Camilla Lackberg - The Ice Child

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

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Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2014

Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden

Translation copyright © Tiina Nunnally 2016

Originally published in 2014 by

Bokförlaget Forum, Sweden, as Lejontämjaren

Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Cover photographs © Richard Boll/Getty Images (girl); Paul Bucknall/Arcangel Images (trees); Shutterstock.com(path)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780007518357

Source ISBN: 9780007518333

Version: 2017-05-09

For Simon

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Fjällbacka 1964

Chapter Two

Fjällbacka 1967

Chapter Three

Uddevalla 1967

Chapter Four

Uddevalla 1968

Chapter Five

Uddevalla 1971

Chapter Six

Uddevalla 1972

Chapter Seven

Uddevalla 1973

Chapter Eight

Uddevalla 1973

Chapter Nine

Uddevalla 1974

Chapter Ten

Fjällbacka 1975

Chapter Eleven

Fjällbacka 1975

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Fjällbacka 1975

Chapter Fourteen

Hamburgsund 1981

Chapter Fifteen

Fjällbacka 1983

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Camilla Lackberg

About the Publisher

The horse could smell the fear even before the girl emerged from the woods. The rider urged the horse on, digging her heels into the animal’s flanks, though it wasn’t really necessary. They were so in tune that her mount sensed her wishes almost before she did.

The muted, rhythmic sound of the horse’s hooves broke the silence. During the night a thin layer of snow had fallen, and the stallion now ploughed new tracks, making the powdery snow spray up around his hooves.

The girl didn’t run. She moved unsteadily, in an irregular pattern with her arms wrapped tightly around her torso.

The rider shouted. A loud cry, and the horse understood that something wasn’t right. The girl didn’t reply, merely staggered onward.

As they approached her, the horse picked up the pace. The strong, rank smell of fear was mixed with something else, something indefinable and so terrifying that he pressed his ears back. He wanted to stop, turn around, and gallop back to the secure confines of his stall. This was not a safe place to be.

The road was between them. Deserted now, with new snow blowing across the asphalt like a silent mist.

The girl continued towards them. Her feet were bare, and the pink of her naked arms and legs contrasted sharply with all the white surrounding her, with the snow-covered spruces forming a white backdrop. They were close now, on either side of the road, and the horse heard the rider shout again. Her voice was so familiar, yet it had a strange ring to it.

Suddenly the girl stopped. She stood in the middle of the road with snow whirling about her feet. There was something odd about her eyes. They were like black holes in her white face.

The car seemed to come out of nowhere. The sound of squealing brakes sliced through the stillness, followed by the thump of a body landing on the ground. The rider yanked so hard on the reins that the bit cut into the stallion’s mouth. He obeyed and stopped abruptly. She was him, and he was her. That was what he’d been taught.

On the ground the girl lay motionless. With those peculiar eyes of hers staring up at the sky.

Erica Falck paused in front of the prison and for the first time studied it closely. On her previous visits she had been so busy thinking about who she was going to meet that she hadn’t given the building or its setting more than a cursory glance. But she would need to give readers a sense of the place when she wrote her book about Laila Kowalski, the woman who had so brutally murdered her husband Vladek many years ago.

She pondered how to convey the atmosphere that pervaded the bunker-like building, how she could capture the air of confinement and hopelessness. The prison was located about a thirty-minute drive from Fjällbacka, in a remote and isolated spot surrounded by fences and barbed wire, though it had none of those towers manned by armed guards that always featured in American films. It had been constructed with only one purpose in mind, and that was to keep people inside.

From the outside the prison looked unoccupied, but she knew the reverse was true. Funding cuts and a tight budget meant that as many people as possible were crowded into every space. No local politician was about to risk losing votes by proposing that money should be invested in a new prison. The county would just have to make do with the present structure.

The cold had begun to seep through Erica’s clothes, so she headed towards the entrance. When she entered the reception area, the guard listlessly glanced at her ID and nodded without raising his eyes. He stood up, and she followed him down a corridor as she thought about how hectic her morning had been. Every morning was a trial these days. To say that the twins had entered an obstinate stage was an understatement. For the life of her she couldn’t recall Maja ever being so difficult when she was two, or at any age. Noel was the worst. He had always been the more energetic one, but Anton was all too happy to follow his lead. If Noel screamed, he screamed too. It was a miracle that her eardrums – and Patrik’s, for that matter – were still intact, given the decibel level at home.

And what a pain it was to get them into their winter clothes. She gave her armpit a discreet sniff. She smelled faintly of sweat. It had taken her so long to wrestle the twins into their clothes so she could take them and Maja to the day-care centre, she hadn’t had time to change. Oh well. She wasn’t exactly going to a social gathering.

The guard’s key ring clanked as he unlocked the door and showed Erica into the visitor’s room. It seemed so old-fashioned that they still made use of keys in this place. But of course it would be easier to get hold of the combination to a coded lock than to steal a key. Maybe it wasn’t so strange that old measures often prevailed over more modern solutions.