Buried Angels

Chapter Twelve

‘Thank you, dear Anna.’ Erica kissed her sister on the cheek and then rushed out to the car after waving a quick goodbye to the children. She felt a pang of guilt at leaving them again, but judging by the happy shouts when their aunt Anna came in, there was really no need for her to feel bad.

She drove towards Hamburgsund, her mind filled with questions. She was annoyed that she hadn’t got any further in her search to find out what had happened to the Elvander family. She kept coming up against dead ends, and she was no closer than the police to solving their disappearance. But she wasn’t about to give up. The family’s history was fascinating, and the more she dug into the archives, the more interesting it got. It was as if the women in Ebba’s family had some sort of curse hanging over them.

But for the time being, Erica pushed aside all thoughts of the past. Thanks to Gösta, she finally had a lead worth following. He had mentioned a name, and after doing a bit of further research she was now sitting in her car, on her way to see a source she hoped would have valuable information. Researching old cases was often like putting together a gigantic puzzle which was missing a number of vital pieces. Experience had taught her that it was best to ignore those missing pieces and concentrate on slotting everything else into place; sooner or later the image would manifest itself. This case was a long way from becoming clear, but she was hoping that the puzzle would soon acquire more pieces so that she’d be able to form an idea of what the picture was meant to portray. Otherwise, all her efforts would be in vain.

When she came to Hansson’s petrol station, she pulled in to ask for directions. She had a vague idea where she was going, but there was no point driving around aimlessly. Behind the counter stood Magnus, who owned the station along with his wife. Aside from his brother Frank and his sister-in-law Anette, who ran the sausage stand on the square, no one knew more about the people of Hamburgsund than Magnus.

He gave Erica a rather strange look but didn’t say a word as he drew her a detailed map on a piece of scrap paper. She drove off, keeping one eye on the road and the other on the map, until she finally came to what had to be the right building. Only then did she realize that it was possible there’d be no one at home on such a nice day. Most people who had the day off would be at the beach or out on some island in the archipelago. But now that she was here, she might as well ring the bell. When she got out of the car and heard music, she was more hopeful.

As she waited for someone to come to the door, she hummed the melody: ‘Non, je ne regrette rien,’ sung by Édith Piaf. She knew only the words of the refrain, in her faulty French, but she was drawn in by the music and barely registered the door opening.

‘Ah, I sense a Piaf admirer!’ said a short man in a dark purple silk gown with gold trim. He was wearing stage make-up.

Erica couldn’t hide her surprise.

The man smiled. ‘All right, sweetheart. Are you selling something, or are you here for some other reason? If you’re selling, I already have everything I want, but otherwise you’re welcome to come in and keep me company on the veranda. Walter doesn’t like the sun, so I’m sitting there all by my lonesome. And there’s nothing sadder than drinking a good rosé wine all alone.’

‘Oh, yes, well… There is a reason why I’m here,’ Erica managed to say.

‘Excellent!’ The man clapped his hands with pleasure and backed up to allow her to come in.

Erica looked around the front hall. Everywhere she saw gold and tassels and velvet. To say the decor was ‘ostentatious’ didn’t begin to do it justice.

‘I furnished this floor, while Walter was allowed to do whatever he liked with the upstairs. If you want a marriage to last as long as ours has, you have to be willing to compromise. We’re about to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary, and we lived in sin for ten years before that.’ He turned to the stairs and shouted: ‘Darling, we have a visitor! Come down and have a drink with us in the sunshine instead of sitting up there sulking!’

He moved on through the hall, gesturing upstairs.

‘You should see what it’s like up there. It reminds me of a hospital. Totally sterile. Walter says it’s stylistically pure. He’s so enamoured of the so-called Nordic design, and there’s nothing cosy about that. And it’s not exactly hard to accomplish either. All you have to do is paint everything white, bring in a few of those disgusting IKEA pieces of furniture made out of birch, and voilà – you’ve created a Swedish home.’

