Buried Angels (42 page)

Kjell was practically out of breath as he ended the call. Carina smiled at him.

‘I’m guessing something big is going on if Sven Niklasson is coming here.’

‘You won’t believe it.’ Kjell got out of bed and began to get dressed. He was no longer the least bit tired. ‘You won’t believe it,’ he repeated, although mostly to himself this time.

Quickly Erica stripped the bed in the guest room. Ebba had left. She wanted to take the research about her relatives with her, but Erica had asked if she could make copies for her instead. She should have thought of doing that before.

‘Noel! Stop hitting Anton!’ she shouted towards the living room without bothering to check who was the cause of all the ruckus. No one seemed to listen to her as the crying escalated.

‘Mamma! Maaammaaa! Noel’s hitting Anton,’ yelled Maja.

With a sigh Erica put down the bed linens. She felt an almost physical need to be allowed to finish a task without being interrupted by shrieking children demanding her attention. She needed time to herself. She needed to be allowed to be an adult. Nothing was more important in her life than the children, but sometimes it felt as if she had to sacrifice everything that she personally wanted to do. Even though Patrik had taken a few months of paternity leave, she’d been the one who was in charge, making sure that everything functioned smoothly. Patrik helped out a lot, but that was the key phrase: he helped out. And when one of the kids was sick, she was the one who had to push back her deadline or cancel an interview so that Patrik could go to work. She did her best to fight it, but she was beginning to feel bitter about the fact that her needs and work always came last.

‘Stop it, Noel!’ she said, pulling him away from his twin brother, who lay on the floor, sobbing. Noel immediately began crying too, and Erica felt guilty because she’d grabbed his arm so hard.

‘Stupid Mamma,’ said Maja, glaring at Erica.

‘Yes, your mother is stupid.’ Erica sat down on the floor and took the sobbing twins into her arms.

‘Hello?’ said a voice from the front hall.

Erica gave a start but then realized who it was. There was only one person who would come into the house without bothering to ring the bell.

‘Hi, Kristina,’ she said, getting to her feet with an effort. The twins abruptly stopped crying and ran to their grandmother.

‘Orders from the boss. I’m supposed to take over here,’ said Kristina, wiping the tears from the boys’ cheeks.

‘Take over?’

‘You have to go over to the station,’ said Kristina, looking as if this were obvious. ‘That’s all I know. I’m merely a retiree who’s expected to show up at a moment’s notice. Patrik phoned and asked me to come over here right away. It was lucky he found me at home. I might have had something important to do, who knows, or I might even have had a date or whatever it’s called these days, and I told Patrik that I’d do it this time, but otherwise I expect to be given more advance warning. I actually do have a life of my own, although you may think I’m too old for that.’ She stopped to catch her breath and glared at Erica. ‘What are you waiting for? Patrik said you needed to go over to the station.’

Erica still didn’t understand what was going on, but she decided not to ask any more questions. No matter what this was about, it would at least give her a brief respite, and that was exactly what she needed right now.

‘As I said to Patrik, I can only stay for the day because tonight
Sommarkrysset
is on, and I wouldn’t miss that show for the world. And before then I need to do the laundry and grocery shopping, so I can’t stay past five o’clock, because otherwise I won’t have time to get everything done, and I need to do a few things around the house too. I can’t constantly be at your beck-and-call, although Lord knows there’s plenty to do here.’

Erica slammed the door behind her and smiled. Freedom.

As she got into the car, she grew pensive. What could be so urgent? The only thing she could think of was that it must have something to do with the visit to Junk-Olle’s place. Presumably Patrik and Gösta had found the family’s belongings. Whistling, she began driving towards Tanumshede. Suddenly she regretted her complaints about Patrik, at least to some extent. If he allowed her to help comb through everything, she would gladly do all the household chores single-handed for a whole month.

She pulled into the car park at the station and dashed inside the ugly, low building. The reception area was empty.

‘Patrik?’ she called as she walked down the corridor.

‘We’re in here. In the conference room.’

She stopped in the doorway. The entire table and floor were covered with all sort of items.

