Buried Angels (27 page)

When she heard Tobias’s voice from downstairs, she froze.

‘Ebba?’

‘I’m upstairs!’

‘Do you need anything from the cellar?’

Ebba went out to the landing to answer him. ‘A can of white paint. Thanks. Anna is here.’

‘I know. I saw her boat,’ Tobias replied. ‘I’ll go and get the paint. How about making some coffee for us?’

‘Okay.’ Ebba went back in the room and said to Anna, ‘Would you like to take a break?’

‘Sure,’ Anna replied, folding up the measuring tape.

‘You can keep working for a while. I’ll give you a shout when the coffee is ready.’

‘Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks.’ Anna unfolded the measuring tape again and continued jotting down the measurements on a sketch that she’d made. This would make the task of choosing the decor much easier.

She focused on the job, vaguely conscious of Ebba pottering about in the kitchen downstairs. A cup of coffee would be welcome about now, preferably sitting in the shade. The heat upstairs was starting to get unbearable, and her shirt was sticking to her back.

Suddenly she heard a loud bang followed by a shrill scream. The unexpected sounds made Anna jump, and she dropped the measuring tape. Then there was another bang, and without thinking she ran downstairs, moving so fast that she almost slipped on the worn steps.

‘Ebba?’ she yelled, racing for the kitchen.

In the doorway she stopped in her tracks. The window overlooking the back of the house had shattered, and shards of broken glass were strewn all over the room. Ebba was huddled on the floor in front of the stove, arms wrapped around her head. She had stopped screaming, but her breathing was ragged.

Anna dashed into the kitchen, glass crunching under her feet. She put her arms around Ebba, trying to see whether she was injured, but there didn’t seem to be any blood. Next she scanned the room to see what could have broken the window. When her gaze fell on the far wall of the kitchen, she gasped. Two bullet holes were clearly visible in the wall.

‘Ebba? What the hell was that?’ Tobias came rushing up the cellar steps and into the kitchen. ‘What happened?’

His eyes went from Ebba to the window, and then he was at his wife’s side.

‘Are you hurt? She’s not hurt, is she?’ He reached for Ebba and knelt cradling her in his arms.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Anna. ‘But it looks as though someone tried to shoot her.’

Anna’s heart was racing, and she suddenly realized that they could all be in danger. Was the shooter still outside?

‘We have to get away from here,’ she said, motioning towards the broken window.

Tobias immediately understood what she was getting at.

‘Don’t stand up, Ebba. We need to stay away from the window.’ He spoke slowly, as if addressing a child.

Ebba nodded and did as he said. Crouching low, they dashed for the front hall. Anna cast a terrified glance at the door. What if the shooter came in, stepped across the threshold and shot them all? Tobias saw her expression and threw himself at the door, turning the lock.

‘Is there any other way for someone to get in?’ she asked him, her heart still hammering.

‘The cellar door, but it’s locked.’

‘What about the kitchen window? The glass is completely gone now.’

‘It’s too high up,’ he said, sounding calmer than he looked.

‘I’m calling the police.’ Anna reached for her handbag, which lay on a shelf in the hall. Her hands shook as she got out her mobile. As she listened to the phone ringing, she watched Tobias and Ebba. They were sitting on the stairs. Tobias had his arm around his wife, and Ebba was leaning her head on his chest.

‘Hi there. Where did you get to?’

Erica jumped with fright when she heard a voice coming from inside the house.

‘Kristina?’ She stared at her mother-in-law, who had come out of the kitchen with a dishrag in her hand.

‘I let myself in. It was lucky that I still had a key from when I watered your flowers while you were on Mallorca, otherwise I would have driven all the way out here from Tanumshede for nothing,’ she said cheerfully and then headed back to the kitchen.

You could have phoned ahead to ask if it was convenient for you to visit, thought Erica. She pulled off the children’s shoes, took a deep breath, and went into the kitchen.

‘I thought I’d drop by and help out for a couple of hours. It’s obvious you could use a hand. In my day, the house would never have got in this state. There’s no telling who might come over for a visit, and you wouldn’t want them to see your house like this,’ said Kristina, energetically wiping the sink.

