Camilla Läckberg - The Hidden Child

Exhausted, Axel lay down in his bunk, rocked by the slight swaying of the boat and the lapping of the water against the hull. In the barracks up on the dock, the voices of the Germans rose and fell. After a while they began to sing. But by then Axel was sound asleep.

‘Okay, what do we know so far?’ asked Mellberg, looking around the break room. The coffee was made, there were buns on the table, and everyone was present.

Paula cleared her throat. ‘I’ve been in contact with the brother – Axel. Apparently he works in Paris and always spends the summer there. But he’s on his way home now. Seemed upset when I told him about his brother’s death.’

‘Do we know when he left Sweden?’ Martin turned to Paula. She consulted the notebook lying in front of her.

‘The third of June, he says. Of course I’ll be checking that out.’

Martin nodded.

‘Have we received a preliminary report from Torbjörn and his team?’ Mellberg moved his feet cautiously. Ernst had settled the whole weight of his body on top of his feet and he was getting pins and needles, but for some reason Mellberg couldn’t bring himself to push the dog away.

‘Not yet,’ said Gösta, reaching for a bun. ‘But I talked to him this morning, and we might have something tomorrow.’

‘Good, bright and early, let’s hope,’ said Mellberg, again shifting his feet, but Ernst simply moved too.

‘Any suspects? Possible enemies? Threats? Anything?’

Martin shook his head. ‘No reports on our files, at any rate. But he was a controversial figure. Nazism always rouses strong feelings.’

‘We could go out to his house and take a look. See if there are any threatening letters or such like in the drawers.’

Everyone turned to stare at Gösta in surprise. His colleagues were all of the opinion that Gösta Flygare only came to life on the golf course. It was rare for him to show any initiative on the job.

‘Take Martin with you, and go out there after the meeting,’ said Mellberg with a pleased smile. Gösta nodded and quickly resumed his usual lethargic stance.

‘Paula, find out when the brother – Axel, was it? – is due to arrive. Since we don’t yet know when Erik died, it’s possible that Axel was the one who bashed his head in and then fled the country. We need to get hold of him as soon as he sets foot on Swedish soil.’

Paula looked up from her notebook. ‘He’s arriving at Landvetter airport at nine fifteen tomorrow morning.’

‘Good. Make sure that he comes here first, before he does anything else.’ Now Mellberg was forced to move his feet, which were starting to go numb. Ernst got up, gave him an offended look, and set off for Mellberg’s office and the comfort of his basket.

‘Looks like true love,’ remarked Annika, laughing as she watched the dog exit.

‘Hmm, well…’ Mellberg cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. When is somebody going to come and get that mongrel?’

‘You know, it’s not that easy,’ said Annika, putting on her most innocent expression. ‘I’ve phoned around, but nobody seems able to take a dog of his size, so if you could just take care of him for a few more days…’ She gazed at him with her big blue eyes.

He grunted. ‘Oh, all right, I should be able to stand the mutt for a few more days. But then he’ll have to go back out on the street if you can’t find a home for him.’

‘Thanks, Bertil. That’s nice of you. And I’ll pull out all the stops.’ As Mellberg turned away, Annika winked at the others. Realizing what she was up to, they struggled not to laugh. She had Bertil sussed; no question about it.

‘Fine, fine,’ said Mellberg. ‘Now let’s get back to work.’ He lumbered out of the break room.

‘Okay, you heard the chief,’ said Martin, getting to his feet. ‘Shall we go, Gösta?’

Gösta looked as though he was already regretting making a suggestion which would entail more work for himself, but he nodded wearily and followed Martin out the door. It was just a matter of making it through the work week. Come the weekend he’d be out on the golf course by seven in the morning, both Saturday and Sunday. Until then, he was just treading water.

Thoughts of Erik Frankel and the medal continued to haunt Erica. She managed to put it out of her mind for a couple of hours and make a start on her manuscript, but as soon as her concentration faltered she began to replay the brief meeting that she’d had with Erik. He had seemed a gentle, courteous man, eager to share his knowledge of the subject that interested him most: Nazism.

Admitting defeat, she closed her manuscript file and Googled ‘Erik Frankel’. A number of hits turned up, some clearly referring to other individuals with the same name. But there was no shortage of information on the correct Erik Frankel, and she spent nearly an hour clicking through the links. Born in 1930 in Fjällbacka, he had one sibling: a brother named Axel who was four years older. His father had been a doctor in Fjällbacka from 1935 to 1954. Many of the links led to blogs about Nazism, but she found nothing to indicate that he was some sort of Nazi sympathizer. On the contrary. Though some of the blogs betrayed a reluctant admiration for aspects of Nazism, it seemed that Erik’s interest was motivated by pure fascination with the subject.

She had just shut down the Internet browser, reminding herself that she really didn’t have time for this, when there was a cautious knock on the door behind her.

‘Sorry, am I bothering you?’ Patrik opened the door and poked his head in.

‘No, don’t worry.’ She spun round in her desk chair to face him.

‘I just came up to tell you that Maja is asleep and I need to nip out on a little errand. Could you keep this in here while I’m out?’ He handed her the baby monitor so she’d be able to hear if Maja woke up.

‘Er… I really should be working.’ Erica sighed. ‘Why do you need to go out?’

‘I have to go to the bank, and we’re out of Nezeril so I thought I’d call in at the pharmacy, and then I might as well get a lottery ticket and a few groceries too.’

Erica suddenly felt very tired. She thought about all the errands she’d done during the past year, always with Maja sitting in the pushchair or in her arms. More often than not she’d been soaked with sweat by the time she was done. There’d never been anyone to watch Maja while she waltzed off to the shops. But she put these thoughts out of her mind; she didn’t want to seem petty or cranky.

‘Of course I can look after her while you’re out,’ she said with a smile, summoning some enthusiasm. ‘I can keep working while she’s asleep.’

‘That’s great,’ said Patrik, giving her a kiss on the cheek before he shut the door behind him.

‘That’s great, all right,’ said Erica to herself, opening her manuscript document and preparing to put all thought of Erik Frankel out of her mind.

She had no sooner set her fingers on the keyboard when a crackling noise issued from the baby monitor. Erica froze. It was probably nothing. Maja was just moving around in her cot; sometimes the monitor was overly sensitive. She heard the sound of a car starting up, and then Patrik drove off. As she moved her eyes back to the screen, struggling to think of the next sentence, she heard the crackling noise again. She looked at the baby monitor as if she could will it to stay quiet, but her efforts were rewarded with an audible ‘Waaaaaa.’ Followed by a shrill ‘Mammaaaa… Pappaaaa…’

Feeling resigned, she pushed back her chair and got up. How typical. She went down the hall to Maja’s room and opened the door. Her daughter was standing up, crying angrily.