‘This wasn’t my idea,’ said Patrik with his back turned. ‘Gösta thought that you deserved to be present.’

She threw a kiss to Gösta, who blushed and turned away.

‘Have you found anything interesting yet?’ she asked.

‘No. We’re still unpacking, and we haven’t got very far.’ Patrik blew the dust off of several photo albums, which he set on the table.

‘Shall I help unpack, or should I start examining what’s here?’

‘The boxes are almost empty, so go ahead and start.’ He turned around to face her. ‘Did Mamma come over to the house?’

‘No, the kids are old enough so I thought I could leave them on their own for a while.’ She laughed. ‘Of course Kristina came over. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known that I was supposed to come here.’

‘I tried to get hold of Anna first, but she didn’t answer the landline or her mobile.’

‘She didn’t? That’s strange.’ Erica frowned. Anna was seldom more than a few metres away from her mobile.

‘Dan and the children are away, so I’ll bet she’s dozing outside in a deck chair, having a wonderful time.’

‘You’re probably right.’ She shook off the uneasy feeling and began going through all the things spread out in the room.

They worked in silence for a long time. The boxes had contained mostly ordinary things that anyone would have: books, pens, hairbrushes, shoes, and clothes that now smelled musty and mildewy.

‘What happened to the furniture and all the knick-knacks?’ asked Erica.

‘They stayed in the house. I suspect that most of the stuff disappeared over the years, considering all the tenants that lived there. We’ll have to ask Ebba and Tobias about that. There must have been at least a few things left when they moved in this spring.’

‘By the way, Anna went out to see Tobias yesterday. She borrowed the boat. I wonder if she got back okay.’

‘I’m sure she’s fine, but you could phone Tobias if you’re worried and find out when she left for home.’

‘I think I’ll do that.’

Erica took her mobile out of her handbag and tapped in Tobias’s number. The conversation was brief, and after she ended the call, she looked at Patrik.

‘Anna was out there for only an hour last night, and the sea was perfectly calm when she left.’

Patrik wiped his dusty hands on his trousers. ‘You see.’

‘Yes, I’m glad I called.’ Erica nodded, but inside she felt a nagging doubt. Something didn’t feel right. At the same time, she knew that she tended to worry too much, and she often overreacted, so she pushed the thoughts aside and went back to studying the items they’d taken out of the boxes.

‘This is so odd,’ she said, holding up a grocery list. ‘Inez must have written this. It’s hard to remember that she actually had a regular life that included things like grocery lists: milk, eggs, sugar, jam, coffee …’ Erica handed the list to Patrik.

He glanced at it, sighed, and handed it back. ‘We don’t have time for things like this. We need to focus on finding something that might be relevant to the case.’

‘Okay,’ said Erica, putting the paper back on the table.

They continued their search.

‘A very methodical guy, that Rune,’ said Gösta, showing them an exercise book that seemed to contain an accounting of all their expenses. The handwriting was so neat that it almost looked as if the pages had been typed.

‘Apparently no expense was too small to record,’ said Gösta, leafing through the exercise book.

‘That doesn’t surprise me, considering what I’ve heard about Rune,’ said Erica.

‘Check this out. It looks like someone had a crush on Leon.’ Patrik held up a page that had been torn from a notebook and was covered with scribblings.

‘A heart L,’ read Erica out loud. ‘And she was practising her future name: Annelie Kreutz. So Annelie was in love with Leon. That also fits with what I’ve heard.’

‘I wonder what Pappa Rune made of that,’ remarked Gösta.

‘Considering his need to control everything, it might have been catastrophic if they actually had a relationship,’ said Patrik.

‘The question is whether the feeling was mutual.’ Erica sat down on the edge of the table. ‘Annelie was in love with Leon, but was Leon in love with her? According to John, he wasn’t, but he might have been keeping his feelings secret from the others.’

‘The night-time noises,’ said Gösta. ‘You told us that Ove Linder said he heard noises in the night. Could it have been Leon and Annelie sneaking around?’

‘Or maybe it was ghosts,’ said Patrik.

‘Right,’ said Gösta, pulling over a bunch of receipts so he could go through them. ‘Has Ebba gone back out to the island?’

