The Ice Princess

by Camilla Lackberg

The stacks of paper had grown to imposing heights on his desk. It was astonishing how a small community like Tanum could generate so many crime reports. Mostly petty matters, to be sure, but each report had to be investigated, and that’s why he sat here with administrative duties worthy of an eastern European bureaucracy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mellberg helped out, instead of sitting on his fat arse all day long. But he had to do the boss’s work too. Patrik Hedström sighed. Without a certain gallows humour, he would never have survived this long. Lately he’d begun to wonder whether this was really all there was to life.

  The big event of the day would be a welcome interruption in the daily routine. Mellberg had asked him to sit in on the interview with the mother and husband of the woman who was found murdered in Fjällbacka. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the tragedy in the whole thing, or didn’t feel for the victim’s family. It was just that nothing exciting ever really happened in his job, and he couldn’t help feeling a tingle of anticipation in his body.

  At the police academy they had been trained in interview situations, but so far he’d only had a chance to try out his talents in that area in connection with stolen bicycles and domestic abuse. Patrik looked at the clock. Time to go over to Mellberg’s office where the conversation would take place. Technically it wasn’t a matter of an official interview yet, but today’s meeting was nonetheless important. He had heard through the grapevine that the mother kept claiming that the daughter couldn’t possibly have killed herself. He was curious to hear what lay behind this claim, which had now turned out to be correct.

  He gathered up his notebook, a pen and a coffee cup and went down the corridor. With his hands full he had to use his elbows and feet to get the door open, so it wasn’t until he put down his things and turned to face the room that he caught sight of her. His heart skipped a beat. He was ten years old again and trying to pull her pigtails. A second later, he was fifteen and trying to talk her into hopping onto his moped and going for a ride. He was twenty and had given up hope when she moved to Göteborg. After a quick mental calculation, he reckoned that it was at least six years ago since he had last seen her. She looked just the same. Tall and curvy, with hair curling to her shoulders in several shades of blonde that blended to a warm shade. Even as a little girl Erica had been vain, and he could see that she still placed great emphasis on the details of her appearance. Her face lit up with surprise when she saw him. But Mellberg was giving him a stern look to sit down, so he merely mimed a silent hello.

  It was a tense group of people sitting before him. Alexandra Wijkner’s mother was small and thin, with too much heavy gold jewellery for his taste. She was perfectly coiffed and extremely well-dressed but looked the worse for wear with dark circles under her eyes. Her son-in-law showed no such signs of grief. Patrik glanced through his background information. Henrik Wijkner, successful businessman in Göteborg and heir to a considerable fortune going back several generations. And it showed. Not because of the obviously expensive quality of his clothes or the scent of fancy aftershave that hovered in the room; it was something less definable. A self-confident assurance that he was entitled to a prominent place in the world, which came from never having lacked any advantages in life. Although Henrik looked tense, Patrik could tell that he always felt he had control of the situation.

  Mellberg loomed behind his desk. He had actually managed to stuff his shirt into his trousers, but splotches of coffee stained the motley pattern of his shirt. As he observed each of the participants in deliberate silence, his right hand straightened his comb-over, which had slipped too far down on one side. Patrik was trying not to look at Erica. Instead he concentrated on one of Mellberg’s coffee stains.

  ‘So. You are probably aware of why I called you here.’ Mellberg made a long pause, for effect. ‘I am Superintendent Bertil Mellberg, chief of Tanumshede police station, and this is Patrik Hedström, who will be assisting me during this investigation.’

  He nodded at Patrik, who was sitting a bit outside the semicircle formed by Erica, Henrik and Birgit in front of Mellberg’s desk.

  ‘Investigation? She was murdered, for God’s sake!’ Birgit leaned forward in her chair, and Henrik quickly put a protective arm round her shoulders.

