The Ice Child

FJÄLLBACKA 1964

The sounds, the smells, the colours. Everything so bedazzling, radiating excitement. Laila was holding her sister’s hand. They were too old for that sort of thing, but instinctively she and Agneta would reach for each other’s hand when anything unusual happened. And a circus in Fjällbacka was undeniably something out of the ordinary.

They had hardly ever been away from the small fishing village. Two day-trips to Göteborg. That was the furthest they’d gone. The circus brought with it the promise of the big wide world.

‘What language are they speaking?’ Agneta whispered, even though they could have shouted without anyone hearing because of the buzz of voices all around them.

‘Aunt Edla said the circus came from Poland,’ she whispered back, squeezing her sister’s sweaty hand.

The summer had consisted of an endless string of sunny days, but this had to be the hottest day so far. Laila had been allowed to take a day off from her job selling sewing accessories. She looked forward to every minute she didn’t have to spend inside that stuffy little shop.

‘Look! An elephant!’ Agneta pointed excitedly at the big grey beast ambling past them, accompanied by a man who looked to be in his thirties. The sisters stopped to watch the elephant, which was so impressively beautiful and so completely out of place in the field outside of Fjällbacka, where the circus was setting up.

‘Come on, let’s go look at the other animals. I heard they have lions and zebras too.’ Agneta tugged at her sister’s hand, and Laila followed, out of breath. She could feel the sweat running down her back and making damp patches on her thin summer dress with the floral pattern.

They ran between the wagons parked around the big tent which was being raised. Strong men in white undershirts were working hard to get everything ready for the next day when Cirkus Gigantus would have its first performance. Many of the locals hadn’t been able to wait until then and had come over to gawp at the spectacle. Now they were staring wide-eyed in wonder, never having seen the like before. Except for the two or three bustling summer months when tourists arrived to spend time on the beach, daily life in Fjällbacka was anything but exciting. One day followed the other with nothing in particular happening. The news that a circus was coming to town for the first time had spread like wildfire.

Agneta kept on tugging at Laila, drawing her over to the wagons where a striped head was sticking out of a hatchway.

‘Oh, look how beautiful it is!’

Laila had to agree. The zebra was so sweet, with his big eyes and long lashes. She had to restrain herself from going over to pet him. She assumed that touching the animals was not allowed, but it was hard to resist.

‘Don’t touch,’ growled a voice in English behind them, making them jump.

Laila turned around. She had never seen such a big man. Tall and muscular, he towered over them. The sun was at his back, so the sisters had to shade their eyes to see anything, and when Laila met his glance, it felt like an electric current surged through her body. She had never experienced such a sensation before. She felt confused and dizzy; her whole face burned. She told herself that it must be the heat.

‘No … We … no touch.’ Laila searched for the right words. Even though she had studied English in school and had learned a good deal from watching American films, she had never needed to actually speak the foreign language.

‘My name is Vladek.’ The man held out a calloused fist, and after a few seconds of hesitation, she responded, watching her own hand disappear in his grasp.

‘Laila. My name is Laila.’ Sweat was now coursing down her back.

He shook her hand as he repeated her name, though he made it sound so different and strange. When her name issued from his lips it sounded almost exotic and not like an ordinary, boring name.

‘This …’ She frantically searched her memory and then ventured: ‘This is my sister.’

She pointed at Agneta, and the big man greeted her as well. Laila was a bit ashamed of her stammered English, but her curiosity won out over her embarrassment.

‘What … what do you do? Here. In the circus.’

His face lit up. ‘Come, I show you!’ He motioned for them to follow and then set off without waiting for them to reply. They had to trot to keep up with him, and Laila felt her blood racing. He strode past the wagons and the circus tent that was still being raised, heading for a wagon that stood apart from the others. It was more like a cage, with iron bars instead of walls. Inside two lions were pacing back and forth.

‘This is what I do. This is my babies, my lions. I am … I am a lion tamer!’

Laila stared at the wild beasts. Inside of her something entirely new began to stir, something frightening but wondrous. And without thinking about what she was doing, she reached for Vladek’s hand.

Chapter Two

It was early morning at the station. The yellow-painted walls of the kitchen looked grey in the winter haze that hovered over Tanumshede. No one said a word. None of them had slept much, and weariness covered their faces like a mask. The doctors had fought heroically to save Victoria’s life, but without success. At 11.14 yesterday morning, she had been pronounced dead.

