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

this is what we’ll do,’ he said with forced calm. ‘I’ll call in Hanna as well, so that we can hear what observations she made last night. We should also talk to the producers of Sodding Tanum, and then it might be an idea to inform the town council. I’m sure that everyone agrees that this TV shoot will have to be cancelled at once.’

      ‘Why?’ said Mellberg, giving Patrik an astonished look.

      Patrik was gobsmacked. ‘It’s obvious! One of the cast has been murdered! There’s no way they can keep shooting now!’

      ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Mellberg. ‘And if I know Erling, he’s going to do everything in his power to ensure that they keep filming. He’s invested a lot of prestige in this project.’

      For an instant Patrik had an icy feeling that for once Mellberg might be right. But he still had a hard time believing it. People couldn’t be that cynical, could they?

      Hanna and Lars sat in silence at the dining-room table, looking as listless and exhausted as they felt. Everything hovering in the air between them also contributed to their torpor. There was so much that needed to be said. But as usual neither of them spoke. Hanna felt the familiar unease in her stomach, and it made the egg she was eating taste like cardboard. She forced herself to chew and swallow, chew and swallow.

      ‘Lars,’ she began but regretted it at once. His name sounded so desolate and foreign when it punctured the silence. She swallowed and made another attempt. ‘Lars, we have to talk. We can’t let it go on like this.’

      He didn’t look at her. All his concentration was devoted to buttering his bread. Fascinated, she watched the way he moved the butter knife back and forth, back and forth, until the butter was evenly distributed over the slice of bread. There was something hypnotic about the movement, and she flinched when he stuck the knife back in the butter tub. She tried again.

      ‘Lars, please talk to me. Just talk to me. We can’t go on like this.’ She could hear how desperate she sounded. But she felt as if she were sitting on a train that was rushing forward at two hundred kilometres an hour, with no way to get off before it plunged over the cliff that was fast approaching.

      She wanted to lean forward, grab Lars by the shoulders, and shake him. Force him to talk to her. At the same time, she knew it would do no good. He was in a place where she was not admitted, where she would never be allowed in.

      Feeling a great pressure on her chest, inside her heart, she merely observed him. She had gone silent and capitulated once again. As she always did. But she loved him so much. Everything about him. His brown hair that was still tousled after sleeping. The furrows on his face which had appeared too early but which also gave his face character. The stubble of beard that felt like fine sandpaper against her skin.

      There must be a way. She knew there was. She couldn’t allow the two of them to descend into the dark abyss, together yet still apart. On impulse she leaned forward and took hold of his wrist. She could feel him trembling. Light as an aspen leaf. She stopped the shaking by pressing his arm against the table; she forced him to meet her gaze. It was one of those rare moments in life in which only truths can be spoken. Truths about their life. Truths about the past. She opened her mouth. Then the phone rang. Lars gave a start and pulled his arm free. Then he reached for the butter knife again. The moment had passed.

      ‘What do you think is going to happen now?’ said Tina quietly to Uffe as they stood outside the community centre, dragging hard on their cigarettes.

      ‘Damned if I know,’ Uffe said with a laugh. ‘Not a fucking thing, I would think.’

      ‘But after yesterday …’ She paused and stared down at her shoes.

      ‘Yesterday doesn’t mean shit,’ said Uffe, blowing a ring of white smoke into the quiet springtime air. ‘It doesn’t mean shit, trust me. Productions like this cost tons of money, and they aren’t about to close it down and lose all they’ve invested up till now. Not a chance.’

      ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Tina gloomily, her eyes still lowered. Her cigarette now had a long column of ash, and it dropped straight down onto her suede boots.

      ‘Shit,’ she said, quickly bending down to brush off the ash. ‘Now these boots are ruined. They were bloody expensive too. Shit!’

      ‘Serves you right,’ said Uffe with a sneer. ‘You spoilt brat.’

      ‘What do you mean, spoilt?’ Tina hissed, turning to look at him. ‘Just because my parents worked their arses off instead of living on the dole their whole lives that doesn’t mean I’m spoilt!’

      ‘Don’t you say a fucking word about my parents! You don’t know shit about them!’ With a menacing gesture Uffe waved his cigarette in front of her face. Tina wasn’t scared off. Instead she took a step towards him.

      ‘I can see what you are. It’s not so bloody hard to work out what sort of people your parents are!’

      Uffe knotted his fists and a vein was pulsing on his brow. Tina realized that she might have made a mistake. She remembered what had happened last night and quickly took a step back. She probably shouldn’t have said what she did. Just as she opened her mouth to smooth things over, Calle came over to them and looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression.

      ‘What are you two up to? Are you going to fight, or what?’ He laughed. ‘Well, Uffe, you’re a master at beating up chicks, so come on. Let’s see you do it again.’

      Uffe just snorted and lowered his arms. He was scowling and he kept on staring at Tina. She took yet another step back. There was something about Uffe that wasn’t quite right. Once again scattered visual and aural impressions from last night came back to her, and she turned nervously on her heel and went inside. The last thing she heard before the door closed was Uffe saying in a low voice to Calle, ‘You aren’t so bloody bad at it yourself, are you?’

      She didn’t hear what Calle answered.

      A glance in the hall mirror showed Erica that she looked as downhearted as she felt. She slowly hung up her jacket and scarf and then paused to listen. Among the shouts coming from the kids, which were deafening but thank goodness of the happy variety, she also heard an adult voice other than Anna’s. She went into the living room. In a big pile in the middle of the floor lay three kids and two grown-ups, wrestling, shrieking, with arms and legs sticking out like some deformed monster.

      ‘And what’s going on here?’ she said in her most authoritative voice.

      Anna looked up in surprise, her hair uncharacteristically dishevelled.

      ‘Hi!’ said Dan happily, also looking up, but was then wrestled to the ground again by Emma and Adrian. Maja was laughing so hard she was shrieking as she tried to help by tugging on Dan’s feet with all her might.

      Anna stood up and brushed off her knees. Through the windows behind her the ethereal springtime light streamed in, forming a halo round her blonde hair. Erica was struck by how beautiful her sister was. She also saw for the first time how much Anna resembled their mother. That thought caused a stab of pain, followed by the eternal question: Why? Why hadn’t their mother loved them? Why had they never received a kind word, a caress, anything at all, from Elsy? All they ever got was indifference and coldness. Their father had been the direct opposite. Where Elsy was hard, he was soft. Where she was cold, he was warm. He had tried to explain, make excuses for her, compensate for her neglect. And to some extent he’d been successful. But he couldn’t take her place. There was still a gaping emptiness in Erica’s soul, despite the fact that four years had gone by since the car crash that killed them both.

      Anna gave her a puzzled look, and Erica realized she’d been staring into the middle distance. She did her best to hide her feelings and smiled at her sister.

      ‘Where’s Patrik?’ Anna asked, with a last amused glance at the tangle of arms and legs on the floor before she went out to the kitchen. Erica followed her without replying. ‘I just made a fresh pot of coffee,’ Anna said, pouring three cups. ‘And the kids and I baked