The Gallows Bird

by Camilla Lackberg

  Leif looked round the neighbourhood, which consisted mostly of summer houses. Soon it would be brimming with life here. Every rubbish bin would have to be emptied. Bins that were full of shrimp shells and white-wine bottles that people were too lazy to take to the recycling centres. It was the same every year. Every single summer. He yawned again and looked up at the bin in the air just as it rotated and dumped its contents into the truck. He was stunned by what he saw.

  Leif pounded the button that stopped the press. Then he took out his mobile.

  Patrik heaved a deep sigh. Saturday hadn’t taken the turn he’d expected. He looked around in resignation. Dresses, dresses, dresses. Tulle and rosettes and sequins and the Devil and his aunt. He was sweating a bit and tugged at the collar of the torture suit he was wearing. It was scratchy and tight in odd places, and as hot as a portable sauna.

  ‘Well?’ said Erica, giving him a critical look. ‘Does it feel good? Does it fit?’ She turned to the woman who owned the shop, who had looked delighted when Erica came in with her future husband in tow. ‘It probably needs some alterations; the trousers look a bit long,’ said Erica, turning to Patrik again.

  ‘We’ll take care of everything, it’s no problem at all.’ The woman bent down and began sticking pins in the hems.

  Patrik grimaced slightly. ‘Is it supposed to be so . . . tight?’ He tugged at the collar again. It felt like he wasn’t getting any air.

  ‘The jacket fits perfectly,’ chirped the woman, which was a real feat considering she had two pins sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I just think it feels a bit too snug,’ said Patrik, appealing to Erica for some support.

  But no reprieve was forthcoming. She smiled, though to his mind it was more of a devilish grin, and replied, ‘You look stupendous! You want to be as stylish as possible when we get married, don’t you?’

  Patrik regarded his wife-to-be thoughtfully. She was exhibiting worrisome tendencies, but maybe a bridal shop affected all women this way. He simply wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Resigned, he realized that there was only one way to accomplish that. With great effort he forced a smile, directed at no one in particular.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I do think that this is starting to feel very, very good. We’ll take this one!’

  Erica clapped her hands in delight. For the thousandth time Patrik wondered what it was about weddings that made women’s eyes sparkle. Naturally he too was looking forward to getting married, but he would have been perfectly happy with a low-key affair. Though he couldn’t deny that the joyful look in Erica’s eyes warmed his heart. In spite of everything, what mattered most in his world was that she was happy. If that meant he had to wear a hot, itchy penguin costume for one day, then he would do it. He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. ‘Do you think Maja is okay?’

  Erica laughed. ‘Anna does have two kids of her own, so I think she can handle taking care of Maja.’

  ‘But now she has three kids to look after. What if she has to run after Adrian or Emma and then Maja slips off and –’

  Erica cut him off with a smile. ‘Just stop it. I’ve taken care of all three of them all winter long, and it’s been fine. And besides, Anna said something about Dan popping by. So you have nothing to worry about.’

  Patrik relaxed. Erica was right. But he was always afraid that something would happen to his daughter. Maybe it was because of everything he’d seen on the job. He knew only too well what terrible events could strike ordinary people. And what awful things could happen to children. He’d read somewhere that after you had a child it was like living the rest of your life with a loaded pistol at your temple. And there was some truth to that. The fear was always present, lurking. There was danger everywhere. But he was going to try and stop thinking about it. Maja was fine. And he and Erica were having a rare day to themselves.

  ‘Would you like to have lunch somewhere?’ he suggested after they had paid and thanked the woman. The springtime sun shone down on them and warmed their faces when they stepped out onto the street.

  ‘What a wonderful idea,’ Erica said happily, taking his arm. They strolled slowly down the shopping street in Uddevalla, looking at the various eating establishments on offer. The choice fell at last on a Thai restaurant on one of the side streets, and they were just about to step into the enticing aroma of curry when Patrik’s phone rang. He looked at the display. Damn, it was the station.

