Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1 and 2: The Ice Princess, The Preacher

Erica gave a deep sigh and bent down to feel under the mat. With a mocking smile she held up the key to Patrik and then opened the door and let him go in first.

Someone had got the furnace started again; the temperature inside was now considerably warmer than outside, and they took off their coats and hung them on the rack by the stairs leading to the top floor.

‘Now what do we do?’ Erica crossed her arms and gave Patrik a questioning look.

‘Some time after quarter past seven, when she was talking to her mother on the phone, Alex ingested a large quantity of sedatives. There was no sign that anyone broke in, so in all probability that means that she had a visit from someone she knew. Someone who then had the opportunity to give her the sedatives. How did this someone manage to do that? Well, they must have had something to eat or drink together.’

Patrik was pacing up and down in the living room as he spoke. Erica sat down on the sofa and watched with interest.

‘Actually,’ he stopped pacing and raised an index finger in the air, ‘the medical examiner was able to tell us what she last ate, based on the contents of her stomach. What did Alexandra eat on the evening of the murder? According to the ME, her stomach contained fish casserole and cider. In the rubbish bin was found an empty packet of Findus fish casserole, and there was an empty cider bottle on the worktop, so that seems to match. What seems a bit strange is that in the fridge there were two large beef fillets, and in the oven there was a frozen potato dish. But the oven was not on, and the potato dish was still raw. There was also a bottle of white wine on the worktop. It was opened, and about five ounces were gone. That corresponds to about one glass.’

Patrik measured the amount between his thumb and index finger.

‘But there was no wine in Alex’s stomach?’ Erica was leaning forward with interest, resting her elbows on her knees.

‘No, precisely. Since she was pregnant she must have drunk cider instead of wine, but the question is, who drank the wine?’

‘Were there any dirty dishes?’

‘Yes, there was a plate, a fork and a knife with remnants of fish casserole on it. There were also two glasses in the sink. One glass was full of fingerprints – Alex’s. But there were no prints on the other glass.’

He stopped pacing and sat down in the easy chair facing Erica, stretching out his long legs and clasping his hands on his stomach.

‘Which must mean that someone wiped off the fingerprints on the glass,’ said Erica.

She was feeling incredibly intelligent as she sat there coming up with deductions, and Patrik was polite enough to try to look as though he hadn’t already thought of all this before.

‘Yes, that’s what it looks like. Since the inside of the glasses had been rinsed out we found no residue of sedative in either of them, but my guess is that Alex drank it in her cider.’

‘But why would she eat fish casserole all alone if she had a smashing dinner of beef fillets for two under way in the kitchen?’

‘Yes, that’s the question, all right. Why would a woman abandon a feast and instead heat up something in the microwave?’

‘Because she planned a romantic dinner for two, but her date never showed up.’

‘That’s my guess too. She waited and waited, but finally gave up and tossed something from the freezer into the nuker. I completely understand. It’s not much fun eating beef fillet by yourself.’

‘Anders actually came here for a visit, so it could hardly be him she was waiting for. How about the child’s father?’ said Patrik.

‘Yes, that seems the most plausible. How tragic. Here she’s prepared the world’s greatest dinner and put wine in the fridge to cool, maybe to celebrate the baby, what do I know, and then he doesn’t show up. So she sits here waiting and waiting. The question is, who came over instead?’

‘We can’t rule out the person she was waiting for,’ said Patrik. ‘He could have still shown up later than expected.’

‘Yes, that’s true. Oh, this is so frustrating! If only the walls could talk.’ Erica looked around the room.

It was a very lovely room. It felt new and fresh. When she sniffed the air she could even smell a hint of paint. The paint on the walls was one of Erica’s favourite colours, light-blue with a hint of grey, crisply contrasted with the white of the window-frames and furniture. A sense of calm filled the room, making her want to lean her head back against the sofa and close her eyes. She had seen this sofa at the House boutique in Stockholm, but on her income she could only dream about it. It was big and puffy and sort of flowed over all the edges. New furniture was mixed with antiques in an especially tasteful blend. Alex must have found the antiques during her work restoring the house in Göteborg. Most of the antique furniture was in the Gustavian style of the 1770s–80s. Erica thanked IKEA for the fact that she could even identify the style. She had often wished that she could buy a couple of pieces from their series of reproductions based on precisely this style. She gave a deep, envious sigh and then reminded herself why they were here. That quickly quashed any feeling of envy.

