Camilla Lackberg - Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 4-6 - The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2006, 2007 & 2008

The Stranger (previously titled The Gallows Bird ) English Translation © Steven T. Murray 2011 The Hidden Child and The Drowning translation © Tiina Nunnally 2011

The Stranger cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2012 Cover photography © Lee Gibbons, Background texture © www.blacksheep-uk.com

The Hidden Child cover layout design © www.blacksheep-uk.com

The Drowning cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2012 Cover photographs © Lee Gibbons (heart necklace on rock); Joakim Hermanson, Upplevelsebolaget (background); Pete Turner, Getty Images (sky).

E-bundle cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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 ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007535132

Version: 2017-08-23

Cover

Title Page CAMILLA LACKBERG 3 Swedish Crime Thriller Novels: The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning

Copyright

The Stranger

The Hidden Child

The Drowning

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

previously entitled

The Gallows Bird

Translated by Steven T. Murray

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as The Gallows Bird in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2011 Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden First published in Swedish as Olycksfågeln in 2006

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2006

English translation © Steven T. Murray 2011

The Stranger cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2012. Cover photography © Lee Gibbons Background texture © www.blacksheep-uk.com

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

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007253999

Ebook Edition © July 2013 ISBN: 9780007384389

Version: 2017-08-23

To Wille & Meja

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Acknowledgements

What he remembered most was her perfume. The one she kept in the bathroom. That shiny lavender bottle with the sweet, heavy fragrance. As an adult he had searched in a perfume shop until he found the exact same one. He had chuckled when he saw the name: ‘Poison’.

She used to spray it on her wrists and then rub it on her throat and, if she was wearing a skirt, on her ankles too.

He thought that was so beautiful. Her fragile, delicate wrists gracefully rubbing against each other. The scent spread through the space around her, and he always longed for the moment when it came really close, when she leaned over and kissed him. Always on the mouth. Always so lightly that sometimes he wondered if the kiss was real or if he was just dreaming.

‘Take care of your sister,’ she always said before she left, seeming to float rather than walk out the door.

Afterwards he could never remember if he had answered out loud or only nodded.

The springtime sun shone in through the windows at the Tanumshede police station, mercilessly exposing the dirt on the windowpanes. The winter grime lay like a film over the glass, and Patrik felt as though the same film were covering him. It had been a hard winter. Life with a child in the house was infinitely more fun but also infinitely more work than he ever could have imagined. And even though things were going much more smoothly with Maja than they had in the beginning, Erica was still not used to the life of a stay-at-home mum. This knowledge tormented Patrik every second and every minute he spent at work. And everything that had happened with Anna had placed an extra burden on their shoulders.