The Drowning (24 page)

For several seconds the only answer was Alice screaming. Then Father stood up, still holding her in his arms, and said, ‘No, I just didn’t get the towel wrapped around her fast enough when I took her out of the bath. She’s just angry.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t do anything?’ She stared at him, but he just bowed his head and pretended to be busy tugging at the fringe of the rug.

‘No, he was just helping me out. He’s been very nice with her.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Father gave him a warning look.

Mother seemed satisfied with that response. Impatiently she reached out for Alice, and after a moment’s hesitation, Father handed the baby to her. When she had left the room to calm the child, they looked at each other. Neither of them said a word. But he saw in Father’s eyes that he meant what he had said. They would never speak of what had just happened.

‘Kenneth?’ Her voice broke as she tried to call her husband’s name.

No answer. Was she imagining things? No, she was sure that she’d heard the door open and then close again.

‘Hello?’

Still no answer. Lisbet attempted to sit up, but her strength had been seeping away so fast over the past few days that she couldn’t manage it. What energy she had left, she saved for the hours when Kenneth was at home. All for the purpose of convincing him that she was doing better than she actually was, so that he’d let her stay home a little while longer. So she could escape the smell of the hospital and the feel of the starched sheets against her skin. She knew Kenneth so well. He would drive her to the hospital in an instant if he knew how bad she was really feeling. He would do it because he was still clinging desperately to hope.

But Lisbet’s body told her that her time was near. She’d used up all her reserves, and the disease had taken over. Victorious. All she wanted was to die at home, with her own blanket over her body and her own pillow under her head. And with Kenneth sleeping next to her in the night. She often lay awake, listening, trying to
memorize the sound of each breath he took. She knew how uncomfortable it was for him to sleep on that rickety camp-bed. But she couldn’t get herself to tell him to go upstairs to sleep. Maybe she was being selfish, but she loved him too much to be away from him in these last hours that she had left.

‘Kenneth?’ she called out again. She had just persuaded herself that it was all in her imagination when she heard the familiar creak of the loose floorboard out in the hall. It always protested whenever anyone stepped on it.

‘Hello?’ Now she was starting to get scared. She looked around for the telephone, which Kenneth usually remembered to leave within reach. But lately he’d been so tired in the morning that he sometimes forgot. Like today.

‘Is someone there?’ She gripped the edge of the bed and again tried to sit up. She felt like the main character in one of her favourite stories,
The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka, in which Gregor Samsa is changed into a beetle and can’t turn over if he lands on his back. He just lies there, helpless.

Now she heard footsteps in the hall. Whoever it was moved cautiously, but was still getting closer and closer. Lisbet felt panic taking over. Who would refuse to answer her calls? Surely Kenneth wouldn’t try to tease her in that way. He had never subjected her to any sort of practical jokes or surprises, so she didn’t think he would start now.

The footsteps were very close. She stared at the old wooden door, which she had personally sanded and painted what now seemed like an entire lifetime ago. When the door didn’t move, she again thought that her brain must be playing tricks on her, that the cancer had spread there too, so that she could no longer think clearly or tell what was real and what wasn’t.

But then, very slowly, the door began to open. Someone
was standing on the other side, pushing it open. She screamed for help, screamed as loud as she could, trying to drown out the terrifying silence. When the door swung all the way open, she stopped. And the person began to speak. The voice was familiar and yet not, and she squinted to see better. The long dark hair she saw made Lisbet instinctively touch her own head to make sure the yellow scarf was in place.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, but the person held up a finger. And Lisbet fell silent.

The voice spoke again. Now it was coming from the edge of the bed, speaking close to her face, saying things that made her want to cover her ears with her hands. Lisbet shook her head, didn’t want to listen, but the voice continued. It was spellbinding and relentless. It told a story, and something about its tone and the narrative’s movement, both backward and forward, made her understand that the story was true. And the truth was more than she could bear.

Paralysed, she listened to the inexorable outpouring of words. The more she heard, the weaker was her hold on the fragile lifeline that had been keeping her going. She’d been living on borrowed time and sheer force of will, relying on love and her faith in it. Now that it had been taken from her, she let go of her grip. The last thing Lisbet heard was the voice. And then her heart burst.

‘When do you think we can talk to Cia again?’ Patrik looked at his colleague.

‘I’m afraid we can’t wait,’ said Paula. ‘I’m sure she understands that we need to keep working on the investigation.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Patrik, but he didn’t sound convinced. It was always a difficult balance. Doing his job, which might involve intruding on someone’s grief, or showing compassion and thereby putting his work in second place. At the same time, Cia’s steadfast Wednesday visits to the police station had shown him what she considered the top priority.

‘What should we do? What haven’t we done yet? Or is there anything we need to do over? Have we missed something?’

‘Well, to begin with, Magnus spent his whole life here in Fjällbacka, so if he had any secrets, either now or in the past, we should be able to find them here. And that makes things easier. The local gossip mill is usually highly efficient, and yet we haven’t found out a single thing about him. Nothing that might give us a motive for why someone would want to harm him, much less take the drastic step of killing him.’

