The Stranger. Camilla Lackberg
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week after week in the House. Because there were so many other girls like her all around the country. Girls who hungrily recognized themselves in her, when she constantly ended up in confrontation with the other participants, when she sat crying in the lavatory, slashing her forearms to shreds with razor blades, when she radiated so much helplessness and desperation that the others in the House avoided her as though she were infected with rabies. Maybe that was why.
‘Gawd, how exciting! Imagine if we were, like, given one more chance.’ Jonna heard the endless anticipation in Barbie’s voice but refused to respond. The girl’s name alone made her want to puke. But the tabloids loved it. BB-Barbie was doing great on the news placards. Her real name was Lillemor Persson. One of the evening newspapers had dug up that fact. They had also found old photos of her from the time when she was a skinny little brown-haired girl with oversized glasses. Nothing like the silicone-boobed blonde bombshell she was today. Jonna had a good laugh when she saw those pictures. They had got a copy of the paper for the House. But Barbie had cried. Then she’d burnt the newspaper.
‘Look what a crowd there is!’ Barbie pointed excitedly to a group of people at the square, where the bus seemed to be heading. ‘Don’t you understand, Jonna? They’re all here for us, don’t you get it?’ She could hardly sit still, and Jonna gave her a contemptuous look. Then she stuck in the earbuds of her MP3 player and closed her eyes.
Patrik walked slowly around the car. It had driven off a steep slope and finally stopped when it hit a tree. The front was bashed in, but the rest of the car was intact. It hadn’t been able to take the curve at such speed.
‘The driver seems to have slammed into the steering wheel. I’d guess that’s the cause of death,’ said Hanna, squatting down by the driver’s side.
‘We’ll leave that to the medical examiner, I think,’ said Patrik, hearing himself sound more critical than he intended. ‘I just mean –’
‘That’s okay,’ said Hanna with a dismissive wave. ‘It was a stupid remark. I’ll stick to observing from now on, not drawing conclusions – yet,’ she added.
Patrik finished his circuit round the car and was now squatting next to Hanna. The door on the driver’s side stood wide open, and the accident victim was still strapped into the seat, leaning forward against the steering wheel. Blood had run down from a head wound and collected on the floor.
They heard one of the techs snapping photos behind them to document the accident scene.
‘Are we in your way?’ Patrik asked, turning round.
‘No, we’ve already taken most of the shots we need. Thought we’d just straighten up the victim now and take some pictures. Is that all right? Have you seen what you need to for the time being?’
‘Have we, Hanna?’ Patrik was scrupulous about including his colleague. It couldn’t be easy to be the new person, and he intended to do his best to make her feel welcome.
‘Yes, I think so.’ They both stood up and moved away to give the tech more room. Carefully he grasped the victim’s shoulder and pressed the body back against the seat. Only now could they see that the victim was a woman. Short hair and unisex clothing had made them think at first that it was a man, but one look at the face told them that the victim was a woman in her forties.
‘It’s Marit,’ said Patrik.
‘Marit?’ Hanna queried.
‘She has a shop on Affärsvägen. Sells tea, coffee, chocolate and things like that.’
‘Does she have a family?’ Hanna’s voice sounded a bit strange when she asked the question, and Patrik glanced at her. But she looked the same as usual, so maybe he was imagining things.
‘I don’t really know. We’ll have to check that out.’
The technician was now done taking photos and stepped back. Patrik and Hanna moved in closer again.
‘Be careful not to touch anything,’ Patrik said out of reflex. Before Hanna could reply he went on, ‘Sorry, I keep forgetting that you may be new in our department, but you’re an experienced cop. You’ll have to cut me some slack,’ he said apologetically.
‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ his new colleague said with a laugh. ‘I don’t take offence that easily.’
Patrik laughed too, with relief. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to working with people he knew well, people whose work habits were familiar. It would probably be a good thing to have some new blood on the force. Besides, compared to Ernst, anything was an improvement. The fact that he finally got the boot after taking the law into his own hands, so to speak, last autumn was – well, nothing short of a miracle.
‘So, what do you see?’ asked Patrik, leaning in close to look at Marit’s face.
‘It’s not so much what I see but what I smell.’ Hanna took a couple of deep sniffs. ‘She stinks of booze. She must have been dead drunk when she drove off the road.’
‘It certainly seems so,’ said Patrik. He sounded a bit distracted. With a concerned frown he peered inside the car. There was nothing out of the ordinary. A wrapper from a chocolate bar on the floor, an empty plastic Coke bottle, a page that seemed to have been torn out of a book, and in the far corner, on the floor by the passenger seat, an empty vodka bottle.
‘This doesn’t seem too complicated. A single-car accident with a drunk driver.’ Hanna took a couple of steps back and seemed to be preparing to leave. The ambulance was ready to take the body, and there wasn’t much more they could do.
Patrik scrutinized the wounds on Marit’s face. Something didn’t add up.
‘Can I wipe off the blood?’ he asked one of the crime scene techs packing up his equipment.
‘That should be okay, we have plenty of documentation. Here, I’ve got a rag.’ The tech handed Patrik a piece of white cloth and Patrik nodded his thanks. Cautiously, almost tenderly, he wiped off the blood that had come primarily from a wound on her forehead. The victim’s eyes were open, and before he continued Patrik carefully closed them with his index fingers. Beneath the blood Marit’s face was a study of wounds and bruises. She had struck the steering wheel with great force; the car was an older model without an airbag.
‘Could you take some more pictures?’ he asked the man who had given him the rag. The tech nodded and grabbed his camera. He quickly took some more shots and then gave Patrik a quizzical look.
‘That’ll be fine,’ said Patrik, stepping over to Hanna, who looked puzzled.
‘What was it you saw?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure. There’s just something that … I don’t know.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘It’s probably nothing. Let’s go back to the station. The others can finish up the work here.’
They got in the police car and headed towards Tanumshede. They drove the whole way back in silence. And in that silence something was tugging at Patrik’s mind. He simply didn’t know what it was.
Bertil Mellberg felt strangely light-hearted. The way he usually felt only when he was spending time with Simon, the son whose existence he hadn’t known of for fifteen years. Unfortunately Simon didn’t come to see him very often, but at least he came, and they’d been able to form some sort of relationship. It wasn’t an exuberant sort of bond, nor was it visible from the outside; it lived a rather hidden existence. But it was there.
The feeling, difficult to describe, came from something odd that had happened to him last Saturday. After months of nagging and pressure from Sten, his good friend – or rather his only friend, and even he might be characterized as an acquaintance – Mellberg had agreed to go along to a barn dance in Munkedal. Even though he considered himself a good dancer, it had been many years since he’d frequented a dancing establishment. And a barn dance conjured up images of hicks cavorting to fiddle music. But Sten was a regular participant and had finally managed to persuade him that barn dances were excellent