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The Preacher
‘So it’s some devil who breaks the girls’ bones first before he murders them,’ said Martin. ‘And cuts them with a knife,’ he added.
‘I’m afraid that’s what it looks like. If I were to guess, I’d say there was certainly some sexual motive behind it. Some sadistic fuck who gets off on other people’s pain. The fact that there was semen on Tanja’s body indicates that as well.’
‘Are you going to talk to Mona’s relatives? Tell them that we found her, I mean?’
Martin looked uneasy, but Patrik calmed his fears by taking on the task himself.
‘I thought I’d drive out and see her father this afternoon. Her mother died years ago, so her father is the only one left to notify.’
‘How can you be so sure? Do you know them?’
‘No, but Erica was at the library in Fjällbacka yesterday looking up everything that was written in the press about Siv and Mona. Their disappearances have been reviewed periodically, and there was even an interview with the families a couple of years back. Only Mona’s father is still alive, and Siv only had her mother when she went missing. There was a little daughter as well, so I thought I’d talk to her too – as soon as we’ve got confirmation that Siv is the second woman.’
‘It would be a devil of a coincidence if it was someone else, don’t you think?’
‘Well, we’ll assume that the skeleton is Siv’s, but we can’t say that for certain yet. Stranger things have happened.’
Patrik rummaged through the photocopies that Erica had brought home for him and fanned some of them out in front of him on the table. He had also laid out the file that he had dug out of the archive in the cellar, intending to put together all the information they had about the disappearance of the two girls. There was a good deal in the newspaper articles that was not included in the investigative material; both sources were necessary to give them a complete picture of what was known so far.
‘Look here. Siv vanished on Midsummer’s Eve in 1979, and then Mona disappeared two weeks later.’
In order to clarify and give some order to the material, Patrik got up from his desk chair and wrote on the whiteboard on his wall.
‘Siv Lantin was last seen alive as she was bicycling home after a party with friends. The very last witness described how she turned off the main road and rode towards Bräcke. It was two in the morning, and she was seen by a driver who passed her on the road in his car. After that no one saw or heard from her again.’
‘If you disregard Gabriel Hult’s information,’ Martin added.
Patrik nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, if you ignore Gabriel Hult’s testimony, which I think we will for the time being.’ He went on: ‘Mona Thernblad went missing two weeks later. Unlike Siv, she vanished one afternoon in broad daylight. She left her house around three to go out jogging but never came home. One of her jogging shoes was found by the road along her usual route, but nothing more.’
‘Were there any similarities between the girls? Besides the fact that they were about the same age.’
Patrik couldn’t help smiling a little. ‘I can see you’ve been watching that Profiles programme. Unfortunately I have to disappoint you. If we’re dealing with a serial killer, which is what I assume you’re fishing for, there are no obvious external similarities between the girls.’ He fastened two black-and-white photographs to the whiteboard.
‘Siv was nineteen years old. Small, dark and curvaceous. She had a reputation for being rather difficult, and she created something of a scandal in Fjällbacka when she had a baby at the age of seventeen. Both she and the baby lived with her mother, but according to what the newspapers claim, Siv liked to go out partying and wasn’t very fond of staying home. Mona, on the other hand, was described as a real family girl who did well in school, had a lot of friends and was generally popular. She was tall and blonde and worked out a good deal. Eighteen years old but still living at home because her mother was sickly, and her father couldn’t take care of her by himself. Nobody seemed to have anything negative to say about her. So the only thing these girls had in common was that they disappeared without a trace from the face of the earth over twenty years ago. And now they’ve appeared as skeletons in the King’s Cleft.’
Martin was leaning his head on his hand, pondering. Both he and Patrik sat in silence for a while, studying the newspaper clippings and the notes on the whiteboard. They were both thinking of how young the girls looked. They would have had so many years left to live, if something evil hadn’t crossed their paths. And then Tanja, who they didn’t yet have a photo of while she was alive. She was a young girl too, with her whole life ahead of her. But now she was dead too.
