child. Lying or acting – there was so little difference between the two. She’d learned to master both early on.

If only she could stop thinking about Stella.

‘How does my hair look?’ she asked Yvonne.

The make-up artist approached nervously and came to such an abrupt halt she almost stumbled. She surveyed Marie from head to toe, then removed a comb stuck in the bun at the nape of her neck and smoothed a few stray strands of hair. She handed Marie a mirror and waited for her to inspect the results.

‘It looks fine,’ said Marie, and the tense, anxious look on Yvonne’s face vanished.

Marie turned towards the designated wardrobe area where Jörgen was arguing with Sixten, who was in charge of lighting.

‘Are you ready for me yet?’ she asked.

‘Give us another fifteen minutes!’ called Jörgen.

His frustration was obvious in his voice. Marie knew why. Delays cost money.

Once again she wondered how things were going with the finance for the film. This wasn’t the first time she’d worked on a film that started shooting before the money was in place, and on those previous occasions the plug had been pulled on the entire production. Nothing was certain until they passed the point when the film had already cost so much that it wouldn’t be feasible to stop. But they weren’t there yet.

‘Excuse me, but could I ask you a few questions while you’re waiting?’

Marie looked up from her script. A man in his thirties was looking at her with a big smile on his face. Obviously a reporter. Normally, she would never agree to an interview that hadn’t been scheduled in advance, but his skin-tight T-shirt showed off well-toned muscles that made her reluctant to dismiss him out of hand.

‘Sure, ask away. I’m only sitting here waiting.’

Thankfully, Ingrid had always been stylish, so the shirt she was wearing for today’s scene was particularly flattering.

The guy with the six-pack introduced himself as Axel, a reporter from Bohusläningen. He began with several banal questions about the film and her career before he got to what was clearly the purpose of the interview. Marie leaned back and crossed her long legs. The past had served her career well.

‘So how does it feel to be back here? Oh, I almost said “back at the scene of the crime”, but let’s call that a Freudian slip. Because you and Helen have always maintained your innocence.’

‘We were innocent,’ said Marie, noting with satisfaction that the young reporter couldn’t stop staring at her décolletage.

‘Even after you were found guilty of the crime?’ said Axel, making an effort to tear his gaze away from her chest.

‘We were children and completely incapable of committing such a crime, even though we were charged and convicted. Witch hunts still go on, even in this day and age.’

‘So what was it like for you, in the years that followed?’

Marie tossed her head. She would never be able to describe those years to him. He’d probably grown up with two perfect parents who helped him with everything, and he now lived with a significant other and their kids. She glanced at his left hand. A wife, not a significant other, she corrected herself.

‘It was … educational,’ she said. ‘I plan to write about it in detail in my memoirs some day. It’s not something I can describe in a few sentences.’

‘Since you mention your memoirs, I’ve heard that the local author, Erica Falck, is planning to write a book about the murder and about you and Helen. Are you cooperating with her? And have you and Helen approved the book?’

Marie hesitated before answering. Erica had contacted her, but she was in negotiations with one of the big book publishers in Stockholm regarding her own version of the story.

‘I haven’t yet decided whether to cooperate,’ she said, signalling that she had no intention of answering any more questions on that topic.

Axel took the hint and changed the subject.

‘I assume you’ve heard about the little girl who’s been missing since yesterday? From the same farm where Stella was living when she disappeared.’

‘A strange coincidence, but no more than that. The girl probably just got lost somewhere.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Axel.

He glanced down at his notebook, but at that moment Jörgen motioned for Marie. PR was great, but right now she wanted to go into the Dannholmen living room set and put on a brilliant performance. She had to convince the backers that this film was going to be a hit.

She shook hands with Axel, holding his hand a little longer than necessary as she thanked him for the interview. She began walking towards Jörgen and the rest of the team, but then stopped and turned around. Axel’s tape recorder was still rolling, and Marie leaned forward and in a hoarse voice spoke a few numbers into the microphone. She glanced at Axel.

‘That’s my phone number.’

Then she turned away and stepped into the 1970s, entering the set of the windswept island that had been Ingrid Bergman’s paradise on earth.

As soon as Patrik took the call from an unknown number, he knew this would be the news they’d been dreading. He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, then motioned to Gösta and Mellberg who were standing a short distance away talking to the dog handlers.

‘Yes, I know where it is,’ he said. ‘Don’t touch a thing. Not a thing. Wait there until we arrive.’

By the time he ended the call, Mellberg and Gösta had joined him. There was no need to say a word. One look at his expression told them all they needed to know.

‘Where is she?’ Gösta asked.

His eyes were fixed on the farmhouse where Nea’s mother was standing in the kitchen making more coffee.

‘The same place where the other girl was found.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Mellberg.

‘But we already searched that area. Several groups have searched it,’ said Gösta with a frown. ‘How could they have missed her?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Patrik. ‘That was Harald on the phone – the man who owns Zetterlind bakery. It was his group that found her.’

‘The same guy who found Stella,’ said Gösta quietly.

Mellberg stared at him.

‘That’s quite a coincidence. What are the odds that the same person, after a thirty-year gap, would find a second murdered little girl?’

Gösta waved his hand dismissively.

‘We checked him out the first time, but he had an airtight alibi. He had nothing to do with the murder.’ He looked at Patrik. ‘Because this is murder, right? Not an accident? Considering that she was found at the same spot, it seems more than likely we’re talking about murder.’

Patrik nodded.

‘We’ll need to wait and see what the techs say, but Harald said she was naked.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Mellberg again, his face turning pale.

Patrik took a deep breath. The morning sun had begun its climb upward, and the temperature had already risen so much that his shirt was sticking to his body with sweat.