  ‘Yes, we have confirmation that your daughter could not have taken her own life. Suicide can be definitively ruled out, according to the medical examiner’s report. Of course, I can’t go into the details of the investigation, but the main reason we know she was murdered is that, at the time her wrists were slashed, she could not have been conscious. We found a large amount of sedative in her blood. While she was unconscious, some person or persons apparently first put her in the bathtub, filled it with water, and then slashed her wrists with a razor blade to try and make it look like suicide.’

  The curtains in the office were drawn against the sharp midday sun. The mood in the room was double-edged. Gloom was mixed with Birgit’s obvious relief that Alex had not committed suicide.

  ‘Do you know who did it?’ Birgit had taken out a small embroidered handkerchief from her handbag and carefully dried the corners of her eyes so as not to ruin her make-up.

  Mellberg clasped his hands over his voluminous paunch and fixed his eyes on the people in front of him. He cleared his throat with authority.

  ‘Perhaps the two of you might tell me that.’

  ‘Us?’ Henrik’s surprise sounded genuine. ‘How would we know that? This must be the work of a madman. Alexandra didn’t have any enemies.’

  ‘So you say.’

  Patrik thought for an instant that a shadow passed across the face of Alex’s husband. The next second it was gone, and Henrik was again his calm and controlled self.

  Patrik had always harboured a healthy scepticism about men like Henrik Wijkner. Men who were born to succeed. Who had everything without ever having to lift a finger. Naturally Henrik seemed both pleasant and charming, but under the surface Patrik could sense currents that hinted at a more complex personality. He glimpsed ruthlessness behind the handsome features, and he wondered about the total lack of surprise on Henrik’s face when Mellberg revealed that Alex had been murdered. Believing something is one thing, but hearing it stated as fact is quite another. That much he had learned in his ten years as a cop.

  ‘Are we suspects?’ Birgit looked as astounded as if the superintendent had changed into a pumpkin right before her eyes.

  ‘The statistics speak for themselves in cases of murder. The great majority of perpetrators is usually found among the close family members. Now I’m not saying that’s true in this case, but I’m sure you understand that we have to be quite certain. No stone will be left unturned, I can personally vouch for that. With my broad experience in murder cases’—another dramatic pause—‘this will surely be resolved quickly. But I would like both of you to submit an account of your actions on the days leading up to the point in time when we suspect Alexandra was killed.’

  ‘And what point in time would that be?’ asked Henrik. ‘The last of us to speak with her was Birgit, but none of us phoned her until Sunday, so the murder could even have occurred on Saturday. I did ring her around nine-thirty Friday night, but she often took a walk in the evening before bed, so I assumed that she might have been out walking.’

  ‘All the medical examiner can say is that she has been dead for approximately a week. Naturally we will check your statements about when you phoned her, but we have one piece of information that indicates she died sometime before nine o’clock on Friday night. At around six o’clock, which must have been just after she arrived in Fjällbacka, she rang a Lars Thelander about a furnace that wasn’t working properly. He couldn’t come right away, but promised to be there no later than nine that evening. According to his testimony it was precisely nine o’clock when he knocked on the door. No one came to the door, and after waiting for a while he drove back home. Our working hypothesis is therefore that she died sometime that evening after she arrived in Fjällbacka, since it seems unlikely tha
t she would have forgotten that the repairman was coming to look at the furnace, considering how cold it was in the house.’

  His hair was slipping again, this time down the left side. Patrik noticed that Erica could hardly take her eyes from the spectacle. She was probably controlling an impulse to rush over and straighten his hair. Everyone at the station had been through that phase.

  ‘What time did you say you talked to her?’ Mellberg directed his question at Birgit.

  ‘Well, I’m not quite sure.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Sometime after seven. About quarter past, or seven-thirty, I think. We spoke briefly because Alex said she had a visitor.’ Birgit blanched. ‘Could it have been…?’

  Mellberg nodded solemnly. ‘Entirely possible, Mrs Carlgren. But it’s our job to find out, and I can assure you that we will put all our resources on the case. In our line of work the elimination of suspects is one of our primary tasks, so please write up an account of Friday evening.’

