The Stonecutter (34 page)

‘Unfortunately I didn’t stick to my decision for more than a couple of months. Then I went over to see him one evening, and the whole merry-go-round started up again. This time we were together all summer, and then he went off on a drinking trip with his buddies. When he returned, he first came up with a story, saying I might hear from the others that he’d disappeared on the last night. But he explained that he’d drunk a little too much and passed out behind a bar. That story didn’t hold up for long, and when the truth came out, our relationship was finished for the second time. After that, I was honestly relieved that I got away with just a few tears. Niclas started going through all the girls in Uddevalla as if every day was his last, and you wouldn’t believe some of the stories I heard. I’m ashamed to admit we slept together a few more times, but those episodes only made me feel worse. Looking back, it probably would have been better if the story had ended there, and Niclas had remained a simple teenage mistake. But even though I loathed so much of what he had done and who he had become, he stayed in the back of my mind for a long time. A couple of years later, we met by accident, and the rest is history, as they say. I suppose I should have known what I was getting myself into.’

‘People change. The fact that he cheated on you as a teenager doesn’t mean you should automatically assume he would do the same as an adult. Most people mature with time.’

‘Not Niclas, apparently,’ said Charlotte, bitterly. ‘But I can’t really bring myself to hate him. As I said, we’ve been through too much together, and sometimes I see glimpses of his true self. On some occasions I’ve seen him vulnerable and open, and that’s what I love about him. I also know about his family life, and what happened with his father when he was seventeen, so it felt like there were all sorts of mitigating circumstances. I just don’t understand why he would want to hurt me so badly.’

‘What are you going to do now?’ Erica asked. She glanced over at Maja; to her shock, her daughter had fallen asleep on her own in the bouncer. That had never happened before.

‘I don’t know. I can’t face dealing with it right now. And in a way, it feels like it doesn’t matter. Sara is gone, and nothing Niclas does or says can hurt anywhere near as much as that does. Niclas wants us to start over, find our own place and move out of Mamma and Stig’s house as soon as we can. But I have no idea what to do right now …’

She bowed her head. Then she abruptly got to her feet.

‘I have to go home. Mamma has spent enough time watching Albin today. Thanks for letting me unload all this on you.’

‘You’re always welcome here, you know that.’

‘Thanks.’ Charlotte gave Erica a quick hug and then vanished as quickly as she’d come.

Erica wandered back into the living room. In amazement she stopped in front of the bouncer and looked down at her sleeping daughter. Maybe there was hope for her life after all.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know whether Charlotte could say the same thing.

Morgan had come to his favorite part of the computer game he was working on. The part where the first blow of the sword fell. The character’s head rolled off, and according to the script there should be plenty of extreme effects. His fingers raced across the keyboard, and on the screen the scene emerged gracefully. He admired and envied the people who could write the stories, which he then was commissioned to bring to life on the screen. If there was anything he wished for, it was the imagination that most other people had, allowing them to burst all boundaries and let ideas flow freely. Naturally he had tried. Writing compositions in school, for instance. Those had been a nightmare. Sometimes the students were given a topic, sometimes only an image, and from that they were expected to spin a whole web of events and characters. He’d never gotten farther than the first sentence. Then his mind just seemed to shut down. It was blank. The paper lay empty before him, absolutely screaming to be filled with words, but none came. The teachers had berated him. At least until Mamma went and talked to them, after his parents had received the diagnosis. Then the teachers merely watched him with curiosity, as if he were an alien life form. They didn’t know how right they were. That was how he felt as he sat at his school desk, with the blank paper in front of him and the sound of his classmates’ scratching pens all around. Alien.

When Morgan discovered the world of computers, he felt at home for the first time. This was something that came easy to him, that he could master. If he was an odd piece of the puzzle, then he had finally found another piece that was a perfect fit.

When he was younger, he had gone in for code languages just as manically. He had read everything he could find about the subject and could reel off what he’d learned for hours on end. There was something about combinations of numbers and letters that had appealed to him. But once his interest in computers took over, overnight he lost his fascination with codes. The knowledge was still there, and whenever he liked he could pull out everything he’d ever learned about the topic, but it simply didn’t interest him anymore.

