Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 4-6: The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning. Camilla Lackberg

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      ‘Yeah, hi. I wonder if I could get some help with something.’ Patrik set his folder on the table in front of the checkout counter and carefully took out the plastic bags with the book pages inside. Jessica came over to look at what he had laid out. She was tall and slim and had medium-blonde, shoulder-length hair that was gathered into a practical ponytail. A pair of glasses rested on the tip of her nose, and Patrik couldn’t help wondering if wearing glasses was a requirement to get into library school.

      ‘Sure, just tell me what you need help with.’

      ‘I have a few pages from a children’s book here,’ said Patrik, pointing at the torn-out pages. ‘I’m wondering if there’s any way to tell what book they’re from, or more precisely what the proper order should be.’

      Jessica pushed her glasses into place and carefully picked up the plastic bags and began to study them. She placed them in a row and then moved them about.

      ‘Now they’re in order,’ she said with satisfaction.

      Patrik leaned forward and looked. Now the story developed as it should, starting with the page that had been in Elsa Forsell’s Bible. He had a bright idea. The pages now lay in the same order as the murders. First came Elsa Forsell’s page, then Börje Knudsen’s, after that Rasmus Olsson’s, and finally the page that they’d found next to Marit Kaspersen in the car. He gave Jessica a grateful look. ‘You’ve already helped me,’ he said, studying the pages again. ‘Can you tell me anything about the book? Where it comes from?’

      The librarian thought for a moment, then she went round the checkout counter and began typing on the computer. ‘I think the book looks pretty old. It was probably published quite a while ago. You can tell by the style of the illustrations and the way the Swedish in the text sounds.’

      ‘So about how old would you say it is?’ Patrik couldn’t hide the eagerness in his voice.

      Jessica looked at him over the tops of her glasses. For a moment he thought that she bore an uncanny resemblance to Annika. Then she said, ‘That’s what I’m trying to work out. If I could get some peace and quiet for a moment.’

      Patrik felt like a schoolboy who’d just been reprimanded. He kept his mouth shut as he watched Jessica’s fingers fly over the keyboard.

      After a while, which felt like an eternity to Patrik, she said, ‘The story of Hansel and Gretel has been issued in many editions here in Sweden over the years. But I ignored all those after 1950, so there were considerably fewer. Before 1950 I can see ten editions. I would guess that it’s one of the editions from the ’20s. I’ll see if I can track it on an antiquarian site and find a better image of the versions from the ’20s.’ She typed some more and Patrik had to stop himself from stamping his feet with impatience.

      Finally she said, ‘Look, does this picture look familiar?’

      He went round to her side and smiled with satisfaction when he saw a picture on the cover that was definitely drawn in the same style as the illustrations on the pages they had found next to the victims.

      ‘That’s the good news,’ Jessica said. ‘The bad news is that this is by no means a one-of-a-kind book. It came out in 1924 and a thousand copies were printed. And there’s no guarantee that whoever owned the book had bought the book or received it as a gift when it came out. He or she could have found it in an antiquarian bookshop almost anywhere. Searching websites that list books in stock at antiquarians, I find ten copies of this book for sale in different parts of the country today.’

      Patrik felt his mood plunge. He knew it was a long shot, but he’d still nurtured a tiny hope of finding out something via the book. He went back round the checkout counter and stared angrily at the book pages laid out on the table. Mostly he wanted to rip them to shreds out of sheer frustration, but he restrained himself.

      ‘Did you notice that there’s a page missing?’ Jessica asked, moving over next to him. Patrik looked at her in astonishment.

      ‘No, I didn’t think of that.’

      ‘You can see from the page numbering.’ She pointed at one of the pages. ‘The first page you have is 5 and 6, then there’s a jump to 9 and 10, and 11 and 12, and the last one is 13 and 14. So the page numbered 7 on one side and 8 on the other is missing.’

      Patrik’s thoughts were spinning. He understood with lightning-fast certainty what that meant. Somewhere there was another victim.

       8

       He really shouldn’t. He knew that. But he couldn’t help it. Sister didn’t like it when he begged, when he pleaded for what was unattainable. But something inside him made him do it. He had to find out what was out there. What was beyond the forest, beyond the field. Where she drove every day when she left them alone in the house. He simply had to find out what it looked like, the existence they were reminded of when an airplane flew over them up in the sky, or when they heard the sound of a car far, far in the distance.

       At first she had refused. Told them it was out of the question. The only place they were safe, where he, her little jinx, was safe, was in the house, their sanctuary. But he kept on asking. And each time he asked he thought he could see her resistance wearing down. He could hear how insistent he sounded, how the stubborn tone slipped into his voice every time he talked about the unknown, which he wanted to see, if only once.

       Sister always stood quietly beside him. Watching them, with a stuffed animal in her arms and her thumb in her mouth. She never said a word about having the same sense of longing. And she would never dare ask. But he sometimes saw a flash of the same desire in her eyes, when she sat on the bench by the window and looked out over the forest that seemed to go on for ever. Then he could see that the longing was just as strong in her.

       That’s why he kept asking. He pleaded, he begged. She reminded him about the story they’d read so often. About the curious brother and sister who got lost in the forest. They were alone and scared, held captive by an evil witch. They could get lost out there. She was the one who protected them. Did they want to get lost? Did they want to risk never finding their way home to her? After all, she had already saved them from the witch once … Her voice always sounded so small, so sad when she answered his pleas with more questions. But something inside him made him keep asking, even though the distress tore and ripped at his breast when her voice trembled and tears filled her eyes.

       But the temptation to know what was out there was too strong.

      

      ‘Welcome!’ Erling waved them into the hall and stood up a bit straighter when he saw the cameramen following behind.

      ‘Viveca and I think it’s so nice that you agreed to come over for a little farewell dinner. Here in our humble abode,’ he added towards the camera with a chuckle. The viewers would probably appreciate this brief glimpse into the lives of ‘the rich and famous’, as he had said to Fredrik Rehn when he presented the idea to him. Fredrik of course had thought it was a stroke of genius to invite the cast members to a farewell dinner at the home of the top dog in town. It was undoubtedly incredibly fitting.

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