The House on the Cliff (12 page)

I noticed, rather irrelevantly, that her command of the language was remarkable. Like many Scandinavians, she spoke better English than the English.

At this point the waiter brought over our food. It looked good, but for the moment neither of us touched it. I sensed that she was about to make a revelation.

“Mrs. Lindberg,” I began. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. . . .”

“Solveig, please.” She reached over and laid a hand on my arm. Lightly, politely, but there was an urgency in her gesture. “The thing is, I do. I do have to tell you. Nobody else will listen to me. Elsa’s death was not an accident. I’m convinced of it.”

I nodded again, noncommittally this time. The psychotherapist’s art mainly consists of nodding noncommittally, and I’d perfected it over a couple of decades. I’m pretty good at it now. Though I must admit, it isn’t that hard.

She picked up her knife and fork, and began to eat. I did the same, feeling somewhat confused. I wondered whether Solveig’s husband had been right to suspect that perhaps she was in denial. I’d hoped, when I’d first seen her, that I’d finally come across a success story: someone who had overcome tragic misfortune, escaped from the slough of despond that ensues in its wake. Now I began to wonder whether she’d found another way to cope, by simply pretending that some evil unknown hand had caused Elsa to drown. Denial. Paranoia. Both common neurotic symptoms with a single, and very useful, purpose: to shield us from pain, to flee from the glaring, terrible reality of life—that bad things happen, all the time, to some people and not others, quite randomly, and for no good reason at all.

“So what do you think happened?” I took another sip of beer. A small sip, because it was strong, and rapidly going to my head.

Solveig put down her knife and fork. “Elsa went over to Wales that summer as a tourist, that much is true. She went with a friend from university, Ingrid. While they were there they met a local family, the Morgans. They offered the girls free board and lodging in return for looking after their young son, Gwydion, and helping around the house. It’s a lovely place, right on the coast, and the weather was glorious that summer. Elsa liked it so much that she decided to stay on for a few weeks more, after Ingrid came back to Stockholm.”

I noticed that Solveig had clasped her hands again, lacing her fingers together.

“Actually, I was rather excited when she told me about the Morgans,” she went on. “They were unconventional, arty types. An actress and a director, very well off. They’re quite famous in Wales, I believe.”

I nodded.

“And Elsa seemed happy, so . . .” Solveig’s voice trailed off for a moment, as though she was lost in thought, then resumed. “Anyway, what could I do? She was nineteen years old, an adult. She wasn’t under my control anymore. And she was pretty good about keeping in touch. She phoned us quite often, wrote to us once or twice. She seemed to be having a wonderful time. Playing tennis. Sailing. Swimming.” Solveig came to a halt.

There was a silence, and then I said, “Did she often swim in the bay? The one behind the house? I’ve heard the currents are quite treacherous out there.”

“Yes. But I don’t believe she drowned. Because, you see . . .” Solveig picked up her beer and took a sip. “Elsa was a very strong swimmer. And we Scandinavians . . . we teach our children about the dangers of the sea. They have the rules drummed into them from when they’re babies. She’d never have taken any risks.”

“Even so.” I chose my words carefully. “Teenagers . . . young people . . . they’re sometimes a bit headstrong, aren’t they? They do take risks. We all know that.”

Solveig shook her head. “I’m certain that she wouldn’t have.” She paused. “When . . . it happened . . . I went over to Wales to see for myself. I went to the bay. It looked safe enough, on a calm day. And the weather had been good the day she drowned. I checked.”

She stopped, picked up her knife and fork, and started to eat again. I followed suit. Then, after a while, I asked, “So what do you think did happen?”

Solveig grimaced. “I still don’t really know. The police were totally unhelpful. There’d been a postmortem, showing that the cause of death had been accidental. She was a teenager, which is a high-risk group for drowning, and they’d found traces of alcohol in her body. So that, as far as they were concerned, was that.”

“Could she have been drunk, perhaps?”

“No. The alcohol traces were very slight. As I said, she knew the dangers.”

“Did they find anything else?”

“Some injuries to her head.” Solveig’s voice trembled slightly. “Some bleeding.”

“Really?”

