The Hidden Child

Chapter 17

Gösta had just started a round of golf on his computer when he heard Mellberg’s footsteps in the corridor. He quickly turned off the game and picked up a report, trying to look as though he was deeply immersed in reading it. Mellberg’s steps came closer, but there was something different about them. And what was that strange grumbling sound? Gösta rolled back his desk chair so he could stick his head out into the hall. The first thing he saw was Ernst, padding along in front of Mellberg with his long tongue hanging out, as usual. Behind him came an oddly hunched figure who was laboriously shuffling forward. He looked a lot like Mellberg, and yet he didn’t.

‘What the hell are you staring at?’

The voice and tone definitely belonged to his boss.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Gösta. By now Annika was peering out from the kitchen where she was busy feeding Maja.

Mellberg muttered something inaudible.

‘What?’ said Annika. ‘What did you say? I missed it.’

Mellberg glowered at her and then said, ‘I’ve been taking salsa lessons. Anything wrong with that?’

Gösta and Annika looked at each other in astonishment. Then they struggled to keep a straight face.

‘Well?’ shouted Mellberg. ‘Any funny remarks? Anyone? Because there’s plenty of opportunity to cut salaries here at the station.’ Then he slammed the door to his office.

For several seconds Annika and Gösta stared at the closed door, but then they could restrain themselves no longer. The pair of them laughed until they cried, but they did it as quietly as possible.

Having checked that Mellberg’s door was still closed, Gösta slipped over to the kitchen and whispered to Annika: ‘Did he say he’d been taking salsa lessons? Did he really say that?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Annika, wiping the tears on the sleeve of her sweater. Maja stared at them in fascination as she sat at the table with a plate in front of her.

‘But why? What on earth’s got into him?’ said Gösta incredulously as he pictured the scene in his mind.

‘Well, it’s the first I’ve heard about it, at any rate.’ Still laughing, Annika shook her head and then sat down to carry on feeding Maja.

‘Did you see how stiff he was? He looked like that creature in Lord of the Rings. Gollum. Isn’t that his name?’ Gösta did his best to imitate how Mellberg was moving, and Annika put her hand over her mouth to keep from howling with laughter.

‘Salsa! That must have given Mellberg’s body a real shock. He hasn’t done any exercise in… well, ever. It’s a mystery to me how he ever passed the physical part of the police training.’

‘For all we know, he might have been a great athlete in his younger days.’ Annika thought about what she’d just said and then shook her head. ‘But I don’t think so. Good Lord, this is the entertainment highlight of the day. Mellberg at a salsa class! Whatever next?’ She lifted a spoonful of food to Maja’s mouth, but the child stubbornly turned her head away. ‘This little one doesn’t want to eat anything. But if I don’t get her to take at least a few spoonfuls, they’ll never trust me with her again,’ she sighed and made another attempt, but Maja’s mouth remained as impenetrable as Fort Knox.

‘Shall I try?’ asked Gösta, reaching for the spoon. Annika looked at him in surprise.

‘You? Okay, go ahead. But don’t get your hopes up.’ Gösta didn’t reply as he changed places with Annika, sitting down next to Maja. He dumped off half of the huge mound of food that Annika had put on the spoon and then raised it in the air. ‘Vroom, vroom, vroom, here comes the airplane.’ He sailed the spoon around like a plane and was rewarded with Maja’s undivided attention. ‘Vroom, vroom, vroom, here comes the airplane, flying straight into your…’ Maja’s mouth opened as if on cue, and the plane with its load of spaghetti and meat sauce went in for a landing.

‘Mmm… that was good,’ said Gösta, putting a little more food on the spoon. ‘Chugga, chugga, chug, now it’s a train coming. Chugga, chugga, chug and straight into the tunnel.’ Maja’s mouth opened again and the spaghetti entered the tunnel.

‘I can’t believe it!’ said Annika, gaping. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ said Gösta modestly. But he smiled proudly as a race car drove in with spoon number three.

Annika sat down at the kitchen table and watched as Gösta slowly emptied the plate in front of Maja, who swallowed every bite.

‘You know what, Gösta?’ said Annika. ‘Life is so unfair sometimes.’

‘Have the two of you thought about adopting?’ asked Gösta without looking at her. ‘In my day it wasn’t very common. But today I wouldn’t hesitate. Seems like every other kid is adopted.’