‘So what you’re saying is that someone she knew, her lover or somebody else, came here and they had a glass together and then this someone put a sedative in Alex’s cider glass,’ Erica said.

‘Yes, that’s the most plausible scenario.’

‘And then what? What do you think happened after that? How did she end up in the bathtub?’

Erica burrowed even deeper into the sofa and propped her feet up on the coffee table. She really had to save up for a sofa like this! For a moment the thought occurred to her that if they sold her parents’ house she would have enough money to buy any furniture she wanted. She instantly pushed that thought away.

‘I think that the killer waited until Alex fell asleep, undressed her, and dragged her into the bathroom.’

‘Why do you think the killer dragged her and didn’t carry her into the bathroom?’

‘The autopsy report showed that she had scrape marks on her heels and bruises under her upper arms.’

Patrik sat bolt upright in the easy chair and gave Erica a hopeful look. ‘Could I try something?’

Erica said sceptically, ‘It depends on what it is.’

‘I was thinking you could play murder victim.’

‘Oh, thanks a lot. Do you really think my acting talents can handle such a stretch?’ She laughed but willingly stood up.

‘No, no, sit back down. The likely scenario is that they sat here and Alex fell asleep on the sofa. So could you please collapse into a lifeless heap?’

Erica grunted but did her best to act like an unconscious person. When Patrik began pulling on her she opened one eye and said, ‘I hope you’re not thinking of taking my clothes off too.’

‘Oh no, absolutely not, I wouldn’t, I hadn’t intended to, I mean …’ he stammered and blushed.

‘That’s cool, I was only kidding. Go ahead, murder away.’

She felt him drag her onto the floor after first shoving aside the coffee table a bit. He started by trying to drag her by her wrists, but when that didn’t work very well he grabbed her under her armpits and dragged her towards the bathroom. All at once she felt extremely conscious of her weight. Patrik must think that she weighed half a tonne. She tried to cheat a little and push so she wouldn’t feel so heavy, but received a reprimand from Patrik. Oh, why hadn’t she followed the Weight Watchers diet a little more strictly the past few weeks? To be honest, she hadn’t even tried to follow it; instead she had devoted herself to unrestrained comfort eating. To top it off her jumper rode up when Patrik dragged her, and a treacherous spare tyre threatened to spill out of her waistband. She tried to suck in her stomach by taking a deep breath, but was forced to exhale after only a second.

The tiled floor in the bathroom was cold against her back and she shivered involuntarily, but not only from the cold. When Patrik had dragged her all the way over to the bathtub, he carefully set her down.

‘Well, that went smoothly enough. Rather heavy, but not impossible. And Alex weighed less than you do.’

Thanks a lot for that, Erica thought as she lay on the floor discreetly trying to pull her jumper down over her stomach.

‘Now all the killer had to do was get her into the tub.’

He made a move to lift Erica’s feet, but she got up quickly and brushed herself off.

‘No, Patrik, I refuse to go along with that. I’ve already got enough bruises for one day. And I’m not getting in that bathtub where Alex was found, that’s one thing for damn sure!’

He reluctantly accepted her protests and they left the bathroom and went back to the living room.

‘After the killer got Alex into the tub it was a simple matter to run the water and then slit her wrists with a razor blade from a bag in the medicine cabinet. Then all the killer had to do was clean up after himself. Rinse out the glasses and wipe off the fingerprints from one of them. Meanwhile Alex slowly bled to death in the bathroom. Terribly, terribly cold-hearted.’

‘And the furnace? Was it already off when she arrived in Fjällbacka?’

‘Yes, it seems so. Which was lucky for us. It would have been much harder to gather any evidence from the body if it had been in room temperature for a whole week. For example, it would probably have been impossible to distinguish Anders’s fingerprints.’