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Erica was sitting at the kitchen table fidgeting with the letter that had come in the morning post.
‘Anna, or rather Lucas, wants to sell the house in Fjällbacka.’
‘What do you mean?’ Marianne’s usual composure exploded. ‘Who the hell does he think he is? You love that house!’
Erica felt something suddenly snap inside her, and she burst into tears. Marianne instantly calmed down and started showering Erica with sympathy over the phone.
‘So how are you really doing? Do you want me to come over? I could be there by tonight.’
Erica’s tears flowed even harder, but after a few moments of sobbing she calmed down enough to wipe her eyes.
‘That’s incredibly nice of you, but I’m okay. Really. It’s just all been a bit too much lately. It was very traumatic to sort through Mamma and Pappa’s things, and now I’m late with my book and the publisher is after me and then all this with the house … and to top it all off, last Friday I discovered my best friend from childhood, dead.’
Laughter began bubbling inside her and with tears still in her eyes she began to laugh hysterically. It took her a while to recover.
‘Did you say ‘dead’, or did I hear you wrong?’
‘Unfortunately you heard right. I’m sorry, it must sound terrible that I’m laughing. It’s just been a bit too much. She was my best friend from when I was little, Alexandra Wijkner. She committed suicide in the bathtub of her family’s house in Fjällbacka. You probably knew her, didn’t you? She and her husband, Henrik Wijkner, apparently moved in the best circles in Göteborg, and those are the sorts of people you hobnob with these days, right?’
She smiled and knew that Marianne was doing the same at her end of the line. When they were both young students Marianne had lived in the Majorna district of Göteborg and fought for the rights of the working class. They were both aware that over the years she had been forced to think about completely different issues in order to fit in with the circles that came with her job at the venerable old law firm. Now it was chic suits and blouses with bows. It was the cocktail party in Örgryte that counted, but Erica knew that in Marianne that only served as a thin veneer over a rebellious temperament.
‘Henrik Wijkner. Yes, I do know who he is. We even share some of the same acquaintances, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet him. A ruthless businessman, so it’s said. The type that could sack a hundred employees before breakfast without losing his appetite. His wife ran a boutique, I think?’
‘A gallery. Abstract art.’
Marianne’s words about Henrik shocked her. Erica had always considered herself a good judge of people, and he seemed anything but her idea of a ruthless businessman.
She dropped the subject of Alex and started talking about the real reason she was calling.
‘I got a letter today. From Lucas’s attorney. They’re summoning me to a meeting in Stockholm on Friday regarding the sale of Mamma and Pappa’s house, and I’m completely clueless when it comes to the law. What are my rights? Do I even have any rights? Can Lucas really do this?’
She could feel her lower lip start to quiver again and took a deep breath to calm herself down. Outside the kitchen window the ice on the bay was glistening after the last couple of days of thawing rain, followed by freezing temperatures at night. She saw a sparrow land on the window-sill and reminded herself to buy a ball of suet to put out for the birds. The sparrow cocked its head inquisitively and pecked lightly at the window. After making sure that there wasn’t anything edible being handed out, the bird flew off.
‘As you know, I’m a tax attorney, not a family rights attorney, so I can’t give you an answer straight off. But let’s do this. I’ll check with the experts in the office and ring you later today. You’re not alone, Erica. We’ll help you with this, I promise you.’
It was great to hear Marianne’s confident assurances, and when they said good-bye life seemed brighter, even though Erica actually knew no more than before she had called.
Restlessness set in almost at once. She forced herself to take up her work on the biography, but it was slow going. She had more than half of the book left to write, and the publishers were growing impatient because they hadn’t received a rough draft yet. After filling up almost two pages she read through what she had written, saw it was crap and quickly deleted several hours of work. The biography only made her feel depressed; the joy of working on it had vanished long ago. Instead, she finished writing the article about Alexandra and put it in an envelope addressed to Bohusläningen newspaper. Then it was time to ring Dan and rib him a bit about the near-fatal psychological wound he seemed to have suffered after Sweden’s spectacular loss the night before.
