The Gallows Bird

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘What’s in it?’ asked Martin.

  Patrik leafed through some of the pages, which were covered with writing. ‘I think they’re reminders about the animals at the pet shop. Look here: “Hercules, pellets three times a day, give fresh water often, clean cage every day. Gudrun, one mouse per week, clean the terrarium once a week.”’

  ‘Sounds like Hercules is a rabbit or guinea pig or something, and I would guess that Gudrun is a snake.’ Martin smiled.

  ‘Yes, he was certainly meticulous, that Rasmus. Just as his mother said.’ Patrik went through all the pages in the notebook. They all seemed to be notes about the animals. There was nothing to arouse their interest.

  ‘That seems to be everything.’

  Martin sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t expect we’d find anything earthshattering. But we could always hope.’

  Patrik was putting the notebook at the bottom of the knapsack when a sound made him react. ‘Wait, there’s something else in here.’ He took out the notebook again, put it down on the desk, and reached his hand into the bag. When he pulled out what was lying on the bottom, he and Martin gave each other an incredulous look. This wasn’t anything they’d expected to find. But it proved beyond all doubt that there was a connection between the deaths of Rasmus and Marit.

  Ola didn’t sound particularly happy when Gösta rang him on his mobile. He was at work and would have preferred that they wait to interview him. Gösta, annoyed at Ola’s superior attitude, was not in a generous mood; he told Ola to expect them at the Inventing company within half an hour. Ola muttered something about ‘the power of authority’ in his melodic Norwegian-Swedish, but he knew better than to object.

  Hanna still seemed to be in a bad mood, and Gösta wondered why as they got into the car and headed for Fjällbacka. He got the feeling that she might have problems on the home front, but he didn’t know her well enough to ask. He only hoped that it wasn’t something serious. She didn’t seem at all interested in small talk, so he left her alone. As they drove past the golf course at Anrås, she looked out of the window and said, ‘Is this a good golf course?’

  Gösta was more than willing to accept this peace offering. ‘The best! The seventh hole is notorious. I once made a hole-in-one here – not on the seventh though.’

  ‘Well, I’ve learned enough about golf to know that a hole-in-one is good,’ said Hanna with a smile, the first of the day. ‘Did they break out the champagne in the clubhouse? Isn’t that the custom?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Gösta, his face lighting up at the memory. ‘They did offer me champagne, and all in all it was the most fantastic round of golf. My best to date, actually.’

  Hanna laughed. ‘Yes, it’s probably no exaggeration to say that you’ve been bitten by the golf bug.’

  Gösta looked at her with a smile, but he had to shift his eyes back to the road when they entered the narrow road past Mörhult. ‘Well, I don’t have much else to do,’ he said, and his smile died.

  ‘You’re a widower, I understand,’ Hanna said kindly. ‘No kids?’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to talk about the boy, who would have been a grown man by now, if he’d survived.

  Hanna didn’t ask anymore, and they rode in silence all the way to Inventing. When they climbed out of the car they saw many curious eyes turned towards them. An annoyed Ola met them as soon as they stepped inside the doors.

  ‘Well, this had better be important, now that you’re disturbing me at work. Everybody is going to be talking about this for weeks.’

  Gösta understood what he meant, and actually they could have waited another hour. But there was something about Ola that rubbed Gösta the wrong way. His reaction might not be dignified or professional, but that’s how he felt.

  ‘Let’s go into my office,’ said Ola. Gösta had heard Patrik and Martin describe Ola’s extremely orderly home, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw the office. Hanna, on the other hand, hadn’t heard that information, and so she raised an eyebrow. The desk was clinically clean. Not a pen, not a paper clip marred the shiny surface. The only thing on the desk was a green blotter to write on, and it was placed in the exact centre of the desktop. Against one wall stood a bookcase filled with binders of correspondence. Arranged in tight, upright rows, with neatly handwritten labels. Nothing was out of place.

