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Monday came with temperatures above freezing and clouds heavy with rain. Erica was always a careful driver, but now she drove a bit slower to give herself some leeway in case she happened to skid. Driving wasn’t her strong suit, but she preferred the solitude of a car to being crowded into the E6 express bus or the train.

When she turned right onto the highway the condition of the road improved and she allowed herself to increase her speed a bit. She was supposed to meet Henrik Wijkner at noon, but she had left FjÄllbacka early and had plenty of time for the trip to GÖteborg.

For the first time since she saw Alex in that icy-cold bathroom she thought about the phone conversation with Anna. She still had a hard time imagining that Anna would really go through with selling the house. It was their childhood home, after all, and their parents would have been upset if they knew. But anything was possible when Lucas was involved. It was because she could see how lacking in scruples he was that she even considered the likelihood. He kept sinking to ever lower depths, but this was far beyond almost anything he’d done before.

But before she seriously began worrying about the house, she ought to find out where she stood from a purely legal point of view. Until then, she refused to let Lucas’s latest ploy get her down. Right now, she had to concentrate on the upcoming talk with Alex’s husband.

Henrik Wijkner had sounded pleasant on the telephone, and he had already heard the news when she rang. Of course she could come over and ask him questions about Alexandra, since the memorial article was so important to her parents.

It would be interesting to see what Alex’s home looked like, even though Erica wasn’t eager to confront another person’s grief. The meeting with Alex’s parents had been heart wrenching. As a writer, she preferred to observe reality from a distance. Study it from afar, safely and objectively. At the same time it would be an opportunity to get her first inkling of what Alex had been like as an adult.

From their first day at school Erica and Alex had been inseparable. Erica was tremendously proud that Alex had chosen her as a friend. Alex was like a magnet to all who came near her. Everyone wanted to be with Alex, yet she was totally oblivious to her popularity. She was withdrawn in a way that displayed a self-confidence which Erica now, as an adult, perceived as very unusual for a child. And yet Alex was open and generous and showed no sign of shyness despite her reserved manner. She was the one who chose Erica as her friend. Erica never would have dared approach Alex on her own. They were inseparable until the last year before Alex moved away and then vanished from her life for good. Alex had begun to withdraw more and more, and Erica spent hours alone in her room mourning for their lost friendship. Then one day when she rang the doorbell at Alex’s house, nobody answered. Twenty-five years later Erica could still remember in detail the pain she felt when she realized that Alex had moved without even mentioning it to her, without saying good-bye. She still had no idea what had happened. Being a child, she’d put all the blame on herself and simply assumed that Alex had grown tired of her.

Erica maneuvered her way with some difficulty through GÖteborg in the direction of SÄrÖ. She knew her way around the city after having studied there for four years, but back then she hadn’t owned a car, so in that respect GÖteborg was still a blank space on the map. If she could have driven on the bike paths things would have been much easier. GÖteborg was a nightmare for an insecure driver, with plenty of one-way streets, circles with heavy traffic, and the stressful ringing of trams coming at her from every direction. It also felt as though all roads were leading to Hisingen, northwest of the city. If she took the wrong exit she was bound to end up there.

The directions that Henrik had given her were clear, and she found the address on the first try, managing to stay out of Hisingen this time.

The house exceeded all her expectations. An enormous white villa from the turn of the last century, with a view of the water and a small gazebo that held the promise of warm summer nights to come. The garden, now hidden beneath a thick white mantle of snow, had been carefully laid out. Because of its sheer size, it would demand the tender care of a skilled gardener.

Erica drove down an avenue of willow trees and through a tall wrought-iron gate onto the gravel courtyard in front of the house.

Stone steps led up to a substantial oak door. There was no modern doorbell; instead she banged hard with a massive door-knocker. The door was opened at once. She had almost expected to be greeted by a housemaid in a starched apron and cap, but instead she was received by a man she realized at once had to be Henrik Wijkner. He was unabashedly good-looking, and Erica was glad she had devoted a little extra effort to her appearance before she left home.

She stepped into a huge entrance hall and saw immediately that it was bigger than her entire apartment back in Stockholm.

“Erica Falck.”

“Henrik Wijkner. We met last summer as I recall. At that restaurant down by Ingrid Bergman Square.”

“Yes, that’s right. At CafÉ Bryggan. It seems like an eternity ago that we had summer. Especially considering this weather we’re having.”

Henrik muttered something polite in reply. He helped her off with her coat and showed her the way to a parlor off the hall. She sat down gingerly on a sofa. Even with her limited knowledge of antiques she could tell the sofa was old and probably very valuable. She said yes to Henrik’s offer of coffee. As he pottered about with the coffee and they exchanged comments about the wretched weather, she watched him surreptitiously, concluding that he didn’t look particularly bereaved. But Erica also knew that it might not mean anything. Different people had different ways of grieving.

He was casually dressed in perfectly pressed chinos and a sky-blue Ralph Lauren shirt. His hair was dark, almost black, and cut in a style that was elegant but not excessively fastidious. His eyes were dark brown and gave him a slightly Southern European look. She happened to prefer men who looked considerably more rough-and-tumble, but she couldn’t help being affected by the attractive power of this man who looked as if he’d stepped right out of a fashion magazine. Henrik and Alex must have made a strikingly good-looking couple.

“What an incredibly lovely house.”

“Thank you. I’m the fourth generation of Wijkners to live here. My paternal great-grandfather had the house built early in the last century and it’s been in the family ever since. If these walls could talk . . .” He made a sweeping gesture and smiled at Erica.

“Well, it must feel strange to have so much of your family’s history around you.”

“Yes and no. But it is a great responsibility. In the footsteps of my ancestors and all that.”

