The Preacher (12 page)

He walked up to the couple and hesitated a second before he cleared his throat to attract their attention. Both of them stopped what they were doing and turned.

‘Yes?’ Gun Struwer’s voice was a touch too shrill, and Patrik noticed a peevish expression on her face.

‘My name is Patrik Hedström and I’m with the police. Could I have a few words with you?’

‘At last!’ She raised her hands with the red-manicured nails and rolled her eyes. ‘To think that it would take so long. I don’t understand what our tax money is going for. All summer we’ve been reporting that people have been parking illegally in our parking spot, but we haven’t heard a peep from the police. Are you finally going to do something about this nuisance? We paid a lot of money for this house, and think we have the right to use our own parking place. But maybe that’s too much to ask!’

She put her hands on her hips and squinted at Patrik. Behind her stood her husband, looking as though he’d like to sink into the ground. Apparently he didn’t think the matter was quite so important.

‘Actually, I’m not here about a parking infraction,’ said Patrik. ‘But first I have to ask you: was your maiden name Gun Lantin? And do you have a daughter named Siv?’

Gun fell silent instantly and put her hand to her mouth. No other reply was necessary. Her husband was the first to gather his wits and accompanied Patrik to the front door, which was standing open. It seemed a bit risky to leave the bags out on the street, so Patrik grabbed two of them and helped Lars Struwer carry the luggage inside. Gun hurried into the house ahead of them.

They sat down in the living room, Gun and Lars next to each other on the sofa, while Patrik chose the easy chair. Gun was clinging to Lars, but his comforting pats seemed almost mechanical, something that he knew the situation required of him.

‘What’s happened? What have you found out? It’s been over twenty years. How can anything have come out so long afterwards?’ she babbled on nervously.

‘I have to emphasize that we don’t have a positive identification yet, but it’s possible that we may have found Siv.’

Gun’s hand flew up to her throat and for once she seemed speechless.

Patrik went on, ‘We’re still waiting for the medical examiner to make a positive identification, but it seems most likely that it’s Siv.’

‘But how, where … ?’ she stammered. The questions were the same ones that Mona’s father had asked.

‘A young woman was found dead in the King’s Cleft. The remains of two other victims were found with her. Mona Thernblad, and probably Siv.’

Just as he had explained to Albert Thernblad, Patrik told Gun that the girls had been transported to the site and that the police were now doing all they could to find out who could have committed the murders.

Gun leaned her face against her husband’s chest, but Patrik noticed that she was sobbing with dry eyes. He got the impression that her expressions of grief were largely play-acting, but it was just a hunch.

When Gun had pulled herself together she took a little hand mirror out of her purse and checked her make-up. Then she asked Patrik, ‘What happens now? When can we claim our poor little Siv’s remains?’ Without waiting for his reply she turned to her husband. ‘We have to have a proper funeral for my poor darling, Lars. We could have coffee and refreshments for the guests afterwards in the ballroom at the Grand Hotel. Perhaps even a three-course sit-down dinner. Do you think we should invite …’ She mentioned the name of one of the bigwigs in the business community. Patrik happened to know that he owned a house down the street.

Gun went on, ‘I ran into his wife at Eva’s early this summer, and she said we should really get together sometime. I know that they would appreciate being invited.’

An excited tone had crept into her voice, while a disapproving frown had appeared on her husband’s face. All at once Patrik recalled where he had heard their surname before. Lars Struwer was the founder of one of the biggest grocery chains in Sweden, but he’d been retired for many years, and the chain had been sold to a foreign company. No wonder that they could afford a house in this location. The guy was good for many, many millions. Siv’s mother had certainly moved up in the world since the late Seventies when she lived in a little summer cabin year-round with her daughter and granddaughter.

‘Dear, shouldn’t we worry about the practical matters later? You need some time to let the news sink in first.’

He gave her a reproachful glance and Gun lowered her eyes, remembering her role as grieving mother.