‘A massive investigation was launched.’ Patrik took a thick stack of typed pages out of the folder. ‘Friends and family of the girls were interviewed. Officers knocked on every door in the area, and known hooligans were also questioned. A total of about a hundred interviews were done, as far as I can see.’
‘Did they produce anything?’
‘No, not a thing. Not until they got the tip from Gabriel Hult. He rang the police himself and told them that he saw Siv in his brother’s car the night she disappeared.’
‘And? That could hardly have been enough to make him a murder suspect, could it?’
‘No. When Gabriel’s brother Johannes was questioned, he denied having spoken to her or even seeing her, but in the absence of any other leads the police chose to focus on him.’
‘Did they make any progress?’ Martin’s eyes were wide with reluctant fascination.
‘No, nothing else came out. And a couple of months later Johannes Hult hanged himself in his barn. So the trail went very cold, you might say.’
‘It seems odd that he took his life so soon afterwards.’
‘Yes, but if he was guilty then it must have been his ghost that murdered Tanja. Dead men don’t kill people.’
‘And what was the deal with his brother calling in and reporting his own flesh and blood? Why would anybody do that?’ Martin frowned. ‘Wait, how stupid can I be? Hult – our faithful old servant in the thieves’ fraternity. He must be related to Stefan and Robert.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Johannes was their father. After reading about the Hult family, I actually have a little more understanding of why Stefan and Robert visit us so often. They were no more than five or six years old when Johannes hanged himself, and Robert was the one who found him in the barn. You can only imagine how that must have affected a six-year-old boy.’
‘Yes, good Lord.’ Martin shook his head. ‘You know, I need a cup of coffee before we go on. My caffeine level is about to reach empty. Would you like a cup?’
Patrik nodded, and a couple of minutes later Martin returned with two cups of steaming hot coffee. For once the weather was right for hot drinks.
Patrik continued his summation. ‘Johannes and Gabriel are the sons of a man named Ephraim Hult, also called the Preacher. Ephraim was a well-known, or you might say notorious, free-church pastor in Göteborg. He held big meetings at which he had his sons, who were small then, speak in tongues and heal the sick and the lame. Most people considered Ephraim a charlatan and swindler, but even so he hit the jackpot when one of the ladies in his faithful congregation, Margareta Dybling, died and left everything she owned to him. Besides a considerable fortune in ready cash, she left a large forested estate and a magnificent manor house in the vicinity of Fjällbacka. Ephraim suddenly lost all desire to spread God’s word. He moved here with his sons, and the family has been living on the old lady’s money ever since.’
The whiteboard was now covered with notes, and there were papers spread all over Patrik’s desk.
‘Not that it isn’t interesting to have a little family history, but what does this have to do with the murders? As you said, Johannes died more than twenty years before Tanja was murdered, and dead men don’t kill people, as you so eloquently expressed it.’ Martin had a hard time hiding his impatience.
‘True, but I’ve gone over all the old material, and Gabriel’s testimony is actually the only interesting thing I found from the old investigation. I’d also hoped to be able to talk with Errold Lind, who was in charge of the investigation, but unfortunately he died of a heart attack in 1989, so this material is all we have to go on. Unless you have some better suggestions, I propose that we start by finding out a bit more about Tanja, as well as talking with Siv and Mona’s surviving parents. After that we’ll decide whether it’s worth having another talk with Gabriel Hult.’
‘Sure, that sounds sensible. What should I do first?’
‘Start with the investigation about Tanja. And make sure you put Gösta to work on it as of tomorrow. His halcyon days are over.’
‘What about Mellberg and Ernst? What are you going to do about them?’
Patrik sighed. ‘My strategy is to keep them out of it as best I can. That will mean a bigger workload for the rest of us, but I think we’ll come out ahead in the long run. Mellberg will just be glad to get out of doing anything, and besides, he’s basically sworn off this investigation. Ernst will have to keep on doing what he’s been doing, handling as many of the incoming reports as he can. If he needs help we’ll send Gösta. As far as possible, I want the two of us to be free to run this investigation. Understood?’
Martin nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘Then let’s get going.’