He chuckled softly and Erica didn’t think he looked particularly weighed down by responsibility. She, however, felt helplessly out of place in this elegant room and struggled in vain to find a comfortable way to sit on the lovely but spartan sofa. Finally she perched on the very edge and carefully sipped her coffee, which was served in small mocha cups. Her little finger twitched a bit but she resisted the impulse. The cups were perfect for crooking one’s little finger, but she suspected that it would probably seem more of a parody than a sign of sophistication. She also struggled briefly when confronted with the plate of cakes on the table, but lost the battle in a duel with a thick slice of sponge cake. She estimated it at ten Weight Watchers points.

“Alex loved this house.”

Erica had been wondering how to broach the real reason why she was sitting here. She was grateful when Henrik himself brought up the topic of Alex.

“How long did you live here together?”

“Ever since we were married, fifteen years. We met when we were both studying in Paris. She was reading art history, and I was trying to acquire enough knowledge about the business world to run the family empire. And I did, but just barely.”

Erica strongly suspected that Henrik Wijkner had never done anything “just barely.”

“Directly after the wedding we moved back to Sweden, to this house. My parents were both dead, and the house had stood empty for a couple of years while I was abroad, but Alex immediately began to renovate it. She wanted everything to be perfect. All the details in the house, all the wallpaper, rugs and furniture, have either been here since the house was built and restored to its former appearance, or else they were purchased by Alex. She went around to, well, I don’t know how many antique dealers to find exactly the same items that were in the house when my great-grandfather lived here. She had stacks of old photographs to help her, and the result is fantastic. At the same time she was busy setting up her own gallery. I still don’t understand how she found time to do everything.”

“What was Alex like as a person?”

Henrik took his time before answering the question.

“Beautiful, calm, a perfectionist to her fingertips. She might have seemed vain to people who didn’t know her, but that was because she didn’t easily let anyone into her life. Alex was the sort of person one had to fight to get to know.”

Erica was acutely aware of what he meant. Alex’s air of remoteness was both intriguing and marked her as stuck-up, even as a child. Yet the same girls who called her that often fought the hardest to sit next to her.

“How do you mean?”

Henrik looked out of the window and for the first time since she entered the Wijkner home, Erica thought she saw some feeling behind that charming exterior.

“She always went her own way. She didn’t take anyone else into account. Not out of malice, there was nothing malicious about Alex, but out of necessity. The most important thing for my wife was to avoid getting hurt. Everything else, all other feelings, had to take a back seat to that priority. But the problem is, if you don’t let anyone through the wall out of fear that they might be an enemy, then you end up locking out all your friends as well.”

He fell silent. Then he looked at Erica. “She talked a lot about you.”

Erica couldn’t conceal her surprise. In view of the way their friendship had ended, Erica assumed that Alex had turned her back on her and had never given her another thought.

“I vividly remember one thing she told me. She said that you were the last real friend she ever had. ‘The last pure friendship.’ That’s exactly what she said. I thought it was a rather odd thing to say, but she never mentioned it again, and by that time I’d learned not to question her. That’s why I’m telling you things about Alex that I’ve never told anyone else. Something tells me that despite all the years that have passed, you still had a place in my wife’s heart.”

“You loved her?”

“More than anything else in the world. Alexandra was my whole life. Everything I did, everything I said, revolved around her. The ironic thing is that she never even noticed. If only she had let me in, she wouldn’t be dead today. The answer was always right in front of her nose, but she refused to see it. My wife had a strange mixture of cowardice and courage.”

“Birgit and Karl-Erik don’t think she took her own life.”

“Yes, I know. They assume that I wouldn’t believe she did it either, but to be honest, I don’t quite know what I think. I lived with her for over fifteen years, but I never really knew her.”

His voice was still dry and matter-of-fact. Judging by his tone of voice he could have been talking about the weather, but Erica realized that her first impression of Henrik couldn’t have been more off the mark. The depth of his sorrow was enormous. He just didn’t put it on public display the way Birgit and Karl-Erik Carlgren did. Perhaps because of her own experiences, Erica understood instinctively that he was not suffering merely from grief over his wife’s death but also from forever losing the chance to get her to love him the way he loved her. It was a feeling with which she was intimately familiar.

“What was she afraid of?”

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. I really don’t know. As soon as I tried to talk to her about it she would shut the door, and I never managed to get in. It was as though she harbored a secret that she couldn’t share with anyone. Does that sound odd? But because I don’t know what that secret was, I can’t say whether she was capable of taking her own life.”

“How was her relationship with her parents and her sister?”

“Well, how should I describe it?” He thought for a long time before he replied. “Tense. As if they were all tiptoeing around one another. The only one who ever said what she thought was her little sister Julia, and she’s a very strange person in general. It always felt as if a whole different dialogue were going on underneath what was being said out loud. I don’t quite know how to explain it. It was as if they were speaking in code, and someone had forgotten to give me the key.”

“What do you mean when you say that Julia is odd?”

“As you probably know, Birgit gave birth to Julia quite late in life. She was already a good bit past forty, and it wasn’t planned. So Julia has somehow always been the cuckoo in the nest. And it couldn’t have been very easy to have a sister like Alex. Julia was not a pretty child. She hasn’t grown any more attractive as an adult, and you know how Alex looked. Birgit and Karl-Erik have always been extremely focused on Alex, and Julia was simply forgotten. Her way of dealing with it was to turn inward. But I like her. There’s definitely something underneath her surly exterior. I only hope that someday, someone will make the effort to find it.”

“How has she reacted to Alex’s death? What was their relationship like?”

“You’ll probably have to ask Birgit or Karl-Erik about that. I haven’t seen Julia in more than six months. She’s studying to be a teacher up north in UmeÅ, and she doesn’t like coming back here. She didn’t even come home for Christmas last year. As far as her relationship with Alex goes, Julia has always worshiped her big sister. Alex had already started boarding school when Julia was born, so she wasn’t home much, but whenever we visited the family Julia would follow her sister around like a puppy. Alex didn’t like it much but she left her alone. Sometimes she could get angry at Julia and snap at her, but usually she just ignored her sister.”

Erica felt that the conversation was nearing an end. In the pauses the silence in the house had been total, and she could sense that in the midst of all this luxury it had now become a lonely house for Henrik Wijkner.