  ‘Don’t tell me . . .’ said Erica, shaking her head wearily. From his expression she could tell where the call was coming from.

  ‘I have to take this,’ he said. ‘But go on inside, I’m sure it’s nothing important.’

  Erica muttered sceptically but did as he said. Patrik waited outside, aware of the antipathy in his voice as he answered, ‘Yes, this is Hedström.’ The expression on his face soon turned from annoyance to disbelief.

  ‘In a rubbish bin?’

  ‘Is anyone else on the way? Martin? Okay.

  ‘I’ll come back straight away. But I’m in Uddevalla, so it’ll be a while. Just give me the address.’ He dug a pen out of his pocket but had no paper, so he wrote the address on the palm of his hand. Then he clicked off and took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking forward to telling Erica that they would have to skip lunch and drive straight home.

  Chapter 4

  Sometimes he thought he remembered the other one, the one who was not as gentle, or as beautiful, as her. The other one, whose voice was so cold and relentless. Like hard, sharp glass. Oddly enough there were times when missed her. He had asked sister if she remembered her, but she only shook her head. Then she had picked up her blanket, the soft one with the tiny pink teddy bears, and squeezed it hard. And he saw that she did remember. The memory sat somewhere deep inside, in her chest, not in her head.

  Once he had attempted to ask about that voice. Where it was now. Who it had belonged to. But she had been so upset. There was no one else, she said. There had never been anyone with a hard, sharp voice. Only her. Just her. Then she had hugged him and sister. He had felt the silk of her blouse against his cheek, the scent of her perfume in his nostrils. A lock of his sister’s long blonde hair had tickled his ear, but he didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare break the magic. He had never asked again. To hear her sounding upset was so unusual, so disturbing, that he didn’t dare risk it.

  The only other time he upset her was when he asked to see what was hidden out there. He didn’t want to do it, he knew it would be fruitless, but he couldn’t help himself. Sister always looked at him with big, frightened eyes when he stammered out his question. Her fear made him cringe, but he couldn’t hold back the question. It spilled out, like a force of nature; it was as if it were bubbling inside him and wanted to come up, come out.

  The answer was always the same. First the disappointed look in her eyes. Disappointment that he, despite her giving him so much, giving him everything, still wanted more. Something else. Then the reluctant reply. Sometimes she had tears in her eyes when she answered. Those times were the worst. Often she knelt down, took his face in her hands. Then came the same assurance. That it was for their own good. That people like them couldn’t be out there. That everything would go wrong, both for him and sister, if she let them outside the door.

  Then she locked the door carefully when she left. And he sat there with his questions, and sister crept close to him.

  Mehmet leaned over the side of the bed and threw up. He was vaguely aware that the vomit splashed onto the floor and not into some container, but he was too out of it to care.

  ‘Fuck, Mehmet, that’s disgusting.’ He heard Jonna’s voice from far away, and with his eyes half-shut he saw her rush out of the room. He didn’t have the energy to care about that either. The only thing that filled his head was the throbbing, painful feeling between his temples. His mouth was dry and tasted of stale booze and vomit. He had only a vague sense of what had happened the night before. He remembered the music, he remembered dancing
, he remembered the girls in skimpy outfits pressing against him, hungry, desperate, revolting. He closed his eyes to shut out the images, but that only amplified them. The nausea rose in him again, and he leaned over the edge of the bed once more. Now there was nothing but gall left. Somewhere nearby he could hear the camera, humming like a bumblebee. Images of his family went round and round in his head. The thought that they would see him like this made the headache a hundred times worse, but he couldn’t do a thing about it, other than pull the covers over his head.

