The Stonecutter (55 page)

Göteborg 1958

It was on a Tuesday when her life reached its absolute nadir. A cold, gray, foggy Tuesday in November that would be eternally imprinted in her memory. Although actually she didn’t remember very many details. She mostly recalled that friends of her father came and told her that Mother had done something terrible and that Mary would have to go with the lady from social welfare. She had seen in their faces that they felt qualms of conscience that they couldn’t take her home with them at least for a few days. But none of Father’s snooty friends probably wanted to have such a fat, disgusting girl in their homes. So in the absence of any relatives, she’d had to pack a bag with the bare necessities and go with the little old lady who came to collect her.

The years that followed she later remembered only in her dreams. Not really nightmares; she actually had no real reason to complain about the three foster homes she lived in over the next four years. But they left her with an all-consuming feeling that she meant nothing to anyone, other than as a curiosity. For that was what a girl became if she was fourteen, obscenely fat, and the daughter of a murderess. Her various foster parents had neither the desire nor the energy to get to know her, although they had nothing against gossiping about her mother when their curiosity-seeking friends and acquaintances came to visit to gawk at Mary. She hated every last one of them.

Most of all she hated Mother. Hated her because she had abandoned her only daughter. Hated her because Mary had meant so little to her compared with a man; she was prepared to sacrifice everything for him, but nothing for her daughter. When she thought about what she’d sacrificed for Mother, the humiliation felt even greater. Mother had merely been using her, she saw that now. During her fourteenth year, she also understood what she should have realized long ago. That Mother had never loved her. She had tried to convince herself that what Mother said was true. That she did what she did because she loved Mary. The beatings, the cellar, and the spoonfuls of Humility. But it wasn’t true. Mother had enjoyed hurting Mary while she laughed behind her back.

That’s why Mary had chosen to take only one thing with her from home. They had let her go around the flat for an hour to select a few things; the rest would be sold, just like the flat. She had wandered through the rooms as the memories passed through her mind: Father in his easy chair with his glasses on the tip of his nose, deeply engrossed in a newspaper; Mother at her dressing table, busy getting ready for a party; herself, sneaking down to the kitchen to try and find something to eat. All the images came over Mary as if in a crazy kaleidoscope, and she felt her stomach turn over. The next second, she rushed to the toilet and vomited up a foul-smelling mess that brought tears to her eyes. Sniffling, she wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, sat down with her back to the wall, and cried with her head between her knees.

When she left the flat, she only took along a single thing. The blue wooden box. Full of Humility.

No one had voiced any objections to Niclas taking a day off. Aina had even muttered something to the effect that it was about time, and then cancelled all his appointments for the day.

Niclas rolled about on the floor chasing Albin, who was crawling around like mad among all the things scattered on the floor. He was still dressed in pajamas although it was past noon. But it didn’t matter. It was going to be one of those days; even Niclas was still wearing the same T-shirt and jogging trousers he’d slept in. Albin laughed heartily in a way Niclas had never heard him do before, which made him crawl even faster after him and roughhouse even more.

With a pang in his chest he realized that he had no memory of himself playing with Sara the same way. He had always been so busy. So full of his own importance and everything he wanted to do and achieve. Feeling a little superior, he had left all that playing and fooling around with the kids to Charlotte, who did it so well. But for the first time he wondered whether he wasn’t the one who’d drawn the short straw. Something suddenly occurred to him that made him stop short and take a quick breath. He didn’t know what Sara’s favorite game had been. Or what kids’ show she most liked to watch, or if she liked coloring with a blue or red crayon. Or what was her favorite subject in school, or which book she most liked for Charlotte to read to her at bedtime. He knew nothing of importance about his daughter. Absolutely nothing. She could just as well have been the neighbors’ daughter, judging by how little he knew about her. The only thing he thought he’d known was that she was difficult, obstinate, and aggressive. That she hurt her little brother, destroyed things in their home, and attacked her schoolmates. But none of those things had
been
Sara—they were just things she did.

The realization made him curl up on the floor in torment. Now it was too late to get to know her. She was gone.

Albin sensed that something was wrong. He stopped his wild hooting, crept close to Niclas, and curled up like a little animal against his body. Then they lay there, next to each other.

Several minutes later, the doorbell rang. Niclas gave a start and Albin looked around nervously.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Niclas to him. ‘It’s probably just someone selling something.’

He picked the boy up and went to open the door. Outside stood Patrik with some unfamiliar men behind him.

‘What is it now?’ said Niclas wearily.

‘We have a warrant to search the house,’ said Patrik, holding out a document as proof.

‘But you’ve already been through here,’ said Niclas, bewildered, as he scanned the document. When he was halfway through, his eyes grew wide and he gave Patrik a confused look. ‘What the hell is this? Attempted murder of Stig Florin? You’ve got to be kidding.’

But Patrik wasn’t laughing. ‘I’m afraid not. He’s being treated right now for arsenic poisoning. He barely made it through the night.’

‘Arsenic poisoning?’ said Niclas in surprise. ‘But how …?’ He still couldn’t grasp what was happening, and didn’t budge from the doorway.

‘That’s what we intend to find out. So if you would please let us in …’

Without a word Niclas stepped to one side. The serious-looking men behind Patrik picked up their cases and equipment and headed through the door.

Patrik stayed behind with Niclas in the hall, clearly hesitating before adding, ‘We also have permission to exhume Lennart’s body. That work has probably already begun.’

Niclas felt his mouth fall open. What was happening was just too unreal for him to grasp.

‘But why …? What …?’ he stammered.

‘We can’t explain it all right now, but we have good reason to believe that he was poisoned as well. Though he wasn’t as lucky as Stig,’ Patrik added grimly. He went on, ‘But now I’d appreciate it if you could stay out of the way and let the men do their job.’ Patrik didn’t wait for his answer, but went into the house.

