The Gallows Bird (45 page)

He broke off when Annika gasped.

‘Annika?’ Patrik saw with rising uneasiness how the colour had disappeared from her cheeks.

‘I told her,’ she said in a tense voice. ‘Hanna rang just after you returned from Kalvö. She sounded pretty bad. She said that she’d got some sleep and was feeling better, and that she probably wouldn’t have to stay home for more than a day or two. And I . . . I . . .’ Annika stammered but then pulled herself together and looked at Patrik. ‘I said I wanted to keep her updated, so I told her what you’d found out. About Hedda.’

For a second Patrik sat utterly still. Then he said, ‘You couldn’t have known. But we’d better go out to the island. Now!’

All at once there was a frenzy of activity at the Tanumshede police station.

Patrik felt alarm settle like a hard knot in his stomach as he stood in the bow of the Sea Rescue Society’s boat
Minlouis
, racing towards Kalvö. In his mind he urged the boat to go faster, but it was already running at top speed. He was afraid they were already too late. When they’d jumped into the police cars and put on the blue lights to drive as fast as possible to Fjällbacka, they’d got a call from a boat owner. He told them excitedly that his boat had been confiscated by a policewoman in the company of an unknown man. He had kicked up a row about gangster behaviour and how they’d be sent straight to hell if there was the slightest scratch on his boat. Patrik had simply hung up on the man. He didn’t have time for complaints right now. The important thing was that they now knew that Lars and Hanna had got hold of a boat. And that they were on their way to Kalvö. To their mother.

The rescue boat dove into a trough between swells, and a shower of salt water rained down on Patrik. A storm was blowing up, and the placid surface that Gösta and Patrik had sailed over earlier in the day had been replaced by a restless slapping of the waves and greyish water. In their minds new scenarios kept playing out, new images of what they would see when they arrived. Gösta and Martin sat huddled inside the boat, but Patrik felt that he needed the fresh air to be able to focus on what lay before them. He knew it wouldn’t have a happy ending, whatever happened.

They arrived at the island after what felt like an endless boat trip even though it had only taken five minutes. There they saw the stolen boat haphazardly moored at Hedda’s pier. Peter, who was the skipper of the rescue boat, lay to skilfully, even though the vessel was bigger than the little pier. Without hesitating Patrik hopped ashore and Martin followed. They both had to help Gösta disembark.

Patrik had tried to persuade their older colleague to stay at the station, but Gösta Flygare had demonstrated surprising obstinacy and insisted on coming along. Patrik had relented. Now he was regretting his decision, but it was too late for such speculations.

He gestured up towards the cabin, which looked treacherously empty and uninhabited. Not a sound was heard from there. When they flicked the safeties off their pistols, Patrik thought the sound seemed to echo over the whole island. They crept towards the cabin and crouched outside the windows. Then Patrik heard voices inside and cautiously peered in through the filthy, salt-encrusted pane. First he saw only the shadow of someone moving, but as his eyes adjusted to the dim light he thought he could distinguish two figures walking about in the kitchen. The voices rose and fell, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying. All at once Patrik felt at a loss about what to do next, but then he made up his mind. He nodded in the direction of the door. They carefully moved over there, and Martin and Patrik took up position on either side of it while Gösta waited a bit further off.

‘Hanna? It’s me, Patrik. And some of the others are here too. Is everything okay?’

No answer.

‘Lars? We know you’re in there with your sister. Don’t do anything stupid. Nobody else needs to die.’

Still no answer. Patrik began to get nervous, and his grip on the pistol had grown sweaty.

‘Hedda? Are you all right? We’re here to help you! Lars and Hanna, don’t hurt Hedda. She did something terrible, but believe me, she’s already been punished. Look around, see how she’s been living. She’s lived in hell because of what she did to you.’

Silence was the only reply he got, and he swore to himself. Then the door opened a crack and Patrik took a firmer grip on his pistol. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Martin and Gösta do the same.

‘We’re coming out,’ said Lars. ‘Don’t shoot, or I’ll shoot her.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Patrik, trying to sound as calm as he could.

‘Put your weapons down. I want to see them on the ground,’ said Lars. They still couldn’t see him through the gap in the door.

Martin glanced at Patrik, who nodded and slowly put down his pistol. Gösta and Martin followed his example.