Erica stood up and held out her hand. He took it in both of his, held it for a few seconds, then released it. He walked her to the door.

“I think I’ll drive down to the gallery and look around a bit,” she said.

“That’s a good idea. Alex was incredibly proud of it. She built the business from the ground up, together with a friend from her student years in Paris, Francine Bijoux. Well, now her name is Sandberg. We used to socialize with Francine and her husband a good deal, although that became less frequent after they had children. Francine is probably at the gallery. I’ll give her a ring and explain who you are. I’m sure she’ll be glad to help out and tell you a bit about Alex.”

Henrik held open the door for Erica. With a last thank you, she turned away from Alex’s husband and walked to her car.

At the same moment that she got out of her car, the heavens opened up. The gallery was in Chalmersgaten, parallel to the main shopping street Avenyn, but after half an hour of looking for a parking spot Erica resigned herself and parked at Heden. It wasn’t so far away, really, but in the pouring rain it felt like six miles. And the parking fee was twelve kronor an hour. Erica could feel her mood sinking. Naturally she hadn’t brought an umbrella with her, and she knew that her curly hair would soon look like a bad home perm.

She hurried across Avenyn and just managed to dodge the number 4 tram that came thundering in the direction of MÖlndal. After passing Valand, where she had spent many an evening during her student years, she turned left into Chalmersgaten.

Galleri Abstract was on the left, with big display windows facing the street. A bell over the door pinged as she entered, and she saw that the space was much bigger than it looked from outside. The walls, floor and ceiling were painted white so as not to distract from the works of art hanging on the walls.

At the far end of the gallery she saw a woman who looked unmistakably French. She exuded sheer elegance as she discussed a painting with a customer, gesturing eagerly as she talked.

“I’ll be right there, please have a look around in the meantime.” Her French accent sounded charming.

Erica took the woman at her word. With her hands clasped behind her back she walked slowly around the room as she looked at the artworks. As the gallery’s name indicated, all the paintings were done in the abstract style. Cubes, squares, circles and strange figures. Erica tilted her head and squinted, trying to see what the art aficionados saw. But it completely eluded her. Nope, still only cubes and squares like any five-year-old could produce, in her opinion. She would just have to accept that this was beyond her comprehension.

She was standing before a gigantic red painting with yellow, irregularly divided sections when she heard Francine come up behind her with heels clacking on the checkerboard floor.

“That one is certainly wonderful,” said Francine.

“Yes, indeed. Exquisite. But to be honest, I’m not really at home in the world of art. I think Van Gogh’s sunflowers are great, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes.”

Francine smiled. “You must be Erica. Henri just rang and told me you were on your way here.”

She held out a finely contoured hand. Erica hastily wiped off her own hand, still wet with rain, before she took Francine’s.

The woman facing her was small and slender, with an elegance that Frenchwomen seem to have patented. Erica was five foot nine in her stocking feet, and she felt like a giant in comparison.

Francine’s hair was raven-black. It was pulled back smoothly from her forehead and gathered in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She wore a form-fitting black dress. The color was no doubt chosen in view of the death of her friend and colleague; she seemed more the type to dress in dramatic red, or perhaps yellow. Her makeup was light and perfectly applied, but it could not conceal the telling red rims of her eyes. Erica hoped that her own mascara wasn’t running—no doubt a vain hope.

“I thought we ought to sit down and talk over a cup of coffee. The weather is very mild today. Let’s go out back.”

She led Erica toward a small room behind the gallery that was fully equipped with a refrigerator, microwave oven, and coffeemaker. The table was small and had room for only two chairs. Erica sat down and was instantly served a cup of steaming hot coffee by Francine. Her stomach protested after all the cups she had drunk when she was visiting Henrik. But she knew from experience, from the innumerable interviews she had conducted to dig up background material for her books, that for some reason people talked more easily with a coffee cup in their hand.

“From what I understood from Henri, Alex’s parents asked you to write a commemorative article about her life.”

“Yes. I’ve only seen Alex on brief occasions in the last twenty-five years, so I need to find out more about what she was like as a person before I can start writing.”

“Are you a journalist?”

“No, I write biographies. I’m only doing this because Birgit and Karl-Erik asked me. And besides, I was the first one to find her, well, almost the first. And in some strange way I feel as though I need to do this to create another picture of Alex for myself, a living picture. Does that sound odd?”

“No, not at all. I think it’s fabulous that you’re taking so much trouble on behalf of Alex’s parents—and Alex.”

Francine leaned across the table and placed a well-manicured hand over Erica’s.

Erica felt a warm blush spread across her cheeks and tried not to think of the draft of the book she’d been working on for large parts of the previous day.

Francine went on, “Henri also asked me to answer your questions with the utmost candor.”

She spoke excellent Swedish. She rolled her R’s softly, and Erica noticed that she used the French Henri rather than Henrik.

“You and Alex met in Paris?”

“Yes, we studied art history together. We ran into each other the very first day. She looked lost and I felt lost. The rest is history, as they say.”

“How long have you known each other?”

“Let’s see, Henri and Alex celebrated their fifteenth anniversary last fall so it would be . . . seventeen years. For fifteen of those years we’ve run this gallery together.”

She fell silent and to Erica’s astonishment lit a cigarette. For some reason she hadn’t pictured Francine as a smoker. The Frenchwoman’s hand shook a little as she lit the cigarette, and then she took a deep drag without taking her eyes off Erica.

“Didn’t you wonder where she was?” Erica asked. “She must have been lying there a week before we found her.”

It occurred to Erica that she hadn’t thought to ask Henrik the same question.

“I know it sounds strange, but no, I didn’t. Alex . . .” she hesitated. “Alex always did pretty much as she liked. It could be incredibly frustrating, but I suppose I got used to it over the years. This wasn’t the first time she was gone for a while. She usually popped up later as if nothing had happened. Besides, she did more than her share when she took care of the gallery all alone when I was on maternity leave. You know, in some way I still think the same thing is going to happen. That she’s going to come walking in the door. But this time I know she won’t.” A tear threatened to spill from her eye.

