Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 4-6: The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning. Camilla Lackberg
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write our own account first, do you think, or should we write it together?’
Hanna thought for a moment. ‘I think it would be more complete if we wrote the report together and compared notes about what we remembered as we work on it.’
‘Okay,’ said Martin, opening his laptop and booting it up. ‘Shall I type, or do you want to?’
‘You type,’ said Hanna. ‘I still type with two fingers, and I’ve never built up any speed.’
‘Okay, I’ll do the typing,’ Martin laughed, entering the password. He opened a new Word document and got ready to start filling the screen with words.
‘The first I noticed of the commotion last night was when I heard loud voices behind the building. How about you?’
Hanna nodded. ‘Yes, I hadn’t noticed anything before that. The only thing we had to deal with earlier in the evening was that girl who was so drunk she couldn’t stand up. What time could that have been? Midnight?’ Martin typed while Hanna talked. ‘Then I think it was around one when I heard two people yelling at each other. I called for you and we went behind the building and found Barbie and Uffe.’
‘Mmm,’ said Martin, still typing. ‘I checked my watch and it was ten to one. I came around the corner first and saw Uffe holding Barbie by the shoulders and shaking her violently. Both of us ran over to them. I took hold of Uffe and dragged him away, while you took care of Barbie.’
‘Yes, and Uffe was so aggressive that he tried aiming some kicks at the girl while you were holding him.’
‘We defused the situation,’ Martin continued, ‘and separated the individuals. I talked to Uffe and told him that he’d have to come down to the station if he didn’t cool it.’
‘I hope you’re not going to write “cool it”,’ Hanna laughed.
‘Well, only temporarily. Later I have to edit the text and make it sound bureaucratic, so don’t worry. For now, just let the words flow so we can get everything down.’
‘Okay,’ said Hanna with a smile. Then she turned serious again. ‘I spoke with Barbie and tried to find out what had precipitated the argument. She was very upset and kept saying that Uffe was mad because she was “talking trash” about him, but that she didn’t understand what he was on about. She calmed down after a while and seemed to be okay.’
‘And then we let them go,’ Martin filled in, looking up from the computer. He pressed Enter twice for a new paragraph, took a gulp of coffee, and continued. ‘The next incident happened at … oh, about two thirty, I would say.’
‘Thereabouts,’ said Hanna. ‘Two thirty, quarter to three.’
‘This time it was a partygoer who came to tell us about an argument taking place on the slope down to the school. We approached the scene and saw several people assaulting a lone female. They were taunting and shoving and poking at her. It was the cast members Mehmet, Tina, and Uffe attacking Barbie. We went in and broke up the fight by force. Barbie was crying; her hair was mussed up and her make-up had smeared. She seemed very shaken. I talked to the others, trying to find out what had happened. They gave the same answer as Uffe gave earlier, that Barbie was “talking a lot of trash”. That was the best explanation I could get.’
‘Meanwhile I was with Barbie a short distance away,’ Hanna filled in, sounding emotional. ‘She was upset and scared. I asked if she wanted to file a complaint against them, but she refused. I talked to her for a while trying to calm her down, find out what it was all about, but she claimed that she had no idea. After a while I looked round to see what was going on with you. When I turned back, I saw Barbie running in the direction of town, but then she went right instead of heading towards the business district. I considered running after her, but then decided that she probably just needed to be alone and calm down.’ Hanna’s voice was trembling a bit. ‘After that we didn’t see her again.’
Martin looked up from the computer and gave her a smile to console her. ‘We couldn’t have done anything differently. All we knew was that they’d had a strong difference of opinion. There was nothing to indicate that it would …’ he paused, ‘end the way it did.’
‘Do you think it was one of the cast members who murdered her?’ Hanna’s voice was still shaky.
‘I don’t know,’ said Martin, reading over what he’d typed on the screen. ‘For the moment, they’re all suspects. We’ll have to see what the interviews turn up.’
He saved the document and shut off the laptop, which he picked up as he got to his feet. ‘I’m going to my office to write up the official version now. If you think of anything else, feel free to knock on my door.’
Hanna simply nodded. After he left she just sat there. Her hands holding the coffee cup were still shaking.
Calle took a stroll through the town. Back in Stockholm he usually worked out at the gym at least five times a week, but here he had to settle for taking walks to work off the calories. He picked up his pace to get the fat burning. Looking fit was important to him. He had no time for people who didn’t take care of their bodies. It was a true pleasure to look at himself in the mirror and admire his toned abdomen, the way his biceps tensed when he flexed his arms, and the muscular build of his torso. When he was out on the town at Stureplan he always unbuttoned his shirt nonchalantly as he approached the clubs. The chicks loved it. They couldn’t stop sticking their hands inside his shirt to feel his chest, raking their nails over his buff physique.
Sometimes he wondered how his life would have been with no money. How it would be to live like Uffe or Mehmet, sitting in some dingy flat in the suburbs, barely managing to make ends meet. Uffe had bragged about the break-ins and the other stuff he’d been into, but Calle could hardly keep from laughing when he heard how little money those petty crimes had brought in. Hell, he got more than that in pocket money from his father every week.
And yet nothing seemed to fill the emptiness in his heart. In recent years he had constantly been searching for something that would finally fill that hole. More champagne, more partying, more chicks, more powder up his nose, more of everything. Always more of everything, as if there was no limit to how much money he could burn through. He didn’t earn any himself. All his money came from his father. And he kept thinking that now … now it would finally have to stop. But the money kept coming in. His father paid one bill after another. He bought him the flat in Östermalm without quibbling, and he paid off that girl who cooked up the story about being raped – totally out of thin air, of course, since she had actually come home with him and Ludde, and there was no doubt about the intention. His pockets were constantly being refilled. And there didn’t seem to be any conditions. Calle knew why. His father could never say no because his guilty conscience forced him to keep paying. He kept pouring kronor into the hole in Calle’s chest, but the money just disappeared without taking up any space.
Each of them was trying to replace with money what he had lost. His father by giving it away, Calle by spending it.
As the memories flooded over him, the pain in his chest grew worse. Calle walked faster, urging himself forward, trying to force the images back. But it was impossible to escape the memories. The only thing that could deaden them was a mixture of champagne and cocaine. Lacking those, he had to live with his past. He started to run.
Gösta sighed. Each year it got harder to stay motivated. Going to work in the morning depleted all the energy he had; trying to get anything done was almost impossible. He could spend days worrying about the simplest task. He didn’t understand how things had got this way. It had crept up on him since Majbritt died, the loneliness eating away at him from inside, depriving him of the pleasure he’d once taken in his work. He’d never been a high flier, he was the first to admit that, but he’d done what he was supposed to do and sometimes even felt a small sense of satisfaction. But what was the point of it all? He had no children to leave anything to; their only child, a son, had died only a few days old. Nobody to come home to in the evening, no one to spend the weekends with. His only pleasure was playing golf. These days it was more of an obsession than