The Ice Princess (34 page)

‘Well, we have a good deal of material on this individual, as you see,’ she went on. ‘Both parents were addicts, and if they hadn’t died in an accident we would have had to intervene sooner or later. They let the boy run wild, and he basically had to raise himself. He showed up at school in dirty, ragged clothes and was bullied by his schoolmates because he smelled bad. Apparently, he had to sleep in the old stable and then go to school in the same clothes he slept in.’

She looked at Patrik over the top of her glasses.

‘I assume you’re not coming here to abuse my trust, but to procure the requisite authorization, if only after the fact, so that you can acquire the data on Jan?’

Patrik merely nodded. He knew that it was important to follow regulations, but sometimes investigations required a certain efficiency, and then the wheels of bureaucracy would have to turn after the fact instead. Siv and he had always had a good, pragmatic working relationship, but he knew she had to ask that question.

‘Why didn’t you step in earlier?’ Patrik asked. ‘How could the situation have been allowed to get so bad? It sounds as if Jan had been neglected since birth, and yet he was ten years old when his parents died.’

Siv gave a deep sigh. ‘Yes, I know what you mean, and believe me, I’ve had the same thought many times. But times were different when I started working here, no more than a few months before the fire actually. It took extreme circumstances before the state would step in and restrict the right of parents to raise their children as they saw fit. Many people were advocating a liberal form of child-rearing as well, and unfortunately it was children like Jan who suffered. There were never any traces of physical abuse found on him. To be crass, perhaps the best thing would have been if he were beaten, so that he could have gone to the hospital. Then at least we would have started to keep an eye on the family situation. But either he was abused so that it was never outwardly visible, or else his parents “simply” neglected him.’ Siv wiggled her fingers to indicate quotation marks around the word ‘simply’.

Patrik felt a sudden wave of sympathy for the boy Jan. How the hell could somebody be a normal human being after growing up under such circumstances?

‘But you haven’t heard the worst of it. We never had any proof, but there were indications that his parents let men abuse Jan in return for money, or narcotics.’

Patrik felt his jaw drop. This was much worse than he could ever have imagined.

‘As I said, we could never prove anything, but today we can see that Jan followed the standard pattern that we now know is associated with children who have been sexually abused. For one thing, he had big disciplinary problems at school. The other children may have bullied him, but they were also afraid of him.’

Siv opened the folder and leafed through the papers until she found what she was looking for.

‘Here it is. In the fourth grade he brought a knife to school and used it to threaten one of the worst bullies. He actually cut him in the face, but the school administration hushed the whole thing up. As far as I can see, he wasn’t punished. Several such incidents followed when Jan displayed excessive aggression towards his classmates, but the incident with the knife was the most serious. He was also reported to the principal on several occasions because he had acted inappropriately towards the girls in the class. For such a young boy, he showed a knowledge of extremely advanced sexual behaviour and allusions. The reports never resulted in any actions either. No one knew quite what to do with a child with such disturbing ways of relating to the people around him. Today, we would definitely react to such blatant signals and take action of some sort, but you must remember that this was in the early Seventies. It was a whole different world back then.’

Patrik felt nearly faint with sympathy and rage. How could anyone treat a child that way?

‘After the fire…were there other incidents like this?’ he asked.

‘No, that’s the strange thing. After the fire he was placed immediately with the Lorentz family, and after that we had no reports that Jan ever had a problem again. I drove over to their house a few times to follow up on the situation, and I found a completely different boy. He sat there in his suit with his hair slicked down and stared at me without blinking as he replied politely to all my questions. It was quite horrible, actually. A person doesn’t change overnight like that.’

Patrik gave a start. It was the first time he’d ever heard Siv hint at anything negative regarding one of her cases. He understood there was something worth digging into further. There was something she wanted to say, but he would have to ask the right question.

‘With regard to the fire…’

He let the words dangle in the air a moment and saw that Siv sat up straighter in her chair. That meant he was on the right track.

‘I heard certain rumours about the fire.’ He gave Siv a questioning look.

‘I can’t be responsible for rumours. What was it you heard?’

‘That the fire was arson. In our investigation it’s even listed as “probable arson”, but no trace of the perpetrator was ever found. The fire started on the ground floor of the house. The parents were asleep in a room upstairs and never had a chance. Did you ever hear anything about who might have hated the Norins enough to do something like that?’

‘Yes.’ Her reply was monosyllabic and so quiet that he wasn’t sure he’d really heard it.

She repeated in a louder voice, ‘Yes, I know who hated the Norins enough to want to set fire to them.’

Patrik sat silently and let her continue at her own pace.

