Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

The horses were the only reason she stayed. With a practised hand she curried the coat of the brown gelding with steady strokes. The physical labour acted as a safety-valve for her to get rid of some of her frustration. It was shit to be seventeen years old and not have any say about your own life. As soon as she came of age she was going to get the hell out of this hole. Then she’d accept the offer she’d received from the photographer who’d come up to her when she was walking about in downtown Göteborg. When she became a model in Paris and was making tons of money she would tell them all where they could stuff their fucking education. The photographer had told her that with each passing year her value as a model decreased. A whole year of her life would be wasted before she ever got the chance to model, just because the old man had education on the brain. It didn’t take much education to strut down the runway. Later, when she was around twenty-five and starting to get too old, she’d marry a millionaire. Then she could laugh at the old man’s threat to cut her out of his will. Someday she’d be able to go shopping and spend the equivalent of his entire fucking fortune.

Her marvellous bloody brother didn’t make matters any easier. It was better to live with him and Marita than at home, but not much. He was so damned reliable. Nothing he did ever went wrong, while she always got the blame for everything.

‘Linda?’

Typical, even here in the stall she couldn’t be left in peace.

‘Linda?’ The voice was more urgent. He knew that she was here, so there was no use pretending she didn’t hear him.

‘Don’t be such a bloody nag. What is it?’

‘You really don’t need to speak to me in that tone of voice. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you show a little courtesy.’

She muttered a few curses in reply, but Jacob let it pass.

‘You’re actually my brother, not my father, did you ever think of that?’ she told him.

‘I’m well aware of that, but as long as you’re living under my roof, I actually do have a certain responsibility for you.’

Just because he was almost twice her age, Jacob thought he knew everything. It was easy for him to get on his high horse because he was comfortably off. Father had said many times that Jacob was certainly a son to be proud of, and that he would take good care of the family estate. Linda assumed that her brother would inherit the whole lot one day. Until then he could afford to pretend that money wasn’t important, but Linda saw right through him. Everyone admired Jacob because he worked with young people at risk. At the same time they knew full well that eventually he would inherit both the estate and a fortune. Then it would be interesting to see how much longer he continued this idealistic work.

Linda couldn’t help giggling. If Jacob knew that she was sneaking out at night he’d go nuts, and if he knew who she was meeting, she’d get the lecture of her life. It was fine to talk about having compassion for the less fortunate, as long as they weren’t on your own front porch. Besides, there were other, more deeply rooted reasons for Jacob to hit the roof if he found out that she was seeing Stefan. He was their cousin, and the feud between the two branches of the family had been going on since long before she was born – even before Jacob was born. She had no idea why. That was just the way things were. So she had extra butterflies in her stomach whenever she sneaked out to meet Stefan.

Linda had a good time with him. He was very considerate, but he was much older, after all, so he had a self-confidence that boys her own age could never muster. It didn’t bother her that they were cousins. Nowadays cousins could even get married. That wasn’t really part of her long-term plans, but she had nothing against exploring one thing or another with him, as long as it remained a secret.

‘Did you want something, or were you just planning to hover?’ she said now.

Jacob gave a deep sigh and put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrink away, but his grip was strong.

‘I don’t really understand where all this aggression is coming from. The kids I work with would give anything to have a home like yours and be brought up the way you were. A little gratitude and maturity would seem appropriate, you know. And yes, I did want something. Marita has finished cooking and we’re ready to eat. So hurry up and change your clothes. Then come and eat with us.’

He loosened his grip on her shoulder and left the stable, heading up to the manor house. Muttering, Linda put down the curry-comb and went to change. In spite of everything, she was very hungry.

Once again Martin’s heart had been broken. He’d lost count of how many times it had happened before, but the fact that he was used to it didn’t make the sting any less. Like all the times before, he’d thought that this woman resting her head on the pillow next to his was the right one. Of course he was fully aware that she was already taken, but with his usual naïveté he thought that he was more than just a diversion and that her boyfriend’s days were numbered. He had no idea that, with his innocent face and almost sweet-as-pie openness, he was like a lump of sugar to a fly for women who were a little older, more mature and living in an everyday rut with their respective husbands. Men they had no intention of leaving for a nice 25-year-old cop, though they thought nothing of having it off with him when the urge or the need for affirmation had to be satisfied. Not that Martin had anything against the physical aspects of a relationship – and he was especially talented in that area – but the problem was that he was also an unusually sensitive young man. Love affairs found a willing participant in Martin Molin. That’s why his little flings always ended in tears and gnashing of teeth on his part, when the women thanked him and then went home to their own lives, that might be boring but were steady and familiar.

Martin sighed heavily as he sat at his desk, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. The calls he had made so far had been fruitless, but there were still plenty of police districts to ring. The fact that the database had crashed just when he needed it most was probably his usual luck. Now he had to sit here looking up one telephone number after the other, trying to find someone who fit the description of the dead woman.

Two hours later he leaned back and flung his pen at the wall in despair. No one had been reported missing who matched the description of the murder victim. What were they going to do now?

It was so damned unfair. He was older than that snot-nosed kid and should have been the one to lead this investigation, but the world was filled with ingratitude. For several years now he had assiduously kissed up to that bloody Mellberg, but nothing ever came of it. Ernst took the curves at high speed on the way to Fjällbacka. If he hadn’t been driving a police car he certainly would have seen plenty of raised middle fingers in his rear-view mirror. Just let them try it, those fucking tourists, then they’d have the devil to pay.

Go and ask the neighbours. That was an assignment for a rookie, not for a cop with twenty-five years of experience. That whippersnapper Martin could have handled the task, leaving Ernst to make some calls to his colleagues in the nearby districts and get a chance to shoot the breeze.

He was seething inside, but that had been his natural frame of mind since he was a kid, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. A choleric disposition made him ill-suited to a profession that required so much social contact. On the other hand, the hooligans showed him respect because they instinctively knew that Ernst Lundgren was not someone to be trifled with if they valued their health.