The Hidden Child. Camilla Lackberg

now slipped away too, baffling her, taunting her. She gripped the armrest in frustration. She ought to be able to remember, if only she concentrated hard enough.

      A feeling of panic overtook her. Where was Herman? Was he going to be away for long? He hadn’t gone off on a trip, had he? Leaving her here? Maybe even leaving her for good? Was that what his lips had said in the vague memory that had crossed her mind? She needed to make sure that wasn’t the case. She had to go look and make sure his things were still here. Britta sprang from the sofa and dashed upstairs. Panic pounded in her ears like a tidal wave. What exactly had Herman said? A glance in the wardrobe reassured her. All his things were there: jackets, sweaters, shirts. Everything was there. But she still didn’t know where he was.

      Britta threw herself on to the bed, curled up like a little child, and wept. Inside her brain, things kept on disappearing. Second by second, minute by minute, the hard-disk of her life was being erased. And there was nothing she could do about it.

      ‘Hi! That was quite a walk the two of you took. You’ve been gone a long time.’ Erica came to greet Patrik and Maja, who gave her mother a sloppy kiss.

      ‘Uh-huh. Shouldn’t you be working?’ Patrik avoided looking Erica in the eye.

      ‘Yes, well …’ Erica sighed. ‘I’m having trouble getting started. I sit and stare at the screen, eating chocolates. If this keeps up, I’ll weigh fourteen stone by the time the book is finished.’ She helped Patrik take off Maja’s outer garments. ‘I couldn’t resist having a look at Mamma’s diaries.’

      ‘Anything interesting?’ asked Patrik, relieved that he wasn’t going to have to answer any more questions about why they’d taken such a long walk.

      ‘Not really. It’s mostly about day-to-day life. But I only read a few pages. I need to take it in small doses.’

      Erica went out to the kitchen and, as if to change the subject, she said, ‘Shall we have some tea?’

      ‘That’d be great,’ said Patrik, hanging up his coat and Maja’s. He followed Erica out to the kitchen, watching her as she busied herself putting on the water and getting out the teabags and cups. They could hear Maja playing with her toys in the living room. After a few minutes Erica set two steaming cups of tea on the kitchen table, and they sat down across from each other.

      ‘Okay, let’s hear it,’ she said, studying Patrik. She knew him so well. The expression in his eyes under the shock of hair, the nervous drumming of his fingers; there was something he either didn’t want to tell her or didn’t dare.

      ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, trying to look innocent.

      ‘Don’t you go blinking those baby blue eyes at me. What aren’t you telling me?’ She took a sip of the hot tea and waited with amusement for him to stop squirming and get to the point.

      ‘Well …’

      ‘Yes?’ said Erica helpfully, acknowledging that part of her was taking a sadistic delight in his obvious discomfort.

      ‘Well, something happened while Maja and I were out on our walk.’

      ‘Really? You’re both back home in one piece, so what could it be?’

      ‘Er …’ Patrik sipped his tea to buy some time as he pondered how best to explain. ‘We were walking over towards Lersten’s mill, and then Martin and the team turned up to check out a call they’d received.’ He gave Erica a cautious look. She raised one eyebrow and waited for him to go on.

      ‘Someone had phoned in a report of a dead body in a house on the road to Hamburgsund, so they were heading over there to take a look.’

      ‘I see. But you’re on paternity leave, so that really has nothing to do with you.’ Suddenly she gave a start, her cup halfway to her lips. ‘You don’t mean that you …’ She stared at him in disbelief.

      ‘Yes,’ said Patrik, his voice sounding a bit shrill and his eyes fixed on the table.

      ‘Don’t tell me you took Maja to a place where a dead body was found?’ Her gaze was riveted on him.

      ‘Um, yes, but Martin watched her while I went inside to have a look. He took her over to see the flower bed.’ He ventured a slightly conciliatory smile but received only an icy glare in return.

      ‘Inside to have a look?’ The ice cubes in her voice were clinking mercilessly. ‘You’re on paternity leave. The key words here are “on leave”, not to mention “paternity”! How hard can it be to say “I’m not working right now”?’

      ‘I just went inside to take a look,’ said Patrik lamely, but he knew Erica was right. He was on leave. Paternity leave. His colleagues could run the show. And he shouldn’t have taken Maja anywhere near a crime scene.

      At that instant he realized that there was one more detail Erica didn’t know about. He felt a nervous twitch on his face as he swallowed hard and added:

      ‘It turned out to be murder, by the way.’

      ‘Murder!’ Erica’s voice rose to falsetto. ‘It’s not enough that you take Maja to a house where a body was discovered – it turns out to be homicide.’ She shook her head. The rest of the words she wanted to say seemed to have stuck in her throat.

      ‘I won’t do it ever again.’ Patrik threw out his hands. ‘The team will just have to solve the case on their own. I’m on leave until January, and they know that. I’m going to devote myself one hundred per cent to Maja. Word of honour!’

      ‘You better mean that,’ snarled Erica. She was so angry that she wanted to lean across the table and shake him. Then curiosity overcame her:

      ‘Where did it happen? Have they found out who the victim was?’

      ‘I’ve no idea. It was a big white house a few hundred metres down the road on the left-hand side, on the first turnoff to the right after the mill.’

      Erica gave him a strange look. Then she said, ‘A big white house with grey trim?’

      Patrik thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, I think that’s right. It said “Frankel” on the letter box.’

      ‘I know who lives there. Axel and Erik Frankel. You know, the Erik Frankel that I went to see about the Nazi medal.’

      Patrik looked at her, dumbstruck. How could he have forgotten that? Frankel wasn’t exactly the most common name in Sweden.

      From the living room they could hear Maja babbling happily.

      It was late afternoon by the time they finally made it back to the station. Torbjörn Ruud, head of the crime tech division, and his team had arrived, made a thorough job of it, and then left. The body had also been removed and was on its way to the forensics lab where it would undergo every imaginable and unimaginable examination.

      ‘Well, that was a hell of a Monday,’ said Mellberg with a sigh as Gösta parked the car.

      ‘Sure was,’ said Gösta, never one to waste words.

      As they entered the station, Mellberg barely had time to register something approaching at high speed before a shaggy form jumped on him and he felt a wet tongue licking his face.

      ‘Hey! Hey! Cut that out!’ Mellberg pushed the dog away in disgust. Ears drooping, the disappointed animal shambled over to Annika, knowing that at least there he would be welcome.

      Gösta fought the urge to laugh as Mellberg wiped off the dog spit with the back of his hand and fussily restored his comb-over to its rightful place, muttering irritably all the while.

      Shoulders heaving with mirth, Gösta was turning into his office when the cry of ‘Ernst! Ernst! Come here, now!’ stopped him in his tracks. It had been quite a while since his colleague Ernst Lundgren had been given the axe, and there’d been no talk of him returning to the force.

      Gösta stepped out into the corridor and saw Mellberg, his face beet