Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

Martin was leaning his head on his hand, pondering. Both he and Patrik sat in silence for a while, studying the newspaper clippings and the notes on the whiteboard. They were both thinking of how young the girls looked. They would have had so many years left to live, if something evil hadn’t crossed their paths. And then Tanja, who they didn’t yet have a photo of while she was alive. She was a young girl too, with her whole life ahead of her. But now she was dead too.

‘A massive investigation was launched.’ Patrik took a thick stack of typed pages out of the folder. ‘Friends and family of the girls were interviewed. Officers knocked on every door in the area, and known hooligans were also questioned. A total of about a hundred interviews were done, as far as I can see.’

‘Did they produce anything?’

‘No, not a thing. Not until they got the tip from Gabriel Hult. He rang the police himself and told them that he saw Siv in his brother’s car the night she disappeared.’

‘And? That could hardly have been enough to make him a murder suspect, could it?’

‘No. When Gabriel’s brother Johannes was questioned, he denied having spoken to her or even seeing her, but in the absence of any other leads the police chose to focus on him.’

‘Did they make any progress?’ Martin’s eyes were wide with reluctant fascination.

‘No, nothing else came out. And a couple of months later Johannes Hult hanged himself in his barn. So the trail went very cold, you might say.’

‘It seems odd that he took his life so soon afterwards.’

‘Yes, but if he was guilty then it must have been his ghost that murdered Tanja. Dead men don’t kill people.’

‘And what was the deal with his brother calling in and reporting his own flesh and blood? Why would anybody do that?’ Martin frowned. ‘Wait, how stupid can I be? Hult – our faithful old servant in the thieves’ fraternity. He must be related to Stefan and Robert.’

‘Yes, that’s right. Johannes was their father. After reading about the Hult family, I actually have a little more understanding of why Stefan and Robert visit us so often. They were no more than five or six years old when Johannes hanged himself, and Robert was the one who found him in the barn. You can only imagine how that must have affected a six-year-old boy.’

‘Yes, good Lord.’ Martin shook his head. ‘You know, I need a cup of coffee before we go on. My caffeine level is about to reach empty. Would you like a cup?’

Patrik nodded, and a couple of minutes later Martin returned with two cups of steaming hot coffee. For once the weather was right for hot drinks.

Patrik continued his summation. ‘Johannes and Gabriel are the sons of a man named Ephraim Hult, also called the Preacher. Ephraim was a well-known, or you might say notorious, free-church pastor in Göteborg. He held big meetings at which he had his sons, who were small then, speak in tongues and heal the sick and the lame. Most people considered Ephraim a charlatan and swindler, but even so he hit the jackpot when one of the ladies in his faithful congregation, Margareta Dybling, died and left everything she owned to him. Besides a considerable fortune in ready cash, she left a large forested estate and a magnificent manor house in the vicinity of Fjällbacka. Ephraim suddenly lost all desire to spread God’s word. He moved here with his sons, and the family has been living on the old lady’s money ever since.’

The whiteboard was now covered with notes, and there were papers spread all over Patrik’s desk.

‘Not that it isn’t interesting to have a little family history, but what does this have to do with the murders? As you said, Johannes died more than twenty years before Tanja was murdered, and dead men don’t kill people, as you so eloquently expressed it.’ Martin had a hard time hiding his impatience.

‘True, but I’ve gone over all the old material, and Gabriel’s testimony is actually the only interesting thing I found from the old investigation. I’d also hoped to be able to talk with Errold Lind, who was in charge of the investigation, but unfortunately he died of a heart attack in 1989, so this material is all we have to go on. Unless you have some better suggestions, I propose that we start by finding out a bit more about Tanja, as well as talking with Siv and Mona’s surviving parents. After that we’ll decide whether it’s worth having another talk with Gabriel Hult.’

‘Sure, that sounds sensible. What should I do first?’

‘Start with the investigation about Tanja. And make sure you put Gösta to work on it as of tomorrow. His halcyon days are over.’

‘What about Mellberg and Ernst? What are you going to do about them?’

Patrik sighed. ‘My strategy is to keep them out of it as best I can. That will mean a bigger workload for the rest of us, but I think we’ll come out ahead in the long run. Mellberg will just be glad to get out of doing anything, and besides, he’s basically sworn off this investigation. Ernst will have to keep on doing what he’s been doing, handling as many of the incoming reports as he can. If he needs help we’ll send Gösta. As far as possible, I want the two of us to be free to run this investigation. Understood?’

Martin nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, boss.’

‘Then let’s get going.’

After Martin left, Patrik sat facing the whiteboard, deep in thought with his hands clasped behind his head. It was an enormous task they were undertaking, and they had hardly any experience in homicide investigations. His heart sank with a sudden feeling of apprehension. He sincerely hoped that what they lacked in experience they could make up for with dedication. Martin was already on board, and damned if he wasn’t going to wake Gösta Flygare out of his Sleeping Beauty sleep as well. If they could just manage to keep Mellberg and Ernst away from the investigation, Patrik thought they might have a chance to solve the murders. But the odds were against them, especially considering that the trail for two of the murders was so cold that it was almost in a deep freeze. He knew that the best chance they had was to concentrate on Tanja. At the same time his instinct told him that there was such a strong and clear connection between the murders that they would have to be investigated simultaneously. It was not going to be easy to shake some life into the old investigation, but they would have to try.

He grabbed an umbrella from the stand, checked an address in the telephone book, and headed off with a heavy heart. Certain duties demanded more of him than he could humanly bear.

The rain drummed persistently on the windowpanes, and under different circumstances Erica would have welcomed the coolness it brought. But fate and importunate relatives made her feel otherwise, and she was slowly but surely being driven to the brink of madness.

The kids dashed about as if they were going crazy in their frustration at having to stay indoors, while Conny and Britta had begun to turn on each other like cornered dogs. It had not yet escalated to a full-fledged fight, but their bickering had now reached the level of hissing and snapping. Old sins and injustices were being dragged up, and all Erica wanted to do was go upstairs and pull the covers over her head. But once again her good upbringing stood in her way, wagging its finger and forcing her to try to behave in a civilized manner in the midst of a war zone.

She had gazed longingly at the door when Patrik went off to work. He hadn’t been able to conceal his relief at being able to escape to the station, and for a little while she had been tempted to test his promise to stay at home whenever she asked. But she knew that it wouldn’t be right to do it just because she didn’t want to be left alone with ‘the fearsome four’. Instead, like a dutiful little wife, she waved to her husband from the kitchen window as he drove away.