The Stonecutter: A Novel (Pegasus Crime)

by Camilla Lackberg

  That’s why Mary had chosen to take only one thing with her from home. They had let her go around the flat for an hour to select a few things; the rest would be sold, just like the flat. She had wandered through the rooms as the memories passed through her mind: Father in his easy chair with his glasses on the tip of his nose, deeply engrossed in a newspaper; Mother at her dressing table, busy getting ready for a party; herself, sneaking down to the kitchen to try and find something to eat. All the images came over Mary as if in a crazy kaleidoscope, and she felt her stomach turn over. The next second, she rushed to the toilet and vomited up a foul-smelling mess that brought tears to her eyes. Sniffling, she wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, sat down with her back to the wall, and cried with her head between her knees.

  When she left the flat, she only took along a single thing. The blue wooden box. Full of Humility.

  No one had voiced any objections to Niclas taking a day off. Aina had even muttered something to the effect that it was about time, and then cancelled all his appointments for the day.

  Niclas rolled about on the floor chasing Albin, who was crawling around like mad among all the things scattered on the floor. He was still dressed in pajamas although it was past noon. But it didn’t matter. It was going to be one of those days; even Niclas was still wearing the same T-shirt and jogging trousers he’d slept in. Albin laughed heartily in a way Niclas had never heard him do before, which made him crawl even faster after him and roughhouse even more.

  With a pang in his chest he realized that he had no memory of himself playing with Sara the same way. He had always been so busy. So full of his own importance and everything he wanted to do and achieve. Feeling a little superior, he had left all that playing and fooling around with the kids to Charlotte, who did it so well. But for the first time he wondered whether he wasn’t the one who’d drawn the short straw. Something suddenly occurred to him that made him stop short and take a quick breath. He didn’t know what Sara’s favorite game had been. Or what kids’ show she most liked to watch, or if she liked coloring with a blue or red crayon. Or what was her favorite subject in school, or which book she most liked for Charlotte to read to her at bedtime. He knew nothing of importance about his daughter. Absolutely nothing. She could just as well have been the neighbors’ daughter, judging by how little he knew about her. The only thing he thought he’d known was that she was difficult, obstinate, and aggressive. That she hurt her little brother, destroyed things in their home, and attacked her schoolmates. But none of those things had been Sara—they were just things she did.

  The realization made him curl up on the floor in torment. Now it was too late to get to know her. She was gone.

  Albin sensed that something was wrong. He stopped his wild hooting, crept close to Niclas, and curled up like a little animal against his body. Then they lay there, next to each other.

  Several minutes later, the doorbell rang. Niclas gave a start and Albin looked around nervously.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Niclas to him. ‘It’s probably just someone selling something.’

  He picked the boy up and went to open the door. Outside stood Patrik with some unfamiliar men behind him.

  ‘What is it now?’ said Niclas wearily.

  ‘We have a warrant to search the house,’ said Patrik, holding out a document as proof.

  ‘But you’ve already been through here,’ said Niclas, bewildered, as he scanned the document. When he was halfway through, his eyes grew wide and he gave Patrik a confused look. ‘What the hell is this? Attempted murder of Stig Florin? You’ve got to be kidding.’

  But Patrik wasn’t laughing. ‘I’m afraid not. He’s being treated right now for arsenic poisoning. He barely made it through the night.’

  ‘Arsenic poisoning?’ said Niclas in surprise. ‘But how …?’ He still couldn’t grasp what was happening, and didn’t budge from the doorway.

  ‘That’s what we intend to find out. So if you would please let us in …’

  Without a word Niclas stepped to one side. The serious-looking men behind Patrik picked up their cases and equipment and headed through the door.

  Patrik stayed behind with Niclas in the hall, clearly hesitating before adding, ‘We also have permission to exhume Lennart’s body. That work has probably already begun.’

  Niclas felt his mouth fall open. What was happening was just too unreal for him to grasp.

  ‘But why …? What …?’ he stammered.