Feeling content, Superintendent Mellberg patted his large paunch and debated whether to take a little nap. There was still almost nothing to do, and he didn’t ascribe any great importance to the little there was.
He decided that it would be nice to doze for a moment so that his substantial lunch could be digested in peace and quiet. But he barely managed to close his eyes before a determined knocking announced that Annika Jansson, the station’s secretary, wanted something.
‘What the hell? Can’t you see I’m busy?’
In an attempt to look busy he rummaged aimlessly among the papers lying in stacks on his desk, but succeeded only in tipping over a cup of coffee. The coffee flowed towards all the papers and he grabbed the closest thing he could find to wipe up the mess – which happened to be his shirttail, since it was seldom tucked into his trousers anymore.
‘Damn it all, I’m the bloody boss of this place! Haven’t you learned to show a little respect for your superiors and knock before you come barging in?’
She didn’t feel like pointing out that she had actually done just that. With the wisdom born of age and experience, she waited calmly until the worst of his outburst was over.
‘I presume you have something to tell me,’ Mellberg seethed.
Annika answered in a restrained voice. ‘Forensic Medicine in Göteborg has been looking for you. Forensic Pathologist Tord Pedersen, to be precise. You can ring him at this number.’
She held out a piece of paper with the number carefully printed on it.
‘Did he say what it’s about?’
Curiosity was giving him a tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach. They didn’t hear from Forensic Medicine very often out here in the sticks. Perhaps there would be a chance for some inspired police work for a change.
He waved Annika away distractedly and clamped the telephone receiver between his ear and shoulder. Then he eagerly began dialling the number.
Annika quickly backed out of the room and closed the door loudly behind her. She sat down at her own desk and cursed, as she had so many times before, the decision that had sent Mellberg to the tiny police station in Tanumshede. According to rampant rumours at the station, he had made himself unwelcome in Göteborg by abusing a refugee who was in his custody. That was clearly not the only mistake he had made, but it was the worst. His superior finally got fed up. An internal investigation had been unable to prove anything, but there was concern about what else Mellberg might do, so he was immediately moved to the post of superintendent in Tanumshede. Each and every one of the community’s twelve thousand mostly law-abiding citizens served as a constant reminder to him of his demotion. His former superiors in Göteborg reckoned he wouldn’t be able to do much damage there. Up until now this assessment had been correct. On the other hand, he wasn’t doing much good, either.
Previously Annika had got on well at her job, but that was all over now with Mellberg as her boss. It wasn’t enough that he was perpetually rude, he also saw himself as God’s gift to women, and Annika was the one who suffered the brunt of it. Snide insinuations, pinches on the behind, and improper remarks were only a fraction of what she had to put up with at work nowadays. What she considered his most repulsive feature, however, was the atrocious comb-over he had constructed to hide his bald pate. He had let the remaining strands of hair grow out – his employees could only guess how long they must be – and then he wound the hair round atop his head in an arrangement that most resembled an abandoned crow’s nest.
Annika shuddered at the thought of how it must look when not combed over. She was grateful that she would never need to find out.
She wondered what Forensic Medicine wanted. Oh well, she would find out soon enough. The station was so small that any information of interest would spread through the whole place within an hour.
Bertil Mellberg heard the phone ring as he watched Annika retreat from his office.
A mighty good-looking woman, that one. Firm and fine, but with curves in all the right places. Long blonde hair, nice high tits and a substantial arse. Too bad she always wore those long skirts and loose blouses. Maybe he should point out that clothes a bit tighter might suit her better. As the boss he was entitled to have opinions on the way his staff dressed. Thirty-seven years old – he knew that from checking her personnel file. A little more than twenty years younger than himself, which was precisely his taste. Let someone else deal with the old ladies. He was man enough for the younger talent – mature and experienced, with an attractive stoutness, and surely no one could tell that his hair may have thinned a bit over the years. He touched the top of his head cautiously. All well, his hair was as it should be.
‘Tord Pedersen.’
‘Yes, hello. This is Superintendent Bertil Mellberg, Tanumshede police station. You were looking for me?’
