Free Buried Angels by Camilla Läckberg

missed something, though I could never put my finger on what that might be.’
    ‘What happened to the little girl?’ asked Annika, whose heart went out to any child in trouble.
    ‘There were no living relatives, so Ebba was placed with a foster family in Göteborg. As far as I know, they later adopted her.’ Gösta paused for a moment, looking down at his hands. ‘I have to say that we did a good job. We investigated every possible lead and tried to form some idea of a motive. We poked around in Rune’s past but found no skeletons in the closet. We knocked on doors all over Fjällbacka, to find out if anyone had seen anything out of the ordinary. We tackled the case from every imaginable angle, but never made any headway. Without proof, it was impossible to work out whether they’d been murdered or kidnapped or had simply left voluntarily.’
    ‘Fascinating,’ said Mellberg, clearing his throat. ‘But I still don’t understand why we need to revive this old case. There’s no reason to complicate matters unnecessarily. Either this Ebba and her husband set the fire themselves, or some kids decided to get up to mischief.’
    ‘Don’t you think it seems to involve more sophisticated planning than the sort of thing a bunch of bored teenagers would do?’ said Patrik. ‘If they wanted to burn down a building, it would be a lot simpler to start a fire in town than to go out to Valö in a boat. And as we mentioned, Martin is looking into whether this might have involved insurance fraud. But the more I hear about the old case, the stronger my gut feeling is that the fire is connected to what happened when that family disappeared.’
    ‘You and your gut feelings,’ said Mellberg. ‘There’s nothing concrete that points to a connection. I know that you’ve been right a few times in the past, but in this instance, I reckon you’re way off the mark.’ Mellberg got up, clearly pleased at delivering what he considered the truth of the day.
    Patrik shrugged, letting his boss’s remarks roll right off him. He’d long since stopped taking Mellberg’s opinion into consideration. In fact, he’d never really bothered with Mellberg’s view. So he assigned the various tasks to his colleagues and ended the meeting.
    On his way out of the room, Martin pulled Patrik aside.
    ‘Could I have the afternoon off? I know it’s short notice, but …’
    ‘Sure, of course you can if it’s important. What’s it about?’
    Martin hesitated. ‘It’s a personal matter. I’d rather not talk about it just now. Is that okay?’
    There was something in his tone of voice that stopped Patrik from asking any more questions, but he was hurt that Martin didn’t want to confide in him. He thought they had formed such a close relationship during the years they’d worked together that Martin should feel comfortable telling him if anything was wrong.
    ‘I can’t talk about it,’ said Martin, as if he guessed what Patrik was thinking. ‘So is it okay if I leave after lunch?’
    ‘Of course. No problem.’
    Martin gave him a faint smile and turned to go.
    ‘But I’m here if you want to talk,’ said Patrik.
    ‘I know that.’ Martin hesitated, but then headed off down the hall.
     
    As she made her way down the stairs, Anna already knew what she’d see in the kitchen. Dan would be sitting at the table, wearing an old bathrobe and deeply engrossed in the morning newspaper, holding a cup of coffee in his hand.
    When he saw her come into the room, his face lit up.
    ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ He reached out for a kiss.
    ‘Good morning.’ Anna turned her head away. ‘I have such bad morning breath,’ she said apologetically, but the damage was done. Dan got up without a word and went over to the dishwasher to put his cup inside.
    Why did it have to be so damned hard? She was always saying and doing the wrong thing. She wanted things to be good again, back to the way they used to be. She wanted to re-establish the natural