The Hidden Child (22 page)

‘Yes, I do.’ Paula looked through her notebook and then read the address aloud. ‘Her name is Laila Valthers. She said she’d be at home all day. Do you know where the place is?’

‘It’s one of those yellow buildings near the roundabout on the southern edge of Fjällbacka,’ Martin said. ‘Turn right up ahead at the school.’

They were there in a matter of minutes, and Laila was at home, as she’d said. She looked a bit frightened when she opened the door and seemed unwilling to let them come in, but it wasn’t as if they had many questions for her so they remained standing in the entry hall while they carried out the interview.

‘You do house-cleaning for the Frankel brothers, is that right?’ Patrik’s voice was calm and soothing in an effort to make their presence as unthreatening as possible.

‘Yes, but I’m not going to get in trouble because of that, am I?’ said Laila, her voice nearly a whisper. She was short and wore comfortable brown clothing of some sort of soft fabric, perfectly suited to spending the whole day at home. Her hair was a mousy grey, cut short in a style that was undoubtedly practical but not particularly attractive. She shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other as she stood there with her arms folded. She seemed very anxious to hear their response to her question. Patrik thought he knew what was bothering her.

‘Do you mean because you didn’t declare your earnings? I can assure you that we’ve no interest in that side of things, and we don’t plan to report you for it. We’re conducting a murder investigation, so our focus is on completely different issues.’ He ventured a reassuring smile, and Laila rewarded him by stopping her nervous shifting from one foot to the other.

‘It’s true. They would put an envelope with money for me on the hall bureau every other week. We had agreed that I should come in and clean every Wednesday.’

‘Did you have your own key?’

Laila shook her head. ‘No, they always put the key under the doormat, and I put it back when I was done.’

‘Why didn’t you clean their house all summer?’ Paula asked. It was the question they most wanted to have answered.

‘I thought I would be doing cleaning for them in the summer. At least, we hadn’t discussed any change in the arrangement. But when I went over there, the key wasn’t in the usual place. I knocked, but no one answered. So then I tried phoning, to see if there’d been some misunderstanding. But nobody answered. I knew that the older brother, Axel, was going to be away all summer. That’s what he’s done every year since I’ve been cleaning for them. So when I couldn’t get an answer, I just assumed that the younger brother was gone for the summer too. I did think it was rather rude of them not to tell me, but now I understand why . . .’ She looked down at the floor.

‘And you didn’t see anything that struck you as out of the ordinary?’ asked Martin.

Laila shook her head vigorously. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. No, nothing comes to mind.’

‘Do you know what day it was when you went over there but couldn’t get in?’ said Patrik.

‘Yes, I do, because it was my birthday. And I thought it was very unlucky that I wasn’t going to do any cleaning that day. I’d planned to buy myself a present with the money I made.’ She fell silent, and Patrik asked her tactfully:

‘So what was the date? When is your birthday?’

‘Oh, how stupid of me,’ she said. ‘It was the seventeenth of June. I’m positive about that. June seventeenth. I went over there two more times to have a look, but nobody was home and there was still no key under the doormat. So then I assumed that they’d forgotten to tell me that they wouldn’t be home all summer.’ She shrugged to show that she was used to the fact that people forgot to tell her things.

‘Thank you, that’s extremely helpful.’ Patrik held out his hand, shuddering slightly at her limp handshake. It felt as if someone had stuck a dead fish in his hand.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked when they were back in the car and heading for the station.

‘I think we can be pretty certain that Erik Frankel was murdered sometime between the fifteenth and the seventeenth of June,’ said Paula.

‘Yes, I’m inclined to agree,’ said Patrik, nodding as he took the tight bend before Anrås a little too fast and came within a hair’s breadth of colliding with a refuse vehicle. Leif the rubbish man shook his fist at him, and a terrified Martin gripped the handle above the door.

‘Did you get your driving licence as a Christmas present?’ asked Paula from the back seat, apparently unfazed by their near-death experience.

‘What do you mean? I’m an excellent driver!’ said Patrik, offended, glancing at Martin for support.

