The Hidden Child (7 page)

The boy hung his head in shame as he sat next to him on the stairs. Frans knew that his harsh words had got through. His grandson was always trying to impress him. But he would be doing Per a disservice if he didn’t show him how the world worked. The world was cold and hard and relentless, and only the strongest would emerge victorious.

At the same time, he loved the boy and wanted to protect him from evil. Frans put his arm around his grandson’s shoulders, struck by how bony they were. Per had inherited his own physique. Tall and gangly, with narrow shoulders. All the gym workouts in the world wouldn’t change that.

‘You just need to stop and think,’ said Frans, his voice gentler now. ‘Think before you act. Use words instead of your fists. Violence is not the first tool you should use. It’s the last.’ He tightened his hold on the boy’s shoulders. For a second Per leaned against him, as he’d done when he was a child. Then he remembered that he was trying to be a man. That the most important thing in the world was that he make his grandfather proud. Per sat up straight.

‘I know, Grandpa. I just got so angry when he pushed in. Because that’s what they always do. They push their way in everywhere. They think they own the world, that they own Sweden. It made me so . . . furious.’

‘I know,’ said Frans, removing his arm from around his grandson’s shoulders and patting the boy’s knee instead. ‘But please stop and think. You’ll be no use to me if you end up in prison.’

Chapter 4
Kristiansand 1943

He had battled seasickness all the way to Norway, although it hadn’t seemed to affect the others. They were used to sailing, had grown up going to sea. They had their sea legs, as his father used to say; they rolled with the swells and had no trouble walking on deck. And they seemed immune to the nausea that spread from his stomach up to his throat. Axel leaned heavily against the rail. All he wanted to do was lean over the side and vomit, but he refused to give into such degrading behaviour. He knew the taunts from the others wouldn’t be mean-spirited, but he was too proud to be the subject of their derision. Soon they’d be arriving, and the minute he went ashore, the nausea would vanish like magic. He knew this from experience, for he’d made this trip many times before.

‘Land ho!’ shouted Elof, the ship’s captain. ‘We’ll dock in ten minutes.’ Elof cast a glance at Axel, who had come to join him at the helm. The captain’s face was tanned and weatherbeaten, his skin like creased leather from years of exposure to the elements.

‘Is everything in order?’ he asked in a low voice, looking around. In the harbour at Kristiansand they could see all the German boats lined up, a clear reminder of the occupation. So far Sweden had been spared Norway’s fate, but nobody knew how much longer their luck would last. Until then the Swedes were keeping an anxious eye on their neighbour to the west, and for that matter on the Germans’ advance throughout the rest of Europe.

‘Take care of your own affairs, and I’ll take care of mine,’ said Axel. It sounded harsher than he’d intended, but it troubled him that he was involving the ship’s crew in risks that should have been his alone. Still, he wasn’t coercing anyone. Elof had agreed without hesitation when Axel asked if he might sail with him once in a while, bringing certain . . . goods along. He’d never needed to explain what he was transporting, and Elof and the other crew members on the
Elfrida
had never asked.

They put into port and took out the documents they would need to present. The Germans were punctilious when it came to paperwork, and only when the formalities were out of the way would the Swedes be allowed to unload the machine parts that comprised their official cargo. The Norwegians took delivery of the goods while the Germans grimly oversaw the procedure with guns at the ready. Axel bided his time until evening. His cargo couldn’t come ashore until after dark. Most often it was foodstuffs. Food and information. That was what he had this time as well.

After eating supper in tense silence, Axel sat down to wait restlessly for the appointed hour. A cautious knock on the windowpane made him and everybody else jump. Axel quickly leaned forward, lifted up a section of the floorboards, and began taking out wooden crates. Hands reached in, quietly and carefully, to receive the crates, which were then passed to someone on the dock. All the while they could hear the Germans talking amongst themselves in the barracks just a short distance away. By that time of night, they were on to the strong liquor, which allowed the dangerous activity on board ship to go unnoticed. Drunken Germans were significantly easier to fool than sober Germans.