  ‘We can’t explain it all right now, but we have good reason to believe that he was poisoned as well. Though he wasn’t as lucky as Stig,’ Patrik added grimly. He went on, ‘But now I’d appreciate it if you could stay out of the way and let the men do their job.’ Patrik didn’t wait for his answer, but went into the house.

  Unsure of what to do next, Niclas went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, still holding Albin in his arms. He placed him in his high chair and bribed him with a cookie to keep him quiet. Inside Niclas’s mind, the questions were tumbling around.

  Martin was shivering in the biting wind. His uniform jacket provided little protection from the bitter winds blowing across the churchyard. Just after they arrived, it had begun to drizzle as well.

  The whole operation turned his stomach. He had only been to a few funerals, and to stand here and watch while a coffin was lifted out of the ground instead of down into it felt as wrong as watching a film running backwards. He understood why Patrik had asked him to take charge this time. Patrik had already been through this experience once, just a few months earlier, and once in a lifetime was surely enough. Confirming this notion, he thought he heard one of the gravediggers muttering, ‘You guys must have been betting over at the station to see how many old coots you could get us to dig up in the shortest possible time.’

  Martin didn’t reply, thinking that they should probably try not to make any more requests for a while.

  Torbjörn Ruud came over to stand next to him. He couldn’t help making a comment either. ‘I suppose they’d better start putting elastic bands on the coffins here in Fjällbacka. Then all you have to do is pull them up when you want them.’

  Martin couldn’t resist a wry smile despite the unsuitable occasion, and they were both fighting to keep from laughing when Torbjörn’s mobile rang.

  ‘Yes, this is Ruud.’ He listened, then punched off and said to Martin, ‘They’re going into the Florins’ house now. We’ve assigned three men there and two out here, so we’ll see whether we have to regroup.’

  ‘What exactly do you need to do here—right now, I mean?’ said Martin curiously.

  ‘There’s not much we can do. Right now we’re just watching to make sure that everything is removed with as little contamination as possible. Then we’ll take some soil samples too. But mostly it’s a matter of taking the body to the M.E. so that he can start taking the samples he needs. As soon as the coffin has been sent off, we’ll go over to the Florins’ and help out with the search. You’re going too, I assume?’

  Martin nodded. ‘Yes, I thought I would.’ He paused for a moment. ‘What a bloody mess this has turned out to be.’

  Ruud nodded in turn. ‘You can say that again.’

  Then their topics of conversation ran dry, and they stood in silence as they waited for the men at the gravesite to finish their work. A little while later, the lid of the coffin came into view. Lennart Klinga was above ground again.

  His whole body ached. Stig saw blurry shadow figures hovering around him and then vanishing again. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but no part of his body was willing to obey him. It felt as though he’d gone a round with Mike Tyson and lost big-time. For a brief moment he wondered if he was dead. Nobody could feel like this and still be alive.

  The thought made him panic, and he used all the energy he had left to try and make his vocal cords work. Somewhere far, far away he thought he heard a croaking sound that might be his own voice.

  It was. One of the shadow figures came closer and t
ook on more solid contours. A female face came into view, and he squinted to try and focus.

  ‘Where?’ he got out, and he hoped that she’d understand what he meant. She did.

  ‘You’re in Uddevalla Hospital, sir. You’ve been here since yesterday.’

  ‘Alive?’ he croaked.

  ‘Yes, you’re alive,’ said the nurse with a smile. She had a round, open face. ‘It was touch-and-go, I have to tell you, but now you’re through the worst of it.’

  If he could have laughed, he would have. ‘Through the worst.’ Sure, sure, easy for her to say. She didn’t know how every fiber in his body burned and how it hurt all the way down to his bones. But he clearly was alive, at any rate. With an effort, he tried to shape more words with his lips.

  ‘Ma’am?’ He couldn’t manage to get out her name. For a moment he thought that a strange expression passed over the nurse’s face, but then it was gone. It was no doubt the pain playing a trick on him.

  ‘Now you have to get some rest,’ said the nurse. ‘Soon you’ll be able to have visitors.’