‘We’ve talked about it,’ said Annika, drawing circles on the tablecloth with the tip of her finger. ‘But nothing has ever come of it. We’ve done our best to fill our lives with things other than children… but…’

‘It’s not too late,’ said Gösta. ‘If you start now, it might not take too long. And the colour of the child’s skin doesn’t matter, so choose the country with the shortest waiting list. There are so many kids who need a home. If I was a child, I’d thank my lucky stars if you and Lennart adopted me.’

Annika swallowed hard and looked down at her finger moving over the tablecloth. Gösta’s words had awakened something inside of her, something that she and Lennart had somehow suppressed the past few years. Maybe they were afraid. After all the miscarriages, all the hopes that had been shattered again and again. But maybe they were strong enough now. Maybe they could do it, maybe they dared. Because the sense of longing was still there, as strong as ever. Nothing seemed to suppress that longing to hold a child in their arms, to have a child to love.

‘Well, I’d better see about doing some work,’ said Gösta, getting to his feet without looking at her. He patted Maja on the head. ‘At least she ate something, so Patrik won’t have to worry that she’s starving when he leaves her here with us next time.’

He was just about to leave the kitchen when Annika said quietly, ‘Thanks, Gösta.’

He nodded, embarrassed. Then he disappeared into his office and closed the door behind him. He sat down in front of his computer, staring at the screen without seeing it. Instead he saw Maj-Britt’s face. And the boy who had lived only a few days. So many years had passed since then. An eternity. Almost an entire lifetime. But he could still feel the tiny hand grasping his finger.

With a sigh, Gösta clicked open the golf game.

For three hours Erica managed to push aside all thoughts of the disastrous visit with Britta. And during that time she wrote five pages of her new book. Then her mind returned to Britta, and she gave up trying to write anything more.

She’d felt deeply ashamed when she left Britta’s home. It was hard for her to shake off the memory of Herman’s expression when he saw her sitting there at the kitchen table next to his wife, who was in a state of collapse. Erica understood his reaction. It had been terribly insensitive of her not to recognize the signals. But at the same time, she didn’t really regret visiting Britta. Slowly she was starting to gather more pieces of the puzzle. They were diffuse and vague, but they were beginning to form a picture of her mother that was more complete than the one she’d had before.

It was odd that she’d never even heard the names Erik, Britta, or Frans. At one time in her mother’s life they must have been very important to her. But none of them seemed to have remained in contact with the others after they’d grown up, even though they’d gone on living in little Fjällbacka.

Both Axel and Britta had portrayed Elsy as a warm and thoughtful young woman, something she found hard to reconcile with her own memories of her mother. She wouldn’t have said that her mother was a mean person, but she’d been so reserved, so closed off, that it was as if any warmth she might once have possessed had been extinguished long before Erica and Anna were born. Erica was suddenly overwhelmed by sorrow as she thought of all the things she’d missed out on. Things that she would never be able to reclaim. Her mother was gone, dead in a car accident four years ago, along with Tore – Erica and Anna’s father. There was nothing that Erica could revive, nothing she could demand compensation for, nothing she could plead or beg for, no accusations that she could level against her mother. The only thing she could hope to find was clarity. What had happened to the Elsy Axel and Britta had known? What had happened to the warm, tender-hearted Elsy?

A knock on the front door interrupted Erica’s thoughts, and she got up to open it.

‘Anna? Come in.’ With the keen eyes of an older sister, she immediately observed Anna’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, sounding more concerned than she’d intended. Anna had been through so much during the past few years; Erica had never been able to relinquish the maternal role that she’d taken on when they were growing up.

‘Just problems with trying to merge two separate families,’ said Anna, with a feeble laugh. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, but it would be great to talk about it.’

‘Then let’s talk,’ said Erica. ‘I’ll pour you a cup of coffee, and if I dig around in the cupboard I can probably find some treat we can have to console ourselves.’

‘Does that mean you’ve given up on the diet now that you’re a married woman?’ said Anna.

‘Don’t even get into that,’ sighed Erica, heading for the kitchen. ‘After spending a week sitting at my desk, I’m going to have to buy new trousers pretty soon. These ones are starting to feel as tight as a sausage skin.’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Anna, sitting down at the table. ‘Since moving in with Dan, it feels like I’ve put on pounds. And it doesn’t help matters that Dan seems able to eat everything in sight without gaining so much as an ounce.’

