‘Ebba? Yes, she was.’ Berit came in, carrying the coffee pot. ‘That child was always getting into mischief. But she was so cheerful, and you could never stay cross with her for long.’
‘That’s what has made the whole thing so much harder to bear,’ said Sture. ‘We didn’t only lose Vincent, we lost Ebba too. It feels as though a big part of her died with Vincent. And the same is true of Tobias. He’s always had a rather mercurial temperament and suffered bouts of depression, but until Vincent died, things were good between them. Now… now I don’t know. At first they could hardly stand to be in the same room, and now they’re out on an island in the archipelago. As I said, we can’t help but worry about them.’
‘Do you have any theory as to who might have set the fire, or who could have fired shots at Ebba yesterday?’ asked Patrik.
Berit and Sture stared at him in horror.
‘Didn’t Ebba tell you?’ he said, glancing at Paula. It hadn’t occurred to him that Ebba’s parents knew nothing of the shooting, otherwise he would have been more careful about how he phrased the question.
‘No, the only thing she told us about was the blood they found,’ said Sture.
Patrik was searching for the right words when Paula came to his aid. In a calm and matter-of-fact voice she told them about the fire and the shooting.
Berit gripped the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles turned white. ‘I can’t understand why she didn’t tell us.’
‘She probably didn’t want to worry us,’ said Sture, but he seemed just as upset as his wife.
‘But why are they staying out there? That’s madness! They need to leave the island at once. Let’s go out there and talk to them, Sture.’
‘They seem determined to stay,’ Patrik told them. ‘But for the moment Ebba is at our house. My wife brought her home yesterday and she spent the night in our guestroom. Tobias refused to leave the island, so he’s still there.’
‘He’s out of his mind,’ said Berit. ‘We’re going over there. Now.’ She was about to get up, but Sture gently pressed her back down on her chair.
‘Let’s not do anything hasty. We’ll phone Ebba and hear what she has to say. You know how stubborn they both are. There’s no sense in making a fuss.’
Berit shook her head but made no further move to get up.
‘Can you think of any reason why someone would try to harm them?’ Paula was restlessly shifting about. Even sitting in this comfortable armchair, her joints had started to ache.
‘No, none at all,’ said Berit firmly. ‘They live a completely ordinary life. And why would anyone want to cause them more pain? They’ve already had enough grief and sorrow.’
‘It must have something to do with what happened to the Elvander family,’ said Sture. ‘Perhaps someone is afraid that they’ll find out something.’
‘That’s our theory too, but so far we don’t have much to go on,’ Patrik told them. ‘There’s one thing that puzzles us. We heard that Ebba has been receiving cards signed with the initial “G”.’
‘Yes,’ said Sture. ‘Those cards have arrived for every birthday. We thought it odd, but assumed that some distant relative was sending them. It seemed harmless so we never bothered to investigate.’
‘Ebba received a new card yesterday that was definitely not harmless.’
Ebba’s parents stared at Patrik in surprise.
‘What did it say?’ Sunlight was reflecting off the table into their eyes. Sture got up to draw the curtains.
‘Let’s just say that it sounded threatening.’
‘If so, that would be the first time. Do you think it was sent by the same person who’s been trying to harm Ebba and Tobias?’
‘We don’t know. But it would be helpful if we could see some of the other cards. Do you have any?’
Sture shook his head apologetically. ‘I’m afraid we never kept them. We showed them to Ebba and then threw them out. There were no personal messages. They just said “Happy Birthday” and were signed “G”. Nothing else. It didn’t occur to us to save them.’
‘I understand,’ said Patrik. ‘And there was nothing else about the cards that might reveal who sent them? Could you tell where they were postmarked?’
‘They came from here in Göteborg, so that wasn’t much of a clue.’ Sture fell silent. Then he gave a start and looked at his wife. ‘The money,’ he said.
Berit’s eyes opened wide. ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’ She turned to Patrik and Paula. ‘From the time Ebba first came to us up until her eighteenth birthday, money was deposited anonymously in the bank for her every month. We received a letter saying that a bank account had been opened in Ebba’s name. We saved up the money and gave it to her when she and Tobias decided to buy a house.’
‘And you have no idea who deposited the money? Have you ever tried to find out?’
Sture nodded. ‘We were curious, of course. But the bank told us that the person wanted to remain anonymous, so we had to give up. We thought it must be the same person who sent the birthday cards. Probably a distant relative.’
‘Which bank sent the initial letter about the account?’
‘Handelsbanken. The branch on Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm.’
‘We’ll check it out.’
Patrik raised an enquiring eyebrow at Paula. She nodded, so he stood up and shook hands with Sture.
‘Thank you so much for taking the time to see us. Let us know if anything else occurs to you.’
‘We will. Naturally we want to help in any way we can.’ Sture gave him a wan smile, and Patrik knew that he and Berit would phone their daughter the moment they were alone.
The trip to Göteborg had turned out to be more productive than he’d dared to hope. ‘Follow the money,’ as they said in American movies. If they could track down where the money had come from, they might get the lead they needed to move forward.
When they were back in the car, he checked his mobile. Twenty-five missed calls. Patrik sighed and turned to Paula.
‘Something tells me that the media are on to the story.’ He started up the car and headed towards Tanumshede. It was going to be a rough day.
Expressen had published the news about Valö, and when Kjell’s boss heard via the grapevine that Bohusläningen could have been first out with the story, he was not happy – and that was putting it mildly. When he finished bellowing, he sent Kjell off with orders to outdo the big-city paper. ‘Just because we’re smaller and provincial doesn’t mean that we have to be worse,’ he said.
Kjell leafed through his notes. Naturally it had gone against all his journalistic principles to give up the story, but his fight against the anti-immigrant organizations was more important. If he had to sacrifice a scoop in order to root out the truth about the Friends of Sweden and John Holm, he was prepared to do it.
It was all he could do to stop himself phoning Sven Niklasson to find out how it had gone. Most likely he wouldn’t find out much until he read about it in the newspaper, but he still couldn’t help brooding over the possible meaning of ‘Gimle’. He was convinced that Sven’s voice had changed when he heard about the note that Erica had found at Holm’s house. It sounded as if Sven had heard of Gimle before and already knew something about it.
Kjell opened his copy of Expressen and read what they’d written about the discovery on Valö. The paper had devoted four pages to the story, and it would probably be followed up with more articles over the next few days. The police in Tanum had called a press conference for the afternoon, and Kjell was hoping to hear something that would serve as a basis for his article. But there were still several hours to go, and the challenge was not to make use of the same information that the other reporters would have, but to come up with a fresh lead. Kjell leaned back in his chair to think. Locals had always been fascinated by the mysterious events on Valö, and in particular the role of the boys who had been staying at the school that Easter holiday. Over the years there had been a lot of speculation about what the boys knew or didn’t know, and whether they’d had anything to do with the family’s disappearance. If he dug up as much information as he could find about the five boys, he might be able to write an article that none of the other newspapers could match.