Dead of Winter

34

Laura pauses by the car. There is snow in the air, and her head is spinning. The Jensens are on the verge of bankruptcy. That explains Håkansson’s cryptic comment when she asked about the offers, and the ironmonger’s overtly threatening insistence that she ought to sell Gärdsnäset to the council for Ulf’s sake. Hedda had held the family’s fate in her hands, and she could have saved or destroyed them with one single decision.

Did that decision have anything to do with her death? The fact that she’d written about Iben on her board shows that the family had been on her mind – but in what way?

‘Laura!’

She turns and sees Fredrik coming towards her. He offers her a cigarette, but she shakes her head.

‘I don’t smoke.’

He smiles and lights a cigarette.

‘Me neither.’ The smile broadens. ‘Dad once caught Christian and me having a secret fag. He made us do fifty laps of the running track as a punishment.’

‘I know.’

His expression is hard to read.

‘I assume Iben told you. Did she also tell you how he found out?’

Laura shakes her head.

‘Because she made sure he knew. Iben was Daddy’s little girl. Christian and I always came second. Or rather: Iben came first, then nothing, then Källegården, then the sports club and then, a long way down, Christian and me.’

He takes a deep drag and blows out the smoke. Laura can’t stop staring at the bandage on his hand.

‘I went to see Kent Rask yesterday,’ she says.

‘So I heard. How was old Kent? I believe he had a few problems with his barn.’

Fredrik grins again.

‘He told me about Sofia, Iben’s mother.’

The smile disappears. ‘Did he now.’

‘Do you know what became of her?’

A shrug.

‘Dead. At least that’s what people say. She took off when we were little.’

‘Is it true that she tried to burn down Källegården? That she was admitted to a mental hospital?’

Fredrik looks taken aback. He stares at her for a few seconds, then bursts into scornful laughter.

‘It seems as if you’ll believe anything.’ He takes another drag. ‘Sofia wasn’t from around here. She was never happy at Källegården, so when Iben was six she packed her bags and left. There was nothing more to it. The only person I know who’s been locked up in the loony bin is Kent Rask’s pyromaniac son. Talk about crazy . . . Did he tell you what happened to Tomas?’

Laura doesn’t reply, but Fredrik interprets her silence correctly.

‘He carried on setting fire to things. He almost burned down an entire psychiatric wing when he was in St Sigfrid’s in Växjö. Ask your friend Peter if you don’t believe me.’ He shakes his head. ‘But it wasn’t that particular nutjob I wanted to talk about. You’re busy out at Gärdsnäset. Going through Hedda’s stuff.’

‘And?’

‘You’ve even got yourself a little helper – the girl on the motocross bike. She seems to be as weird as her father.’

Laura is trying to work out where he’s going, but without success. He moves a little closer.

‘Do you know if your aunt heard anything from him afterwards? Orphan Boy?’

‘Jack?’

The question surprises her.

‘Who else? Have you heard from him?’

She thinks about the postcards from Germany. About the smoker in the forest.

‘Why do you ask?’

She doesn’t really expect an answer, but Fredrik surprises her again.

‘He stole something from us, back then. After the fire . . .’

‘What?’

‘Almost a hundred thousand in cash. Money Dad couldn’t keep in the bank, for . . . business reasons. Very useful if you wanted to flee the country.’

‘How do you know it was Jack?’

Her question is a little too quick, and she can see she’s angered him.

‘Because Dad had hidden it in a safe place. Not even Christian and I knew where it was. But Iben knew about the money and the hiding place. She must have told Orphan Boy. They were very close, those two. A little too close, wouldn’t you say?’

The grin is back.

Much to her annoyance, Laura feels herself blushing.

‘Hedda always defended that kid, almost as if he were her own flesh and blood.’ Fredrik shakes his head. ‘But Dad was right – he recognised his type right from the start. A fucking gyppo.’

He points to Laura, the cigarette pinched between finger and thumb.

‘The little fucker didn’t just steal our money. He got into Iben’s bedroom too, stole the jewellery her mother had left her. Stole from a dead girl, for fuck’s sake! If I ever get hold of Jack Olsson, he’ll pay dearly for that, I can promise you.’

He drops the cigarette butt in the snow, grinds it beneath his heel. Steps forward until he’s so close that she can smell the whisky on his breath.

‘Now be a good girl and sell Gärdsnäset to the council. It’s no good hanging onto that old dump. It’s nothing but a fire hazard.’

He winks at her, then turns and walks back to the house.

Laura waits until he’s gone, then bends down and picks up the squashed butt.

A Prince Red.

