The Stonecutter (5 page)

She was spinning through space. Free-falling among the planets and other heavenly bodies whose soft glow spread around her as she sped past. Dream scenes were mixed with small glimpses of reality. In her dreams she saw Sara. She was smiling. Her little baby body had been so perfect. Alabaster white with long, sensitive fingers on the tiny hands. Already in the first minutes of life she had grabbed hold of Charlotte’s index finger and held on as if it were her only anchor in this frightening new world. And maybe it was. For her daughter’s firm grip on her index finger would become an even fiercer grip around her heart in the days to come. One that, even then, she had known would last a lifetime.

Now she passed the sun on her path across the heavens, and its dazzling light reminded her of the color of Sara’s hair. Red like fire. Red like the Devil himself, someone had said in jest, and she remembered in her dream that she hadn’t appreciated that joke. There was nothing devilish about the child lying in her arms. Nothing devilish about the red hair that at first had stood straight up like a punk’s, but that over the years had grown long and thick and tumbled down over her shoulders.

But now the nightmare pushed away both the feeling of the child’s fingers round her heart and the image of red hair bouncing on Sara’s narrow shoulders as she ran around, full of life. Instead she saw that same hair dark with water, strands floating round Sara’s head like a misshapen halo. Below, she saw long green arms of seaweed reaching out for it. Even the sea had found pleasure in her daughter’s red hair, claiming it for its own. In her nightmare she saw the alabaster white darken to blue and purple, and Sara’s eyes were closed and dead. Ever so slowly, the girl began to turn in the water, with her toes pointed to the sky and her hands clasped over her stomach. Then the speed increased, and when she was spinning so fast that a small backwash formed on the gray water, the seaweed arms withdrew. The girl opened her eyes. They were completely, utterly white.

The shriek that woke Charlotte seemed to come from a deep abyss. Not until she felt Niclas’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard, did she realize that it was her own voice she heard. For an instant relief washed over her. Sara was alive and well; it was only a nightmare playing a nasty trick on her. But then she looked into Niclas’s eyes, and a new scream formed in her breast. But he pulled her close to him, so that the scream metamorphosed into deep sobs. His shirt was wet in front and she tasted the unfamiliar salt of his tears.

‘Sara, Sara,’ she moaned. Even though she was now awake, she felt like she was still in free fall through space. The only thing holding her back was the pressure of Niclas’s arms round her body.

‘I know, I know.’ He rocked her, and his voice was thick.

‘Where have you been?’ she sobbed quietly, but he just kept rocking her and stroking her hair with a trembling hand.

‘Shh, I’m here now. Go back to sleep …’

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can. Shh …’ And he rocked her rhythmically until the darkness and the dreams enveloped her again.

The news had spread through the police station while Patrik and Martin were out. Dead children were a rarity; usually the victims of a car accident, one every few years. Nothing else could cast such a pall of sadness over the whole building.

Annika gave Patrik a questioning look when he and Martin passed the reception desk, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He just wanted to go to his office and close the door. They ran into Ernst Lundgren in the corridor, but he didn’t say anything either, so Patrik quickly slipped into the silence of his little den and Martin did the same. There was nothing in their professional training that could have helped prepare any of them for situations like this. Informing someone of a death was one of the most odious tasks of their profession. Informing parents of the death of a child was worse than anything else. It defied all sense and all decency. No one should have to be forced to deliver such news. Especially not to a friend.

Patrik sat down at his desk, rested his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Soon he opened his eyes again, because all he could see in the dark behind his eyelids was Sara’s bluish, pale skin and her eyes staring unseeing at the sky. Instead he picked up the picture frame that stood before him and brought the glass as close to his face as possible. The first picture of Maja. Exhausted and bruised, resting in Erica’s arms in the maternity ward. Ugly, yet beautiful in a way that only new parents can understand. And Erica, worn out but smiling feebly with a new sense of resolve and pride at having accomplished something that could only be described as a miracle.