‘It’s easy to resent him for that,’ said Erica, putting some buns on a plate. ‘Does he still eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast?’

‘You mean he was already doing that back when the two of you were together?’ laughed Anna. ‘Just imagine how hard it is to convince the kids that a healthy breakfast is important when Dan sits there dipping cinnamon rolls in hot chocolate right in front of their eyes.’

‘Patrik dips his lumpfish caviar sandwiches with cheese in hot chocolate too, and that’s not much better. So, tell me, what’s been going on. Is Belinda making trouble again?’

‘Uh-huh, that’s the crux of the matter, all right, but everything is getting so unpleasant. Today Dan and I started fighting because of it and…’ Anna looked unhappy as she took a bun from the plate. ‘It’s not really Belinda’s fault – that’s what I’ve been trying to explain to Dan. She’s reacting to a situation that’s new for her, one that’s not of her own choosing. And she’s right. She didn’t ask to have me and a couple of kids foisted on her.’

‘I suppose that’s true, but she should still behave in a civilized manner. And that’s Dan’s job. Dr Phil says that a step-parent should never discipline a child her age.’

‘Dr Phil?’ Anna laughed so hard that a crumb got stuck in her throat and she started coughing. ‘Erica, I can see that it’s high time you emerged from your maternity leave. Dr Phil?’

‘If you must know, I’ve learned a lot by watching Dr Phil,’ said Erica, sounding offended. Nobody got away with joking about her idol. Dr Phil’s TV show had been the highpoint of her days the past year, and lately she’d even considered taking a lunch break from her writing so she could watch him.

‘But I suppose he does have a point,’ Anna admitted begrudgingly. ‘I feel like Dan either doesn’t take things seriously enough, or else he takes them too seriously. Since Friday I’ve had the worst time keeping him from fighting with Pernilla over how to raise the children. He started going on about how he couldn’t trust her to take care of them and… Well, he got really angry. And in the middle of everything, Belinda came downstairs and then it all really went to hell. Now Belinda doesn’t want to live with us any more, so Dan put her on a bus to Munkedal.’

‘How are Emma and Adrian coping?’ Erica took another bun from the plate. She’d go back on her diet next week. Definitely. She just needed this week to get into a regular writing routine, and then…

‘So far so good, knock on wood.’ Anna tapped the kitchen table. ‘They idolize Dan and the girls and think it’s great to have big sisters. So, for the time being, there’s no trouble on that front.’

‘What about Malin and Lisen? How are they handling it?’ Erica was referring to Belinda’s younger sisters, who were eleven and eight.

‘They’re doing fine too. They like playing with Emma and Adrian and seem to tolerate me, at least. No, it’s mostly Belinda who’s having a hard time. But she’s at that age, you know, when things are difficult.’ Anna sighed and then reached for another bun too. ‘What about you? How are things going here? Are you making progress on the book?’

‘It’s going okay, I suppose. It’s always slow in the beginning. I have a lot of research material to process, plus I’ve also booked a lot of interviews. Everything’s starting to take shape. But…’ Erica hesitated. She had a deeply rooted instinct to protect her sister, but she decided that Anna had a right to know what had been preoccupying her lately. She started from the beginning and quickly told her sister about the medal and the other things she’d found in Elsy’s chest, about the diaries and the fact that she’d talked to several people about their mother’s past.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ asked Anna.

Erica shifted position uneasily. ‘Er, well, I know I should have, but… Does it really matter? I’m telling you now, right?’

Anna seemed to be considering whether to argue the point, but then she apparently decided to let it pass.

‘I’d like to see all of it,’ she said curtly. Erica quickly got up, relieved that her sister wasn’t going to yell at her for neglecting to share what she’d discovered.

‘Of course. I’ll go get everything.’ Erica ran upstairs to her workroom. When she came back, she set the items on the kitchen table: the diaries, the child’s shirt, and the medal.

Anna stared. ‘How on earth did she come by this?’ she said, picking up the medal and holding it in the palm of her hand as she studied it intently. ‘And this – who did this belong to?’ She held up the little stained shirt. ‘Is that rust?’ She leaned closer to examine the patches that covered a good deal of the cloth.

‘Patrik thinks it’s blood,’ said Erica, which made Anna sit up with a start.

‘Blood? Why would Mamma keep a child’s shirt covered with blood in an old chest in the attic?’ With a look of disgust, she dropped the shirt on the table and picked up the diaries.

