The Preacher (47 page)

It was an unhappy inheritance that Ephraim had left to his son and his grandson. Jacob’s imagination had been set in motion by Ephraim’s accounts of the healing Gabriel and Johannes had done during their boyhood years. For the sake of effect Ephraim had said that he saw the same gift in his grandson. That had engendered ideas which over the years were exaggerated by the illness that brought Jacob so close to death. Then he had found Johannes’s notebook, and judging by how dog-eared the pages were, he had returned to it time after time. It was a tragic coincidence that Tanja showed up at Västergården asking about her mother on the same day that Jacob received his terminal prognosis. All of these factors combined had led up to this moment, as the police officers stood looking at a dead girl.

When Jacob dropped Jenny she had fallen on her side. It almost looked as though she were huddled up in the foetal position. In surprise Martin and Patrik saw Gösta unbutton his short-sleeved shirt and take it off. He exposed a chalk-white, hairless chest, and without a word he spread the shirt over Jenny and tried to hide as much as possible of her nakedness.

‘Don’t just stand there staring at the girl when she doesn’t have a stitch of clothing on,’ he said gruffly, crossing his arms to ward off the raw dampness in the shade of the trees.

Patrik knelt down and spontaneously took Jenny’s cold hand in his. She had died alone, but she would not have to wait alone.

A couple of days later the worst of the commotion had settled down. Patrik sat in front of Mellberg, wanting only to get it over with. The boss had demanded a full review of the case. Patrik knew that the chief’s motive was to learn enough so that he could tell tall tales for years to come about his participation in the Hult case. But that didn’t particularly bother Patrik. After personally delivering the news to Jenny’s parents, he had a hard time seeing either honour or fame in connection with the investigation. He gladly turned over that aspect to Mellberg.

‘I still don’t understand that part about the blood,’ Mellberg said.

Patrik sighed and started explaining for the third time, speaking even more slowly.

‘When Jacob was sick with leukaemia, he received a bone marrow transplant from his grandfather Ephraim. That meant that the blood produced inside Jacob after the transplant had the same DNA as the donor, that is, Ephraim. In other words, Jacob then had the DNA of two people in his body. His grandfather’s DNA in his blood and his own in the other parts of his body. That’s why we got Ephraim’s DNA profile when we analysed Jacob’s blood sample. Since the DNA that Jacob left on his victim was in the form of semen, that sample retained his original DNA profile. So the two profiles didn’t match. According to SCL, the statistical probability for something like this happening is so small that it’s highly implausible. But not impossible …’

Mellberg finally seemed to grasp the facts. He shook his head in amazement. ‘What bloody science fiction. We’ve heard just about everything now, Hedström, haven’t we? I must say that we did a damned good job on this case. The chief of police in Göteborg rang me personally yesterday and thanked us for our excellent handling of the case, and I couldn’t agree more.’

Patrik had a hard time seeing what was excellent about it all, since they hadn’t succeeded in saving the girl’s life, but he chose not to comment. Sometimes things happened in spite of their best efforts. And there wasn’t much one could do about it.

The past few days had been depressing. In a way it had been a grieving process. He was still sleeping poorly, haunted by images conjured up by the sketches and notes in Johannes’s book. Erica had restlessly hovered round him, and he had noticed that she too lay tossing and turning next to him at night. But somehow he hadn’t had the energy to reach out towards her. He had to work through this by himself.

Not even feeling the baby’s movements in her belly could awaken the sense of wellbeing it had always given him before. It was as though he was suddenly reminded of how dangerous the world was, and how evil and crazy people could be. How would he be able to protect a child from all that? The result was that he pulled away from Erica and the baby. Away from the risk of someday having to go through the pain he had seen in Bo and Kerstin Möller’s faces when he stood before them and with a sob in his throat informed them that unfortunately Jenny was dead. How could anyone survive such pain?

In the darker hours of the night he had even considered running away. Just clear out, bag and baggage. Away from all responsibility and duty. Away from the risk that his love for their child would become a weapon pressed to his temple, the trigger slowly pulled. He had always been dedication personified, yet for the first time in his life he seriously considered taking the coward’s way out. At the same time he knew that Erica needed his support now more than ever. Hearing that Anna and the children had moved back in with Lucas had made her despair. He knew that, but he still couldn’t reach out to her.