After Martin left, Patrik sat facing the whiteboard, deep in thought with his hands clasped behind his head. It was an enormous task they were undertaking, and they had hardly any experience in homicide investigations. His heart sank with a sudden feeling of apprehension. He sincerely hoped that what they lacked in experience they could make up for with dedication. Martin was already on board, and damned if he wasn’t going to wake Gösta Flygare out of his Sleeping Beauty sleep as well. If they could just manage to keep Mellberg and Ernst away from the investigation, Patrik thought they might have a chance to solve the murders. But the odds were against them, especially considering that the trail for two of the murders was so cold that it was almost in a deep freeze. He knew that the best chance they had was to concentrate on Tanja. At the same time his instinct told him that there was such a strong and clear connection between the murders that they would have to be investigated simultaneously. It was not going to be easy to shake some life into the old investigation, but they would have to try.
He grabbed an umbrella from the stand, checked an address in the telephone book, and headed off with a heavy heart. Certain duties demanded more of him than he could humanly bear.
The rain drummed persistently on the windowpanes, and under different circumstances Erica would have welcomed the coolness it brought. But fate and importunate relatives made her feel otherwise, and she was slowly but surely being driven to the brink of madness.
The kids dashed about as if they were going crazy in their frustration at having to stay indoors, while Conny and Britta had begun to turn on each other like cornered dogs. It had not yet escalated to a full-fledged fight, but their bickering had now reached the level of hissing and snapping. Old sins and injustices were being dragged up, and all Erica wanted to do was go upstairs and pull the covers over her head. But once again her good upbringing stood in her way, wagging its finger and forcing her to try to behave in a civilized manner in the midst of a war zone.
She had gazed longingly at the door when Patrik went off to work. He hadn’t been able to conceal his relief at being able to escape to the station, and for a little while she had been tempted to test his promise to stay at home whenever she asked. But she knew that it wouldn’t be right to do it just because she didn’t want to be left alone with ‘the fearsome four’. Instead, like a dutiful little wife, she waved to her husband from the kitchen window as he drove away.
The house was not big enough to keep the general disarray from reaching catastrophic proportions. She had taken out some games for the kids, but the only result was that alphabet blocks now lay strewn all over the living room in a glorious mess along with Monopoly houses and playing cards. Laboriously she bent down and gathered up the tiny game pieces, trying to bring a little order to the room. The conversation out on the veranda where Britta and Conny were sitting grew more and more heated, and she began to understand why the kids had not acquired any manners. With parents who quarrelled like five-year-olds it wasn’t easy to learn respect for others and their belongings. If only this day would be over! As soon as it stopped raining she would send the Flood family packing. Never mind good manners and hospitality – she would need to be Saint Birgitta herself not to have a fit if they stayed much longer.
The bombshell dropped at lunch. With aching feet and a pain in her lower back she had stood at the stove for an hour, making a lunch that would suit Conny’s voracious appetite as well as the children’s finicky tastes, and in her own estimation she had succeeded rather well. Falun sausage au gratin with macaroni would satisfy all takers, she thought. But she soon learned that she had been dreadfully mistaken.
‘Yuck, I hate Falun sausage. Gross!’
Lisa demonstratively shoved away her plate and crossed her arms with a sullen expression.
‘That’s too bad, because that’s what we’re having.’ Erica’s voice was firm.
‘But I’m hu-u-u-ungry. I want something else.’
‘There isn’t anything else. If you don’t like Falun sausages then you can eat the macaroni with ketchup.’ Erica was making an effort to keep her tone of voice steady, even though she was boiling inside.
‘Macaroni is gross. I want something else. Mam-ma-a-a-a!’
‘Could you possibly get her something different?’ Britta patted her little whiner on the cheek and was rewarded with a smile. Confident of victory, Lisa’s cheeks took on the glow of triumph as she gave Erica a defiant look. But now the line had been crossed. Now it was war.
‘There isn’t anything else. Either you eat what’s in front of you or go hungry.’
