The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime)

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘The doctor is free now,’ said the nurse. She showed them into an office where Niclas sat behind a desk cluttered with papers. He looked exhausted. He stood up and shook hands with them, even attempting a welcoming smile. But the smile hardened into an anxious grimace before it reached his eyes.

  ‘Are there any developments in the investigation?’ he asked.

  Patrik shook his head. ‘We’re working full tilt, but so far without much progress. But we’re bound to have a breakthrough,’ he added. He hoped to sound reassuring, but in truth his doubts were getting worse. They had absolutely nothing to go on this time.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ said Niclas wearily as he ran his hand over his blond hair.

  Patrik couldn’t help reflecting that the man before him looked like he belonged on the cover of one of those romance novels about beautiful nurses and handsome doctors. Even now, with all that he was going through, his charm was palpable, and Patrik could only imagine how attractive he must be to women. According to what he’d heard from Erica, over the years that had presented problems in his marriage to Charlotte.

  ‘We have a few questions regarding your activities last Monday morning,’ Patrik began. Ernst was still sulking, and he ignored Patrik’s glances attempting to get him to participate.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Niclas, apparently unmoved, but Patrik thought he noticed his gaze shift slightly.

  ‘You told us that you were at work.’

  ‘Yes, I drove here at quarter to eight, as usual,’ said Niclas, but his nervousness was unmistakable.

  ‘That’s what we don’t quite understand,’ said Patrik, gesturing in a last attempt to involve Ernst. But his colleague just stared obstinately out of the window facing the car park, so Patrik continued.

  ‘We did try to get hold of you for a couple of hours that morning. And you weren’t in. Of course, if you can’t remember we could ask the nurse,’ said Patrik, nodding toward the door. ‘I presume she keeps track of your office hours and can check to see whether you were here that morning.’

  Now Niclas was squirming uneasily in his chair, and beads of sweat had appeared at his temples. But he was still struggling to look unmoved, and Patrik had to admit that he was doing a fairly good job of it. In a calm voice Niclas said, ‘Oh, I remember now. I’d taken time off to drive out and look at some houses that were for sale. I didn’t mention it to Charlotte because I wanted to surprise her.’

  The explanation would have seemed plausible if it weren’t for the tension that Patrik sensed beneath the calm tone of voice. He didn’t believe this explanation for a moment.

  ‘Could you be a little more precise? Which houses did you go to look at?’

  Niclas gave a nervous laugh and seemed to be trying to think of a way to gain time. ‘I’d have to check on that, I don’t really recall,’ he said hesitatingly.

  ‘There aren’t that many houses for sale here right now. You must at least remember what neighborhoods you were in.’ Patrik pressed him harder with his questions, and he saw Niclas growing more and more nervous. Whatever he had been doing that morning, he hadn’t been looking at houses.

  A moment of silence followed, as Niclas struggled visibly for another excuse. But then Patrik saw him give up and his whole body slumped. Now maybe they were getting somewhere.

  ‘I don’t …’ Niclas’s voice broke and he started over. ‘I don’t want Charlotte to hear about this.’

  ‘We can’t promise anything. Things have a tendency to come out sooner or later, but we’re giving you an opportunity to present your version before we hear anyone else’s.’

  ‘You don’t understand. It would destroy Charlotte completely if …’ His voice broke again, and Patrik couldn’t keep from feeling a certain sympathy for the man.

  ‘As I said, I can’t promise anything.’ He waited for Niclas to conquer his anxiety and continue. Images of sweet, gentle Charlotte came to him, and suddenly his sympathy was mixed with repugnance. Sometimes he was ashamed to have to listen to the males of the species.

  ‘I …’ Niclas cleared his throat, ‘I was with someone.’

  ‘And who might that be?’ asked Patrik. By now he had completely given up hope of bringing Ernst into the conversation, so he was surprised when his colleague suddenly turned from the window and regarded their interviewee with great interest.

  ‘Jeanette Lind.’

  ‘The woman who owns the gift shop on Galärbacken?’ Patrik asked. He could vaguely recall a petite, curvaceous, dark-haired woman.

  Niclas nodded. ‘Yes, that’s Jeanette. We …’ once again the same hesitation, ‘we’ve been seeing each other for a while.’

  ‘How long is a while?’

  ‘A couple of months. Three, maybe.’

  ‘How did the two of you manage that?’ Patrik’s curiosity was genuine. He had never understood how people who had an affair could make time to meet. Or how they dared. Especially in a town as small as Fjällbacka, where a car parked for five minutes outside someone’s house was enough to start the rumors flying.

  ‘Sometimes at lunch, sometimes I said I was working late. Once I pretended I had an urgent house call.’

  Patrik was tempted to punch this guy. But his personal feelings were irrelevant. They were here only to investigate the matter of his alibi.

  ‘And last Monday morning you simply took a couple of hours off to drive over and see … Jeanette.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Niclas in a gruff voice. ‘I said I had to make some house calls that I’d been putting off for a while, but that I’d be available on my mobile if anything urgent came up.’

