Dead of Winter

64

We are who we are, my princess. For good or evil . . .

They are still sitting at the kitchen table. Neither of them has moved or said anything for several minutes.

Laura feels seasick, as if the whole world all around her is bobbing up and down, and she can’t find a fixed point to anchor her gaze.

‘Jack . . .’ she says eventually. ‘Where is he?’

Steph – who is actually Milla – leans back and takes another sip of her tea.

‘Dead.’

Laura’s stomach contracts into an ice-cold, solid lump.

‘How? When?’

‘An overdose, summer 2013. We were living in New York. He’d struggled with his addiction for a long time. He’d been in and out of various treatment facilities. For a while I thought he was going to make it; he was clean for years. But then he lost his way again.’

Laura can hardly breathe.

‘Then I got the opportunity to move back to Sweden,’ Steph goes on. ‘Maybe I saw it as a sign, a chance to make another fresh start. The business community in Stockholm isn’t that big; the fact that we bumped into each other was a coincidence. Well, nearly. I was curious about you. I wondered whether my disguise would fool you. After all, I’d spent almost thirty years honing it to perfection. I thought that if you didn’t realise, then no one would. Our first meeting was meant to be a one-off. A test.’

Steph shrugs.

‘But then I found that I liked you. I was pretty lonely; I hadn’t yet built up a network of contacts in Sweden. You were in the middle of a divorce and needed someone to talk to.’

‘The blind spot,’ Laura murmurs.

‘Sorry?’

‘You moved into my blind spot while I was looking in a different direction. You stayed there the whole time, diagonally behind me so that I couldn’t see you properly. Pretending to be my friend.’

Steph lowers her voice.

‘There was no pretence, Laura. I was your friend. I am your friend.’

Laura shakes her head. She would really like to cover her ears with her hands, block out everything Steph is saying. Her head is full to the brim with memories, meetings, conversations, confidences they’ve shared. She feels as if her brain is about to explode, then it abruptly falls silent.

‘Jack sometimes talked about you,’ Steph says. ‘I know he thought about you. Maybe that was another reason why I sought you out.’

‘Jack was Hedda’s son,’ Laura snaps.

She doesn’t really know why, perhaps she wants to show that she too has a secret to reveal – information Steph was unaware of concerning someone she cared about. It works. Steph looks shocked, which is a tiny, tiny consolation in the middle of all this.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I found a maternity unit bracelet among Hedda’s things and worked out the dates. He was her and Johnny Miller’s love child.’

‘The troll who lived on the other side of the lake?’

‘Yes. They met when they were young. Hedda fell pregnant and he dumped her, then he changed his mind and came after her. But by then it was too late – Hedda had already given Jack up.’

She runs out of breath; she has to pause, take deep breaths.

‘When he was older she went looking for him and became his foster parent at Gärdsnäset.’

Steph still looks taken aback – and kind of upset.

‘Do you think he knew?’ Laura asks. ‘That Hedda was his mother?’

Steph shakes her head.

‘No. He cared about her, sent postcards so that she wouldn’t worry.’ She points to the noticeboard. ‘But when we moved to the USA we decided that he should stop, so that our trail ended in Germany. I know it was hard for him.’

They both take a sip of their tea, which has grown cold.

‘So you’re one of the investors in Vintersjöholm Development?’ Laura says quietly.

‘The main investor.’ Steph spreads her hands wide. ‘I didn’t want to say anything; I hoped everything would sort itself out. It still can.’ She leans across the table. ‘We can do this together, Laura. Sell to us and invest the money in the project.’ Her tone is eager now. ‘We can build something amazing. Name a road after Hedda.’

‘And another after Iben?’

Steph gives a start.

‘You do remember Iben, don’t you?’ Laura continues. ‘The girl who burned to death because you asked Tomas to set fire to the dance hall? Because it was you who asked him, wasn’t it? Just as you asked him to set fire to Kent Rask’s barn and the accommodation block at Källegården, and to plant the petrol can in Jack’s apartment. All to pressure me into selling.’

Steph doesn’t answer, but there’s no need. Laura knows she’s right.

‘I don’t understand how you got him to do all that. After all, you’d only known each other for a few months before he burned down the dance hall. And why did he start the fire in the boathouse at Vintersjöholm last night?’

Steph looks away. Something in her expression and her body language has changed. It’s as if the thought of Tomas bothers her.

‘The boathouse was his own idea,’ she mumbles. ‘He did it to show that he was thinking of me.’

For a second something flickers behind the mask. Something familiar. And all at once there is another click in Laura’s mind, considerably louder this time.

‘The nymph,’ Tomas whispers in her ear, his voice cracking. She looks up at Hedda’s noticeboard. At the black swan’s feather.

A present from the nymph, a cygne noir.

What does it mean, Aunt Hedda?

That nothing is impossible, my little princess. Not even the impossible.

Hedda was right. Because the impossible is sitting right in front of her.

‘The troll on the other side of the lake,’ Laura says slowly. ‘Iben and I used to play that game when we were little. We fantasised about rowing across the water to steal his treasure so that we could live happily ever after. Because everything is so simple when you’re a child, isn’t it? All you need is some treasure, a castle and your best friend.’

Steph looks down at the floor.

‘But Milla never played that game,’ Laura goes on. ‘She’s never heard of the troll or his treasure.’

Steph raises her head, her eyes shining with tears. The colour is wrong, because she’s wearing contact lenses. So is the skin tone and hair colour. Steph is fair-skinned and blonde.

And yet she is a black swan.

The impossible that is possible, in spite of everything. That makes the whole world shift on its axis, so that from this moment on nothing will ever be the same again.

‘Iben,’ Laura says. ‘You can stop hiding now. I know it’s you.’