Patrik looked round the room. Despite the sad nature of his visit he had to stop himself from laughing. The place was a parody of the tourist homes that Erica liked to ridicule. The whole room was decorated like a sailboat cabin in a marine colour scheme, with navigational charts on the walls, lighthouse lamps, curtains with seashell patterns, and even an old rudder as a coffee table. A good example of the fact that a lot of money and good taste didn’t necessarily go hand in hand.

‘I wonder whether you could tell me a little about Siv. I’ve just been to visit Albert Thernblad, Mona’s father, and he showed me some photos from her childhood. Would it be possible to see a few pictures of your daughter?’

Unlike Albert, who had brightened up at the prospect of talking about the apple of his eye, Gun squirmed self-consciously on the sofa.

‘Well, I don’t really see what purpose that would serve. The police asked lots of questions about Siv when she disappeared. All that stuff is probably in the police archives …’

‘I know, but I was thinking a little more on the personal level. What sort of girl she was, what kind of things she liked, what she wanted to be, and so on.’

‘Wanted to be? That really wasn’t an issue. She got knocked up by that German boy when she was seventeen. After that I saw to it that she didn’t waste time on studies any more. By then it was too late anyway, and I certainly had no intention of taking care of her baby myself, that’s for sure.’

Her tone was scornful. Patrik saw Lars look at his wife, and he thought to himself that no matter what the man’s picture of Gun had been when they first married, there was not much left of his illusions. There was a weariness and resignation in Lars’s face, which was also marked by disappointment. It was obvious that the marriage had reached a point where Gun no longer made much effort to hide her true character. Lars may have felt that it was true love to begin with, but Patrik suspected that the attraction for Gun had been all those beautiful millions in Lars Struwer’s bank account.

‘What about Siv’s daughter? Where is she now?’ Patrik leaned forward, curious as to the answer.

Once again, crocodile tears. ‘After Siv disappeared I couldn’t take care of her by myself. I wanted to, of course, but times were a bit tough, and taking care of a little girl was simply out of the question. So I made the best of the situation and sent her to Germany, to her father. Well, he wasn’t very happy to have a kid descend on him out of the blue, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was the girl’s father, after all, and I had papers to prove it.’

‘So she lives in Germany today?’ A glimmer of an idea appeared in Patrik’s mind. Could it be that … ? No, that would be hard to believe.

‘No, she’s dead.’

The idea vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Dead?’

‘Yes, in a car crash when she was five. But the German didn’t bother to ring me with the news. I got a letter telling me that Malin had been killed. I wasn’t even invited to the funeral, can you imagine? My own granddaughter and I couldn’t go to her funeral.’ Her voice quavered with indignation.

‘He never answered the letters I wrote to him when the girl was alive. Don’t you think he should have helped out the grandmother of his poor motherless child a little? I was the one who saw to it that his kid had food on the table and clothes on her back the first two years of her life. Don’t you think I had the right to some compensation?’

Gun had now worked herself into a rage over the in justices she thought she’d been subjected to, and she didn’t calm down until Lars put a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a kind but firm squeeze, which was his way of admonishing her.

Patrik refrained from answering. He knew that any reply he made would not be appreciated by Gun Struwer. Why in the world did she think the child’s father should send her money? Couldn’t she see how unreasonable she was being? Apparently not. He saw her suntanned, leathery cheeks turn crimson with wrath, despite the fact that her daughter had now been dead for more than twenty years.

He made one last attempt to find out something personal about Siv. ‘Might there be some photographs?’

‘Well, I didn’t take that many pictures of her, but I should be able to find something.’

Gun left the room, leaving Patrik alone in the living room with Lars. They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Lars said something, but in a voice so low that Gun wouldn’t be able to hear it.

‘She’s not as cold-hearted as she seems. Gun has some very fine qualities.’

Yeah right, Patrik thought. He would call that statement a fool’s defence. But Lars was probably doing what he could to justify his choice of a wife. Patrik estimated that Lars was about twenty years older than Gun, and it wasn’t too farfetched to surmise that his choice had been made with a part of his body other than his head. Although Patrik had to admit that perhaps his profession was making him a bit cynical. Maybe it really was true love. How would he know?

