The Preacher by Camilla Läckberg Read Free Book Online Page B

the search radius, or start with the big-city districts, or … ?’ He raised his eyebrows in an enquiring gesture.
    At once Patrik felt the weight of the responsibility for the investigation. Actually there was nothing pointing in any direction, but they had to start somewhere.
    ‘Check with the big-city districts. Göteborg has been taken care of, so start with Stockholm and Malmö. We should be getting the preliminary report from Forensics soon, and if we’re lucky they might be able to come up with something useful.’
    ‘Okay.’ Martin slapped the door on his way out and headed for his office. A shrill signal from the front hall made him turn on his heel, and he went to let in the visitor. That was usually Annika’s job, but while she was gone they just had to help each other out.
    The young woman looked upset. She was thin, with two long blonde braids and an enormous pack on her back.
    ‘I want to speak to someone in charge,’ she said in English.
    She spoke with a thick accent, and he guessed that she was German. Martin opened the door and motioned her to come in. He called down the hall, ‘Patrik, you have a visitor.’
    Too late it occurred to him that maybe he should have asked what her business was first, but Patrik had already stuck his head out of his office and the young woman was headed in his direction.
    ‘Are you the man in charge?’
    For a moment Patrik was tempted to send her on to Mellberg, who was technically the chief, but he changed his mind when he saw her desperate expression and decided to spare her that experience. Sending a good-looking girl into Mellberg’s office was like sending a lamb to the slaughter, and Patrik’s natural protective instincts won out.
    ‘Yes, how can I help you?’
    He motioned for her to come in and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. With surprising ease she slipped off the enormous backpack and carefully leaned it against the wall by the door.
    ‘My English is very bad. You speak German?’
    Patrik ransacked his ancient knowledge of school German. His answer depended on how she defined ‘speak German’. He could order a beer and ask for the check, but he suspected that she wasn’t here in the capacity of waitress.
    ‘Little German,’ he replied haltingly in her mother tongue, wobbling his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture.
    She seemed pleased to hear this and spoke slowly and clearly to give him a chance to understand what she was saying. To Patrik’s surprise he found that he knew more than he’d thought at first, and even though he didn’t understand every word, he got the gist of it.
    She introduced herself as Liese Forster. Apparently she had been in a week earlier to report her friend Tanja missing. She had spoken with an officer here at the station, who told her that he would contact her when he knew more. Now she’d been waiting a whole week and still hadn’t heard a peep. Anxiety was writ large across her face, and Patrik took her story seriously.
    Tanja and Liese had met on the train on the way to Sweden. They were both from northern Germany but hadn’t known each other before. They got along well at once, and Liese said that they became like sisters. Liese had no fixed plans about where to go in Sweden, so Tanja had suggested that she come along with her to a little town on the west coast called Fjällbacka.
    ‘Why Fjällbacka exactly?’ asked Patrik with his clumsy German grammar.
    The answer came with hesitation. Liese admitted that she didn’t really know why. It was the one topic that Tanja had not discussed cheerfully and openly with her. All Tanja had told her was that she had some business to take care of there. When it was done, they could continue their trip through Sweden. But first there was something Tanja needed to find. The subject seemed sensitive and Liese had not pursued it. She was just glad to have a companion on her travels and she happily tagged along. It didn’t really matter to her why Tanja had to go