Camilla Läckberg - The Ice Princess

That’s why it was so frustrating that they seemed to be stuck in these investigations. Mellberg felt that his big chance was so close that he could taste it. But if his miserable team didn’t start delivering results soon, he might as well give up any hope of a promotion and a move back to Göteborg. Slackers, that’s what they were, village cops who could hardly find their own arse with both hands and a pocket torch. He’d had some hope for young Hedström, but it seemed as if he, too, would disappoint him. Patrik still hadn’t reported the results of his trip to Göteborg, so it might turn out to be nothing more than an entry on the expense side of the books. It was ten past nine and he still hadn’t seen any trace of him.

‘Annika!’ He yelled in the direction of the open door and felt his irritation rise even higher when it took a good minute before she deigned to respond to his call.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Have you heard anything from Hedström? Is he still asleep in his warm bed, or what?’

‘I should hardly think so. He rang and said that he had a little trouble getting his car started this morning but that he was on the way.’ She looked at the clock. ‘He should be here in fifteen minutes or so.’

‘What the hell, he could walk here if he wanted to.’

Annika hesitated and to his astonishment he saw a little smile play over the corners of her mouth.

‘Well, I don’t think he was at home.’

‘Where the hell was he then?’

‘You’ll have to ask Patrik that,’ said Annika, turning to go back to her room.

The fact that Patrik seemed to have a good excuse for being late annoyed Mellberg even more, for some reason. Couldn’t he plan ahead and allow for some extra time in the morning in case he had car trouble?

Fifteen minutes later, Patrik knocked discreetly on the open door and came in. He looked out of breath and red-cheeked and seemed unabashedly happy and brisk even though he’d made his boss wait for almost half an hour.

‘Do you think this is a part-time job here, or what? And where the hell were you yesterday? Wasn’t it two days ago that you drove to Göteborg?’

Patrik sat down in the visitor’s chair across the desk and calmly answered Mellberg’s barrage of questions.

‘I apologize for being late. The car wouldn’t start this morning, and it took over half an hour to get it going. Yes, it was the day before yesterday that I went to Göteborg, and I thought I’d report on that first, before I tell you what I did yesterday.’

Mellberg grunted in reluctant agreement. Patrik told him what he’d found out about Alex’s childhood. He included all the disgusting details. At the news that Julia was Alex’s daughter, Mellberg felt his jaw drop in the direction of his chest. He’d never heard anything like it before. Patrik continued to tell him about Karl-Erik’s emergency trip to the hospital and how he’d had a piece of paper from Anders’s flat analyzed on the spot. He explained that it had turned out to be a suicide note, and then he gave an account of what he’d done yesterday and why. Patrik then summed it all up for an unusually quiet Mellberg.

‘So one of our murders has turned out to be a suicide, and as for the other, we still have no idea who did it or why. I have a feeling that it has something to do with what Alexandra’s parents told me, but I have absolutely no evidence or actual facts to support that theory. So now you know everything that I know. Do you have any ideas about how to proceed?’

After another moment of silence, Mellberg managed to regain his composure. ‘Well, that was certainly an amazing story. I would have put my money on that guy she was screwing, rather than a rehash of some old incident from twenty-five years ago. I suggest you talk to Alex’s lover boy and tighten the thumb-screws a little extra this time around. I think that would prove to be a considerably better use of our resources.’

As soon as Patrik told him who the child’s father was, Mellberg had moved Dan up to the top of the list of suspects.

Patrik nodded, a bit too willingly in Mellberg’s suspicious mind, and stood up to go.

‘Oh, uh, good job, Hedström,’ Mellberg said reluctantly. ‘Are you following up on that now?’

‘Absolutely, Chief, consider it done.’

Did he catch a trace of sarcasm there? But Patrik looked at him with an innocent expression and Mellberg waved off the suspicion. The fellow probably had enough sense between his ears to recognize the voice of experience when he heard it.

The purpose of a yawn was to get more oxygen to the brain. Patrik was very doubtful whether it was doing him any good. The fatigue from the night he’d spent at home tossing and turning had caught up with him, and sleeping with Erica had been vetoed by a majority decision. He looked wearily at the by now familiar piles of paper on his desk and had to quell an impulse to take all the documents and toss them in the wastebasket. He was sincerely sick of this whole investigation by now. It felt as if months had passed, while actually it had been no more than two weeks. So much had happened and yet he hadn’t made any progress. Annika went past his office and saw him rubbing his eyes. She came back with a much-needed cup of coffee and set it in front of him.

‘Feeling bogged down?’

‘Yes, I have to admit that it’s a little rough going just now. But all I have to do is start over from the beginning. Somewhere in these stacks of paper is the answer, I know it. All I need is a tiny little lead that I missed before.’ He tossed his pencil on top of the piles in resignation.

‘Anything else?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, how’s life, apart from the job? You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, Annika, I know exactly what you mean. What do you want to know?’

‘Is it still bingo?’

Patrik wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but against his better judgement he asked anyway. ‘Bingo?’

‘Yes, you know. Five in a row…’ Then she left, shutting the door with a mischievous smile on her lips.

Patrik chuckled to himself. Yes, you could probably call it that.

He forced his thoughts back to the task at hand and scratched his head meditatively with a pencil. There was something that didn’t fit. Something that Vera had said just didn’t seem right. He took out the notebook he’d been writing in during their conversation and went through his notes methodically, word for word. An idea was slowly forming. It was only a small detail, but it might be important. He pulled out a sheet of paper from one of the piles on his desk. The impression of chaos was deceptive. He knew precisely where everything was.

He read over this item with great meticulousness and circumspection, and then reached for the telephone.

‘Yes, hello, this is Patrik Hedström from the police in Tanumshede. I was wondering if you’ll be home for a while, I have a few questions. You will be? That’s great, then I’ll be over there in twenty minutes. Where exactly do you live? Just on the way into Fjällbacka. Take a right just after the steep hill and it’s the third house on the left. A red house with white trim? Okay, I should be able to find it. Otherwise I’ll call you back. See you soon.’

Scarcely twenty minutes later Patrik stood outside the door. He’d had no problem finding the little house, where he guessed that Eilert had lived for many, many years with his family. When he knocked on the door it was opened almost at once by a woman with a pinched-looking face. She introduced herself effusively as Svea Berg, Eilert’s wife, and showed him into a small living room. Patrik could see that his call had triggered feverish activity. The good china was on the dining-room table, and seven kinds of pastry were piled on a tall three-level cake plate. This case was going to give him a real spare tyre by the time it was over, Patrik sighed to himself.