The Preacher: A Novel, page 35
Impatiently he dialed the number of the station. Annika had started work a little later than usual and he’d been waiting for her to arrive.
“Hi, it’s Patrik. Pardon me for sounding stressed, but could you see if you can dig up some information ASAP on whether there are any other relatives of the Hult family in the area? I’m wondering mostly if there are any children of Johannes Hult born out of wedlock.”
He heard her writing it down and kept his fingers crossed. It was the last straw he could grasp, and he sincerely hoped that she would find something. If not, all he could do was sit here and scratch his head.
He had to admit that he liked the theory that popped into his head during the drive to Uddevalla. The idea that Johannes might have a son in the area that they didn’t know about. With what they had learned about him, it didn’t seem impossible. In fact it was quite likely, the more he thought about it. It might even be a motive for why Johannes was murdered, thought Patrik, without really knowing how he was going to tie up all the loose ends. Jealousy was a superb motive for murder, and the way he’d been killed also fit in well with the theory. An impulsive, unpremeditated murder. An attack of rage and jealousy that ended up with Johannes dead.
But what did that have to do with the murders of Siv and Mona? That was the piece of the puzzle that he couldn’t place yet, but maybe Annika’s findings would help them in that respect too.
He slammed the car door and went toward the front entrance. After a little searching and help from friendly county council employees, he finally found the right department. In the waiting room he found the three people he was looking for. Like birds on a telephone line they were sitting next to each other, without speaking and looking straight ahead. But he saw a glint ignite in Solveig’s eye when she caught sight of him. Slowly she got up and waddled over to meet him. She looked as if she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Her clothes were wrinkled and rank with sweat. Her greasy hair was tangled, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Robert looked equally tired. Only Linda looked alert, with a clear gaze and neat appearance. She was still unaware that her family was breaking apart.
“Have you caught him?” Solveig pulled lightly on Patrik’s sleeve.
“Unfortunately we don’t have any new information. Have you heard anything from the doctors yet?”
Robert shook his head. “No, but they’re still in the operating room. There was something about pressure on the brain. I think they’re opening up his whole skull. I’d be surprised if they actually find a brain in there.”
“Robert!” Solveig turned angrily and glowered at her son, but Patrik understood what he was trying to do. He wanted to conceal his worry and the pressure by joking about it. It was a method that usually worked for him too.
Patrik sat down in one of the empty chairs. Solveig also sat down.
“Who would do this to my little boy?” She rocked back and forth in her chair. “I saw how he looked when they carried him out. He looked like a stranger. There was nothing but blood everywhere.”
Linda winced and grimaced. Robert didn’t react. When Patrik looked more closely at his black jeans and sweatshirt, he could see big splotches of Stefan’s blood still on them.
“You didn’t hear anything last night, or see anything either?”
“No,” said Robert, annoyed. “We already told that to the other officers. How many times do we have to repeat it?”
“I beg your pardon, but I have to ask these questions. Bear with me for a moment, please.”
The sympathy in his voice was genuine. It was a hard job to be a cop sometimes, especially on occasions like this when he had to delve into the lives of people who had much more important things to think about. But he received unexpected help from Solveig.
“Robert, please cooperate. We should do everything we can to help them catch whoever did this to our Stefan, you know that.” She turned to Patrik. “I thought I heard a sound, and a minute later Robert called for me. But we didn’t see anyone, either before or after we found him.”
Patrik nodded. Then he said to Linda, “Did you happen to see your brother, Jacob, last night?”
“No,” said Linda in surprise. “I was staying over at the manor house. He was at home at Västergården, wasn’t he? Why do you ask?”
“It seems he never came home last night, so I just thought you might have seen him.”
“No, as I said, I didn’t. But check with Mamma and Pappa.”
“We’ve done that. They haven’t seen him, either. Do you happen to know of somewhere else he might be?”
Now Linda was beginning to look nervous. “No, where would that be?” Then an idea seemed to occur to her. “Could he have driven to the farm at Bullaren and slept there? Of course he’s never done that before, but …”
Patrik hit his thigh with his fist. It was crazy that they hadn’t thought of Bullaren. He excused himself and went to call Martin. He would have to drive out there immediately and check it out.
When he returned to the waiting room the mood had changed. While he was talking to Martin, Linda had called home on her cell. Now she was looking at him with all the defiance of a teenager.
“What’s going on, anyway? Pappa said that Marita called you and reported Jacob missing, and that those other two cops were out there asking a bunch of questions. Pappa sounded worried as hell.” She was standing in front of Patrik with her hands on her hips.
“There’s no reason to worry yet,” he said, repeating the same mantra that Gösta and Martin had used at the manor. “Your brother has probably gone off to be alone for a while, but we have to take all such reports seriously.”
Linda gave him a suspicious look but seemed to be satisfied. Then she said in a low voice, “Pappa also told us about Johannes. When were you planning to tell them about it?”
She tossed her head in the direction of Robert and Solveig. Patrik couldn’t help watching in fascination the arc that her long blond hair made in the air. Then he reminded himself of her age. He was shocked at the thought that all the upheaval involved in starting a family may have triggered a tendency to lechery in him.