He looked at Mellberg sitting in front of him. The chief’s mouth kept moving. ‘Yes, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t see an increase in our share in the next budget round, considering the goodwill we’ve built up …’

Blah, blah, blah, thought Patrik. Words that gushed forth, devoid of meaning. Money and honour, a bigger budget and commendations from superiors. Worthless measurements of success. He had an urge to take his cup of coffee and slowly pour the hot liquid over Mellberg’s bird’s nest of hair. Just to shut him up.

‘Yes, and your contribution will be noted, of course,’ Mellberg said. ‘As a matter of fact I was saying to the chief of police that I had great support in the investigation from you. But please don’t remind me that I said that when it comes time to talk about salary,’ Mellberg chuckled and winked at Patrik. ‘The only thing that concerns me is the part about Johannes Hult’s death. You still don’t have any idea who murdered him?’

Patrik shook his head. They had talked to Jacob about it, but he honestly seemed to be as much in the dark as they were. The murder was still marked unsolved and it appeared likely to remain so.

‘It would certainly be the icing on the cake if you could sew up that part too. It wouldn’t hurt to get a little gold star next to your commendation, would it?’ Then Mellberg’s expression turned serious. ‘And naturally I’ve noted your criticism of Ernst’s actions, but considering his many years on the force I think we ought to be magnanimous and draw a line through that little episode. I mean, everything turned out all right in the end.’

Patrik remembered the feeling of his finger quivering on the trigger with Martin and Jacob in his line of fire. Now his hand holding the coffee cup began to shake. As if of its own accord, the hand began to raise the cup and slowly move towards Mellberg’s barely covered pate. The cup stopped abruptly when there was a knock at the door. It was Annika.

‘Patrik, there’s a call for you.’

‘Can’t you see that we’re busy?’ Mellberg hissed.

‘I really think he’ll want to take this call,’ she said, giving Patrik an insistent look.

Puzzled, Patrik stared at her but she refused to say anything. When they got to her office she pointed at the receiver lying on the desk and discreetly stepped out in the corridor.

Patrik put the phone to his ear.

‘Why the hell don’t you have your mobile turned on?’

He looked at his phone hanging in its case on his belt and realized it needed charging.

‘The battery’s dead. Why?’ He didn’t understand why Erica was getting so worked up. She could still reach him through the switchboard.

‘Because it’s starting! And you didn’t answer your landline and then you didn’t answer your mobile either and then – ’

He interrupted, confused. ‘What do you mean, it’s starting? What’s starting?’

‘Labour, you idiot. The pains have started and my waters broke! You have to come get me, we have to leave right now!’

‘But I thought you weren’t due for three weeks?’ He still felt confused.

‘The baby obviously doesn’t know that, it’s coming now!’ Then he heard only the dial tone.

Patrik stood transfixed with the phone in his hand. A goofy grin began to play over his lips. His baby was on the way. His and Erica’s baby.

On trembling legs he ran out to the car and yanked at the door handle a couple of times in confusion. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. Behind him stood Annika with the car keys dangling in her hand.

‘It would probably be quicker if you unlocked the car first.’

He snatched the keys from her hand and waved a hasty goodbye as he stomped the gas pedal to the floor and zoomed off towards Fjällbacka. Annika looked at the black tyre marks he left on the asphalt. Laughing she went back to her place at the reception desk.

13
AUGUST 1979

Ephraim was worried. Gabriel was still stubbornly claiming that it was Johannes he’d seen with the missing girl. He refused to believe it, but at the same time he knew that his son was the last person who would ever lie. For Gabriel, truth and order were more important even than his own brother, and that’s why Ephraim was having such a hard time dismissing the claim. He kept thinking that maybe Gabriel had simply been mistaken. The twilight could have made his eyes deceive him, or else he was fooled by the formation of shadows, or something like that. Ephraim could hear for himself how farfetched that sounded. But he also knew Johannes. His carefree, irresponsible son who played his way through life. Would he really be capable of taking someone’s life?