He walked around a huge armchair upholstered in red brocade and headed for the open French doors leading on to the balcony. A bottle of rosé was sitting in an ice bucket on the table, with a half-empty wine glass next to it.

‘May I offer you a glass?’ He was already reaching for the bottle. His silk gown fluttered around his thin, pale legs.

‘That would be lovely, but I’m driving,’ said Erica, thinking how good it would be to have a glass of wine on this sunny veranda with its view of the sound and Hamburg Island.

‘Oh, but that sounds so boring. You sure I can’t tempt you to have even a teeny drop?’ He waved the bottle enticingly as he lifted it out of the ice bucket.

Erica couldn’t help laughing. ‘My husband is a police officer, so I’m afraid I daren’t, no matter how much I’d like to.’

‘I’ll bet he’s terribly handsome! I’ve always loved men in uniform.’

‘Me too,’ said Erica, sitting down on one of the patio chairs.

The man moved away to turn down the volume on the CD player. He poured Erica a glass of water and handed it to her with a smile.

‘So, why is a lovely girl like you paying me a visit?’

‘My name is Erica Falck, and I’m a writer. At the moment I’m doing research for my next book. You’re Ove Linder, right? And you were a teacher at Rune Elvander’s boarding school for boys in the early seventies.’

His smile faded. ‘Ove. That was a long time ago…’

‘Have I come to the wrong place?’ said Erica, realizing that she might have misread Magnus’s convoluted directions.

‘No, no, but it’s been a while since I was Ove Linder.’ Pensively he twirled the glass in his hands. ‘I haven’t officially changed my name. If I had, you wouldn’t have been able to find me, but nowadays I’m called Liza. No one says Ove, except Walter, and that’s only if he’s cross with me. I chose the name Liza after Liza Minelli, of course, although I’m only a pale imitation.’ He cocked his head, apparently waiting for Erica to protest.

‘Stop fishing for compliments, Liza.’

Erica turned her head. She assumed that the person in the doorway had to be Walter, the husband.

‘There you are. Come here and say hello to Erica,’ said Liza.

Walter came outside, standing behind Liza and tenderly placing his hands on her shoulders. Liza put her free hand over her husband’s and squeezed it. Erica found herself hoping that she and Patrik would be as loving towards each other after they’d been together for twenty-five years.

‘What’s this all about?’ asked Walter as he sat down. Unlike his partner, he would have passed unnoticed in a crowd: average height and build, with a receding hairline and discreet attire. The kind of person witnesses would find it impossible to remember if asked to identify him in a criminal case, Erica thought. But he had intelligent eyes, and he seemed nice. In a strange way, she had the feeling that this odd pair was perfectly matched.

She cleared her throat. ‘As I said, I’m trying to find out more about the boarding school on Valö. You were one of the teachers, right?’

‘Yes, unfortunately,’ said Liza with a sigh. ‘That was an awful time. I hadn’t yet come out, and back then it wasn’t as acceptable to be gay as it is today. Plus Rune Elvander was a terrible bigot, and he wasn’t afraid to air his prejudices. Before I decided to accept my true self, I tried desperately to fit in with everyone else. I’ve never been the lumberjack type, of course, but I made an effort to appear to be heterosexual and so-called normal. I got plenty of practice while I was growing up.’

He gazed down at the table, and Walter stroked his arm sympathetically.

‘I think I managed to fool Rune. But I had to put up with a lot of taunting from the students. That school was full of nonentities who got a kick out of finding other people’s weak spots. I was only there six months, and I probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer. In fact, I wasn’t planning to go back after the Easter holiday, but I was saved the trouble of handing in my resignation.’

‘What was your reaction to the disappearance? Do you have any theories?’ asked Erica.

‘Of course it was dreadful, no matter what I thought of the family. I assume that something horrible happened to them.’

‘But do you have any clue what that might be?’

‘No, it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to everybody else,’ said Liza.

‘What was the atmosphere like at the school? Were there people who didn’t get along?’

