The Preacher (14 page)

‘Hello, I’m Martin Molin.’

‘I’m Pia Löfstedt.’

After the introductions were made, they each ordered fish soup from the tall, blonde waitress.

‘We’re in luck,’ said Pia. ‘”The Herring” is here this week.’ She could see that Martin had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Christian Hellberg. Chef of the Year in 2001. He’s from Fjällbacka. You’ll see once you taste the fish soup. It’s divine.’

She gestured eagerly the whole time she was talking, and Martin found himself staring at her in fascination. Pia was totally unlike the girls he usually met, and that was probably why it felt so great to be sitting across from her. He had to remind himself again that this wasn’t a date; it was a working lunch, and he actually did have business to discuss.

‘I have to admit that it’s not every day the police ring us up. I assume this has to do with the body you found in the King’s Cleft, right?’

The question was posed as a statement of fact, not as an attempt to sensationalize, and Martin nodded affirmatively.

‘Yes, that’s correct. As you’ve probably heard, the victim was a German tourist, and we may need some help with interpreting. Do you think you could handle it?’

‘I studied in Germany for two years, so it shouldn’t be any problem.’

Their soup arrived, and after one spoonful Martin was inclined to agree with Pia’s evaluation of ‘divine’. He tried hard not to slurp it up, but couldn’t help himself. He hoped that she had read Emil in Lönneberga by Astrid Lindgren. ‘You have to slurp it up or you won’t know it’s soup …’

‘That’s funny …’ said Pia, pausing to eat another spoonful of soup. A light breeze swept over the tables now and then, providing a few seconds of cool air. Both of them watched an old-fashioned cutter as it struggled forward with its sails barely luffing. There wasn’t enough wind for a good day of sailing, so most of the boats were running their engines. Pia went on, ‘That German girl … Tanja was her name, wasn’t it? She came into the bureau about a week ago, wanting help translating some articles.’

Martin’s interest was instantly aroused. ‘What sort of articles?’

‘About those girls that were found with her. Articles about their disappearance. Old articles she’d photocopied, apparently from the library, I would guess.’

His spoon clattered when he dropped it into his bowl out of sheer astonishment. ‘Why did she want help reading them?’

‘I really don’t know. And I didn’t ask her, either. We’re actually not supposed to do stuff like that during working hours, but it was the middle of the day and all the tourists were out on the skerries swimming, so it was quiet. And besides, she seemed so anxious that I felt sorry for her.’ Pia hesitated. ‘Do you think it has anything to do with the murder? Maybe I should have called and told you about it earlier …’

She sounded worried, and Martin hastened to reassure her. For some reason he didn’t want to risk prompting any sort of unpleasant feelings in Pia.

‘There’s no way you could know that it might be important,’ he said. ‘But it’s good that you told me about it.’

They ate their lunch and talked about more pleasant subjects. Her lunch hour was over way too soon. Pia had to rush off to the little information kiosk in the middle of the square before her colleague got annoyed at having her own lunch delayed. Before Martin knew it she was gone, after a too-hasty goodbye. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask whether they could meet again, but he couldn’t quite get the words out. Muttering and swearing, he walked to his car. On the way back to Tanumshede his thoughts reluctantly turned to what Pia had told him about Tanja asking for help. Why was she interested in those girls? Who was she? What was the connection between Tanja, Siv and Mona? What was he not seeing?

Life was good. Life was very good. He couldn’t recall when the air had seemed so clean, the aromas so strong or the colours so bright. Life was truly good.

Mellberg looked at Hedström, who was sitting in the chair opposite him. A handsome fellow, and a talented cop. He may not have expressed it in just those terms before, but he was going to make the most of the opportunity right now. It was important for his colleagues to feel appreciated. He had read somewhere that a good leader should offer criticism and praise with the same firm hand. Previously he might have been a bit too free with the criticism. His newfound clarity allowed him to see that, and he intended to rectify the situation.

‘How’s it going with the investigation?’ he asked.

Hedström ran down the main points of the work they had done so far.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said Mellberg, nodding jovially. ‘I’ve had a number of unpleasant calls today. People are very anxious for this case to be solved quickly so that it won’t have long-lasting effects on the tourism industry, as someone expressed it so aptly. But that’s not anything you need to worry about, Hedström. I’ve personally assured everyone that the Department’s finest are working night and day to put the perpetrator behind bars. So just keep working at your usual high level and I’ll take care of the town’s bigwigs.’

