The Preacher (25 page)

Gun shook her head vigorously, but Lars looked thoughtful. Hesitantly he said, ‘There was someone who rang a couple of times without saying anything. Don’t you remember that, Gun? It must have been two or three weeks ago, and we thought it was a prank call. Do you think it could have been her?’

Patrik nodded. ‘Very likely. Her father had told the whole story to her two years ago, and she may have thought it would be difficult after that to get in touch with you. She also went to the library and made copies of articles about her mother’s disappearance, so she probably came here to find out what really happened to her mother.’

‘My poor little heart.’ Gun had finally realized what was expected of her and turned on the crocodile tears. ‘To think that my little darling was still alive, and that she was so close. If only we could have met before… What sort of person would do something like this to me? First Siv and then my little Malin.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Do you think I’m in danger? Is there someone who wants to get me? Do I need police protection?’ Gun’s eyes flicked nervously between Patrik and Lars.

‘I don’t think that will be necessary. We don’t believe that the murders are connected to you in any way, so I shouldn’t worry.’ Then he couldn’t resist the temptation: ‘Besides, the murderer only targets young women.’

He regretted saying it at once, and got up to show that the conversation was over. ‘I’m really sorry to be the bearer of such terrible news. But I’d be grateful if you’d ring me if you think of anything else. We’ll start by checking up on that telephone call.’

Before Patrik left he cast one last envious glance at the view of the sea. Gun Struwer was the ultimate proof that good things didn’t always come to those who deserved them.

‘What did she say?’

Martin was sitting in the lunchroom with Patrik. As usual, the coffee-maker had been on for far too long, but they were used to it and drank the coffee greedily.

‘I shouldn’t say this, but damn, what a ghastly person she is. What she was most worried about wasn’t that she’d missed so many years of her granddaughter’s life, or that the girl had just been murdered. It bothered her more that the father discovered such an effective way of squelching her demand for financial compensation.’

‘That’s terrible.’

Their mood was dismal as they sat pondering the pettiness of human beings. It was unusually quiet in the station. Mellberg hadn’t shown up; he seemed to have awarded himself a sleep-in. Gösta and Ernst were out ‘chasing road pirates’, as they called it. Actually they were probably having a snack at some roadside rest stop, hoping that the pirates would walk up and introduce themselves and ask to be taken to jail. ‘Preventive police work,’ they called it. And they were probably right. That rest stop was safe, at least as long as they were sitting there.

‘What do you think Tanja planned to gain by coming here? Surely she wasn’t thinking of playing private eye and finding out what happened to her mother.’

Patrik shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. But I can understand that she’d be curious about what happened. She probably wanted to see the place with her own eyes. I’m sure that sooner or later she would have got in contact with her grandmother. But I should think that what she’d heard from her father wouldn’t have been all that flattering, so I can see why she postponed the visit. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if, when we get the phone records from Telia, it turns out that the calls to Lars and Gun Struwer came from one of the public telephones in Fjällbacka, probably the one at the campground.’

‘But how did Tanja end up in the King’s Cleft together with the skeletons of her mother and Mona Thernblad?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I can imagine is that she must have stumbled on something, or rather someone, who was involved in the disappearance of her mother and Mona.’

‘If so, that automatically excludes Johannes. He’s lying safe in his grave in Fjällbacka churchyard.’

Patrik looked up. ‘Do we know that? Do we know beyond all doubt that he’s really dead?’

Martin laughed. ‘Are you joking? He hanged himself in 1979. You can’t get much deader than that!’

A certain agitation had slipped into Patrik’s voice. ‘I know this sounds incredible, but listen to this: imagine if the police began to get too close to the truth and he could feel the law breathing down his neck. He was a Hult and could scrape up plenty of money, if not by himself then through his father. A bribe here, another one there, and bingo – you have a false death certificate and an empty coffin.’

Martin laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach. ‘You’re out of your mind! This is Fjällbacka we’re talking about – not Chicago in the Twenties. Are you sure you weren’t out in the sun too long? It sounds like you have sunstroke. Take the fact that it was his son who found him. How do you get a six-year-old to tell a story like that if it isn’t true?’

