Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1-3: The Ice Princess, The Preacher, The Stonecutter. Camilla Lackberg
seemed to propagate all the way down to her toes. Delightful. She tasted it cautiously, letting the wine roll round as she sucked in a little air through her mouth. The taste was just as pleasant as the aroma, and she could tell that Patrik had spent a significant sum on this bottle.
Patrik gave her an expectant look.
‘Fantastic!’
‘Yes, I realized last time that you knew about these things. Unfortunately I couldn’t tell the difference between a wine in a box for fifty kronor and a wine that cost thousands.’
‘Sure you could. But it’s all a matter of habit as well. And you have to take the time to really taste a wine instead of guzzling it down.’
Shamefaced, Patrik looked at the glass of wine he had in his hand. A third of it was already gone. He carefully tried to imitate Erica’s method of tasting the wine when she turned her back to check something on the stove. It did seem to taste like a whole new wine. He let a sip of wine roll round in his mouth the same way he had seen Erica do it, and suddenly distinctly different tastes appeared. He even thought he could sense a faint hint of chocolate, dark chocolate, and a rather strong taste of red berries, red grapes perhaps, mixed with a little strawberry. Incredible.
‘How’s it going with the investigation?’ Erica made an effort to ask the question casually, but she waited anxiously for the reply.
‘I think we’re back at square one, so to speak. Anders has an alibi for the time of the murder, and we don’t have a lot else to go on right now. Unfortunately we may have made a classic mistake. We allowed ourselves to feel too certain that we had the right person and stopped investigating other possibilities. Although I have to agree with the superintendent that Anders is perfect in the role of Alex’s killer. A drunk who for some inexplicable reason is having a sexual relationship with a woman who, according to all the rules, should be far, far out of reach of a wino like Anders. A crime of jealousy with the inevitable outcome, when his improbable luck finally runs out. His fingerprints are all over the body and in the bathroom. We even found his footprint in the pool of blood on the floor.’
‘But isn’t that proof enough?’
Patrik swirled his wine and looked thoughtfully down into the red eddies that formed in the glass.
‘If he hadn’t had an alibi it might have been enough. But now he does have one for what we think is the probable time of the murder. And as I said before, it doesn’t prove anything except that he was in the bathroom after the murder. A small but important difference if we want an indictment that will hold up.’
The aroma spreading through the kitchen was wonderful. Erica took the potato pancakes she had sautéed a while ago out of the fridge and put them in the oven to warm up. She set out two appetizer plates, opened the refrigerator again and took out a container of crème fraiche and a jar of lumpfish caviar. The onions were chopped and ready in a bowl on the worktop. She was intensely aware of how close Patrik was standing.
‘So, Erica, have you heard anything more about the house?’
‘Yes, unfortunately. The estate agent rang yesterday and proposed that we show the house during the Easter holiday. He said that Anna and Lucas apparently thought that was a brilliant idea.’
‘It’s still a couple of months until Easter. A lot can happen before that.’
‘Yes, I can always hope that Lucas has a heart attack or something. No, pardon me, I didn’t say that. It’s just that it makes me so mad!’ She closed the oven door a bit too hard.
‘Oi, be kind to the appliances.’
‘I’m probably just going to have to get used to the fact and start planning what to do with all the money I make from the sale. Although I have to admit, I always thought I’d feel happier if I became a millionaire.’
‘You don’t have to worry about becoming a millionaire. With the taxes in this country, you’ll probably have to spend the majority of your profit on financing terrible schools and ever worse health care. Not to mention the incredibly, fantastically, totally underpaid police force. We’ll probably eat into a good share of your fortune, you’ll see.’
She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Well, that would be wonderful. Then I won’t have to worry about whether to buy a mink or a blue fox coat. Patrik, believe it or not, the appetizer is ready now.’
She took a plate in each hand and led Patrik into the dining room. She had pondered whether they should sit in the kitchen or in the dining room, and she finally decided on the dining room with its lovely wooden drop-leaf table, which looked even lovelier by candlelight. And she hadn’t skimped on the candles. Nothing was more flattering to a woman’s appearance than candles, she’d read somewhere.
The table was set with silverware and linen serviettes, as well as Rörstrand plates for the entree. It was her mother’s finest, the white Rörstrand china with the blue trim. She remembered how careful her mother had always been with those plates. They were only taken out on very special occasions. Which did not include the children’s birthdays or anything else that had to do with them, Erica thought bitterly. The ordinary china at the kitchen table was good enough for them. But when the pastor and his wife, or the vicar, or the deacon came to dinner, then there was no end to all the fuss. Erica forced herself back to the present and set the appetizer plates across from each other on the table.
‘It looks delicious.’ Patrik sliced off a piece of potato pancake, added a healthy dollop of onions, crème fraiche and caviar on his fork, and managed to lift it halfway to his mouth before he noticed that Erica was sitting there with her wine glass raised along with one eyebrow. Shamefaced, he put down the fork and switched to his wine glass.
‘Skål and welcome.’
‘Skål.’
Erica smiled at his faux pas. It was refreshing in comparison with the men she’d dated in Stockholm, who were all so well brought up and knowledgeable about etiquette that they could have been clones. Compared to them Patrik felt like the real deal, and as far as she was concerned he could eat with his fingers if he wanted to; it wouldn’t bother her. Besides, he looked terribly cute when he blushed.
‘I had an unexpected visitor today.’
‘Oh? Who was that?’
‘Julia.’
Patrik gave Erica a surprised look. She was pleased to see that he seemed to have a hard time tearing himself away from the food.
‘I had no idea you knew each other,’ he said.
‘We don’t, really. Alex’s funeral was actually the first time we met. But this morning she was standing at my door.’
‘What did she want?’
Patrik scraped his plate clean so eagerly that it looked like he was trying to scrape the colour off the porcelain.
‘She asked me to show her pictures from when Alex and I were kids. The family apparently don’t have many photographs, according to Julia, and she took a chance that I might have more. Which I do. Then she asked me a lot of questions about when we were kids and things like that. The people I’ve talked to said that the sisters weren’t very close, which is not so odd considering the age difference, and now she wants to find out more about Alex. Get to know her. Anyway, that’s the impression I got. Have you met Julia, by the way?’
‘No, I haven’t yet. But from what I heard they aren’t, or weren’t, very similar,’ said Patrik.
‘No, God no. They’re more like complete opposites, at least in appearance. They seem to be both introverts, even though Julia has a sullenness that I don’t think Alex had. Alex seemed more, how should I put it … indifferent, based on what I heard from the people I talked to. If anything, Julia seems angry. Or maybe even furious. I get the impression that there’s rage bubbling and fizzing just below the surface. Rather volcanic. A dormant volcano. Does that sound stupid?’
‘No, I don’t think so.