Hedström gave his boss an odd look.

Mellberg kept his eyes fixed on his colleague and fired off a broad smile. If Hedström only knew …

The debriefing with Mellberg had taken over an hour. Patrik looked for Martin on the way back to his office, but he didn’t seem to be around. So Patrik went to Hedemyr’s and bought a plastic-wrapped sandwich, which he wolfed down with a cup of coffee in the lunchroom. Just as he finished eating he heard Martin coming down the hall. He signalled to him to come into his office.

Patrik started off by saying, ‘Have you noticed anything funny about Mellberg recently?’

‘Besides the fact that he doesn’t complain or criticize, laughs all the time, has lost a lot of weight and is wearing clothes that actually look as if they were in fashion as recently as the Nineties? No.’ Martin smiled.

‘There’s something fishy going on. Not that I’m complaining. He’s not interfering in the investigation, and today he praised me so much that I blushed. But there’s something …’ Patrik shook his head. But their speculations about the new Bertil Mellberg would have to wait; there were more pressing matters to discuss. Some things should just be enjoyed without questioning.

Martin told him about making a fruitless visit to the campground and how they hadn’t got anything else useful out of Liese. Then he reported on what Pia had said about Tanja, that she had come in to get some articles about Mona and Siv translated. That was when Patrik’s interest perked up.

‘I knew there had to be a connection there! But what the heck could it be?’ he said, scratching his head.

‘What did the parents tell you yesterday?’

The two photographs Patrik had been given by Albert and Gun lay on the desk. He picked them up and handed them to Martin. He described the meeting with Mona’s father and Siv’s mother, unable to hide his distaste for the latter.

‘Still, it must be a relief for them to hear that the girls have finally been found. It must have been torture to go through year after year without knowing where they were. People say that the uncertainty is the worst.’

‘Yes, although now I hope that Pedersen confirms that the second skeleton is Siv Lantin, or else we’ll really be in hot water.’

‘That’s true, but the odds are that it’s her skeleton. Is there still nothing on the analysis of the dirt found on the bones?’

‘No, unfortunately. And I don’t know how much that will tell us anyway. They could have been buried anywhere. Even if we identify the type of soil, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.’

‘The DNA is what I’m counting on most. As soon as we have a suspect, we’ll know if it’s the right person by analysing his DNA and comparing it with what we have.’

‘Sure, all we have to do now is find the right person.’

They thought about the case for a while in silence, until Martin broke the dismal mood and stood up.

‘Well, we’re not going to get anything done just sitting here. I’d better be off to the salt mines again.’

He left a meditative Patrik sitting at his desk.

The mood at dinner was very tense. That was nothing unusual, ever since Linda had moved in, but just now the air was so thick they could cut it with a knife. Her brother had just told them as briefly as possible about Solveig’s visit to their father, but he wasn’t particularly keen on discussing the subject.

Linda didn’t intend to let that stop her. ‘So it wasn’t Uncle Johannes who murdered those girls after all. Pappa must feel really awful. He fingers his own brother who later turns out to be innocent.’

‘Shut your mouth – you shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about.’

Everyone at the table gave a start. Jacob seldom if ever raised his voice. Even Linda felt a bit scared for a moment, but she swallowed hard and went on. ‘So why did Pappa think that it was Uncle Johannes anyway? Nobody has ever told me.’

Jacob hesitated a moment but realized that it wouldn’t do to tell her to stop asking questions, so he decided to oblige her. At least partly.

‘Pappa saw one of the girls in Johannes’s car the night she disappeared.’

‘Why was Pappa out driving in the middle of the night?’

‘He’d been to visit me at the hospital and decided to drive home instead of staying overnight.’

‘So that’s all it was? That was the reason he reported Johannes to the police? I mean, there must be plenty of other explanations for something like that. Maybe he was giving her a ride part-way home.’

‘Could be. Although Johannes denied that he even saw the girl that night. He claimed that he’d been at home in bed at that hour.’