‘That’s putting it mildly. That place was an absolute pressure cooker.’

‘How do you mean?’ Erica felt her pulse quicken. For the first time she had the chance to find out what had gone on behind the scenes. Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier?

‘According to the teacher whose place I took, the pupils were at each other’s throats right from the start. They were accustomed to having their own way, but they were also under a lot of pressure from home to succeed. Which inevitably resulted in cock-fights. By the time I started at the school, Rune had cracked the whip and the boys were toeing the line, but I could sense the tension simmering below the surface.’

‘What was the boys’ relationship with Rune?’

‘They hated him. He was a sadistic psychopath.’ Liza’s voice was coldly matter-of-fact.

‘You don’t paint a very nice picture of Rune Elvander.’ Erica regretted not bringing along her tape recorder. She was going to have to try to remember as much as possible from this conversation.

Liza shuddered. ‘Rune Elvander was one of the most despicable people I’ve ever met. And believe me…’ Liza cast a glance at Walter, ‘if you live a life like ours, you run into plenty of unpleasant types.’

‘What about his relationship with his family?’

‘That depends on which family members you’re talking about. I wouldn’t have said Inez was happy. It’s hard to see why she married Rune. She was young and sweet. I suspected that it was her mother who forced her into the marriage. But the old crone died shortly after I started at the school – which probably came as a relief for Inez, because that woman was a nasty piece of work.

‘What about Rune’s children?’ Erica went on. ‘How did they view their father and stepmother? It can’t have been easy for Inez to become part of the family. Wasn’t she only a few years older than her oldest stepchild?’

‘Yes. An awful boy, much like his father.’

‘What was his name, the oldest son?’

‘Claes.’

A long pause followed. Erica waited patiently.

‘He’s the one I remember most. I get shivers just thinking about him. I can’t say why that should be. He was always polite to me, but there was something about Claes that made me unwilling to turn my back whenever he was present.’

‘Did he and Rune get along?’

‘It’s hard to say. They circled around each other like two planets, without ever crossing paths.’ Liza laughed with embarrassment. ‘I sound like some New Age woman or a bad poet…’

‘Not at all. Please go on,’ said Erica, leaning forward. ‘I get what you mean. So there were never any conflicts between Rune and Claes?’

‘No, they pretty much kept to their own turf. Claes seemed to obey Rune’s slightest command, but how he felt about his father is anyone’s guess. Yet there was at least one thing that they had in common. They both worshipped Carla – Rune’s deceased wife and Claes’s mother – and they both seemed to despise Inez. In Claes’s case, that might be understandable, since she was supposed to take his mother’s place, but Rune was the one who’d married her.’

‘So Rune treated Inez badly?’

‘Yes. Or at least, it was not a loving relationship. He was always ordering her around, as if she was his subordinate instead of his wife. Claes, on the other hand, was openly mean and shameless in the way he treated his stepmother. And he didn’t seem to have any affection for Ebba either. It wasn’t much better when it came to his sister Annelie.’

‘What did Rune make of his children’s behaviour? Did he encourage them?’ Erica took a sip of water. It was hot out on the veranda, even in the shade of the big umbrella.

‘In Rune’s eyes, they could do no wrong. He used his military tone of voice with them too, but he was the only one who was ever allowed to reprimand his children. If anyone else complained about them he would fly into a rage. I know that Inez tried it once, but never again. No, the one member of that family who was nice to her was Rune’s youngest, Johan. He was considerate and sweet and very attached to Inez.’ Liza’s expression turned sad. ‘I wonder what happened to little Ebba.’

‘She’s back on Valö. She and her husband are renovating the house. And the day before yesterday…’

Erica bit her lip. She didn’t know how much she dared reveal, but at the same time, Liza had been so open with her. She took a deep breath.

‘The day before yesterday they found blood when they pulled up the floor in the dining room.’

Liza and Walter stared at her. Off in the distance they could hear the sound of boats and people talking, but on the veranda it was utterly silent. Finally Walter spoke:

‘You’ve always said that they must be dead.’

