The Gallows Bird (37 page)

‘Yeah, hi. I wonder if I could get some help with something.’ Patrik set his folder on the table in front of the checkout counter and carefully took out the plastic bags with the book pages inside. Jessica came over to look at what he had laid out. She was tall and slim and had medium-blonde, shoulder-length hair that was gathered into a practical pony-tail. A pair of glasses rested on the tip of her nose, and Patrik couldn’t help wondering if wearing glasses was a requirement to get into library school.

‘Sure, just tell me what you need help with.’

‘I have a few pages from a children’s book here,’ said Patrik, pointing at the torn-out pages. ‘I’m wondering if there’s any way to tell what book they’re from, or more precisely what the proper order should be.’

Jessica pushed her glasses into place and carefully picked up the plastic bags and began to study them. She placed them in a row and then moved them about.

‘Now they’re in order,’ she said with satisfaction.

Patrik leaned forward and looked. Now the story developed as it should, starting with the page that had been in Elsa Forsell’s Bible. He had a bright idea. The pages now lay in the same order as the murders. First came Elsa Forsell’s page, then Börje Knudsen’s, after that Rasmus Olsson’s, and finally the page that they’d found next to Marit Kaspersen in the car. He gave Jessica a grateful look. ‘You’ve already helped me,’ he said, studying the pages again. ‘Can you tell me anything about the book? Where it comes from?’

The librarian thought for a moment, then she went round the checkout counter and began typing on the computer. ‘I think the book looks pretty old. It was probably published quite a while ago. You can tell by the style of the illustrations and the way the Swedish in the text sounds.’

‘So about how old would you say it is?’ Patrik couldn’t hide the eagerness in his voice.

Jessica looked at him over the tops of her glasses. For a moment he thought that she bore an uncanny resemblance to Annika. Then she said, ‘That’s what I’m trying to work out. If I could get some peace and quiet for a moment.’

Patrik felt like a schoolboy who’d just been reprimanded. He kept his mouth shut as he watched Jessica’s fingers fly over the keyboard.

After a while, which felt like an eternity to Patrik, she said, ‘The story of Hansel and Gretel has been issued in many editions here in Sweden over the years. But I ignored all those after 1950, so there were considerably fewer. Before 1950 I can see ten editions. I would
guess
that it’s one of the editions from the ’20s. I’ll see if I can track it on an antiquarian site and find a better image of the versions from the ’20s.’ She typed some more and Patrik had to stop himself from stamping his feet with impatience.

Finally she said, ‘Look, does this picture look familiar?’

He went round to her side and smiled with satisfaction when he saw a picture on the cover that was definitely drawn in the same style as the illustrations on the pages they had found next to the victims.

‘That’s the good news,’ Jessica said. ‘The bad news is that this is by no means a one-of-a-kind book. It came out in 1924 and a thousand copies were printed. And there’s no guarantee that whoever owned the book had bought the book or received it as a gift when it came out. He or she could have found it in an antiquarian bookshop almost anywhere. Searching websites that list books in stock at antiquarians, I find ten copies of this book for sale in different parts of the country today.’

Patrik felt his mood plunge. He knew it was a long shot, but he’d still nurtured a tiny hope of finding out something via the book. He went back round the checkout counter and stared angrily at the book pages laid out on the table. Mostly he wanted to rip them to shreds out of sheer frustration, but he restrained himself.

‘Did you notice that there’s a page missing?’ Jessica asked, moving over next to him. Patrik looked at her in astonishment.

‘No, I didn’t think of that.’

‘You can see from the page numbering.’ She pointed at one of the pages. ‘The first page you have is 5 and 6, then there’s a jump to 9 and 10, and 11 and 12, and the last one is 13 and 14. So the page numbered 7 on one side and 8 on the other is missing.’

Patrik’s thoughts were spinning. He understood with lightning-fast certainty what that meant. Somewhere there was another victim.

Chapter 8

He really shouldn’t. He knew that. But he couldn’t help it. Sister didn’t like it when he begged, when he pleaded for what was unattainable. But something inside him made him do it. He had to find out what was out there. What was beyond the forest, beyond the field. Where she drove every day when she left them alone in the house. He simply had to find out what it looked like, the existence they were reminded of when an airplane flew over them up in the sky, or when they heard the sound of a car far, far in the distance.

At first she had refused. Told them it was out of the question. The only place they were safe, where he, her little jinx, was safe, was in the house, their sanctuary. But he kept on asking. And each time he asked he thought he could see her resistance wearing down. He could hear how insistent he sounded, how the stubborn tone slipped into his voice every time he talked about the unknown, which he wanted to see, if only once.

Sister always stood quietly beside him. Watching them, with a stuffed animal in her arms and her thumb in her mouth. She never said a word about having the same sense of longing. And she would never dare ask. But he sometimes saw a flash of the same desire in her eyes, when she sat on the bench by the window and looked out over the forest that seemed to go on for ever. Then he could see that the longing was just as strong in her.

That’s why he kept asking. He pleaded, he begged. She reminded him about the story they’d read so often. About the curious brother and sister who got lost in the forest. They were alone and scared, held captive by an evil witch. They could get lost out there. She was the one who protected them. Did they want to get lost? Did they want to risk never finding their way home to her? After all, she had already saved them from the witch once . . . Her voice always sounded so small, so sad when she answered his pleas with more questions. But something inside him made him keep asking, even though the distress tore and ripped at his breast when her voice trembled and tears filled her eyes.

But the temptation to know what was out there was too strong.

‘Welcome!’ Erling waved them into the hall and stood up a bit straighter when he saw the cameramen following behind.