‘But what did Grandpa say? Wasn’t he furious when Gabriel called the police about Johannes?’

Linda was totally fascinated. She’d been born after the girls had disappeared and had never heard more than fragments of the story. Nobody ever wanted to talk about what had happened, so most of what Jacob was now saying was completely new to her.

Jacob snorted. ‘Was Grandpa angry? You’d better believe it. Besides, he was in hospital at the time, fully engaged with saving my life, so he was furious at Pappa that he could do something like that.’

The children had been sent out of the room. Otherwise their eyes would have sparkled at the mention of how their old grandfather had saved the life of their Pappa. They had heard the story many, many times and never tired of it.

Jacob went on, ‘He was so angry that he even considered changing his will and naming Johannes as sole heir, but there was no time for that before Johannes died. If he hadn’t died, we might have been the ones living in the forester’s cottage, instead of Solveig and the boys.’

‘But why did Pappa think so badly of Johannes?’

‘Well, I don’t really know. Pappa has never been very talkative on the subject, but Grandpa told us a great deal that might explain it. Mamma’s father died when Johannes was born, and after that they travelled about with Grandpa when he drove up and down the west coast giving sermons and worship services. Grandpa told me that he understood early on that both Johannes and Gabriel had the power to heal, so each worship service concluded with them healing people with handicaps and illnesses who were in the audience.’

‘Pappa did that? Healed people, I mean? Can he still do it?’

Linda’s mouth fell open in astonishment. The door to a whole new room in her family history had been opened wide. She hardly dared breathe for fear that Jacob would clam up and refuse to share what else he knew. She’d heard that he and Grandpa had always had a special bond, especially after it turned out that Grandpa’s bone marrow was a perfect match as a donor for Jacob, who was suffering from leukaemia. But Linda hadn’t known that Grandpa had told him so much. Naturally, she’d heard that Grandpa was called ‘the Preacher’ in popular parlance. She’d also heard mutterings that he somehow had swindled his way to his fortune, but she’d never viewed the stories about Ephraim as anything other than exaggerated tales. Linda was so young when he died that he seemed merely a stern older man in the family photographs.

‘No, I hardly believe he can.’ Jacob smiled a little at the thought of his correct father as a healer of the sick and lame. ‘As far as Pappa is concerned, probably nothing ever happened. And according to Grandpa it’s not unusual for a person to lose the ability when he enters puberty. It may be possible to regain the ability later, but it’s not easy. I believe that both Gabriel and Johannes lost it after they reached adulthood. I think Pappa detested Johannes because they were so different. Johannes was very handsome and could charm the trousers off anyone, but he was hopelessly irresponsible with everything in his life. Both he and Gabriel received a large portion of the money when Grandpa was still alive, but it took only a year before Johannes had run through his share. That made Grandpa furious, and he changed his will making Gabriel his primary heir instead of dividing the inheritance equally between them. But as I mentioned, if he had lived longer he might have changed his mind again.’

‘But there must have been something else,’ Linda said. ‘Pappa couldn’t have hated Johannes so much just because he was nicer-looking and more charming. That’s no reason to report your brother to the police, is it?’

‘No, my guess is that the last straw was when Johannes stole Pappa’s fiancée.’

‘What? Pappa was going to marry Solveig? That fat cow?’

‘Haven’t you seen pictures of Solveig from the old days? She was a real looker, I have to tell you, and she and Pappa were engaged. But one day she told him that she was in love with Uncle Johannes and that she was going to marry him instead. I think that really devastated Pappa. You know how he hates any kind of disarray or drama in his life.’

‘Yes, that must have made him flip out completely.’

Jacob got up from the table as if to signal that the conversation was over. ‘Well, that should be enough family secrets for now. But it should make you understand why things are a bit tense between Pappa and Solveig.’

Linda giggled. ‘I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall when she showed up to chew Pappa out. What a circus that must have been.’

Even Jacob showed a hint of a smile. ‘Yes, circus is probably the right word for it. But try to restrain your mirth when you see Pappa, all right? I don’t think he’ll see anything funny about it.’

‘Okay, okay, I’ll be a good girl.’

She set her plate in the dishwasher, thanked Marita for the meal, and went up to her room. It was the first time in ages that she and Jacob had laughed at anything together. He could be really pleasant if he only tried, thought Linda, adroitly ignoring the fact that she hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs in recent years.