‘Right,’ Martin jeered. Then he turned to look at Paula. ‘I put him forward for that programme,
Sweden’s Worst Drivers
, but they must have thought he was overqualified. It would be no contest if Patrik was one of the participants.’

Paula laughed and Patrik snorted to show he was insulted. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, considering all the time that you and I have spent driving around together – have I ever crashed or had any sort of accident? No, I’ve an unblemished driving record, so what you’re saying is pure slander.’ He snorted again as he glared at Martin, which almost caused him to rear-end the Saab in front of them, and he had to brake hard.

‘I rest my case,’ said Martin, holding up his hands as Paula doubled over with laughter.

Patrik sulked the rest of the way back to the station. But at least he obeyed the speed limit.

Kjell was still riled after the encounter with his father. Frans had always had that effect on him. No, actually that wasn’t true. Not always. When he was a boy, disappointment had been the predominant feeling. Disappointment mixed with love, which over the years had been transformed into a solid core of hatred and anger. He realized that he’d allowed these feelings to guide all the choices he’d made, and in that sense he’d practically let his father steer his life. But he was utterly powerless to do anything about it. Just as he’d been powerless to resist when his mother had dragged him along on her innumerable trips to see Frans in prison. The cold, grey visitors’ room, completely impersonal, soulless. His father’s awkward attempts to talk to him, pretending that he was actually part of his life and not just a stranger observing it from a distance. From behind bars.

It had been years since his father had served his last prison sentence, but that didn’t mean he was a reformed character. He’d simply grown smarter. He’d chosen a different path. And as a consequence, Kjell had chosen the exact opposite. He’d written about the anti-foreigner organizations with a vehemence and passion that had won him a name and reputation that extended far beyond the readership of the
Bohusläningen
newspaper. He was a frequent guest on national TV, whenever they needed an authority on the destructive forces of neo-Nazism and how society could best deal with them. Unlike many others, who in the conciliatory spirit of the times wanted to invite the neo-Nazi organizations into the public forum for an open discussion, Kjell had taken a hard line. They were simply not to be tolerated. They should be combatted every step of the way, opposed in whatever context they chose to speak out, and be literally shown the door, as the unwelcome monsters that they were.

He parked in front of his ex-wife’s house. This time he hadn’t bothered to phone ahead. Sometimes she contrived to leave before he arrived, but this time he’d made sure that she was at home. He’d been sitting in his car a short distance away, waiting to catch sight of her. After an hour she’d driven up to the house and parked in front. It looked as though she’d been shopping, because she took a couple of supermarket bags out of the car. Kjell waited until she was inside and then drove the last hundred metres up to the house. He got out and knocked. Carina’s shoulders visibly slumped when she saw who was standing on the doorstep.

‘So it’s you, is it? What do you want?’ she asked.

Why did she always have to look so . . . crushed? Still. After ten years. His sense of guilt only exacerbated his irritation. Why couldn’t she understand the seriousness of the situation? Realize that it was time for them to take a tough approach?

‘We need to talk. About Per.’ He pushed past her and began taking off his shoes and hanging up his jacket. For a moment Carina looked as if she might object, but then she shrugged and went into the kitchen. She stood with her back leaned against the counter and her arms folded across her chest, as if preparing for a fight.

‘What is it now?’ She shook her head so the dark strands of her fringe fell into her eyes and she had to push them aside. He’d seen that same gesture so many times. It was one of the things he’d loved about her when they first met, before the daily grind and sorrow had taken their toll, before their love had faded and made him choose a different path. He still didn’t know whether he’d made the right choice or not.

Kjell pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. ‘We have to do something. This isn’t something that’s going resolve itself. Once a kid gets in with that type of crowd . . .’

Carina interrupted him by raising her hand. ‘When did I say that it will resolve itself? I just have a different opinion as to what should be done. Sending Per away is not the solution. You should be able to see that too.’

‘What you don’t realize is that he needs to get away from this environment!’ He angrily ran his hand through his hair.

