The Hidden Child (42 page)

Two days later Erica was still feeling discouraged. She knew that Patrik was equally disheartened after his attempt to find out what the monthly payments from Erik Frankel had been for. But neither of them was ready to give up yet. Patrik was hoping that something would turn up in the documents left by Wilhelm Fridén, while Erica was determined to continue her research, trying every possible angle until she turned up something.

She had retreated to her workroom to write for a while, but she couldn’t concentrate on the book. Too much was whirling through her mind. She reached for the packet of Dumlekola, enjoying the cola taste as the chocolate melted in her mouth. She’d have to put a stop to this habit very soon. But so much had happened lately that she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of a little treat now and then. She’d worry about it later. She had managed to lose weight for their wedding in the springtime, relying on sheer will-power. So she was convinced she could do it again. Just not today.

‘Erica!’ Patrik called from downstairs. She went out to the landing to find out what he wanted.

‘Karin phoned. Maja and I are going for a walk with her and Ludde.’

‘Okay,’ said Erica, mumbling a bit because she was sucking on the Dumlekola sweet. She went back to her workroom and sat down in front of the computer. She still hadn’t decided what she thought about Patrik taking walks with Karin. She seemed nice enough, and it was a long time since she and Patrik had divorced. Erica was convinced that, for Patrik at least, the relationship was ancient history. And yet . . . It felt odd to see him going off to spend time with his ex-wife. After all, they had once shared a bed. Erica shook her head to get rid of the image that passed through her mind and then consoled herself with another sweet. She really needed to pull herself together. She never used to be the jealous type.

To get her mind off the subject, she opened her Internet browser. An idea occurred to her, and filled with anticipation she typed ‘
Ignoto militi
’ into the search engine. It threw up plenty of hits. She chose the first one and read with interest what it said. Now she recalled why the words had sounded familiar. Long ago, on a school trip to Paris, she had been taken to visit the Arc de Triomphe. And the grave of the unknown soldier. ‘
Ignoto militi
’ simply meant ‘the unknown soldier’.

Erica frowned as she read. More questions were forming in her mind. Was it merely a coincidence that Erik Frankel had scribbled these words on the notepad on his desk? Or did they have some particular meaning for him? And if so, what? She read more of what it said on the screen but found nothing of interest, so she scrolled down for further links. With a third Dumlekola in her mouth, she propped her feet up on the desk, pondering what to do next. Then it occurred to her that there was somebody who might be able to tell her more. It was a long shot, but . . . She dashed downstairs, grabbed her car keys from the hall table, and set off for Uddevalla.

Forty-five minutes later, she was sitting in the hospital car park, hesitating because she realized that she didn’t really have a plan. It had been relatively easy to find out over the phone which ward Herman was in, but she had no idea whether she’d be allowed to see him. Well, she’d come all this way, she might as well give it a try. She would just have to improvise.

First she stopped by the shop in the lobby and bought a big bouquet. She took the lift, got out on the proper floor, and then strode confidently towards the ward. No one seemed to take any notice of her. Erica looked at the room numbers. Thirty-five: that was his room. She just hoped she would find him alone. If his daughters were with him, there would be hell to pay.

Taking a deep breath, Erica pushed open the door. What a relief. No visitors. She went in and carefully closed the door behind her. There were two beds in the room, and Herman was lying in one of them. His roommate seemed to be sound asleep. Herman, on the other hand, was awake and staring into space with his arms lying neatly on top of the sheet.

‘Hello, Herman,’ said Erica quietly, pulling a chair over to his bed. ‘I don’t know if you remember me. I came to visit Britta. And you got angry with me.’

At first she thought Herman either couldn’t or didn’t want to hear her. Then he slowly turned to look at her. ‘I know who you are. Elsy’s daughter.’

‘That’s right. Elsy’s daughter.’ Erica smiled.

‘You were at our house . . . a few days ago too,’ he said, staring at her without blinking. Erica was filled with a strange tenderness for him. She pictured how he’d looked, lying next to his dead wife, holding her in a tight embrace. And now he looked so small in the hospital bed, small and frail. No longer the same man who had yelled at her for upsetting Britta.

‘Yes, I was at your house. With Margareta,’ said Erica. Herman merely nodded. Neither of them spoke for a few moments.