  He let himself be content with that. Exhaustion washed over him and he willingly let it carry him along. He wasn’t dead, that was the main thing. He was in the hospital, but he wasn’t dead.

  With great care, they went over every inch of the house. They couldn’t take a chance on missing anything, but they didn’t have all day either. When they were finished, it would look like a hurricane had come through; but Patrik knew what they had to find, and he was sure it was here somewhere. He didn’t intend to leave until he found it.

  ‘How’s it going?’ came Martin’s voice from the doorway.

  Patrik turned round. ‘We’ve gotten about halfway through the downstairs rooms. Nothing yet. How about you guys?’

  ‘Well, the coffin is on its way. A bloody surreal experience, I might add.’

  ‘You can count on that scene popping up in some nightmare sooner or later. I’ve had a couple, with skeleton hands coming up through the coffin lid and the like.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Martin with a grimace. ‘Haven’t you found anything yet?’ he said, mostly as a way to get rid of the images that Patrik had put into his head.

  ‘No, not a thing,’ Patrik replied in frustration. ‘But it has to be here, I can feel it.’

  ‘I always thought you had a strong feminine side, so it must be woman’s intuition,’ said Martin with a smile.

  ‘Go make yourself useful instead of standing here insulting my manhood.’ Martin went off to find his own corner to search.

  A smile lingered on Patrik’s lips but then vanished. He pictured the murderer carrying Maja’s little body, and the fury he felt was so strong that it made him see red.

  Two hours later, his spirits were flagging. The whole main floor and the cellar were done, and they hadn’t found a thing. But one thing they had confirmed was that Lilian was an especially assiduous housekeeper. The techs had gathered up a number of containers they found in the cellar, but they would need to be taken to the lab and analyzed. Maybe he was wrong after all. But then he remembered the contents of the videotape he’d played over and over last night, and he felt his determination return. He hadn’t been wrong. He couldn’t have been. It was here. The only question was where.

  ‘Shall we continue upstairs?’ said Martin, nodding toward the staircase.

  ‘Yeah, you might as well. I don’t think we could have missed anything down here. We’ve gone over every millimeter.’

  The whole team moved upstairs. Niclas had gone out for a walk with Albin, and they could work undisturbed.

  ‘I’ll start in Lilian’s bedroom,’ said Patrik.

  He went through the doorway to the right of the stairs and looked around the room. Lilian’s bedroom was as well kept as the rest of the house, and the bed had been made up so tightly that it would have passed inspection at boot camp. Otherwise the room was very feminine. Stig couldn’t have felt much at home in there before he had to move to the guest room. The curtains and bedspread had flounces, and there were lace doilies on the nightstands and bureau. Small porcelain knick-knacks were everywhere, and the walls were covered with ceramic angels and pictures featuring angels. The color scheme was overridingly pink. It was so sugar-sweet, it almost made Patrik ill. He thought it resembled a room in a little girl’s dollhouse. It was exactly how a five-year-old would decorate her mother’s bedroom if given a free hand.

  ‘Yuck,’ said Martin as he stuck his head in the doorway. ‘Looks like a flamingo puked in here.’

  ‘Yeah, this room would never be featured in House Beautiful.’

  ‘If it was, it would be the “before” picture. This place needs a make-over,’ said Martin. ‘Say, do you need some help in here? Looks like plenty of stuff to look through.’

  ‘Heck, yeah. I don’t want to be in here longer than I have to.’

  They started at opposite ends of the room. Patrik sat down on the floor to go through the nightstand, and Martin worked on the wardrobes covering one wall.

  They worked in silence. Martin’s back gave a crack when he reached for some shoeboxes on the top shelf of one wardrobe. He set them down carefully on the bed and then stopped for a moment to massage the small of his back. All that strain from moving was still bothering him, and he realized he should probably pay a visit to the chiropractor.

  ‘What have you got there?’ said Patrik, looking up from his spot on the floor.

