The Drowning (36 page)

‘Get out of here, you disgusting fatso! If you hurry up and take off now, you won’t get a beating today.’

He wanted nothing more than to stand his ground and tell Erik to go to hell. With precise and powerful movements, he would give Erik such a thrashing that everyone standing around would realize that their hero was heading for a fall. Then with great effort Erik would lift his head up from the ground, with blood running from his nose, and look at him with new respect. After that he would have a place in the group. He would belong.

Instead, he turned tail and ran. As fast as he could, he lumbered across the schoolyard. His chest hurt, and the rolls of fat on his body jiggled up and down. Behind him he could hear them laughing.

Erica drove past the roundabout at Korsvägen, with her heart in her throat. The traffic in Göteborg always made her nervous, and this particular junction was the worst. But she got through it without a problem and then drove slowly up Eklandagatan, looking for the street where she needed to turn.

Rosenhillsgatan. The block of flats stood at the end of the street, facing Korsvägen and Liseberg. She checked the address and then parked her car right in front. She glanced at her watch. The plan was to ring the doorbell and hope that someone was at home. If not, she and Göran had agreed that she’d spend a couple of hours visiting with him and his mother before trying again. If that proved necessary, she wasn’t going to get home until late in the evening, so she crossed her fingers that she’d be lucky enough to find the current tenant at home. She had memorized the name from the phone calls she’d made on her way to Göteborg, and she found it at once on the building intercom. Janos Kovács.

She pushed the button. No answer. She tried again, and then she heard a crackling sound and a voice with a strong accent said: ‘Who is there?’

‘My name is Erica Falck. I’d like to ask you a few
questions about someone who used to live in your flat. Christian Thydell.’ She waited tensely. Her explanation sounded a bit fishy, even to her own ears, but she hoped the man would be curious enough to let her in. A buzzing sound from the door showed that she was in luck.

The lift stopped at the second floor, and she got out. One of the three doors was ajar, and peering at her through the gap was a short and slightly overweight man in his sixties. When he caught sight of her enormous belly, he lifted off the safety chain and opened the door wide.

‘Come in, come in,’ he said earnestly.

‘Thank you,’ said Erica and stepped inside. A heavy aroma from many years of cooking spicy food reached her nostrils, and she felt her stomach turn over. The smell wasn’t really unpleasant, but her pregnancy had made her nose sensitive to particularly pungent odours.

‘I have coffee. Good strong coffee.’ He pointed towards a small kitchen right across the hall. She followed him, casting a glance inside what appeared to be the only other room in the flat, functioning as both living room and bedroom.

So it was here that Christian lived before he moved to Fjällbacka. Erica felt her heart beating faster with anticipation.

‘Sit.’ Janos Kovács more or less pushed her down on to a straight-backed chair and then served her coffee. With a triumphant whoop he set a big plate of cakes in front of her.

‘Poppy-seed cakes. Hungarian speciality! My mother often sends me packages of poppy-seed cakes because she knows that I love them. Have one.’ He motioned for her to help herself, so she took a cake from the plate and tentatively bit into it. Definitely a new taste, but good. She suddenly realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since
breakfast, and her stomach rumbled gratefully as she swallowed the first bite of cake.

‘You’re eating for two. Take another, take two, take as many as you want!’ Janos Kovács pushed the plate closer to her, his eyes sparkling. ‘Big baby,’ he said with a smile as he pointed at her belly.

Erica smiled back. His good humour was infectious.

‘Well, I’m actually carrying two, you see.’

‘Ah, twins.’ He clapped his hands with delight. ‘What a blessing.’

‘Do you have children?’ asked Erica, her mouth full of cake.

Janos Kovács lifted his chin and said proudly, ‘I have two fine sons. Grown up now. Both have good jobs. At Volvo. And I have five grandchildren.’

‘And your wife?’ said Erica cautiously, glancing around. It didn’t look as if any woman lived in the flat. Kovács was still smiling, but his smile was not as bright.

‘About seven years ago she came home one day and said, “I’m moving out.” And then she was gone.’ He threw out his hands. ‘That’s when I moved here. We lived in this building, in a three-room flat downstairs.’ He pointed to the floor. ‘But when I had to take early retirement, and my wife left me, I couldn’t stay there any more. And since Christian met a girl at the same time and was going to move, well, I moved in here. Everything turned out for the best,’ he exclaimed, looking as if he truly meant it.

‘So you knew Christian before he moved?’ asked Erica, sipping her coffee, which was delicious.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that I really knew him. But we often ran into each other here in the building. I’m very handy.’ Kovács held up his hands. ‘So I help out when I can. And Christian couldn’t even change a light bulb.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Erica, smiling.

‘Do you know Christian? Why are you asking me questions about him? It was many years ago that he lived here. I hope nothing has happened to him.’

‘I’m a journalist,’ said Erica, assuming the role that she’d decided on during the drive to the city. ‘Christian is an author now, and I’m writing a big article about him, so I’m trying to find out a little about his background.’

‘Christian is an author? How about that! He always did have a book in his hand. And one whole wall in the flat was covered with books.’

‘Do you know what he did when he lived here? Where he worked?’

