The Drowning (26 page)

‘Are you sure you didn’t put the knife there yourself?’ Louise was no longer slurring her words. Fear had sobered her up, lifting the fog from her brain.

‘No, I’m positive that I cleared everything away, and there was nothing on the table when I went to bed.’

‘Was the front door locked?’ Erik still sounded cold and matter-of-fact.

‘No, it wasn’t. I don’t always remember to lock up at night.’

‘Well, all of the letters I got came with the post,’ said
Erik, riffling through the envelopes. Then he happened to recall something he’d read in the articles about Christian.

‘Christian was the first one to get threatening letters. They started arriving a year and a half ago. You and I didn’t get any until three months ago. So what if this whole thing has to do with him? What if he’s the real target of whoever is sending these letters, and we’re just mixed up in this mess because we know him?’ Erik’s voice took on an indignant tone. ‘Damn him if he knows something about this and isn’t talking. Subjecting me and my family to some lunatic without warning us.’

‘But he doesn’t know that we’ve received letters too,’ Kenneth objected, and Erik had to admit that he was right.

‘No, but he’s going to find out now, in any case.’ Erik gathered up the envelopes in a neat stack and slapped them against the desktop.

‘So you’re thinking of going to talk to him?’ Kenneth sounded anxious, and Erik sighed. Sometimes he really couldn’t stand his colleague’s fear of any sort of conflict. He’d always been that way. Kenneth always went with the flow, never said no, always said yes. Which had actually worked to Erik’s advantage, since there could only be one person in charge. So far he had been that person, and that’s the way it was going to stay.

‘Of course I’m going to talk to him. And to the police too. I should have done that long ago, but it wasn’t until I read about Christian’s letters that I started taking the whole thing seriously.’

‘And it’s about time,’ muttered Louise. Erik glared at her.

‘I don’t want to upset Lisbet.’ Kenneth raised his chin, and there was a defiant glint in his eye.

‘Someone went into your house, put a letter on the
kitchen table, and set a knife next to it. If I were you, I’d be more worried about that than about whether Lisbet might get upset. She’s home alone for a large part of the day. What if someone gets in while you’re not there?’

Erik saw that Kenneth had already had the same thought. At the same time that he was annoyed by his colleague’s lack of enterprise, he was trying to ignore the fact that he too had failed to report the letters. On the other hand, none of them had been placed directly inside his house.

‘All right, let’s do this. You go home and pick up the letters that you’ve received, and we can take all of them over to the police station together. Then they can get started on this whole matter at once.’

Kenneth stood up. ‘I’ll leave now and be right back.’

‘Good. You do that,’ said Erik.

After Kenneth left and the door closed behind him, Erik turned to Louise and studied her for several seconds.

‘There’s a lot we need to talk about.’

Louise looked at him for a moment. Then she raised her hand and slapped his face.

13

‘I said there’s nothing wrong with her!’ Mother’s voice was angry and she was on the verge of tears. He slipped away and sat down behind the sofa some distance away. But not so far that he couldn’t hear what they said. Everything having to do with Alice was important.

He liked her better now. She never gave him that look any more that meant she wanted to take something from him. Mostly she lay still and made very little noise, and he thought that was wonderful.

‘She’s eight months old, and she hasn’t made a single attempt to crawl or move about. We need to have a doctor take a look at her.’ Father was speaking in a low voice. The voice he used when he wanted to persuade Mother to do something that she didn’t want to do. He placed his hands on her shoulders so she would be forced to listen to what he was saying.

‘Something isn’t quite right with Alice. The sooner we get help, the better. You’re not doing her any good by closing your eyes to what’s wrong.’

His mother shook her head. Her shiny dark hair hung down her back, and he wished that he could reach out and touch it. But he knew that she wouldn’t like it; she would pull away from his touch.

Mother kept on shaking her head. The tears rolled down her cheeks, and he knew that in spite of everything, she had begun to relent. Father turned to look over his shoulder, casting a swift glance at him as he sat behind the sofa. He smiled at Father, not knowing what he meant. But apparently it was wrong to smile, because Father frowned and looked angry, as if wishing his expression were different.

Nor did he understand why Mother and Father were so worried and sad. Alice was so calm and nice now. Mother didn’t have to carry her around all the time, and she lay peacefully wherever they put her. But Mother and Father weren’t happy. And even though there was now space for him too, they treated him like he was air. He didn’t really care so much that Father did that; Father wasn’t the one who mattered. But Mother didn’t see him either, and if she did, it was only with a look of disgust and loathing on her face.

Because he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He couldn’t resist lifting his fork again and again, stuffing the food in his mouth, chewing, swallowing, taking more, feeling his body filling out. The fear was too great, the fear that she would never see him. He was no longer Mother’s handsome little boy. But he was here, and he took up space.

It was quiet when he came home. Lisbet was probably sleeping. He considered going in to see her right away, but he didn’t want to wake her if she’d just fallen asleep. It would be better to do it just before he left. She needed all the rest she could get.

Kenneth paused in the front hall for a moment. This was the silence that he would soon have to live with. Of course he’d been home alone in the past. Lisbet had been very involved with her job as a teacher, and she’d often worked overtime in the evenings. But it was a different sort of silence when he’d arrived home before she did. It was a silence full of promise, full of anticipation, waiting for that moment when the front door opened and she would come in, saying: ‘Hi, sweetheart, I’m home.’

He would never again hear those words. Lisbet would leave this house, but she would never come home again.