Liza nodded. ‘Yes, that seemed most likely. Besides…’

‘Besides what?’ said Erica.

‘Oh, it’s too silly.’ He waved his hand, making the sleeve of his silk gown flutter. ‘I never mentioned it to anyone back then.’

‘Nothing is too insignificant or too silly. Tell me.’

‘It wasn’t anything in particular, but I had the feeling that things were about to take a turn for the worse. And I heard…’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s too stupid.’

‘Go on,’ said Erica, resisting the impulse to lean across the table and shake the words out of him.

Liza took a big gulp of wine and then looked her in the eye.

‘There were noises in the night.’

‘Noises?’

‘Yes. Footsteps, doors opening, a distant voice. But when I got up to investigate, there was no one there.’

‘As if they were ghosts?’ said Erica.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Liza sombrely. ‘The only thing I can say is that I heard noises, and I had a feeling that something terrible was going to happen. So I wasn’t surprised when I heard about the family disappearing.’

Walter nodded. ‘You’ve always had a sixth sense.’

‘Oh, what rubbish I’m jabbering,’ said Liza. ‘Things are getting much too sad around this table. Erica will think we’re a couple of real doomsayers.’ Suddenly the gleam was back in his eyes, and he smiled broadly.

‘Not at all. I want to thank you for allowing me to come here and talk to you. You’ve given me a lot to think about, but I’d better head home now,’ said Erica, getting to her feet.

‘Give my greetings to little Ebba,’ said Liza.

‘I’ll do that.’

They made a move to accompany her to the door, but she motioned for them to stay where they were.

‘Don’t get up. I can find my way out.’

As she passed the sea of gold and tassels and velvet cushions, she heard behind her Édith Piaf singing about her broken heart.

‘Where the hell were you this morning?’ said Patrik, going into Gösta’s office. ‘I wanted you to go with me to interview John Holm.’

Gösta glanced up. ‘Didn’t Annika tell you? I had a dental appointment.’

‘Dental appointment?’ Patrik sat down and gave him a searching look. ‘No cavities, I hope?’

‘Nope. No cavities.’

‘How’s it going with the list?’ Patrik indicated the stack of documents on the desk in front of Gösta.

‘Well, I’ve compiled most of the current addresses for the former pupils.’

‘That was fast.’

‘State ID numbers,’ said Gösta, pointing at the old roster of students. ‘All you have to do is use your brain.’ He handed a paper to Patrik. ‘How’d it go with the Nazi leader?’

‘I don’t think he’d particularly care for that description,’ said Patrik as he began scanning the list.

‘Well, that’s what he is. They’ve stopped shaving their heads, but they haven’t changed. Did Mellberg behave himself?’

‘What do you think?’ said Patrik, putting the list on his lap. ‘You might say that the Tanum police didn’t exactly show their best side during the interview.’

‘Did you at least find out something new?’

Patrik shook his head. ‘Not much. John Holm doesn’t know anything about the disappearance. And nothing had happened at the school that might explain it. There was nothing to report, other than the tensions one would expect between a bunch of teenagers and a strict headmaster. Etcetera.’

‘Have you heard anything from Torbjörn yet?’ asked Gösta.

‘No. He promised to put a rush on it, but since we don’t have any fresh corpses to present, the case is probably not a high priority. Besides, the statute of limitations has expired, even if it should turn out that the family was murdered.’

‘But the report on the blood analysis could give us some leads that are relevant for our arson investigation. Have you forgotten that somebody tried to burn down the house the other night, with Ebba and Tobias inside? You’re the one who was so adamant that the fire and the disappearance were connected. And what about Ebba? Doesn’t she have a right to hear what happened to her family?’

Patrik held up his hands. ‘I know, I know. But as yet I haven’t found anything of interest in the old investigative materials, and it’s starting to feel a bit hopeless.’

‘Is there anything at all to go on in Torbjörn’s report about the fire?’