‘Kick them away,’ said Lars dully, and Patrik took a step forward and kicked the three guns so they flew out of reach.

‘Step aside.’

Once again they obeyed and then waited tensely for something to happen. Slowly, very slowly, only an inch at a time, the door opened. Patrik had expected to see Hedda but instead he saw Hanna. She still looked sick, with a sweaty brow and eyes shining with fever. Her gaze met his, and Patrik couldn’t help wondering how he could have been so duped. How was it possible that she’d been able to conceal for so long all that evil behind such a normal façade? For a second he thought that she looked as though she wanted to explain, but then Lars shoved her forward, and the pistol he was holding against her temple came into view. Patrik recognized the gun. It was Hanna’s service weapon.

‘Move away, further,’ Lars hissed, and in his eyes Patrik saw nothing but blackness and hate. His eyes flicked from side to side, and something in his gaze told Patrik that Lars had finally let the mask fall, that he could no longer handle living a double life. The madness – or the evil, or whatever else it might be called – had finally won. The struggle was over against that part of his personality that wished nothing more than to be allowed to live a normal life with a job and a family.

The police officers moved a bit further away, and Lars passed them, holding Hanna as a shield in front of him. The door to the cabin stood wide open, and when Patrik glanced inside, he understood why Hedda couldn’t be used as a shield. In horror he saw that she was tied to a chair. The same kind of tape that had left traces of adhesive on some of the other victims was stretched across her mouth, and there was a hole in the middle of the tape, big enough to stick a bottle into. Hedda had died the same way she lived her life. Full of alcohol.

‘I can understand why you wanted Hedda to die. But why the others?’ Patrik couldn’t resist asking the question that had dominated his life for weeks now.

‘She took everything. Everything we had. Hanna caught sight of her by chance, and we both knew what had to be done. So she died of the same thing that ruined our lives. Booze.’

‘Are you talking about Elsa Forsell? We know that the two of you were in the car when Elsa Forsell caused the accident that killed Sigrid, the woman you lived with.’

‘We had a good life,’ said Lars in a shrill voice. He was backing slowly towards the pier. ‘She took good care of us. She swore she’d protect us.’

‘Sigrid?’ Patrik said, moving cautiously in the same direction as Lars and Hanna.

‘Yes, but we didn’t know that was her name. We called her Mamma. She told us that’s who she was. Our new mamma. And we had a good life. She played with us. Hugged us. Read stories to us.’

‘From the book about Hansel and Gretel?’ Patrik continued moving towards the pier, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Gösta and Martin following him.

‘Yes,’ said Lars, bending down close to Hanna’s ear. ‘She read to us. From the book. Do you remember, Hanna, how wonderful it was? How beautiful she was? How good she smelled? Do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ said Hanna and closed her eyes. When she opened them again they were filled with tears.

‘That was the only thing we were allowed to keep after she died. The book. We wanted to show them how little was left. That’s all there is when you destroy somebody else’s life.’

‘But Elsa wasn’t enough,’ said Patrik, keeping his eyes fixed on Lars.

‘There were so many others who had done the same thing she did. So many . . .’ said Lars, letting the words die out. ‘Every new place we came to. Every place had to be . . . cleansed.’

‘By murdering a person who had killed someone while driving drunk?’

‘Yes,’ said Lars with a smile. ‘Only then could we have any peace. We had to show that we wouldn’t tolerate that sort of crime, which we would never forget. You can’t just destroy someone’s life like that . . . and then walk away.’

‘The way Elsa did after she killed Sigrid?’

‘Yes,’ said Lars, and the blackness in his eyes deepened. ‘Like Elsa.’

‘And Lillemor?’

Now they were almost down to the pier and Patrik wondered what they should do if Hanna and Lars took the rescue boat, which was much faster than the other one. They’d never be able to catch them. But the skipper seemed to have had the same thought, because he was already backing away from the dock so that only the smaller boat was left.

‘Lillemor.’ Lars scoffed. ‘A stupid, worthless human being. Exactly like that other riff-raff I was forced to work with. I never would have recognized her, but I remembered her name when I saw where she was from. I knew that we had to do something.’

‘So you told the others that she had bad-mouthed them, in order to create chaos and distract her.’