“Consistent with drowning from natural causes, apparently.” She seemed to be recalling the words of the report. “The head injuries were due to buffeting in the water, and the bleeding was passive, caused by internal congestion as a result of the head-down position of a floating corpse.”

The head-down position of a floating corpse.
The words hung in the air.

“It sometimes causes diagnostic confusion,” she continued, a bitter edge to her tone. “In fact, as I found out, it’s very difficult to establish from the autopsy exactly what happened in a case of drowning. You have to look at the circumstances. I thought they were suspicious, so I went back to the police.”

“And?”

“The postmortem had ruled out suicide or homicide, so they refused to investigate further. They were polite enough, but I could tell they thought I was overreacting, that I was simply distraught at the death of my daughter. And they were obviously friendly with the Morgans, wouldn’t say a word against them.” She paused. “The family themselves were no better. They completely clammed up. The mother seemed to be in a terrible state. Tearful, incoherent. The father . . .” Solveig came to a halt.

I waited.

“Have you ever met him?”

“Only once, briefly. I can’t say I took to him.”

“Well, then . . . I thought he was a lying bastard.” Solveig spoke in an even tone, but there was a quiet anger in her voice. “He claimed that Elsa must have gone swimming the previous evening, as night was coming down, on her own. The macerated condition of her skin, established by the postmortem, was consistent with his story. He said she must have got into difficulties because of the current. Or maybe that she’d had cramps. That they hadn’t noticed her absence until the morning. I didn’t believe him. It didn’t ring true.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Solveig looked straight into my eyes. I looked back, into the piercing blue, and thought of the sea and sky and Elsa drowning somewhere between them, cold and alone, without her mother to comfort her. “I am. I didn’t trust him an inch.” She paused. “To tell you the truth, he tried to flirt with me. As if he thought he could distract me from investigating my daughter’s death. In front of his wife, as well. I found it disgusting.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“So what happened in the end?”

“I couldn’t get anywhere. I stayed on for a while, saw to all the arrangements, had Elsa’s body flown home. Put up a plaque at the spot where she died. Andreas didn’t come over to help, couldn’t cope with it. Then I went back to Stockholm. Got through the funeral, somehow. Tried to forget. Lost my husband. Began a new career. Carried on. As people do.” Solveig finished her meal and pushed her plate away. “Dessert?”

“No, thanks.” I’d been enjoying my meal, but my appetite had suddenly vanished. “Shall we just have some coffees?”

Solveig nodded, waved the waiter over and ordered the coffees. Then she opened her bag and took something out.

“Would you like to see a picture of her?”

For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I realized that she was holding a photograph of Elsa.

“Yes. Of course.”

Solveig handed over the photo. It was in color, rather battered at the edges. The girl was fair-haired, with long, slim arms and legs, like her mother. The same elegant, Nordic bone structure. She was wearing a sky-blue sweater, and she was laughing hard.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she? She looks like you.” I started, realizing I’d spoken in the present tense, as though she was still alive.

I handed the photo back. As I did, my eyes filled with tears. I thought of my own children and imagined how terrible it must have been—must still be—for Solveig to bear the loss of her daughter at such a young age, with her whole life still ahead of her. And I felt a shiver of fear when I thought of Nella and what might be happening at home with Emyr and
Jazz Quest
, and the manager, producer, or whoever he was. I’d given Bob strict instructions not to let her make any decisions about the audition while I was away, but of late I’d begun to realize that she was reaching a stage where she might well decide to take matters into her own hands.

Solveig leaned toward me and put her hand on my arm once again. This time, her grip was firmer.

“Help me find out what happened, Jessica. Please. I need to know. I’ve done everything I can. You live over there. You could help me.”

“Well, I’ll try. But I’m not a detective.”

“I know, but I’m sure you realize there’s something wrong here. That’s why you’ve come to see me.”

I didn’t deny it.

“I knew someone would come one day,” she went on, letting go of my arm. “These things never stay hidden forever.”

For a second, three images passed before my eyes. I thought of Gwydion lying in his bed, his face to the wall. Of Arianrhod in a cloud of blue smoke, twisting her fingers in her sleeve. Of Evan Morgan, standing on the driveway of the mansion, frustrated and angry.

“Look,” I said. “I think you may be right. It’s possible you haven’t been told the whole truth about what happened.”

