what was happening, and didn't budge from the doorway.
'That's what we intend to find out. So if you would please let us come in…'
Without a word Niclas stepped to one side. The men behind Patrik picked up their cases and equipment and came in with determined looks on their faces.
Patrik stayed behind with Niclas in the hall and seemed to hesitate a moment before he said, 'We also have permission to exhume Lennart's grave. That work has probably already begun.'
Niclas felt his mouth fall open. What was happening was just too unreal for him to grasp.
'But why? What… who…?' he stammered.
'We can't explain it all right now, but we have good reason to believe that he was poisoned with arsenic as well. Though he wasn't as lucky as Stig,' Patrik added grimly. 'But now I'd appreciate it if you could stay out of the way and let my men do their job.' Patrik didn't wait for his answer, but went into the house.
Unsure of what to do next, Niclas went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, still holding Albin in his arms. He placed him in his highchair and bribed him with a biscuit to keep him quiet. Inside Niclas's mind the questions were tumbling around.
Martin was shivering in the biting wind. His uniform jacket provided little protection from the bitter winds blowing across the churchyard. Just after they arrived it had begun to drizzle as well.
The whole operation turned his stomach. He had only been to a few funerals, and to stand here and watch while a coffin was lifted out of the ground instead of down into it felt as wrong as watching a film running backwards. He understood why Patrik had asked him to take charge this time. Patrik had already been through this experience once, just a few months earlier, and once in a lifetime was surely enough. Confirming this notion, he thought he heard one of the gravediggers muttering, 'You guys must have been placing bets at the station to see how many old coots you could get us to dig up in the shortest possible time.'
Martin didn't reply, thinking that it probably wasn't worth it to make any more requests of the prosecutor for a while.
Torbjorn Ruud came over to stand next to him. He couldn't help making a comment either. 'I suppose they'd better start putting elastic bands on the coffins here in Fjallbacka. Then all you have to do is pull them up when you want them.'
Martin couldn't resist a wry smile despite the unsuitable occasion, and they were both fighting to keep from laughing when Torbjorn's mobile rang.
'Yes, this is Ruud.' He listened, then punched off and said to Martin, 'They're going into the Florins' house now. We've assigned three men there and two out here, so we'll see whether we have to regroup.'
'What exactly do you need to do here, right now I mean?' said Martin curiously.
'There's not much we can do. Right now we're just watching to make sure that everything is removed with as little contamination as possible. Then we'll take some soil samples too. But mostly it's a matter of taking the body to the M.E. so that he can start taking the samples he needs. As soon as the coffin has been sent off we'll go over to the Florins' and help out with the search. You're going too, I assume?'
Martin nodded. 'Yes, I thought I would.' He paused for a moment. 'What a bloody mess this has turned out to be.'
Ruud nodded in turn. 'You can say that again.'
Their topics of conversation run dry, they stood in silence as they waited for the men at the gravesite to finish their work. A little while later the lid of the coffin came into view. Lennart Klinga was above ground again.
His whole body ached. Stig saw blurry shadow figures hovering around him and then vanishing again. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but no part of his body seemed to obey him. It felt as though he'd gone a round with Mike Tyson and lost big-time. For a brief moment he wondered if he was dead. Nobody could feel like this and still be alive.
The thought made him panic, and he used all the energy he had left to try and make his vocal cords work. Somewhere far, far away he thought he heard a croaking sound that might be his own voice.
It was. One of the shadow figures came closer and took on more solid contours. A female face came into view, and he squinted to try and focus.
'Where?' he got out, and he hoped that she'd understand what he meant. She did.
'You're in Uddevalla Hospital, Stig. You've been here since yesterday.'
'Alive?' he croaked.
'Yes, you're alive,' said the nurse with a smile. She had a round, open face. 'It was touch-and-go, I have to tell you, but now you're through the worst of it.'
If he could have laughed he would have. 'Through the worst.' Sure, sure, easy for her to say. She didn't know how every fibre in his body burned and how it hurt all the way down to his bones. But he clearly was alive, at any rate. With an effort he tried to shape more words with his lips.
'Ma'am?' He couldn't manage to get out her name. For a moment he thought that a strange expression passed over the nurse's face, but then it was gone. It was no doubt the pain playing a trick on him.
'Now you have to get some rest,' said the nurse. 'Soon you'll be able to have visitors.'
He let himself be content with that. Exhaustion washed over him and he willingly let it carry him along. He wasn't dead, that was the main thing. He was in hospital, but he wasn't dead.
With great care they went over every inch of the house. They couldn't take a chance on missing anything, but they didn't have all day either. When they were finished it would look like a hurricane had gone through the house, but Patrik knew what they had to find, and he was sure it was here somewhere. He didn't intend to leave until he found it.
'How's it going?' came Martin's voice from the doorway.
Patrik turned round. 'We've got about halfway through the downstairs rooms. Nothing yet. How about you guys?'
'Well, the coffin is on its way. A bloody surreal experience, I might add.'
'You can count on that scene popping up in some nightmare sooner or later. I've had a couple, with skeleton hands coming up through the coffin lid and the like.
'Stop it,' said Martin with a grimace. 'Haven't you found anything yet?' he said, mostly as a way to get rid of the images that Patrik had put into his head.
'No, not a thing,' Patrik replied in frustration. 'But it has to be here, I can feel it.'
'I always thought you had a strong feminine side, so it must be woman's intuition,' said Martin with a smile.
'Go make yourself useful instead of standing here insulting my manhood.'
Martin took him at his word and went off to find his own corner to search.
A smile lingered on Patrik's lips but then vanished. Before him he saw Maja's little body in the hands of a murderer, and the fury he felt was so strong that it made him see red.
Two hours later he began to feel downhearted. The whole main floor and the cellar were done, and they hadn't found a thing. But they were able to confirm that Lilian was an especially assiduous housekeeper. The techs had gathered up a number of containers they found in the cellar, but they would need to be taken to the lab and analysed. Maybe he was wrong after all. But then he remembered the contents of the videotape he'd played over and over last night, and he felt his determination return. He hadn't been wrong. He couldn't have been. It was here. The only question was where.
'Shall we continue upstairs?' said Martin, nodding towards the staircase.
