The Stone Cutter

by Camilla Lackberg

  Elisabeth opened it after only two rings and broke into a smile that made Agnes writhe with contempt. She longed to wipe that smile off her face.

  'Well, if it isn't Agnes! How lovely of you to come and visit.'

  Agnes saw that Elisabeth meant what she said, while at the same time she had a slightly puzzled look. Of course Agnes had been a guest in their home before, but only at dinner parties and celebrations. She had never before dropped by unannounced.

  'Come in,' said Elisabeth. 'You'll have to excuse the mess. If I'd known you were coming, I would have picked up.'

  Agnes stepped into the hall and looked round for the mess that Elisabeth mentioned. All she could see was that everything was in its proper place, which confirmed her image of Elisabeth as the ultimate, pathetic homemaker.

  'Have a seat and I'll fetch some coffee,' said Elisabeth politely, and before Agnes could stop her she was on her way to the kitchen.

  Agnes hadn't intended to have a coffee klatsch with Per-Erik's wife. She had planned to get what she'd come for and leave as quickly as possible, but she reluctantly hung up her fur coat and sat down on the sofa in the living room. No sooner had she sat down than Elisabeth appeared with a tray holding cups and thick slices of sponge cake. She set the tray on the dark, highly polished coffee table. The coffee must have been already brewed, because she hadn't been gone more than a couple of minutes.

  Elisabeth sat down in the easy chair next to the sofa.

  'Please have some sponge cake. I baked it today.'

  Agnes looked with distaste at the cake saturated with butter and sugar and said, 'I'll just have coffee, thank you.' She reached for one of the two porcelain cups on the tray She sipped the coffee, which was strong and good.

  'Yes, I can see that you still watch your figure,' Elisabeth said with a laugh, taking a slice of sponge cake. 'I lost that battle after I had kids,' she said, nodding towards a photo of their three children, who were now all grown-up. Agnes pondered for a moment how they would take the news of their parents' divorce and their new stepmother, but felt assured that with a little effort she'd be able to win them over to her side. In time they would probably see how much more she had to offer Per-Erik than Elisabeth did.

  She watched the cake vanish into Elisabeth's mouth, and her hostess reached for another slice. The unbridled craving for sweets reminded Agnes of her daughter, and she had to stop herself from leaning over and tearing the sponge cake out of Elisabeth's hand, the same way she used to do with the girl. Instead she smiled courteously and said, 'I realize that you must think it's a bit odd for me to show up like this unannounced, but unfortunately I have something unpleasant to tell you.'

  'Something unpleasant? What on earth could that be?' said Elisabeth in a tone that should have alerted Agnes if she hadn't been so intent on what she was about to do.

  'Well, it's like this, you see,' said Agnes, carefully setting down her coffee cup. 'Per-Erik and I have come to… well, we've developed a great fondness for each other. And we've felt this way for quite a long while.'

  'And now you want to build a life together,' Elisabeth filled in. Agnes was relieved that the whole thing was going more smoothly than she thought. Then she looked at Elisabeth and realized that something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Per-Erik's wife was regarding her with a sardonic smile, and her gaze had a coldness to it that Agnes had never seen in her before.

  'I understand that this may come as a shock…' Agnes began, now unsure whether her carefully prepared speech would still hold.

  'My dear Agnes, I've known about your little relationship since it started. We have an understanding, Per-Erik and I, and it works admirably for both of us. Surely you didn't think you were the first, did you? Or the last?' said Elisabeth in a nasty tone of voice that made Agnes want to raise her hand and give her a slap.

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Agnes in desperation, feeling the floor giving way beneath her feet.

  'Don't tell me you hadn't noticed that Per-Erik was beginning to lose interest. He doesn't ring you as often, you have a hard time getting hold of him, he seems distracted when you meet. Oh yes, I know my husband well enough after forty years of marriage to know how he would act in such a situation. And I also know that the new object of his desire is a thirty-year-old brunette who works as a secretary at his firm.'