‘No. It was ordinary petrol, ignited by an ordinary match. Nothing else concrete.’

‘Then we need to start at the other end of the puzzle.’ Gösta turned and nodded at a photograph hanging on the wall. ‘I think we need to put some pressure on those boys. They know more than they told us back then.’

Patrik got up and went over to study the picture of the five boys.

‘You’re probably right. I saw from the list that you think we should start by interviewing Leon Kreutz. Why don’t we go and have a talk with him now?’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t know where he is. His mobile is switched off, and at the hotel they said that he and his wife had moved out. Presumably they’re getting settled in their new house. Shall we wait until tomorrow, after they’ve had time to unpack? Then we can talk to them in peace and quiet.’

‘Okay. In that case, why don’t we go see Sebastian Månsson and Josef Meyer instead? They both live nearby.’

‘Sure. First I need to clean up in here a bit.’

‘And we mustn’t forget to check up on this mysterious “G”.’

‘G?’

‘Yes, the person who’s been sending a birthday card to Ebba every year.’

‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’ Gösta began fidgeting with the papers on his desk.

‘You never know. As you just said: we need to find a thread and then follow it.’

‘If you pull on too many threads at once, you might get everything all tangled up,’ muttered Gösta. ‘It doesn’t sound relevant.’

‘I disagree,’ said Patrik, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I suggest that…’

His mobile buzzed and he glanced at the display.

‘I need to take this call,’ he said, and left the room.

A few minutes later Patrik came back into the office with a triumphant expression on his face.

‘We might finally have the lead we’ve been hoping for. That was Torbjörn on the phone. There wasn’t any more blood under the dining-room floor, but they found something else even better.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Wedged under the floorboards was a bullet. So it looks as though a shot was fired in the very room where the family was gathered before they disappeared.’

Patrik and Gösta exchanged sombre glances. A moment earlier they had been feeling discouraged, but in an instant the investigation had come to life again.

Erica had planned to drive straight home to relieve Anna, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she continued on to Fjällbacka, heading for Mörhult. After hesitating about whether to turn left at the mini-golf course and go down to the boathouses, she decided to take the chance that they would be at home. By now it was late afternoon.

The door was propped open by a wooden clog decorated with flowers, and she stuck her head into the front hall. ‘Hello?’ she called.

She heard sounds from inside and a moment later John Holm appeared, holding a tea towel.

‘I’m sorry, am I interrupting your dinner?’ said Erica.

He glanced down at the towel. ‘No, not at all. I was washing my hands. Can I help you?’

‘My name is Erica Falck, and right now I’m working on a book…’

‘Aha, so you’re Fjällbacka’s famous author? Come join me in the kitchen. Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he said, giving her a warm smile. ‘So what brings you here?’

They sat down at the kitchen table.

‘I’m planning to write a book about what happened out on Valö.’ She thought she caught a hint of uneasiness in his blue eyes, but it vanished so swiftly that she might have just imagined it.

‘It’s strange how everybody seems to be so interested in Valö all of a sudden. If I’ve understood the local gossip correctly, then it was your husband that I talked to earlier today.’

‘Yes, I’m married to a police officer. Patrik Hedström.’

‘He had somebody else with him who was quite… interesting.’

It didn’t take much for Erica to realize who he was talking about.

‘I see you’ve had the honour of meeting Bertil Mellberg – the man, the myth, the legend!’

Holm laughed and Erica could feel herself falling under the spell of his charm. And that annoyed her. She detested everything that he and his party stood for, but at the moment he seemed harmless. Quite engaging, actually.

‘I’ve met his type before. Your husband, on the other hand, seems very good at his job.’

‘I’m partial, of course, but he’s a good policeman. He keeps digging until he finds out what he wants to know. Just like I do.’

‘You must make a dangerous team.’ Holm smiled again, showing two perfect dimples.

‘I suppose so. But sometimes it’s possible to get stuck. I’ve been researching the disappearance off and on for a few years, and now I’ve decided to take up the story again.’