‘It’s true. You never know when the king might drop by for a cup of coffee,’ snapped Erica.

Kristina turned, eyebrows raised in astonishment. ‘The king? Why would the king come here?’

Erica clenched her teeth so hard that her jaw hurt, but she didn’t say a word. Silence was often the best response.

‘Well, where have you been?’ Kristina asked again as she ran the dishrag over the kitchen table.

‘In Uddevalla.’

‘You put the kids in the car and drove all the way to Uddevalla and back? My poor sweet darlings. Why didn’t you ring me? I would have come over and stayed with them. Of course I’d have had to cancel my morning coffee with Görel, but I’d do anything for my children and grandchildren. That’s my lot in life. You’ll understand it better when you get older and your children are bigger.’

She paused for effect before going back to rubbing at a spot of marmalade that had congealed on the oilcloth covering the table.

‘There’ll come a day I won’t be able to help out any more,’ Kristina went on. ‘It could happen at any time. I’m over seventy now, and I don’t know how long my energy will last.’

Erica nodded and forced a grateful smile.

‘Have the children had anything to eat?’ asked Kristina, and Erica gave a start. She’d forgotten to feed the kids. They were probably starving, but no way was she going to admit this to her mother-in-law.

‘We stopped for sausages on the way there. But I’m sure they’re ready for lunch by now.’

She strode resolutely over to the fridge to see what she could make. The fastest would be cornflakes and yogurt, so she set the yogurt on the table and took a box of Frosties out of the cupboard.

Kristina let out a sigh of dismay. ‘In my day, we would never have dreamed of giving children anything but a properly cooked lunch. Patrik and Lotta never ate processed foods, and look how healthy they are. The basis for good health is proper food – that’s what I’ve always said, but nobody seems to listen to conventional wisdom these days. You young people think you know best, and everything has to be done fast.’ She had to pause to draw breath, and at that moment Maja appeared.

‘Mamma, I’m starving and Noel and Anton are too. My tummy is empty.’ She ran her hand over her stomach, still pudgy with baby fat.

‘But you had a sausage when you were out driving in the car,’ said Kristina, patting Maja’s cheek.

‘No, we didn’t. We only had breakfast, and now I’m hungry. Really hungry!’

Erica glared at her little traitor. She could feel Kristina’s disapproving gaze on the back of her neck.

‘I could make them pancakes,’ said Kristina, and Maja started jumping up and down with joy.

‘Grandma’s pancakes! I want Grandma’s pancakes!’

‘Thank you,’ said Erica, putting the yogurt back in the fridge. ‘I’ll just go upstairs to change and check on something for my work.’

Kristina had turned away and was getting out the ingredients for her pancake batter. The pan was already on the stove, heating up.

‘You go ahead. I’ll see to it that these poor children get something to eat.’

Erica slowly counted to ten as she climbed the stairs. There wasn’t actually anything that she needed to check on, but she could use a little time to herself. Patrik’s mother meant well, but she knew exactly which buttons to press that would drive Erica crazy. Strangely enough, Patrik was not affected in the same way, and that irked Erica even more. Every time she tried to talk to him about Kristina, about some insensitive thing she had said or done, he would simply reply: ‘Oh, don’t let her get to you. Mamma can be a bit of a busy-body at times, but her intentions are good.’

Maybe that was how things always were between mothers and sons, and maybe some day she would be just as vexing a mother-in-law to the wives of Noel and Anton. But in her heart she didn’t think so. She was going to be the world’s best mother-in-law. Her sons’ wives would think of her as a friend, someone in whom they could confide. They would ask her and Patrik to go along on all of their trips, and she would help out with the kids, and if they had a lot to do at work, she would go over to their house and help with the cleaning and cooking. Most likely she’d have her own key and … Erica came to an abrupt halt. Perhaps, in spite of everything, it wasn’t so easy to be the perfect mother-in-law.

In the bedroom she changed into a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt. The white shirt was her favourite. She imagined that it made her look thinner. Her weight had fluctuated over the years, but she’d always been able to wear size 12. But for several years now, ever since Maja was born, she’d been forced to buy size 16. How had that happened? Patrik wasn’t any better. To say he was buff when they met would be an exaggeration, but his stomach had been flat. Now it bulged out quite a bit, and unfortunately she had to admit that she thought beer-bellies were not very attractive. It made her wonder whether he thought the same about her. She was a far cry from the slim young woman she’d been when they’d met.

