The Gallows Bird (47 page)

Now a distressing thought began to germinate in Mellberg’s mind. He rejected it, refused to accept it, but suddenly pictured the scene when he stood in the bank, and he imagined it playing back in slow motion. Two hundred thousand kronor. He had transferred that amount over to the Spanish account number that Rose-Marie had given him. Two hundred thousand. Money to buy a time-share apartment. Now he could no longer dismiss the thought. He rang directory assistance and asked whether they had any number or address for her. They found no listing under that name. Desperately he tried to remember whether he had seen any proof, any ID or the like that would confirm that her name was what she said it was. He realized with increasing horror that he had never seen anything of the sort. The grim truth was that he didn’t know what her name was, where she lived, or who she really was. But in an account in Spain she now had two hundred thousand kronor. Of his money.

Like a sleepwalker he went over to the fridge, took out her portion of chocolate mousse, and sat down with it at the dinner table so festively decked out. He slowly stuck his hand into the glass and dug his fingers into the brown mousse. The ring flashed through the chocolate when he pulled it out. Mellberg held it up and looked at it. Then he set it gently on the table and, with tears running down his face, he began stuffing the chocolate mousse into his mouth.

‘It was certainly a fantastic day.’

‘Mmm,’ said Patrik, closing his eyes. They had decided early on not to take off on a honeymoon directly, but instead take a longer trip with Maja when she was a few months older. Thailand was at present high on the wish list. But it felt a little strange to go back to their ordinary life again just like that. They’d spent Sunday sleeping in, drinking a lot of water and talking about all the events of Saturday. By Monday Patrik had decided to take the day off. He wanted them both to have a chance to wind down and digest everything before the daily routines took over again. Considering how much work he’d put in during recent weeks, no one at the station had any objections. So now he and Erica were lying on the sofa in each other’s arms; they had the house to themselves. Adrian and Emma were at kindergarten, and Anna had taken Maja over to Dan’s so that the newlyweds could have a day of peace and quiet. Not that she needed any excuse to spend time with Dan. She and the kids had been at his place all day yesterday as well.

‘ Didn’t you ever have any suspicions?’ Erica said cautiously when she saw Patrik far off in his thoughts.

Patrik understood at once what she meant. He thought about it.

‘No, I actually didn’t. There wasn’t anything . . . unusual about Hanna. I did notice that something was weighing on her, but I thought it must have been problems at home. And it was, although not in the way we thought.’

‘What about the fact that they lived together? Even though they were sister and brother.’

‘We’re never going to learn all the answers, but Martin rang and told me they’d finally received the reports from social services. Those two went through hell as foster children, after the accident. Imagine how it must have affected them after they were first kidnapped from their mother and then forced to live in such isolation with Sigrid. It must have created some sort of abnormal bond between them.’

‘Hmm,’ said Erica, but she still had a hard time imagining it. The whole thing was beyond comprehension. ‘But how could they keep the two different parts of their lives separate?’ she said after a while.

‘How do you mean?’ said Patrik, kissing the tip of her nose.

‘Well, I mean, how could they live a normal life? Get an education? And even become a cop and a psychologist? But at the same time live with such . . . evil that they’d done?’

Patrik took his time answering. He didn’t understand the whole situation either, but he had brooded a lot about it since they’d discovered the identity of the murderer, and he thought he had come up with some sort of answer.

‘I think that’s exactly the point. That there were two separate parts. One of them lived a normal life. It seemed to me that Hanna really did want to be a police officer and do something significant. And she was a good cop. Without a doubt. Lars I never met until just before . . .’ He broke off. ‘Well, the picture I had of him was hazier. But he was obviously intelligent, and I think his intention was also to live a normal life. At the same time the secret they were hiding must have haunted their psyches. So when they happened to run into Elsa Forsell when Hanna joined the police force in Nyköping, it must have triggered something inside them, something that had been festering for a long time. Well, that’s my theory, at any rate. But we’ll never know for sure.’

‘Hmm,’ said Erica thoughtfully. ‘It’s a little like how I felt with Mamma,’ she said at last. ‘As if she were living two separate lives. One with us – Pappa, Anna and me. And the other one inside her head, where we were not allowed.’

‘Is that why you decided to do some research about her?’

‘Yes,’ said Erica. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I feel that there’s something she was hiding from us.’

‘But you have no idea what it might be?’ Patrik looked at her and pushed back a lock of her hair.

‘No, and I don’t even know where to begin. There’s nothing left. She never saved a thing.’

‘Are you sure about that? Have you checked up in the attic? Last time I was up there, I saw plenty of old junk.’

‘I’m sure it’s Pappa’s, most of it. But . . . I suppose we could take a look. Just to be sure.’ She sat up. An eager tone had crept into her voice.

‘Now?’ said Patrik, who was not at all inclined to leave the warmth of a cosy sofa to go up to a cold, damp attic, which was also full of spider webs. If there was anything he hated, it was spiders.

‘Yes, now. Why not?’ Erica said, already on her way upstairs.

‘Sure, why not?’ Patrik sighed, getting up reluctantly. He knew better than to protest when Erica had set her mind on something.

When they got up to the attic Erica regretted the idea for a second. It did look as if there was nothing but junk up there. But they might as well take a look around. She ducked so as not to hit her head on the roof beams as she began moving things around and lifting up lids of cartons here and there. With a look of disgust she wiped her hands on her trousers. It certainly was dusty. Patrik also started looking around, although he now doubted whether his idea would produce anything. Erica was probably right. She knew her mother best. If she said that Elsy hadn’t save anything, then . . . Suddenly he caught sight of something that aroused his interest. Way in the back of the attic, wedged in beneath the sloping roof, stood an old chest.