‘But dear Erica, I think you’re being unreasonable,’ said Britta. ‘Conny, explain to her how we do things at home, what our policy on childrearing is.’ But she didn’t bother to wait for a reply. ‘We don’t force our children to do anything. That would stunt their development. If my Lisa wants something different, we think it’s her right to have it. I mean, she is an individual with just as much right to express herself as the rest of us. And what would you think if somebody tried to force you to eat food that you didn’t like? I don’t think you would accept it.’
Britta lectured in her best psychologist voice, and Erica suddenly knew this was the last straw. With icy calm she took the girl’s plate, raised it over Britta’s head, and then turned it over. The shock when the macaroni ran down over her hair and inside her blouse made Britta stop in the middle of a sentence.
Ten minutes later, they were gone. And would most likely never return. In all probability she would now be blacklisted by that side of the family, but no matter how hard she tried Erica couldn’t say that she had any regrets. She wasn’t ashamed either, even though her behaviour could at best be called childish. It had felt fantastic to find an outlet for the aggressions that had built up over their two-day visit, and she had no intention of apologizing.
The rest of the day she planned to spend on the sofa on the veranda with a good book and her first cup of tea of the summer. All at once life seemed much brighter.
Although it was small, the dazzling greenery in his glass veranda could compete with the best of gardens. Each flower was tenderly cultivated from seed or a cutting, and thanks to the hot weather this summer the air was now almost tropical. In one corner of the veranda he raised vegetables, and there was nothing to compare with the satisfaction of going out to pick tomatoes, squash, onions, and even melons and grapes that he had grown himself.
The little row-house stood on Dinglevägen, near the entrance to Fjällbacka from the south. It was small but functional. His veranda stuck out like a green exclamation mark among the more modest plantings of the other row-house residents.
It was only when he sat out on the veranda that he didn’t miss the old house. The house where he had grown up and later created a home together with his wife and daughter. They were both gone now. The pain of their absence had intensified until one day he realised that he needed to say goodbye to the house too and all the memories that clung to its walls.
Of course the row-house lacked the character that he loved about the old house, but it was also the impersonality of his new lodgings that made it possible to ease the pain in his breast. By now his grief was mostly like a dull rumble constantly heard in the background.
When Mona disappeared he thought that Linnea would die of a broken heart. She was already sickly, but she proved to be of tougher stuff than he thought. She lived for ten more years. For his sake, he was sure. She didn’t want to leave him alone with the grief. Every day she struggled to continue a life that for them was only a shadow existence.
Mona had been the light of their life. She was born when they had both given up hope of ever having a child, and there were never any more. All the love they had was embodied in this bright, happy creature, whose laugh had ignited small fires in his breast. It was utterly inconceivable that she could just disappear like that. Back then it had felt as though the sun should have stopped shining. As though the sky should have fallen. But nothing happened. Life went on as usual outside their sorrowful abode. People laughed, lived, and went to work. But Mona was gone.
For a long time they lived on hope. Maybe she was still alive somewhere. Maybe she was living a life without them and had decided to disappear of her own accord. At the same time they both knew what the truth was. The other girl had disappeared just before Mona, and it was just too great a coincidence for them to be able to fool themselves. Besides, Mona wasn’t the type of girl who would deliberately cause them such pain. She was a nice, lovable girl who did everything she could to look after them.
On the day that Linnea died, he received final proof that Mona was in Heaven. The illness and the grief had reduced his beloved wife to a shadow of her former self, and as she lay in the bed and held his hand, he knew that this was the day he would be left alone. After hours of keeping vigil she had squeezed his hand one last time, and then a smile spread across her face. The light that was ignited in Linnea’s eyes was a light that he had not seen in ten years – not since the last time she had looked at Mona. She fixed her gaze somewhere behind him and died. Then he knew for certain. Linnea died happy because her daughter was the one who met her in the tunnel. In many ways it made the loneliness easier to bear. Now, at least, the two people he loved most were together. It was only a matter of time until he would be reunited with them. He looked forward to that day, but until then it was his duty to live his life as best he could. The Lord had little patience with quitters, and he didn’t dare do anything to risk his place in Heaven, where he would join Linnea and Mona.