Martin had filled everyone’s coffee cup, and Patrik now cast a glance at his colleague. Since his wife’s death, he rarely smiled, and all their attempts to bring back the old Martin had failed. Pia had clearly taken part of Martin with her when she died. The doctors had thought she would live one more year, but things had progressed much faster than anyone anticipated. Only three months after her diagnosis, she was gone, and Martin was left alone with their young daughter. Fucking cancer, thought Patrik as he stood up to begin the briefing.

‘As you know, Victoria Hallberg has died from the injuries she sustained when she was struck by a car. The driver of the vehicle has not been charged with any crime.’

‘That’s right,’ Martin interjected. ‘I spoke with him yesterday. David Jansson. According to him, Victoria suddenly appeared in the road, and he had no time to brake. He tried to veer around her, but the road was slippery and he lost control of the car.’

Patrik nodded. ‘There’s a witness to the accident: Marta Persson. She was out riding when she saw someone come out of the woods and then get hit by a car. She was also the one who called the police and ambulance. And she recognized Victoria. From what I understand, she was suffering from shock yesterday, so we’ll need to talk to her today. Can you handle that, Martin?’

‘Sure. I’ll take care of it.’

‘In addition, we urgently need to make some progress in our investigation of Victoria’s disappearance. That means finding the individual or individuals who kidnapped her and subjected her to such horrific treatment.’

Patrik rubbed his face. The images of Victoria as she lay on the gurney had been etched into his mind. He had driven straight from the hospital to the police station and then spent several hours going through the material they had collected so far. He had studied the interviews they’d conducted with family members, as well as the girl’s classmates and friends at the stable. He was trying to map out Victoria’s inner circle of family and friends and determine what she had been doing in the hours before she disappeared on her way home from the Persson riding school. He had also reviewed the information they had about the other girls who had disappeared over the past two years. Of course the police couldn’t be sure, but it seemed unlikely to be a coincidence that five girls, all about the same age and similar in appearance, had disappeared from a relatively small area. Yesterday Patrik had also sent out new information to the other police districts and asked them to respond in kind if they had anything more to add. It was always possible that something had been overlooked.

‘We’re going to continue to cooperate with the other districts involved and combine efforts as best we can while investigating this case. Victoria is the first of the girls to be found, and maybe this tragic event can at least lead us to the others. And then we can put a stop to the kidnappings. Someone who is capable of the kind of sadistic treatment Victoria was subjected to … well, someone like that can’t be allowed to go free.’

‘Sick bastard,’ muttered Mellberg, causing his dog Ernst to raise his head uneasily. As usual, he’d been sleeping under the table with his head resting on his master’s feet, and he was sensitive to the slightest change in Mellberg’s tone of voice.

‘What can we glean from her injuries?’ Martin leaned forward. ‘Why would the perpetrator do something like that?’

‘If only we knew. I’ve been wondering whether we should bring in a profiler to assist us. So far we don’t have a lot to go on, but maybe there’s a pattern that might prove interesting, a connection that we haven’t seen.’

‘A profiler? You mean one of those psychology guys? A so-called expert who has never had contact with any real criminals? You want someone like that to tell us how to do our job?’ Mellberg shook his head so hard that his comb-over tumbled down over one ear. With a practised hand he pushed it back in place.

‘It’s worth a try,’ said Patrik. He was all too familiar with Mellberg’s resistance to any form of innovation or modern methods when it came to police work. In theory, Bertil Mellberg was chief of the Tanumshede police station, but everyone knew that Patrik was the one who did all the work, and it was thanks to him that any crime ever got solved in their district.

‘Well, it’ll be on your head if the top brass start whining about unnecessary expenses. I wash my hands of the whole business.’ Mellberg leaned back and clasped his hands over his stomach.

‘I’ll find out who’s available,’ said Annika. ‘And maybe we should check with the other districts in case they’ve already gone down this route and forgotten to tell us. We don’t need to duplicate their efforts. That would be a waste of time and resources.’

‘Good idea. Thanks.’ Patrik turned to the whiteboard where he’d already taped up a photograph of Victoria and jotted down the basic facts about her.

From the corridor they could hear the sound of a radio playing pop music. The upbeat melody and lyrics were a sharp contrast to the gloomy mood in the kitchen. The station had a conference room but it was cold and impersonal, so they preferred to hold meetings in the more pleasant surroundings of the kitchen, which also had the advantage of placing them closer to the coffeemaker. They would be drinking many litres of hot coffee before they were done.

Patrik paused to think and stretch his back before doling out the work assignments.

‘Annika, I’d like you to pull together all the materials we have relating to Victoria’s case, along with any information we’ve obtained from the other districts. We’ll need to send as much information as possible to the profiler, when we find one. And please see to it that the file is kept updated with any information we discover from now on.’