“No, she won’t.” Erica looked down into her coffee cup to allow Francine to dry her eyes discreetly. “How did Henrik react whenever Alex simply vanished?”

“You’ve met him. Alex could do no wrong in his eyes. Henri has spent the past fifteen years worshiping her. Poor Henri.”

“Why poor Henri?”

“Alex didn’t love him. Sooner or later he would have been forced to realize that.”

She stubbed out the first cigarette and lit another.

“You must have known each other inside-out after so many years,” said Erica.

“I don’t think anyone really knew Alex. Although I probably knew her better than Henri did. He has always refused to take off his rose-tinted glasses.”

“During our conversation Henrik hinted that in all the years of their marriage it felt as though Alex was hiding something from him. Do you know whether that’s true? And if so, what it could be?”

“That was unusually perceptive of him. I may have underestimated Henri.” She raised a finely shaped eyebrow. “To your first question I will answer yes: I’ve always known that she was carrying some sort of baggage. To the second question I must answer no: I don’t have the faintest idea what it could be. Despite our long friendship there was always a point at which Alex would signal, ‘so far, and no farther.’ I accepted it, while Henri did not. Sooner or later it would have broken him. And it probably would have been sooner.”

“Why is that?”

Francine hesitated. “They’re going to do an autopsy on Alex, aren’t they?”

The question took Erica by surprise.

“Yes, that’s always done for a suicide. Why do you ask?”

“Because then I know that what I’m about to tell you will come out anyway. My conscience feels lighter, at least.”

She stubbed out the cigarette carefully. Erica held her breath in tense expectation, but Francine took her time lighting a third cigarette. Her fingers didn’t have the characteristic yellow discoloration of a smoker, so Erica suspected that she didn’t usually chain-smoke like this.

“You must know that Alex has been going to FjÄllbacka much more often for the past six months or so?”

“Yes, the grapevine works very well in small towns. According to the local gossip, she was in FjÄllbacka more or less every weekend. Alone.”

“Alone is not exactly the whole truth.”

Francine hesitated again. Erica had to check her impulse to lean across the table and shake the woman to make her spit out whatever she was holding back. Her interest was definitely aroused.

“She had met someone there. A man. Well, it wasn’t the first time that Alex had an affair, but somehow I got the feeling that this was different. For the first time in all the years we’ve known each other, she seemed almost content. And I know that she couldn’t have taken her own life. Someone must have murdered her, I have no doubt about that.”

“How can you be so sure? Not even Henrik could say for certain whether she might have committed suicide.”

“Because she was pregnant.”

Francine’s reply caught Erica off guard.

“Does Henrik know about this?”

“I don’t know. At any rate, it wasn’t his child. They haven’t lived together in that way for many years. And even when they did, Alex always refused to have a child with Henri. No matter how much he begged her. No, the child must have been fathered by the new man in her life—whoever he may be.”

“She never said who he was?”

“No. As you probably realize by now, Alex was very sparing with her confidences. I have to admit that I was quite shocked when she told me about the child, but that’s also one of the reasons why I’m absolutely sure she didn’t kill herself. She was literally brimming with happiness and simply couldn’t keep the news to herself. She loved that baby and never would have done anything to harm it, certainly not take its life. For the first time, I saw an Alexandra who had a zest for life. I think I would have grown quite fond of her.” Her voice sounded sad. “You know, I also had a feeling that she intended to come to terms with her past. I don’t know exactly how, but a few scattered remarks here and there gave me that impression.”

The door to the gallery opened and they heard somebody stamping the wet snow from their shoes on the doormat. Francine got up.

“That’s probably a customer. I have to go. I hope I’ve been of some help.”

“Oh yes, I’m very grateful that you and Henrik have both been so frank. You’ve been a great help.”

After Francine assured the customer that she would be right back, she showed Erica to the door. In front of an enormous canvas with a white square on a blue field they stopped and shook hands.

“Just out of curiosity, what would a painting like this go for? Five thousand, ten thousand?”

Francine smiled. “More like fifty.”

Erica gave a low whistle. “So, there you see. Art and fine wine. Two areas that remain complete mysteries to me.”

“And I can barely write a shopping list. We all have our specialties.”

They laughed. Erica pulled her coat tighter even though it was still damp and headed out into the rain.

The rain had transformed the snow to slush, and she drove a bit below the speed limit just to be on the safe side. After wasting almost half an hour trying to get out of Hisingen, where she had ended up by mistake, she was now approaching Uddevalla. A dull rumble in her stomach reminded her that she had totally forgotten to eat all day. She turned off the E6 at the Torp shopping center north of Uddevalla and drove into McDonald’s. She gulped down a cheeseburger as she sat in the parking lot and was soon back out on the highway. The whole time her thoughts were filled with the conversations she’d had with Henrik and Francine. What they had told her created an image of a woman who had built high defensive walls around herself.

What Erica was most curious about was who could be the father of Alex’s baby. Francine didn’t think that it was Henrik’s, but no one could ever be completely sure what happened in other people’s bedrooms, and Erica still reckoned it was a possibility. If not, the question was whether the father was the man that Francine hinted Alex had gone to meet every weekend in FjÄllbacka, or whether she had a lover in GÖteborg.

Erica had got the impression that Alex was leading some sort of parallel life. She did as she liked, without worrying about how it would affect those close to her, and Henrik in particular. Erica had the feeling that Francine had a hard time understanding how Henrik could accept a marriage under those conditions. She also thought that Francine disdained him for that reason. Yet Erica could understand all too well how these sorts of things happened. She had been observing Anna and Lucas’s marriage for many years.

What depressed Erica most about Anna’s inability to change her situation was that she couldn’t help wondering whether she was part of the reason for Anna’s lack of self-respect. Erica was five years old when Anna was born. From the first instant she saw her little sister she had tried to protect her from the reality she carried around with her like an invisible wound. Anna would never have to feel alone and rejected because of their mother’s lack of love for her daughters. The hugs and loving words that Anna did not get from her mother, Erica supplied in abundance. She watched over her little sister with motherly concern.

