Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

He made one last attempt to find out something personal about Siv. ‘Might there be some photographs?’

‘Well, I didn’t take that many pictures of her, but I should be able to find something.’

Gun left the room, leaving Patrik alone in the living room with Lars. They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Lars said something, but in a voice so low that Gun wouldn’t be able to hear it.

‘She’s not as cold-hearted as she seems. Gun has some very fine qualities.’

Yeah right , Patrik thought. He would call that statement a fool’s defence. But Lars was probably doing what he could to justify his choice of a wife. Patrik estimated that Lars was about twenty years older than Gun, and it wasn’t too far-fetched to surmise that his choice had been made with a part of his body other than his head. Although Patrik had to admit that perhaps his profession was making him a bit cynical. Maybe it really was true love. How would he know?

Gun returned, not with a thick photo album like Albert had produced, but with a single little black-and-white photo which she morosely handed to Patrik. It showed a sullen teenaged Siv holding her newborn daughter in her lap. Unlike the pictures of Mona, in this photo there was no joy in the girl’s expression.

‘Well, we must get busy straightening up the house. We’ve just returned from Provence, where Lars’s daughter lives.’ From the way Gun said the word ‘daughter’ Patrik could hear that there was no love lost between her and her stepdaughter.

He also realized when his presence was no longer desired, so he thanked them for their help.

‘And thank you for lending me the photo. I promise to return it in good condition.’

Gun waved her hand dismissively. Then she remembered her role and contorted her face into a grimace.

‘Please let me know as soon as you’re positive. I would so dearly like to be able to bury my little Siv.’

‘I’ll come back as soon as I hear anything.’

Patrik’s tone was unnecessarily curt, but he had found the entire histrionic show quite distasteful.

When he was back out on Norra Hamngatan, the skies opened up. He stood still for a moment and let the downpour rinse away the cloying feeling he had from his visit with the Struwers. He needed to get home and hug Erica and feel the life pulsing inside when he put his hand on her belly. He needed to feel that the world wasn’t as cruel and evil as it sometimes seemed. It simply couldn’t be.

It felt as if months had passed. But she knew that it couldn’t possibly be that long. And yet each hour down here in the dark was like a lifetime.

There was far too much time to think. Far too much time to feel how the pain was twisting every nerve. Time to ponder everything she had lost. Or would lose.

By now she knew that she would never get out of here. No one could escape such pain. And yet she had never felt softer hands than his. No hands had ever caressed her with such love, and it made her hunger for more of that touch. Not the horrible or painful touch, but the soft touch that came afterwards. If she had ever felt such a touch before, everything would have been different, she knew that now. The feeling when he ran his hands over her body was so pure, so innocent, that it reached all the way to that hard core inside her, the one no one before had been able to reach.

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