Camilla Lackberg - The Stonecutter

She heard a knock at the front door and hurried downstairs.

Patrik’s hand struck the door with a sharp rap. Around them the wind had come up quickly to gale force. Droplets of rain were landing on them, not from above but from behind, as the stormy gusts whipped up a fine mist from the ground. The sky had turned dark, its light-grey hue streaked with darker grey clouds, and the dirty brown of the sea was far from its summery blue sparkle, with whitecaps now scudding along. There were white geese on the sea, as Patrik’s mother used to say.

The door opened and both Patrik and Martin took deep breaths in order to summon extra reserves of strength. The woman standing before them was a head shorter than Patrik and very, very thin. She had short hair curled in a permanent wave and tinted to an indeterminate brown shade. Her eyebrows were a bit too severely plucked and had been replaced by a couple of lines drawn with a kohl pencil, which gave her a slightly comical look. But there was nothing funny about the situation they were now facing.

‘Hello, we’re from the police. We’re looking for Charlotte Klinga.’

‘She’s my daughter. What is this regarding?’

Her voice was a bit too shrill to be pleasant. Patrik had heard enough about Charlotte’s mother from Erica to know how trying it must be to listen to her all day long. But such trivial matters were about to lose any importance.

‘We’d appreciate it if you could tell her that we’d like to talk to her.’

‘Of course, but what’s this all about?’

Patrik insisted. ‘We would like to speak with your daughter first. If you wouldn’t mind —’ He was interrupted by footsteps on the stairs, and a second later he saw Charlotte’s familiar face appear in the doorway.

‘Well, hi, Patrik! How nice to see you! What are you doing here?’

All at once an expression of concern settled on her face. ‘Has something happened to Erica? I spoke to her recently and she sounded all right, I thought …’

Patrik held up his hand. Martin stood silently at his side with his eyes fixed on a knothole on the floor. He usually loved his job, but at the moment he was cursing the day he’d decided to become a cop.

‘May we come in?’

‘Now you’re making me nervous, Patrik. What’s happened?’ A thought struck her. ‘Is it Niclas, did he have an accident in the car, or something?’

‘Let’s go inside first.’

Since neither Charlotte nor her mother seemed capable of budging from the spot, Patrik took charge and led them into the kitchen with Martin bringing up the rear. He noted absently that they hadn’t taken off their shoes and were surely leaving wet footprints behind. But a little mud wouldn’t make much difference now.

He motioned to Charlotte and Lilian to take a seat across from them at the kitchen table, and they silently obeyed. Patrik and Martin sat down across from them.

‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I have …’ he hesitated, ‘terrible news for you.’ The words lurched stiffly out of his mouth. His choice of words already felt wrong, but was there any right way to say what he had to say?

‘An hour ago a lobsterman found a little girl drowned. I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte …’ Then he found himself incapable of going on. Even though the words were in his mind, they were so horrific that they refused to come out. But he didn’t need to say any more.

Charlotte gasped for breath with a wheezing, guttural sound. She grabbed the tabletop with both hands, as if to hold herself upright, and stared with empty eyes at Patrik. In the silence of the kitchen that single wheezing gasp seemed louder than a scream. Patrik swallowed to hold back the tears and keep his voice steady.

‘It must be a mistake. It couldn’t be Sara!’ Lilian looked wildly back and forth between Patrik and Martin, but Patrik only shook his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘but I just saw the girl and there’s no doubt that it’s Sara.’

‘But she said she was just going over to Frida’s to play. I saw her heading that way. There must be some mistake. I’m sure she’s over there playing.’ As if in a trance Lilian got up and went over to the telephone on the wall. She checked the address book hanging next to it and briskly punched in the numbers.

‘Hello, Veronika, it’s Lilian. Listen, is Sara over there?’ She listened for a second and then dropped the receiver so it hung from the cord, swaying back and forth.

‘She hasn’t been there.’ She sat down heavily at the table and stared helplessly at the police officers facing her.

The shriek came out of nowhere, and both Patrik and Martin jumped. Charlotte was screaming, motionless, with eyes that didn’t seem to see. It was a loud, primitive, piercing sound. The raw pain that pitilessly forced out the scream gave both officers gooseflesh.

Lilian threw herself at her daughter, trying to put her arms round her, but Charlotte brusquely batted her away.

Patrik tried to talk over the scream. ‘We’ve tried to get hold of Niclas, but he wasn’t at the clinic. We left him a message to come home as soon as he can. And the pastor is on his way.’ He directed his words more to Lilian than to Charlotte, who was now beyond their reach. Patrik knew that he’d handled the situation terribly. He should have made sure that a doctor was present to administer a sedative if needed. Unfortunately the only doctor in Fjällbacka was the girl’s father, and they hadn’t been able to get hold of him. He turned to Martin.

‘Ring the clinic on your mobile and see if you can get the nurse over here at once. And ask her to bring a sedative.’

Martin did as he asked, relieved to have an excuse to leave the kitchen for a moment. Ten minutes later Aina Lundby came in without knocking. She gave Charlotte a pill to calm her down, and then with Patrik’s help led her into the living room, so she could lie down on the sofa.

‘Shouldn’t I be given a sedative too?’ asked Lilian. ‘I’ve always had bad nerves, and something like this …’

The district nurse, who looked to be about the same age as Lilian, merely snorted and continued tucking a blanket round Charlotte with maternal care as she lay there, teeth chattering as if she were freezing.

‘You’ll survive without it,’ she said, gathering up her things.

Patrik turned to Lilian and said softly, ‘We’ll probably have to talk to the mother of the friend Sara was going to visit. Which house is it?’

‘The blue one just up the street,’ said Lilian without looking him in the eyes.

By the time the pastor knocked on the door a few minutes later, Patrik felt that he and Martin had done all they could. They left the house which had been plunged into grief with their news and got into their car in the driveway. But Patrik didn’t start the engine.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Martin.

‘Bloody hell indeed,’ said Patrik.

Kaj Wiberg peered out of the kitchen window facing the Florins’ driveway.

‘I wonder what the old cow’s up to now?’ he muttered petulantly.

‘What?’ his wife Monica called from the living room.

He turned halfway in her direction and shouted back, ‘There’s a police car parked outside the Florins’. I bloody well bet there’s some mischief going on. I’ve been saddled with that old woman as a neighbour to pay for my sins.’

Monica came into the kitchen with a worried look. ‘You really think it’s about us? We haven’t done anything.’ She was combing her smooth, blonde page-boy but stopped with the comb in mid-air to peer out of the window.

Kaj snorted. ‘Try to tell her that. No, just wait till the small claims court agrees with me about the balcony. Then she’ll be standing there with egg on her face. I hope it’ll cost her a bundle to tear it down.’