Anna was an easy child to love. She was totally immune to the sadder aspects of life and took each moment as it came. Erica, who was old beyond her years and often upset, was fascinated by the energy with which her sister loved every minute of her life. Anna took Erica’s anxieties in stride but seldom had the patience to sit on her lap or let herself be cuddled for very long. She grew up to be a wild teenager who did precisely whatever she pleased, an unflappable and self-centered girl. In moments of clarity, Erica admitted to herself that she had probably both protected and coddled Anna far too much. She was just trying to give her what she herself had never received.

When Anna met Lucas she became easy prey. She was enthralled by his surface charm but failed to see the stifling forces underneath. Slowly, very slowly he broke down her joie de vivre and self-confidence by playing on her vanity. Now she sat in Östermalm like a lovely bird in a cage and did not have the power to realize her mistake. Every day Erica hoped that Anna of her own free will would reach out her hand and ask her for help. Until that day, Erica could do no more than wait and remain available. Not that she’d had any great luck with relationships herself. She had a long string of broken relationships and promises behind her; she was usually the one who had broken them off. There was something that snapped whenever she reached a certain point in a relationship. A feeling of panic so strong that she could hardly breathe; she had to clear out, lock and stock, without looking back. And yet, as long ago as she could remember, Erica had paradoxically yearned to have children and a family. She was now thirty-five and the years were slipping away from her.

Damn it, she had managed to repress the thought of Lucas all day long, but now he had got under her skin again, and she knew she would have to find out how vulnerable her position actually was. She was altogether too tired to deal with it now. It would have to wait till tomorrow. She felt an acute need to relax for the rest of the day, without thinking about either Lucas or Alexandra Wijkner.

She punched in a speed-dial number on her mobile.

“Hi, it’s Erica. Are you two at home tonight? I thought I’d drop by for a while.”

Dan gave a warm laugh. “Are we at home? Don’t you know what tonight is?”

The silence that met her at the other end of the line was alarmingly total. Erica thought hard but couldn’t recall that there was anything special about this evening. Not a holiday, nobody’s birthday. Dan and Pernilla had been married in the summer, so it couldn’t be their anniversary.

“No, I really have no idea. Tell me.”

There was a deep sigh on the line and Erica realized that the big event had to be sports-related. Dan was an enormous sports fan, which sometimes caused a bit of friction between him and his wife Pernilla. Erica had found her own way of retaliating for all the evenings she had to spend looking at some meaningless sporting event on TV when they were together. Dan was a fanatic follower of the DjurgÅrden hockey team, so Erica had taken on the role of rabid AIK fan. Actually she was totally uninterested in sports in general and hockey in particular, and so it seemed to annoy Dan even more. What really got his goat was when AIK lost and she didn’t seem to care.

“Sweden is playing Belarus!”

He sensed her lack of comprehension and heaved another deep sigh. “The Olympic Games, Erica, the Olympics. Aren’t you aware that such an event is going on . . . ?”

“Oh, you mean the football match? Yes, of course I know about that. I thought you meant that there was something special tonight besides that.”

She spoke in an exaggerated tone, clearly showing she had no idea that there was a match tonight. She smiled because she knew Dan was literally tearing his hair out over such blasphemy. Sports were not a joking matter for him.

“But I’ll come over and check out the match with you so I can see Salming crush the Russian defense . . .”

“Salming! Don’t you know how many years it’s been since he retired? You’re kidding me, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Yes, Dan, I’m kidding. I’m not that daft. I’ll come over and check out Sundin, if that suits you better. Incredibly cute guy, by the way.”

He sighed heavily yet again. This time because she had been sacrilegious enough to speak of such a giant in the hockey world in terms other than purely athletic.

“All right, come on over. But I don’t want a repeat of last time! No yakking during the match, no comments about how sexy the players look in their shinguards, and above all, no questions about whether they’re wearing jockstraps and if they wear underpants over them. Understood?”

Erica suppressed a laugh and said seriously, “Scout’s honor, Dan.”

He grunted. “You’ve never been a scout.”

“No, precisely.”

Then she pressed the off button on her mobile phone.

Dan and Pernilla lived in one of the relatively new row-houses in Falkeliden. The houses stood in straight lines, climbing up along Rabekullen Hill, and they looked so much alike that it was almost impossible to tell one from the other. It was a popular area for families with children, mainly because the houses had no ocean view whatever and thus hadn’t climbed to such dizzying prices as the neighborhoods closer to the sea.

The evening was much too cold to take a walk, but the car protested vehemently when she forced it up the icy hill, only moderately sanded. She turned into Dan and Pernilla’s street with a deep sigh of relief.

Erica rang the doorbell, which instantly set off a tumultuous tramping of little feet inside, and a second later the front door was pulled open by a little girl in pajamas with feet—Lisen, Dan and Pernilla’s youngest. Fury swelled up in Malin, the middle girl, who thought it was unfair that Lisen got to open the door for Erica, and the squabble didn’t die down until Pernilla’s firm voice was heard from the kitchen. Belina, the oldest girl, was thirteen, and Erica had seen her down by Acke’s hot-dog kiosk surrounded by some downy-cheeked boys on mopeds when she drove past the square. Dan and Pernilla were certainly going to have their hands full with her.

After the girls each got a hug, they vanished as fast as they had appeared and left Erica to hang up her coat in peace and quiet.

Pernilla was out in the kitchen fixing dinner, with rosy cheeks and an apron with “Kiss the Cook” printed in huge letters on it. She looked to be in the midst of a critical stage in her preparations, and merely waved a bit distractedly at Erica before she turned back to her pots and pans, steaming and sizzling. Erica continued into the living room, where she knew she would find Dan, ensconced on the sofa with his feet on the glass coffee table and the remote control grasped firmly in his right hand.