  ‘Have a seat,’ said Ola, pointing to the visitor chairs. He sat down behind the desk and leaned his elbows on the desktop. Gösta couldn’t help wondering whether he was going to get shiny spots on his suit from all the polish that must have been applied. He could probably see his face in it.

  ‘So what’s this about?’

  ‘We’re investigating a possible connection between the death of your ex-wife and another murder.’

  ‘Another murder?’ asked Ola, seeming for an instant to drop his controlled mask. A second later it was back in place. ‘What murder is that? Not that bimbo who was killed?’

  ‘You mean Lillemor Persson?’ said Hanna. Her expression showed quite clearly what she thought of Ola speaking so disparagingly about the murdered girl.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Ola waved his hand dismissively, showing with equal clarity that he didn’t give a toss about Hanna’s opinion of the way he expressed himself.

  Gösta had an overwhelming urge to provoke the guy. He would have liked to take his car keys and put a big scratch across the top of that shiny desk. Anything to knock Ola off balance and disrupt his repulsive perfection.

  ‘No, we’re not talking about the murder of Lillemor Persson.’ Gösta’s tone was icy. ‘We’re talking about a murder in Borås. The victim’s name was Rasmus Olsson. Do you have any knowledge of him?’

  Ola looked genuinely shocked. But that didn’t mean a thing.

  ‘Borås? Rasmus Olsson?’ His words sounded like an echo of the conversation they’d had with Kerstin an hour earlier. ‘No, I don’t recognize that name. Marit never lived in Borås. And she absolutely didn’t know any Rasmus Olsson. At least not as long as we were together. After that I have no idea what she did. Anything is possible, considering the depths she had sunk to.’ His voice was dripping with contempt.

  Gösta stuck his hand in his pocket and touched his car keys. His fingers were itching to disfigure that desk.

  ‘So you don’t know of any connection between Marit and Borås, or the person we mentioned?’ Hanna repeated Gösta’s question and Ola looked at her.

  ‘Am I not making myself clear? Instead of forcing me to repeat everything, maybe you should take notes.’

  Gösta took a tighter grip on his car keys. But Hanna didn’t seem fazed by Ola’s sarcastic tone. She went on calmly, ‘Rasmus was also a teetotaller. Could that be the connection? Any sort of temperance group or the like?’

  ‘No. There isn’t any connection, and I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal about the fact that Marit didn’t drink. She simply wasn’t interested.’ He stood up. ‘If you don’t have anymore relevant questions, I’ll get back to work. Next time I’d prefer that you visit me at my home.’

  Lacking any more questions and sincerely wanting to leave the office and get far away from Ola, Gösta and Hanna stood up too. They didn’t bother to shake his hand or say goodbye. All such pleasantries seemed a waste of time.

  The meeting with Ola hadn’t yielded any new information. And yet there was something that kept bothering Gösta as he and Hanna drove back to Tanumshede. There was something about Ola’s reaction, something in what was said, or not said, that continued to nag at him. But for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  Hanna was silent as well. She stared out at the landscape and seemed wrapped in her own world. Gösta felt like reaching out his hand to say something consoling. But he let it be. He didn’t even know if there was anything to console her about.

  With her father at work it was nice and peaceful in the flat. Sofie preferred to be at home alone. Her dad was always nagging at her about homework, asking where she’d be
en, where she was going, who she had talked to on the phone, how long she’d talked. Nag, nag, nag. And besides, she had to check all the time that everything was neat and orderly. No rings from glasses on the coffee table, no dishes left in the sink; her shoes had to be in straight rows in the shoe rack, there mustn’t be any hairs in the bathtub after she showered. The list was endless. She knew that this was one of the reasons why Marit had decided to leave; Sofie had heard the arguments and by the age of ten she knew every nuance in their quarrels. But her mother had seized the opportunity to leave. And as long as Marit was alive, Sofie had enjoyed a breathing space every other week, far away from the strict perfection demanded by her father. With Kerstin and Marit she could put her feet up on the coffee table, set the mustard in the middle of the fridge instead of in the door compartment, and leave the fringes of the rya rug in a blessed mess instead of in straight, combed rows. It had been wonderful, and it also made her able to endure the following week of stern discipline. But now there was no more freedom, no escape. She was stuck here among everything shiny and clean, where she was always being interrogated and questioned. The only time she could even breathe was when she came home early from school. Then she permitted herself little rebellious pranks. Like sitting on the white sofa with her O’Boy chocolate drink, playing pop music on Ola’s CD player, and messing up the sofa cushions. But she made sure to put everything back in place before he came home. Not a trace of disarray was in evidence when Ola came in the front door. Her only worry was that he might come home early from work one day and catch her. Although that was highly improbable. Her pappa would have to be sick unto death even to think of leaving work a minute early. As the manager of Inventing he felt he needed to set an example, and he had zero tolerance for tardiness, taking sick days, or going home early – not for himself or his subordinates.

