So far, the medical examiners on TV had solved three cases in forty-five minutes. They made it seem easy, but Patrik was well aware that it wasn’t that simple. He hoped that Pedersen would get back to him tomorrow with news about the ashes on Liam’s shirt and Maja’s overalls.
As a new case was presented, Patrik felt sleep sneaking over him as he reclined on the sofa. But slowly the details of the case began to sink into his consciousness. He sat up and focused his attention on the TV screen. It was a case from the States from many years ago, but the circumstances seemed eerily familiar. He hurried to press the RECORD button on the VCR, hoping he wasn’t recording over the last episode of one of Erica’s reality shows, since in that case the family jewels would be at risk. It was in such situations that his sweetheart usually threatened to get out a rusty pair of scissors.
The M.E. in charge of the analyses spoke at great length and in detail. He showed diagrams and photos to explain the course of events as clearly as possible, and Patrik had no difficulty following along. An idea began to take shape in his mind, and he nervously checked again to see that the RECORD symbol was visible on the VCR’s display. He was going to have to watch the show a couple of more times.
After playing the segment three more times, he felt as certain as he could be. But he still needed to get a little help with his memory. Excited and well aware of the urgent nature of his quest, he went upstairs to find Erica in the bedroom. She had Maja next to her, so he assumed that their daughter was getting a little reward for sleeping so well in the stroller during the day.
‘Erica,’ he whispered and shook her shoulder gently. He was terrified of waking Maja, but he had to talk to Erica.
‘Unnh,’ was the only reply, and she made no attempt to move.
‘Erica, you have to wake up.’
This time he got a response. She gave a start, looked around in confusion, and said, ‘What? What is it? Is Maja awake? Is she crying? I’d better fetch her.’ Erica sat up and was about to get out of bed.
‘No, no,’ said Patrik, carefully pushing her back down on the bed. ‘Shh, Maja is sleeping like a log.’ He pointed at the little bundle that now squirmed a bit.
‘So why are you waking me up?’ said Erica morosely. ‘If you wake Maja, I’ll murder you.’
‘Because I have to ask you something. And it can’t wait.’
He quickly told her what he’d just learned and then asked the question weighing on his mind. After a moment of astonished silence she gave him his answer. He told her to go back to sleep, kissed her on the cheek, and hurried back downstairs. With a grim expression on his face, he punched in a number that he looked up in the phone book. Every minute counted.
32
Göteborg 1958
Something was wrong. She had let it go on for far too long. A year and a half had passed since Åke died, and Per-Erik had met her demands for action with excuses that kept getting vaguer and vaguer. Recently he had scarcely bothered to answer her at all, and the phone calls summoning her to the Hotel Eggers were now few and far between. She had begun to hate that place. The soft hotel sheets against her skin and the impersonal furniture now filled her with a nauseating revulsion. She wanted something else. She deserved better. She deserved to move into his big villa, to be the hostess at his parties, to be given respect, status, and mention in the society columns. Who did he think she was, anyway?
Agnes trembled with rage as she sat behind the steering wheel. Through the windshield she saw Per-Erik’s big white-brick villa, and behind the curtains she glimpsed a shadow moving through the rooms. His Volvo wasn’t parked on the drive. It was Tuesday morning, so he was no doubt at work, and Elisabeth was at home alone, probably devoting herself to being the excellent little housewife she was. Hemming tablecloths or polishing the silver or doing some other boring task that was beneath someone like Agnes. Surely Elisabeth had no idea that her life was about to be smashed to bits.
Agnes felt not the slightest hesitation. The thought didn’t even occur to her that Per-Erik’s ever more evasive manner might be due to a fading enthusiasm for her. No, it must be Elisabeth’s fault that he still hadn’t come to her as a free man. She pretended to be so helpless, so pitiful and dependent, just to bind him to her. But Agnes saw through that act, even if Per-Erik couldn’t. And if he wasn’t man enough to confront his wife, Agnes had no such scruples. She got out of the car, wrapped her fur coat tighter in the November chill, and walked quickly up the path to the front door.
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, Agnes! How lovely of you to come and visit.’
Agnes saw that Elisabeth was serious, if slightly puzzled. 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 klatch 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. Agnes pondered for a moment how they would take the news of their parents’ divorce. But as their new stepmother, she was sure 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 tearing the sponge cake out of Elisabeth’s hand, the same way she used to do with Mary. 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 sti
ll 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?’ added Elisabeth nastily.
‘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 call 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 woman 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 held out Agnes’s shimmering gray fur coat. Still incapable of taking in what Elisabeth had said, Agnes mutely obeyed her hostess. In shock, she then stood on the front steps and let the wind shove her gently from side to side, feeling a familiar rage rising 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 had been betrayed once again.
As if wading through water, she headed for the car 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 row 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 Åke’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, 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, Åke, 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 offenses 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 her task. All logic, all knowledge of consequences had been eradicated in favor of instinct and a desire to act.
With eyes narrowed, she saw him park the car, take his briefcase from the passenger seat, and step out. As he conscientiously locked the car she quietly 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 toward its unsuspecting target. She cut across a patch of lawn, and not until the car was only a few feet away did Per-Erik sense that something was happening and turn around. 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 hood of her car. She saw his eyelids flutter and then slowly close.
Behind the wheel Agnes was smiling. No one betrayed her.
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.
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 had been 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 that she serve him three meals a day 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 had been sleeping poorly, 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 high chair, 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.
For a moment Anna stood paralyzed, then all her maternal instincts took over, and
her fear of Lucas completely vanished. The only thought in her head was that she must protect her children, and adrenaline spurted into her bloodstream. With a primitive snarl, she tore Lucas’s hand away from Adrian and pulled the bread from the sobbing child’s mouth. Then she spun 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 unceremoniously given the boot. 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 other times 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 judgment, 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.
The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime) Page 40