“Hi! I see that the male chauvinist pig is relaxing while the missus toils by the sweat of her brow in the kitchen.”

“Hey, Erica! Yeah, you know, if you just show them who wears the trousers in the family and run the house with an iron hand, you can whip most women into shape.”

His warm smile belied his words, and Erica knew that whoever was running the Karlsson household, it certainly wasn’t Dan.

She gave him a quick hug and settled down on the black leather sofa. She too put her feet up on the glass coffee table, feeling quite at home. They watched the news on channel 4 for a while in cozy silence, and Erica wondered, not for the first time, whether she and Dan could have had a life like this together.

Dan was her first great love and boyfriend. They were together all through high school and had been inseparable for three years. But they wanted different things out of life. Dan wanted to stay in FjÄllbacka and work as a fisherman like his father and grandfather before him, while Erica could hardly wait to move away from the little town. She had always felt she was being asphyxiated here; for her the future lay elsewhere.

They had tried to stay together for a while, with Dan back in FjÄllbacka and Erica in GÖteborg, but their lives went in totally different directions. After a painful breakup, they had slowly managed to build a friendship that almost fifteen years later was still strong and close.

Pernilla came into Dan’s life like a warm and comforting embrace when he was trying to get used to the idea that he and Erica had no future together. Pernilla was there when he most needed her, and she adored him in a way that filled part of the emptiness Erica had left behind. For Erica it had been a painful experience to see him with someone else, but she gradually realized that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Life went on.

Now Dan and Pernilla had three daughters together, and Erica thought that over the years they had built up a warm love for each other, even though she sometimes thought she noticed a restlessness in Dan.

At first it had not been entirely friction-free for Erica and Dan to continue their friendship. Pernilla had jealously watched over him, regarding Erica with deep suspicion. Slowly but surely Erica had managed to convince Pernilla that she wasn’t after her husband, and even though they never became best friends, they had a relaxed and warm relationship with each other. Not least because the girls obviously adored Erica. She was even Lisen’s godmother.

“Dinner is served.”

Dan and Erica got up from their slouched position and went to the kitchen, where Pernilla had placed a steaming casserole on the table. Only two places were set, and Dan raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“I ate with the kids. Go ahead and eat while I put them to bed.”

Erica felt ashamed that Pernilla had gone to so much trouble for her sake, but Dan shrugged his shoulders and began nonchalantly shoveling down an enormous serving of what turned out to be a rich fish stew.

“How have you been, anyway? We haven’t seen you in weeks.”

His tone was concerned rather than accusatory, but Erica still felt a pang of guilty conscience that she had been so poor at keeping in touch recently. There had just been so much else to think about.

“Well, things are getting better. But now it looks as though there’ll be a row over the house,” said Erica.

“What do you mean?” Dan looked up from his plate in surprise. “You and Anna both love that house; you should be able to reach an agreement.”

“Sure, we can. But you forget that Lucas is involved too. He smells money and probably can’t stand to miss such an opportunity. He’s never paid any attention to Anna’s opinion before, and I don’t understand why it should be any different this time.”

“Damn it, if I could only get hold of him some dark night, he wouldn’t be so bloody cocky afterward.”

He pounded his fist emphatically on the table and Erica didn’t doubt for a moment that he could give Lucas a real thrashing if he wanted. Dan had been powerfully built even in his teens, and the hard work on the fishing boat had built up his muscles even more, but a gentleness in his eyes belied his tough image. As far as Erica knew, he had never raised a hand to any living creature.

“I don’t want to say too much yet, I don’t really know what the situation will be. Tomorrow I’ll ring Marianne, a lawyer friend, and find out what possibilities I have to prevent a sale, but tonight I’d rather not think about it. Besides, I’ve been through a lot in the past few days, and thoughts of my material possessions seem a bit petty.”

“Yes, I heard about what happened.” Dan paused. “What was it like to find someone dead like that?”

Erica contemplated what she should say.

“Sad and terrible at the same time. I hope I never have to experience anything like that again.”

She told him about the article she was writing and about her conversations with Alexandra’s husband and colleague. Dan listened in silence.

“What I don’t understand is why she closed out the most important people in her life. You should have seen her husband, he absolutely adored her. But that’s how it is with most people, I suppose. They smile and look happy but actually they feel burdened with all the worries and problems in the world.”

Dan interrupted her abruptly.

“Erica, the game is starting in about three seconds and I would prefer an ice hockey match to your quasi-philosophical exegesis.”

“No risk of that. Besides, I brought a book along in case the game is boring.”

Dan had mayhem in his eyes before he noticed the teasing glint in Erica’s eyes.

They made it back to the living room just in time for the face-off.

Marianne picked up at the first ring.

“Marianne Svan.”

“Hi, it’s Erica.”

“Hi, it’s been ages. How nice of you to call. How are you doing? I’ve been thinking a lot about you.”

Once again Erica was reminded that she hadn’t been paying enough attention to her friends lately. She knew that they were worried about her, but the past month she hadn’t even managed to stay in touch with Anna. Yet she knew that they understood.

Marianne had been a good friend since their university days. They had studied literature together, but after almost four years of study Marianne realized that becoming a librarian was not her vocation in life, so she switched to law. Successfully, as it turned out, and she was now the youngest partner ever in one of the largest and most respected law firms in GÖteborg.

“Well, under the circumstances I’m doing okay, I suppose. I’m starting to get a little order back in my life, but there are still plenty of things to deal with.”

Marianne had never been much for small talk, and with her unerring intuition she could hear that Erica hadn’t simply called to chat.

“So what can I do for you, Erica? I can hear there’s something on your mind, so let’s hear it.”

“I’m really ashamed I haven’t been in touch for so long, and now that I am calling it’s because I need your help.”

“Don’t be silly. How can I help you? Is there some sort of problem with the estate?”

“Yes, you could certainly say that.”

Erica was sitting at the kitchen table fidgeting with the letter that had come in the morning post.