  ‘Do you want me to provide an alibi too?’ Erica asked.

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary. But we would like you to tell us everything you saw when you were inside the house, the day you discovered her. You can leave your written accounts with Assistant Hedström.’

  Everyone turned to look at Patrik, and he nodded in agreement. They began to get up.

  ‘A tragic event, this. Particularly in view of the child.’

  They all turned their eyes to Mellberg.

  ‘The child?’ Quizzically, Birgit looked from Mellberg to Henrik and back.

  ‘Yes, she was in the third month of pregnancy according to the medical examiner. Surely this can’t have been a surprise to you, could it?’

  Mellberg grinned and winked roguishly at Henrik. Patrik was utterly appalled by his boss’s tactless behaviour.

  Henrik’s face slowly lost all colour until it looked like white marble. Birgit turned to stare at him in astonishment. Erica felt as if she were petrified.

  ‘Were you two going to have a child? Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, God.’

  Birgit pressed her handkerchief to her mouth and sobbed uncontrollably, without a thought for the mascara that now ran in rivulets down her cheeks. Henrik again put a protective arm around her, but over Birgit’s head he met Patrik’s gaze. It was obvious that he hadn’t had a clue that Alexandra was pregnant. Judging by Erica’s hopeless expression, however, it was clear that she did know.

  ‘We’ll talk about this when we get home, Birgit,’ said Henrik. He turned to Patrik. ‘I’ll see to it that you receive written accounts about Friday evening. I suppose you’ll probably want to interview us in more detail once you have them.’

  Patrik nodded affirmatively. He raised his eyebrows to give Erica a questioning look.

  ‘Henrik, I’ll be right there,’ she said. ‘I just have to speak with Patrik for a moment. We’re old friends.’

  She lingered in the corridor as Henrik led Birgit out to the car.

  ‘Imagine running into you here. That was a surprise,’ said Patrik. He rocked nervously back and forth on his heels.

  ‘Yes, if I’d thought about it I would have remembered that you work here, of course.’

  She was twisting the handle of her purse between her fingers and looking at him with her head cocked a little to one side. All her small gestures were so familiar to him.

  ‘It’s been a long time. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the funeral. How are you coping, you and Anna?’

  Despite her height she looked small all of a sudden, and he resisted the urge to caress her cheek.

  ‘We’re doing all right. Anna drove home right after the funeral, but I’ve been here a couple of weeks now, trying to clean up the house. It’s not easy.’

  ‘I heard that a woman in Fjällbacka had discovered the victim, but I had no idea it was you. That must have been horrible. The two of you were friends when you were kids, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase that sight from my mind. Well, I have to run now, they’re waiting for me in the car. Maybe we could get together sometime. I’m going to be here in Fjällbacka for a while yet.’

  She was already on her way down the hall.

  ‘How about dinner, Saturday night?’ he said. ‘At my house, eight o’clock? I’m in the book.’

  ‘Sure, that sounds nice. See you at eight, then.’ She backed out through the door.

  As soon as she was out of sight he did a little improvised dance in the corridor, to the great astonishment of his colleagues. But his joy was spoiled a bit when he realized how much work it would take to get his house in presentable shape. After Karin left him, he hadn’t really felt like dealing with the housework.

  He and Erica had known each other since birth. Their mothers had been best friends since childhood and were as close as two sisters. Patrik and Erica played together a lot when they were small, and it was no exaggeration to say that Erica was his first love. In fact, he believed he was born in love with Erica. There had always been such a natural quality about his feelings for her. As far as Erica was concerned, she had merely taken his puppy-like admiration for granted. Not until she moved to Göteborg did he realize that it was time to put his dreams on the shelf. He had fallen in love with others since then, of course. And when he married Karin he was utterly convinced that they would grow old together, but Erica was always in the back of his mind. Sometimes months would pass without thinking about her; sometimes he thought about her several times a day.