  It was Marit who had represented warmth. Sofie saw that clearly now. Ola had represented all that was obvious, clean, and cold, while Marit had been security, warmth, and a hint of chaos and joy. Sofie had often wondered what they saw in each other in the beginning. How had two people who were so different found each other, fallen in love, married and had a child? For Sofie that had seemed a mystery for as long as she could remember.

  Something suddenly occurred to her. There was about an hour left before her pappa came home from work. She headed for Ola’s bedroom, which had previously belonged to her mother. She knew where everything was. In the wardrobe in the far corner. A big box with all the things Ola had called ‘Marit’s sentimental nonsense’ but he still hadn’t got rid of it. Sofie was surprised that her mamma hadn’t taken the box with her when she left, but maybe she wanted to leave everything behind when she began her new life. All she had wanted to take with her was Sofie. That was enough.

  Sofie sat down on the floor and opened the box. It was full of photographs, news clippings, a lock of Sofie’s hair from when she was a baby, and the plastic bracelets that had been put on her and Marit at the maternity ward to show that they belonged together. Sofie picked up a little box that rattled, and when she opened it she was disgusted to find two tiny teeth inside. They had to be her own. But that didn’t make them any less disgusting.

  She spent half an hour slowly going through the contents of the box. After she had scrutinized all the objects she set them in neat piles on the floor. It was a shock to see that the old photos of a teenage Marit showed a girl who looked exactly like her. She had never thought that they were very similar. But it made her happy. She looked intently at Marit and Ola’s wedding picture in an attempt to suss out all the problems that would follow. Did they already know back then that their marriage would never last? She thought she could almost sense that they had. Ola looked stern but pleased. Marit wore an expression that was almost indifferent; she seemed to have blocked out all emotion. She definitely did not look like a radiantly happy bride.

  The clippings from the newspaper were yellowing slightly, and they rustled when Sofie touched them. There was the wedding announcement, Sofie’s birth announcement, instructions for how to knit baby socks, recipes for festive dinners, articles on children’s illnesses. Sofie felt as though she were holding her mother’s life in her hands. She could almost feel Marit sitting next to her and laughing at the articles she had torn out about how best to clean an oven and how to cook the perfect Christmas ham. She felt Marit put a hand on her shoulder and smile when Sofie picked up a photo of her mother in the maternity ward, holding a wrinkled red bundle. Marit looked so happy in that one. Sofie put a hand on her own shoulder, imagining it lying on top of her mother’s hand. Feeling the warmth spread from Marit’s hand to her own. But reality intruded again. She felt only the wool of her own jumper under her hand, and her hand was cold as ice. Ola always wanted to keep the heat low to save on the cost of electricity.

  When she got to the article lying on the bottom of the box, at first she thought it had been put there by mistake. She couldn’t make sense of the heading, and she turned the article over to see what was on the back that would make Marit tear it out of the newspaper. But it was only an advert for laundry soap. Uneasy, she began to read the article, and after only one sentence she felt her whole body stiffen. With incredulous eyes she kept reading until she had swallowed every sentence, every single letter of every word. This couldn’t be right. It simply couldn’t be.

