The Hidden Child (50 page)

Herman closed his eyes in an attempt to close out everything, and this time he didn’t see Britta’s dead face. Instead, he saw her in a hospital bed. Pale and tired, but happy. Holding Anna-Greta in her arms. She raised her hand and waved to him. Motioning for him to come closer.

With one last sigh he let go of everything that was painful and, smiling, went towards them.

Patrik was staring straight ahead. Could Erica be right? It sounded completely crazy, and yet . . . logical. He sighed, aware of what a difficult task lay ahead of him.

‘Come on, sweetie. We’re going out for a little excursion,’ he said, lifting up Maja and carrying her out to the hall. ‘And we’ll pick up Mamma on the way.’

A short time later he drove up to the gate of the cemetery where Erica was waiting, so impatient to get going that she was practically jumping up and down. Patrik had started feeling equally impatient, and he had to remind himself to ease off the accelerator as they drove towards Tanumshede. He could sometimes be a rather reckless driver, but if Maja was in the car, he always drove with the utmost caution.

‘I’ll do the talking, okay?’ said Patrik as they parked in front of the station. ‘You get to come along only because I don’t feel like arguing with you about it – you’d win in the end anyway. But he’s my boss, and I’m the one who has done this before. Understand?’

Erica nodded reluctantly as she lifted Maja out of the car.

‘Do you think we should drive over to my mother’s first, and ask her to watch Maja for a while? I mean, I know how you hate it when I take Maja into the station,’ Patrik teased, getting an exasperated look in reply.

‘Come on, you know I want to get this over with as soon as possible. And she doesn’t seem to have suffered any harm from working a shift the last time she was here,’ Erica told him with a wink.

‘Hi! I didn’t expect to see all of you here,’ said Annika, surprised, her face lighting up when Maja gave her a big smile.

‘We need to talk to Bertil,’ said Patrik. ‘Is he in?’

‘Yes, he’s in his office,’ said Annika, giving them an enquiring look. She let them in, and Patrik headed briskly for Mellberg’s office with Erica in tow, carrying Maja in her arms.

‘Hedström! What are you doing here? And I see you’ve brought the whole family along,’ said Mellberg, sounding grumpy as he stood up to say hello.

‘There’s something we need to talk to you about,’ said Patrik, sitting down on one of the visitor’s chairs without waiting for an invitation. Maja and Ernst had now caught sight of each other, to their mutual delight.

‘Is he used to being around children?’ asked Erica, hesitating to set her struggling daughter down on the floor.

‘How the hell should I know?’ said Mellberg, but then relented. ‘He’s the world’s nicest dog. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ His voice betrayed a certain pride, and Patrik raised one eyebrow in amusement. His boss seemed to have really fallen for that dog.

Still not entirely convinced, Erica set her daughter down next to Ernst, who enthusiastically began licking the little girl’s face. Maja reacted with a mixture of alarm and delight.

‘So, what is it you want?’ Mellberg stared at Patrik with some curiosity.

‘I want you to obtain permission to open a grave.’

Mellberg started coughing, as if something was stuck in his throat. His face turned redder and redder as he struggled to breathe.

‘Open a grave! Are you out of your mind, man!’ he finally managed to splutter. ‘Being on paternity leave must have affected your brain! Do you know how rare it is to get permission to open a grave? And I’ve already done it twice in the past few years. If I ask for another one, they’re going to certify me as insane and lock me up in the loony bin! And whose body are we going to exhume now, by the way?’

‘A Norwegian resistance fighter who disappeared in 1945,’ said Erica calmly as she squatted down next to Patrik and scratched Ernst’s ears.

‘What did you say?’ Mellberg stared at her open-mouthed, as if he thought he must have heard wrong.

Patiently Erica recounted everything that she’d learned about the four friends and the Norwegian who had come to Fjällbacka a year before the war ended. She explained that there was no trace of him after June 1945, and their efforts to track him down had got nowhere.

‘Couldn’t he have stayed in Sweden? Or gone back to Norway? Have you checked with the authorities in both countries?’ Mellberg looked extremely sceptical.

Erica got up from the floor and sat down on the other visitor’s chair. She stared at Mellberg, as if she hoped to make him take her seriously through sheer force of will. And then she told him what Herman had said to her. That Paul Heckel and Friedrich Hück should be able to tell them where Hans Olavsen was.

