Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1-3: The Ice Princess, The Preacher, The Stonecutter
The ride to Tanumshede took no more than twenty minutes. They chatted about the weather and the gradual depopulation of the countryside. Anything other than the reason for their imminent visit to the police station.
Erica sat in the back seat and wondered what she was doing there. Didn’t she have enough of her own problems without getting involved in a murder, if that was what it turned out to be? That would also mean that her book idea was as good as worthless. She had already managed to outline a first draft, and now she might just as well toss the pages in the wastebasket. Oh well, at least it would force her to focus completely on the biography. Although with some small changes it might work out yet. In fact it might even be better. The murder angle could be a real plus.
She suddenly realized what she was sitting and doing. Alex was not some made-up character in a book that she could twist and turn however she wished. She was a real person who was loved by real people. Erica had loved Alex too. She looked at Henrik in the rear-view mirror. He looked just as unmoved as before, despite the fact that in a few minutes he might be informed that his wife had been murdered. Wasn’t it true that most murders were committed by someone within the victim’s own family? Once again she was ashamed by her thoughts. With an effort she pushed aside that train of thought and saw with gratitude that they were finally there. Now she just wanted to get this over with so that she could go back to her comparatively trivial concerns.
The stacks of paper had grown to imposing heights on his desk. It was astonishing how a small community like Tanum could generate so many crime reports. Mostly petty matters, to be sure, but each report had to be investigated, and that’s why he sat here with administrative duties worthy of an eastern European bureaucracy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mellberg helped out, instead of sitting on his fat arse all day long. But he had to do the boss’s work too. Patrik Hedström sighed. Without a certain gallows humour, he would never have survived this long. Lately he’d begun to wonder whether this was really all there was to life.
The big event of the day would be a welcome interruption in the daily routine. Mellberg had asked him to sit in on the interview with the mother and husband of the woman who was found murdered in Fjällbacka. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the tragedy in the whole thing, or didn’t feel for the victim’s family. It was just that nothing exciting ever really happened in his job, and he couldn’t help feeling a tingle of anticipation in his body.
At the police academy they had been trained in interview situations, but so far he’d only had a chance to try out his talents in that area in connection with stolen bicycles and domestic abuse. Patrik looked at the clock. Time to go over to Mellberg’s office where the conversation would take place. Technically it wasn’t a matter of an official interview yet, but today’s meeting was nonetheless important. He had heard through the grapevine that the mother kept claiming that the daughter couldn’t possibly have killed herself. He was curious to hear what lay behind this claim, which had now turned out to be correct.
He gathered up his notebook, a pen and a coffee cup and went down the corridor. With his hands full he had to use his elbows and feet to get the door open, so it wasn’t until he put down his things and turned to face the room that he caught sight of her. His heart skipped a beat. He was ten years old again and trying to pull her pigtails. A second later, he was fifteen and trying to talk her into hopping onto his moped and going for a ride. He was twenty and had given up hope when she moved to Göteborg. After a quick mental calculation, he reckoned that it was at least six years ago since he had last seen her. She looked just the same. Tall and curvy, with hair curling to her shoulders in several shades of blonde that blended to a warm shade. Even as a little girl Erica had been vain, and he could see that she still placed great emphasis on the details of her appearance. Her face lit up with surprise when she saw him. But Mellberg was giving him a stern look to sit down, so he merely mimed a silent hello.
It was a tense group of people sitting before him. Alexandra Wijkner’s mother was small and thin, with too much heavy gold jewellery for his taste. She was perfectly coiffed and extremely well-dressed but looked the worse for wear with dark circles under her eyes. Her son-in-law showed no such signs of grief. Patrik glanced through his background information. Henrik Wijkner, successful businessman in Göteborg and heir to a considerable fortune going back several generations. And it showed. Not because of the obviously expensive quality of his clothes or the scent of fancy aftershave that hovered in the room; it was something less definable. A self-confident assurance that he was entitled to a prominent place in the world, which came from never having lacked any advantages in life. Although Henrik looked tense, Patrik could tell that he always felt he had control of the situation.
Mellberg loomed behind his desk. He had actually managed to stuff his shirt into his trousers, but splotches of coffee stained the motley pattern of his shirt. As he observed each of the participants in deliberate silence, his right hand straightened his comb-over, which had slipped too far down on one side. Patrik was trying not to look at Erica. Instead he concentrated on one of Mellberg’s coffee stains.
‘So. You are probably aware of why I called you here.’ Mellberg made a long pause, for effect. ‘I am Superintendent Bertil Mellberg, chief of Tanumshede police station, and this is Patrik Hedström, who will be assisting me during this investigation.’
He nodded at Patrik, who was sitting a bit outside the semicircle formed by Erica, Henrik and Birgit in front of Mellberg’s desk.
‘Investigation? She was murdered, for God’s sake!’ Birgit leaned forward in her chair, and Henrik quickly put a protective arm round her shoulders.
‘Yes, we have confirmation that your daughter could not have taken her own life. Suicide can be definitively ruled out, according to the medical examiner’s report. Of course, I can’t go into the details of the investigation, but the main reason we know she was murdered is that, at the time her wrists were slashed, she could not have been conscious. We found a large amount of sedative in her blood. While she was unconscious, some person or persons apparently first put her in the bathtub, filled it with water, and then slashed her wrists with a razor blade to try and make it look like suicide.’
The curtains in the office were drawn against the sharp midday sun. The mood in the room was double-edged. Gloom was mixed with Birgit’s obvious relief that Alex had not committed suicide.
‘Do you know who did it?’ Birgit had taken out a small embroidered handkerchief from her handbag and carefully dried the corners of her eyes so as not to ruin her make-up.
Mellberg clasped his hands over his voluminous paunch and fixed his eyes on the people in front of him. He cleared his throat with authority.
‘Perhaps the two of you might tell me that.’
‘Us?’ Henrik’s surprise sounded genuine. ‘How would we know that? This must be the work of a madman. Alexandra didn’t have any enemies.’
‘So you say.’
Patrik thought for an instant that a shadow passed across the face of Alex’s husband. The next second it was gone, and Henrik was again his calm and controlled self.
Patrik had always harboured a healthy scepticism about men like Henrik Wijkner. Men who were born to succeed. Who had everything without ever having to lift a finger. Naturally Henrik seemed both pleasant and charming, but under the surface Patrik could sense currents that hinted at a more complex personality. He glimpsed ruthlessness behind the handsome features, and he wondered about the total lack of surprise on Henrik’s face when Mellberg revealed that Alex had been murdered. Believing something is one thing, but hearing it stated as fact is quite another. That much he had learned in his ten years as a cop.
‘Are we suspects?’ Birgit looked as astounded as if the superintendent had changed into a pumpkin right before her eyes.
‘The statistics speak for themselves in cases of murder. The great majority of perpetrators is usually found among the close family members. Now I’m not saying that’s true in this case, but I’m sure you understand that we have to be quite certain. No stone will be left unturned, I can personally vouch for that. With my broad experience in murder cases’ – another dramatic pause – ‘this