Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

‘You don’t know that. What the hell do you know about why he did it?’ His voice rose an octave and turned shrill.

‘Everybody knows.’

Linda didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken, and she didn’t dare look Stefan in the eye. The family feud and everything connected with it had always been off limits, by tacit agreement.

‘Everybody thinks they know, but nobody knows fucking shit,’ Stefan went on. ‘And there’s your brother, living on our farm – that’s too fucking much!’

‘It’s not Jacob’s fault things turned out the way they did,’ said Linda. It felt odd to defend the brother she usually showered with abuse, but blood was thicker than water. ‘He got the farm from Grandpa, and besides, he’s always been the first to defend Johannes.’

Stefan knew that she was right, and his anger drained out of him. It was just that sometimes it hurt so damn much when Linda talked about her family, because it reminded him of what he himself had lost. He didn’t dare say it to her face, but he often thought that she was pretty ungrateful. She and her family had everything, and his family had nothing. Where was the justice in that?

At the same time he could forgive her for everything. He had never loved anyone so intensely, and the mere sight of her slim body next to his made him burn inside. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it was true. That an angel like Linda would waste her time on him. But he knew better than to question his good fortune. Instead he tried to ignore the future and enjoy the present. Now he pulled her closer and shut his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her hair. He unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, but she stopped him.

‘I can’t, I’ve got my period. Let me instead.’

She unbuttoned his jeans and he lay back in the hay. Behind his closed eyelids heaven flickered past.

Only a day had passed since the dead woman was found, but impatience was already plaguing Patrik. Somewhere somebody was wondering where she was. Pondering, worrying, letting their thoughts run along ever more anxious paths. And the terrible thing was that in this case the worst misgivings had come true. He wanted more than anything else to find out who the woman was so he could inform her loved ones. Nothing was worse than uncertainty, not even death. The work of grieving could not commence until they knew the reason for their grief. It wasn’t going to be easy to be the one who delivered the news – a responsibility that Patrik had already shouldered in his mind – but he knew that it was an important part of his job. To facilitate and offer support. But above all, to find out what had happened to the loved one.

Martin’s fruitless phone calls the day before had demonstrated the task of identification would be more difficult. She had not been reported missing anywhere in the local area, so the search field had to be expanded to all of Sweden, perhaps even to other countries. At the moment the task seemed impossible, but he quickly dismissed that thought. Right now they were the unknown woman’s only advocates.

Martin knocked discreetly on the door.

‘How would you like me to proceed? Widen the search radius, or start with the big-city districts, or …?’ He raised his eyebrows in an enquiring gesture.

At once Patrik felt the weight of the responsibility for the investigation. Actually there was nothing pointing in any direction, but they had to start somewhere.

‘Check with the big-city districts. Göteborg has been taken care of, so start with Stockholm and Malmö. We should be getting the preliminary report from Forensics soon, and if we’re lucky they might be able to come up with something useful.’

‘Okay.’ Martin slapped the door on his way out and headed for his office. A shrill signal from the front hall made him turn on his heel, and he went to let in the visitor. That was usually Annika’s job, but while she was gone they just had to help each other out.

The young woman looked upset. She was thin, with two long blonde braids and an enormous pack on her back.

‘I want to speak to someone in charge,’ she said in English.

She spoke with a thick accent, and he guessed that she was German. Martin opened the door and motioned her to come in. He called down the hall, ‘Patrik, you have a visitor.’

Too late it occurred to him that maybe he should have asked what her business was first, but Patrik had already stuck his head out of his office and the young woman was headed in his direction.

‘Are you the man in charge?’

For a moment Patrik was tempted to send her on to Mellberg, who was technically the chief, but he changed his mind when he saw her desperate expression and decided to spare her that experience. Sending a good-looking girl into Mellberg’s office was like sending a lamb to the slaughter, and Patrik’s natural protective instincts won out.

‘Yes, how can I help you?’

He motioned for her to come in and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. With surprising ease she slipped off the enormous backpack and carefully leaned it against the wall by the door.

‘My English is very bad. You speak German?’

Patrik ransacked his ancient knowledge of school German. His answer depended on how she defined ‘speak German’. He could order a beer and ask for the check, but he suspected that she wasn’t here in the capacity of waitress.

‘Little German,’ he replied haltingly in her mother tongue, wobbling his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture.

She seemed pleased to hear this and spoke slowly and clearly to give him a chance to understand what she was saying. To Patrik’s surprise he found that he knew more than he’d thought at first, and even though he didn’t understand every word, he got the gist of it.

She introduced herself as Liese Forster. Apparently she had been in a week earlier to report her friend Tanja missing. She had spoken with an officer here at the station, who told her that he would contact her when he knew more. Now she’d been waiting a whole week and still hadn’t heard a peep. Anxiety was writ large across her face, and Patrik took her story seriously.

Tanja and Liese had met on the train on the way to Sweden. They were both from northern Germany but hadn’t known each other before. They got along well at once, and Liese said that they became like sisters. Liese had no fixed plans about where to go in Sweden, so Tanja had suggested that she come along with her to a little town on the west coast called Fjällbacka.

‘Why Fjällbacka exactly?’ asked Patrik with his clumsy German grammar.

The answer came with hesitation. Liese admitted that she didn’t really know why. It was the one topic that Tanja had not discussed cheerfully and openly with her. All Tanja had told her was that she had some business to take care of there. When it was done, they could continue their trip through Sweden. But first there was something Tanja needed to find. The subject seemed sensitive and Liese had not pursued it. She was just glad to have a companion on her travels and she happily tagged along. It didn’t really matter to her why Tanja had to go there.

They had been staying at the Sälvik campground for three days when Tanja disappeared. She had set off in the morning, saying that she had something to take care of during the day and that she would come back towards afternoon. Afternoon passed and then it was evening, and Liese’s anxiety had increased as the hours had ticked away. The next morning she went to the tourist bureau on Ingrid Bergman’s Square and asked for directions to the nearest police station. The report was taken and now she wondered what had been done.

Patrik was shocked. As far as he knew, they hadn’t received any missing-persons report. He felt a heaviness gathering in his gut. When he asked what Tanja looked like, his fears were confirmed. Everything Liese had told him about her friend matched the dead woman in the King’s Cleft. With a heavy heart he showed Liese a photograph of the body, and her sobs told him what he already suspected. Martin could stop making phone calls, and someone would have to be called to answer for not reporting Tanja’s disappearance correctly. They had wasted many precious hours for nothing, and Patrik had little doubt where to find the guilty party.