‘I thought the names seemed vaguely familiar, but I had no idea where I might have come across them. Until today. I went over to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents and grandparents. And that’s when I saw it.’

‘Saw what?’ asked Mellberg, puzzled.

She waved her hand. ‘I’ll get to that, if you’ll allow me to.’

‘Sure, okay, go on,’ said Mellberg, who was starting to get interested, in spite of himself.

‘There’s a grave in the Fjällbacka cemetery that’s a little different. It’s from the First World War, and ten German soldiers are buried there – seven of them were identified and are listed by name, but three of them are unknown.’

‘You forgot to tell him about the scribbled note,’ said Patrik, who had resigned himself to taking a back seat while his wife explained things. A good man knows when it’s time to give in.

‘Oh, right. There’s one other piece to the puzzle.’ Erica told Mellberg about the page in Erik’s notebook that had caught her attention when she studied the photograph from the crime scene, and the fact that it said ‘
Ignoto militi
.’

‘How did you happen to see photos from the crime scene?’ asked Mellberg angrily, glaring at Patrik.

‘We’ll discuss that later,’ said Patrik. ‘Please, just listen to what she has to say.’

Mellberg grumbled but acquiesced and indicated with a wave of his hand for Erica to continue.

‘Erik Frankel wrote those words on a notepad, over and over, and I found out what they mean. It’s an inscription on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, or rather on the tomb of the unknown soldier. It means: “To the unknown soldier”.’

This still wasn’t making any lights go on in Mellberg’s head, so Erica continued:

‘That note stayed in the back of my mind. Here we have a Norwegian resistance fighter who disappears in 1945, and nobody knows where he went. We have Erik scribbling about an unknown soldier. And Britta talking about “old bones”, and then we have the names that Herman gave me. It was only when I walked past that grave in Fjällbacka cemetery that I suddenly realized why those names had seemed so familiar: they’re etched on the headstone.’ Erica paused to catch her breath.

Mellberg stared at her. ‘So Paul Heckel and Friedrich Hück are the names of two Germans from the First World War who are buried in a grave in Fjällbacka cemetery?’

‘That’s right,’ said Erica, pondering how she should go on with her story.

But Mellberg beat her to it. ‘So what you’re saying is . . .’

She took a deep breath and glanced at Patrik before she continued. ‘What I’m saying is, it’s very likely there’s an extra body in that grave. I think the Norwegian resistance fighter, Hans Olavsen, is buried there. And I’m not sure how it all fits together, but I’m convinced that’s the key to the murders of Erik and Britta.’

She fell silent. No one spoke. The only thing to be heard in Mellberg’s office was the sound of Maja and Ernst playing together.

After a moment Patrik said softly: ‘I know this sounds crazy. But I’ve discussed the whole thing with Erica, and I think there’s a lot to be said for her theory. I can’t offer any concrete proof, but all the clues we have seem to point that way. And there’s also a strong chance that Erica is right, and this is what’s behind the two murders. I don’t know how or why. But the first step is to establish whether there really is an extra body in the grave, and if so, how he died.’

Mellberg didn’t reply. He clasped his hands and sat in silence, thinking. Finally he gave a loud sigh.

‘Well, I must be out of my mind, but I think you might be right. There’s no guarantee that I’ll get permission. As I said, we have something of a track record with this type of thing, and the prosecutor is going to go through the roof. But I will try. That’s all I can promise you.’

‘That’s all we’re asking,’ said Erica eagerly, looking as though she’d like to throw her arms around Mellberg.

‘Okay, take it easy. I don’t think I’ll be successful, but I’ll do my best. And at the moment I need some peace and quiet to work.’

‘We’re leaving right now,’ said Patrik, getting to his feet. ‘Let me know as soon as you hear anything.’

Mellberg didn’t answer, just waved them out the door as he picked up the phone to start on what looked set to be the most difficult test of his persuasive abilities in his entire career.