‘Of course. I’m taking notes,’ said Annika, who was sitting at the kitchen table with paper and pen. Patrik had tried to get her to start using a laptop or tablet instead, but she refused. And if Annika didn’t want to do something, there was no budging her.

‘Fine. Also, schedule a press conference for four o’clock this afternoon. Otherwise we’ll have the reporters breathing down our necks.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Patrik noticed that Mellberg was smoothing down his hair with a pleased expression. Obviously there would be no keeping him away from the press conference.

‘Gösta, find out from Pedersen when the autopsy report will be ready. We need all the facts ASAP. And please have another talk with the family. See if they’ve thought of something that might be important to the investigation.’

‘We’ve already talked to them so many times. Don’t you think they should be left in peace on a day like this?’ Gösta was looking dejected. He’d had the difficult task of speaking to Victoria’s parents and brother at the hospital, and Patrik could see that the experience had taken its toll on him.

‘Yes, but I’m sure they’re anxious for us to find out who did this. Just be as tactful as you can. We’re going to have to talk to a lot of people that we’ve already interviewed – her family members, friends, and anyone at the stable who may have seen something when she disappeared. Now that Victoria is dead, they might decide to tell us something they previously didn’t want to reveal. For instance, we ought to talk to Tyra Hansson again. She was Victoria’s best friend. Could you do that, Martin?’

Martin murmured his acquiescence.

Mellberg cleared his throat, reminding Patrik that, as usual, he needed to come up with some trivial task for Bertil. Something that would make him feel important without putting him in a position to do any significant damage. Patrik thought for a moment. Sometimes it was wisest to have Mellberg close by so he could keep an eye on him.

‘I talked to Torbjörn last night,’ Patrik went on. ‘And the forensic examination of the crime scene produced no results. It wasn’t an easy job, because it was snowing. They found no trace of where Victoria might have come from. Now they’ve run out of manpower, so I was thinking of summoning volunteers to help by searching a wider area. She might have been held prisoner in some old cabin or summer cottage in the woods. When she reappeared, it wasn’t too far from where she was last seen, so it’s possible she was somewhere in the vicinity the whole time.’

‘That’s what I was thinking too,’ said Martin. ‘Wouldn’t that indicate that the perpetrator is from Fjällbacka?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Patrik. ‘But not necessarily. Not if Victoria’s case is connected to the other disappearances. We haven’t found any clear link between the other towns and Fjällbacka.’

Mellberg again cleared his throat, and Patrik turned to look at him.

‘I thought you could help me with this, Bertil. We’ll go out to the woods, and with a little luck, we may be able to find the place where she was being held.’

‘That sounds good,’ replied Mellberg. ‘But it’s not going to be much fun in this cold.’

Patrik didn’t answer. Right now the weather was the least of his worries.

Anna was listlessly gathering up the laundry. She was unbelievably tired. She had been on sick leave ever since the car accident. By now the physical scars on her body had begun to fade, but emotionally her injuries had not yet healed. She was struggling not only with the grief of losing the baby but also with a hurt for which she alone was to blame.

Feelings of guilt churned inside her like a never-ending nausea. Every night she lay awake, going over and over what had happened and re-examining her motives. But even when she tried to give herself the benefit of the doubt, she still couldn’t work out what had made her sleep with another man. She loved Dan, and yet she had kissed someone else and allowed that man to touch her body.

Was her self-esteem so weak and her need for acknowledgement so great that she had thought another man’s hands and lips would give her something that Dan could not? She didn’t understand it, so how could she expect Dan to understand? He was loyalty and security personified. People said it was impossible to know everything about a person, but she knew that Dan would never even think of being unfaithful to her. He would never have touched another woman. The only thing he wanted was to love her.

After the initial outbursts of anger, the harsh words had been replaced by something much worse: silence. A heavy, suffocating silence. They tiptoed around each other like two wounded animals, while Emma, Adrian, and Dan’s daughters were like hostages in their own home.

Anna’s dreams of running her own home-decorating business had died the moment Dan’s hurt gaze met hers. That was the last time he had looked her in the eye. Now, whenever he was forced to speak to her directly – about something concerning the kids or even something as banal as asking her to pass the salt – he would mumble the words with his eyes lowered. And that made her want to scream. She wanted to shake him, force him to look at her, but she didn’t dare. So she too kept her eyes lowered, not because she felt hurt, but out of shame.

Naturally the children had no idea what was going on. They didn’t understand, but they were suffering from the effects. They went around in silence, trying to pretend that everything was normal. But it had been a long time since Anna had heard any of them laugh.