She picked up the phone and tried to get hold of Stefan. To her astonishment she realized that she actually cared about how he was doing.

Laine was afraid of the dark. Terribly afraid. Despite all the evenings she had spent at the farm without Gabriel, she had never got used to it. Before, at least, she’d had Linda at home, and before that Jacob, but now she was all alone. She knew that Gabriel had to travel a good deal, yet she couldn’t help feeling bitter. This wasn’t the life she had dreamt of when she married into wealth. Not that the money was so important in and of itself; a sense of security was what had enticed her. The security she found in Gabriel’s predictable nature and the security of knowing there was money in the bank. She wanted to lead a life completely different from her mother’s.

As a girl she had lived in terror of her father’s drunken rages. He had tyrannized the whole family and turned his children into people who felt insecure and thirsted for love and tenderness. Of the three siblings, she was the only one left. Both her brother and her sister had succumbed to the darkness within them, one by turning the darkness inwards, the other by turning it outwards. Laine was the middle child who had done neither. She was merely insecure and weak. Not strong enough to act out her insecurity either internally or externally; she just left it to fester, year after year.

This was most evident when she wandered alone through the silent rooms in the evenings. That was when she clearly recalled the stinking breath, the beatings and the clandestine caresses at night.

She had truly believed that she had finally found the key to unlock the dark place inside her heart when she married Gabriel. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew that she was a consolation prize. He had settled for her because he couldn’t have the one he really wanted. But that made no difference. In a way it was easier this way. There were no feelings that might ruffle the calm surface. Only boring predictability in the endless chain of days. She thought it was all she wanted.

Thirty-five years later she knew how wrong she had been. Nothing was worse than being alone while married. That was what she got when she said ‘I do’ in Fjällbacka Church. They had lived parallel lives. Tended the farm, brought up their children, and talked about the wind and weather in the absence of other topics of conversation.

She alone knew that there was another man inside Gabriel than the one he showed to the world every day. Over the years she had observed him, studying him in secret, and gradu ally she came to know the man he could have been. It astonished her what longing that had awakened inside her. Behind that boring, reserved exterior was a passionate man, but he was buried so deep that she didn’t think he even realized it himself. She saw a lot of anger gathering, but believed there was an equal amount of love, if only she’d had the ability to coax it forth.

Even when Jacob lay sick they hadn’t been able to approach each other. Side by side they had sat with their son, assuming that Jacob was on his deathbed, and yet they could offer each other no consolation. She’d often had the feeling that Gabriel didn’t really want her there.

Gabriel’s uncommunicativeness could be blamed in large part on his father. Ephraim Hult had been an imposing man who made everyone with whom he came in contact join one of two camps: friend or foe. No one was unimportant to the Preacher, but Laine understood how difficult it must have been to grow up in the shadow of such a man. His sons couldn’t have been more different. Johannes was like a big baby his entire life, brief though it was. He was a hedonist who took what he wanted and never paused long enough to notice the chaos he left in his wake. Gabriel had chosen the opposite course. Laine had seen how ashamed he was of his father and Johannes, of their sweeping gestures, their ability to shine like a beacon in any setting. Gabriel wanted to disappear behind an anonymity that would show the world that he had nothing in common with his father. Gabriel strove for respectability, order and justice more than anything else. He never talked about his childhood and the years he spent travelling with Ephraim and Johannes. Laine knew a little about it, though, and she understood how important it was for her husband to hide that part of his past, which was so discordant with the image he wanted to project to the outside world. The fact that it was Ephraim who had brought Jacob back to life had aroused mixed feelings in Gabriel. His joy at finding a way to vanquish Jacob’s illness had been clouded by the fact that it was his father, and not himself, who was the knight in shining armour who came to the rescue. He would have given anything for the chance to be his son’s hero.

Laine’s meditations were interrupted by a sound from outside. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shadow, then two, rapidly passing through the garden. Terror seized her once again. She went searching for the cordless phone and managed to work herself into a panic before she finally found it in its place in the charger. With trembling fingers she dialled the number of Gabriel’s mobile. Something struck the window and she screamed. The window was shattered by a rock, which now lay among shards of glass on the floor. Another rock came through the window next to it. With a sob she dashed out of the room and upstairs, where she locked herself in the bathroom while she desperately waited to hear Gabriel’s voice. Instead she got the monotone of a mobile phone voicemail, and she heard the terror in her own voice when she left an incoherent message for him.