‘Erica, come over here.’

‘Did you find something?’ she said, and walked over to him, bending forward.

‘I don’t know, but this chest looks fairly promising.’

‘It could be Pappa’s,’ she said pensively, but something told her that the chest wasn’t his. It was made of wood, painted green, with an elegant but faded floral pattern painted on the wood. The lock had rusted but the chest wasn’t locked, so she carefully lifted the lid. There were pictures of two children lying on top. When she picked them up she saw that something was written on the back. ‘Erica, December 3, 1974’ it said on one of them, and on the other it said ‘Anna, June 8, 1980’. Astonished, she saw that it was her mother’s handwriting. A little lower down in the chest there was a whole stack of drawings, and things that she and Anna had made in art class were jumbled up with Christmas decorations and things they had made at home. All the things she’d always thought that her mother didn’t care about.

‘Look,’ she said, still incapable of taking in what she was seeing. ‘Look what Mamma saved.’ She carefully picked out one thing after another. It was like a journey back in time, back to her own childhood. And Anna’s. Erica felt the tears come, and Patrik stroked her back.

‘But why? We thought that she didn’t . . . Why?’ Erica wiped the tears on the sleeve of her jumper and went back to rummaging through the chest. About halfway down the childhood mementos came to an end, and older things began to appear. Still with an expression of disbelief, Erica picked up a bunch of black-and-white photographs and looked through them breathlessly.

‘Do you know where these are from?’ said Patrik.

‘No idea,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But you can bet I’m going to find out!’

Eagerly she dug deeper, but stopped when her hand closed round a soft object with something hard and sharp inside. She lifted it up to see what it was. She was holding in her hand a soiled piece of cloth that had once been white but was now yellowed and covered with ugly brown rust stains. Something was rolled up in the cloth. Erica carefully opened the packet and gasped when she saw what it was. Inside the cloth lay a medal, and there was no doubt about its origin. She couldn’t mistake the swastika. Mutely she held up the medal to Patrik, whose eyes grew wide. Then he looked down at the cloth, which Erica had carelessly dropped in her lap.

‘Erica?’

‘Yes? she said, her gaze still fixed on the medal she was holding in her hand.

‘You should look at this,’ Patrik said.

‘What? What is it?’ she said in confusion and then noticed what Patrik was pointing at. She put down the Nazi medal and spread out the piece of cloth. But it wasn’t merely a piece of cloth. It was an, old-fashioned child’s shift. And she realized that the brown spots on the shift weren’t rust after all. They were bloodstains.

Where had this tiny garment come from? Why was it covered with blood? And why had their mother saved it in a chest in the attic, along with a medal from the Second World War?

For a moment Erica considered putting everything back in the chest and closing the lid.

But like Pandora she was much too curious to let the lid stay closed. She had to find out the truth. No matter what it might be.

Acknowledgements

As usual there are many people to thank. But as always, my foremost thanks go to my husband Micke and my children Wille and Meja.

Other people who were helpful during the work on
The Gallows Bird
are Jonas Lindgren at Forensic Medicine in Göteborg; the officers at the Tanumshede police station, with particular thanks to Folke Åsberg and Petra Widén; as well as Martin Melin of the Stockholm police.

Zoltan Szabo-Läckberg and Anders Torevi read the manuscript and made comments, as did Karl-Axel Wikström, who is in charge of cultural affairs for Tanum municipality. A big thanks to them for taking the time to check the details.

Karin Lande Nordh at Forum Publishers also wielded her talented red pen to elevate and improve the content and plotting of the book. Thanks also to everyone else at Forum; it’s always fun to work with you!

Equally indispensable were those who volunteered as babysitters time and again: Grandma Gunnel Läckberg, Grandma and Grandpa Mona and Hasse Eriksson, as well as Gabriella and Jörgen Gullbrandson, and Charlotte Eliasson. Without you we never could fit together all the puzzle pieces of daily life.

I’d like to send a special thanks to Bengt Nordin and Maria Enberg at the Nordin Agency. With your help I’m able to reach readers both in Sweden and in the rest of the world.

‘The girls’ – you know who you are . . . Thanks for all your support, encouragement, and entertaining conversations, to say the least. What would I do without you?

A highly unexpected, but positive contribution this year was made by all my excellent blog-readers, with encouragement the order of the day. The same is true of all of you who have e-mailed me during the year. I am especially grateful for help with suggested names and other details that I’ve received via the blog! But what seemed most important during the past blog year were all the texts about my friend Ulle that Finn generously shared with me. We miss her.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank all my friends, who patiently waited me out when I ‘retreated into my cave’ to write.

Any errors are solely the fault of the author. The characters in the book are entirely the product of my imagination – except for ‘Leif the Rubbish Man’, who was a bit nervous when I said I was going to put a corpse in his rubbish truck. Naturally that was an opportunity too good to resist . . .

Camilla Lackberg-Eriksson
Enskede, 27 February 2006
www.CamillaLackberg.com

About the Author

Born in 1974, Camilla Lackberg worked as an economist before a course in creative crime writing led to a drastic change of career. She is a household name in Sweden and all seven of her psychological thrillers featuring Erica Falck and Patrik Hedström are number one bestsellers across Europe. Camilla lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children.

www.CamillaLackberg.com

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Copyright

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2006

Published by agreement with Bengt Nordin Agency, Sweden English translation copyright © Steven T. Murray 2011

Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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