Janos Kovács shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know. And I never asked. It’s important to respect a neighbour’s privacy. Not get too nosy. If someone wants to talk about himself, he will.’

That sounded like a healthy philosophy, and Erica wished that more people in Fjällbacka shared his attitude.

‘Did he have a lot of visitors?’

‘Never. I actually felt a little sorry for him. He was always alone. That’s not good for people. We all need company.’

He’s certainly right about that, thought Erica, hoping that Janos Kovács himself had someone who came to visit now and then.

‘Did he leave anything behind when he moved? Maybe in the storage room?’

‘No, the flat was empty when I moved in. There was nothing.’

Erica decided to give up. Janos Kovács didn’t seem to have any more information about Christian’s life. She thanked him and then politely but firmly refused his offer to take a sack of cakes home with her.

She was just stepping out the door when Kovács stopped her.

‘Wait! I don’t know how I could have forgotten. Maybe I’m starting to get a little senile.’ He tapped his finger on his temple, then turned around and went into the main room of the flat. After a moment he came back, holding something in his hand.

‘When you see Christian, could you give these to him? Tell him that I did as he said and threw out all the post that came for him. But these … Well, I thought it seemed a bit odd to toss them in the bin. Considering that one or two have arrived every year since he moved out, it seems clear that someone is really trying to get hold of him. I never did get Christian’s new address, so I just put them aside. So if you wouldn’t mind giving them to him with my greetings.’ He smiled cheerfully and handed her a bundle of white envelopes.

Erica felt her hands start to shake as she took them from Janos.

There was suddenly an echoing silence in the house. Christian sat down at the kitchen table and rested his head in his hands. His temples were throbbing, and the itching had started up again. His whole body was burning, and he felt a stinging sensation when he began rubbing the cuts on the palm of his hand. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, laying his cheek against the tabletop. He tried to sink into the silence and push away the feeling that something was trying to crawl out of his skin.

A blue dress. It fluttered past under his eyelids. Disappeared and then came back. The child in her arms. Why didn’t he ever see the child’s face? It was blank and featureless. Had he ever been able to picture it properly? Or had the child always been overshadowed by his enormous love for her? He couldn’t remember. It was so long ago.

He began to weep quietly, his tears slowly making a little puddle on the table. Then the sobs came, rising up from his chest and pouring out until his whole body was shaking. Christian raised his head. He had to make the images go away, make her go away. Otherwise he would burst and fall apart. He let his head sink heavily back on to the table, letting his cheek strike the surface full force.
He felt the wood against his skin, and he raised his head again and again, pounding it against the hard tabletop. Compared with the itching and the burning inside his body, the pain almost felt good. But it did nothing to get rid of the images. She stood there just as clearly, large as life, right in front of him. She smiled and held out her hand towards him, so close that she could have touched him if only she reached a bit further.

Was that a sound from upstairs? Abruptly he stopped moving, with his head only centimetres from the table, as if someone had suddenly pressed the pause button on the film of his life. He listened, not moving a muscle. Yes, he did hear something overhead. It sounded like faint footsteps.

Christian slowly sat up. His entire body was tensed, on high alert. Then he got up from his chair and as quietly as possible made his way to the stairs. Holding on to the banister, he started up, keeping close to the wall where the creaking would be less. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something fluttering, quickly slipping past upstairs in the hall. Or was he imagining things? It was gone now, and the house was again silent.

A step creaked underfoot, and he held his breath. If she was up there, she would know that he was coming. Was she waiting for him? He felt a strange calm settle over him. His family was gone now. She couldn’t harm them any more. He was the only one here; it was between the two of them, just as it had been from the beginning.

A child whimpered. Was it really a child? He heard it again, but now it was more like one of the many sounds that an old house makes. Christian slowly climbed a few more steps to reach the next floor. The hallway was empty. The only sound was his own breathing.

The door to the boys’ room stood open. It was a mess
inside. The techs from the police had made things even worse, with black spots from the fingerprint powder now covering the whole room. He sat down in the middle of the floor, facing the words written on the wall. At first glance, the paint still looked like blood.
You don’t deserve them
.

He knew that she was right. He didn’t deserve them. Christian kept on staring at the words, letting the message sink into his consciousness. He needed to put everything right. Only he could make everything right. In silence he read the words again. He was the one she was after. And he knew where she wanted him to go. He would give her what she wanted.

‘This is going to be a short meeting.’ Patrik reached for a paper towel from the kitchen roll on the counter to wipe his forehead. He was sweating like crazy. He must be in much worse shape than he thought. ‘Here’s the situation: Kenneth Bengtsson is in the hospital. Gösta and Martin will tell us more about that in a minute.’ He gave them a nod. ‘And someone broke into Christian Thydell’s house last night. Whoever it was didn’t physically harm anyone, but they wrote a message in red paint on the wall in the children’s room. Obviously, the whole family is in shock. We have to assume that we’re dealing with someone who has a screw loose, and that means they’re dangerous.’

‘Of course I would have liked to come along this morning when you were called out.’ Mellberg cleared his throat. ‘Unfortunately, I was not informed about what was happening.’