‘I accompanied the police out to the house. The fire department were the first on the scene. One of the fire-fighters had gone to examine the site, to check whether any sparks had blown away from the house and might be smouldering somewhere else. The fireman found Jan in the stable. When the boy refused to leave, they contacted us here at social services. I was a new social worker, and in retrospect I have to admit that I thought it was very exciting. Jan was sitting in the stall, all the way at the back, leaning against the wall, under the watchful eye of a fireman, who was extremely relieved to see us arrive. I shooed off the police and went in to try to console Jan, as I thought I should, and then take him out of there. His hands kept moving in the dark where he was sitting, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. When I got closer I saw that he was sitting there fidgeting with something in his lap. It was a box of matches. With undisguised glee he was sorting the matches: burned black ones in one half of the box and new red ones in the other half. The expression on his face was sheer joy. He actually seemed to be glowing from within. It was the most horrid thing I’ve ever seen in my life, Patrik. I can still see that face before me sometimes when I go to bed at night. I went over to him and carefully took the box of matches away. Then he looked up at me and said, “Are they dead now?” That was all. “Are they dead now?” Then he giggled and willingly let me lead him out of the old stable. The last thing I saw as we left was a blanket, a pocket torch and a pile of clothes in a corner of the barn. That’s when I understood that we were complicit in his parents’ death. We should have taken action many, many years earlier.’

‘Have you ever told anyone about this?’

‘No, what would I say? That I thought he murdered his parents because he was playing with matches? No, I’ve never said anything until you came and asked me just now. But I’ve always suspected that he would have a run-in with the police sooner or later. What is he mixed up in?’

‘I can’t say anything yet, but I promise to tell you as soon as I can. I’m incredibly grateful that you told me all this, and I’ll get busy with the paperwork so that you won’t have any problems.’

He waved and left.

After he was gone Siv stayed at her desk. Her red glasses hung on their cord round her neck, and she rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she closed her eyes.

At the same moment that Patrik stepped out into the snowdrifts on the pavement, his mobile phone rang. His fingers had already grown stiff in the bitter cold, and he had a hard time getting the little lid of his mobile open. He hoped it was Erica but was disappointed when he saw that it was the station’s dispatch number blinking on the display.

‘Patrik Hedström. Hi, Annika. No, I’m right outside social services. Okay, but give me a minute or two and I’ll be back at the station.’

He snapped the lid shut. Annika had done it again. She had found something that didn’t add up in Alex’s CV.

The snow squeaked under his feet as Patrik jogged in the direction of the station. The snowplough had passed by while he was visiting Siv, and the return wasn’t the same struggle as before. Few brave souls were venturing out in the cold weather, and the main street was deserted except for an occasional passer-by hurrying along with collar turned up and cap pulled down as protection from the cold.

Inside the door of the station Patrik stamped off the snow that had collected on his shoes. He made a note that snow in combination with street shoes made socks unpleasantly wet. He should have been able to figure that out in advance.

He went straight to Annika’s office. She was clearly waiting for him, and from the pleased expression on her face he could see that what she’d found was good, really good.

‘Are all your clothes in the wash, or what?’

At first Patrik didn’t understand the question, but judging from her teasing smile it was a joke at his expense. The penny dropped a second later and he looked down at what he was wearing. Damn, he hadn’t changed clothes since the day before yesterday. He wondered if he smelled a bit, or if he smelled a lot.

He muttered something in reply to Annika’s comment and tried to glare at her as evilly as he could. She found this even more amusing.

‘Yeah, yeah, I get it,’ Patrik said. ‘Now get to the point. Speak up, woman!’

He slammed his fist onto her desk in feigned rage. A vase of flowers responded instantly by toppling over and spilling water all over.

‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so damn clumsy…’

He searched for something to wipe up the water, but Annika was a step ahead of him as usual and produced a roll of paper towels from somewhere behind the desk. She calmly began wiping off her desk as she gave a now-familiar command to Patrik.

‘Sit!’

He obeyed at once, thinking it rather unfair that she didn’t throw him a sweet as reward for being so clever.

‘Shall we begin?’ Annika didn’t wait for Patrik’s answer but began to read from her computer screen.

‘Now let’s see. I started with the time of her death and worked backwards. Everything seems to add up for the time she lived in Göteborg. She started the art gallery with her friend in 1989. Before that she went to university for five years in France, majoring in art history. I received her transcript by fax today, and she took her exams on time and passed them. She attended high school at Hvitfeldtska in Göteborg. I also got her grades from there. She was no brilliant student, but no slouch either. She consistently stayed in the middle.’

Annika paused and looked at Patrik, who was leaning over and trying to read ahead on her screen. She turned it away from him a little so he couldn’t read her discovery prematurely.

