The Stonecutter (23 page)

Nevertheless, Anders was still looking forward to the birth of the baby. Maybe maternal love would make Agnes stop seeing herself as the center of the world, and go back to being more like the girl he’d first fallen in love with. Because he refused to give up the idea that they could make this marriage work. He was not a man who took his promises lightly. Now that they had forged a legally recognized bond, it was not something they could just walk away from, no matter how hard their situation might be.

Naturally, he did occasionally look at other women at the compound, wives who worked hard and never complained. His situation felt unfair, but he understood that he had brought this situation upon himself. And consequently he had lost the right to complain.

With heavy steps he trudged home along the narrow track. This day had been just as monotonous as all the others. He had spent it cutting paving stones, and one shoulder was aching, where he’d had to use the same muscle over and over for hours. Hunger was tearing at his stomach as well; there had been nothing at home that he could take with him in his lunch sack, and if their neighbor Jansson hadn’t taken pity on him and shared his own sandwich, Anders wouldn’t have had a thing to eat all day. No, he thought, starting now he was done entrusting his wages to Agnes. He would simply have to take charge of buying the groceries, just as he had taken over her other chores. He could stand to go without food himself, but he had no intention of letting his child starve. It was high time he began introducing some different routines at home.

He sighed and paused for a moment outside the shack before opening the flimsy wooden door and going inside to his wife.

From behind the glass window of the reception, Annika had a good view of everyone who came and went in the station. But today it was quiet. Only Mellberg was still in his office, and no one had come by on any urgent errand. But her office itself was hopping with activity. The media publicity had prompted a welter of calls, but it was still too early to say whether anything was worth following up. Not that it was her job to decide. She merely wrote down all the information, along with the name and phone number of the informant. Patrik would soon be the lucky recipient of a huge dose of gossip and baseless accusations, which in her experience made up most of these kinds of calls.

But this case had generated more buzz than usual. Anything having to do with children usually stirred up emotions among the public, and nothing aroused stronger feelings than murder. But the calls did not cast the general populace in a good light. Most noticeable was the fact that the modern tolerance for homosexuality had not yet taken root outside the big cities. She was getting lots of tips about men who were considered suspicious individuals simply because of confirmed or suspected homosexuality. In most cases the arguments advanced were laughable. It was enough for a man to have a non-traditional profession for Annika to be told that he must be ‘one of those perverts.’ So far she had received multiple tips about a local hairdresser, a part-time florist, and a teacher who had apparently committed the outrageous error of favoring pink shirts. Most suspect of all was a male day-care aide. Annika counted ten calls about this latter individual, and she noted them all down with a sigh. Sometimes she wondered whether time moved forward at all in small towns.

The next call, though, was different. The woman on the line wanted to remain anonymous, but the tip she provided was undoubtedly of interest. Annika straightened up and wrote down exactly what the woman told her. This one was going on the top of the stack. She shivered, convinced that this could be crucial to the case. It was so seldom that she had any part in solving a case that she couldn’t help feeling a certain satisfaction, hoping that this could be one of those moments. Then the phone rang again—another tip about the florist.

Reluctantly Arne placed the hymnals on the pews. Usually this task made him feel good, but not today. Newfangled inventions! A music service on Friday evening, and it was far from God-fearing music. Cheerful and lively and altogether heathen! Music should only be played in church during Sunday worship service, and then preferably traditional hymns from the hymnal. Nowadays anything at all could be played, and in some instances people had even taken to applauding. Well, he had to be glad that here it wasn’t yet as bad as in Strömstad, where the pastor brought in one pop artist after another. This evening at least it was only some youths from the local music college, not those silly Stockholm women touring the country who were just as happy to play in the house of God as for drunks in the public parks.

Tonight it was going to be hymns, in any event, and with meticulous care Arne hung up the numbers on the board to the right of the choir. When he had finished posting the numbers, he took a step back to make sure they all hung straight. He took pride in every detail being perfect.

If only he would be allowed to create the same order among human beings, everything would be so much better. Instead of thinking up their own idiocies, people could listen to him and learn. It was all in the Bible, after all. Everything was described in the smallest detail, if only one took the trouble to read what the Scriptures said.

He was again struck by the disappointment of not living his life as a pastor. After checking that he was all alone, he opened the gate to the choir and stepped reverently up to the altar. He glanced up at the emaciated and wounded Jesus hanging on the cross. This was what life was all about. Studying the blood seeping out of Jesus’s wounds, observing how the thorns cut into his scalp, and then bowing one’s head in respect. He turned round and gazed out over the empty pews. In his mind’s eye they were filled with people, his congregation, his audience. He tentatively raised his hands in the air and intoned crisply: ‘May the Lord let his countenance shine upon you …’

He pictured the people being filled by his words. He saw them receiving the blessing into their hearts and looking at him with faces beaming. Arne slowly lowered his hands and stole a glance at the pulpit. He had never dared step up there, but today it was as if the Holy Spirit were filling him. If his father hadn’t stood in the way of his calling, he could have approached the pulpit with the full right of a pastor. From that platform, elevated above the heads of the congregation, he could have preached God’s word.

He tentatively moved toward the pulpit, but when he put his foot on the first step he heard the heavy church door creak open. He quickly went back to his chores, but the bitterness ate into his breast like acid.