‘He seems to have been a real family man. A stable marriage, well-behaved children, a normal social circle. But in spite of all that, somebody went at him with a knife. Could it have been an act of insanity? Some mentally deranged person who snapped and then chose a victim at random?’ Paula presented this theory without a great deal of confidence.

‘We can’t rule that out, but I don’t think so. The most significant thing contradicting that premise is the fact that Magnus phoned Rosander to say that he’d be late. And besides, Rosander said that Kjellner didn’t sound like himself. No, something happened on that morning.’

‘In other words, we need to focus on the people he knew.’

‘Easier said than done,’ replied Patrik. ‘Fjällbacka has approximately a thousand inhabitants. And everybody knows everybody else, more or less.’

‘Oh, great. I’m beginning to see the problem,’ laughed Paula. She was a relative newcomer in Tanumshede, and she was still trying to get used to the shock of losing the anonymity of a big city.

‘But in principle, you’re right. So I suggest that we start at the centre and then make our way outwards. We’ll talk to Cia as soon as we can. And to the children, if Cia will allow it. Then we’ll move on to Magnus’s closest friends: Erik Lind, Kenneth Bengtsson, and especially Christian Thydell. There’s something about those threatening letters …’

Patrik opened his top desk drawer and took out the plastic bag containing the letter and the card. He told his colleague the whole story about how Erica had acquired them. Paula listened in disbelief. In silence she read the hostile words.

‘This is serious,’ she said then. ‘We should send these to the lab for analysis.’

‘I know,’ said Patrik. ‘But let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions. I just have a feeling that everything might be connected somehow.’

‘I agree,’ said Paula, getting up. ‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence either.’ She paused before leaving Patrik’s office. ‘Should we talk to Christian today?’

‘No, I’d like us to spend the rest of the day gathering all the information we can find about all three of them: Christian, Erik, and Kenneth. Then we’ll go through all the material together tomorrow morning, to see whether there’s anything we can use. I also think both of us should read through all the notes from the interviews that were conducted right after Magnus disappeared. Then we’ll be able to catch anything that doesn’t jibe with what people said the first time around.’

‘I’ll talk to Annika. I’m sure she can help with the background material.’

‘Good. I’ll phone Cia and find out if she can bear to meet with us.’

With a meditative expression on his face, Patrik sat and stared at the phone for a long time after Paula had left.

‘Stop calling here!’ Sanna slammed down the phone. It had been ringing nonstop all day. Journalists wanting to talk to Christian. They never said exactly what they wanted, but it wasn’t hard to guess. The fact that Magnus had been found dead so soon after the existence of the threatening letters was revealed had prompted the reporters to link the two events. But that was absurd. They had nothing to do with each other. It was also rumoured that Magnus had been murdered, but until she heard it from more reliable sources than the gossipmongers in town, Sanna refused to believe it. Even if such an unthinkable thing was actually true, why should there be a link to the letters that Christian had received? In an
attempt to reassure her, Christian had said that the letters were probably sent by a mentally disturbed person who had decided to target him for some reason. A person who was most likely quite harmless.

She had wanted to ask him why, if that was the case, he had reacted so strongly at the book launch. Didn’t he believe his own theory? But all of her questions had vanished as soon as he told her where the blue dress had come from. In light of that revelation all else had paled. It was horrifying, and her heart had ached when she heard his explanation. At the same time, it was comforting to know the real story, because it clarified so much. And excused a good deal.

Her worries also seemed insignificant when she thought about Cia and what she’d been going through. Christian was going to miss Magnus. She would too, even though their relationship had at times been a little strained, but that was only natural. Erik, Kenneth, and Magnus had grown up together and shared a past. Sanna had been aware of them, but because she was so much younger, she had never spent time with them until Christian came into the picture and got to know the other men. Of course she knew that their wives thought she was young and perhaps a bit naive. But they had always welcomed her with open arms, and over the years that particular group of friends had become a regular part of their lives. They celebrated holidays together, and occasionally they ate dinner together on the weekends.

Of the other wives, Sanna liked Lisbet best. She was a quiet person with a droll sense of humour, and she always treated Sanna as an equal. Besides, Nils and Melker worshipped her. It seemed so unfair that she and Kenneth had no children of their own. But Sanna had a guilty conscience because she couldn’t bear to visit Lisbet. She had tried at Christmastime, going over there with a
poinsettia and a box of chocolates. But as soon as she saw Lisbet lying in bed, looking more dead than alive, she wanted to back out and run as far away as possible. Lisbet noticed her reaction. Sanna could tell by her expression, which was a combination of understanding and disappointment. She couldn’t stand to see that disappointed look again, couldn’t stand to meet death disguised as a person and then pretend that it was still her friend lying in that bed.

‘Hey, how come you’re home already?’ Sanna looked up in surprise as Christian came in the front door and mutely hung up his coat. ‘Are you sick? Aren’t you supposed to work until five today?’

‘I’m just not feeling well,’ he muttered.

‘You don’t look so good, either,’ she said worriedly as she studied his face. ‘What did you do to your forehead?’