Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1-3: The Ice Princess, The Preacher, The Stonecutter
Annika, assiduous as always, had apparently kept digging for old articles and items mentioning the family, and then placed the papers neatly in the stack on Patrik’s desk. He worked methodically, refreshing his memory by turning over the stack and working up from the bottom so that he first read the articles he’d read before. Two hours later, there was nothing that had set his imagination in motion. Despite a strong feeling that he was missing something, it still seemed to elude him.
The first really interesting new information came a good way down in the pile. Annika had inserted an article about a case of arson in Bullaren, about thirty miles from Fjällbacka. The article was dated 1975 and had been given almost a whole page in Bohusläningen. The house had burned down the night of the sixth of July 1975 in an explosion-like event. When the fire was extinguished there was almost nothing left of the house except ashes, but the remains of two human bodies had been found. The bodies turned out to be Stig and Elisabeth Norin, the couple who owned the house. Miraculously their ten-year-old son had managed to escape the fire. He was discovered in one of the outbuildings. The circumstances surrounding the fire were considered suspicious according to Bohusläningen, and the police called it arson.
The article was fastened with a paper-clip to a folder, and inside Patrik found the police report. He was still perplexed at what the article had to do with the Lorentz family until he opened the folder and saw the name of the Norins’ ten-year-old son. The boy was named Jan. The folder also contained a report from social services in which his foster-home placement with the Lorentz family was mentioned. Patrik gave a low whistle. It was still uncertain what this might have to do with Alex’s death, or with the murder of Anders for that matter, but something began to stir at the edges of Patrik’s consciousness. Shadows which faded and dissolved as soon as he tried to focus on them, but which indicated that he was on the right track. He made a mental note about this and then continued his laborious scrutiny of the material on his desk.
His notebook was slowly filling up. His handwriting was so sprawling that Karin always teased him that he should have been a teacher instead, but he could read it all right, and that was the main thing. Some to-do items took shape, but most dominant among the notes were all the questions that the material had generated, marked with big black question marks. Who was Alex waiting for when she made the fancy dinner? Who was the man she was meeting in secret? And whose child was she expecting? Could it be Anders’s, even though he had denied it? Or was there someone they hadn’t yet managed to identify? Why would a woman like Alex, with her looks, class and money, have an affair with someone like Anders? Why had Alex saved an article about Nils Lorentz’s disappearance in a bureau drawer?
The list of questions grew longer and longer. Patrik was on the third page before he got into the matter of Anders’s death. The stack of paper on Anders was much smaller so far. But the documents would start piling up soon enough. For the moment there were only about ten documents, including the one confiscated during the search of Anders’s flat. The biggest question concerning Anders was the way he had died. Patrik underlined this question several times with furious black strokes. How did the killer or killers lift Anders up to the hook in the ceiling? The autopsy would provide more answers, but from what Patrik had seen there were no marks of a struggle on the body, precisely as Mellberg had pointed out at this morning’s run-through. Someone who is unconscious feels incredibly heavy, and Anders would have had to be lifted up a good distance for someone to fasten the rope to the hook.
He was actually leaning towards the possibility that Mellberg might be right for once – that more than one person had been on the scene. Although that didn’t seem to agree with what happened when Alex was killed. Yet Patrik could swear that it was the same killer they were looking for. After his initial doubt he was now more and more certain that this was true.
He looked at the papers they’d found in Anders’s flat and fanned them out in front of him on the desk. Stuck between his teeth he had a pencil that he had chewed beyond recognition. His mouth felt full of yellow flakes from the pencil. He spat out a few and tried to pick the rest of the flakes from his tongue. It was no use. Now they were stuck to his fingers instead. He flicked them a couple of times to try to dislodge them but gave up and turned his attention back to the papers fanned out on his desk. None of the pages seemed to arouse his interest, so he picked up Telia’s telephone bill as a starting point. Anders made very few calls, but with all the fixed charges the total was still rather high. The details were still attached to the phone bill, and Patrik sighed when he realized that now he would have to do a little old-fashioned legwork. Even though he didn’t think this was the right day for boring, routine tasks.
He systematically rang one number after another on the list. He soon saw that Anders only called very few numbers. But one number stood out. It didn’t appear at all near the top of the list, but after it popped up the first time, it was the most frequently occurring number. Patrik dialled the number and let it ring.
He was just about to hang up after eight rings when he heard an answering machine switch on. The name at the other end made him sit bolt upright in his chair, which made his thigh muscles stretch painfully because he had propped his legs on his desk. He swung his legs to the floor and massaged a tight muscle on the inside of his right thigh.
Patrik replaced the receiver before the beep ended, indicating that one could leave a message. He drew a circle round one of the notes on his notepad, and after thinking for a moment he placed another call. One task he wanted to deal with himself, but the other he could leave for Annika. With his notes in hand he went into her office. She was typing intently on her keyboard, with her computer glasses perched on the end of her nose. She gave him a questioning look.
‘You’re coming to offer your help, to lighten my unreasonably heavy workload, right?’
‘Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’ Patrik grinned.
‘No, I didn’t think so.’ Annika gave Patrik a feigned look of exasperation. ‘So, what does this have to do with my incipient ulcer?’
‘Just one very tiny request.’ Patrik indicated how small it was by measuring a millimetre between his thumb and forefinger.
‘All right, let’s hear it.’
Patrik pulled up a chair and sat down at Annika’s desk. Her office, despite being extremely small, was without exception the most pleasant at the station. She had brought in lots of plants that seemed to be healthy and thriving. That ought to qualify as a minor miracle, since the only light in the room came through the window facing the foyer. The cold concrete walls were covered with pictures of Annika and her husband Lennart’s two grand passions, their dogs and drag racing. They had two black Labradors that were allowed to go along when Annika and Lennart drove around Sweden on weekends to wherever there happened to be drag races. Lennart was the one who actually competed, but Annika was always there to cheer him on and provide a bag lunch and a thermos of coffee. Basically, it was always the same people they met at the races, and over the years they had formed a tightly knit group. They all considered each other the closest of friends. At least two weekends each month there were races, and persuading Annika to work on those days was hopeless.
He looked down at his notes.
‘Well, I was wondering if you could help me do a little inventory of Alexandra Wijkner’s life. Starting with her death and double-checking the chronology backwards in all the data we received. How long she was married to Henrik. How long she had lived in Sweden. Check her information about the schools in France and Switzerland, et cetera, et cetera. Do you understand what I’m looking for?’
Annika had taken notes on a pad as he talked and now looked up with an affirmative glance. He felt quite sure that she would find out everything worth knowing. Above all, she would find out if some of the information he had received wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Because there had to be something that didn’t add up, he was absolutely sure of that.
‘Thanks for the help, Annika. You’re a gem.’
Patrik began to get up from the chair, but a brusque ‘Sit!’ from Annika made him freeze and sink back onto the chair cushion. He understood at once why her Labradors were so well trained.
She leaned