With a whispered ‘thank you’ in Norwegian, the last of the cargo vanished into the darkness. Another delivery had gone smoothly. Giddy with relief, Axel went back down to the forecastle. Three pairs of eyes met his gaze, but no one said a word. Elof merely nodded and then turned away to fill his pipe. Axel felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards these men who defied both storms and Nazis with the same composure. Having long since accepted that they had no control over the twists and turns of life and fate, they simply got on with trying to live the best life they could. The rest was in God’s hands.

Exhausted, Axel lay down in his bunk, rocked by the slight swaying of the boat and the lapping of the water against the hull. In the barracks up on the dock, the voices of the Germans rose and fell. After a while they began to sing. But by then Axel was sound asleep.

Chapter 5

‘Okay, what do we know so far?’ asked Mellberg, looking around the break room. The coffee was made, there were buns on the table, and everyone was present.

Paula cleared her throat. ‘I’ve been in contact with the brother – Axel. Apparently he works in Paris and always spends the summer there. But he’s on his way home now. Seemed upset when I told him about his brother’s death.’

‘Do we know when he left Sweden?’ Martin turned to Paula. She consulted the notebook lying in front of her.

‘The third of June, he says. Of course I’ll be checking that out.’

Martin nodded.

‘Have we received a preliminary report from Torbjörn and his team?’ Mellberg moved his feet cautiously. Ernst had settled the whole weight of his body on top of his feet and he was getting pins and needles, but for some reason Mellberg couldn’t bring himself to push the dog away.

‘Not yet,’ said Gösta, reaching for a bun. ‘But I talked to him this morning, and we might have something tomorrow.’

‘Good, bright and early, let’s hope,’ said Mellberg, again shifting his feet, but Ernst simply moved too.

‘Any suspects? Possible enemies? Threats? Anything?’

Martin shook his head. ‘No reports on our files, at any rate. But he was a controversial figure. Nazism always rouses strong feelings.’

‘We could go out to his house and take a look. See if there are any threatening letters or such like in the drawers.’

Everyone turned to stare at Gösta in surprise. His colleagues were all of the opinion that Gösta Flygare only came to life on the golf course. It was rare for him to show any initiative on the job.

‘Take Martin with you, and go out there after the meeting,’ said Mellberg with a pleased smile. Gösta nodded and quickly resumed his usual lethargic stance.

‘Paula, find out when the brother – Axel, was it? – is due to arrive. Since we don’t yet know when Erik died, it’s possible that Axel was the one who bashed his head in and then fled the country. We need to get hold of him as soon as he sets foot on Swedish soil.’

Paula looked up from her notebook. ‘He’s arriving at Landvetter airport at nine fifteen tomorrow morning.’

‘Good. Make sure that he comes here first, before he does anything else.’ Now Mellberg was forced to move his feet, which were starting to go numb. Ernst got up, gave him an offended look, and set off for Mellberg’s office and the comfort of his basket.

‘Looks like true love,’ remarked Annika, laughing as she watched the dog exit.

‘Hmm, well . . .’ Mellberg cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. When is somebody going to come and get that mongrel?’

‘You know, it’s not that easy,’ said Annika, putting on her most innocent expression. ‘I’ve phoned around, but nobody seems able to take a dog of his size, so if you could just take care of him for a few more days . . .’ She gazed at him with her big blue eyes.

He grunted. ‘Oh, all right, I should be able to stand the mutt for a few more days. But then he’ll have to go back out on the street if you can’t find a home for him.’

‘Thanks, Bertil. That’s nice of you. And I’ll pull out all the stops.’ As Mellberg turned away, Annika winked at the others. Realizing what she was up to, they struggled not to laugh. She had Bertil sussed; no question about it.

‘Fine, fine,’ said Mellberg. ‘Now let’s get back to work.’ He lumbered out of the break room.

‘Okay, you heard the chief,’ said Martin, getting to his feet. ‘Shall we go, Gösta?’