She cast one last glance at herself in the full-length mirror, and then abruptly turned around. Something was different in here. She surveyed the room, trying to remember how everything had looked earlier that morning. It was hard to conjure up an image of that particular morning, but she could swear that something had changed. Had Kristina been up here? No, because she would have felt compelled to tidy up and make the bed, and that hadn’t happened. The bedclothes and pillows were all jumbled together, and the coverlet in a heap at the foot of the bed, as usual. Erica took another look around but then shrugged. It was probably just her imagination.

She went into her work room, turned on the computer, and pulled up the log-in screen. She stared at it in surprise. Somebody had tried to log in on her computer. After three failed attempts, it was now asking for an answer to one of her security questions: ‘What was the name of your first pet?’

With an eerie feeling she inspected her work room. Someone had definitely been in here. It might seem that there was no particular order to things in the apparent chaos, but she knew exactly where everything was, and now she could tell that stuff had been moved. But why? Were they searching for something? If so, what? She spent a while trying to work out whether anything was missing, but drew a blank.

‘Erica?’

Kristina was calling her from downstairs, and with the eerie feeling still in her body, she got up to find out what her mother-in-law wanted.

‘Yes?’ She leaned over the railing.

Kristina was standing in the front hall glaring at her reproachfully.

‘You need to remember to close the veranda door properly. It could have had disastrous consequences if I hadn’t happened to see Noel through the kitchen window. He was already outside and heading for the street. I managed to catch him, but you really can’t go leaving doors open when you have young children in the house. They take off faster than you can blink an eye!’

Erica was stunned. She had a clear recollection of closing the veranda door before they set off. After hesitating for a moment, she picked up the phone to ring Patrik. A second later she heard the ringtone of his mobile coming from the kitchen. He’d left his phone on the bench. So she ended the call.

Paula got up from the sofa with a groan. Lunch was ready, and even though the thought of food made her feel sick, she knew she needed to eat. Usually she loved her mother’s cooking, but she’d lost her appetite since the pregnancy. Given the choice, she would have subsisted on salty crackers and ice cream.

‘Here comes the hippo!’ said Mellberg, pulling out a chair for her.

She wasn’t in the mood to argue, and besides, she’d heard his joke countless times before. ‘What’s for lunch?’

‘Stew, cooked in an iron pot. It’s important for you to get enough iron,’ said Rita, dishing up an enormous portion and setting the plate in front of Paula.

‘Thanks for letting me have lunch with you. I just don’t feel like cooking lately. Especially when Johanna’s away at work.’

‘We’re glad to have you here, sweetie,’ said Rita, giving her daughter a smile.

Paula took a deep breath and then forced herself to take a bite. It seemed to swell in her mouth, but she stubbornly kept chewing. The baby needed nourishment.

‘How’s it going at work?’ she asked Mellberg. ‘Are you making any progress on the Valö case?’

Mellberg finished off his portion of stew before answering.

‘It’s moving along. I have to keep cracking the whip, of course, but that’s what gets results.’

‘What have you found out so far?’ asked Paula, knowing that in spite of being the police chief, Bertil probably wouldn’t have the answer.

‘Hmm …’ He looked confused. ‘Well, we haven’t quite pieced together the results yet.’

His mobile rang. Grateful for the interruption, he got up and took the call.

‘Mellberg here … Hi, Annika … So where the hell is Hedström? What about Gösta? Why can’t you get hold of them? … Valö? All right, I can … I said, I’d take care of it!’ He ended the call and muttered to himself as he headed for the front hall.

‘Where are you going? You haven’t cleared away the dishes,’ Rita called after him.

‘Important police business – a shooting out on Valö. I haven’t time for household chores.’

Paula was suddenly alert. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could manage.

‘Wait, Bertil! What did you say? Somebody got shot on Valö?’

‘I don’t know the details, but as I said to Annika, I’m heading out there to take care of it personally.’