‘Yes, that’s right. It’s about the body we got in from you. A woman by the name of Alexandra Wijkner. It looked like suicide.’
‘Yes?’ Mellberg’s interest was definitely piqued.
‘I performed the post-mortem yesterday and established that it was definitely not a suicide. Someone murdered her.’
‘Bloody hell!’ In his excitement Mellberg tipped over his coffee cup again and the little that was left in it ran out across the desk. He used his shirttail as a rag again and got a new set of spots on it.
‘How do you know that? I mean, what sort of proof do you have that it was murder?’
‘I can fax the autopsy report over to you, but it’s doubtful whether you would get much out of it. However, let me give you a summary of the most salient points. Just a moment while I put my glasses on,’ said Pedersen.
Mellberg heard him humming as he scanned the report. He waited eagerly for the information.
‘All right, let’s see. Female, thirty-five years old, good general physical condition. But you know all that already. The woman has been dead for about a week, but her body is nevertheless in very good condition, primarily thanks to the low temperature in the room where the body was found. The ice around the lower half of the body also helped preserve it.
‘Deep incisions through the arteries of both wrists made with a razor blade, which was found at the scene. This was where I began to get suspicious. Both the incisions are the same depth and very straight, which is quite unusual. I would even venture to say that it never happens in a suicide. It’s because people are either right-handed or left-handed. The incision on the left arm will be much straighter and more powerful for a right-handed person than the wound on the right. That’s what happens when you’re forced to use the “wrong” hand, so to speak. I then examined the fingers on both hands and had my suspicion confirmed. The edge of a razor blade is so sharp that in most cases it leaves microscopic cuts on the hands. Alexandra Wijkner had nothing of the sort. This indicated that it was someone else who slashed her wrists, probably with the aim of making it look like suicide.’
Pedersen paused, then went on. ‘The question I then asked myself was: how could a person do that without the victim putting up a struggle? The answer came with the toxicology report. The victim had residue of a strong sedative in her blood.’
‘What does that prove? Couldn’t she simply have taken a sleeping pill?’
‘Certainly, that’s possible. But thankfully modern science has provided forensic medicine with a number of indispensable tools and methods. One of the tools is that today we can calculate extremely precisely the decay rates of various medications and even poisons. We ran the test several times on the victim’s blood and each time reached the same conclusion: it would have been impossible for Alexandra Wijkner to slash her own wrists, since by the time her heart stopped due to loss of blood, she had already been unconscious for a long while. Unfortunately I can’t give you any exact information about times; science hasn’t progressed that far as yet. But there is absolutely no doubt that it was murder. I truly hope that you can handle this. You don’t have many homicides in your area, I shouldn’t think?’
Pedersen’s voice expressed a good deal of doubt, which Mellberg instantly took as criticism directed at him personally.
‘You’re right that it’s not something we have a lot of experience with here in Tanumshede. Fortunately, I’ve been assigned here only temporarily. My real workplace is at police headquarters in Göteborg. My long years of experience on the job mean we’ll have no trouble handling even a murder investigation here. It will be a chance for the local authorities to see how real police work is done. It won’t take long before the case is solved. Mark my words.’
And with this pompous comment Mellberg knew that he had made it crystal clear to Medical Examiner Pedersen that he wasn’t dealing with some greenhorn. Doctors always had to put on airs. Pedersen’s part of the job was done, at any rate, and now it was time for a pro to take over.
‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ The medical examiner was stunned by the conceit displayed by the policeman and had almost forgotten to tell him about two additional discoveries that he considered significant. ‘Alexandra Wijkner was in her third month of pregnancy, and she has also given birth before. I don’t know whether this has any relevance for your investigation, but better too much information than too little, don’t you think?’ said Pedersen.
Mellberg merely snorted in reply, and after a few concluding pleasantries they hung up – Pedersen with a sense of doubt about the skill with which the murderer was going to be tracked, and Mellberg with revived spirits and a new feeling of eagerness. A preliminary examination of the bathroom had been done immediately after the body was found, but now he would have to see to it that Alexandra Wijkner’s house was gone over one millimetre at a time.