The blood running down the edge of the virtual sword made him think of the girl again. He wondered whether her blood had congealed inside her now that she was dead. Whether it was just a dense mass filling her blood vessels. Maybe it had also turned brown like dried blood; he’d seen it once when he’d tried cutting his wrist. In fascination he’d stared at the blood trickling out, watching the way the flow gradually slowed, coagulated and began to change color.

His mother had been shocked when she came into his room that time. He’d tried to explain again that he just wanted to see what it was like to die, but she rushed him into the car and drove him to the medical clinic. Although actually it wasn’t necessary. It hurt to cut himself, so he hadn’t made a deep cut and the blood had already coagulated. But his mother still got hysterical anyway.

Sometimes he envied the girl. Because now she knew what death was like. Knew the solution to the riddle.

He forced himself to concentrate on the computer game again. Sometimes thinking about death could make several hours vanish before he knew it. And that screwed up his schedule.

Ernst sat sullenly in front of Patrik, refusing to meet his gaze. Instead he studied his unpolished shoes.

‘Answer me, damn it!’ Patrik yelled at him. ‘Did you get a call from Göteborg about child pornography?’

‘Yes,’ Ernst muttered.

‘And why didn’t we ever hear about it?’

There was a long silence.

‘I repeat,’ said Patrik in an ominously low voice, ‘why didn’t you report it to us?’

‘I didn’t think it was that important,’ said Ernst evasively.

‘You didn’t think it was that important!’ Patrik’s tone was ice-cold and he slammed his fist on the desk so hard that his keyboard jumped.

‘No,’ said Ernst.

‘And why not?’

‘Well, there was so much else going on at the time … And it felt a bit improbable, I mean, that’s the sort of thing they’re into in the big cities.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Patrik without being able to conceal his contempt. He’d got up from his chair and was now towering behind his desk. His rage made him look four inches taller. ‘You know as well as I do that child pornography has nothing to do with geography. It happens in small towns too. So stop talking bullshit and tell me the real reason. And believe me, if it’s what I think, you’re going to be in serious hot water!’

Ernst looked up from his shoes and glared defiantly at Patrik, but he knew it was time to lay his cards on the table.

‘I just didn’t think it sounded plausible. I mean, I know the guy, and it didn’t seem like something he’d be involved in. So I thought the Göteborg cops must have made a mistake, and an innocent person would have to suffer if I passed on the information. You know how it is,’ he said, glaring at Patrik. ‘It wouldn’t change anything if they called again after a while and said, “Oh, excuse us, but there’s been a mistake here and you can forget about that name we gave you”—his name would still be mud in this town. So I thought I’d wait a while and see what happened.’

‘You’d wait a while and see what happened!’ Patrik was so furious that he had to force himself to enunciate each syllable to keep from stammering.

‘Well, I mean, you have to agree this whole thing is unreasonable. He’s well known for all the work he does with young people. He does plenty of good things, I have to tell you.’

‘I don’t give a shit what sort of good things he does. If our colleagues in Göteborg call and say that his name came up in an investigation of child pornography, then we have to check it out. That’s our fucking job! And if you two are best friends—’

‘We aren’t best friends,’ Ernst muttered.

‘… or just friends or whatever the fuck, then it makes no difference at all, don’t you see that? You can’t sit there and make decisions about what’s going to be investigated or not based on who you know or don’t know!’

‘After all the years I’ve spent on the force—’ Ernst couldn’t finish his sentence before Patrik cut him off.

‘After all the years you’ve spent on the force you should bloody well know better! And you didn’t think to say anything when his name came up in a murder investigation? Wouldn’t that at least have been a good time to tell us about the call?’

Ernst had gone back to studying his shoes and didn’t feel like getting drawn into an argument. Patrik sighed and sat down. He folded his hands and gave Ernst a somber look.

‘Well, there isn’t much we can do about it now. We’ve received all the data from Göteborg and will be bringing him in for questioning. We’ve also got a warrant to search his home. You’d better pray on bended knee that he hasn’t gotten wind of this and managed to clean out all the evidence. And Mellberg has been informed. I’m sure he’ll want to have a talk with you.’

