We Know You Remember (18)

“Of course.”

“I’ve tried to tell Patrik that we have to have faith that the police are doing their job, to hope for the best.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” said GG.

Eira took in the movements across the yard, Sofi Nydalen coaxing the kids into the house with promises of a film, her husband shouting something from inside, a glimpse of a woman in her sixties in the doorway of the bakehouse.

“But are you getting anywhere?” asked Tryggve Nydalen, glancing through the trees, towards Hagstr?m’s house. “So the grandkids can have their freedom back. You don’t want to have to watch them constantly, you know?”

Patrik Nydalen came storming out into the yard, repeating much of what he had already vented over the phone.

That he had practically done the police’s job for them, preventing Olof Hagstr?m from leaving the scene of the crime. That their incompetence was now coming back to bite him and his family, that this was precisely the kind of thing that made people lose faith in the police and the justice system, democracy as a whole.

“I want to know what you’re doing, in concrete terms, to protect my wife and children and everyone else living around here.”

“Has Olof Hagstr?m threatened you in any way?” asked GG.

“Isn’t it enough that we’ve got a sex offender hunkering down a hundred meters from here? Does he have to threaten us too? I can’t even let my wife go swimming alone anymore, on our own beach. I saw him down there this morning, with the dog. Do you know how that feels?”

“Without a specific threat, I’m afraid we can’t offer you any protection,” GG said calmly. “The best we can do is sit down and have a chat. If you answer our questions, we can solve this.”

Sofi had taken a seat on the porch. The older woman, Marianne Nydalen, came out with a tray of coffee and cinnamon buns.

“Sit down,” she said, “and we can get this over and done with.”

From the house, they heard the theme tune to a popular children’s movie: The Children of Noisy Village. It depicted an idyll of Swedish security: a childhood in red wooden cottages in the country, where the worst that could happen was . . . what? A lamb having to be bottle-fed?

Patrik Nydalen continued to question their work.

“Where were they between seven and eight? Do you seriously need my parents to answer that again? What the hell difference does it make if they were in the bakehouse or chopping wood in the yard?”

“It’s all part of the process, they have to ask,” Tryggve Nydalen reassured his son, placing a fatherly hand on his. Patrik pulled away.

“As though you could be suspects when they know perfectly well who did it. This is all a bloody charade.”

“Let’s just get this over with so the children can come out and play.”

“We weren’t even here,” Sofi Nydalen spoke up. “We’ve told you already. Our holiday started last week, and we drove up on Monday afternoon, to avoid the weekend traffic. Stopped for something to eat and to let the kids stretch their legs. We didn’t get here until nine in the evening.”

“Ask how it feels to live here,” Patrik muttered. “Ask how it feels when you lose sight of your two-year-old daughter for even a split second.”

His mother Marianne—“Everyone calls me Mejan”—gave the officers an apologetic glance and a smile that seemed strained. “It’s just a few questions, Patrik. They have to ask.” There was something sturdy and robust about her that not even the murder of her neighbor could shake. “More coffee?”

Tryggve and Mejan had both been home that morning, pottering about in the two buildings, getting ready for the grandkids’ arrival. He had chopped wood and fixed one of the legs on the master bed, probably a few other chores too, while she got the bakehouse ready for them to sleep in. Both busy with their own little tasks, so who would have noticed a car or anyone moving about outside Hagstr?m’s place? They didn’t even have a clear line of sight over there. And there was a constant roar from the traffic on the motorway, too—though they barely even noticed it anymore.

When GG moved on to their relationship with Sven Hagstr?m, Patrik lost his temper again. Stood up so abruptly that his chair tipped over.

“No one here has any kind of relationship with him. Can’t you leave us in peace? It’s bad enough just being here.”

He stormed across the yard and disappeared behind the barn.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” said Sofi. “He gets like this sometimes. Blurts things out, as though it’ll help. He doesn’t mean much by it.”

“It’s just who he is,” said Mejan. “Patrik has always been a bit of a whirlwind.”

“You make it sound like he’s unpredictable,” said Tryggve.

“Well, that’s not what I mean at all.”

Mejan’s husband patted her hand, the same gesture he had attempted on his son. She gripped his hand.

“I was over at Sven’s house a couple of months ago,” said Tryggve. “But I wouldn’t exactly say we were friends.”

Sofi Nydalen excused herself, said she wanted to check on the children. Besides, she barely knew who Sven Hagstr?m was.

“Did you spend much time together?” GG asked once she had disappeared into the house. “As neighbors, I mean.”