‘Anything not meant for children in these?’ asked Anna, waving the blue diaries. ‘Any sex stories that will traumatize me for life if I read them?’

‘No,’ said Erica, laughing. ‘Don’t look so worried. Nothing X-rated. There’s actually not much at all. Just some meaningless descriptions of daily life. But there is one thing that I’ve been wondering about…’ For the first time Erica felt able to put into words the thought that had been hovering on the edge of her consciousness for a while.

‘What is it?’ asked Anna as she paged through the diaries.

‘Well, I wonder if there are more of these somewhere. The ones in the chest stop in May 1944, when the fourth book was completely filled. And that’s it. Of course, Mamma may have got tired of keeping a diary. But if that was the case, would she have bothered to complete the fourth book? It just seems odd.’

‘So you think there might be more? But what else would they tell you, other than what you’ve already read? I mean, it’s not as if Mamma had a particularly exciting life. She was born and raised here, she met Pappa, we were born, and then, well… What more is there?’

‘Don’t say that,’ replied Erica. She wondered how much she should tell her sister. She didn’t have anything concrete, but intuition told her that the medal and the blood-stained shirt would lead to other discoveries, maybe even reveal whatever it was that had cast such a shadow over their lives – hers and Anna’s.

She took a deep breath and recounted in detail the conversations that she’d had with Erik and Axel and Britta.

‘So you went over to Axel Frankel’s house and asked him for the medal only a couple of days after his brother was found dead? My God, he must have thought you were a real vulture,’ said Anna, with the cruel honesty that only a younger sister was capable of.

‘Do you want to hear what they said or not?’ asked Erica indignantly, even though she was inclined to agree with Anna. It hadn’t been very sensitive of her.

When Erica had finished her story, Anna sat staring at her with a frown on her face. ‘It sounds as if they knew a completely different person. What did Britta say about the medal? Did she know why Mamma had a Nazi medal in her possession?’

Erica shook her head. ‘I didn’t have time to ask her. She has Alzheimer’s and after a while she started getting confused, and then her husband came home and he was really upset and…’ Erica cleared her throat. ‘Well, he asked me to leave.’

‘Erica!’ cried Anna. ‘Are you telling me that you tried to interrogate a confused old woman? No wonder her husband threw you out! Don’t you think you’re getting a bit too carried away with this?’

‘Okay, but aren’t you in the least curious? Why did Mamma keep all these things hidden away? And why do people who knew her then describe someone who bears no resemblance to the mother we grew up with? Somewhere along the way something happened… Britta was just starting to tell me when she got confused. She said something about old bones and… oh, I can’t remember, but it seemed to me that she was using that as a metaphor for a secret that’s been buried away and… Maybe I’m just imagining things, but…’ The phone rang, and Erica stopped mid-sentence and got up to answer it.

‘This is Erica. Oh, hi, Karin.’ Erica turned to face Anna, rolling her eyes. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Yes, it’s nice to finally have a chance to talk with you too.’ She grimaced at Anna, who hadn’t a clue what it was all about. ‘Patrik? No, he’s not at home right now. He and Maja went over to the station to say hi and then I don’t really know where they were going. I see. Uh-huh. Yes, I’m sure they’d love to go out for a walk with you and Ludde tomorrow. Ten o’clock. At the pharmacy. Okay, I’ll tell him. He’ll have to let you know if he has other plans, but I don’t think he does. Uh-huh. Thanks. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Thanks. You too.’

‘What was that all about?’ asked Anna in surprise. ‘Who’s Karin? And what’s Patrik doing with her at the pharmacy tomorrow morning?’

Erica sat down at the kitchen table. After a long pause she said, ‘Karin is Patrik’s ex-wife. She and her second husband recently moved to Fjällbacka. And it just so happens that, like Patrik, she’s on leave from her job to take care of the baby, so they’re going to take a walk together tomorrow.’

Anna laughed. ‘Did you just set up a date between Patrik and his ex-wife? Good Lord, I can’t believe it. Does he have any ex-girlfriends you could phone to see if they’d like to go along too? We wouldn’t want him to be bored while he’s on paternity leave, the poor guy.’

Erica glared at her little sister. ‘In case you didn’t notice, she was the one who phoned me. And what’s so strange about that, anyway? They’re divorced. Have been for years. And they’re both at home all day with a toddler. No, I don’t think it’s so strange. I really don’t have a problem with it.’

