Камилла Лэкберг – The Girl in the Woods (страница 31)
‘Dagmar Hagelin,’ said the woman cheerfully as she set a kettle on the hob. ‘Have a seat at the table. It’s more pleasant. I only use the living room when I want to watch TV. I prefer to spend most of my time in here.’
She pointed to the worn wooden table, which was covered with crossword puzzles. Quickly she gathered them all up and set the pile on the window ledge.
‘A workout for the brain. I’ll be ninety-two in September, so I need to keep exercising the old noggin, else dementia will creep in faster than you can say … Oh, er, I forget.’
She laughed merrily at her own joke.
‘How did you get interested in MMA?’ asked Paula.
‘My great-grandson is involved at the elite level. He doesn’t compete in the UFC yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s good, and he’s ambitious.’
‘I see. But it’s still a little … um, unusual,’ Paula ventured.
Dagmar didn’t reply at once. She took the kettle off the hob using a crocheted potholder and set it on the table on top of a cork trivet. Then she got out three sweet little cups made of delicate porcelain with a pink pattern and gold rims. She put them on the table and sat down to serve the coffee. Only then did she speak.
‘We’ve always been very close, Oscar and I, so I started going to his matches. And it’s easy to get caught up in the whole thing. You can’t help it. I was quite a successful track-and-field athlete in my younger days, so I can relate to the tension and excitement.’
She pointed to a black-and-white photograph on the wall of a young and sporty-looking woman on her way over the high-jump bar.
‘That’s you?’ said Martin, impressed as he tried to match the image of the tall, slender, and muscular young woman with the tiny, stooped grey-haired granny sitting across from him.
Dagmar seemed to know what he was thinking and gave him a big smile.
‘Even I have a hard time believing that’s me. But the strange thing is, I feel the same way inside as I did back then. Sometimes I’m shocked when I look at myself in the mirror, and I find myself saying: “Who’s this old lady?”’
‘How long were you involved in sports?’ asked Paula.
‘Not long, compared to athletes today, but too long for those days. When I met my husband, I had to put sports aside, and then I had a child and a house to take care of. But I’m not blaming my daughter. That’s the way things were. She’s a fine person. She wants me to come and live with her when I can’t take care of the house any more. She’s getting on in years herself. She’ll be sixty-three this winter, so I think we’d get along all right if we ended up under the same roof.’
Martin took a sip of coffee from the delicate cup.
‘It’s Kopi Luwak coffee,’ said Dagmar when she saw the look of pleasure on his face. ‘My eldest grandchild imports it to Sweden. It’s made from coffee beans eaten by civet cats. The civets poop out the beans, which are then gathered, washed, and roasted. It’s not cheap. Usually costs about six hundred kronor per cup, but as I said, Julius imports the coffee, so he gets it for a better price, and sometimes he gives me some. He knows I love it. You’ll never taste better coffee.’
Martin looked at the coffee aghast, but then shrugged and took another sip. He didn’t care where it came from when it tasted so divine. He hesitated for a moment but decided it was time to move on from the small talk.
‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard the news,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘But a little girl was found murdered up here in the woods.’
‘I heard. My daughter came by and told me,’ said Dagmar, her expression darkening. ‘That sweet little blonde girl who was always running around like a tornado. I still go out for a long walk every day, and I often go past the Berg farm. I’d often see her out in the yard.’
‘When did you last see her?’ asked Martin, taking another sip of coffee.
‘Hmm … when was it?’ said Dagmar, looking pensive. ‘Not yesterday, but the day before, I think. On Sunday.’
‘What time of day?’ asked Paula.
‘I always take my walk in the morning before it gets too hot. She was out in the yard, playing. I waved to her as I walked past, like I always do, and she waved back.’
‘So that was Sunday morning?’ said Martin. ‘But not since then?’
Dagmar shook her head.
‘No. I didn’t see her yesterday.’
‘Did you happen to see anything that struck you as unusual? The smallest detail could be important. So even if something seems trivial to you, better to tell us and we’ll decide whether it’s significant or not.’