‘I suggest we split up. I’ll go and meet Harald at the site where the girl was found. His group is waiting there. I’ll take some crime scene tape with me and cordon off the area. Bertil, ring Torbjörn in Uddevalla and ask him to come out here as fast as possible with a forensic team. When the search parties get back here, tell them the search has been called off. We don’t want any volunteers going out searching again. And tell the dog handlers and the helicopter pilots they can stop looking. Gösta, could you …’

Patrik fell silent, giving his colleague a troubled look.

Gösta nodded.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said.

Patrik didn’t envy him the task. But it was only logical for him to ask Gösta to do it. He’d had the most contact with Nea’s parents, and Patrik knew he would be able to deal with the situation.

‘And ring the pastor too,’ said Patrik. Then he turned to Mellberg. ‘Bertil, go get Nea’s father as soon as he comes back with his group, so he doesn’t hear the news before Gösta has a chance to speak to him.’

‘That won’t be easy,’ said Mellberg, grimacing.

Beads of sweat had formed on his upper lip.

‘I know. The news is going to spread like wildfire, but do your best.’

Mellberg nodded. Patrik left his colleagues and headed for the woods. He still couldn’t understand it. The place where Stella had been found thirty years ago had been the first location they’d searched. Yet somehow they had missed her.

After walking for ten minutes he caught sight of the three men who were waiting for him. In addition to Harald, there were two younger men, one of whom looked like a foreigner. Patrik shook hands and greeted them. Not one of them wanted to meet his eye.

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘Under the big tree trunk over there,’ said Harald, pointing. ‘That’s why we didn’t see her at first. There’s a hollow space underneath, and someone stuffed her body into it. You can only see her if you go close and move the tree trunk.’

Patrik nodded. That explained it. But he cursed himself for not giving the order to search the area more thoroughly.

‘You know she’s back, right? For the first time since she was sent away.’

Patrik didn’t have to ask who Harald meant. Everybody in town was aware of Marie Wall’s return, especially since she’d come back under such dramatic circumstances.

‘Yes, we know,’ he said without speculating any further about what her return might mean.

But the thought had already occurred to him. It was certainly a strange coincidence, to say the least: no sooner had Marie returned than another little girl from the same farm turned up murdered, in the exact same spot where Stella was found.

‘I’m going to cordon off the area, and in a while our forensics team will inspect the crime scene.’

He set down the bag he was carrying and took out two big rolls of blue-and-white police tape.

‘Should we go back?’ asked the younger man, who’d introduced himself as Johannes.

‘No, I’d like all of you to stay. Try not to move around too much. The techs will want to examine your clothing and shoes, since you’ve been walking around the crime scene.’

The man who seemed to be a foreigner looked puzzled. Harald turned to him and said in halting English:

‘We stay here. Okay, Karim?’

‘Okay,’ said the man with a nod. Patrik realized he was one of the men Rolf had brought from the refugee centre.

No one spoke for a few minutes. They were all struck by the surreal contrast between the reason for their presence and the idyllic surroundings. The birds carried on chirping merrily, as if nothing had happened, as if the dead body of a four-year-old girl wasn’t lying just metres away. The birdsong was accompanied by the rustle of the gentle breeze in the treetops. At this time of day, with the sun’s rays penetrating the trees to light the glade where they stood, it was heartbreakingly beautiful. Patrik’s gaze settled on a patch of chanterelles. Under normal circumstances, his heart would have leapt with excitement at the prospect of harvesting a few to take home. But right now picking mushrooms was the furthest thing from his mind.

Patrik began unwinding the tape. The only thing he could do for the little girl was to carry out his job to the best of his ability. So he worked in silence, and tried to avoid looking at the tree trunk.

Eva was standing at the sink, rinsing out the coffee pot. She’d lost count of how many pots she’d made during the night. The sound of someone quietly clearing his throat made her turn around. When she saw the look in Gösta’s eyes and his tense posture, the coffee pot slipped out of her grasp. The sound of breaking glass was instantly followed by a scream that sounded so close, yet so far away. A scream of grief and loss beyond all comprehension.

The scream came from her own lips.

She fell into Gösta’s arms. His hold on her was the only thing keeping her from collapsing. She gasped for breath as Gösta stroked her hair. She wished Nea was here, laughing as she ran around the room. She wished Nea had never been born, wished she’d never produced a child who would then be taken from her.

Now all was lost. Everything had died with Nea.

‘I’ve notified the pastor,’ said Gösta, leading her over to a kitchen chair.

He must see how broken I am inside, thought Eva, since he’s treating me so carefully.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, genuinely confused.

What could a pastor do for her now? She’d never had a strong religious faith. And a child should be with her parents, not with some god up in heaven. What could a pastor say that she and Peter would find the least bit consoling?

‘Peter?’ she said, her voice sounding parched and brittle.

Even her voice had died with Nea.

‘They’re looking for him. He’ll be here soon.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t tell him.’

Let him stay out there in the woods, she thought. Let him still have hope. Peter was the only one left now. She had died with Nea.

‘He has to be told, Eva,’ said Gösta, putting his arm around her again. ‘There’s no way to avoid it.’

Eva nodded as she leaned against Gösta. Of course Peter couldn’t keep wandering through the woods like some kind of forest creature. They had to tell him, even though that would mean he too would die.

She pulled away from Gösta and leaned forward to lay her head on the table. She’d been awake for twenty-four hours. Hope and fear had kept her going. Now all she wanted was to sleep and escape everything. Pretend it was all a bad dream. Her body relaxed, the wooden tabletop felt as soft as a pillow under her cheek. She slipped further and further away. A warm hand was cautiously patting her back. Warmth spread through her body.

Then someone came in the front door. She didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to see Peter standing there. But Gösta gave her shoulder a squeeze, and she had to do it. She looked up and met Peter’s gaze, which was just as shattered as her own.