Suddenly he was overcome with grief. He had put so much energy into keeping his sorrow at bay, not wanting to let it in ahead of time. But now he couldn’t stop it. He leaned his forehead against the wall and felt the tears rising. And he let them come, weeping silently, the tears falling to his feet. For the first time he allowed himself to feel what it would be like when she was gone. In many
ways she was already gone. Their love was as great as ever, but it was different. Because the Lisbet who lay in the guest-room bed was only a shadow of the woman he had loved. She no longer existed, and he missed her terribly.

He stood there for a long time with his forehead pressed against the wall. After a while his sobs subsided, the tears fell more slowly. When they stopped altogether, he took a deep breath, raised his head, and wiped his wet cheeks with his hand. That was enough. That was all he could allow himself right now.

He went into the workroom. The letters were in the top desk drawer. His first instinct had been to throw them out, to ignore them. But something had stopped him. And when the fourth one arrived the other night, delivered inside his home, he was glad that he’d kept the others. Because now he realized that he needed to take them seriously. Someone wanted to harm him.

He knew that he should have turned over the letters to the police right away, and not worried so much about upsetting Lisbet as she waited to die. He should have protected her by taking the matter seriously. It was lucky that he’d realized this in time, that Erik had made him realize it in time. If anything had happened to her because, as usual, he had failed to act, he would never have forgiven himself.

With trembling fingers he picked up the letters, walked quietly down the hall to the kitchen, and placed all of them inside an ordinary one-gallon plastic bag. He considered leaving immediately so as not to wake Lisbet. But he couldn’t go without looking in on her. He needed to make sure that everything was all right, to see her face, he hoped peacefully asleep.

Cautiously he opened the door to the guest room. It opened without a sound, and gradually more and more
of his wife came into view. She was sleeping. Her eyes were closed, and he took in every feature, every detail of her face. She was gaunt and her skin was parched, but she was still beautiful.

He quietly took a few steps inside the room, unable to resist the urge to touch her. But suddenly he sensed that something was wrong. Lisbet looked the way she always did when she slept, but now he realized what was different. It was so silent. He didn’t hear a sound. Not even a breath.

Kenneth rushed forward. He placed two fingers on her throat, moved his fingers to the wrist of her left hand, fumbling, moved his hand back to her throat, wishing with all his heart that he would find the life-giving pulse. But in vain. There was nothing. It was silent in the room and silent in her body. She had left him.

He heard a sobbing sound, as if from an animal. Guttural and filled with despair. And he realized that the sound was coming from him. He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted her up, cautiously, as if she could still feel pain.

Her head rested heavily on his lap. He stroked her cheek and felt his tears return. Grief overcame him with a force that erased everything he had ever felt before; he was consumed by sorrow. It was a physical sorrow that spread through his whole body, wringing every nerve. The pain made him scream out loud. The sound of his cries echoed through the small room, bouncing off the floral coverlet and the pale wallpaper to be thrown back at him.

Her hands were clasped over her breast, and gently he pulled them apart. He wanted to hold her hand one last time. He felt her rough skin against his own. Her skin had lost its softness after the treatments, but it still felt so familiar.

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it, as his tears fell on both of their hands, joining them together. He closed his eyes and tasted the salt of his tears mixing with her scent. He would have liked to sit there for ever, never letting go. But he knew that was impossible. Lisbet was no longer his, she was no longer here, and he had to let her go. At least she was no longer in pain; that was over now. The cancer had won, but it had also lost because it was forced to die with her.

He put her hand down, placing it gently at her side. Her right hand still lay on her breast, and he picked it up to move it to her other side.

But he gave a start when he noticed something in her hand, something white. His heart began pounding wildly. He wanted to clasp her hands again and hide what he saw, but he couldn’t. With trembling fingers he opened her right hand. The white object tumbled out and fell on to the coverlet. A small piece of paper, folded in half so the message was hidden. But he knew what it was. He could feel the presence of evil in the room.

Kenneth reached for the slip of paper. He hesitated for a moment, and then he read what it said.

Anna had just left when the doorbell rang. At first Erica thought that her sister must have forgotten something, but Anna never bothered about such trivial matters as waiting for permission to enter the house. She usually just opened the door and walked in.

Erica put down the cups she had started to clear away and went to open the door.

‘Gaby? What are you doing here?’ She stepped aside to allow the publishing director to enter. Today she lit up the drab of winter with a bright turquoise coat and enormous glittery gold earrings.

‘I was in Göteborg for a meeting, so I thought I’d just drop by and have a little chat.’

Drop by? It was an hour-and-a-half drive from Göteborg, and she hadn’t even phoned ahead to make sure that Erica would be home. What could possibly be so urgent?

‘I wanted to talk to you about Christian,’ Gaby said, answering Erica’s unspoken question as she came inside. ‘Do you have any coffee?’

‘Oh, of course.’

As usual, dealing with Gaby felt like being hit by a train. She didn’t bother to take off her boots, just gave them a superficial wipe on the rug before stepping on to the hardwood floor with her clacking heels. Erica cast a nervous glance at the polished planks of her floor, hoping her publisher wasn’t going to leave any ugly marks behind. But it would be fruitless to say anything to Gaby. Erica couldn’t recall ever seeing her in her stocking-feet, and she wondered if Gaby even took off her boots when she went to bed.

‘How … cosy you’ve made things here,’ said Gaby, smiling broadly. But Erica could tell that she was actually horrified by the sight of all the toys, Maja’s clothes, Patrik’s papers, and everything else scattered all over. Gaby had visited them before, but on those occasions, Erica had expected her arrival and had cleaned up ahead of time.