‘And you’re going to write a book about it?’ This was accompanied by another glimmer of anxiety in Holm’s eyes.

‘That’s the plan. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’ She took out a pen and paper.

For a moment John Holm seemed to hesitate. ‘That’s fine,’ he said eventually. ‘But as I explained to your husband and his colleague, I don’t really have much to contribute.’

‘As I understand it, there were certain conflicts among members of the Elvander family.’

‘Conflicts?’

‘Yes. Apparently Rune’s children weren’t very fond of their stepmother.’

‘As pupils, we didn’t get involved in their family dynamics.’

‘But it was such a small school. You must have noticed what went on within the family.’

‘It didn’t interest us. We didn’t want anything to do with them. It was bad enough having to deal with Rune.’ Holm appeared to regret having agreed to answer her questions. He hunched his shoulders and fidgeted, which only increased Erica’s determination to press on. Apparently there was something about this line of enquiry that made John Holm uncomfortable.

‘What about Annelie? A sixteen-year-old girl and a bunch of teenage boys – how did that work?’

Holm snorted. ‘Annelie was totally boy-crazy, but none of us ever encouraged her. There are certain girls that you learn to stay away from, and Annelie was one of them. Besides, Rune would have murdered us if we so much as touched his daughter.’

‘What do you mean when you say that she was the kind of girl you learned to stay away from?’

‘She kept running after us and acting strange, and I think she would have loved getting us in trouble. One time she stretched out right outside our window to sunbathe topless, but Leon was the only one who dared look at her. He was a death-defying kind of guy, even back then.’

‘What happened? Did her father catch her?’ Erica felt herself being drawn into a whole different world.

‘Her brother Claes used to protect her. On that occasion he saw her and dragged her away. He was so rough that I thought he was going to tear her arm off.’

‘Did she have a crush on any of you boys?’

‘Naturally. Who do you think?’ said Holm, but then he realized that Erica had no idea what he meant. ‘Leon, of course. He was the perfect boy. His family was filthy rich, he was handsome, and he possessed a self-confidence that none of the rest of us could even approach.’

‘But he wasn’t interested in her?’

‘As I said, Annelie was the kind of girl who caused trouble, and Leon was too smart to get involved with her.’ A mobile began ringing in the living room, and he jumped up. ‘Sorry, but do you mind if I answer that?’

Without waiting for her reply, he left the kitchen, and Erica heard him speaking in a low voice. No one else seemed to be at home. She gazed around the room while she waited. A pile of documents stacked up on a kitchen chair caught her interest. Casting a quick glance over her shoulder, she began leafing through the pages. They seemed for the most part to be records of parliamentary proceedings and meetings, but then she gave a start. Between two printouts she found a piece of paper covered with scribbles that she couldn’t decipher. From the living room she heard Holm saying goodbye, so she quickly pulled the page out of the pile of documents and slipped it into her handbag. When he returned to the kitchen, she gave him an innocent smile.

‘Everything okay?’

He nodded and sat down again.

‘That’s the disadvantage of my job. I’m never off duty, not even while on holiday.’

Erica murmured her sympathy. She didn’t want to get into a discussion of Holm’s political activities. Her own views would become all too obvious, and there was a risk that they would end up at loggerheads. Then she wouldn’t find out anything more about Valö.

She picked up her pen. ‘So how was Inez with the pupils?’

‘Inez?’ Holm looked away. ‘We didn’t see much of her. She was busy taking care of the house and her little daughter.’

‘But surely you had some sort of relationship with her? I’m familiar with the house, and it’s not especially big, so you must have run into each other fairly often.’

‘Of course we saw Inez. But she was a silent and browbeaten woman. She didn’t care for us, and we didn’t care for her.’

‘Apparently her husband wasn’t overly fond of her either.’

‘No. It was incomprehensible that a man like him had managed to sire four children. We speculated that they had to be the result of immaculate conception.’ Holm gave her a crooked smile.

‘What did you think of the two teachers at the school?’

