Because the boy was his, after all. His own son. If he’d had any doubts before, they had been swept aside as soon as he saw Simon step off the train. It was like seeing himself as a young lad. The same well-fed physique, the same strong facial features. The emotions aroused in him were astonishing. Mellberg was still shocked that he was capable of such deep feelings. He had always taken pride in the fact that he didn’t need anyone. Well, besides his mother.
She had always pointed out that it was a sin and a shame that such excellent genes as his weren’t going to be passed on. And there she’d undoubtedly had a point. It was one of the foremost reasons that he wished that his mother could have met this boy. To show her that she was right. All it took was a glance at the child to see that he’d inherited many of his father’s characteristics. The apple certainly didn’t fall far from the tree, although Simon’s mother had said in her letter that he was lazy, unmotivated, and insubordinate, and did miserably in school. But that said more about her child-rearing ability than about the boy. He just needed to spend a little time with his father, a manly role model. It was only a matter of time before he’d make a man out of him.
He did think Simon could at least have said ‘thank you’ when he gave him the video games, but the poor boy was probably so shocked to get anything as a gift that he didn’t know what to say. Lucky that Mellberg was such a good judge of people. It wouldn’t be productive to force anything at this stage; he knew that much about raising children. He had no practical experience in the subject, he had to admit, but how hard could it be? You just needed to use common sense. The boy was a teenager, after all, and people said that was going to be difficult, but in Mellberg’s opinion it was simply a matter of finding the appropriate language in which to communicate. And if there was anyone who knew how to talk to people on their level, it was him. He was convinced that he would have no problem at all.
Voices out in the corridor announced that Patrik and Martin were back. Hopefully with that pedophile jerk in tow. This was one interrogation he intended to participate in, for a change. And this time he was not holding back.
22
Fjällbacka 1928
It began like any other day. The boys had run over to the neighbors’ in the morning, and luckily they had stayed there until evening. The old woman had even felt sorry for the boys and fed them, so Agnes didn’t have to bother fixing lunch, even though it usually only entailed making a couple of open sandwiches. This had put her in such a good mood that she decided to mop the floor. So when evening came, she felt sure of getting some well-earned praise from her husband. Even though she didn’t particularly care what he thought, she still craved attention, and praise was a luxury.
By the time she heard Anders coming up the front steps, Karl and Johan were already asleep, and she was sitting at the kitchen table reading a women’s magazine. She looked up at him distractedly and nodded, but then gave a start. He didn’t look as tired and downhearted as he usually did when he came home; he had a gleam in his eye that she hadn’t seen in a long time. Uneasiness rose inside her.
He sank down on one of the wooden chairs facing her, folded his hands, and rested them on the worn tabletop.
‘Agnes,’ he said, and then stopped. The silence lasted so long that the unpleasantness in her stomach congealed into a lump. He obviously had something on his mind, and if there was anything she had learned in her life, it was that surprises were seldom good.
‘Agnes,’ he said again, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about our future, and about our family, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we need a change.’
All right, true. So how was he going to change her life for the better?
Anders continued with obvious pride. ‘So that’s why I’ve taken on as much extra work as I could this past year, and I’ve saved us enough money to buy us a one-way ticket.’
‘A ticket? Where to?’ asked Agnes, heart pounding. It annoyed her to think that he had withheld money from her.
‘To America,’ Anders said, grinning with excitement. He clearly expected her to be happy, but instead Agnes felt the shock turn her face numb. What had that idiot gone and done now?
‘America?’ was all she could say.
He nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, we’re leaving next week, and you’d better believe I had to pull some strings to arrange everything. I’ve been in touch with some of the Swedes who went over there from Fjällbacka, and they assured me that there’s plenty of work for someone like me. A man who’s skilled can make himself a good future “over there.”’ This last he said in English with his broad Blekinge accent, evidently proud of the two English words he already knew.
Agnes wanted to slap him. What was he thinking? Did he actually believe she would get on a boat to a foreign land with him and his brats? She would end up even more dependent, but this time in an unfamiliar country, with a strange language and strange people. Certainly she hated her life here, but at least while she was in Sweden it seemed possible for her to someday escape the hellhole she’d ended up in. Although to be honest she had toyed with the idea of traveling to America herself, but alone, without him and the kids shackling her.
But Anders didn’t recognize the horror in her face. Overjoyed, he took out the tickets and placed them on the table. In desperation Agnes stared at the four pieces of paper, spread out like a fan before him. She wanted to shrivel up and cry.
She had a week. A miserable week left to get out of this situation somehow. She forced herself to give Anders a smile.
Monica had driven to Konsum to buy groceries, but suddenly she set down the shopping basket and walked out the door without buying a thing. Something was telling her she had to get home. Her mother and grandmother had been the same way. They could sense things, and she too had learned to listen to her inner voice.
