The Stonecutter (24 page)

As she paced, her foot struck something soft. Charlotte started to bend down but stopped abruptly. She’d asked Niclas to move all Sara’s things out of sight, and he’d spent a whole morning putting everything in boxes and taking them up to the attic. But he’d missed this. Sara’s old teddy bear lay halfway under the bed. She gently picked it up, but had to sit down on the edge of the bed when the room started spinning. The teddy bear felt grubby in her hands. Sara had refused to let them wash it, so it looked like it had been through a street fight. The bear also gave off an odd smell, and presumably it was this smell that Sara was convinced absolutely mustn’t be lost in the washing machine. One eye was missing from the bear, and Charlotte touched the threads that had once held the button eye in place. It had been two hours since she’d last wept, the longest dry spell since the police had brought the news of Sara’s death. Now the sobs began rising in her chest again. Charlotte hugged the teddy bear, lay down on her side on the bed, and let her grief take over.

‘Will wonders never cease,’ Pedersen said on the telephone. ‘For the first time in the history of the world, we got an analysis result back sooner than they predicted.’

‘Hold on, I just have to pull over,’ said Patrik, looking for a suitable spot. Ernst pointed to a little forest track on their side of the highway that would do.

‘All right, I’m not a danger to traffic anymore. So, what did the tests show?’ he said. It was clear from his tone of voice that he wasn’t expecting much. They’d probably only managed to identify what Sara had eaten for breakfast. As for the water in her lungs, Patrik had done a little investigating on his own and found out that there wasn’t much hope of identifying exactly what brand of soap was involved. Pedersen confirmed this at once.

‘As I said before, the water was ordinary tap water, and the particular mixture of substances found in the water shows without any doubt that it was from the Fjällbacka area. Unfortunately, the traces of soap couldn’t be linked to any specific brand.’

‘Well, that’s not much to go on,’ Patrik sighed. He was discouraged and once again felt the case slipping out of his hands.

‘No, not as far as what was found in her lungs,’ said Pedersen mysteriously. Patrik sat up straighter in the driver’s seat.

‘What else have you got?’ he said, holding his breath as he waited for the answer.

‘All right, here goes, even though I don’t know what it means,’ the M.E. replied. ‘Analysis of the contents of the girl’s stomach confirms what the family said she ate for breakfast, but …’ Then he paused and Patrik almost screamed with impatience. ‘There was something strange in her stomach. It seems as though the girl had eaten ashes.’

‘Ashes?’ said Patrik, nearly speechless with shock.

‘Yes,’ Pedersen said, ‘and since we found them in the stomach, the lab did another check of the water in her lungs and found minute traces of ash there too. We missed them in the first analysis.’

“But how the hell could she have got ashes inside her body?’ Out of the corner of his eye Patrik saw Ernst give a start and turn to stare at him.

‘It’s impossible to say for certain, but after looking at the data and going over the post-mortem report again, my theory is that someone forced the ashes into her orally. We did find traces in her mouth and esophagus as well, even though most of it was flushed out by the water.’

Patrik didn’t say a word, but his thoughts were tumbling round in his head. Why in the world would anyone have forced the girl to eat ashes? He tried to collect himself and focus on what he ought to ask about.

‘But why would she have ashes in her lungs, if she had been forced to swallow them?’

‘Once again, it’s only speculation on my part, but it’s possible the ashes went down the wrong way when they were stuffed in her mouth. If she was already in the bathtub when she was force-fed the ashes, some could have ended up in the water. And when she was drowned, the ash in the water could have then got into her lungs.’

With alarming clarity, Patrik could see the whole scene before him. Sara in a bathtub, an unknown, menacing figure forcing a handful of ashes into her mouth and then holding her nose and mouth shut to force her to swallow. The same hands that later held her head underwater until bubbles stopped rising to the surface and everything was still.

A rustling sound came from the woods outside the car and broke the oppressive silence. In a low voice he said to Pedersen, ‘Can you fax all this to us?’

‘Already done. And the lab will be doing more tests on the ashes to see if they can find anything useful there. But they didn’t want to wait for the results; they thought it was better to give us this information right away.’

‘Yes, they were right about that. When do you think we can get more info on the ashes?’

‘By the middle of next week, I should think,’ said Pedersen. Then he added quietly, ‘How’s it going? Are you getting anywhere?’

It was unusual for the M.E. to ask questions about the investigation, but it didn’t really surprise Patrik. Sara’s death seemed to have affected so many people, even the most jaded. He thought for a moment before he replied.

‘Not really, I’m afraid. To be honest, we don’t have much to go on. But hopefully this will give us a lead. Not that I can see how at the moment, but it’s an odd enough piece of information that it might help break the case.’

‘Yes, let’s hope so,’ said Pedersen.

Patrik then gave Ernst a brief rundown of the new information. They both sat in silence for a while, as the rustling continued in the bushes outside the car. Patrik was half expecting to see a bull elk come rushing toward them, but it was probably just some birds or squirrels rummaging about in the fallen red leaves of autumn.

‘What do you think: is it time to take a closer look at the Florins’ bathroom?’

‘Shouldn’t we have done that already?’ asked Ernst.

‘Could be,’ Patrik replied bitterly, well aware that Ernst had a point. ‘But we didn’t, so it’s better to do it late than never.’

Ernst didn’t answer. Patrik took out his mobile and made the necessary calls to summon backup and the technical team from Uddevalla. With Ernst’s words ringing in his ears, he made his request sound as urgent as he could and was promised that the team would come out that very afternoon.

With a sigh, Patrik started the car and put it in reverse. In his head whirled thoughts of ashes. And death.