‘They were both real characters. Excellent teachers, but Per-Arne was an old military man, and even more rigid than Rune, if that was possible.’

‘What about the other teacher?’

‘Ove? Hmm… There was something fishy about him. A closet homosexual. That was the predominant theory. I wonder if he ever came out.’

Erica had to stop herself from laughing. She pictured Liza, with the false eyelashes and beautiful silk gown.

‘Maybe he did,’ she said with a smile.

Holm gave her a puzzled look, but she didn’t explain any further. It was not up to her to inform Holm about Liza’s life, and besides, she was well aware of the Friends of Sweden stance on homosexuals.

‘You don’t recall anything in particular about the teachers?’

‘No, nothing. There were clear boundaries between the students, the teachers, and the family. Everyone was expected to know his place. Each group kept to itself.’

Rather like your policies, thought Erica, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting. She could sense that Holm was starting to get impatient, so she asked her last question:

‘According to one person that I’ve talked to, there were some strange noises in the house at night. Do you remember anything like that?’

He gave a start. ‘Who said that?’

‘It’s not important.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Holm and stood up.

‘So you don’t know about these noises?’

‘Absolutely not. And now I’m afraid I must make a few phone calls.’

Erica realized that she wasn’t going to find out anything else, at least not now.

‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,’ she said, gathering up her things.

‘My pleasure.’ He’d turned on the charm again, but he rushed her out the door so fast her feet barely touched the ground.

Ia pulled up Leon’s underpants and trousers and helped him over to the wheelchair from the toilet.

‘All right, you can stop grimacing,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand why we can’t hire a nurse to do this sort of thing,’ said Leon.

‘I want to take care of you myself.’

‘Your heart is overflowing with kindness,’ Leon snorted. ‘You’re going to strain your back if you keep on this way. We need to have someone come in to help you.’

‘It’s nice of you to worry about my back, but I’m very strong, and I don’t want somebody else coming in and… getting in the way. It’s you and me. Until death do us part.’ Ia tried to caress the uninjured side of his face, but he shrank from her touch, and she drew her hand back.

He wheeled himself away from her as she sat down on the sofa. They had bought the house fully furnished, and today they had finally been allowed to move in after the bank in Monaco had approved their withdrawal. They had paid the entire sum in cash. From the window they could see all of Fjällbacka, and she was enjoying the amazing view more than she thought she would. She heard Leon swearing out in the kitchen. Nothing had been adapted for wheelchair access, so he was having a hard time reaching things, and he kept on running into corners and cabinets.

‘I’m coming,’ she shouted but didn’t jump up immediately. Sometimes it was good to make him wait for a bit. So he wouldn’t take her help for granted. The same way he had taken her love for granted.

Ia looked down at her hands. They were just as scarred as Leon’s. When she went out she always wore gloves to hide the scars from prying eyes, but here at home she wanted him to see the injuries she had sustained when she pulled him out of the burning car. Gratitude – that was what she demanded. She’d given up all hope of love. She was no longer sure whether Leon was capable of loving another person. Once upon a time she had thought so. Back then his love was the only thing that mattered. When had that love turned to hatred? She didn’t know. For so many years she had tried to discover her flaws, tried so hard to correct whatever he criticized, done her utmost to give him what he seemed to want. But he had continued to torment her as if deliberately trying to hurt her. The mountains, the sea, the deserts, the women. None of it was important. They were all his mistresses. And the long periods of waiting for him to come home had been unbearable.

She touched her face. It was smooth, without expression. She suddenly remembered the pain of the operations. He was never there to hold her hand when she woke up from the anaesthesia. He was never there when she came home. The healing seemed to take forever. Now she didn’t recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. But she didn’t have to try hard any more. There were no mountains that Leon could climb, no deserts that he could drive through, no women for whom he could leave her. He was hers. All hers.

Tobias frowned as he stretched. His body ached from the endless manual labour, and he’d almost forgotten what it was like not to be in pain. He knew that it was the same for Ebba. When she thought he wasn’t looking, she would often massage her shoulders and joints, grimacing the same way he did.