“Anna, or rather Lucas, wants to sell the house in FjÄllbacka.”

“What do you mean?” Marianne’s usual composure exploded. “Who the hell does he think he is? You love that house!”

Erica felt something suddenly snap inside her, and she burst into tears. Marianne instantly calmed down and started showering Erica with sympathy over the phone.

“So how are you really doing? Do you want me to come over? I could be there by tonight.”

Erica’s tears flowed even harder, but after a few moments of sobbing she calmed down enough to wipe her eyes.

“That’s incredibly nice of you, but I’m okay. Really. It’s just all been a bit too much lately. It was very traumatic to sort through Mamma and Pappa’s things, and now I’m late with my book and the publisher is after me and then all this with the house . . . and to top it all off, last Friday I discovered my best friend from childhood, dead.”

Laughter began bubbling inside her and with tears still in her eyes she began to laugh hysterically. It took her a while to recover.

“Did you say ‘dead,’ or did I hear you wrong?”

“Unfortunately you heard right. I’m sorry, it must sound terrible that I’m laughing. It’s just been a bit too much. She was my best friend from when I was little, Alexandra Wijkner. She committed suicide in the bathtub of her family’s house in FjÄllbacka. You probably knew her, didn’t you? She and her husband, Henrik Wijkner, apparently moved in the best circles in GÖteborg, and those are the sorts of people you hobnob with these days, right?”

She smiled and knew that Marianne was doing the same at her end of the line. When they were both young students Marianne had lived in the Majorna district of GÖteborg and fought for the rights of the working class. They were both aware that over the years she had been forced to think about completely different issues in order to fit in with the circles that came with her job at the venerable old law firm. Now it was chic suits and blouses with bows. It was the cocktail party in Örgryte that counted, but Erica knew that in Marianne that only served as a thin veneer over a rebellious temperament.

“Henrik Wijkner. Yes, I do know who he is. We even share some of the same acquaintances, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet him. A ruthless businessman, so it’s said. The type that could sack a hundred employees before breakfast without losing his appetite. His wife ran a boutique, I think?”

“A gallery. Abstract art.”

Marianne’s words about Henrik shocked her. Erica had always considered herself a good judge of people, and he seemed anything but her idea of a ruthless businessman.

She dropped the subject of Alex and started talking about the real reason she was calling.

“I got a letter today. From Lucas’s attorney. They’re summoning me to a meeting in Stockholm on Friday regarding the sale of Mamma and Pappa’s house, and I’m completely clueless when it comes to the law. What are my rights? Do I even have any rights? Can Lucas really do this?”

She could feel her lower lip start to quiver again and took a deep breath to calm herself down. Outside the kitchen window the ice on the bay was glistening after the last couple of days of thawing rain, followed by freezing temperatures at night. She saw a sparrow land on the windowsill and reminded herself to buy a ball of suet to put out for the birds. The sparrow cocked its head inquisitively and pecked lightly at the window. After making sure that there wasn’t anything edible being handed out, the bird flew off.

“As you know, I’m a tax attorney, not a family rights attorney, so I can’t give you an answer straight off. But let’s do this. I’ll check with the experts in the office and ring you later today. You’re not alone, Erica. We’ll help you with this, I promise you.”

It was great to hear Marianne’s confident assurances, and when they said good-bye life seemed brighter, even though Erica actually knew no more than before she had called.

Restlessness set in almost at once. She forced herself to take up her work on the biography, but it was slow going. She had more than half of the book left to write, and the publishers were growing impatient because they hadn’t received a rough draft yet. After filling up almost two pages she read through what she had written, saw it was crap and quickly deleted several hours of work. The biography only made her feel depressed; the joy of working on it had vanished long ago. Instead, she finished writing the article about Alexandra and put it in an envelope addressed to BohuslÄningen newspaper. Then it was time to ring Dan and rib him a bit about the near-fatal psychological wound he seemed to have suffered after Sweden’s spectacular loss the night before.

Feeling content, Superintendent Mellberg patted his large paunch and debated whether to take a little nap. There was still almost nothing to do, and he didn’t ascribe any great importance to the little there was.

He decided that it would be nice to doze for a moment so that his substantial lunch could be digested in peace and quiet. But he barely managed to close his eyes before a determined knocking announced that Annika Jansson, the station’s secretary, wanted something.

“What the hell? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

In an attempt to look busy he rummaged aimlessly among the papers lying in stacks on his desk, but succeeded only in tipping over a cup of coffee. The coffee flowed toward all the papers and he grabbed the closest thing he could find to wipe up the mess—which happened to be his shirttail, since it was seldom tucked into his trousers anymore.

“Damn it all, I’m the bloody boss of this place! Haven’t you learned to show a little respect for your superiors and knock before you come barging in?”

She didn’t feel like pointing out that she had actually done just that. With the wisdom born of age and experience, she waited calmly until the worst of his outburst was over.

“I presume you have something to tell me,” Mellberg seethed.

Annika answered in a restrained voice. “Forensic Medicine in GÖteborg has been looking for you. Forensic Pathologist Tord Pedersen, to be precise. You can ring him at this number.”

She held out a piece of paper with the number carefully printed on it.

“Did he say what it’s about?”

Curiosity was giving him a tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach. They didn’t hear from Forensic Medicine very often out here in the sticks. Perhaps there would be a chance for some inspired police work for a change.

He waved Annika away distractedly and clamped the telephone receiver between his ear and shoulder. Then he eagerly began dialing the number.

Annika quickly backed out of the room and closed the door loudly behind her. She sat down at her own desk and cursed, as she had so many times before, the decision that had sent Mellberg to the tiny police station in Tanumshede. According to rampant rumors at the station, he had made himself unwelcome in GÖteborg by abusing a refugee who was in his custody. That was clearly not the only mistake he had made, but it was the worst. His superior finally got fed up. An internal investigation had been unable to prove anything, but there was concern about what else Mellberg might do, so he was immediately moved to the post of superintendent in Tanumshede. Each and every one of the community’s twelve thousand mostly law-abiding citizens served as a constant reminder to him of his demotion. His former superiors in GÖteborg reckoned he wouldn’t be able to do much damage there. Up until now this assessment had been correct. On the other hand, he wasn’t doing much good, either.