Martin drank the rest of his coffee. He felt so clumsy holding the fragile little cup in his hand. He set it carefully down on the saucer.
‘No, I can’t say I recall anything that would be of interest. I have a good view out the kitchen window when I’m sitting here, but I don’t remember seeing anything special.’
‘If you happen to think of something later on, don’t hesitate to phone us,’ said Paula, getting up after casting an enquiring glance at Martin, who nodded.
She put her business card on the table and pushed in her chair.
‘Thanks for the coffee,’ said Martin. ‘It was excellent and also … an experience.’
‘Precisely the way things in life should be,’ replied Dagmar with a smile.
He glanced again at the photo of the beautiful young athlete and saw the same glint in her eye as in the eyes of ninety-one-year-old Dagmar. He recognized that glint. Pia had had it too: joie de vivre.
With great care he closed the lovely old front door behind him.
Mellberg stretched as he sat at the head of the conference table. An impressive group of reporters had gathered. Not only from the local papers, but from the national media as well.
‘Is it the same perpetrator?’ asked Kjell from
Patrik was keeping a close eye on Mellberg. He would have preferred to take over, but Mellberg had put his foot down. A press conference was his moment in the spotlight, and he wasn’t about to give up the opportunity. This was in stark contrast to his readiness to step aside when it came to anything that resembled hard work.
‘We can’t rule out the possibility of a link to the Stella case, but we’re not going to get locked into any one theory,’ said Mellberg.
‘But surely it’s not a coincidence,’ Kjell insisted.
His dark beard now had a few streaks of grey.
‘As I said, we will of course investigate every angle, but when something seems too obvious, there’s a risk we might not look into other possibilities.’
Good answer, Mellberg, thought Patrik with surprise. Maybe he’d actually learned a few things along the way.
‘Though clearly it does seem a strange coincidence that the film star should come back here right before this happens,’ said Mellberg. All the reporters began feverishly taking notes.
Patrik had to clench his fists to stop himself from slapping his forehead. He could already guess what the evening headlines would be.
‘So, are you planning to question Marie and Helen?’ asked a hack from one of the evening papers.
The younger reporters were always the most persistent. Hungry to establish themselves at the paper and prepared to do whatever it took to make their name.
‘Yes, we plan to talk to them,’ Mellberg confirmed. It was obvious he was enjoying all the attention.
He gladly turned his face towards the cameras aimed at him, reaching up to make sure his comb-over was in place.
‘So are they your prime suspects?’ asked a young female reporter from the other big evening paper.
‘Well, I mean … No, I wouldn’t exactly say that …’
Mellberg scratched his head and seemed to realize he might have turned the conversation in the wrong direction. He looked at Patrik, who cleared his throat and said:
‘We have no suspects at this stage of the investigation. As Bertil Mellberg said, we’re not ruling anything out yet. We’re waiting for the technical report, and we’re carrying out interviews on a broad front, talking to people who might provide information regarding the time period when Nea disappeared.’
‘So you think it’s merely coincidence that a girl from the same farm disappears and is found dead in the same place as Stella, during the same week when one of the individuals convicted in the Stella case comes back here for the first time in thirty years?’
‘The most obvious connections are not always the most significant,’ he replied to the follow-up question. ‘So it would not be wise for us to get locked into one theory right now. As Mellberg has already pointed out.’
Kjell from
‘How did the girl die?’
Mellberg leaned forward.
‘As Patrik Hedström mentioned, we haven’t yet received the technical report, and the post-mortem hasn’t been done. So at this time we can’t address that question.’
‘Is there a risk other children might be murdered?’ Kjell went on. ‘Should parents in the area keep their children inside? As you might expect, rumours have been spreading, and people are scared.’
Mellberg paused before answering. Patrik discreetly shook his head, hoping his boss would get the message. There was no reason to frighten the local population.
‘At the present time there is no reason for concern,’ Mellberg said. ‘We’re putting all our resources into this investigation. We will find out who killed Linnea Berg.’