  ‘But you weren’t. We tried to get hold of you through your nurse on repeated occasions, and you didn’t answer your mobile.’

  ‘I forgot to recharge it. It died just after I left the clinic, but I didn’t even notice.’

  ‘And what time did you leave the clinic to go meet your lover?’

  That last word seemed to affect Niclas like a slap in the face, but he didn’t object. Instead he ran his hands through his hair again and said wearily, ‘Just after nine thirty, I think. I had telephone consultations between eight and nine, and then I did some paperwork for about half an hour. So between nine thirty and twenty till, I would think.’

  ‘And we got hold of you just before one. Was that when you came back to the clinic?’ Patrik was struggling to keep his voice neutral, but he couldn’t help imagining Niclas in bed with his lover at the same time as his daughter lay dead in the sea. However one looked at it, Niclas Klinga was not presenting an attractive picture of himself.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct. I had to start seeing patients at one, so I got back around ten till.’

  ‘We’re going to have to talk to Jeanette to verify your story. You realize that, don’t you?’ Patrik said.

  Niclas nodded dejectedly. He repeated his entreaty once again: ‘Try to keep Charlotte out of this; it would break her completely.’

  You should have thought of that earlier, Patrik thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. Niclas had probably had the same thought many times over the past few days.

  15

  Fjällbacka 1924

  It had been so long since he had felt any joy in his work that those days seemed like a distant, pleasant dream. Day-to-day toil had crushed his enthusiasm, and he now worked mechanically on whatever task was at hand. Agnes’s demands never seemed to end. Nor could she make the money last, as the other stonecutter families managed to do, even though they often had a large brood of children to feed. Everything he brought home seemed to run through her fingers. He often had to leave for the quarry without breakfast or lunch because there was no money for food, even though for the first time he was bringing home every öre he earned. Poker was the biggest amusement among the stonecutters. The games laid claim to both evenings and weekends, often ending only when the men went home looking foolish and with empty pockets. The bitterness had long since carved furrows in their wives’ faces.

  Indeed, bi
tterness was a feeling that was beginning to take its toll on Anders, too. Life with Agnes, which had seemed a beautiful dream less than a year ago, had turned out to be pure punishment. The only thing he had done wrong was to love her and plant a child inside her, and yet he was suffering as if he’d committed the ultimate mortal sin. He couldn’t even feel happy about the child in her belly anymore. Her pregnancy had not progressed free of pain, and now that she was in the last stage, things were worse than ever. During her entire pregnancy she had complained of aches and pains of one sort or another, and refused to take care of everyday chores. This meant that he not only worked from early morning to late evening in the quarry, but he also had to handle all the chores that a housewife should do. Worse, he knew that the other cutters both mocked and pitied him for having to carry out a woman’s duties. Most often, though, he was simply too exhausted to even care what others said behind his back.

  Nevertheless, Anders was still looking forward to the birth of the baby. Maybe maternal love would make Agnes stop seeing herself as the center of the world, and go back to being more like the girl he’d first fallen in love with. Because he refused to give up the idea that they could make this marriage work. He was not a man who took his promises lightly. Now that they had forged a legally recognized bond, it was not something they could just walk away from, no matter how hard their situation might be.

  Naturally, he did occasionally look at other women at the compound, wives who worked hard and never complained. His situation felt unfair, but he understood that he had brought this situation upon himself. And consequently he had lost the right to complain.

  With heavy steps he trudged home along the narrow track. This day had been just as monotonous as all the others. He had spent it cutting paving stones, and one shoulder was aching, where he’d had to use the same muscle over and over for hours. Hunger was tearing at his stomach as well; there had been nothing at home that he could take with him in his lunch sack, and if their neighbor Jansson hadn’t taken pity on him and shared his own sandwich, Anders wouldn’t have had a thing to eat all day. No, he thought, starting now he was done entrusting his wages to Agnes. He would simply have to take charge of buying the groceries, just as he had taken over her other chores. He could stand to go without food himself, but he had no intention of letting his child starve. It was high time he began introducing some different routines at home.

  He sighed and paused for a moment outside the shack before opening the flimsy wooden door and going inside to his wife.

  From behind the glass window of the reception, Annika had a good view of everyone who came and went in the station. But today it was quiet. Only Mellberg was still in his office, and no one had come by on any urgent errand. But her office itself was hopping with activity. The media publicity had prompted a welter of calls, but it was still too early to say whether anything was worth following up. Not that it was her job to decide. She merely wrote down all the information, along with the name and phone number of the informant. Patrik would soon be the lucky recipient of a huge dose of gossip and baseless accusations, which in her experience made up most of these kinds of calls.

  But this case had generated more buzz than usual. Anything having to do with children usually stirred up emotions among the public, and nothing aroused stronger feelings than murder. But the calls did not cast the general populace in a good light. Most noticeable was the fact that the modern tolerance for homosexuality had not yet taken root outside the big cities. She was getting lots of tips about men who were considered suspicious individuals simply because of confirmed or suspected homosexuality. In most cases the arguments advanced were laughable. It was enough for a man to have a non-traditional profession for Annika to be told that he must be ‘one of those perverts.’ So far she had received multiple tips about a local hairdresser, a part-time florist, and a teacher who had apparently committed the outrageous error of favoring pink shirts. Most suspect of all was a male day-care aide. Annika counted ten calls about this latter individual, and she noted them all down with a sigh. Sometimes she wondered whether time moved forward at all in small towns.