It begins to snow as she crosses the bridge to the lower yard. The wind has increased, and by the time she reaches the main road it is snowing so hard that her windscreen wipers have to work at full speed.

Her mind is racing, and her body begins to remember all the physical exertions of the day. At the turning for Gärdsnäset, she pulls over. The snow on the carriageway is getting thicker and thicker with the help of the wind. The motorway will be even worse, and she could well get stuck or end up in a jam because of an accident between here and the hotel. She makes a decision and heads for Gärdsnäset instead.

George is pleased to see her – but then the cat is probably glad of any company. Laura switches on as many lamps as she can, then goes into Hedda’s studio and fetches the box of postcards from Jack. She takes them into her room and closes the door on the chaos in the rest of the house before settling down on her bed to read through them again.

She’s never really thought about how Jack could afford to leave the country. Presumably she just assumed that Hedda had helped him somehow. But maybe the truth is completely different.

They’re after me. I have to get away from here!

For all these years she’s believed that Jack was so frightened that night at the hospital because Ulf Jensen and his sons blamed him for Iben’s death. Not because he was a thief.

And why didn’t Jack just settle for the money? Why did he steal Sofia’s jewellery?

Then there’s the unpleasant memory of Fredrik Jensen’s threat. Was that his own idea, a more robust version of his brother’s attempt at psychological warfare and Ulf Jensen’s perfectly judged tears?

Had they put the same pressure on Hedda, and if so, what had the Jensens been prepared to do if they got wind of the fact that Hedda had decided to sell to someone other than the council? A decision that meant they would lose Källegården . . .

Is Fredrik the person who’s been watching her, standing out there among the trees and smoking, trying to work out what her own plans for Gärdsnäset might be? On the other hand, Prince Red is a very popular brand of cigarettes. It could have been someone else. She doesn’t want to let go of that thought.

It could have been someone else.

She dreams about Källegården. It is night, all the lights are out, and the only illumination comes from the big Christmas tree in the yard. The snow lies thick and heavy on the farmhouse roof. She moves slowly towards the front door, floating above the ground rather than walking. Above the door, the three flames in the Jensen family crest are flickering. Then she is inside, drifting through the silent rooms.

Iben’s photograph hangs above the open fireplace, but present and past merge, and without knowing why Laura senses that she is not the only intruder. She turns, glimpses a shadow in the hallway. Someone has broken in with the intention of stealing a treasure.

She opens her mouth to call out, but no sound emerges. Instead, she finds herself transported to the upper floor. She is sitting at the dressing table in Iben’s room. The top drawer is open and empty.

She hears a movement behind her, turns around.

Jack is standing in the doorway. He is holding a fabric bag that looks heavy.

‘Why do you think she left it behind?’ he says. ‘If Sofia really did leave her family, why did she leave her jewellery? Wouldn’t you have taken your jewellery with you if you were running away?’

She stares at him, still incapable of saying a word. She thinks she hears the sound of car doors slamming in the yard, then the faint sound of sirens.

She manages to speak. ‘You have to get away! They’re coming!’

The next moment she is far out on the frozen lake, only metres away from the black eye. Hedda is standing beside her. She is both the Hedda Laura remembers, and the old woman in the pine coffin. Her eyes shine, reflecting the glow of the lamp on Miller’s boathouse.

‘There’s a spring down there,’ she says. ‘Water seeps out from underground and keeps the eye open.’

She takes Laura’s hand. Two of her fingers are no more than pink stumps.

‘No one escapes the winter fire. Not even you and me, my princess.’

Laura hears the sirens again, closer this time. Blue flames flare up from the ice around them, forming a wall of heat and cold.

Her clothes catch fire, her hair, her skin. She screams as the ice gives way beneath her and she plunges down into the black water.

And one for the nymph who lives down below.

Laura sits up in bed and draws a shuddering breath. Her pyjamas and sheets are soaked with sweat, the scar on her back is throbbing. She’d expected the nightmare. Her medication is in her hotel room, and over the past few days she has been careless with the dosage.

However, it isn’t the dream that has woken her. She heard a noise, she’s sure of it. A familiar, creaking sound, like an old wooden staircase. She jumps out of bed, runs through the house, flings the front door wide open.

The snow is still coming down heavily, she can hardly see the boathouse, and yet she’s certain he’s there. She takes a couple of steps out onto the porch, thinks she sees something, a shadowy figure moving among the trees. Or is she still dreaming?

‘Jack!’ she calls out into the falling snow. ‘Jack, wait!’

A gust of wind blows snow into her face and she raises her hand to protect her eyes.

When she lowers it, the figure has gone.