Dead of Winter

55

Laura remains at the table, trying to make sense of what just happened. The fact that someone in the council offices told Ulf Jensen about the meeting with Kjell Green is bad enough, along with the fact that he’s just threatened her. But the disappearance of the file containing Iben’s terrible cry for help can have only one explanation.

A very unpleasant explanation.

During the past twenty-four hours, someone has deleted it from her phone.

Which leads to three questions: when, who, and most important of all – why?

There have been several occasions since the visit to the sound studio when she hasn’t exactly kept an eye on her phone. She dropped it in Heinz Norell’s car when Steph came to pick her up, it was in her jacket pocket when she was at Peter’s, and then there was last night – she doesn’t even remember how she got to bed, or if she was the one who put the phone on charge.

Plenty of opportunities, all possible answers to the question of when.

The phone is locked, of course, but anyone could have watched her when she unlocked it and memorised the code. Or simply taken it before it was locked.

If she moves on to who, the list is equally long: Heinz Norell, Elsa and Peter Larsson, Erica von Thurn. But why would Peter delete a sound file he’d helped her to access? On the other hand, he hadn’t known it was Iben’s voice on the tape until they’d listened to it together. Elsa can’t really be a suspect, even though she did poke around in Laura’s pockets.

After a little thought she realises that it’s not possible to exclude an unknown person. She swam for almost an hour this morning, leaving her phone in the unlocked cupboard in the changing room at the pool house.

Which leaves the third question: why?

Why would someone want to delete the file in which Iben accuses her father of abuse, from beyond the grave?

In order to protect Ulf Jensen – that seems the most likely explanation, making him, Christian and Fredrik the main suspects.

But Peter still has the original tape, and a digital copy of his own on a USB stick.

She calls him, says she’s accidentally deleted the file and asks about his copy.

‘Everything’s at the office, but I’m not in Vedarp at the moment. Can it wait until tomorrow? Or this evening at least?’

He sounds stressed, and she reluctantly agrees.

She thinks back to Steph’s note and decides to head for the nearest shopping centre and look for a dress.

During the drive she goes over what Ulf Jensen said – that he has such a hold over so many of the local councillors that they will never give anyone else the contract for Gärdsnäset. If that’s true, and she has no reason to doubt it, then she will just have to sell to the castle and let Erica, Pontus and Heinz transform Gärdsnäset into a rich man’s enclave. Elsa will never speak to her again. Why does she care about that? Why does she care what a teenage girl and possibly her father might think of her?

Another good question, which doesn’t have a good answer.

Or does it? She likes Elsa, recognises something of herself in the girl – that’s all there is to it.

So she can’t sell to the council because of Ulf Jensen, and she can’t sell to the castle if she wants to continue to have a relationship with Peter and Elsa.

Where does that leave her?

There is a third option, of course: to hang onto Gärdsnäset for the time being, until she can come up with a solution to the problem.

On the way back to the castle she decides to call in and check that George has enough food. A small part of her actually misses the warmth of that little furry body, and the reassuring sound of purring at the foot of the bed.

It’s dark by the time she reaches the holiday village. The remains of the archway and the dilapidated snow-covered cabins look even sadder than they did a few days ago, if that were possible.

Her car is still parked next to Hedda’s house where she left it, but as she approaches she sees something written in large letters on one side.

Sell up and fuck off!

She slams on the brakes. Her initial impulse is to turn the car around and drive away, but instead she gets out, leaving the engine running and the lights on. Some of the crows croak a warning, as if they sense her unease, know that something horrible has happened.

The words are written using some kind of dark red, sticky substance that has trickled down the car doors before the frost stopped it.

She edges closer. There is a dark bundle on the windscreen. A familiar stench turns her stomach. Hair, soot, burned flesh.

She stops by the bonnet, stares at the bundle, glimpses a bare tail, speckled grey charred fur, glassy eyes staring blankly at her.

‘George!’

She collapses behind the nearest tree trunk and throws up onto the snow.

Laura weeps for the first time in two years. She sits on the porch with her head resting on her arms and sobs, her whole body shaking. It’s as if something has burst inside her. Things she has stowed in plastic boxes with the lid firmly on, locked away deep in the cellar, have escaped. Hit her hard like a punch in the stomach, left her incapable of doing anything but crying. George, Iben, Hedda, Jack, Peter and Tomas.

But most of all she is weeping for her little girl. Her and Andreas’s beautiful daughter. The life that could have been.

Somewhere in the distance she hears Hedda’s phone ringing, but she doesn’t have the strength to get up and answer it. She simply sits there crying until her body is stiff with cold and she has no more tears. Even then she can’t move.

She hears the angry sound of an engine, sees the beam of a single headlight bobbing through the trees.

Elsa.

Laura forces herself to stand up, scoops snow in her hands and rubs it all over her face as she staggers down the steps. The ice crystals chafe her skin, make her wake up. She can’t let Elsa see what’s on the car.

She switches off the engine of the borrowed car, which kills the lights, then she runs along the track to intercept Elsa.

‘Hi,’ the girl says as she takes off her helmet. Her voice is subdued, but as soon as she sees Laura’s face, she knows something is wrong. ‘What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a break-in.’ Laura’s voice falters on the lie. ‘We mustn’t go any closer in case there are traces left behind. Is your dad home?’

Elsa shakes her head. ‘No, but I can call him if you like. He always answers when it’s me, but I’ll have to go back to the main road to find a signal.’

Peter arrives fifteen minutes later. He’s already far from calm when he gets out of the car, and it takes Laura a few seconds to realise this isn’t about his daughter sitting on a motocross bike that she’s too young to ride on the roads. She really wants to throw herself into his arms, but she has to keep the mask in place for Elsa’s sake. She quietly tells him what’s happened.

Peter goes over to look at the car and George’s charred body, then he makes a couple of calls.

‘There’s something else,’ he tells Laura when he’s done. ‘There’s been a break-in at my office. The place has been trashed. A scene-of-crime team are working on it now.’

He lowers his voice and leans closer. ‘The cassette tape and the digital recording of Iben’s voice are gone.’