Previously Annika had got on well at her job, but that was all over now with Mellberg as her boss. It wasn’t enough that he was perpetually rude, he also saw himself as God’s gift to women, and Annika was the one who suffered the brunt of it. Snide insinuations, pinches on the behind, and improper remarks were only a fraction of what she had to put up with at work nowadays. What she considered his most repulsive feature, however, was the atrocious comb-over he had constructed to hide his bald pate. He had let the remaining strands of hair grow out—his employees could only guess how long they must be—and then he wound the hair around atop his head in an arrangement that most resembled an abandoned crow’s nest.

Annika shuddered at the thought of how it must look when not combed over. She was grateful that she would never need to find out.

She wondered what Forensic Medicine wanted. Oh well, she would find out soon enough. The station was so small that any information of interest would spread through the whole place within an hour.

Bertil Mellberg heard the phone ring as he watched Annika retreat from his office.

A mighty good-looking woman, that one. Firm and fine, but with curves in all the right places. Long blonde hair, nice high tits and a substantial ass. Too bad she always wore those long skirts and loose blouses. Maybe he should point out that clothes a bit tighter might suit her better. As the boss he was entitled to have opinions on the way his staff dressed. Thirty-seven years old—he knew that from checking her personnel file. A little more than twenty years younger than himself, which was precisely his taste. Let someone else deal with the old ladies. He was man enough for the younger talent—mature and experienced, with an attractive stoutness, and surely no one could tell that his hair may have thinned a bit over the years. He touched the top of his head cautiously. All well, his hair was as it should be.

“Tord Pedersen.”

“Yes, hello. This is Superintendent Bertil Mellberg, Tanumshede police station. You were looking for me?”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s about the body we got in from you. A woman by the name of Alexandra Wijkner. It looked like suicide.”

“Yes?” Mellberg’s interest was definitely piqued.

“I performed the post-mortem yesterday and established that it was definitely not a suicide. Someone murdered her.”

“Bloody hell!” In his excitement Mellberg tipped over his coffee cup again and the little that was left in it ran out across the desk. He used his shirttail as a rag again and got a new set of spots on it.

“How do you know that? I mean, what sort of proof do you have that it was murder?”

“I can fax the autopsy report over to you, but it’s doubtful whether you would get much out of it. However, let me give you a summary of the most salient points. Just a moment while I put my glasses on,” said Pedersen.

Mellberg heard him humming as he scanned the report. He waited eagerly for the information.

“All right, let’s see. Female, thirty-five years old, good general physical condition. But you know all that already. The woman has been dead for about a week, but her body is nevertheless in very good condition, primarily thanks to the low temperature in the room where the body was found. The ice around the lower half of the body also helped preserve it.

“Deep incisions through the arteries of both wrists made with a razor blade, which was found at the scene. This was where I began to get suspicious. Both the incisions are the same depth and very straight, which is quite unusual. I would even venture to say that it never happens in a suicide. It’s because people are either right-handed or left-handed. The incision on the left arm will be much straighter and more powerful for a right-handed person than the wound on the right. That’s what happens when you’re forced to use the ‘wrong’ hand, so to speak. I then examined the fingers on both hands and had my suspicion confirmed. The edge of a razor blade is so sharp that in most cases it leaves microscopic cuts on the hands. Alexandra Wijkner had nothing of the sort. This indicated that it was someone else who slashed her wrists, probably with the aim of making it look like suicide.”

Pedersen paused, then went on. “The question I then asked myself was: how could a person do that without the victim putting up a struggle? The answer came with the toxicology report. The victim had residue of a strong sedative in her blood.”

“What does that prove? Couldn’t she simply have taken a sleeping pill?”

“Certainly, that’s possible. But thankfully modern science has provided forensic medicine with a number of indispensable tools and methods. One of the tools is that today we can calculate extremely precisely the decay rates of various medications and even poisons. We ran the test several times on the victim’s blood and each time reached the same conclusion: it would have been impossible for Alexandra Wijkner to slash her own wrists, since by the time her heart stopped due to loss of blood, she had already been unconscious for a long while. Unfortunately I can’t give you any exact information about times; science hasn’t progressed that far as yet. But there is absolutely no doubt that it was murder. I truly hope that you can handle this. You don’t have many homicides in your area, I shouldn’t think?”

Pedersen’s voice expressed a good deal of doubt, which Mellberg instantly took as criticism directed at him personally.

“You’re right that it’s not something we have a lot of experience with here in Tanumshede. Fortunately, I’ve been assigned here only temporarily. My real workplace is at police headquarters in GÖteborg. My long years of experience on the job mean we’ll have no trouble handling even a murder investigation here. It will be a chance for the local authorities to see how real police work is done. It won’t take long before the case is solved. Mark my words.”

And with this pompous comment Mellberg knew that he had made it crystal clear to Medical Examiner Pedersen that he wasn’t dealing with some greenhorn. Doctors always had to put on airs. Pedersen’s part of the job was done, at any rate, and now it was time for a pro to take over.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” The medical examiner was stunned by the conceit displayed by the policeman and had almost forgotten to tell him about two additional discoveries that he considered significant. “Alexandra Wijkner was in her third month of pregnancy, and she has also given birth before. I don’t know whether this has any relevance for your investigation, but better too much information than too little, don’t you think?” said Pedersen.

Mellberg merely snorted in reply, and after a few concluding pleasantries they hung up—Pedersen with a sense of doubt about the skill with which the murderer was going to be tracked, and Mellberg with revived spirits and a new feeling of eagerness. A preliminary examination of the bathroom had been done immediately after the body was found, but now he would have to see to it that Alexandra Wijkner’s house was gone over one inch at a time.

© 2003 Camilla LÄckberg