Leaning on his cane Ephraim walked along the path from the farm over to Västergården. He really didn’t need the cane because by his own estimation his physical condition was as good as a twenty-year-old’s. But he thought it looked stylish. A cane and hat gave him a look befitting a landowner, and he made use of that image as often as he could.

It bothered Ephraim that Gabriel was making the distance between them get worse with each year that passed. He knew that Gabriel believed that he favoured Johannes, and to be honest, he supposed he did. It was only that Johannes was so much easier to deal with. His charm and his openness made it possible to treat him with a kind indulgence, which made Ephraim feel like a patriarch in the true sense of the word. Johannes was someone he could reprimand harshly, someone who made him feel needed, if for nothing other than keeping his son’s feet on the ground with all the womenfolk who were always running after him. With Gabriel it was different. He always regarded his father with a contempt that made Ephraim respond with a demeanour of cool superiority. He knew that in many respects the fault was his own. While Johannes had bounced with joy each time Ephraim held a worship service in which the boys had a chance to be useful, Gabriel had shrunk back and grown increasingly sullen. Ephraim noticed this and took full blame upon himself, but after all he had done it for their own good. After Ragnhild died, the family had to depend on his charm and his gift of the gab to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. It was a lucky accident that he proved to be such a natural talent that the dotty widow Dybling ended up leaving him her estate and her fortune. Gabriel probably should have paid more attention to the end result, instead of constantly bothering him with reproaches about his ‘terrible’ childhood. The truth was that if Ephraim hadn’t had the brilliant idea of using the boys in his worship services, they wouldn’t have had everything they owned today. Nobody had been able to resist those two delightful little boys, who through God’s providence had received the gift of healing the sick and the lame. Combined with Ephraim’s own charisma and gift for speaking, they had been unbeatable. He knew that he was still a legendary preacher within the world of the free church, and it afforded him boundless amusement. He also loved the fact that in popular parlance he had been given the nickname of The Preacher.

But it had surprised him to see how distressed Johannes was to receive the news that he had grown out of his gift. For Ephraim it had been a simple way to conclude the deception, and for Gabriel it had also come as a great relief. But Johannes had mourned. Ephraim had always intended to tell the boys that it was all a trick on his part and that the people they had ‘healed’ were in fact perfectly healthy. He had given them a coin so that they would play along with the spectacle. But as the years passed he began to have doubts. Sometimes Johannes seemed so fragile. That’s why Ephraim was so worried about this whole thing with the police and their interrogation of Johannes. He was more vulnerable than he seemed, and Ephraim wasn’t sure how it would affect him. That’s why he’d decided to take a walk over to Västergården and have a talk with his son. Get a feeling for how he seemed to be handling the situation.

A smile passed over Ephraim’s lips. Jacob had come home from hospital a week earlier and was spending hours up in his grandfather’s room. He loved the boy. He had saved Jacob’s life, which forever united them with a special bond. On the other hand Ephraim wasn’t as gullible as they all thought. It was possible that Gabriel believed Jacob to be his son, but Ephraim had seen what was going on. Jacob was probably Johannes’s son, he could see it in Johannes’s eyes. Well, he wasn’t going to get involved with that. But the boy was the pride and joy of his old age. Of course he also liked Robert and Stefan, but they were still so young. What Ephraim liked most about Jacob was how wise he could sound and how fervently he listened to his grandfather’s stories. Jacob loved to hear the stories about when Gabriel and Johannes were little and travelled around with their preacher father. ‘The healer stories,’ he called them. ‘Grandpa, tell me the healer stories,’ Jacob would say every time he came upstairs to say hello. Ephraim had nothing against reliving those times, because they had certainly been fun. And it didn’t do the boy any harm if he embellished the stories a little extra. He had made it a habit to conclude the stories with a dramatic pause and then point with his knotty finger to Jacob’s chest and say, ‘Oh, you Jacob, you also have the gift within you. Somewhere deep inside it’s waiting to be coaxed out.’ The boy used to sit at his feet with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Ephraim loved to see how fascinated the boy was.