Finally Erica said: ‘I’ve been doing some research into my mother’s life. That was how I came across Britta’s name. And when I spoke to Britta, I had the feeling that she knew more than she wanted to tell me. Or was able to tell me.’

Herman smiled oddly but didn’t reply.

Erica went on: ‘I also think it’s a strange coincidence that two of the three people who were friends with my mother when she was young have died within such a short period of time.’ She fell silent, waiting for his response.

A tear rolled down Herman’s cheek. He raised his hand and wiped it away. ‘I killed her,’ he said, again staring into space. ‘I killed her.’

Erica heard what he said, and according to Patrik, there was really nothing to contradict his statement. But she also knew that Martin was sceptical, just as she was. And there was a strange tone in Herman’s voice that she couldn’t interpret.

‘Do you know what it was that Britta didn’t want to tell me? Was it something that happened during the war? Was it something that concerned my mother? I think I have a right to know,’ she insisted. She hoped she wasn’t pressuring him too hard, since he was clearly in a vulnerable state, but she desperately wanted to find out what was in her mother’s past that could have accounted for the drastic change she’d undergone. Receiving no answer, Erica went on: ‘When Britta started to get confused when I was visiting, she said something about an unknown soldier who was whispering. Do you know what she meant by that? She thought I was Elsy, when she said it, not Elsy’s daughter. An unknown soldier – do you know anything about that?’

At first she couldn’t identify the sound that Herman made. Then she realized that he was laughing. An infinitely sorrowful imitation of a laugh. She didn’t understand what could be so funny.

‘Ask Paul Heckel. And Friedrich Hück. They can answer your questions.’ He started laughing again, louder and louder, until the whole bed was shaking.

His laughter frightened Erica more than his tears, but she still asked him: ‘Who are they? Where can I find them? What do they have to do with all this?’ She wanted to give Herman a good shake to get him to answer her questions, jolt an explanation out of him, but just at that moment the door opened.

‘What’s going on here?’ A doctor was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and a stern expression on his face.

‘I’m sorry, I’m in the wrong room. But the old man here said that he wanted to have a chat. And then . . .’ She got up abruptly and hurried out the door, giving the doctor an apologetic look.

Erica’s heart was pounding by the time she got back to her car. Herman had given her two names. Two German names that she’d never heard before, names that meant nothing to her. What did the two Germans have to do with this? Were they somehow connected to Hans Olavsen? He had fought against the Germans, after all, before he fled to Sweden.

All the way back to Fjällbacka, the two names kept whirling round in her mind: Paul Heckel and Friedrich Hück. She was positive that she’d never heard those names before. So why was it they seemed vaguely familiar?

‘Martin Molin.’ He answered the phone on the first ring, then listened intently for several minutes, interrupting only to ask a few questions. Then he picked up his notebook in which he’d scribbled some notes during the phone conversation and went to see Mellberg in his office. He found him sitting in the middle of the floor with his legs stretched out, reaching forward in an effort to touch his toes. Without success.

‘Er, sorry. Am I interrupting something?’ asked Martin, who had stopped short in the doorway.

Ernst at least seemed glad to see him. He came over, wagging his tail, and began licking Martin’s hand. Mellberg didn’t reply, just frowned as he struggled to get up off the floor. To his great annoyance, he finally had to admit defeat and stretch out his hand to Martin, who pulled him to his feet.

‘I was just doing a few stretches,’ muttered Mellberg, moving stiffly over to his chair. He caught the grin on Martin’s face and snapped, ‘Did you want anything in particular, or were you just planning to interrupt me for no reason?’

Mellberg reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a coconut marshmallow puff. Ernst sniffed at the air and swiftly homed in on the delicious and by now all too familiar scent, looking up at his master with moist, pleading eyes. Mellberg tried to give the dog a stern look, but then relented and reached for a second marshmallow, which he tossed to Ernst. It was gone in two seconds flat.

‘Your dog is getting a bit pudgy around the middle,’ said Martin, casting a worried look at Ernst, whose paunch was starting to resemble that of his owner.

‘Oh, he’s okay. A little extra weight is good for everybody,’ said Mellberg contentedly, patting his own beer belly.