  Snatches of words came and went. They raced in and out of his memory, but as soon as he tried to put them together into something meaningful they dissolved into nothingness. There was something he had to remember. Angry, nasty words that were flung like arrows at someone? At lots of people? At himself? Damn, he couldn’t remember. He curled up in the foetal position, pressing his clenched fists to his mouth. The words began to come again. Curses. Accusations. Ugly words that were meant to hurt. If he remembered rightly, they had achieved that goal. Someone had cried. Protested. But the voices had just grown louder. Then the sound of a slap. The unmistakable sound of skin meeting skin at a speed that would cause pain. A howling, heartrending sob penetrated his fog. He curled up even more as he lay on the bed, under the covers, trying to fend off all the seemingly unrelated bits and pieces that were bouncing around in his mind. It didn’t help. The fragments were so disturbing, so strong, that nothing seemed to be able to hold them at bay. They wanted something from him. But there was some thing he was supposed to remember. There was also something he didn’t want to remember. At least that’s what he believed. Everything was so mixed up. Then the nausea swept over him again. He threw off the covers and leaned over the edge of the bed.

  Mellberg lay in bed staring at the ceiling. This feeling he had . . . It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Perhaps it could best be described as . . . contentment. And it wasn’t a feeling he ought to have either, seeing that he had gone to bed alone and woken up alone too. That had never been associated with a successful date in his world. But things had changed since he met Rose-Marie. He had changed.

  He’d had such an enjoyable evening the night before. The conversation had flowed so easily. They had talked about everything between heaven and earth. And he had been interested in what she had to say. He wanted to know everything about her. Where she grew up, how she grew up, what she had done during her life, what she dreamed of, what kind of food she liked, which TV shows she watched. Everything. At one point he had stopped to glance at their reflections in the windowpane, laughing, toasting each other, talking. And he hardly recognized himself. He had never seen such a smile on his face before, and he had to admit that it suited him. He already knew that her smile suited her.

  He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. The springtime sun filtered through the window, and he noticed that he should have washed the curtains long ago.

  They had kissed good night outside the door of the Gestgifveri. A bit hesitantly, a bit cautiously. He had held her shoulders, extremely lightly, and the feel of the smooth, cool surface of the fabric against his fingertips combined with the scent of her perfume when he kissed her, was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced. How could she have such a strong effect on him? And after such a short time.

  Rose-Marie . . . Rose-Marie . . . He tasted the name. Closed his eyes and tried to picture her face. They had agreed to see each other soon. He wondered how early he could ring her today. Would it seem too forward of him? Too eager? But what the hell, sink or swim. With Rose-Marie he didn’t need to play any complicated games. He looked at his watch. Already a good bit into the morning. She ought to be up by now. He reached for the telephone. But he didn’t manage to pick up the receiver before it rang. He saw from the display that it was Hedström calling. It couldn’t be anything good.

  Patrik arrived at the place where the body was found at the same time as the crime scene technicians. They must have set off from Uddevalla at about the same time he got in the car to drive Erica home. The trip back to Fjällbacka had been rather gloomy. Erica had mostly sat and looked out of the window. Not angry, just sad and disappointed. And he understood. He was disappointed and unhappy too. They’d had so little time to themselves these past few months.

  Patrik could hardly recall the last time they’d had a chance to sit down and talk, just the two of them.

  Sometimes he hated his job. In situations like this he actually questioned why he had chosen a profession where he never had any time off. At any moment he could be called in to the station. The job was always only a phone call away. But at the same time the work gave him so much. Not least the satisfaction of feeling that he was really making a difference, at least occasionally. He never could have stood a profession in which he was forced to shuffle papers and tally up numbers all day long. The police force gave him a feeling of purpose, of being needed. The problem, or rather the challenge, was that he was needed at home as well.

  Damn, why does it have to be so hard to make things work? Patrik thought as he pulled over and parked a short distance from the green rubbish truck. There was a crowd gathered round, but the techs had put up crime scene tape around a large area at the rear of the truck, to ensure that nobody tramped in and destroyed any tracks that might be there. The head of the team of techs, Torbjörn Ruud, came up to Patrik, holding out his hand.

  ‘Hi, Hedström. Well, this doesn’t look like much fun.’

  ‘No, I heard that Leif got a bit more in his load than he’d bargained for.’ Patrik nodded in the direction of the refuse collector, who looked distressed as he stood a short distance away.