Shaking, she sat down on the floor with her arms tightly wrapped round her knees and listened for sounds outside the door. Nothing more was heard, but she didn’t dare budge from the spot.

When morning came she was still sitting there.

The ring of the telephone woke Erica. She glanced at the clock. Ten thirty in the morning. She must have dozed off after tossing and turning half the night, sweating and uncomfortable.

‘Hello.’ Her voice was heavy with sleep.

‘Hi, Erica. Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter, Anna. I shouldn’t be lying down to sleep in the middle of the morning like this anyway.’

‘Sure you should – sleep as much as you can. Soon sleep will be a luxury. How are you feeling, anyway?’

Erica took a moment to grumble about all the hardships of pregnancy to her sister, who knew exactly what Erica was talking about having two kids of her own.

‘You poor thing … the only consolation is that you know it will pass, sooner or later. How’s it going having Patrik around the house? Aren’t you getting on each other’s nerves? I remember that I just wanted to be left in peace the last few weeks.’

‘I know what you mean. I was almost climbing the walls, I have to admit. So I didn’t object too loudly when he got a homicide case and he had to go in and work.’

‘A murder case? What happened?’

Erica told her about the young German woman who’d been murdered and the two missing women that were now found.

‘Jesus, that’s terrible.’ The connection crackled.

‘Where are you, anyway? Are you having a good time on the boat?’

‘Yeah, we’re having a great time. Emma and Adrian love it, and they’re going to be full-fledged sailors soon if Gustav has anything to say about it.’

‘Ah, Gustav. How’s it going between the two of you? Will he be ready to present to the family soon?’

‘That’s actually why I’m calling. We’re in Strömstad now and thought we’d sail down to your neck of the woods. Be sure to tell me if you’re not up for it – otherwise we planned to stop in Fjällbacka tomorrow and come by to say hello. We’re sleeping on the boat, so we won’t be any trouble. Just say the word if you think it’s too much. It would just be so great to see you.’

‘Of course you can come by. We’re having Dan and his girlfriend over for a barbecue tomorrow, so it’s no trouble to sling a couple of extra burgers on the grill.’

‘Oh, that’s cool, then I can finally meet the lambchop.’

‘Listen, Anna. Patrik has already been after me to be nice, so don’t you start in too …’

‘Okay, but it does require a little extra preparation. We have to check on what sort of music is in with the kids today and which styles are hot and whether flavoured lip gloss is still popular. Here’s the plan: if you check out MTV, I’ll pick up that teen magazine Weekly Review and do a little research. Is Starlet still publishing, do you think? If it is, that would probably be a good idea too.’

Erica was holding her stomach, she was laughing so hard. ‘Stop it, I’m dying. Now be nice … You shouldn’t throw stones in glass houses, you know. We haven’t met Gustav, so as far as we know, he might be a real geek. You remember the pastor from that film, don’t you? The one who starts working with real lowlifes?’

‘Well, I don’t know if “geek” is quite the right word I would associate with Gustav.’

Erica could hear that her joking comment had made Anna turn grumpy. To think that her sister could be so thin-skinned.

‘I consider myself lucky that someone like Gustav, with his social standing, even looks in my direction, single mother and all. He could have his pick of the girls on the debutante list, yet he chose me, and I think that says a good deal about him.’

Erica also thought that said a great deal about him, but unfortunately not in the way her sister had intended. Anna had never been a very good judge of men, and the way she was talking about Gustav sounded a bit worrisome. But Erica decided not to judge him in advance. Hopefully her misgivings would come to naught as soon as she had a chance to meet him.

She said cheerfully, ‘When will you be here?’

‘Around four. Is that all right?’

‘That’s perfect.’

‘I’ll see you then. Hugs. Bye.’

After Erica hung up she felt a bit concerned. There was something in Anna’s forced tone of voice that made her wonder how good her relationship with the fantastic, upper- class Gustav af Klint really was for Anna.