The Stonecutter (16 page)

‘Fine with me. Then I can finish up with this stuff too,’ Martin said, pointing at the stack of reports. ‘I hope to have a complete report ready by then. But as I said, don’t expect too much; there doesn’t seem to be anything that matches.’

Patrik nodded. ‘Just do the best you can.’

Gösta had almost dozed off in front of his computer. Only the thud of his chin hitting his chest kept him awake. If only I could put up my feet for a while, he thought. If he could just take a little nap, he’d be ready to plunge into the work later. Like in Spain. People down there understood the value of taking a siesta. But not in Sweden, that’s for sure. Here you had to plod through an eight-hour workday while keeping your enthusiasm high and your motivation to work at its peak. What a terrible country he lived in.

The shrill ring of the telephone gave him a start.

‘Damn,’ he said. His mood didn’t improve when he recognized the phone number on the display. What did that old biddy want now? Then he reminded himself that he ought to have a bit more sympathy, considering what had happened. So he vowed to be patient as he picked up the receiver.

‘Gösta Flygare, Tanumshede police station.’

The voice on the other end was agitated, and he had to ask her to calm down so that he could hear what she wanted to say. It didn’t seem to help, so he repeated: ‘Lilian, you have to talk a little slower, I can barely understand what you’re saying. Now take a deep breath and repeat what you just said.’

That finally seemed to work, and she started over from the beginning. Gösta raised his eyebrows as he listened. This was an unexpected turn of events. After reassuring her repeatedly, he got her to hang up at last. He grabbed his jacket and went into Patrik’s office.

‘Hey, Hedström.’ Gösta hadn’t bothered to knock, but Patrik was working with his office door open, and in Gösta’s opinion it was his own fault if people just walked right in.

‘Yes?’ Patrik asked.

‘I just had a call from Lilian Florin.’

‘You did?’ Patrik repeated, his interest aroused.

‘Something seems to be going on out there. She claims that Kaj assaulted her.’

‘What the hell are you saying?’ Patrik swiveled in his chair so that he was face to face with Gösta.

‘Yeah, she claims that he came home a little while ago and started yelling and screaming, and when she tried to get him to leave, he started punching her.’

‘That sounds totally crazy,’ said Patrik incredulously.

Gösta shrugged. ‘That’s what she told me, anyway. I promised we’d come over right away.’ He held up his jacket to illustrate.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Patrik, jumping up from his chair and grabbing his own jacket from the coat rack in the corner.

Twenty minutes later, they were back at the Florins’ house. Lilian opened the door as soon as they knocked and let them in. As soon as they stepped over the threshold, she began wildly waving her arms about.

‘Do you see what he did to me?!’ She pointed at a slight flush on her cheek and then pulled up the sleeve of her blouse and showed them a red mark on her upper arm. ‘If he doesn’t go to jail for this, then …’ She was working herself up even more, and she seemed to have a hard time talking from sheer outrage.

Patrik placed a soothing hand on her uninjured arm and said, ‘We’re going to take a closer look at this, I promise you. Have you been examined by a doctor?’

She shook her head. ‘No, do I have to? He hit me in the face and grabbed my arm, but I don’t think there are any serious injuries,’ she admitted. ‘Although maybe you need proof in the form of photographs?’ Lilian’s face lit up for a moment before Patrik shook his head.

‘No, that won’t be necessary now that we’ve had a chance to look at it ourselves. We’ll go over and have a talk with Kaj. Then we’ll decide how to proceed later. Is there anyone you can call to come over?’

Lilian nodded. ‘Yes, I can ask my friend Eva.’

‘Good. I think you ought to call her. Then put on a pot of coffee and try to take it easy for a while. This is all going to work out, you’ll see.’ Patrik tried to sound reassuring, but to be honest there was something about her histrionics that bothered him. Something didn’t feel right.

‘Shouldn’t I file a formal complaint? Fill out some forms?’ asked Lilian hopefully.

‘We’ll deal with that later. First of all, Patrik and I will have a little talk with Kaj.’ Gösta sounded unusually authoritative, but Lilian wouldn’t settle for vague promises.

‘Don’t tell me that you intend to drop the matter, because you’re too lazy to intervene when a defenseless woman is subjected to such a horrible attack. Because I don’t plan to shut up, that’s for sure. First I’ll call your chief, then I’ll go to the newspapers if I have to and—’

Gösta interrupted her harangue and said with steel in his voice, ‘No one is planning to drop the matter, Lilian, but right now this is what we’re going to do: first we’ll talk to Kaj, and then we’ll take care of the formalities. If you have any objections, you’re quite welcome to call our chief, Bertil Mellberg, at the station and present your complaints. Otherwise we’ll come back as soon as we’ve talked to the accused.’

After a brief internal struggle Lilian looked ready to accept that it was time to back off. ‘Well, if that’s how it has to be, then I guess I’ll go and call Eva. But I’m counting on you to come back in a little while,’ she grumbled. As they left she slammed the door so hard that it echoed through the whole neighborhood.

‘What do you think about all this?’ said Patrik, who still couldn’t believe that Gösta of all people had succeeded in exercising his authority.

‘I don’t know, but I …’ said Gösta, mulling over his words. ‘Something doesn’t feel quite … right.’

‘I agree, that’s what I think too. Has Kaj ever resorted to violence during all these years of quarrelling?’

‘No, and if he had, we would have had a talk about it at once, believe me. On the other hand, he’s never had a blatant charge of murder flung in his face before.’

‘You’re right about that,’ replied Patrik. ‘But he just doesn’t seem like the type that would resort to violence, if you know what I mean. He’s more like someone who would try to manipulate her if he had the chance.’

‘Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with you. But first we’ll have to see what he says.’