Martin dropped the subject and sat down across from Mellberg. ‘I just had a call from Pedersen. And I also received a report from Torbjörn this morning. Their initial assumptions have been verified. Britta Johansson was indeed murdered. Suffocated with the pillow that lay next to her on the bed.’

‘And how does –’ Mellberg began.

‘Let’s see now,’ Martin interrupted, consulting his notepad. ‘Pedersen used slightly arcane language, as usual, but in layman’s terms, she had a feather from the pillow in her throat. Presumably it got there when she was gasping for breath with the pillow pressed over her face. Pedersen also looked for traces of fibre in her throat, and he found cotton fibres that matched those from the pillow. In addition, the bones in her neck had been traumatized, which shows that someone had applied direct pressure to her neck. Most likely using his hand. They checked for fingerprints on her skin, but didn’t find any, unfortunately.’

‘Well, that seems clear enough. From what I’ve heard, she was ill. A bit gaga,’ said Mellberg, waving his finger at his temple.

‘She had Alzheimer’s,’ replied Martin sharply.

‘Yeah, okay, I know,’ said Mellberg, dismissing Molin’s annoyed reaction. ‘But don’t tell me you think somebody other than the old man did it. It was most likely one of those . . . mercy killings,’ he said, pleased with his own deductive logic, and then he rewarded himself with yet another marshmallow.

‘Er . . . well, maybe,’ said Martin reluctantly, as he turned the page in his notebook. ‘But according to Torbjörn, they did find a fingerprint on the pillowcase. It’s usually very difficult to lift fingerprints from cloth, but in this instance the pillowcase was fastened with a couple of shiny buttons, and there was a clear thumbprint on one of them. And it doesn’t belong to Herman,’ said Martin quite firmly.

Mellberg frowned and gave him a worried look for a moment. Then his face lit up. ‘Probably one of the daughters. Check it out, just to be sure, so you can confirm it. Then phone the doctor at the hospital and tell him to give Britta’s husband whatever bloody electroshock therapy or medicine he needs in order to revive him, because before the end of the week, we want to talk to the man. Understand?’

Martin gave a sigh and nodded. He didn’t like this. Not at all. But Mellberg was right. There was no proof pointing to any other perpetrator. Merely a lone thumbprint. And if he was very unlucky, it would turn out that Mellberg was right on that point too.

Martin was halfway out the door when he slapped his forehead and turned round. ‘Oh, I forgot one thing. Shit, how stupid of me! Pedersen found a considerable amount of DNA under her fingernails, both skin scrapings and blood. Presumably she scratched the person who was suffocating her. Quite deeply, according to Pedersen, since she had sharp nails and she’d managed to scrape off so much skin. In his opinion, it was most likely that she scratched the murderer on the arms or face.’ Martin leaned against the door jamb.

‘And does her husband have any scratches?’ asked Mellberg, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his desk.

‘I don’t know, but it certainly sounds as though we need to pay Herman a visit ASAP,’ said Martin.

‘It certainly does,’ replied Mellberg. ‘Take Paula with you,’ he shouted, but Martin was already gone.

Per had been tiptoeing around the house the past few days, not believing that it would last. His mother had never managed to stay sober for even one day. Not since his father had left. Per could hardly remember how things had been before then, but the few memories he did have were quite pleasant.

Even though he was putting up a show of resistance, he was actually starting to feel hope. More and more with each hour that passed. Even for each minute. Carina looked shaky and kept giving him ashamed looks every time they ran into each other. But she was sober. He’d checked everywhere and hadn’t found a single newly purchased bottle. Not one. And he knew all of her hiding places. In fact he had never understood why she bothered to hide the bottles. She could just as well have left them standing on the kitchen counter.

‘Shall I make us some dinner?’ Carina asked quietly, giving him a cautious look. It was as if they were padding around each other like they had just met each other for the first time and weren’t sure how things might turn out. And maybe that was an accurate description. It had been such a long time since he’d seen her sober. He didn’t really know who she was without any booze inside her. And she didn’t know him either. How could she have kept track of what was going on when she was constantly walking around in an alcoholic fog that filtered everything she saw, everything she did? Now they were strangers to each other. But strangers who were curious, interested, and quite hopeful.