16

Fjällbacka 1924

Agnes hated her life. Even more than she’d thought possible on that first day. She could never have imagined this level of poverty and misery. And as if the physical setting weren’t bad enough, her body had swollen up and made her ugly and awkward. She sweated all the time in the summer heat, and her hair, always so carefully coiffed, hung listlessly. She wished for nothing more than to expel the creature who had transformed her into this repulsive figure; but at the same time she was terrified of the process of childbirth. The mere thought of it made her feel faint.

Living with Anders was also an affliction. If only he had a little steel in his backbone! Instead, his mournful puppy-dog eyes followed her everywhere, begging for a crumb of attention. She knew that the other women despised her because she didn’t spend all day scrubbing her filthy home like they did. Nor did she wait hand and foot on her ungrateful husband. But how could they expect her to act the same way? She wasn’t like them. It was unreasonable of Anders to demand that she get down on all fours and scour the wretched floor or run to the quarry to bring him lunch. Besides, he had the nerve to complain about the way she handled the few coins he brought home. In her condition, she shouldn’t have to do anything, and she always craved some delicacy when she went to the grocer’s. It shouldn’t cause such a terrible fuss for her to allow herself a treat, instead of spending all the money on butter or flour.

Agnes sighed and propped up her swollen feet on the stool in front of her. Many an evening, she had sat here by the single small window and dreamed of how different her life might have been. If only her father hadn’t been so cruel. Occasionally she had fantasized about setting off for Strömstad and throwing herself on her father’s mercy. If only she had believed that there was the slightest chance this gesture would succeed, she would have done it long ago. But she knew her father, and she knew in her heart that it would do no good. She was stuck until she thought up some way to extricate herself from her current situation.

She heard footsteps on the front porch, and sighed. It must be Anders coming home. If he expected dinner to be on the table, he was going to be disappointed. Considering the pain and suffering she’d been enduring to bear his child,
he
should be fixing dinner for
her
instead. Not that there was much food in the house: the money always ran out a week after he got paid, and it was another week until the next payday. But since he was on such a good footing with the Janssons next door, surely he could go over and beg a loaf of bread from them and maybe something he could use to make soup.

‘Good evening, Agnes,’ said Anders timidly from the doorway. Although they had been married more than six months, they were more like strangers now than when they’d first met. He looked bewildered as he stood by the door.

‘Good evening,’ she snorted, frowning at his filthy appearance. ‘Do you have to track all that dirt inside? At least take off your shoes.’

Obediently he removed his footwear and set it outside on the porch steps. ‘Is there anything to eat?’ he asked, which made Agnes glare at him as though he had just sworn the worst of all oaths.

‘Do I look like I can stand around cooking for you? I can hardly stay on my feet, and you expect your dinner to be hot on the table as soon as you come home. And how am I supposed to pay for dinner? You don’t bring home enough money for us to eat proper meals, and right now there isn’t a single öre left. And the grocer won’t give us any more credit, that old skinflint.’

Anders grimaced at the mention of credit. He hated to be in debt, but over the past six months since he and Agnes had moved in, she had bought plenty of things on tick.

‘Well, I think we should have a talk about that …’ He drawled his words and Agnes’s eyes narrowed. This didn’t sound promising.

Anders went on. ‘It’s probably best if I take care of the money from now on.’

He didn’t look her in the eye when he said it, and she was furious. Was she now going to be robbed of the only joy she had left in life?

Vaguely aware of the storm that his words had provoked, Anders said, ‘It’s already hard for you to go down to the grocer, and when the baby is born it’ll be hard for you to get away at all, so it’s probably just as well that I take care of that chore.’

For a moment, she was so enraged that she couldn’t say a word. As soon as her temporary muteness vanished, she told him exactly what she thought of the idea. She could see that he was squirming with discomfort because half the compound could hear all the names she called him, but she didn’t give a damn. She couldn’t care less what these laborers thought of her, but she would damn well see to it that Anders didn’t miss what she thought about him, not for a moment.

Despite her cursing, though, he refused to give in. To her great surprise, for the first time he stood firm and just let her yell herself out. When she had to pause to catch her breath, he calmly informed her that she could yell until her lungs exploded, but this was how things were going to be from now on.

Agnes felt herself starting to hyperventilate. Her father had always relented when she began to retch and gasp for breath, but Anders simply watched her in silence and made no attempt to console her.

Then she felt a sharp pain in her belly, and she fell silent in horror. She wanted to go home to her father.

Monica felt the fear as a kick in the stomach.

‘Have the police been here?’

Morgan nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the screen. She knew that it was actually the wrong time to talk to him. According to his schedule, he was working now, so nobody could talk to him. But she couldn’t help herself. Worry was spreading through her body, making her restless. She wanted to go over and give her son a good shake, make him say more without her having to ask detailed questions about everything, but she knew it was hopeless. She would have to do this with her usual patience.

‘What did they want?’

He still refused to look away from the screen, and he replied without his fingers for an instant slowing down as they flew over the keyboard. ‘They asked about the girl that died.’

Her heart skipped not only one beat but several. In a hoarse voice, she said, ‘So, what did they ask about?’

‘Whether I’d seen her when she left in the morning.’

‘Had you?’

‘Had I what?’ Morgan replied absentmindedly.

‘Seen her?’

He ignored the question. ‘Why are you asking me now? You know that it doesn’t fit into my schedule. You usually come here when I’m not working.’ He wasn’t whining; he was merely stating a fact. She had deviated from their usual routines, interrupted his rhythm, and she knew that it must be confusing him. But she couldn’t help it. She had to know.