‘I suppose we will,’ said Patrik, knocking on the door.

12

Strömstad 1924

The minute her father walked in the door, a cold hand gripped Agnes’s heart. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong. August looked as though he’d aged twenty years in the few minutes since she’d seen him last, and she instantly understood that she must be dying.

She clutched at her chest and steeled herself for what she was about to hear. But there was something that didn’t really fit. That wasn’t sorrow in her father’s eyes; they were black with rage. Why was he angry that she was dying?

Despite his short stature, he loomed menacingly by her bed, and Agnes did her utmost to look as pitiful as possible. But that didn’t seem to be working this time, and her unease grew. Then a thought occurred to her, but it was so unbelievable and appalling that she instantly cast it aside.

She saw that her father’s lips were moving in an attempt to speak, but he was so upset that his vocal cords wouldn’t make a sound. That was when she realized in terror that perhaps it was not merely a possibility but even plausible.

Slowly she crept even further under the covers. When her father’s hand suddenly came down forcefully on her cheek and she felt the sting of unexpected pain, her misgivings changed to certainty.

‘You, you …’ stammered her father, desperately searching for words. ‘You, you slut! Who … what?’ he continued furiously. From her recumbent position she saw him swallow repeatedly, as if trying to help the words come out. She had never seen her stout, good-natured father like this before. It was terrifying.

But how could this have happened? They had taken the necessary precautions and always stopped in time. In her wildest fantasies she had never imagined that she would end up in trouble. Of course she had heard of other girls who got pregnant by accident, but she had always thought scornfully that they must not have been careful enough. They must have let the man go further than he should.

And now here she lay. Her thoughts wandered feverishly in search of a solution. Things had always worked out for her. Surely this situation could be resolved too. She had to make her father understand, as she had always been able to do whenever she had got herself into a mess. Of course it had never been anything this serious, but all her life he had come to her rescue. He would have to do the same now. She felt herself growing calmer after the first shock subsided. Naturally the situation could be handled. Father would be angry for a while, she could stand that, but he would help her. There were places one could go to have something like this fixed, it was merely a matter of money, and at least in that respect she didn’t have to worry.

Pleased at her plan, she was about to speak when August’s hand again landed on her cheek with a smack. She looked up at him incredulously. She had never imagined that he would beat her, and now he had slapped her twice in short order. Rage growing at the unfairness of this treatment, she sat up in bed and again opened her mouth to try and explain. Smack! A third slap struck her already tender cheek, and Agnes felt angry tears filling her eyes. What was he doing? In resignation she sank back on the pillows and stared in both confusion and fury at the father she thought she knew so well. But the man before her was a stranger.

Slowly it began to dawn on Agnes that her life might be about to take a nasty turn.

A timid knock on the door made Niclas look up. He wasn’t expecting a patient, and he was fully occupied going through all the papers that had piled up on his desk. He frowned in annoyance.

‘Yes?’ His tone was dismissive, and the person outside the door seemed to hesitate. But then the door handle was pressed down and the door slowly swung open.

‘Am I interrupting?’

Her voice was just as timorous as he remembered it, and the annoyed frown disappeared at once.

‘Mother?’ Niclas jumped out of his chair and stared in wonderment at the short little woman standing hesitantly in the doorway. He had always felt protective of her, and right now he just wanted to rush over and throw his arms around her. But he knew that she had grown wary of such open displays of emotion over the years. It would only upset her, so he restrained himself and waited for her to take the initiative.

‘May I come in? Or are you busy?’ She glanced at the piles of papers in front of him and made a move to turn round.

‘No, absolutely not, come in, come in.’ He felt like a schoolboy and rushed round the desk to pull up a chair for her. She sat down carefully, on the very edge of the seat, and looked around nervously. She had never seen him in his professional role, so he understood that it must seem odd to find him in this environment. In fact, she had hardly seen him at all in years; that alone must feel strange, as if he had metamorphosed from a seventeen-year-old boy to a grown man in an instant. Oh, there was so much they had denied themselves, he and his mother, because of that nasty old man. Thank goodness Niclas had managed to escape, but he could see that the years had not been kind to his mother. Her face still held the same weary, submissive expression under all the new wrinkles.

Niclas pulled up a chair next to hers, but not too close, and waited for her to begin. She didn’t really seem to know what she had come there to say. After a moment’s silence she said, ‘I’m so, so sorry about the girl, Niclas.’ That was all she said, and all he could do was nod.

‘I didn’t know her … but I wish I had.’ Her voice quavered slightly, and he sensed how many deep emotions lay beneath the surface. It must have been very hard for her to come here. As far as he knew, she had never gone against his father’s orders before.

‘She was wonderful,’ he said, with a lump in his throat, though no tears came. There had been so many the past few days that he doubted he had any left. ‘She had your eyes, but I don’t know where she got the red hair.’

‘My grandmother had the loveliest red hair you ever saw. That must be where’—she hesitated before saying the name but finally managed it—‘Sara got it.’

Asta looked down at her hands resting in her lap. ‘I saw her now and then. Her and the baby. Also saw your wife when she was out walking with them. But I never said anything. We just looked at each other. Now I wish that I’d spoken with the girl at least once. Did she know that she had a grandmother here?’

Niclas nodded. ‘I talked a lot about you. She knew your name and we showed her pictures of you as well. The few that I took with me when …’ He let the words die out. Neither of them dared set foot on the minefield that had caused their estrangement.

‘Is it true what I heard?’ She raised her eyes and looked straight at him for the first time. ‘Did someone harm her?’

He tried to answer, but the words lodged deep in his throat. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so many secrets that weighed on his chest. He wanted nothing more than to cast them off at her feet. But he could not. Too many years had passed.