Patrik knew that he was being sentimental and maudlin. But it was only now, this morning, that he had understood the scope of the responsibility that had been placed in his hands with his daughter’s birth. Only now did he realize the extent of both his love and his fear. When he saw the drowned girl lying like a statue on the deck of the boat, for a moment he wished that Maja had never been born. Because how could he live with the risk of losing her?

He put the photograph carefully back on his desk and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. It suddenly felt utterly meaningless to continue with the tasks he’d been working on before they got the call from Fjällbacka. Most of all he wanted to drive home, crawl into bed, and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the day. A knock on the door interrupted his dismal ruminations. He called, ‘Come in!’ and Annika cautiously pushed open the door.

‘Hi, Patrik, excuse me for disturbing you. But I just wanted to tell you that Forensic Medicine called and said they’d received the body. We’ll have the autopsy report the day after tomorrow.’

Patrik gave a weary nod. ‘Thanks, Annika.’

She hesitated. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Yes, I’ve met the girl, Sara, and her mother a few times recently. Charlotte and Erica have been spending a good deal of time together since Maja was born.’

‘How do you think it happened?’

He sighed and fidgeted absently with the papers before him without looking up. ‘She drowned, as I’m sure you heard. Apparently she went down to the wharf to play, fell in the water, and then couldn’t get out. The water is so cold that she probably got hypothermia very quickly. But driving out to tell Charlotte, that was the most terrible …’ His voice broke and he turned away so that Annika wouldn’t see his tears.

She tactfully closed the door to his office and left him in peace. She wasn’t going to get much done on a day like this, either.

Erica looked at the clock again. Charlotte should have been here half an hour ago. She carefully shifted Maja, who was snoozing at her breast, and reached for the telephone. It rang many times at Charlotte’s house, but no one answered. How odd. She must have gone out and forgotten that they were supposed to get together that afternoon. Although that really wasn’t like her, and besides, the storm was picking up outside.

Erica felt that they had become close friends quite quickly. Maybe because they both were in a fragile time of their lives, maybe because they had so much in common. It was funny, really. She and Charlotte seemed more like sisters than she and Anna ever had. She knew that Charlotte worried about her, and that helped her feel secure in the midst of all the chaos. Her whole life, Erica had worried about other people, especially Anna, so to be viewed for once as the person who needed protection felt strangely liberating.

Still, she knew that Charlotte had her own problems. It wasn’t just that she and her family were forced to live with Charlotte’s parents—though Lilian especially didn’t seem easy to live with—but a tension came over Charlotte’s face each time she talked about her husband, too. Erica had only met Niclas briefly on a few occasions, but her spontaneous impression was that there was something unreliable about the man. Or perhaps unreliable was too strong a word. Maybe it was more a feeling that Niclas was one of those people who has good intentions but in the end will always allow his own needs and desires to take precedence over everyone else’s. Charlotte had told her a few things that had confirmed this impression, even though she mostly had to read between the lines, since her friend usually spoke adoringly of her husband. Charlotte looked up to Niclas and occasionally even said straight out that she couldn’t understand how she had been so lucky. It seemed inconceivable to her that she was married to someone like him.

Physically, it was true that Niclas was more attractive than Charlotte. Women were invariably drawn to the tall, blond, and handsome new doctor. And he had certainly had an extensive academic background, unlike his wife. But Erica knew that if one looked at their inner qualities, it was Niclas who was lucky to have found someone like Charlotte. She was a loving, wise, gentle human being, and as soon as Erica managed to pull herself out of this listless state she was going to do everything she could to help her friend appreciate her own strong points. Unfortunately, though, at the moment Erica had no extra energy.

A couple of hours later darkness had fallen, and the storm had reached full force outside her window. Erica realized she must have dozed off for an hour or two with Maja, who was still passed out on her breast. She was just about to reach for the phone to call Charlotte again when she heard the front door open.

‘Hello?’ she called. Patrik wasn’t due home for an hour or two, so perhaps it was Charlotte who finally saw fit to show up.

‘It’s me.’ Patrik’s voice had an empty sound to it, and Erica was instantly uneasy.