She floored the gas pedal of her little Fiat as she headed around the mountain. As soon as she came round the curve on the road up to Sälvik, she saw the police car parked outside their house and knew her instincts had been right. She parked behind the police car and got out, terror-stricken at what she might encounter. Each night for the past week she’d had exactly the same dream: police officers coming to their home and uncovering the secret, the one thing she was so desperate to forget. Now the nightmare had come true. She approached the house reluctantly, trying to postpone the inevitable. The second she heard Morgan’s wails, though, she began to run. Up the garden path, out to his little cabin. He was standing in front of the cabin door screaming at two policemen, arms outstretched to block the entrance.
‘Nobody can come into my house! It’s mine!’
‘We have a warrant,’ said one policeman in an attempt to reason with him. ‘We have to do our job, so please let us in.’
‘No, you’re just going to mess things up!’ Morgan clung to the door frame.
‘We promise to be careful and disturb as little as possible. Though, we may have to take a few things with us—if you have a computer in there, for instance—’
Morgan interrupted him with a loud bellow. His body had started to twitch uncontrollably and his eyes flicked back and forth between the policemen.
‘No, no, no, no, no,’ he chanted with rising hysteria. He looked ready to defend his computers with his life, which Monica believed was quite close to the truth. She sprinted the last few steps.
‘What’s going on? Can I help?’
‘Who are you?’ asked the policeman standing closest to her. He didn’t take his eyes off Morgan as he spoke.
‘I’m Morgan’s mother. I live here.’ She gestured toward the main house.
‘Could you please explain to your son that we have a warrant to enter the cabin and look around? We’re also permitted to take any computer equipment that may be in there.’
At the mention of the computers Morgan began to shake his head violently. ‘No, no, no, no …’
Monica walked up to him as calmly as she could. She fixed her gaze on the police officers, and began to stroke Mo
rgan’s back soothingly.
‘Could you please tell me first why you’re here? Then I’m sure I can help you.’
The younger of the two officers looked embarrassed and lowered his eyes. The older, more hardened one answered her calmly, ‘We’ve taken in your husband for questioning, and we also have a warrant to search the premises.’
‘May I ask why?’ She could hear that she sounded unnecessarily cool, but she was not going to let those officers harass Morgan without giving her a reasonable explanation.
‘Your husband’s name has come up in connection with possession of child pornography.’
Her hand froze on Morgan’s back. She tried to speak but all that came out was a wheeze.
‘Child pornography?’ She cleared her throat to try and regain control of her voice. ‘You must be mistaken. My husband, involved in child pornography?’
As the officer nodded solemnly, thoughts began to tumble round in her head: questions she had, things she’d always wondered about, always pondered. But most overwhelming was a feeling of relief. They weren’t here for that.
She took a few seconds to collect herself and then turned to Morgan.
‘Morgan, honey, listen to me. You have to let them go inside the cabin. And you have to let them take the computers. You have no choice: it’s the police. It’s their right.’
‘But what if they mess things up? And what about my schedule?’
‘I’m sure they’ll be careful, just as they said. And you have no choice.’ As she stressed this last sentence, she could feel him begin to calm down. It was always easier for Morgan to handle situations in which he had no choice.
‘Do you promise not to mess things up?’
The policemen nodded, and Morgan slowly took a step away from the door.
‘And you have to be careful with the files on the computers. I have a lot of jobs stored there.’
Again they nodded, and now he stepped out of the way and let them go inside.
‘Why are they doing this, Mamma?’
‘I don’t know,’ Monica lied. Relief was flooding her veins, but slowly the realization of what the officers had said began to sink in, and with it came an intense feeling of disgust. She took Morgan by the arm and led him to the front of the house. She kept turning her head to look back with concern toward the cabin.
‘Don’t worry, they promised to be careful.’
‘Are we going inside the big house?’ said Morgan. ‘You know I don’t usually go in the big house this time of day.’
‘No, I know that,’ said Monica. ‘But today we have to do something totally different. We can’t bother the policemen. So you have to come with me to Aunt Gudrun’s house.’
He looked confused. ‘But we only go there at Christmastime. Or when one of them has a birthday.’
‘I know,’ Monica said patiently. ‘But today we have to make an exception.’
He pondered this for a moment and then decided that there was logic in what she said.
As they walked toward the car, Monica saw out of the corner of her eye the curtain drawn aside in the Florins’ kitchen. Lilian stood in the window watching them. She was smiling.
‘So, Kaj. This is certainly not a pleasant situation.’ Patrik sat facing him, with Martin next to him and Mellberg sitting discreetly on a chair in the corner. To Patrik’s great relief, the chief had voluntarily offered to just observe in the interrogation. Patrik would have preferred not to have him there at all, but he was the boss.
Kaj didn’t answer. He dropped his chin to his chest, giving Patrik and Martin a close-up view of the top of his head. His hair had thinned over the years so that his pink scalp shone through the wisps of black hair.
‘Do you have any explanation for why your name appears on an order list for child pornography? And don’t give me that old story that it must be a mistake. Your name and address are both on the list, so there’s no question that you were the one who placed the order.’
‘Somebody must be trying to frame me,’ Kaj muttered into his lap.
‘Oh, really?’ said Patrik, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Then perhaps you can tell us why anyone would go to the trouble of trying to put you in jail. What sort of arch-enemies have you made over the years?’