  The next call, though, was different. The woman on the line wanted to remain anonymous, but the tip she provided was undoubtedly of interest. Annika straightened up and wrote down exactly what the woman told her. This one was going on the top of the stack. She shivered, convinced that this could be crucial to the case. It was so seldom that she had any part in solving a case that she couldn’t help feeling a certain satisfaction, hoping that this could be one of those moments. Then the phone rang again—another tip about the florist.

  Reluctantly Arne placed the hymnals on the pews. Usually this task made him feel good, but not today. Newfangled inventions! A music service on Friday evening, and it was far from God-fearing music. Cheerful and lively and altogether heathen! Music should only be played in church during Sunday worship service, and then preferably traditional hymns from the hymnal. Nowadays anything at all could be played, and in some instances people had even taken to applauding. Well, he had to be glad that here it wasn’t yet as bad as in Strömstad, where the pastor brought in one pop artist after another. This evening at least it was only some youths from the local music college, not those silly Stockholm women touring the country who were just as happy to play in the house of God as for drunks in the public parks.

  Tonight it was going to be hymns, in any event, and with meticulous care Arne hung up the numbers on the board to the right of the choir. When he had finished posting the numbers, he took a step back to make sure they all hung straight. He took pride in every detail being perfect.

  If only he would be allowed to create the same order among human beings, everything would be so much better. Instead of thinking up their own idiocies, people could listen to him and learn. It was all in the Bible, after all. Everything was described in the smallest detail, if only one took the trouble to read what the Scriptures said.

  He was again struck by the disappointment of not living his life as a pastor. After checking that he was all alone, he opened the gate to the choir and stepped reverently up to the altar. He glanced up at the emaciated and wounded Jesus hanging on the cross. This was what life was all about. Studying the blood seeping out of Jesus’s wounds, observing how the thorns cut into his scalp, and then bowing one’s head in respect. He turned round and gazed out over the empty pews. In his mind’s eye they were filled with people, his congregation, his audience. He tentatively raised his hands in the air and intoned crisply: ‘May the Lord let his countenance shine upon you …’

  He pictured the people being filled by his words. He saw them receiving the blessing into their hearts and looking at him with faces beaming. Arne slowly lowered his hands and stole a glance at the pulpit. He had never dared step up there, but today it was as if the Holy Spirit were filling him. If his father hadn’t stood in the way of his calling, he could have approached the pulpit with the full right of a pastor. From that platform, elevated above the heads of the congregation, he could have preached God’s word.

  He tentatively moved toward the pulpit, but when he put his foot on the first step he heard the heavy church door creak open. He quickly went back to his chores, but the bitterness ate into his breast like acid.

  The little shop was not open except during the summer months and on holiday weekends, so Patrik and Ernst had to look for Jeanette at the restaurant where she made her living the other nine months of the year. She was a waitress at one of the few lunch spots in Grebbestad that was open in the winter, and Patrik felt his stomach rumble as they walked inside. But it was still too early for lunch, and the restaurant was mostly empty. A young woman was slowly making the rounds of the tables, setting them up.

  ‘Jeanette Lind?’

  She looked up and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Patrik Hedström and Ernst Lundgren. We’re from the Tanumshede police station. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.’

  She nodded
curtly but quickly lowered her gaze. If she had any powers of deduction, she probably knew why they were there.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked, and both Patrik and Ernst nodded eagerly.

  Patrik watched her as she walked over to the coffee-maker. He recognized her type. Small, dark, and curvaceous. Big brown eyes and hair with a natural wave that reached well below her shoulders. Certainly the prettiest girl in her class, maybe even in her whole grade level at school. Popular and always going with one of the older, cooler guys. But when the school years were over, the heyday of such girls came to an end as well. And yet they stayed in their home towns, aware that there they were remembered as stars—unlike in the nearby cities where they would seem mediocre in comparison with hordes of other pretty girls. He judged that Jeanette was a lot younger than he was, and also much younger than Niclas. Twenty-five at most.

  She placed a coffee cup in front of each of them and tossed her hair back as she sat down at the table. It looked like a move she might have practiced as a teenager hundreds of times in front of the mirror. By now she had the flirtatious gesture down pat.

  ‘All right, shoot, or whatever it is they say in American films.’ She gave them a wry smile, and her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at Patrik.

  Though he didn’t want to, he had to admit that he could understand what it was that Niclas saw in her. He too had spent many years pining for the cutest girls in school. Boys were all alike. But he had really never had a chance. Short, thin, and with decent grades, he was one of the average ones. He could only admire from afar the tough guys who cut math class to hang out in the smoking area, cigarettes dangling from the corner of their mouths. Then again, in recent years he had gotten to know many of those boys well in his professional capacity. Some of them could even call the drunk tank at the station their second home.