2
He warmed a lock of her hair between his hands. Small ice crystals melted and made his palms wet. Carefully, he licked off the water.
He leaned his cheek against the edge of the bathtub and felt the cold bite into his skin. She was so beautiful. Floating there in the crust of ice.
The bond between them still existed. Nothing had changed. Nothing was different. They were two of a kind.
It took some effort to open up her hand so he could place his palm against hers. He laced his fingers with hers. The blood was dry and stiff, and small flakes stuck to his skin.
Time had never had any meaning when he was with her. Years, days or weeks flowed together, becoming an amorphous entity in which the only thing that meant anything was this: her hand against his. That was why the betrayal had been so painful. She had made time meaningful again. That’s why the blood would never flow hot through her veins again.
Before he left, he prised her hand back to its original position.
He did not look back.
Awakened from a deep and dreamless sleep, Erica at first could not identify the sound. By the time she realized that it was the shrill ring of the telephone that woke her, it had already rung many times. She jumped out of bed to answer it.
‘Erica Falck.’ Her voice was no more than a croak. She cleared her throat loudly with her hand over the mouthpiece to get rid of the worst of the hoarseness.
‘Oh, sorry, did I wake you? I beg your pardon.’
‘No, I was awake.’ The reply came automatically and Erica could hear how transparent it sounded. It was quite obvious that she was groggy, to say the least.
‘Well, I’m sorry in any case. This is Henrik Wijkner. I just had a call from Birgit, and she asked me to contact you. Apparently she got a call this morning from a particularly rude police superintendent from the Tanumshede station. He more or less ordered her, in not very polite terms, to come down to the station. Evidently my presence was also desired. He didn’t want to say what it was about, but we have an idea. Birgit is quite upset, and since neither Karl-Erik nor Julia is in Fjällbacka at the moment for various reasons, I wonder whether you could do me a big favour and go over to see her. Her sister and brother-in-law are at work, so she’s at home alone at their house. It will be a couple of hours before I can get back to Fjällbacka, and I don’t want her to be alone that long. I know it’s a lot to ask, and we don’t actually know each other that well, but I have no one else to turn to.’
‘Of course I’ll go over to see Birgit. It’s no problem. I just have to throw on some clothes. I can be over there in about fifteen minutes.’
‘That’s fine. I’m eternally grateful to you. Really. Birgit has never been particularly stable, and I’d like someone to be with her until I make it back to Fjällbacka. I’ll ring and tell her you’re on the way. I’ll be there sometime after noon, so we can talk more then. Once again – thank you.’
Still with sleep in her eyes, Erica hurried into the bathroom to wash her face. She put on the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, and after running a comb through her hair and applying a little mascara, she was sitting behind the wheel of her car less than ten minutes later. It didn’t take more than five minutes to drive to Tallgatan from Sälvik, so it was almost precisely a quarter hour after Henrik’s call that she rang the doorbell.
Birgit looked as if she’d lost several pounds in the few days since Erica last saw her, and her clothes hung loosely on her body. This time they didn’t go into the living room; instead, Birgit led her into the kitchen.
‘Thank you for taking the time to come over. I get so nervous, and I just couldn’t sit here worrying until Henrik arrived.’
‘He said you had a phone call from the police in Tanumshede?’
‘Yes, this morning at eight a Superintendent Mellberg rang and told me that Karl-Erik, Henrik and I were to come to his office at once. I explained that Karl-Erik had gone out of town on an urgent business matter, but that he would be back tomorrow. I asked if it was all right if we waited until then. That was not acceptable, as he expressed it, and so Henrik and I would have to do for the time being. The man was quite rude, and of course I rang Henrik at once. He said he’d come home as soon as he could. I probably sounded a bit upset, I’m afraid, and that’s when Henrik suggested he would ring you and ask whether you could come over for a couple of hours. I really hope you don’t think we’re asking too much. You probably don’t want to get even more involved in our family tragedy, but I didn’t know where to turn. Besides, you were almost like a daughter in our house once upon a time, so I thought that maybe—’
‘Think nothing of it. I’m happy to help. Did the police say what this was all about?’