  'You're lying,' said Agnes, seeing Elisabeth's plump features as if in a fog.

  'You can believe what you like. Just ask Per-Erik yourself. Now I think you should go.'

  Elisabeth got up, went out to the hall, and demonstratively held up Agnes's shimmering grey fur coat. Still incapable of taking in what Elisabeth had said, Agnes mutely followed her hostess. In shock she then stood on the front steps and let the wind shove her gently from side to side, feeling the familiar rage rising up inside her. It was even stronger because she felt that she should have known better. She shouldn't have thought that she could trust a man. Now she was being punished by being betrayed once again.

  As if wading through water, she headed for the car she had parked a bit down the street and then sat motionless in the driver's seat for a long time. Her thoughts scurried back and forth in her head like ants, digging deep tunnels of hatred and a desire for revenge. All the events of the past that she had long ago stuffed in the far reaches of her memory now came seeping out. Her knuckles holding the wheel turned white. She leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. Images of the horrible years in the stonecutter's house came to her, and she could smell the muck and sweat from the men who came home after a day's work. She remembered the pains that made her slip in and out of consciousness when the boys were born. The smell of smoke when the houses in Fjällbacka burned, the breeze on the ship to New York, the hum of the crowds and the sound of popping champagne corks, the moans of pleasure from the nameless men who had lain with her, Mary's weeping when she was abandoned on the dock, the sound of Äke's breathing as it slowly flagged and then stopped, Per-Erik's voice when he made her one promise after another. The promises he never intended to keep. All that and more flickered past behind her closed eyelids, and nothing she saw quelled her fury, which was rising to a crescendo. She had done everything to gain the life she deserved, recreate the luxury to which she was born. But life, or fate, had kept tripping her up. Everyone had been against her and done his best to take from her what was rightfully hers: first her father, then Anders, the American suitors, Äke and now Per-Erik. A long series of men whose common denominator was that in various ways they had all exploited and betrayed her. As twilight fell, all these actual and imagined offences coalesced into a single burning point in Agnes's brain. With an empty gaze she stared at Per-Erik's driveway, and slowly a great calm descended over her as she sat in the car. Once before in her life she had felt the same sense of calm, and she knew that it came from the certainty that now there was only one course of action left.

  By the time the headlights of his car finally cut through the darkness, Agnes had been sitting stock still for nearly three hours, but she was unaware of the time that had passed. Time no longer had any relevance. All her senses were focused on the task that lay before her, and there was not a shred of doubt in her mind. All logic, all knowledge of consequences had been eradicated in favour of instinct and a desire to act.

  With eyes narrowed she saw him park the car, take his briefcase which always lay beside him on the passenger seat, and step out. As he conscientiously locked the car she cautiously started her engine and put the car in gear. Then everything happened very fast. She stomped the gas pedal to the floor and the car rushed towards its unsuspecting target. She cut across a patch of lawn and not until the car was only a few metres away did Per-Erik sense that something was happening and turn round. For a fraction of a second their eyes met, and then he was struck directly in the midriff and slammed into the side of his own car. With his arms outstretched he lay collapsed over the bonnet of her car. She saw his eyelids flutter and then slowly close.
>
  Behind the wheel Agnes was smiling. No one betrayed her and got away with it.

  * * *

  Anna awoke with the same feeling of hopelessness she felt every morning. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept through an entire night. Instead she devoted the dark hours to pondering how she and the kids could escape this situation she had put them in.

  Lucas was sleeping calmly next to her. Sometimes he would turn in his sleep and put his arm over her, and she had to grit her teeth not to jump out of bed in disgust. It wasn't worth what would follow.