He replied in the same low voice, “We’re waiting a bit on that. Now doesn’t seem like a good time, considering Stefan’s situation.”
“You’re wrong about that,” said Linda calmly. “Right now they could use some positive news. And believe me, I know Stefan well enough to say that the discovery that Johannes didn’t take his own life would be welcome news in this family. So if you’re not going to tell them, I will.”
What an impudent person. But Patrik was inclined to admit that she was right. He may have already waited too long. They had a right to be told.
He nodded affirmatively to Linda and cleared his throat as he sat down. “Solveig, Robert, I know that you had some objections to the fact that we opened Johannes’s grave.”
Robert jumped up like a rocket from his chair. “What the hell, are you crazy? Are you going to bring that up now? Don’t we have enough to worry about right now?”
“Sit down, Robert,” Linda snapped. “I know what he’s going to say and believe me, you’ll want to hear it.”
Shocked that his skinny cousin was giving him orders, Robert sat down and shut up. Patrik continued, as Solveig and Robert glared at him, reminded of the humiliation of seeing Johannes’s coffin raised from the ground.
“We had a pathologist examine … uh … the body and he found something interesting.”
“‘Interesting,’” Solveig snorted. “Well, that’s a nice choice of words.”
“Yes, you’ll have to excuse me, but there’s no good way to say this. Johannes did not take his own life. He was murdered.”
Solveig gasped for breath. Robert sat as if frozen to the spot, unable to move. “What did you say?” Solveig grabbed for Robert’s hand and he let her take it.
“You heard what I said. Johannes was murdered. He did not take his own life.”
Tears began running from Solveig’s already red-rimmed eyes. Then her entire huge body began to shake, and Linda gave Patrik a triumphant look. They were tears of joy.
“I knew it,” Solveig said. “I knew that he would never have done anything like that. And all those people who said that he committed suicide because he killed those girls. Now they’ll have to eat their words. The same person who killed the girls must have murdered my Johannes. They’ll have to crawl on their bare knees and beg us for forgiveness. All these years that we’ve—”
“Mamma, that’s enough,” Robert said, interrupting her, sounding annoyed. It looked as though he hadn’t really grasped what Patrik said. He probably needed the words to sink in.
“What are you going to do now to catch the person who murdered Johannes?” Solveig asked eagerly.
Patrik turned around to face her. “Well, it’s probably not going to be that easy. So many years have passed, and no evidence was preserved that might give us a lead. But naturally we’re going to try, and we’ll do the best we can. That’s all I can promise you.”
Solveig snorted. “Well, if you work as hard trying to catch Johannes’s murderer as you did to put him in jail, then there shouldn’t be any problem. And now I want an apology from the police even more!”
She wagged her finger at Patrik. He realized that it was probably time for him to be leaving before the situation deteriorated even further. He exchanged a glance with Linda, and she signaled discreetly for him to go. He had one last request for her. “Linda, if you hear from Jacob, promise to call us right away. But I should think you were right. He must be at Bullaren.”
She nodded, but the worry was still there in her eyes.
They were just turning into the parking lot at the police station when Patrik called. Martin drove back out on the road in the direction of Bullaren. The heat had begun to creep up the thermometer again after a mercifully cool morning, and he turned up the fan a notch.
Gösta pulled at the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. “If only this blasted heat would lay off for a while.”
“If you were out on the golf course you wouldn’t be complaining,” Martin laughed.
“That’s a completely different story,” Gösta said sourly. Golf and religion were two things nobody joked about in his world. For a brief second he wished he was working with Ernst again. It was certainly more productive to ride with Martin, but he had to admit that he liked the laziness of working with Ernst more than he’d previously thought. Ernst had his faults, of course, but he never protested if Gösta sneaked off for a couple of hours to hit a bucket of balls.
The next moment the photo of Jenny Möller appeared in his mind, and he was struck by an acute sense of guilt. In a brief instant of clarity he saw that he’d become a bitter and hostile old man, frightening like his father in his old age. If he kept on like this, sooner or later he’d be sitting alone in an old folks’ home mumbling about imagined injustices like his father, although without any children to look in on him now and then out of a guilty sense of duty.
“Do you think he’s there?” he said to break off his unpleasant thoughts.
Martin hesitated for a moment, then he said, “No, I’ll be very surprised if he is. But it’s still worth checking out.”
They swung into the yard and were amazed once again at the idyllic scene before them. The farm seemed eternally drenched in a mild sunlight that made the Falun red color stand out in lovely contrast to the blue lake behind the house. As before, teenagers darted purposefully about, fully engaged in their activities. Words popped into Martin’s mind—“magnificent,” “healthful,” “clean,” “useful,” “Swedish”—and the combination of those words infused him with a slight feeling of discomfort. Experience told him that if something looked too good to be true, it probably was.
“A slight Hitler Youth atmosphere about the place, don’t you think?” said Gösta, putting words to Martin’s discomfort.