But the ache in their hearts was worse. They lived with it day and night, and the loss was so great that it was impossible to see where it started or ended. But Vincent was not the only one he missed; he missed Ebba too. And things had got worse when the loss was combined with the anger and guilt that they couldn’t escape.

He sat on the steps with a mug of tea in his hand, gazing across the water at Fjällbacka. The view was most beautiful in the golden light of the evening sun. Somehow he’d always known that they would come back here. Even though he believed Ebba when she said that she’d had a good childhood, he’d sometimes sensed that she carried with her a question that would not go away until she at least tried to find the answer. He was certain that if he had broached the subject before everything fell apart, she would have denied it. But all the same Tobias had remained convinced that one day they would come here, to the place where it all began.

When circumstances finally forced them to flee – to something that was both familiar and unfamiliar, to a life in which Vincent had never existed – Tobias had harboured such hope. He hoped that they’d find their way back to each other and be able to leave the anger and guilt behind. But Ebba had shut him out and rejected all his attempts at intimacy. Did she have the right to do that? The pain and grief were not hers alone; they were his too. Surely he deserved to see that she was at least willing to try?

Tobias gripped the mug harder as he gazed out at the horizon. He pictured Vincent in his mind. His son had been so much like him. They had laughed about that even in the maternity ward. Newborn and swaddled in a blanket, Vincent had lain in his pram like a little caricature of Tobias. The resemblance had grown stronger, and Vincent had worshipped his father. At the age of three he would follow Tobias around like a puppy, and it was always his pappa that he called for first. Occasionally Ebba had complained, saying that it was ungrateful of Vincent, after she’d carried him for nine months and endured a painful birth. But she didn’t mean it. It made her happy to see Vincent and Tobias grow so close, and she was content to take the number two spot.

Tears filled Tobias’s eyes, and he swiped them away with his hand. He couldn’t bear to cry any more, and besides, it served no purpose. The only thing he wanted was for Ebba to come back to him. He would never give up. He would keep on trying until she realized that they needed each other.

Tobias got up and went inside. He continued on upstairs, straining to hear where she was, although he already knew. Whenever they weren’t working on the house, she would be sitting at her work table, engrossed in making a new necklace that some customer had ordered. He went into the room and stood behind her.

‘Did you get a new order?’

She gave a start. ‘Yes,’ she said and continued shaping the silver.

‘Who’s the customer?’ Anger at her indifference surged inside him, and he had to stop himself from losing his temper.

‘Her name is Linda. Her son died when he was only four months old. Sudden infant death syndrome. He was her first child.’

‘I see,’ he said, turning away. He couldn’t understand how she could bear to hear such stories, all that grief from unknown parents. Wasn’t her own sorrow enough? He didn’t need to look to know that she was wearing her necklace. It was the first one she’d made, and she always had it on. Vincent’s name was engraved on the back. There were moments when he wanted to tear that necklace off of her, when he didn’t think she was worthy to bear her son’s name around her neck. But there were also moments when he wanted nothing more than for her to have Vincent close to her heart. Why did it have to be so hard? What would happen if he let it all go, accepted what had happened and acknowledged that they were both to blame?

Tobias set his mug on a shelf and took a step towards Ebba. He hesitated for a moment but then placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt her body stiffen. Gently he began massaging her muscles, sensing that she was as tense as he was. She didn’t say a word, merely stared straight ahead. Her hands, which had been working on the silver angel, sank to the table, and the only sound was his breathing and hers. He felt hope stirring. He was touching her, feeling her body under his hands. Maybe there was a way forward.

Abruptly Ebba got to her feet. Without saying anything, she left the room, and he stood there with his hands in midair. For a moment he stared at her work table, which was covered with clutter. Then, as if of their own volition, his arms moved in a great arc and sent the whole lot crashing to the floor. In the silence that followed, he realized that there was only one path to take. He was going to have to risk everything.