  The piles of paper had not been miraculously reduced while he was gone. With a deep sigh he sat down at his desk and picked up the page on top. The work was monotonous enough that he could ponder the menu for Saturday at the same time. Dessert, in any case, was already decided. Erica had always loved ice cream.

  He awoke with a nasty taste in his mouth. It had been a real blow-out yesterday. His buddies had come over in the afternoon and together they had kept drinking until the small hours. A vague memory of the police stopping by at some point last night hovered just beyond his reach. He tried to sit up but the whole room spun around and he decided to stay where he was for a while.

  His right hand was aching, and he raised it toward the ceiling to look at it. The knuckles were severely scraped and full of coagulated blood. Damn, there must have been a bit of a dust-up last night, that’s why the cops showed up. More and more of his memory began to return. It was the guys who had brought up the subject of the suicide. One of them had started talking a bunch of shit about Alex. ‘Upper-class bitch’, and ‘society cunt’ were words he had used about her. Anders had short-circuited, and after that he remembered only a red haze of rage as he started bashing the guy in a drunken fury. Sure, he had called her a few names himself when he was most furious at her betrayal. But that wasn’t the same thing. The others didn’t know her. He was the only one who had the right to judge her.

  The telephone rang with a shrill sound. He tried to ignore it but decided it was less bothersome to get up and answer the phone than to let the noise keep slicing into his brain.

  ‘Yes, this is Anders.’ He was slurring his words.

  ‘Hi, it’s Mamma. How are you doing?’

  ‘I feel like shit.’ He slid down the wall to sit on the floor. ‘What the hell time is it?’

  ‘It’s almost four in the afternoon. Did I wake you?’

  ‘Nope.’ His head felt disproportionately large and kept threatening to fall down between his knees.

  ‘I was in town shopping earlier. There’s a lot of talk about something that I want you to know about. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yeah, damn it, I’m listening.’

  ‘Apparently Alex didn’t commit suicide. She was murdered. I just wanted you to know.’

  Silence.

  ‘Anders, hello? Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I heard you. What did you say? Was Alex…murdered?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they’re saying in town, anyway. Apparently Birgit was down at
Tanumshede police station and got the news today.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Look, Mamma, I’ve got a lot to do. We’ll talk later.’

  ‘Anders? Anders?’

  He had already hung up.

  With an enormous effort he showered and got dressed. After taking two Tylenols he felt more like a human being. The vodka bottle in the kitchen tried to tempt him, but he refused to give in. He had to be sober right now. Well, relatively sober, at least.

  The phone rang again. He ignored it. Instead he took a phone book out of the cabinet in the hall and quickly found the number he was looking for. His hands were shaking as he punched in the number. It seemed to ring a hundred times.

  ‘Hi, it’s Anders,’ he said when the receiver on the other end was finally picked up. ‘No, don’t hang up, damn it. We have to talk…well, you don’t have that much of a fucking choice, I have to tell you…I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes. And you’d better fucking be there…I don’t give a shit who else is there, fuck it! Don’t forget who has the most to lose here…That’s bullshit. I’m going now. See you in fifteen minutes.’

  Anders slammed down the receiver. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he pulled on his jacket and went out. He didn’t bother to lock the door. The phone in the flat started ringing furiously again.

  Erica was exhausted when she got back to the house. There was a strained silence in the car during the trip home, and Erica understood that Henrik was facing a difficult choice. Should he tell Birgit that he wasn’t the father of Alexandra’s child, or should he keep quiet and hope that it didn’t come out during the investigation? Erica didn’t envy him and couldn’t say how she would have acted in his situation. The truth wasn’t always the best solution.

  It was already getting dark, and she was grateful that her father had put in outdoor lamps that turned on automatically when anyone approached the house. She had always been terribly afraid of the dark. When she was little, she thought it was something she would grow out of, because adults couldn’t be afraid of the dark, could they? But she was thirty-five years old, and she still looked under the bed to make sure that nothing was lurking there in the dark. How pathetic.