“Yeah, maybe. Your choice of words is a bit strong, though. I wouldn’t go bandying comments like that about too freely,” said Martin dryly.
Gösta looked offended. “Excuse me,” he said grumpily, “I didn’t know you were the thought police. And by the way, they wouldn’t take in boys like Kennedy if it was some fucking Nazi camp.”
Martin ignored the comment and headed for the front door. One of the female instructors at the farm opened it.
“Yes, what do you want?”
Jacob’s grudge against the police had rubbed off.
“We’re looking for Jacob.” Gösta was still sulking, so Martin took the lead.
“He’s not here. Try him at home.”
“Are you sure he’s not here? We’d like to take a look for ourselves.”
Reluctantly the woman stepped aside and let in the two policemen. “Kennedy, the police are here again. They want to see Jacob’s office.”
“We know the way,” said Martin.
The woman ignored him. With rapid steps Kennedy approached them. Martin wondered whether he was some sort of permanent guide at the farm. Or maybe he just liked showing people around.
Without a word he led Martin and Gösta down the corridor to Jacob’s office. They thanked him politely and opened the door expectantly. No sign of Jacob. They entered and looked carefully for any trace that might indicate that Jacob might have spent the night there, a blanket on the sofa, an alarm clock, anything. But there was nothing. Disappointed, they left the office. Kennedy was calmly waiting for them. He raised his hand to push his hair back from his face, and Martin saw that his eyes were black and unfathomable.
“Nothing. Not a damned thing,” said Martin when the car was rolling in the direction of Tanumshede again.
“No,” said Gösta curtly. Martin rolled his eyes. He was evidently still sulking. Well, let him.
But Gösta’s thoughts were occupied with a completely different matter. He had noticed something during their visit to the farm, but it kept eluding him. He tried to stop thinking about it and let his subconscious do the work, but it was as impossible as ignoring a grain of sand under his eyelid. There was something he’d seen—and should have remembered.
“How’s it going, Annika? Did you find anything?”
She shook her head. Patrik’s appearance worried her. Too little sleep, too little real food, and too much stress had stripped away the last of his suntan and left only a gray pallor behind. His body seemed to be sagging under the weight of something, and it didn’t take a genius to work out what that burden could be. She wanted to tell him to separate his private emotions from his work, but she refrained. She too was feeling the pressure, and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes each night was the desperate look on the faces of Jenny Möller’s parents when they came in to report their daughter missing.
She decided to limit her comments to a brief “How are you doing?” She gave Patrik a sympathetic look over the rims of her glasses.
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances.” He impatiently ran his hands through his hair, making it stand straight up like a caricature of a mad professor.
“Like shit, I’m guessing,” Annika said frankly. She had never been much for glossing over things. If something was shit, it would still smell like shit even if you poured perfume all over it. That was her motto in life.
Patrik smiled. “Yes, something like that. But enough about me. Did you find anything in the records?”
“No, unfortunately. There was nothing in the register of citizens about any other children of Johannes Hult, and there aren’t very many other places to look.”
“Might there be children anyway, even though they’re not registered?”
Annika looked at him as if he were a little slow in the head and snorted, “Well, thank goodness there’s no law that compels a mother to name the father of her children. There may be some children of his concealed under the heading ‘father unknown.’”
“And let me guess, there are quite a few of them, right?”
“Not necessarily. It depends on how wide you want to extend the search geographically. But people have actually been surprisingly respectable in these parts. And you have to remember that it’s not the forties we’re talking about here. Johannes would have been most active during the sixties and seventies. And by then it was no great shame to have a child out of wedlock. During certain periods in the sixties it was probably considered almost an advantage.”
Patrik laughed. “If you’re talking about the Woodstock era, I really don’t think that flower power and free love ever made it to Fjällbacka.”
“Don’t say that. Even in the calmest waters … ,” said Annika, glad that she could lighten up the mood a bit. The station had felt like a funeral parlor the last few days. But Patrik quickly turned serious again.
“So theoretically you should be able to put together a list of the children within, say, Tanum county, who do not have a father registered?”
“Yes, I could do that not only theoretically, but also in practice. But it’ll take a while,” Annika warned him.
“Just do it as fast as you can.”
“How are you going to use that list to find out who might be Johannes’s offspring?”
“I intend to start by calling around and asking. If that doesn’t work, I’ll think of something else.”
The door to the reception area opened and Martin and Gösta came in. Patrik thanked Annika for her help and went to meet them. Martin stopped, but Gösta fixed his eyes on the carpet and went into his office.
“Don’t ask,” said Martin, shaking his head.
Patrik frowned. Friction among the personnel was the last thing he needed. It was bad enough with the way Ernst was acting up. Martin read his thoughts.
“It’s nothing serious, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay. Shall we have a cup of coffee in the lunchroom and compare notes?”
Martin nodded. They went in, poured themselves some coffee and sat down facing each other at the table. Patrik said, “Did you find any sign of Jacob at Bullaren?”
“No, not a thing. It doesn’t look as though he’s been there. How did it go for you?”
