The Hidden Child by Camilla Läckberg Read Free Book Online Page A

What exactly had Herman said? A glance in the wardrobe reassured her. All his things were there: jackets, sweaters, shirts. Everything was there. But she still didn’t know where he was.
    Britta threw herself on to the bed, curled up like a little child, and wept. Inside her brain, things kept on disappearing. Second by second, minute by minute, the hard-disk of her life was being erased. And there was nothing she could do about it.
    ‘Hi! That was quite a walk the two of you took. You’ve been gone a long time.’ Erica came to greet Patrik and Maja, who gave her mother a sloppy kiss.
    ‘Uh-huh. Shouldn’t you be working?’ Patrik avoided looking Erica in the eye.
    ‘Yes, well . . .’ Erica sighed. ‘I’m having trouble getting started. I sit and stare at the screen, eating chocolates. If this keeps up, I’ll weigh fourteen stone by the time the book is finished.’ She helped Patrik take off Maja’s outer garments. ‘I couldn’t resist having a look at Mamma’s diaries.’
    ‘Anything interesting?’ asked Patrik, relieved that he wasn’t going to have to answer any more questions about why they’d taken such a long walk.
    ‘Not really. It’s mostly about day-to-day life. But I only read a few pages. I need to take it in small doses.’
    Erica went out to the kitchen and, as if to change the subject, she said, ‘Shall we have some tea?’
    ‘That’d be great,’ said Patrik, hanging up his coat and Maja’s. He followed Erica out to the kitchen, watching her as she busied herself putting on the water and getting out the teabags and cups. They could hear Maja playing with her toys in the living room. After a few minutes Erica set two steaming cups of tea on the kitchen table, and they sat down across from each other.
    ‘Okay, let’s hear it,’ she said, studying Patrik. She knew him so well. The expression in his eyes under the shock of hair, the nervous drumming of his fingers; there was something he either didn’t want to tell her or didn’t dare.
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, trying to look innocent.
    ‘Don’t you go blinking those baby blue eyes at me. What aren’t you telling me?’ She took a sip of the hot tea and waited with amusement for him to stop squirming and get to the point.
    ‘Well . . .’
    ‘Yes?’ said Erica helpfully, acknowledging that part of her was taking a sadistic delight in his obvious discomfort.
    ‘Well, something happened while Maja and I were out on our walk.’
    ‘Really? You’re both back home in one piece, so what could it be?’
    ‘Er . . .’ Patrik sipped his tea to buy some time as he pondered how best to explain. ‘We were walking over towards Lersten’s mill, and then Martin and the team turned up to check out a call they’d received.’ He gave Erica a cautious look. She raised one eyebrow and waited for him to go on.
    ‘Someone had phoned in a report of a dead body in a house on the road to Hamburgsund, so they were heading over there to take a look.’
    ‘I see. But you’re on paternity leave, so that really has nothing to do with you.’ Suddenly she gave a start, her cup halfway to her lips. ‘You don’t mean that you . . .’ She stared at him in disbelief.
    ‘Yes,’ said Patrik, his voice sounding a bit shrill and his eyes fixed on the table.
    ‘Don’t tell me you took Maja to a place where a dead body was found?’ Her gaze was riveted on him.
    ‘Um, yes, but Martin watched her while I went inside to have a look. He took her over to see the flower bed.’ He ventured a slightly conciliatory smile but received only an icy glare in return.
    ‘Inside to have a look?’ The ice cubes in her voice were clinking mercilessly. ‘You’re on paternity leave. The key words here are “on leave”, not to mention “paternity”! How hard can it be to say “I’m not working right now”?’
    ‘I just went inside to take a look,’ said Patrik lamely, but he knew Erica was right. He was on leave. Paternity leave. His colleagues