  Sofie carefully returned everything to the box and put it in its place inside the wardrobe. In her head her thoughts were spinning wildly.

  ‘Annika, could you help me with something?’ Patrik plopped down on a chair in Annika’s office.

  ‘Sure, no problem,’ she said, giving him a worried look. ‘You look a mess.’ Patrik couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Thanks for that, now I feel much better.’

  Annika didn’t care for his sarcastic tone but she kept on chiding him. ‘Go home, eat, get some rest. The pace you’ve been keeping lately is inhuman.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, I know,’ Patrik said with a sigh. ‘But what else can I do? Two murder investigations at the same time, the media attacking us like a pack of wolves, and now one of the investigations is pointing to a connection reaching far beyond the county line. That’s actually what I wanted your help with. Could you contact all the other police districts in the country and do a search for all unsolved murder cases or investigations into fatal accidents or suicides with the following characteristics?’

  He handed Annika a list with some points he’d jotted down. She read them carefully, was startled by the last one, and then looked up at him.

  ‘You think there are more?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Patrik, closing his eyes for a moment as he massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘But we can’t find the link between Marit Kaspersen’s death and the case in Borås, and I just want to make sure that there aren’t any other similar cases.’

  ‘Are you thinking serial killer?’ said Annika, obviously a bit reluctant even to mention the idea.

  ‘No, not really. Not yet at least. But we may have missed an obvious connection between the two victims. Though the definition of a serial killer is two or more victims in a row, so I suppose that technically that’s what we’re looking for.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘But don’t tell that to the press. You can just imagine what a feeding frenzy that would cause. Think of the headlines: “Serial killer ravages Tanumshede”.’ He laughed, but Annika didn’t see the humour in it.

  ‘I’ll send off a search request. But go home now. Right this minute.’

  ‘It’s only four o’clock,’ Patrik protested, despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to take Annika’s advice. She had a maternal quality about her that made even grown men want to crawl up in her lap and let her stroke their hair. Patrik thought it was such a shame that she didn’t have any kids of her own. He knew that she and her husband Lennart had tried for years without success.

  ‘You’re not doing anybody any good in the state you’re in, so go home and rest and come back refreshed
tomorrow. And I’ll take care of this, you know that.’

  Patrik wrestled with himself for a moment, and with his guilty conscience, but decided that Annika had a point. He felt squeezed dry and of no use to anyone.

  Erica put her hand in Patrik’s and turned to look at him. She gazed out over the water as they walked through Ingrid Bergman Square. She took a deep breath. The air was cold but springtime fresh, and the twilight was painting a reddish tinge along the horizon.

  ‘I’m so glad you were able to come home early today. You’ve been looking exhausted,’ she said as she leaned her cheek against his shoulder. Patrik pulled her closer.

  ‘I’m glad I could come home too. Besides, I had no choice; Annika just about pushed me out of the station.’

  ‘Remind me to thank her the first chance I get.’ Erica felt light-hearted. Although not very light on her feet. They had only come halfway up the Långbacken hill, and both she and Patrik were already a bit out of breath.

  ‘We’re not exactly in the best shape, are we?’ she said, panting like a dog to show how short of breath she was.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose we are,’ said Patrik with a gasp. ‘It’s all right for you, with a job where you can sit on your behind all day, but I’m a disgrace to the force.’

  ‘No way,’ said Erica, tweaking his cheek. ‘You’re the best they have.’

  ‘God help the residents of Tanumshede in that case,’ he said with a laugh. ‘But I must say it seems that your sister’s diet has worked, at least a bit. My trousers felt looser this morning.’

  ‘That’s good. But you do realize there are only a few weeks left, don’t you? So we have to keep it up until then.’

  ‘Then we can gorge ourselves and get fat together,’ said Patrik, turning left at Eva’s Grocery.

  ‘And old. We can grow old together.’

  He pulled her closer and said seriously, ‘And grow old together. You and me. At the old folks’ home. And Maja will come to visit once a year. Because we’ll threaten to cut her out of the will if she doesn’t.’