‘Oh, right!’ Anna snorted. ‘I can tell that you don’t have a problem with it, not at all… Your nose is growing longer and longer by the second.’

For a moment Erica considered flinging a bun at her sister, but decided to refrain. Anna could think what she liked; she was not jealous.

‘How about paying the cleaning woman a visit next?’ asked Martin. Patrik hesitated, then took out his mobile phone.

‘I just need to check that everything is okay with Maja.’

After listening to Annika’s report, he put his mobile back in his pocket and nodded.

‘Okay, everything’s fine. Maja has just fallen asleep in her pushchair.’ He turned to Paula: ‘Do you have the address?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Paula looked through her notebook and then read the address aloud. ‘Her name is Laila Valthers. She said she’d be at home all day. Do you know where the place is?’

‘It’s one of those yellow buildings near the roundabout on the southern edge of Fjällbacka,’ Martin said. ‘Turn right up ahead at the school.’

They were there in a matter of minutes, and Laila was at home, as she’d said. She looked a bit frightened when she opened the door and seemed unwilling to let them come in, but it wasn’t as if they had many questions for her so they remained standing in the entry hall while they carried out the interview.

‘You do house-cleaning for the Frankel brothers, is that right?’ Patrik’s voice was calm and soothing in an effort to make their presence as unthreatening as possible.

‘Yes, but I’m not going to get in trouble because of that, am I?’ said Laila, her voice nearly a whisper. She was short and wore comfortable brown clothing of some sort of soft fabric, perfectly suited to spending the whole day at home. Her hair was a mousy grey, cut short in a style that was undoubtedly practical but not particularly attractive. She shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other as she stood there with her arms folded. She seemed very anxious to hear their response to her question. Patrik thought he knew what was bothering her.

‘Do you mean because you didn’t declare your earnings? I can assure you that we’ve no interest in that side of things, and we don’t plan to report you for it. We’re conducting a murder investigation, so our focus is on completely different issues.’ He ventured a reassuring smile, and Laila rewarded him by stopping her nervous shifting from one foot to the other.

‘It’s true. They would put an envelope with money for me on the hall bureau every other week. We had agreed that I should come in and clean every Wednesday.’

‘Did you have your own key?’

Laila shook her head. ‘No, they always put the key under the doormat, and I put it back when I was done.’

‘Why didn’t you clean their house all summer?’ Paula asked. It was the question they most wanted to have answered.

‘I thought I would be doing cleaning for them in the summer. At least, we hadn’t discussed any change in the arrangement. But when I went over there, the key wasn’t in the usual place. I knocked, but no one answered. So then I tried phoning, to see if there’d been some misunderstanding. But nobody answered. I knew that the older brother, Axel, was going to be away all summer. That’s what he’s done every year since I’ve been cleaning for them. So when I couldn’t get an answer, I just assumed that the younger brother was gone for the summer too. I did think it was rather rude of them not to tell me, but now I understand why…’ She looked down at the floor.

‘And you didn’t see anything that struck you as out of the ordinary?’ asked Martin.

Laila shook her head vigorously. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. No, nothing comes to mind.’

‘Do you know what day it was when you went over there but couldn’t get in?’ said Patrik.

‘Yes, I do, because it was my birthday. And I thought it was very unlucky that I wasn’t going to do any cleaning that day. I’d planned to buy myself a present with the money I made.’ She fell silent, and Patrik asked her tactfully:

‘So what was the date? When is your birthday?’

‘Oh, how stupid of me,’ she said. ‘It was the seventeenth of June. I’m positive about that. June seventeenth. I went over there two more times to have a look, but nobody was home and there was still no key under the doormat. So then I assumed that they’d forgotten to tell me that they wouldn’t be home all summer.’ She shrugged to show that she was used to the fact that people forgot to tell her things.

‘Thank you, that’s extremely helpful.’ Patrik held out his hand, shuddering slightly at her limp handshake. It felt as if someone had stuck a dead fish in his hand.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked when they were back in the car and heading for the station.

‘I think we can be pretty certain that Erik Frankel was murdered sometime between the fifteenth and the seventeenth of June,’ said Paula.