‘Yes, she caught a ride with the mail boat,’ said Erica absentmindedly. She had picked up one of the photo albums and was studying the pictures intently. There was a picture of a young woman with long, straight hair, holding a child in her arms. ‘She doesn’t look very happy.’

Patrik peered over her shoulder. ‘Inez and Ebba.’

‘Yes, and these must be Rune’s other children.’ She pointed at three children of varying ages and heights, who seemed to be reluctantly posing in front of a wall.

‘Ebba will be overjoyed to have these pictures,’ said Erica, turning the page. ‘They’ll mean so much to her. Ah, this must be her maternal grandmother, Laura.’

‘That woman looks dangerous,’ said Gösta, peering over Erica’s shoulder.

‘How old was she when she died?’ asked Patrik.

Erica paused to think. ‘She must have been fifty-three. They found her dead behind the house early in the morning.’

‘Nothing suspicious about her death?’ asked Patrik.

‘No, not as far as I know. Have you heard otherwise, Gösta?’

He shook his head. ‘The doctor went out there and decided that for some reason she must have gone out at night, suffered a heart attack, and died. There were no indications that her death was caused by anything but natural causes.’

‘Was it her mother who disappeared?’ asked Patrik.

‘Yes. Dagmar disappeared in 1949.’

‘An inveterate alcoholic,’ said Gösta. ‘At least, that’s what I heard.’

‘It’s a miracle that Ebba has turned out so normal, considering her family history.’

‘Maybe that’s because she grew up on Rosenstigen instead of out on Valö,’ said Gösta.

‘You’re probably right,’ said Patrik as he went back to rummaging through the items.

Two hours later they’d been through everything, and they exchanged looks of disappointment. Although Ebba would undoubtedly appreciate having more family photos and personal possessions, they hadn’t found anything of use to the investigation. Erica was on the verge of tears. She’d had such high expectations, but the conference room was cluttered with objects that were of no use to them whatever.

She glanced at her husband. Something was bothering him, but apparently he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. She’d seen that expression on his face before.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m not sure, but something seems … fishy. I’m sure it will come to me later,’ he said, sounding annoyed.

‘All right then. Let’s pack it all way,’ said Gösta, and he began putting items in a box.

‘I suppose there’s nothing for it.’

Patrik started cleaning up too, while Erica stood there, making no effort to help. Her eyes swept over the room in one last attempt to find something of interest, and she was just about to give up when she noticed several black folders that she recognized at once. The family’s passports, which Gösta had neatly stacked on the table. She squinted, then moved closer to examine them, quietly counting to herself. She picked up the stack and laid out the passports side by side.

Patrik stopped packing and looked at her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Don’t you see it?’ She pointed at the passports.

‘No. What do you mean?’

‘Count them.’

Silently he did as she said. Erica noticed his eyes open wide.

‘There are four passports here,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t there be five?’

‘Yes, if we assume that Ebba was too young to have one.’

Patrik went over and picked up the passports. He opened them, one after the other, to check the name and photo. Then he turned to face his wife.

‘Well? Whose passport is missing?’ she asked.

‘Annelie’s. Annelie’s passport is missing.’

Mamma knew best. That was a truth Inez had always taken for granted as she was growing up. She didn’t even remember her father. She was only three when he had a stroke and died a few weeks later in hospital. After that, she had only Mamma and Nanna.

Sometimes Inez wondered if she loved her mother. She wasn’t quite sure. She loved Nanna and the teddy bear that had sat on her bed since she was a baby, but what about Mamma? She knew that she ought to love her, just as the other children in school loved their mothers. The few times she was allowed to go home with another girl to play, she’d seen how mothers and daughters greeted each other with happy expressions and how the girl would throw herself into her mother’s arms. Inez had felt a hard lump in her stomach when she saw her classmates with their mothers. Then she had done the same thing when she went home. She had thrown herself into Nanna’s arms, which were always open to her.

Mamma was not a mean person, and she’d never raised her voice as far as Inez could recall. It was Nanna who scolded if she’d done something wrong. But Mamma was strict about the way things should be done, and Inez was not allowed to contradict her.