Kaj didn’t answer. Martin slammed the palm of his hand on the table to get his attention, which made Kaj jump.
‘Didn’t you hear the question? Who would be interested in sending you to jail?’
Still no reply.
There were a number of printouts in front of Patrik and Martin. Patrik leafed through them in silence for a moment, pulling out a few pages and gathering them into a pile.
‘You must realize that we have plenty of material about you. We have names of the others who …’—he searched for the right term—‘share the same interest and who you’ve been in contact with. We have information on when you ordered material from them, we know that you’ve submitted material yourself, and we also have records of chat sessions that our colleagues in Göteborg have been skilled enough to get their hands on. There are a number of talented computer guys over there, you understand. And they weren’t stopped by the elaborate firewalls that you all set up so that no one could hack into your little group. Nothing is foolproof, you know.’
Now Kaj looked up and his eyes flitted restlessly from Patrik to the printouts in front of him. His whole world was tumbling down as the second hand ticked on the wall clock behind him. Patrik saw that he was shaken by the revelation that someone had been able to get into protected files. Now Kaj was clearly wondering exactly how much they knew. It was just the right time to press him further.
‘At this very moment, we’re going through your whole house. And our colleagues aren’t amateurs. There is no hiding place they haven’t seen before. No brilliant secret cubbyholes that they can’t find. And your computer will be sent to Uddevalla to be examined by some guys who are real hackers. You know, guys who could get into banks on the Internet and move a little money around if they felt like it and if they didn’t happen to be on the side of the law.’
It was possible, Patrik thought, that he might be exaggerating a bit, but Kaj didn’t know that. And he could see that the tactic was working. Little beads of sweat had begun to appear on Kaj’s brow, and he could feel rather than see Kaj’s legs start to shake uncontrollably.
‘And even though you may be an amateur when it comes to computers, perhaps Morgan has told you that just because you’ve deleted a file, that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Our computer guys can restore most everything, as long as there hasn’t been damage to the hard drive.’
Martin took up where Patrik had left off. ‘As soon as they’ve had a chance to go through your computer, we’ll have a little talk. Then we’ll know precisely what you’ve been up to. Göteborg and our own staff are working full speed to try and identify the children who appear in the material the police confiscated. The information we have so far indicates that your favorite victims are young boys. Is that correct? Well, is it true, Kaj? Do you prefer boys? Young, innocent lads?’
Kaj looked like he might cry, but he still said nothing.
Patrik leaned forward and lowered his voice. Now he had reached the moment that was the real point of the interrogation.
‘But what about girls? Does it work with little girls too? Pretty tempting with one living right next door. Must have been almost irresistible. Especially since it would be a chance to get back at Lilian. What a feeling. Right under her nose, to avenge all those years of injustice. But something went wrong, didn’t it? How did it happen? Did the girl start to struggle, say that she was going to tell her mamma, so you had to drown her to make her shut up?’
Mouth agape, Kaj looked first at Patrik, then at Martin. His eyes were big and shiny. He shook his head.
‘No, I had nothing to do with that. I never touched her, I swear!’
The last words came out like a shriek, and Kaj looked almost on the verge of a heart attack. Patrik wondered if he
ought to interrupt the questioning, but decided to push a little further.
‘And why should we believe you? We have proof that you have a sexual interest in children, and we’ll soon know if there’s evidence that you’ve actually assaulted anyone. A seven-year-old girl living in the house next door to yours was found murdered. That’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?’
He didn’t mention that no trace of sexual assault had been found on Sara. But as Pedersen had said, that didn’t necessarily mean that one hadn’t taken place.
‘But I swear I had nothing to do with the girl’s death! She’s never been inside our house, I swear it!’
‘That remains to be seen,’ said Martin grimly, casting a glance at Patrik. He saw the same ‘bloody hell’ expression in his colleague’s eyes that he felt in his own. Patrik gave a slight nod and Martin got up to go make a phone call. They had forgotten to order a team of techs to check the bathroom. When that mistake was corrected and he’d been promised an immediate response, Martin returned to the interrogation room. Patrik was still asking about Sara.
‘So you really expect us to believe that you were never once … tempted by the neighbor girl. She was a sweet girl, too.’
‘I didn’t touch her, I told you. And I wouldn’t call her sweet. A bloody child of Satan is what she was. Sneaking into the garden in the summertime and pulling up all Monica’s flowers. No doubt her fucking grandmother put her up to it.’
Patrik was shocked at how fast Kaj’s nervousness vanished and his hatred of Lilian Florin took over. Even under these circumstances the feelings were so ingrained that for a moment they made Kaj forget why he was sitting there. Then Patrik saw reality sink in again, and his shoulders slumped as he hunched over the table.
“I didn’t kill the little girl,’ said Kaj quietly. ‘And I never touched her, I swear.’
Patrik again exchanged a look with Martin and then made a decision. They probably weren’t going to get much further right now. Hopefully they’d have more material once the others had finished their search of Kaj’s house and computer. And if they were really lucky, the techs would find something when they examined the bathroom.
The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime) Page 28