‘I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Are you coming?’

‘Where to?’

Patrik rolled his eyes and enunciated every syllable. ‘To talk to Robert, of course.’

Martin sighed but got to his feet. He muttered, ‘As if we don’t have enough to do.’ On the way out he remembered something. ‘What about the fertilizer? I thought I’d look into that before lunch.’

‘Ask Annika to do it,’ Patrik called back over his shoulder.

Martin stopped at the reception desk and left Annika the information she would need. She was having a slow day and was grateful for something specific to do.

Martin couldn’t help wondering if they were wasting valuable time. Patrik’s theory seemed much too far-fetched, much too imaginative to have any relation to reality. But he was the boss on this case…

Annika threw herself into the task. The past few days had been hectic, since she was the one who’d sat like a spider in the centre of the web and organized the search parties for Jenny. But now they’d been called off after three days of fruitless searching. Because the lion’s share of the tourists had left the area as a direct result of the events of the past week, the switchboard at the station was eerily quiet. Even the reporters had begun to lose interest in favour of the next sensational new stories.

Annika stared at the information Martin had given her and looked up a phone number in the book. After being shunted round to various parts of the company, she finally got the name of the sales manager. She was placed in a telephone queue, and with canned music fizzing in her ear she spent the time on hold in dreamy recollections of her week in Greece, which now seemed an eternity away. When she’d returned from her holiday she had felt rested, strong and beautiful. After being thrown into the maelstrom at the station, the effects of the break were long gone. She yearned for the white beaches, the turquoise water and big bowls of tzatziki. Both she and her husband had put on about five pounds eating the wonderful Mediterranean food, but it didn’t worry them. Neither of them had ever been thin, and they had accepted this as a fact of life. They were happily unfazed by the slimming tips offered in the newspapers. When they lay close to each other their curves fit together perfectly, and they became one big, warm wave of billowing flesh. And there had been plenty of that during their holiday…

Annika’s holiday memories were abruptly interrupted by a melodious male voice speaking with the unmistakable accent of Lysekil to the south.

Annika told him what she needed to know.

‘Oh, how exciting. A murder investigation. Despite thirty years in the fertilizer business, this is the first time I’ve ever been asked for help with a homicide.’

Happy to be able to gild your day, thought Annika sourly, but she kept her caustic comment to herself, so as not to stifle his eagerness to assist her. Sometimes the public’s appetite for sensation bordered on the morbid.

‘We’d like some help compiling a customer list for your fertilizer FZ-302,’ Annika told the man.

‘Well, that’s not going to be easy. We stopped selling that type in 1985. Fantastic product, but new environmental regulations forced us to stop manufacturing it.’ The sales manager sighed heavily at the injustice of environmental protection laws circumscribing the sales of a successful product.

‘But I assume you have some form of documentation?’ Annika coaxed him.

‘Well, I’d have to check it with the administrative department, but it’s possible there’s information on it in the old archives. In fact, up until 1987 we had manual storage of all such data; after that everything was computerized. But I don’t think we threw anything out.’

‘You don’t recall anyone who purchased …,’ she checked her notes again, ‘the product FZ-302 in this area?’

‘No, my dear. That was so many years ago that I can’t just pick the information out of thin air.’ He laughed. ‘There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.’

‘Okay, I didn’t really think it would be that easy. How long would it take for you to gather the information?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s see, if I take some pastries over to the girls in admin with a few kind words, I should say you might be able to get an answer late today or early tomorrow morning. Will that do?’

That was faster than Annika had dared hope when he started talking about the old archives, so she thanked him profusely. She wrote a note to Martin about the result of her conversation and put it on his desk.

‘Say, Gösta?’

‘Yes, Ernst?’

‘Does life get any better than this?’

They were sitting at a rest stop outside Tanumshede, having laid claim to one of the picnic tables. They were no amateurs at this, so they had been foresighted enough to bring along a thermos of coffee from Ernst’s house. Then they bought a big bag of buns at the bakery in Tanumshede. Ernst had unbuttoned his shirt to expose his sunken white chest to the sun. Out of the corner of his eye he discreetly watched a bunch of young women in their early twenties who were laughing and chattering, taking a pause in their driving trip.