  ‘Yeah, he got a real shock. It’s not a pretty sight. She’s still lying there; we didn’t want to move her yet. Follow me and take a look, but watch out where you step. Here, take these.’ Torbjörn handed two elastic bands to Patrik, who bent down and fastened them round his shoes. That way his footprints could be easily distinguished from any left by the perp or perps. Together they stepped carefully over the blue-and-white police tape. Patrik felt a slight uneasiness in his stomach as they approached the site, and he had to restrain an impulse to turn on his heel and flee. He hated this part of the job. As usual he had to steel himself before he stood on tiptoe and looked down into the rear compartment of the truck. There, in the midst of a disgusting, stinking mess of old food scraps and other debris, lay a naked girl. Bent double, with her feet around her head, as if she were performing some advanced type of acrobatics. Patrik gave Torbjörn Ruud a puzzled look.

  ‘Rigor mortis,’ he explained dryly. ‘The limbs stiffened in that position after she was bent in two so she would fit in the bin.’

  Patrik grimaced. It indicated such an incredible cold-heartedness and contempt for humanity not merely to kill this girl, but to dispose of her as if she were household waste. Stuffed into a rubbish bin. He turned away.

  ‘How long will the crime scene investigation take?’

  ‘A couple of hours,’ said Torbjörn. ‘I assume you’ll be canvassing for witnesses in the meantime. Unfortunately there aren’t many out here.’ He nodded toward the houses that stood empty and deserted, waiting for their summer guests. But a few of them were year-round residences, so they could hope for some luck.

  ‘What happened here?’ Mellberg’s voice sounded as peevish as usual. Patrik and Torbjörn turned to see him come steaming in their direction.

  ‘A woman was stuffed into this bin,’ replied Patrik, pointing to the bin standing by the side of the road. Two techs pulled on gloves in preparation to do their work. ‘She was discovered when Leif here emptied it.’ He pointed to Leif. ‘That’s why she’s in the rubbish truck.’

  Mellberg took that as an invitation to climb over the tape to look in the truck. Torbjörn didn’t even try to get him to put elastics on his shoes. It didn’t matter anyway. They’d had to eliminate Mellberg’s traces from crime scene investigations before, so they already had his shoe prints in their files.


  ‘Holy shit,’ said Mellberg, holding his nose. ‘It stinks.’ He walked off, apparently more concerned about the smell of rubbish than the sight of the girl’s body. Patrik sighed to himself. He could always count on Mellberg to behave inappropriately and with no sensitivity.

  ‘Anyone know who she is?’ Mellberg asked.

  Patrik shook his head. ‘No, so far we don’t know anything. I thought I’d ring Hanna and ask her to check whether any reports came in yesterday about a girl who hadn’t come home. And Martin is on his way, so I thought he and I could start knocking on the doors of the few houses here that are occupied.’

  Mellberg nodded sullenly. ‘Good thinking. That was precisely what I was about to suggest.’

  Patrik and Torbjörn exchanged a look. Mellberg invariably appropriated everyone else’s ideas, seldom having any of his own.

  ‘So, where’s Molin then?’ Mellberg said, looking round grumpily.

  ‘He should be here any minute,’ said Patrik.

  As if on cue, Martin’s car appeared. It was beginning to be hard to find a parking place along the narrow gravel road, so he had to back up a bit before he found a spot. His red hair stood on end as he walked towards them, and he looked tired. His face was creased, as if he’d just got out of bed.

  ‘A girl was dead in that bin, now she’s in the rubbish truck,’ said Patrik to sum up.

  Martin merely nodded. He made no move to walk over and have a look. His stomach had a tendency to turn inside out at the sight of dead bodies.

  ‘Weren’t you and Hanna working last night?’ Patrik asked.

  Martin nodded. ‘Yes, we were keeping an eye on the party at the community centre. And a good thing we did. All hell broke loose, and I didn’t get home until four.’