Unsure of what to do next, Niclas went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, still holding Albin in his arms. He placed him in his high chair and bribed him with a cookie to keep him quiet. Inside Niclas’s mind, the questions were tumbling around.

Martin was shivering in the biting wind. His uniform jacket provided little protection from the bitter winds blowing across the churchyard. Just after they arrived, it had begun to drizzle as well.

The whole operation turned his stomach. He had only been to a few funerals, and to stand here and watch while a coffin was lifted out of the ground instead of down into it felt as wrong as watching a film running backwards. He understood why Patrik had asked him to take charge this time. Patrik had already been through this experience once, just a few months earlier, and once in a lifetime was surely enough. Confirming this notion, he thought he heard one of the gravediggers muttering, ‘You guys must have been betting over at the station to see how many old coots you could get us to dig up in the shortest possible time.’

Martin didn’t reply, thinking that they should probably try not to make any more requests for a while.

Torbjörn Ruud came over to stand next to him. He couldn’t help making a comment either. ‘I suppose they’d better start putting elastic bands on the coffins here in Fjällbacka. Then all you have to do is pull them up when you want them.’

Martin couldn’t resist a wry smile despite the unsuitable occasion, and they were both fighting to keep from laughing when Torbjörn’s mobile rang.

‘Yes, this is Ruud.’ He listened, then punched off and said to Martin, ‘They’re going into the Florins’ house now. We’ve assigned three men there and two out here, so we’ll see whether we have to regroup.’

‘What exactly do you need to do here—right now, I mean?’ said Martin curiously.

‘There’s not much we can do. Right now we’re just watching to make sure that everything is removed with as little contamination as possible. Then we’ll take some soil samples too. But mostly it’s a matter of taking the body to the M.E. so that he can start taking the samples he needs. As soon as the coffin has been sent off, we’ll go over to the Florins’ and help out with the search. You’re going too, I assume?’

Martin nodded. ‘Yes, I thought I would.’ He paused for a moment. ‘What a bloody mess this has turned out to be.’

Ruud nodded in turn. ‘You can say that again.’

Then their topics of conversation ran dry, and they stood in silence as they waited for the men at the gravesite to finish their work. A little while later, the lid of the coffin came into view. Lennart Klinga was above ground again.

His whole body ached. Stig saw blurry shadow figures hovering around him and then vanishing again. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but no part of his body was willing to obey him. It felt as though he’d gone a round with Mike Tyson and lost big-time. For a brief moment he wondered if he was dead. Nobody could feel like this and still be alive.

The thought made him panic, and he used all the energy he had left to try and make his vocal cords work. Somewhere far, far away he thought he heard a croaking sound that might be his own voice.

It was. One of the shadow figures came closer and took on more solid contours. A female face came into view, and he squinted to try and focus.

‘Where?’ he got out, and he hoped that she’d understand what he meant. She did.

‘You’re in Uddevalla Hospital, sir. You’ve been here since yesterday.’

‘Alive?’ he croaked.

‘Yes, you’re alive,’ said the nurse with a smile. She had a round, open face. ‘It was touch-and-go, I have to tell you, but now you’re through the worst of it.’

If he could have laughed, he would have. ‘Through the worst.’ Sure, sure, easy for her to say. She didn’t know how every fiber in his body burned and how it hurt all the way down to his bones. But he clearly was alive, at any rate. With an effort, he tried to shape more words with his lips.

‘Ma’am?’ He couldn’t manage to get out her name. For a moment he thought that a strange expression passed over the nurse’s face, but then it was gone. It was no doubt the pain playing a trick on him.

‘Now you have to get some rest,’ said the nurse. ‘Soon you’ll be able to have visitors.’

He let himself be content with that. Exhaustion washed over him and he willingly let it carry him along. He wasn’t dead, that was the main thing. He was in the hospital, but he wasn’t dead.

With great care, they went over every inch of the house. They couldn’t take a chance on missing anything, but they didn’t have all day either. When they were finished, it would look like a hurricane had come through; but Patrik knew what they had to find, and he was sure it was here somewhere. He didn’t intend to leave until he found it.

‘How’s it going?’ came Martin’s voice from the doorway.

Patrik turned round. ‘We’ve gotten about halfway through the downstairs rooms. Nothing yet. How about you guys?’

‘Well, the coffin is on its way. A bloody surreal experience, I might add.’

‘You can count on that scene popping up in some nightmare sooner or later. I’ve had a couple, with skeleton hands coming up through the coffin lid and the like.’

‘Stop it,’ said Martin with a grimace. ‘Haven’t you found anything yet?’ he said, mostly as a way to get rid of the images that Patrik had put into his head.

‘No, not a thing,’ Patrik replied in frustration. ‘But it has to be here, I can feel it.’

‘I always thought you had a strong feminine side, so it must be woman’s intuition,’ said Martin with a smile.

‘Go make yourself useful instead of standing here insulting my manhood.’ Martin went off to find his own corner to search.

A smile lingered on Patrik’s lips but then vanished. He pictured the murderer carrying Maja’s little body, and the fury he felt was so strong that it made him see red.

Two hours later, his spirits were flagging. The whole main floor and the cellar were done, and they hadn’t found a thing. But one thing they had confirmed was that Lilian was an especially assiduous housekeeper. The techs had gathered up a number of containers they found in the cellar, but they would need to be taken to the lab and analyzed. Maybe he was wrong after all. But then he remembered the contents of the videotape he’d played over and over last night, and he felt his determination return. He hadn’t been wrong. He couldn’t have been. It was here. The only question was where.