‘You’re brighter than I gave you credit for,’ Lars said with a smile, taking the first step backwards out onto the pier. For a second Patrik considered trying to overpower him. But even though he sensed that Lars was only bluffing in holding his sister hostage – they had done everything together, after all – Patrik still didn’t dare. He had no weapon; it was up on the hill with Martin’s and Gösta’s, so in this situation Lars and Hanna had the upper hand.

‘I was the one who rang Lars,’ Hanna said in a harsh voice.

‘We know,’ said Patrik. ‘We have it on videotape. Martin watched it, but we didn’t understand . . .’

‘No, how could you?’ she said with a sad smile.

‘So Lars picked her up after you called him.’

‘Yes,’ said Hanna, climbing cautiously into the boat. She sank down on the thwart in the middle of the boat, while Lars sat down by the outboard motor and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. Lars frowned and tried again. The motor emitted a whine but still wouldn’t start. Patrik watched in astonishment, but he realized what was happening when he glanced over at the rescue boat that sat bobbing a safe distance from the island. The skipper held up a petrol tank, and Patrik realized that he had confiscated it. An enterprising fellow, that Peter.

‘There’s no petrol,’ said Patrik, sounding calmer than he was. ‘So there’s nowhere for you to run now. Backup is on the way, so the best you can do is surrender and see to it that nobody else gets hurt.’ Patrik could hear how lame this sounded, but he couldn’t think of the right words. If there were any.

Without replying Lars undid the painter and kicked the boat away from the dock. The current caught it at once and they started slowly drifting away from shore.

‘You won’t get anywhere,’ said Patrik as he tried to see what options he had. But there were none. The only alternative was to make sure that Lars and Hanna were picked up. Without a motor they wouldn’t get far; they would probably run aground on one of the nearby islands. Patrik made a last attempt.

‘Hanna, it’s obvious that you weren’t the mastermind behind all of these events. You still have a chance to save yourself.’

Hanna didn’t answer. She simply stared back at Patrik. Then she reached for Lars’s hand that was still holding the pistol. He was no longer pointing it at her head, but was bracing his hand on the thwart she was sitting on. With the same uncanny calm she took Lars’s hand and lifted it so that he was again pointing the gun at her temple. Patrik saw the puzzled look on Lars’s face. Then, for a brief second, his expression was full of horror. The next instant an eerie calm fell over him. Hanna said something to Lars that no one standing on the island could hear. He said something in reply, then pulled her closer to him, so that she was resting against his chest. Hanna put her finger on top of his. And squeezed the trigger. Patrik felt himself jump; behind him Martin and Gösta gasped. Unable to move, unable to say a word, they watched as Lars carefully sat down on the boat’s gunwale, still holding Hanna’s now dead and bloody body in a tender embrace. Blood had sprayed up into his face, so that it looked as though he was wearing war paint. With the same calm expression he looked at them one last time. Then he put the pistol to his own temple. And pulled the trigger.

When he fell back, over the edge, Hanna fell with him. Hedda’s twins disappeared beneath the surface of the water. Down into the depths just as Hedda had once consigned them to die.

After a few seconds the rings on the surface vanished, and there was no trace of where they had gone down. The bloody boat bobbed on the waves and far off, as in a dream, Patrik saw more boats approaching. Backup was on the way.

Chapter 10

When the shock of the crash turned everything into a nightmare, he knew that it was all his fault. She had been right. He was a jinx. He hadn’t listened, but nagged and begged and never yielded until she gave up. And now the silence was deafening. The sound when the cars crashed together had been replaced by a terrible stillness, and the pressure from the seat belt was hurting his chest. Out of the corner of his eye he saw sister move; he hardly dared turn to look at her. But when he did he saw that she didn’t seem to be injured either. He fought against the urge to cry as he heard his sister quietly begin to sniffl e, and then give in to terrible, wailing sobs. At first he didn’t dare look in the front seat. The silence there told him what he would find. It felt as though guilt had a strangle-hold on him. He carefully undid his seat belt and then leaned forward slowly, full of dread. What he saw made him flinch, and the quick movement intensified the pain in his chest. Her eyes were staring at him, dead and unseeing. Blood had run out of her mouth and her clothes were soaked in red. He thought he saw accusation in her vacant gaze. Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you let me take care of you? Why? Why? You jinx. Look at me now.