Ernst didn’t say a word when he got up from his chair. He knew that he had probably committed the worst blunder of his career. And in his case, that was saying a lot.

‘Mamma, if I promised to keep a secret, how long do I have to keep it?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Veronika. ‘You shouldn’t really ever tell anyone’s secret, should you?’

‘Hmm,’ said Frida, drawing circles in her yoghurt with her spoon.

‘Don’t play with your food,’ said Veronika, wiping off the drainboard with annoyance. Then she stopped and turned to her daughter.

‘Why do you ask, anyway?’

‘Dunno,’ said Frida with a shrug.

‘You certainly do know. Now tell me, why do you ask?’ Veronika sat down on a kitchen chair next to her daughter and studied her face.

‘If you shouldn’t ever tell someone’s secret, then I can’t say anything, can I? But—’

‘What do you mean?’ Veronika coaxed her.

‘But if somebody you promised something to is dead, do you still have to keep the secret? What if you say something and then the person who’s dead comes back and gets really mad?’

‘Sweetheart, is it Sara who made you promise to keep something secret?’ Frida kept drawing circles in her bowl of yoghurt. ‘We talked about this before, and you have to believe me when I say that Sara is never coming back. I’m really sorry. Sara is in heaven and she’s going to stay there for ever and ever.’

‘For ever and ever, for all the eternities of eternity? A thousand million million years?’

‘Yes, a thousand million million years. And as far as the secret goes, I don’t think Sara would be mad if you only told it to me.’

‘Are you sure?’ Frida looked nervously up at the gray sky she could see out of the kitchen window.

‘I’m completely sure.’ Veronika placed a hand on her daughter’s arm to reassure her.

After a moment of silence as Frida apparently pondered what her mother had told her, she said hesitantly, ‘Sara was super scared. There was a nasty old man who scared her.’

‘A nasty old man? When was that?’ Veronika waited tensely for her daughter’s reply.

‘The day before she went to heaven.’

‘Are you sure that’s when it was?’

Upset that her mother would doubt her, Frida frowned. ‘Ye-e-es, I’m absolutely sure. I know all the days of the week. I’m not a baby.’

‘No, no, I know that. You’re a big girl, and of course you know what day it was,’ Veronika said soothingly.

She tried asking a few more questions. Frida was still sulking over her mistrust, but the temptation to share the secret was finally too strong.

‘Sara said that the old man was really disgusting. He came and talked to her when she was playing down by the water and he was mean.’

‘Did Sara say that he was mean?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ said Frida, thinking that was enough of an answer.

Veronika continued patiently. ‘What exactly did she say? How was he mean?’

‘He grabbed her by the arm so it hurt. Like this, she said.’ Frida demonstrated by taking a hard grip with her right hand on her upper left arm. ‘And then he said dumb things too.’

‘What kind of dumb things?’

‘Sara didn’t understand all of it. She just said that she knew it was nasty. It sounded like “double pawn” or something like that.’

‘Double pawn?’ said Veronika, looking bewildered.

‘I told you it was dumb and Sara didn’t understand. But it was nasty, that’s what she said. And he didn’t talk regular with her, he yelled at her. Really loud. So it made her ears hurt.’ Now Frida demonstrated by holding her hands over her ears.

Carefully Veronika took her hands away and said, ‘You know, this may be a secret that you’ll have to tell other people besides me.’

‘But you said …’ Frida sounded upset, and her eyes once again nervously sought out the gray sky outdoors.

‘I know I said that, but you know what? I really think that Sara would want you to tell this secret to the police.’

‘Why?’ asked Frida, still looking worried.

‘Because when somebody dies and goes to heaven, the police want to know all the secrets that person had. And people usually want the police to know all their secrets too. It’s the job of the police to find out everything.’

‘So they’re supposed to know all the secrets?’ said Frida in amazement. ‘Do I have to tell them about the time I didn’t want to eat all my sandwich and hid it under the sofa cushion?’