A knock on the door interrupted his melancholy thoughts. Slowly he got up from his easy chair and ploughed through the greenery, leaning on his cane. He made his way down the hall to the front door. A serious-looking young man was standing outside, with his hand raised to knock again.
‘Albert Thernblad?’
‘Yes, that’s me. But I don’t need anything you’re selling.’
The man smiled. ‘No, I’m not selling anything. My name is Patrik Hedström, and I’m with the police. I wonder if I might come in for a moment?’
Albert said nothing but stepped aside to let him in. He led the way out to the veranda and showed the policeman to a place on the sofa. He hadn’t asked what this was about. He didn’t need to. He had been waiting for this visit for more than twenty years.
‘What amazing plants. It certainly takes a green thumb.’ Patrik gave a nervous laugh.
Albert said nothing as he regarded Patrik with his gentle eyes. He understood that it wasn’t easy for this policeman to bring him the news, but he needn’t have worried. After all these years of waiting, it was good to find out the truth at last. He had already done his grieving.
‘Well, the thing is, we’ve found your daughter.’ Patrik cleared his throat and started over. ‘We’ve found your daughter, and we can confirm that she was murdered.’
Albert merely nodded. At the same time he felt a peace of mind. Finally he could lay her to rest. Have a grave to visit. He would bury her next to Linnea.
‘Where did you find her?’
‘In the King’s Cleft.’
‘The King’s Cleft?’ Albert frowned. ‘If she was buried there, why wasn’t she discovered sooner? So many people go there, after all.’
Patrik told him about the German tourist who was murdered, and that they had presumably found Siv as well. They believed that someone had moved Mona and Siv there at night, but that they had been buried somewhere else all these years.
Albert didn’t go into town much any more, so unlike the rest of Fjällbacka he hadn’t heard about the murder of the young German woman. The first thing he felt when he heard about her fate was a lurch in his stomach. Somewhere someone was going to experience the same pain that he and Linnea had felt. Somewhere a father and a mother would never see their daughter again. That overshadowed the news about Mona. Compared with the dead girl’s family he was lucky. For him the grief had grown blunt and dull. But they had many years ahead of them before they reached that point, and his heart ached for them.
‘Do you know who did this?’
‘No, unfortunately, we don’t. But we’re going to do everything in our power to find out.’
‘Do you know if it’s the same person?’
Patrik hung his head. ‘No, we don’t even know that for sure, not as things stand right now. There are certain similarities, but that’s all I can say at this point.’
He looked uneasily at the old man sitting before him. ‘Is there anyone you’d like me to call? Someone who could come and keep you company?’
Albert’s smile was kind and fatherly. ‘No, there’s no one.’
‘Should I ring and hear whether the pastor can come over?’
Again the same kind smile. ‘No thank you, I don’t need a pastor. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ve lived through this day over and over again in my thoughts, so it doesn’t come as a shock. I just want to sit here in peace among my plants. I have everything I need. I may be old, but I’m tough.’
He placed his hand over Patrik’s, as if he were the one offering consolation. And perhaps he was.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to show you a few pictures of Mona and tell you a little about her. So that you’ll understand how she was when she was alive.’
Without hesitation the younger man nodded, and Albert hobbled out to fetch the old albums. For about an hour he showed Patrik photographs and told him about his daughter. It was the best hour he had spent in a long time, and he realized that it had been far too long since he’d allowed himself to retreat into memory.
When they said goodbye at the door, he pressed one of the photos into Patrik’s hand. It showed Mona on her fifth birthday, with a big cake and five candles in front of her and a smile stretching from ear to ear. She was delightfully sweet, with blonde locks and eyes that glittered with the joy of life. It was important for him that the police have this picture in their mind’s eye as they searched for his daughter’s murderer.
After the policeman had left, Albert sat down on the veranda again. He closed his eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers. Then he fell asleep and dreamed about a long, bright tunnel where Mona and Linnea were waiting for him like shadows at the end. He thought he saw them waving.