Gun returned, not with a thick photo album like Albert had produced, but with a single little black-and-white photo which she morosely handed to Patrik. It showed a sullen teenaged Siv holding her newborn daughter in her lap. Unlike the pictures of Mona, in this photo there was no joy in the girl’s expression.

‘Well, we must get busy straightening up the house. We’ve just returned from Provence, where Lars’s daughter lives.’ From the way Gun said the word ‘daughter’ Patrik could hear that there was no love lost between her and her stepdaughter.

He also realized when his presence was no longer desired, so he thanked them for their help.

‘And thank you for lending me the photo. I promise to return it in good condition.’

Gun waved her hand dismissively. Then she remembered her role and contorted her face into a grimace.

‘Please let me know as soon as you’re positive. I would so dearly like to be able to bury my little Siv.’

‘I’ll come back as soon as I hear anything.’

Patrik’s tone was unnecessarily curt, but he had found the entire histrionic show quite distasteful.

When he was back out on Norra Hamngatan, the skies opened up. He stood still for a moment and let the downpour rinse away the cloying feeling he had from his visit with the Struwers. He needed to get home and hug Erica and feel the life pulsing inside when he put his hand on her belly. He needed to feel that the world wasn’t as cruel and evil as it sometimes seemed. It simply couldn’t be.

5
SUMMER 1979

It felt as if months had passed. But she knew that it couldn’t possibly be that long. And yet each hour down here in the dark was like a lifetime.

There was far too much time to think. Far too much time to feel how the pain was twisting every nerve. Time to ponder everything she had lost. Or would lose.

By now she knew that she would never get out of here. No one could escape such pain. And yet she had never felt softer hands than his. No hands had ever caressed her with such love, and it made her hunger for more of that touch. Not the horrible or painful touch, but the soft touch that came afterwards. If she had ever felt such a touch before, everything would have been different, she knew that now. The feeling when he ran his hands over her body was so pure, so innocent, that it reached all the way to that hard core inside her, the one no one before had been able to reach.

In the darkness he had become her everything. No words had been spoken, but she fantasized about how his voice would sound. Fatherly, warm. But when the pain came she hated him. Then she wanted to kill him. If only she could.

alt

Robert found him out in the shed. They knew each other so well, and he knew that’s where Stefan went when he was worried about something. When he saw that the house was empty he went directly to the shed, and quite rightly found his brother there, sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped tightly round his legs.

The two of them were so different that Robert found it hard to believe they were brothers. He himself was proud that he never spent a minute of his life pondering anything or trying to predict the consequences. He simply acted and let things turn out as they may. Whoever survives will see what happens – that was his motto, and he saw no reason to worry about things he couldn’t control. Life blew you one way or another, that was simply the way things were.

Stefan, on the other hand, thought far too much for his own good. For a brief moment Robert felt a pang of regret that his little brother had chosen to follow in his crooked footsteps, but maybe it was for the best. Otherwise Stefan would have felt disappointed. They were the sons of Johannes Hult, and it was as though a curse had settled on their whole bloody branch of the family. There was no chance that any of them would succeed at anything they attempted, so why even try?

He would never admit it, even under torture, but he loved his brother more than anything in the world. It pained him to see Stefan’s silhouette in the gloom of the shed. His brother’s thoughts seemed to be miles away, and there was a sadness about him that Robert occasionally glimpsed. A cloud of melancholy seemed to hover over Stefan’s psyche, forcing him into a dark, ugly place for weeks at a time. Robert hadn’t seen any sign of it all summer, but now he felt its physical presence as soon as he stepped through the door.

‘Stefan?’

He got no reply. Robert quietly walked further into the darkness. He squatted down beside his brother and put his hand on his shoulder.

‘Stefan, are you sitting in here again?’

His younger brother only nodded. When Stefan turned his face Robert saw to his surprise that it was swollen from crying. That’s not what usually happened during one of Stefan’s moods. Robert felt suddenly uneasy.