Her heart was so filled with remorse that she thought it might burst. Anna leaned forward, buried her face in the laundry, and wept.

This was where it all happened. Erica cautiously entered the house, which looked as if it might come crashing down at any moment. Abandoned and neglected, battered by the weather, it had stood here all these years until there was hardly anything left to remind people of the family that had once lived in this place.

Erica ducked under a board hanging down from the ceiling. Pieces of glass crunched under the soles of her winter boots. Not a single windowpane remained intact. The floor and walls bore clear signs of random occupants, with scrawled names and words that meant something only to whoever had written them. Four-letter words and insults, many of them misspelled. Those who chose to spray-paint epithets in empty buildings seldom exhibited any great literary talent. Discarded beer cans lay scattered about, and a condom wrapper had been tossed next to a blanket that was so filthy it made Erica feel sick. Snow had blown inside, piling up in nooks and crannies.

The whole house gave off an air of misery and loneliness. Erica pulled from her bag the folder of photographs she’d brought along to help her visualize the scene. They showed a different house, a furnished home where people had lived. Yet she couldn’t help shuddering because she thought she could see traces of what had happened in this place. She took a good look around. And then she saw it: dried blood, still visible on the wooden floor. And four marks where the sofa had once stood. Erica again glanced at the photos, trying to orient herself. She was starting to picture the room as it had looked back then. She saw the sofa, the coffee table, the easy chair in the corner, the TV on its stand, the floor lamp to the left of the easy chair. The whole room seemed to materialize before her eyes.

She could also see Vladek’s corpse. His big, muscular body semi-reclining on the sofa. The gaping red gash in his throat, the stab wounds on his torso, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. And the blood gathering in a pool on the floor.

In the photographs the police had taken of Laila after the murder, her eyes looked completely blank. The front of her jumper was soaked with blood, and there were streaks of blood on her face. Her long blond hair hung loose. She looked so young. Nothing like the woman who was now serving a life sentence in prison.

It had been an open-and-shut case. It seemed to have a certain logic to it that everyone simply accepted. Yet Erica had a strong feeling that something wasn’t right, and six months ago she had decided to write a book about the crime. She’d first heard about the case when she was a child, listening to people talk about the murder of Vladek and the family’s terrible secret. The events that took place in the House of Horrors had grown into a legend as the years passed. The house became a place where children could test their mettle, a haunted house they used to scare their friends, where they could show off their bravery and defy their fear of the evil within those walls.

Erica turned away from the family’s old living room. It was time to go upstairs. The chill inside the house was making her joints stiff, so she jumped up and down a few times to get warm before heading for the stairs. She carefully tested each step before proceeding upwards. She hadn’t told anyone that she was coming here, so she didn’t want to crash through a rotting step and end up lying here with her back broken.

The stairs held, but she was equally cautious about deciding to cross the floor on the second level. The floorboards creaked loudly, but they seemed able to bear her weight, so she continued on with greater confidence as she looked about. It was a small house, so there were only three rooms upstairs along with a short hallway. Directly across from the stairway was the larger bedroom that had belonged to Vladek and Laila. The furniture had been removed or stolen, so all that remained were the tattered and dirty curtains. Here too Erica found discarded beer cans. An old mattress indicated that someone had either slept in the empty house or used it for amorous activities far away from watchful parental eyes.

She squinted, trying to visualize the room based on the photographs she’d seen. An orange rug on the floor, a double bed with a pine bedstead and duvet covers with big green flowers. The room screamed the 1970s, and judging by the pictures the police took after the murder, it had been immaculate. Erica was surprised the first time she looked at the photos. Based on what she knew, she had expected to see a home in shambles, dirty and messy and neglected.

She left the parents’ bedroom and entered the next one, which was a little smaller. It had once been Peter’s. Erica found the relevant photo from the file. His room was also nice and tidy, though the bed was unmade. It was traditionally furnished, with blue wallpaper decorated with tiny circus figures. Happy clowns, elephants with plumed headdresses, a seal balancing a red ball on its nose. Lovely wallpaper for a child’s room, and Erica could understand why they had chosen that particular pattern. She raised her eyes from the photograph to study the room. Bits and pieces of the wallpaper were still there, but most of it had flaked off or been covered with graffiti. There was no trace of the thick wall-to-wall carpet except for a few patches of glue on the dirty wooden floor. The bookcase that had held toys and books was gone, as were the two small chairs and the table that were just the right size for a child to sit there and draw pictures. The bed that had stood in the corner to the left of the window was also long gone. Erica shivered. Here too the windowpanes were broken and snow had blown in to whirl across the floor.