When he entered the living room she grew even more concerned. His face was gray, and his eyes had a dead expression that didn’t vanish until he caught sight of Maja, asleep in Erica’s arms. With two long strides he came over to them, and before Erica could react he had swept up the sleeping baby, pressing her hard to his chest. He didn’t even stop when Maja woke up from the shock of being picked up so abruptly and started shrieking.

‘What are you doing? You’re scaring her!’

Erica tried to take the screaming baby from Patrik to calm her down, but he fended off her attempt and just hugged the infant even harder. Maja was now screaming hysterically, and, at a loss, Erica slapped him on the arm and said, ‘Stop that! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see that she’s terrified?’

Finally Patrik snapped out of it. He cast a confused look at his daughter, whose face was bright red from anger and fright.

‘Sorry.’ He handed Maja over to Erica, who did her best to soothe the baby. After a few minutes Maja’s screams gave way to low sobs. Erica looked at Patrik, who had collapsed onto the sofa and was staring out at the storm.

‘What’s happened, Patrik?’ said Erica. She was trying for a kinder tone, but she couldn’t prevent a hint of uneasiness from creeping into her voice.

‘We got a report of a drowned child today. From here in Fjällbacka. Martin and I took the call.’ He paused, unable to go on.

‘Oh my God, what happened? Who was it?’

Before he could answer her thoughts began whirling until they all fell into place at once, like tiny puzzle pieces.

‘Oh my God,’ she repeated. ‘It’s Sara, isn’t it? Charlotte was supposed to come over for coffee this afternoon, but she never showed up and there was no answer when I called her at home. That’s it, isn’t it? It was Sara you found, right?’

Patrik could only nod. Erica sank into the easy chair to prevent her legs from buckling under her. Before her she could see Sara jumping on their living room sofa as recently as two days ago. With her long red hair flying about her head and laughter bubbling up inside her like an unstoppable primal force.

‘Oh my God,’ Erica said again, putting her hand to her mouth as she felt her heart sink. Patrik just stared out of the window, and she saw in profile his jaws clenching tight.

‘It was so horrible, Erica. I haven’t seen Sara that many times, but seeing her lying there in that boat, totally lifeless … I kept picturing Maja. Since then my thoughts have been churning. I can’t stop imagining if something like that happened to Maja. And then having to tell Charlotte what happened …’

Erica uttered a whimpering, tormented sound. She had no words to describe the depth of the sympathy she felt for Charlotte, and Niclas too. She understood at once Patrik’s reaction, and found herself holding Maja even closer. She was never going to let her go. She would sit here holding her tight, keeping her safe, for ever. But Maja squirmed restlessly, intuiting that something was wrong.

Outside, the storm continued to rage. Patrik and Erica sat in silence for a long time, watching the wild play of nature, and thinking about the child who was taken by the sea.

Medical examiner Tord Pedersen began his task feeling unusually resolute. After many years in his profession, he had developed a toughness—either admirable or loathsome, depending on how one wanted to view it—that meant that most of the ghastly things he observed left little trace at the end of the day. But there was something about cutting open a child that conflicted with a primal instinct and disrupted all routine, undermining his hardened professionalism. His hand shook a bit as he moved it toward the girl’s chest.

When she was brought in, he had been told that drowning was the presumed cause of death. So far, there was nothing he could see with the naked eye to contradict that hypothesis, but he would soon be able to formally confirm or reject it.

The mercilessly bright glare in the post-mortem room emphasized the girl’s blue pallor so that it looked like she was frozen. The cold aluminum table beneath her seemed to reflect the cold, and Pedersen shivered in his green scrubs. She was naked as she lay there, and he felt as though he were violating her as he prized open the flesh and cut into the defenseless body. But he forced himself to go on. He knew that the task he was performing was important, both for the girl and her parents, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. It was necessary for the grieving process to have a final determination of the cause of death. Even though there didn’t seem to be any ambiguities in this case, the rules were in place for a reason. He knew this on a professional level; but as a human being and father with two boys at home, he sometimes wondered in cases like this how much humanity there was in the work he was doing.