‘No, the superintendent didn’t want to say a word. But I have an idea. Didn’t I tell you that Alex didn’t take her own life? Didn’t I?’
Erica impulsively placed her hand over Birgit’s.
‘Dear Birgit, let’s not draw any hasty conclusions. You may be right, but until we know for sure it’s better that we don’t speculate.’
They spent two long hours sitting at the kitchen table. The conversation died out after only a short while, and the only thing that could be heard in the silence was the ticking of the kitchen clock. Erica drew circles with her index finger around the pattern on the slick surface of the oilcloth. Birgit was dressed neatly and her make-up was as immaculate as the last time Erica saw her. But now there was something indefinably tired and worn-out about Birgit, like a photograph whose edges were missing their crispness. The weight she had lost didn’t suit her. Even last time she had bordered on skinny, and the weight loss had brought out new wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Birgit was gripping her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles were white. If the long wait was tiresome for Erica, it had to be insufferable for her.
‘I don’t understand who would want to kill Alex.’ The words sounded like a pistol shot after the long silence. ‘She didn’t have any enemies. She just lived a completely ordinary life together with Henrik.’
‘We don’t know yet what this is about. It’s no use speculating before we know what the police want,’ Erica said again. She interpreted the lack of a reply from Birgit as tacit agreement.
Just after twelve noon Henrik pulled into the little parking space in front of the house. They saw him through the kitchen window and got up with relief to put on their coats. When he rang the bell they were already waiting in the entryway, ready to go. Birgit and Henrik kissed each other lightly on one cheek and then the other. After that it was Erica’s turn to receive the same greeting. She wasn’t used to such mannerisms and was a bit worried that she would cause embarrassment by starting from the wrong side. But she handled the moment with no problem, and for a second she enjoyed the masculine scent of Henrik’s aftershave.
‘You’re coming along, aren’t you?’
Erica was already halfway to her car.
‘Well, I don’t know …’
‘I’d really appreciate it.’
Erica met Henrik’s eyes over Birgit’s head and with a silent sigh she got into the back seat of his BMW. This was going to be a long day.
The ride to Tanumshede took no more than twenty minutes. They chatted about the weather and the gradual depopulation of the countryside. Anything other than the reason for their imminent visit to the police station.
Erica sat in the back seat and wondered what she was doing there. Didn’t she have enough of her own problems without getting involved in a murder, if that was what it turned out to be? That would also mean that her book idea was as good as worthless. She had already managed to outline a first draft, and now she might just as well toss the pages in the wastebasket. Oh well, at least it would force her to focus completely on the biography. Although with some small changes it might work out yet. In fact it might even be better. The murder angle could be a real plus.
She suddenly realized what she was sitting and doing. Alex was not some made-up character in a book that she could twist and turn however she wished. She was a real person who was loved by real people. Erica had loved Alex too. She looked at Henrik in the rear-view mirror. He looked just as unmoved as before, despite the fact that in a few minutes he might be informed that his wife had been murdered. Wasn’t it true that most murders were committed by someone within the victim’s own family? Once again she was ashamed by her thoughts. With an effort she pushed aside that train of thought and saw with gratitude that they were finally there. Now she just wanted to get this over with so that she could go back to her comparatively trivial concerns.
The stacks of paper had grown to imposing heights on his desk. It was astonishing how a small community like Tanum could generate so many crime reports. Mostly petty matters, to be sure, but each report had to be investigated, and that’s why he sat here with administrative duties worthy of an eastern European bureaucracy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mellberg helped out, instead of sitting on his fat arse all day long. But he had to do the boss’s work too. Patrik Hedström sighed. Without a certain gallows humour, he would never have survived this long. Lately he’d begun to wonder whether this was really all there was to life.
The big event of the day would be a welcome interruption in the daily routine. Mellberg had asked him to sit in on the interview with the mother and husband of the woman who was found murdered in Fjällbacka. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the tragedy in the whole thing, or didn’t feel for the victim’s family. It was just that nothing exciting ever really happened in his job, and he couldn’t help feeling a tingle of anticipation in his body.