‘And I take it that by “this environment” you mean your father.’ Carina’s voice was dripping with contempt. ‘I think you should see about solving your own problems with your father before you get Per involved.’

‘What problems?’ Kjell was aware of his voice rising, so he forced himself to take several deep breaths to calm down. ‘First of all, it’s not just my father that I’m talking about when I say that Per needs to get away from here. Don’t you think I can see what’s going on? Don’t you think I know that you’ve got bottles hidden away in every cupboard and drawer?’ He motioned towards the kitchen cabinets. Carina was about to protest, but he held up his hand to stop her. ‘And there’s nothing to be resolved between me and Frans,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I’d prefer not to have anything to do with the man, and I have no intention whatsoever of allowing him to have any influence over Per. But since we can’t keep watch over the boy every minute of the day, and you don’t seem particularly interested in dealing with him, I can’t see any other solution but to send him away. We need to find a boarding school where the staff know how to handle this sort of situation.’

‘And just how do you think that’s going to be arranged?’ Carina snapped. ‘They don’t just send teenagers off to those sorts of schools for no reason. They have to have done something first –’

‘Breaking and entering,’ Kjell cut her off. ‘He was caught breaking into somebody’s house.’

‘What are you talking about? He’s never –’

‘In early June. The homeowner caught him red-handed and phoned me. I went over and collected Per. He got in through a basement window and was in the middle of gathering things in the house when he got caught. The owner threatened to ring the police if he didn’t cough up his parents’ phone number. And so Per gave him my number – not yours.’ He couldn’t resist feeling smug when he saw how upset and disappointed Carina looked.

‘He gave him your number? But why?’

Kjell shrugged. ‘Who knows? I guess a father is always a father.’

‘Whose house did he break into?’ Carina still seemed to be having a hard time accepting the fact that Per had asked the man to call Kjell.

He hesitated for a couple of seconds before replying. Then he said, ‘That old man they found dead in Fjällbacka last week. Erik Frankel. It was his house.’

‘But why?’ She shook her head.

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Erik Frankel was an expert on the Second World War. He had tons of stuff from that period, and Per probably wanted to impress his friends by showing them some genuine Nazi memorabilia.’

‘Do the police know about this?’

‘Not yet,’ he said coldly. ‘It just depends on whether –’

‘Would you do that to your own son? Report him for breaking and entering?’ whispered Carina, horrified.

Kjell felt a hard knot in his stomach. He pictured her as she’d looked the first time they met. At a party at the journalism school. She’d come with a friend who was studying there, but the girl had gone off with some guy right after they arrived, so Carina had ended up sitting on a sofa feeling lonely and neglected. He’d fallen in love with her the moment he saw her. She had on a yellow dress with a yellow ribbon in her hair, which was just as dark as it was now but without the strands of grey that were becoming visible. There was something about her that had made him want to take care of her, protect her, love her. He thought about their wedding. The dress that would nowadays be regarded as a relic from the eighties, with its voluminous skirt and puffed sleeves. He, at any rate, had thought she was a vision in that dress. And then another image surfaced in his mind: Carina exhausted, without make-up, wearing an ugly hospital gown and holding their son in her arms. When she had looked up at him and smiled, he’d felt as if he could slay dragons or fight off an entire army for his wife and son.

As they stood in the little kitchen, two combatants facing each other down, each caught a fleeting glimpse of the way they had once been, the times they had laughed together, made love to each other. Back in the days before their love turned into something fragile and brittle. Making him vulnerable. The knot in his stomach hardened even more.

Kjell pushed away these thoughts. ‘If I have to, I’ll see to it that the police are given this information,’ he said. ‘Either we make arrangements to get Per out of this environment, or I let the police do the job for us.’

‘You bastard!’ cried Carina, her voice thick with tears and disappointment.

Kjell got up. His voice was cold as he said, ‘That’s how it’s going to be. And I have a suggestion as to where we can send Per. I’ll email it to you and you can have a look at it. But under no circumstances is he to have any contact with my father. Understand?’