‘Yes, I’m inclined to agree,’ said Patrik, nodding as he took the tight bend before Anrås a little too fast and came within a hair’s breadth of colliding with a refuse vehicle. Leif the rubbish man shook his fist at him, and a terrified Martin gripped the handle above the door.

‘Did you get your driving licence as a Christmas present?’ asked Paula from the back seat, apparently unfazed by their near-death experience.

‘What do you mean? I’m an excellent driver!’ said Patrik, offended, glancing at Martin for support.

‘Right,’ Martin jeered. Then he turned to look at Paula. ‘I put him forward for that programme, Sweden’s Worst Drivers, but they must have thought he was overqualified. It would be no contest if Patrik was one of the participants.’

Paula laughed and Patrik snorted to show he was insulted. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, considering all the time that you and I have spent driving around together – have I ever crashed or had any sort of accident? No, I’ve an unblemished driving record, so what you’re saying is pure slander.’ He snorted again as he glared at Martin, which almost caused him to rear-end the Saab in front of them, and he had to brake hard.

‘I rest my case,’ said Martin, holding up his hands as Paula doubled over with laughter.

Patrik sulked the rest of the way back to the station. But at least he obeyed the speed limit.

Kjell was still riled after the encounter with his father. Frans had always had that effect on him. No, actually that wasn’t true. Not always. When he was a boy, disappointment had been the predominant feeling. Disappointment mixed with love, which over the years had been transformed into a solid core of hatred and anger. He realized that he’d allowed these feelings to guide all the choices he’d made, and in that sense he’d practically let his father steer his life. But he was utterly powerless to do anything about it. Just as he’d been powerless to resist when his mother had dragged him along on her innumerable trips to see Frans in prison. The cold, grey visitors’ room, completely impersonal, soulless. His father’s awkward attempts to talk to him, pretending that he was actually part of his life and not just a stranger observing it from a distance. From behind bars.

It had been years since his father had served his last prison sentence, but that didn’t mean he was a reformed character. He’d simply grown smarter. He’d chosen a different path. And as a consequence, Kjell had chosen the exact opposite. He’d written about the anti-foreigner organizations with a vehemence and passion that had won him a name and reputation that extended far beyond the readership of the Bohusläningen newspaper. He was a frequent guest on national TV, whenever they needed an authority on the destructive forces of neo-Nazism and how society could best deal with them. Unlike many others, who in the conciliatory spirit of the times wanted to invite the neo-Nazi organizations into the public forum for an open discussion, Kjell had taken a hard line. They were simply not to be tolerated. They should be combatted every step of the way, opposed in whatever context they chose to speak out, and be literally shown the door, as the unwelcome monsters that they were.

He parked in front of his ex-wife’s house. This time he hadn’t bothered to phone ahead. Sometimes she contrived to leave before he arrived, but this time he’d made sure that she was at home. He’d been sitting in his car a short distance away, waiting to catch sight of her. After an hour she’d driven up to the house and parked in front. It looked as though she’d been shopping, because she took a couple of supermarket bags out of the car. Kjell waited until she was inside and then drove the last hundred metres up to the house. He got out and knocked. Carina’s shoulders visibly slumped when she saw who was standing on the doorstep.

‘So it’s you, is it? What do you want?’ she asked.

Why did she always have to look so… crushed? Still. After ten years. His sense of guilt only exacerbated his irritation. Why couldn’t she understand the seriousness of the situation? Realize that it was time for them to take a tough approach?

‘We need to talk. About Per.’ He pushed past her and began taking off his shoes and hanging up his jacket. For a moment Carina looked as if she might object, but then she shrugged and went into the kitchen. She stood with her back leaned against the counter and her arms folded across her chest, as if preparing for a fight.

‘What is it now?’ She shook her head so the dark strands of her fringe fell into her eyes and she had to push them aside. He’d seen that same gesture so many times. It was one of the things he’d loved about her when they first met, before the daily grind and sorrow had taken their toll, before their love had faded and made him choose a different path. He still didn’t know whether he’d made the right choice or not.

Kjell pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. ‘We have to do something. This isn’t something that’s going resolve itself. Once a kid gets in with that type of crowd…’

Carina interrupted him by raising her hand. ‘When did I say that it will resolve itself? I just have a different opinion as to what should be done. Sending Per away is not the solution. You should be able to see that too.’

‘What you don’t realize is that he needs to get away from this environment!’ He angrily ran his hand through his hair.