At the police academy they had been trained in interview situations, but so far he’d only had a chance to try out his talents in that area in connection with stolen bicycles and domestic abuse. Patrik looked at the clock. Time to go over to Mellberg’s office where the conversation would take place. Technically it wasn’t a matter of an official interview yet, but today’s meeting was nonetheless important. He had heard through the grapevine that the mother kept claiming that the daughter couldn’t possibly have killed herself. He was curious to hear what lay behind this claim, which had now turned out to be correct.
He gathered up his notebook, a pen and a coffee cup and went down the corridor. With his hands full he had to use his elbows and feet to get the door open, so it wasn’t until he put down his things and turned to face the room that he caught sight of her. His heart skipped a beat. He was ten years old again and trying to pull her pigtails. A second later, he was fifteen and trying to talk her into hopping onto his moped and going for a ride. He was twenty and had given up hope when she moved to Göteborg. After a quick mental calculation, he reckoned that it was at least six years ago since he had last seen her. She looked just the same. Tall and curvy, with hair curling to her shoulders in several shades of blonde that blended to a warm shade. Even as a little girl Erica had been vain, and he could see that she still placed great emphasis on the details of her appearance. Her face lit up with surprise when she saw him. But Mellberg was giving him a stern look to sit down, so he merely mimed a silent hello.
It was a tense group of people sitting before him. Alexandra Wijkner’s mother was small and thin, with too much heavy gold jewellery for his taste. She was perfectly coiffed and extremely well-dressed but looked the worse for wear with dark circles under her eyes. Her son-in-law showed no such signs of grief. Patrik glanced through his background information. Henrik Wijkner, successful businessman in Göteborg and heir to a considerable fortune going back several generations. And it showed. Not because of the obviously expensive quality of his clothes or the scent of fancy aftershave that hovered in the room; it was something less definable. A self-confident assurance that he was entitled to a prominent place in the world, which came from never having lacked any advantages in life. Although Henrik looked tense, Patrik could tell that he always felt he had control of the situation.
Mellberg loomed behind his desk. He had actually managed to stuff his shirt into his trousers, but splotches of coffee stained the motley pattern of his shirt. As he observed each of the participants in deliberate silence, his right hand straightened his comb-over, which had slipped too far down on one side. Patrik was trying not to look at Erica. Instead he concentrated on one of Mellberg’s coffee stains.
‘So. You are probably aware of why I called you here.’ Mellberg made a long pause, for effect. ‘I am Superintendent Bertil Mellberg, chief of Tanumshede police station, and this is Patrik Hedström, who will be assisting me during this investigation.’
He nodded at Patrik, who was sitting a bit outside the semicircle formed by Erica, Henrik and Birgit in front of Mellberg’s desk.
‘Investigation? She was murdered, for God’s sake!’ Birgit leaned forward in her chair, and Henrik quickly put a protective arm round her shoulders.
‘Yes, we have confirmation that your daughter could not have taken her own life. Suicide can be definitively ruled out, according to the medical examiner’s report. Of course, I can’t go into the details of the investigation, but the main reason we know she was murdered is that, at the time her wrists were slashed, she could not have been conscious. We found a large amount of sedative in her blood. While she was unconscious, some person or persons apparently first put her in the bathtub, filled it with water, and then slashed her wrists with a razor blade to try and make it look like suicide.’
The curtains in the office were drawn against the sharp midday sun. The mood in the room was double-edged. Gloom was mixed with Birgit’s obvious relief that Alex had not committed suicide.
‘Do you know who did it?’ Birgit had taken out a small embroidered handkerchief from her handbag and carefully dried the corners of her eyes so as not to ruin her make-up.
Mellberg clasped his hands over his voluminous paunch and fixed his eyes on the people in front of him. He cleared his throat with authority.
‘Perhaps the two of you might tell me that.’
‘Us?’ Henrik’s surprise sounded genuine. ‘How would we know that? This must be the work of a madman. Alexandra didn’t have any enemies.’
‘So you say.’
Patrik thought for an instant that a shadow passed across the face of Alex’s husband. The next second it was gone, and Henrik was again his calm and controlled self.