‘Viveca and I think it’s so nice that you agreed to come over for a little farewell dinner. Here in our humble abode,’ he added towards the camera with a chuckle. The viewers would probably appreciate this brief glimpse into the lives of ‘the rich and famous’, as he had said to Fredrik Rehn when he presented the idea to him. Fredrik of course had thought it was a stroke of genius to invite the cast members to a farewell dinner at the home of the top dog in town. It was undoubtedly incredibly fitting.

‘So, come in, come in,’ said Erling, sweeping them into the living room. ‘Viveca will be right in to offer you a drink and welcome you here. Or perhaps you don’t imbibe?’ he said with a wink, laughing heartily at his own joke.

‘Look, here comes Viveca with the drinks,’ he said, pointing to his wife, who didn’t utter a word. They’d had a talk about this before the dinner guests and camera crew arrived. She had agreed to stay in the background and let him have his moment in the spotlight. After all, he was the one who had made the whole show possible.

‘I thought that you should taste some adult beverages for a change,’ said Erling, beaming. ‘A genuine “Dry Martini”, as we call them in Stockholm.’ He laughed again, a little too loudly, but he wanted to be sure that he could be heard on screen. The young people sniffed cautiously at their drinks, each of which held an olive speared on a toothpick.

‘Do we have to eat the olive?’ said Uffe, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Erling smiled. ‘No, you can skip it if you like. It’s mostly for decoration.’

Uffe nodded and tossed back the drink while carefully avoiding the olive.

Some of the others followed his example. Erling, looking a bit bewildered and holding his glass up in the air, said, ‘Well, I had intended to bid you welcome, but some people are obviously thirsty. So
skål
!’ He raised his glass a bit higher, received a vague murmur in reply, and then sipped his Dry Martini.

‘Could I get another?’ said Uffe, holding out his glass to Viveca. She glanced at Erling, who nodded. What the heck, the kids had to have a bit of fun.

By the time dessert was served, Erling W. Larson was beginning to feel some regret. He vaguely recalled that Fredrik Rehn had warned him at their meeting not to serve too much alcohol during dinner, but he had stupidly waved aside Rehn’s words of advice. If Erling remembered rightly, he’d thought that nothing could be worse than the time in ’98 when the whole management team had gone on a business trip to Moscow. What had actually happened there was still a bit fuzzy in his mind, but he did recall a smattering of images, which included Russian caviar, a hell of a lot of vodka, and a brothel. What Erling hadn’t considered was that it was one thing to get pissed on a business trip and something altogether different to have five drunken youths in his own home. Even the food had been something of a disaster. They had hardly touched the whitefish roe on toast, and the risotto with coquilles Saint-Jacques had been greeted by gagging sound effects, especially from that barbarian Uffe. The climax of the evening seemed to be taking place even now, as he could hear the sounds of vomiting coming from the loo. Thinking that at least they had eaten the dessert, he saw with horror how the chocolate mousse was being regurgitated all over the beautiful, newly installed floor tiles.

‘I found some more wine, Earl the pearl,’ Uffe slurred, triumphantly coming in from the kitchen with an open wine bottle in his hand. With a sinking feeling in his stomach Erling realized that it was one of his best and most expensive vintage wines that Uffe had decided to uncork. Erling could feel rage bubbling up inside, but restrained himself when he realized that the camera was zooming in on him in the hope of just such a reaction.

‘Imagine that, what luck,’ he said through clenched teeth. Then he sent a look Fredrik Rehn’s way with an appeal for help. But the producer seemed to think the councilman had asked for it, and instead held out his empty wine glass to Uffe. ‘Pour me some, Uffe,’ he said, deliberately ignoring Erling.

‘Me too,’ said Viveca, who had spent the entire evening in silence, but now defiantly looked at her husband. Erling was seething inside. This was mutiny. Then he smiled at the camera.

Less than a week left before the wedding. Erica was starting to get nervous, but all the practical matters had been taken care of. She and Anna had worked like fiends to arrange everything: flowers, place cards, where the guests would stay, the music, all of it. Erica gave Patrik a worried look, as he sat across from her at the breakfast table chewing listlessly. She had fixed him hot chocolate and crispbread with cheese and caviar, his favourite breakfast. It usually made her feel sick just looking at it. Now she was prepared to do almost anything to get some nourishment into him. At least he wasn’t going to have any trouble getting into his tuxedo, she thought.

Lately Patrik had been walking round the house like a ghost. He would come home and eat, fall into bed, and then drive off to the station early the next morning. His face looked grey and haggard, marked by fatigue and frustration, and she had even begun to sense a certain dejected mood. A week ago he had told her that there had to be another victim somewhere. They had issued another query to all the police districts in the country but without result. With hopelessness in his voice he had also told her how they had gone through all the material they had, over and over again, without finding anything that could advance the investigation. Gösta had talked with Rasmus’s mother on the phone, but even she didn’t recognize the names Elsa Forsell and Börje Knudsen. The investigation was at a standstill.

‘What’s on the agenda for today?’ said Erica, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Patrik was nibbling like a mouse at one corner of the crispbread; in the last fifteen minutes he hadn’t managed to eat more than half of it. He said glumly, ‘Waiting for a miracle.’

‘But can’t you get some help from outside? From the other districts involved? Or from . . . the National Criminal Police or something?’

‘I’ve been in touch with Lund, Nyköping and Borås. They’re working hard on it too. And the NCP . . . well, I’d hoped we could manage this ourselves, but we’re starting to lean towards calling in reinforcements.’ Pensively he took another mini-bite, and Erica couldn’t help leaning over to caress his cheek.

‘Do you still want to go through with it on Saturday?’

He looked at her in surprise, then his expression softened. He reached for her hand and planted a kiss in the middle of her palm.