Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

As he drove through the town there were rubberneckers everywhere. They followed him with their eyes and pointed, and he knew that the news had already spread all through Fjällbacka. He had to drive at a crawl across Ingrid Bergman’s Square because of all the cars parked illegally. He saw to his satisfaction that a number of patrons rushed from Café Bryggan’s sidewalk tables to move their cars. A smart thing to do. If the cars were still there when he came back he had nothing against spending some time upsetting the holiday mood of people who had parked illegally. Make them blow into the breathalyser a little, maybe. Some of the drivers had been downing a cold beer when they saw him drive by. If he was lucky he might even be able to confiscate a couple of driving licences.

There wasn’t much room to park on the short strip of road outside the King’s Cleft, but he squeezed into a space and began Operation Door-Knocking. As he expected, nobody had seen a thing. People who would normally notice if their neighbour farted in his own house seemed to go deaf and blind when the police wanted to know something. Although, Ernst had to admit, maybe they actually hadn’t heard anything. In the summertime the noise level was so loud at night, with drunks staggering home at dawn, that people learned to block out the noise from outside so they could get a good night’s sleep. But it was still damned irritating.

He didn’t get even a nibble until the last house. Not a big catch, of course, but at least it was something. The old man in the house farthest from the entrance to the King’s Cleft had heard a car drive up around three in the morning, when he was up taking a piss. He narrowed the time frame to a quarter to three. He said he hadn’t bothered to look out, so he could say nothing about either the driver or the car. But since he was a former driving school instructor and had driven many types of cars in his day, he was quite certain that the vehicle wasn’t a newer model but had a few years on it.

Great, the only thing Ernst had got out of two hours of knocking on doors was that the murderer had probably driven the body here around three o’clock and that he may have been driving an older model car. Not much to cheer about.

But his mood rose a few notches when he drove past the square again on his way back to the station and noticed that new scofflaws had parked in the spots vacated by the previous drivers. Now he’d have them blowing into the breathalyser till their lungs popped.

An insistent ringing of her doorbell interrupted Erica as she was laboriously running the vacuum cleaner over the carpets. Sweat was copiously pouring out of her, and she pushed back a couple of wet strands of hair from her face before she opened the door. They must have driven like joyriders to arrive that fast.

‘Hey, fatty!’

A bear hug caught her in a firm grip, and she noticed that she wasn’t the only one sweating. But with her nose deeply buried in Conny’s armpit she realized that she smelled like roses and lilies of the valley in comparison.

After extracting herself from his embrace she said hello to Conny’s wife Britta, politely shaking hands since they had only met a few times. Britta’s handshake was damp and limp and felt like a dead fish. Erica shuddered and fought back an impulse to wipe her hand on her slacks.

‘What a belly on you! Have you got twins in there or what?’

She really hated hearing people comment on her body that way, but she’d already begun to realize that pregnancy seemed to give everyone a free pass to make comments on your shape and touch your belly – it was altogether too familiar. Complete strangers had even come up and started pawing at her stomach. Erica was just waiting for the obligatory patting to begin, and within seconds Conny was running his hands over her swollen stomach.

‘Oh, what a little football star you have in there. Obviously a boy, with all that kicking. Come here, kids, feel this!’

Erica didn’t have the strength to object, and she was attacked by two pairs of little hands sticky with ice cream that left handprints on her white maternity blouse. Luckily Lisa and Victor, six and eight years old, soon lost interest.

‘So what does the proud father have to say? Is he counting the days or what?’ Conny didn’t wait for an answer, and Erica recalled that dialogues were not his strong suit.

‘Yes, damn it, I can remember when these two little rascals came into the world. A hell of an intense experience. But tell him to forget about watching it down there. It’ll make him lose the urge for a long time to come.’

He chuckled and elbowed Britta in the side. She just gave him a surly look. Erica realized that this was going to be a long day. If only Patrik would come home on time.

Patrik knocked cautiously on Martin’s door. He was a bit jealous of how neat things were in there. The desk was so clean that it could have been used as an operating table.

‘How’s it going? Have you found anything?’

Martin’s dejected expression told him the answer was negative even before he shook his head. Damn. The most important thing in the investigation right now was to be able to identify the woman. Somewhere people were worried about her. Surely somebody must be missing her.

‘What about you?’ Martin nodded towards the folder Patrik was holding in his hand. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘I think so.’

Patrik pulled up a chair so he could sit next to Martin.

‘Take a look at this. Two women disappeared in the late Seventies from Fjällbacka. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me at once, it was front-page news back then. Anyway, here’s what’s left of the investigative material.’

The file he placed on the desk was very dusty, and he saw that Martin’s fingers were itching to wipe it off. A stern look from his colleague made him refrain. Patrik opened the folder and showed him the photographs lying on top.

‘This is Siv Lantin. She disappeared on Midsummer’s Day in 1979. She was nineteen.’ Patrik pulled out the next photo. ‘This is Mona Thernblad. She disappeared two weeks later and was eighteen years old. Neither of them has been seen since, despite an enormous effort with search parties, dragging the waterways, and everything you can think of. Siv’s bicycle was found in a ditch, but that was the only thing that was found. And they found no trace of Mona except for a running shoe.’

‘Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember those cases. There was a suspect, wasn’t there?’

Patrik leafed through the yellowing pages of the report and pointed to a typed name.

‘Johannes Hult. It was his brother, Gabriel Hult, of all people, who called the police and reported that he’d seen his brother with Siv Lantin on the way to his farm in Bräcke the night she vanished.’

‘How seriously was the tip taken? I mean, there must be something behind it if you turn in your own brother as a suspect in a murder case.’

‘The feud in the Hult family had been going on for years, and everyone knew about it. So the information was received with some scepticism, I think. It still had to be investigated, and Johannes was brought in for questioning a couple of times. But there was never any evidence besides his brother’s testimony. It was one brother’s word against the other’s, so Johannes was released.’

‘Where is Gabriel today?’

‘I’m not sure, but I seem to recall that Johannes committed suicide shortly after. Damn … if Annika were here she could have put together a more updated account of this in no time. As I mentioned, the material in the folder is meagre to say the least.’

‘It sounds like you’re quite sure that the skeletons we found are these two women.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. I’m just basing my guess on the law of probability. We have two women who disappeared in the Seventies, and now two skeletons turn up that seem to have a few years on them. What are the odds that it’s only a coincidence? Although I’m not positive, of course – we won’t be until the ME submits his report. But I intend to see to it that he has access to this information right away.’