‘And I take it that by “this environment” you mean your father.’ Carina’s voice was dripping with contempt. ‘I think you should see about solving your own problems with your father before you get Per involved.’

‘What problems?’ Kjell was aware of his voice rising, so he forced himself to take several deep breaths to calm down. ‘First of all, it’s not just my father that I’m talking about when I say that Per needs to get away from here. Don’t you think I can see what’s going on? Don’t you think I know that you’ve got bottles hidden away in every cupboard and drawer?’ He motioned towards the kitchen cabinets. Carina was about to protest, but he held up his hand to stop her. ‘And there’s nothing to be resolved between me and Frans,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I’d prefer not to have anything to do with the man, and I have no intention whatsoever of allowing him to have any influence over Per. But since we can’t keep watch over the boy every minute of the day, and you don’t seem particularly interested in dealing with him, I can’t see any other solution but to send him away. We need to find a boarding school where the staff know how to handle this sort of situation.’

‘And just how do you think that’s going to be arranged?’ Carina snapped. ‘They don’t just send teenagers off to those sorts of schools for no reason. They have to have done something first -’

‘Breaking and entering,’ Kjell cut her off. ‘He was caught breaking into somebody’s house.’

‘What are you talking about? He’s never -’

‘In early June. The homeowner caught him red-handed and phoned me. I went over and collected Per. He got in through a basement window and was in the middle of gathering things in the house when he got caught. The owner threatened to ring the police if he didn’t cough up his parents’ phone number. And so Per gave him my number – not yours.’ He couldn’t resist feeling smug when he saw how upset and disappointed Carina looked.

‘He gave him your number? But why?’

Kjell shrugged. ‘Who knows? I guess a father is always a father.’

‘Whose house did he break into?’ Carina still seemed to be having a hard time accepting the fact that Per had asked the man to call Kjell.

He hesitated for a couple of seconds before replying. Then he said, ‘That old man they found dead in Fjällbacka last week. Erik Frankel. It was his house.’

‘But why?’ She shook her head.

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Erik Frankel was an expert on the Second World War. He had tons of stuff from that period, and Per probably wanted to impress his friends by showing them some genuine Nazi memorabilia.’

‘Do the police know about this?’

‘Not yet,’ he said coldly. ‘It just depends on whether -’

‘Would you do that to your own son? Report him for breaking and entering?’ whispered Carina, horrified.

Kjell felt a hard knot in his stomach. He pictured her as she’d looked the first time they met. At a party at the journalism school. She’d come with a friend who was studying there, but the girl had gone off with some guy right after they arrived, so Carina had ended up sitting on a sofa feeling lonely and neglected. He’d fallen in love with her the moment he saw her. She had on a yellow dress with a yellow ribbon in her hair, which was just as dark as it was now but without the strands of grey that were becoming visible. There was something about her that had made him want to take care of her, protect her, love her. He thought about their wedding. The dress that would nowadays be regarded as a relic from the eighties, with its voluminous skirt and puffed sleeves. He, at any rate, had thought she was a vision in that dress. And then another image surfaced in his mind: Carina exhausted, without make-up, wearing an ugly hospital gown and holding their son in her arms. When she had looked up at him and smiled, he’d felt as if he could slay dragons or fight off an entire army for his wife and son.

As they stood in the little kitchen, two combatants facing each other down, each caught a fleeting glimpse of the way they had once been, the times they had laughed together, made love to each other. Back in the days before their love turned into something fragile and brittle. Making him vulnerable. The knot in his stomach hardened even more.

Kjell pushed away these thoughts. ‘If I have to, I’ll see to it that the police are given this information,’ he said. ‘Either we make arrangements to get Per out of this environment, or I let the police do the job for us.’

‘You bastard!’ cried Carina, her voice thick with tears and disappointment.

Kjell got up. His voice was cold as he said, ‘That’s how it’s going to be. And I have a suggestion as to where we can send Per. I’ll email it to you and you can have a look at it. But under no circumstances is he to have any contact with my father. Understand?’

Carina didn’t reply, just bowed her head as a sign of surrender. It had been a long time since she’d had the energy to fight Kjell. The day when he gave up on her, on them, she had given up on herself.

When Kjell was back in his car, he drove a few hundred metres and then parked. He pressed his forehead on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. Images of Erik Frankel flickered through his mind. He thought about what he’d found out about the man. The question was: what should he do with the information?