Gösta looked as though he was already regretting making a suggestion which would entail more work for himself, but he nodded wearily and followed Martin out the door. It was just a matter of making it through the work week. Come the weekend he’d be out on the golf course by seven in the morning, both Saturday and Sunday. Until then, he was just treading water.

Thoughts of Erik Frankel and the medal continued to haunt Erica. She managed to put it out of her mind for a couple of hours and make a start on her manuscript, but as soon as her concentration faltered she began to replay the brief meeting that she’d had with Erik. He had seemed a gentle, courteous man, eager to share his knowledge of the subject that interested him most: Nazism.

Admitting defeat, she closed her manuscript file and Googled ‘Erik Frankel’. A number of hits turned up, some clearly referring to other individuals with the same name. But there was no shortage of information on the correct Erik Frankel, and she spent nearly an hour clicking through the links. Born in 1930 in Fjällbacka, he had one sibling: a brother named Axel who was four years older. His father had been a doctor in Fjällbacka from 1935 to 1954. Many of the links led to blogs about Nazism, but she found nothing to indicate that he was some sort of Nazi sympathizer. On the contrary. Though some of the blogs betrayed a reluctant admiration for aspects of Nazism, it seemed that Erik’s interest was motivated by pure fascination with the subject.

She had just shut down the Internet browser, reminding herself that she really didn’t have time for this, when there was a cautious knock on the door behind her.

‘Sorry, am I bothering you?’ Patrik opened the door and poked his head in.

‘No, don’t worry.’ She spun round in her desk chair to face him.

‘I just came up to tell you that Maja is asleep and I need to nip out on a little errand. Could you keep this in here while I’m out?’ He handed her the baby monitor so she’d be able to hear if Maja woke up.

‘Er . . . I really should be working.’ Erica sighed. ‘Why do you need to go out?’

‘I have to go to the bank, and we’re out of Nezeril so I thought I’d call in at the pharmacy, and then I might as well get a lottery ticket and a few groceries too.’

Erica suddenly felt very tired. She thought about all the errands she’d done during the past year, always with Maja sitting in the pushchair or in her arms. More often than not she’d been soaked with sweat by the time she was done. There’d never been anyone to watch Maja while she waltzed off to the shops. But she put these thoughts out of her mind; she didn’t want to seem petty or cranky.

‘Of course I can look after her while you’re out,’ she said with a smile, summoning some enthusiasm. ‘I can keep working while she’s asleep.’

‘That’s great,’ said Patrik, giving her a kiss on the cheek before he shut the door behind him.

‘That’s great, all right,’ said Erica to herself, opening her manuscript document and preparing to put all thought of Erik Frankel out of her mind.

She had no sooner set her fingers on the keyboard when a crackling noise issued from the baby monitor. Erica froze. It was probably nothing. Maja was just moving around in her cot; sometimes the monitor was overly sensitive. She heard the sound of a car starting up, and then Patrik drove off. As she moved her eyes back to the screen, struggling to think of the next sentence, she heard the crackling noise again. She looked at the baby monitor as if she could will it to stay quiet, but her efforts were rewarded with an audible ‘Waaaaaa.’ Followed by a shrill ‘Mammaaaa . . . Pappaaaa . . .’

Feeling resigned, she pushed back her chair and got up. How typical. She went down the hall to Maja’s room and opened the door. Her daughter was standing up, crying angrily.

‘But Maja, sweetheart, you’re supposed to be sleeping.’

Maja shook her head.

‘Yes, it’s time for your nap,’ said Erica firmly, setting her daughter down in the cot, but Maja sprang up as she were made of rubber.

‘Mammaaaa!’ she cried with a voice that could break glass. Erica felt fury gathering in her chest. How many times had she done this? How many days had she spent feeding, carrying, playing with Maja and then putting her down for a nap? She loved her daughter, but she had a desperate need for some respite from the responsibility. To rediscover what it was to be a grown-up and do grown-up things – exactly the way Patrik had been able to during the whole year that she’d been home with Maja.