‘Before that it was a boarding school in Switzerland. She went to an international school, L’École de Chevalier, which costs a fortune.’ Annika put great emphasis on the last phrase.

‘According to the information I got when I rang them, it costs about a hundred thousand kronor per semester, not counting room, board, clothes and books. And I checked—the prices were just as high when Alexandra Wijkner attended.’

Her words were absorbed thoughtfully by Patrik, who was thinking out loud. ‘So the question is, how the Carlgren family could afford to send Alex to that school. From what I understood, Birgit has always been a housewife, and it would be impossible for Karl-Erik to earn enough money to cover such expenses. Did you check—’

Annika interrupted him. ‘Yes, I asked who was responsible for Alexandra’s tuition, but they don’t give out that sort of information. The only thing that could make them more forthcoming would be an order from the Swiss police, but with that bureaucracy it would take us at least six months to get it. I began at the other end instead and started checking the Carlgren family’s finances over the years. Perhaps they inherited some money, who knows? I’m waiting for a report from the bank, but it will take a couple of days before we have it. But…’ another rhetorical pause, ‘that’s not even the most interesting thing. According to the Carlgren family’s statements, Alex started boarding school during the spring semester of 1977. According to the school’s register she didn’t start until spring 1978.’

Annika leaned back in her chair triumphantly and crossed her arms.

‘Are you sure?’ Patrik could hardly control his excitement.

‘I checked and double-checked and even triple-checked. The year from spring of ’77 to spring of ’78 is missing from Alex’s life. We have no idea where she was. The family moved away from here in March 1977 and then there’s nothing, not a single shred of information until Alex starts at the school in Switzerland. At the same time, her parents show up in Göteborg. They buy a house, and Karl-Erik starts his new job as CEO of a medium-sized company in the wholesale trade.’

‘So we also don’t know where the parents were during this period?’

‘No, not yet. But I’m continuing to search. The only thing we know is that there wasn’t any data to indicate that they were in Sweden during that year.’

Patrik counted on his fingers. ‘Alex was born in 1967, so she was, let’s see, ten years old in 1977.’

Annika checked the screen again. ‘She was born on January 3, so that’s right, she was ten when they moved.’

Patrik nodded thoughtfully. It was valuable information that Annika had managed to dig up, but right now it only gave rise to more questions. Where was the Carlgren family from 1977 to 1978? A whole family couldn’t just disappear. They must have left some sort of trail; it was simply a matter of finding it. At the same time there had to be something more. The information that Alex had had a child earlier still baffled him.

‘Didn’t you find any other gap in her history? For example, couldn’t somebody have taken the tests in her name at the university? Or couldn’t her partner at the gallery have run it by herself for a period? It’s not that I don’t trust what you found out, but maybe you should double-check the facts again. And check the hospital records to see if any Alexandra Carlgren or Wijkner gave birth to a child. Start at the Göteborg hospitals, and if you don’t find anything there, then work your way out into the countryside. There must be some record of the birth somewhere. A child can’t simply go up in smoke.’

‘Couldn’t she have had the baby abroad? During her time at the boarding school, for instance? Or in France?’

‘Of course, why didn’t I think of that? See if it’s possible to get anything through international channels. And see if you can find any way to trace where the Carlgrens went. Passports, visas, embassies. Somewhere there must be a record of where they went.’

Annika was taking notes for dear life.

‘By the way, have any of the others found anything worthwhile yet?’

‘Ernst has checked Bengt Larsson’s alibi, and it holds up, so we can cross him off. Martin talked to Henrik Wijkner by phone but could get nothing else on the connection between Anders and Alex. He intends to keep questioning Anders’s wino buddies about whether Anders might have said anything to them about it. And Gösta…Gösta’s sitting in his office feeling sorry for himself, trying to work up the energy to go to Göteborg and interview the Carlgrens. I’m betting he won’t leave until Monday at the earliest.’

Patrik sighed. If they were going to solve this case, it would probably be best if he didn’t rely on his colleagues. He’d have to do the legwork himself.

‘You didn’t think about asking the Carlgrens directly?’ Annika said. ‘There might not be anything suspicious about it. Maybe there’s some reasonable explanation.’

‘They’re the ones who gave us the information about Alex. For some reason they tried to conceal what they were doing between ’77 and ’78. I’ll talk with them, but first I want to have a little more to go on. I don’t want them to have a chance to wriggle out of this.’

Annika leaned back and smiled slyly. ‘So when are we going to hear those wedding bells ringing?’

Patrik saw that she had no intention of dropping this juicy subject anytime soon. He would have to resign himself to being the station’s source of entertainment for a while.

‘Well, it might be a bit early for that. We should probably be together for at least a week before we book a church.’

‘So-o-o-o, you’re together, are you?’