  The past few days everything had seemed to accelerate. His outbursts came more frequently, and she felt as if together they were stuck in a spiral that was spinning ever faster, sending them into the abyss. Only one of them would return from those depths. Which of them it would be, she didn't know. But both of them couldn't exist at the same time. She had read somewhere about a theory claiming there was a parallel universe with a parallel twin of every living organism, and if you ever met your twin, both of you would be instantly annihilated. That was how it was with her and Lucas, but their destruction was slower and more excruciating.

  They hadn't been out of the flat in several days now.

  When she heard Adrian's voice from the mattress in the corner, she got up cautiously to go and fetch him. It wouldn't do to wake Lucas.

  Together they went out to the kitchen and began to make breakfast. Lucas was eating almost nothing these days and had grown so thin that his clothes hung loose on his body. But he still demanded to have three meals a day set on the table at specified times.

  Adrian whined and refused to sit in his highchair. She desperately shushed him, but he was in a rotten mood because he slept poorly at night. He seemed to be plagued by nightmares. Now he got louder and louder, and nothing Anna did seemed to help. With a sinking feeling in her chest she heard Lucas stirring in the bedroom, and at the same moment Emma began to shout. Anna's instinct told her to flee, but she knew that it was hopeless. All she could do was steel herself and in the best case try to protect the children.

  'What the fuck is going on here?' Lucas yelled in English. He loomed in the doorway, and the eerie look in his eye was there again. It was an empty, insane, and cold look, and she knew that it would eventually spell their doom.

  'Can't you get your children to shut the fuck up?' Now his tone was no longer loud and threatening, but almost gentle. This was the tone she feared most.

  'I'm doing the best I can,' she replied in Swedish, and she heard how squeaky her voice sounded.

  Sitting in his highchair Adrian had now worked himself up to a fit of hysteria. He shrieked and banged on the table with his spoon. 'No eat. No eat,' he repeated over and over.

  Frantically Anna tried again to shush him, but he was so wound up he couldn't stop.

  'You don't have to eat. You're excused. You don't have to,' she said soothingly and began to lift him down from the chair.

  'He's gonna eat the bloody food,' said Lucas, his voice still calm. Anna felt herself freeze. Adrian was now struggling wildly because she wouldn't put him down as promised, but instead was trying to force him back into the highchair.

  'No eat, no eat!' he screamed at the top of his lungs, and it took all Anna's strength to keep him in the chair.

  With cold resolve Lucas took one of the bread slices Anna had put out on the table. He put one hand on Adrian's head and held it In an iron grip, and with the other he began to force the bread into his mouth. The little boy began to thrash with his arms, first in anger and then with rising panic, as the big hunk of bread filled his mouth, making it harder and harder to breathe.

  Anna stood almost paralysed at first, then all her maternal instincts were aroused, and her fear of Lucas completely vanished. The only thought in her head was that her children were in need of protection, and adrenaline spurted into her bloodstream. With a primitive snarl she tore Lucas's hand away and quickly picked the bread out of Adrian's mouth, who now had tears coursing down his cheeks. Then she turned round to confront Lucas.

  Faster and faster the vortex was whirling them into the abyss.

  Mellberg too awoke feeling uneasy, but for much more selfish reasons. During the night he had been jolted awake several times from a sweaty dream, and the scene was always the same. He was being given the boot under unceremonious circumstances. It simply mustn't happen. There had to be some way for him to evade responsibility for yesterday's unfortunate event. The first step was to fire Ernst. This time there was no alternative. Mellberg was aware that earlier he might have been a trifle too indulgent with Lundgren, but to some extent he had felt that they were kindred souls. He at least had considerably more in common with him than with the other namby-pambies at the station. But unlike Mellberg, Ernst had now exhibited a devastating lack of judgement, and it had quite rightly been his undoing. It was a cardinal error. He really thought that Lundgren would have known better.

  He sighed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He always slept in only his underpants, and now he reached down to his crotch under his big paunch to scratch himself and rearrange his equipment. Mellberg looked at the clock. A few minutes to nine. Almost too late to show up at work, but they hadn't got out of there before eight last night, since they'd had to go over in detail everything that had happened. He'd already begun to polish up his report to his superiors. The important thing was for him to keep the facts straight and not make any blunders. Damage control was the name of the game.