‘Hey, put your tongue back in your mouth. And button up your shirt, for that matter. What if one of our colleagues drove past? We’re supposed to look like we’re working.’

‘Oh, relax, will you? They’re all busy searching for that teenage chick. Nobody cares what we’re doing.’

Gösta’s face clouded over. ‘Her name is Jenny Möller. Not “that teenage chick”. And shouldn’t we be helping out too, instead of sitting here like a couple of bloody dirty old men?’ He nodded towards the scantily clad girls a couple of tables away. Ernst could hardly tear his eyes away from them.

‘You’re a fine one to talk. I’ve never heard you complain before when I’ve rescued you from the daily grind. Don’t tell me that the devil has gone and got religion in his old age.’

Ernst turned to look at him, and his eyes had narrowed in an alarming way. Gösta got cold feet. Maybe it was stupid to have said anything. He’d always been a little afraid of Ernst. He reminded him too much of the boys at school who had stood waiting for him outside the schoolyard. Boys who could smell weakness and then ruthlessly exploited their superiority. Gösta had seen for himself what happened to people who contradicted Ernst, and he regretted his words. He mumbled a reply.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just feel sorry for her parents. The girl’s only seventeen.’

‘They don’t want our help anyway. Mellberg has started kissing that fucking Hedström’s arse for some reason, so there’s no way I’m going to bust my rear end for nothing.’ His voice was so loud and hostile that the girls turned to look at them.

Gösta didn’t dare tell Ernst to quiet down, but he lowered his own voice and hoped that Ernst would follow his example. He wasn’t about to mention whose fault it was that Ernst wasn’t included on the investigative team. Ernst himself had conveniently repressed his failure to report Tanja missing.

‘I think Hedström’s doing a damn good job. Molin has been working hard too. And to be honest, I haven’t contributed as much as I could have done,’ said Gösta.

Ernst looked as if he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘What the hell are you saying, Flygare? Are you sitting here claiming that two striplings who don’t have a fraction of our combined experience can do a better job than we can? Is that what you’re saying, you stupid shit?’

If Gösta had thought before he opened his mouth he would have foreseen the effect his comment would have on Ernst’s wounded ego. Now he had to back-pedal as fast as he could.

‘No, that’s not quite what I meant. I just said that … no, of course they don’t have the experience we have. And they haven’t exactly come up with any results yet, so – ’

‘No, they certainly haven’t,’ Ernst agreed, slightly mollified. ‘They haven’t been able to show shit yet.’

Gösta exhaled in relief. His desire to try to display a little backbone had rapidly faded.

‘So, what do you say, Flygare? Should we have another drop of coffee and another bun?’

Gösta simply nodded. He had lived so long by the law of least resistance that by now it was the only thing that came natural to him.

Martin looked around with interest when they turned in by the little cabin. He’d never been to visit Solveig and her boys before, and he gazed at the chaos in fascination.

‘How the hell can anyone live like this?’

They got out of the car and Patrik threw his arms out. ‘It’s beyond me. My fingers are itching to clean up this mess. Some of these wrecked cars were here back in Johannes’s time, I think.’

They heard shuffling footsteps when they knocked on the door. Solveig had probably been sitting in her usual spot at the kitchen table, and she was in no hurry to open the door.

‘Now what? Can’t honest folks be left in peace?’

Martin and Patrik exchanged a glance. Her assertion was contradicted by the extensive rap sheet of her sons.

‘We’d like to talk with you a bit. And to Stefan and Robert too, if they’re home.’

‘They’re asleep.’

Sullenly Solveig stepped aside and let them come in. Martin couldn’t conceal a disgusted expression, and Patrik elbowed him in the side as a warning. Martin quickly put on his best poker-face and followed Patrik and Solveig into the kitchen. She left them there while she went to wake up her sons, who were sleeping in the room they shared, just as she’d said. ‘Up and at ’em, boys, the cops are here snooping around again. Get moving so we can get rid of these jailers quick.’