The Girl in the Woods. Camilla Lackberg
Ebba came to visit him, but with a new baby to care for, she couldn’t get away very often. He understood that. What mattered to him was knowing he had a standing invitation to visit Ebba in Gothenburg, and the invitation was genuinely meant. Even a small dose of what had now become his family was better than nothing. And it was best if Patrik, who had young children, was able to take time off in the middle of the summer. He and Mellberg could sit here like a pair of old horses and handle whatever business came in. Martin dropped by once in a while to check on the ‘old guys’, as he jokingly said, but Gösta thought the real reason was that he needed company. Martin hadn’t met anyone new since Pia died, which was a shame. He was a fine young man. And his daughter needed a maternal influence. Annika, the police station’s secretary, sometimes took the child home with her, giving the excuse that Tuva could play with her own daughter, Leia. But it wasn’t enough. The child needed a mother. But Martin wasn’t ready for a new relationship, and that was that. Love could not be forced, and for Gösta there had only ever been one woman. Yet he thought Martin was a little too young to feel the same way.
He realized it wasn’t easy to find a new love. It was impossible to control such feelings, and the choices were limited since they lived in such a small town. Besides, Martin had been somewhat of a Don Juan before he met Pia, so there was always the risk it would be a second-time around with certain women. And in Gösta’s opinion, trying a second time rarely worked out if the first time hadn’t been successful. But what did he know? The love of his life had been his wife Maj-Britt, with whom he’d shared all his adult years. There had never been anyone else, either before or after.
The shrill ringing of the phone roused Gösta from his brooding.
‘Tanumshede police station.’
He listened intently to the voice on the line.
‘We’re on our way. What’s the address?’
Gösta wrote it down, hung up the phone, and then rushed into the next room without bothering to knock.
Mellberg gave a start, waking from a sound sleep.
‘What the hell?’ he said, staring at Gösta, frantically pushing his comb-over back into place.
‘A missing child,’ said Gösta. ‘Four years old. She’s been gone since this morning.’
‘This morning? And the parents are only calling us now?’ said Mellberg, jumping up from his chair.
Gösta glanced at his watch. It was a little after three p.m.
They didn’t get a lot of cases involving missing children. In the summer, the police mostly dealt with drunks, burglaries and break-ins, assault and battery incidents, and sometimes rape.
‘Each one thought she was with the other parent. I told them we’d leave immediately.’
Mellberg stuck his feet in his shoes, which he’d discarded on the floor next to his desk. His dog Ernst, who was also awake now, wearily lowered his head having concluded that the commotion had nothing to do with the possibility of going out for a walk or getting something to eat.
‘Where is it we’re going?’ asked Mellberg, hurrying after Gösta, who was headed for the garage.
‘The Berg farm,’ said Gösta. ‘Where the Strand family used to live.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Mellberg.
He’d only heard about the old case, which had happened long before he came to Fjällbacka. But Gösta had been here back then, and for him the situation seemed all too familiar.
‘Hello?’
Patrik had brushed off his hand before he took the call, but the phone still got sand on it. With his free hand he motioned for the kids to come over and then he got out a packet of Marie biscuits and a container of apple slices. Noel and Anton lunged for the biscuits, each trying to grab the packet away from his brother, until it fell on the sand sending biscuits spilling out. Other parents were staring at them, and Patrik could literally feel them snorting. He could understand their reaction. He thought that he and Erica were both relatively competent parents, yet sometimes the twins behaved as if they’d been brought up by wolves.
‘Just a second, Erica,’ he said. With a sigh he picked up a couple of biscuits and blew off the sand.
Noel and Anton had already eaten so much sand, a little more wasn’t going to hurt them.
Maja picked up the container of apple slices and set it on her lap as she sat down to survey the bathing area. Patrik looked at her slender back and her hair curling damply at the nape of her neck. She looked so lovely as she sat there, even though he, as usual, had failed to pull her hair into a proper ponytail.
‘All right, I can talk now. We’re down at the beach, and we just had a little biscuit incident I had to take care of.’
‘Okay,’ said Erica. ‘Is everything good apart from that?’
‘Everything’s great,’ he lied as he again tried to wipe the sand off by rubbing his hands on his swim trunks.
Noel and Anton picked up the biscuits from the sand and continued eating them, causing an audible crunching sound to issue from their mouths. A seagull circled overhead, waiting for the toddlers to take their eyes off the biscuits for a second. But the gull wasn’t about to get any of the treats. The twins could finish off an entire packet of Marie biscuits in world-record time.
‘I’m finished with lunch now,’ said Erica. ‘Shall I come over and join you?’
‘Sure, do that,’ said Patrik. ‘Could you bring some coffee in a Thermos? I’m such a novice at these kinds of outings, I forgot to bring any coffee.’
‘No problem. Your wish is my command.’
‘Thanks, sweetheart. You have no idea how much I’ve been longing for a cup of coffee.’
He smiled as he ended the call. After five years of marriage and three children, he could still feel butterflies in his stomach whenever he heard his wife’s voice on the phone. Erica was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Well, aside from the children. Then again, without Erica he wouldn’t have any children.
‘Was that Mamma?’ asked Maja, shading her eyes with her hand as she turned to look at him.
Dear God, she looked so much like her mother from certain angles. And that made Patrik very happy. Erica was the most beautiful woman he knew.
‘Yup, that was Mamma. She’s on her way here.’
‘Yay!’ shouted Maja.
‘Hold on, someone’s ringing me from the station. I have to take this call,’ said Patrik, using a sandy finger to push the green button on his mobile.
Gösta’s name had appeared on the display, and Patrik knew his colleague wouldn’t call to disturb his holiday unless it was something important.
‘Hi, Gösta,’ he said. ‘One minute. Maja, could you give the boys some pieces of apple? And take away that old lollypop stick Noel is about to stuff in his mouth. Thanks, sweetie.’
He raised the mobile to his ear again.
‘Sorry, Gösta. I’m listening now. I’m at the beach in Sälvik with the kids, and chaos doesn’t come close to describing things.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you when you’re on holiday,’ said Gösta, ‘but I was thinking you might want to know we’ve received a report of a missing child. A little girl has been missing since this morning.’
‘Since this morning?’
‘Yes, we don’t have any further information yet, but Mellberg and I are on our way to see her parents right now.’
‘Where do they live?’
‘That’s the thing. She disappeared from the Berg farm.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Patrik, his blood turning cold.