The Preacher

Unlike Albert, who had brightened up at the prospect of talking about the apple of his eye, Gun squirmed self-consciously on the sofa.

‘Well, I don’t really see what purpose that would serve. The police asked lots of questions about Siv when she disappeared. All that stuff is probably in the police archives …’

‘I know, but I was thinking a little more on the personal level. What sort of girl she was, what kind of things she liked, what she wanted to be, and so on.’

‘Wanted to be? That really wasn’t an issue. She got knocked up by that German boy when she was seventeen. After that I saw to it that she didn’t waste time on studies any more. By then it was too late anyway, and I certainly had no intention of taking care of her baby myself, that’s for sure.’

Her tone was scornful. Patrik saw Lars look at his wife, and he thought to himself that no matter what the man’s picture of Gun had been when they first married, there was not much left of his illusions. There was a weariness and resignation in Lars’s face, which was also marked by disappointment. It was obvious that the marriage had reached a point where Gun no longer made much effort to hide her true character. Lars may have felt that it was true love to begin with, but Patrik suspected that the attraction for Gun had been all those beautiful millions in Lars Struwer’s bank account.

‘What about Siv’s daughter? Where is she now?’ Patrik leaned forward, curious as to the answer.

Once again, crocodile tears. ‘After Siv disappeared I couldn’t take care of her by myself. I wanted to, of course, but times were a bit tough, and taking care of a little girl was simply out of the question. So I made the best of the situation and sent her to Germany, to her father. Well, he wasn’t very happy to have a kid descend on him out of the blue, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was the girl’s father, after all, and I had papers to prove it.’

‘So she lives in Germany today?’ A glimmer of an idea appeared in Patrik’s mind. Could it be that …? No, that would be hard to believe.

‘No, she’s dead.’

The idea vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Dead?’

‘Yes, in a car crash when she was five. But the German didn’t bother to ring me with the news. I got a letter telling me that Malin had been killed. I wasn’t even invited to the funeral, can you imagine? My own granddaughter and I couldn’t go to her funeral.’ Her voice quavered with indignation.

‘He never answered the letters I wrote to him when the girl was alive. Don’t you think he should have helped out the grandmother of his poor motherless child a little? I was the one who saw to it that his kid had food on the table and clothes on her back the first two years of her life. Don’t you think I had the right to some compensation?’

Gun had now worked herself into a rage over the injustices she thought she’d been subjected to, and she didn’t calm down until Lars put a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a kind but firm squeeze, which was his way of admonishing her.

Patrik refrained from answering. He knew that any reply he made would not be appreciated by Gun Struwer. Why in the world did she think the child’s father should send her money? Couldn’t she see how unreasonable she was being? Apparently not. He saw her suntanned, leathery cheeks turn crimson with wrath, despite the fact that her daughter had now been dead for more than twenty years.

He made one last attempt to find out something personal about Siv. ‘Might there be some photographs?’

‘Well, I didn’t take that many pictures of her, but I should be able to find something.’

Gun left the room, leaving Patrik alone in the living room with Lars. They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Lars said something, but in a voice so low that Gun wouldn’t be able to hear it.

‘She’s not as cold-hearted as she seems. Gun has some very fine qualities.’

Yeah right, Patrik thought. He would call that statement a fool’s defence. But Lars was probably doing what he could to justify his choice of a wife. Patrik estimated that Lars was about twenty years older than Gun, and it wasn’t too far-fetched to surmise that his choice had been made with a part of his body other than his head. Although Patrik had to admit that perhaps his profession was making him a bit cynical. Maybe it really was true love. How would he know?

Gun returned, not with a thick photo album like Albert had produced, but with a single little black-and-white photo which she morosely handed to Patrik. It showed a sullen teenaged Siv holding her newborn daughter in her lap. Unlike the pictures of Mona, in this photo there was no joy in the girl’s expression.

‘Well, we must get busy straightening up the house. We’ve just returned from Provence, where Lars’s daughter lives.’ From the way Gun said the word ‘daughter’ Patrik could hear that there was no love lost between her and her stepdaughter.

He also realized when his presence was no longer desired, so he thanked them for their help.

‘And thank you for lending me the photo. I promise to return it in good condition.’

Gun waved her hand dismissively. Then she remembered her role and contorted her face into a grimace.

‘Please let me know as soon as you’re positive. I would so dearly like to be able to bury my little Siv.’

‘I’ll come back as soon as I hear anything.’

Patrik’s tone was unnecessarily curt, but he had found the entire histrionic show quite distasteful.

When he was back out on Norra Hamngatan, the skies opened up. He stood still for a moment and let the downpour rinse away the cloying feeling he had from his visit with the Struwers. He needed to get home and hug Erica and feel the life pulsing inside when he put his hand on her belly. He needed to feel that the world wasn’t as cruel and evil as it sometimes seemed. It simply couldn’t be.

5

SUMMER 1979

It felt as if months had passed. But she knew that it couldn’t possibly be that long. And yet each hour down here in the dark was like a lifetime.

There was far too much time to think. Far too much time to feel how the pain was twisting every nerve. Time to ponder everything she had lost. Or would lose.

By now she knew that she would never get out of here. No one could escape such pain. And yet she had never felt softer hands than his. No hands had ever caressed her with such love, and it made her hunger for more of that touch. Not the horrible or painful touch, but the soft touch that came afterwards. If she had ever felt such a touch before, everything would have been different, she knew that now. The feeling when he ran his hands over her body was so pure, so innocent, that it reached all the way to that hard core inside her, the one no one before had been able to reach.

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