He realized that he’d fallen right into that trap feet-first with eyes wide open.

‘No, er yes, maybe we are…I don’t know, we get along so far, but it’s all awfully new and maybe she’s going back to Stockholm soon…oh, I don’t know. You’ll have to be satisfied with that for the time being.’ Patrik was squirming like a worm in his chair.

‘Okay then, but I want to be kept up to date on what’s happening, do you hear me?’ Annika wagged her finger at him.

He nodded in resignation. ‘All right, I’ll keep you posted. I promise. Satisfied?’

‘Well, that will have to do for now, I suppose.’

She got up, came round the desk, and before he knew it he was caught in an exuberant bear-hug, crushed against Annika’s ample bosom.

‘I’m so glad for your sake. Don’t mess it up, Patrik, promise me.’ She gave him an extra squeeze that made his ribs protest. Since he didn’t have access to any air at the moment he couldn’t reply, but she apparently took his silence as acquiescence and released him, but not until she topped it all off with a firm pinch on the cheek.

‘Go home and change your clothes now, you hear? You stink!’

And with that comment Patrik found himself sent back out to the corridor, with a sore cheek and ribs. He felt his rib-cage cautiously. He liked Annika a lot, but sometimes he wished that she would be a bit more careful with a poor thirty-five-year-old guy whose physique was on a downhill slope.

Badholmen, the bathing island, looked deserted and forsaken. In the summer it was packed full of happy bathers and noisy children, but now the wind howled desolately across the snow that had fallen like a thick blanket overnight. Erica stepped carefully through the snow covering the rocks. She had felt a great need to get a little fresh air, and here from Badholmen she had an uninterrupted view of the islands and the seemingly endless white ice. Cars could be heard in the distance, but otherwise it was mercifully silent; she could almost hear herself think. The diving tower loomed next to her. Not as high as she had thought it was when she was little—then it seemed to reach all the way to heaven—but still high enough that she would never dare jump from the top platform on a warm summer’s day.

She could have stood there forever. Wrapped up in furs she felt the cold trying in vain to penetrate her clothes. Inside herself, she felt the ice thawing. She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been until the loneliness was gone. But what would happen with her and Patrik if she had to move back to Stockholm? It was many miles away, and she felt much too old for a long-distance relationship.

If she was forced to go along with selling the house, was there any possibility that she would stay here? She didn’t want to move in with Patrik before their relationship had been properly tested over a period of time. So the only alternative was to find some other place to live in Fjällbacka.

The problem was that nowhere else appealed to her. If they sold the house she would rather cut all ties to Fjällbacka than come here and watch strangers tramping about in her childhood home. Nor could she really imagine renting a flat here; that would feel very strange. She felt her happiness slipping away as she piled all these negative thoughts on top of each other. Of course, it would be possible to solve this dilemma, but she had to admit that even if she wasn’t exactly ancient, so many years of living alone with only herself to think of had taken their toll, and she didn’t feel very flexible anymore. After much deliberation she had decided that she was ready to leave her life in Stockholm, but only if she could keep living in the familiar setting of her childhood home. Otherwise, it would simply be too much change in her universe all at once. She wouldn’t be able to face it, no matter how much in love she was.

Perhaps her parents’ death had also made her less inclined to make big changes. That change was enough for many years to come. Right now, she wanted to sink into a safe, secure and predictable life. Previously, she had been afraid to commit herself to a relationship. Now she wanted nothing more than to include Patrik in that secure and predictable life. She wanted to be able to plan for all the usual stages: living together, engagement, marriage, children, and then many ordinary days, one after another, until one day they could look at each other and discover that they had grown old together. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

For the first time Erica felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of Alex. It was as if she only now grasped that Alex’s life was irrevocably over. Even though their paths had not crossed for many years, she had still thought of her from time to time. And she had always known that Alex’s life was running parallel to her own. Now she was the only one who had a future, who would get to experience all the sorrows and joys that the years ahead would bring. Every time she thought about Alex now, and for the rest of her life, the image that would appear to her would be that of Alex’s pale corpse in the bathtub. The blood on the tiles and her hair that looked like a frozen halo. Maybe that was why she had decided to start writing the book about her. It was a way to relive the years when they were so close to each other, and at the same time get to know the woman Alex had become after they parted ways.

What had worried Erica the past few days was that the material felt a little too flat. It was as if she were looking at a three-dimensional model from only one side. The other sides were equally important if she was going to get an idea of how the figure looked, but she hadn’t yet been allowed to see them. What she decided was that she needed to start looking more at the people around Alex, not only the main actors, but all the bit players who had been part of her life. Then Erica’s thoughts had gravitated primarily to what she had sensed and intuited as a child but had never clearly understood.