  He went to the living room and stood for a moment admiring Simon. He was lying on his back on the sofa, snoring with his mouth open and one leg dangling to the floor. The covers had fallen off, and Mellberg couldn't help reflecting that he had passed on his physique to his son. Simon was no skinny little wimp, but a powerfully built young man who would surely follow in his father's footsteps if he just pulled himself together.

  He poked at him with his toe. 'Hey, Simon, time to wake up.'

  The boy ignored him and turned over on his side with his face to the back of the sofa.

  Mellberg mercilessly kept poking him. Naturally he also appreciated a chance to sleep in, but this wasn't supposed to be some holiday camp.

  'Do you hear me? Get up, I said.'

  Still no reaction, and Mellberg sighed. Well, he'd have to bring up the heavy artillery.

  He went out to the kitchen, let the water run in the tap until it was ice-cold, filled a pitcher full of water and then walked calmly into the living room. With a cheerful smile on his lips he poured the ice-cold water over his son's uncovered body and got precisely the effect he wanted.

  'What the fuck!' yelled Simon, and was off the sofa in a flash. He shivered and grabbed a towel from the floor to dry himself off.

  'What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?' he said sullenly and pulled on a T-shirt with a skull on it and the name of a heavy metal band.

  'Breakfast is served in five minutes,' said Mellberg as he went out to the kitchen whistling. For a brief moment he had forgotten his career-related worries and was instead extremely pleased with the plan he'd worked out for their future father-and-son activities. Lacking porn clubs and casinos, they would have to take what there was, and in Tanumshede that meant the petroglyph museum. Not because he was particularly interested in doodles carved on stone slabs, but it was at least something that they could do together. Because he had decided that would be the new theme of their relationship - togetherness. No more playing video games hour after hour, no more TV-watching until late in the evening since it effectively killed all communication. Instead they would have dinner together with fruitful discussions and afterwards possibly a game of Monopoly to round out the evening.

  He enthusiastically presented his plans to Simon over breakfast but had to admit that he was a bit disappointed at the boy's reaction. Here he was taking great pains to do everything so that they could get to know each other. He was renouncing the activities he personally enjoyed and sacrificing himself by going to the museum w
ith the boy. Simon's response was to sit there staring morosely into his bowl of Rice Krispies. Spoiled, that's what he was. His mother had sent him to his father in the nick of time. The boy clearly needed discipline and guidance.

  Mellberg sighed as he headed off to work. Being a parent was a heavy responsibility.

  Patrik was at work by eight o'clock. He too had slept poorly, more or less simply waiting for it to be morning so he could get going on what had to be done. The first thing was to check whether last night's conversation had made any difference. His finger trembled a little as he dialled the number that he now knew by heart.

  'Uddevalla Hospital.'

  He gave the name of the doctor he wanted to speak with and waited impatiently as he was paged. After what seemed like an eternity the call was put through.

  'Yes, hello, this is Patrik Hedström. We spoke last night. I wonder whether my information has been of any use.'

  He listened tensely and then made a gesture of victory with his clenched fist. Yes! He'd been right!

  After he hung up he began whistling as he considered the consequences now that his hunch had proved to be right. They would have a lot to do today.

  His second call was to the prosecutor. He had rung him with an identical request less than a year ago, and since what he had asked was so unusual, he hoped that the prosecutor wouldn't have a fit.

  'Yes, you heard correctly. I need to get permission for an exhumation. Again, yes. No, not the same grave. We've already opened that one, haven't we?' He spoke slowly and clearly and tried not to sound impatient. 'Yes, it's urgent this time as well, and I'd be grateful if the request could be processed immediately. All the required documents are on the way by fax. You've probably received them already. And the documents refer to two requests, both the exhumation order and another search warrant.'