Chapter 38
Fjällbacka 1945

He had been living with them for six months, and they had known that they were in love for three months when disaster struck. Elsy was standing on the veranda watering her mother’s flowers when she spotted them coming up the stairs. And she understood as soon as she saw their grim expressions. Behind her in the kitchen she could heard her mother washing dishes, and part of her wanted to rush inside and make her mother leave, chase her away before she heard the news that Elsy knew she wouldn’t be able to bear. But she realized that it was futile. Instead, she walked stiffly to the front door and opened it, letting in the three men from one of the other fishing boats in Fjällbacka.

‘Is Hilma at home?’ asked the eldest of them. She knew he was the captain of the boat, and she nodded, turning to lead the way to the kitchen.

When Hilma caught sight of them, she dropped the plate she was holding and it hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. ‘No, no, oh dear God, no!’ she said.

Elsy barely managed to catch her mother before she fell. She lowered her on to a chair and held her tight until it felt as if her own heart would leap out of her body. The three fishermen stood awkwardly next to the table, fumbling with the peaked caps they held in their hands. Finally the captain spoke.

‘It was a mine, Hilma. We saw everything from our boat, and we got there as fast as we could. But . . . there was nothing we could do.’

‘Oh dear God,’ Hilma repeated, gasping for breath. ‘What about all the others?’

Elsy was surprised that even at a moment like this her mother was able to think of the others, but then she pictured her father’s crew in her mind. The men they knew so well, and whose families were about to receive the same news.

‘There were no survivors,’ said the captain, swallowing hard. ‘We stayed there a long time, searching, but we didn’t find anyone. Only the Oscarsson boy, but he was already dead by the time we pulled him into the boat.’

Tears were running down Hilma’s face, and she bit her knuckles to keep from screaming. Elsy swallowed her own sobs and willed herself to be strong. How was her mother going to survive this? How was she herself going to survive it? Her dear, sweet father. Always ready with a kind word and a helping hand. How were they going to manage without him?

A discreet knock on the door interrupted them, and one of the messengers went to open up. Hans came into the kitchen, his face grey-tinged.

‘I saw . . . that you had company. I thought . . . What’s . . .?’ He lowered his gaze. Elsy could see that he was afraid to bother them, but she was grateful that he’d come.

‘Pappa’s boat ran into a mine,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘There were no survivors.’

Hans’s knees buckled and he wavered for a moment. Then he went over to the cabinet where Elof kept the strong drink and resolutely filled six glasses, which he set on the table.

‘I think we could all use a stiff drink right now,’ he said in his lilting Norwegian, which had become closer to Swedish the longer he’d stayed with them.

Everyone gratefully reached for a glass, except for Hilma. Elsy cautiously picked up a glass and set it in front of her mother. ‘Here, Mamma, try some of this.’

Hilma obeyed her daughter and raised the glass to her lips, downing the drink with a grimace. Elsy looked at Hans, her eyes filled with gratitude. It was good not to be alone right now.

Another knock at the door. This time it was Hans who opened it. The women had started to arrive. All those who knew what it was like to live under the threat of losing their husbands to the sea. They brought food and helping hands and consoling words about the will of God. And it helped. Not much, but they all knew that one day they might need the same sort of solace, and so they did their best to ease the pain of their friend who was now suffering.

Her heart hammering with grief, Elsy took a step back and watched the women flock around Hilma while the men who had brought the news bowed sorrowfully and then left to deliver the news elsewhere.

By the time night fell, Hilma had fallen asleep, exhausted. Elsy lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, empty, incapable of taking in what had happened. She saw her father’s face in her mind. He had always been such a comforting presence for her. Listening to her, talking with her. She had been the apple of her father’s eye. She had always known that. For him, she had been so precious, transcending all else. And she knew that he would have noticed that something was going on between her and the Norwegian boy, for whom he had developed such a fondness. But he had let them be. He had kept a watchful eye on them, giving his silent consent. Maybe he was hoping that someday he would have Hans as his son-in-law. Elsy thought he would have approved. And she and Hans had respected both him and her mother. Limited themselves to stolen kisses and cautious embraces; nothing that would prevent them from looking her parents in the eye.

Now, as she lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, it no longer mattered. The pain in her heart was so great that she wouldn’t be able to endure it alone, and she slowly sat up and put her feet on the floor. There was something in her that still hesitated, but grief was tearing at her, driving her to seek the only relief that she could find.