I wondered for a moment what on earth I was getting myself into. I made sure not to mention what I already knew of the family—patient confidentiality and all that. But I also thought it wise not to get her hopes up at this stage. I wasn’t convinced there had been foul play, if that was what Solveig was getting at. So I chose my words carefully.

“If you like, I’ll try to find out a bit more. But I warn you, I can’t promise anything.”

“Thank you.” Solveig spoke lightly, but I could hear the intensity in her tone.

The waiter brought over the coffees. While we drank them we went back to making pleasantries. Then, after a while, she looked at her watch and said she had to go.

When she got up to leave, she shook my hand. Then, impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

“Good-bye,” she said. “And good luck.”

“Thanks.” I put my hand on her arm for a moment. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Mind you do.”

She gave me a last smile. A cheerful, encouraging smile. Then she picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and left.

9

Bob came to the airport to collect me. He was in a buoyant mood, evidently expecting an immediate rapprochement between us. He hugged me tightly when I saw him, took my suitcase, and put his arm around me as we walked to the car. As we drove home, he told me that all had gone well with the girls over the weekend: he’d taken Rose out and about with him on Saturday, and on Sunday he’d invited his mother over for lunch. Nella had helped him cook the meal. They’d had a chance to talk, and she’d told him that there was nothing to worry about. Emyr was just trying to help her get her singing career off the ground, she’d said. She was practicing for the audition, and she’d let us know when it came up. In the evening, Bob said, he and the girls had watched a film on TV. Rose had snuggled up to him on the sofa, and Nella had leaned against him and put her head on his shoulder, the way she’d used to do when she was little.

“That’s nice,” I said. My anger toward him was thawing a little since my brief adventure in Stockholm. “Maybe I should go away more often.”

Bob laughed, but he shot me a nervous glance.

“Feeling any better?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about it. I did feel calmer. The break had done me good, helped me to move on from my feeling of helpless resentment toward him. “I think so.”

“Good.” He leaned over and patted my knee. “Now, tell me all about Stockholm.”

I told him about the city: the blue skies; the glittering islands in the sea; the pretty little hotel by the water’s edge; the cobbled streets of the Gamla Stan; the restaurant in the tower with the panoramic views; the grandiose wooden warship in the Vasamuseet, which I’d visited after my lunch there. Built in the seventeenth century by King Gustavus Adolphus, it had so many gun decks perched on its narrow keel that it toppled over and sank on its first outing. The ambitiousness, and foolishness, of the endeavor had made a strong impression on me. The way that nobody—architects, shipbuilders, naval strategists, political advisers—had dared to tell the king that the ship wouldn’t stay up in the water, even in port. The way that armies of sailors were employed to run up and down the decks when he visited, to make it look as if it could keep steady.

“You’d like Sweden.” I paused. “Maybe we could go together some time.”

I didn’t mention that everything there was fiendishly expensive. That had been a shock to the system, not to mention the bank balance. And I didn’t mention who I’d had lunch with at the Vasamuseet, either.

When we got home, Rose bounded up to greet me, glad to have me back. Nella was, too, I could tell, although she pretended at first not to have registered my absence. They both loved the mittens, and Bob was gracious enough about the aquavit, opening it and pouring us an aperitif. The house was tidy, and Bob had cooked a casserole for supper. Nella had made a salad, and Rose had iced some fairy cakes for afters, as she called it. We ate together, and I felt more relaxed than I had done in a long time. Looking around the cozily lit kitchen, it seemed impossible that anything, anything at all, could destroy this little unit: Bob, me, and the girls. But that night, when we went to bed and Bob tried to make love to me, the translator came back again.

She was wearing her headset and her tiny dress. Bob was in his suit, his specs perched on the end of his nose, looking serious. He was sitting at a desk, with his name on a little sign in front of it. The translator was smiling at him. He was smiling at her. Every time he spoke, she repeated his words. He liked hearing her voice, shaping the outline of his sentences in her language. She liked fashioning them for him, presenting to all the people listening, polished and buffed. Then the scene changed and I saw a bed, a hotel bed like the one I’d slept in during my stay, only this one was wider, and grander, and in it were Bob and the translator, and the headset had come off, and the tiny dress . . .