  ‘Some shoeboxes.’ He removed the lid from the first box, carefully inspected the contents, and then set it aside and replaced the lid. ‘Just a bunch of old photos.’ He lifted the top of the next carton and lifted out a worn blue wooden box. The lid was stuck, so he had to use a little force to open it. When Patrik heard him gasp he looked up at once.

  ‘Bingo,’ said Martin.

  Patrik smiled. ‘Bingo,’ he repeated triumphantly.

  Charlotte had sauntered past the candy vending machine a few times but finally gave in. If she couldn’t allow herself a piece of chocolate at a moment like this, when could she?

  She inserted some coins and pressed the button for a Snickers to drop down into the slot. ‘King Size,’ for good measure.

  She considered gobbling down the whole thing before she went back, but knew she would just get sick if she ate it too fast. So she restrained herself and went back to the waiting room where Lilian was sitting. Quite right. Her mother’s eyes went straight to the candy bar in her hand, and she looked at Charlotte accusingly.

  ‘Do you know how many calories are in one of those? You need to lose weight, not put on more pounds. That thing will go straight to your butt. Now that you’ve finally managed to slim down …’

  Charlotte sighed. She’d heard the same old song her whole life. Lilian had never permitted any sweets in the house, yet she was one of those women who always weighed the same, and she never had one ounce more than necessary on her body. Maybe that was precisely why sweets had been so tempting to Charlotte, who had eaten them in secret. She stole change out of her parents’ pockets and then sneaked off to the Central Kiosk to buy chocolate balls and assorted boiled sweets, which she voraciously devoured before she went home. By middle school she was already overweight, and Lilian had been furious. Sometimes she’d made Charlotte take off her clothes and stand in front of the full-length mirror so she could mercilessly pinch her spare tires.

  ‘Look at yourself. You look like a pig! You don’t really want to look like a pig, do you?’

  Charlotte had hated her mother at those moments. But Lilian had only dared do that when Lennart wasn’t at home. He would never have allowed it. Pappa had been Charlotte’s salvation. She was grown up when he died, but without him she felt like a helpless little girl.

  She regarded her mother sitting across from her. As usual, she was impeccably dressed, a sharp contrast to Charlotte who hadn’t brought a change of clothes from home. Lilian, on the other hand, had managed to pack a small overnight case and had changed her clothes and put on fresh makeup
this morning.

  Charlotte defiantly stuffed the last bit of the large chocolate bar in her mouth, ignoring Lilian’s disapproval. Imagine that she would bother to worry about Charlotte’s eating habits when Stig lay fighting for his life. Her mother never ceased to amaze her. But considering what Grandmother was like, maybe it wasn’t so odd.

  ‘When are we going to get to see Stig?’ said Lilian in frustration. ‘I don’t understand it. How can they keep the relatives out like this?’

  ‘I’m sure they have their reasons,’ said Charlotte, trying to sound reassuring, but for an instant she pictured the strange look on the doctor’s face. ‘We’d probably only be in the way.’

  Lilian snorted and got up from her chair and began pacing back and forth.

  Charlotte sighed. She was really trying to hold on to the sympathy she’d felt for her mother last night, but Lilian was making it damned hard. Charlotte took out her mobile to make sure it was turned on. It was a bit odd that Niclas hadn’t called. The display was dead, and she realized that the battery had run down without her noticing. Damn. She got up to call from the pay phone out in the corridor, but almost ran into two men. She was surprised to see that it was Patrik Hedström and his red-haired colleague who grimly peered over her shoulder into the waiting room.

  ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ she asked, but then the thought struck her full force. ‘Did you find something? Something about Sara? You did, didn’t you? What is it? What …?’ She glanced eagerly and yet with a feeling of dread from Patrik to Martin, but got no reply.

  Finally Patrik said, ‘At the moment, we have nothing concrete to tell you about Sara.’

  ‘But why …?’ she said in bewilderment without finishing her sentence.

  Astonished, Charlotte stepped aside when they signaled that they would like to get by. As if in a fog she saw the other people in the waiting room tensely watching the drama as the police officers went over and took up position before Lilian, who was standing with her arms crossed and looking at them with raised eyebrows.