The little shop was not open except during the summer months and on holiday weekends, so Patrik and Ernst had to look for Jeanette at the restaurant where she made her living the other nine months of the year. She was a waitress at one of the few lunch spots in Grebbestad that was open in the winter, and Patrik felt his stomach rumble as they walked inside. But it was still too early for lunch, and the restaurant was mostly empty. A young woman was slowly making the rounds of the tables, setting them up.

‘Jeanette Lind?’

She looked up and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Patrik Hedström and Ernst Lundgren. We’re from the Tanumshede police station. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.’

She nodded curtly but quickly lowered her gaze. If she had any powers of deduction, she probably knew why they were there.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked, and both Patrik and Ernst nodded eagerly.

Patrik watched her as she walked over to the coffee-maker. He recognized her type. Small, dark, and curvaceous. Big brown eyes and hair with a natural wave that reached well below her shoulders. Certainly the prettiest girl in her class, maybe even in her whole grade level at school. Popular and always going with one of the older, cooler guys. But when the school years were over, the heyday of such girls came to an end as well. And yet they stayed in their home towns, aware that there they were remembered as stars—unlike in the nearby cities where they would seem mediocre in comparison with hordes of other pretty girls. He judged that Jeanette was a lot younger than he was, and also much younger than Niclas. Twenty-five at most.

She placed a coffee cup in front of each of them and tossed her hair back as she sat down at the table. It looked like a move she might have practiced as a teenager hundreds of times in front of the mirror. By now she had the flirtatious gesture down pat.

‘All right, shoot, or whatever it is they say in American films.’ She gave them a wry smile, and her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at Patrik.

Though he didn’t want to, he had to admit that he could understand what it was that Niclas saw in her. He too had spent many years pining for the cutest girls in school. Boys were all alike. But he had really never had a chance. Short, thin, and with decent grades, he was one of the average ones. He could only admire from afar the tough guys who cut math class to hang out in the smoking area, cigarettes dangling from the corner of their mouths. Then again, in recent years he had gotten to know many of those boys well in his professional capacity. Some of them could even call the drunk tank at the station their second home.

‘We were just speaking with Niclas Klinga and …’ he hesitated, ‘your name came up.’

‘Yes, I’m sure it did,’ said Jeanette, obviously not embarrassed in the least. She looked at Patrik calmly and waited for him to continue.

Ernst was sitting quietly as usual, and now took a cautious sip of his hot coffee. The looks he was giving Jeanette contrasted with the fact that he was old enough to be her father, and Patrik was tempted to kick him in the shin underneath the table.

‘Well, he says that you were together Monday morning, is that correct?’

She tossed her hair again in her practiced way and then nodded. ‘Yes, that’s true. We were at my place. I had the day off on Monday.’

‘What time did Niclas arrive at your house?’

She examined her fingernails as she considered what to say. They were long and well manicured. Patrik wondered how she could do her work with such long nails.

‘Sometime around nine thirty, I think. No, actually, I’m sure of it, because I had set the alarm clock for nine fifteen and I was in the shower when Niclas arrived.’

She giggled, and Patrik began to dislike her. Apparently, the idea of Charlotte, Sara, and Albin waiting for Niclas at home didn’t bother Jeanette.

‘And how long did he stay?’

‘We had lunch at noon, and he had an appointment at one o’clock at the clinic, so he probably left my place about twenty minutes before that, I should think. I live up on Kullen, so it’s not far to his office from there.’ Another little titter.

Now Patrik really had to control himself to keep from showing his disgust. But Ernst clearly didn’t share his objections. His gaze grew more enthralled the longer they sat with Jeanette.

‘And Niclas was at your house the whole time? He didn’t leave to run an errand?’

‘No,’ she said calmly, ‘he didn’t go anywhere, I can assure you of that.’

Patrik looked at Ernst and asked, ‘Do you have anything to add?’ His colleague shook his head, so he gathered up his notes.

‘We’ll be coming back with more questions, I’m sure, but that’s all for now.’

‘Well, I hope I’ve been of some help,’ she said, getting up. She hadn’t uttered a word about the fact that her lover’s daughter had died. That a child had been murdered while she was rolling around in bed with the father. There was something indecent about her obvious lack of empathy.

‘Yes, thank you,’ he said curtly, putting on his jacket. As they left, he saw that she’d gone back to setting the tables. She was humming some tune, but he couldn’t hear what it was.

Charlotte paced helplessly back and forth in the cellar flat where they had been living for the past few months. The pain in her chest made her restless and forced her to keep moving. She felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to take care of Albin properly. Instead she had left him largely in the care of her mother-in-law, but her grief simply left no room for the baby. In his smile and his blue eyes she saw only Sara. He looked so much like Sara had looked at the same age; it hurt to see how similar they were. It also pained her to see what an anxious and timorous child he was. It was as if Sara had sucked up all the energy that should have been divided between the two children, leaving nothing for him. And yet Charlotte knew better. The secret chafed in her breast. She hoped she could make amends.

Charlotte regretted what she had said to Erica yesterday. Right now, she and Niclas needed to stick together; her suspicions were just making everything worse. She could see that he was suffering, and if this tragedy couldn’t bring them back together, there was really no hope.

Since she’d emerged from her sedated fog, Charlotte had hoped that Niclas would become the man she always knew he could be: tender, considerate, and loving. She wanted nothing more than to be able to lean on him; she wanted him to be the stronger one. But it hadn’t turned out that way. He had shut himself off, gone off to work as quickly as he could, leaving her here among the broken pieces of their life.