any help digging up background material, do you?’ She turned eagerly towards him and he could see the gleam in her eyes.
‘No, no, no. You have to take it easy. Don’t forget that you’re actually on sick leave.’
‘Sure, but my blood pressure was back down at the last check-up. And I’m going stir crazy being at home all the time. I haven’t even been able to start writing a new book.’
The book about Alexandra Wijkner and her tragic death had been a big seller, and in turn had brought Erica a contract for another true crime book. The writing had demanded enormous effort on her part, both in research and emotion, and after sending it off to the publisher in May she hadn’t felt like starting a new project. High blood pressure followed by sick leave had tipped the scales against her, so she had reluctantly postponed all work on a new book until after the baby arrived. But it wasn’t in her nature just to sit at home and twiddle her thumbs.
‘Annika is on holiday, so she can’t do it. And it isn’t as easy as you might think to do research. You have to know where to look, and I do. Can’t I just take a quick peek –’
‘No, out of the question. Hopefully Conny and his wild bunch will leave early in the morning, and then you can take it easy. Now be quiet so I can talk to the baby a minute. We have to get started planning his football career –’
‘Or hers.’
‘Or hers. Although then it would probably be golf instead. There isn’t any money in women’s football yet.’
Erica just sighed, but obediently lay down on her back to facilitate the conversation.
‘Don’t they notice when you sneak out?’ Stefan was lying on his side next to Linda and tickling her face with a straw.
‘No, because Jacob “trusts” me.’ She frowned, mimicking her brother’s serious tone of voice. ‘It’s something he picked up from all those courses on how to create good contact with young people. The worst thing is that most of the kids seem to lap it up; for some of them Jacob is like God. Although if you’ve grown up without a father you probably take whatever you can get.’ Annoyed, she slapped away the straw Stefan was tickling her with. ‘Cut that out.’
‘What’s the matter, can’t I tease you a little?’
She could see that he was offended, and she leaned over and kissed him, as if putting a plaster on a cut. It just wasn’t a good day today. She’d got her period that morning, so she wouldn’t be able to make love with Stefan for a week. And then it was getting on her nerves to be living in the same house with her splendid brother and his equally splendid wife.
‘Oh, if only the year would be over fast so I could leave this fucking hole!’
They had to whisper so they wouldn’t be discovered in their hiding place in the hayloft, but she slapped her hand on the boards to punctuate her words.
‘Do you wish you could leave me too? Is that what you want?’
The hurt expression on Stefan’s face deepened, and she bit her tongue. If she ever got out in the wide world, she would never look at someone like Stefan. As long as she was stuck here at home he was amusing enough, but that was all. But he didn’t need to know that. So she curled up like a cuddly little kitten and snuggled closer. When she got no response, she took his arm and put it around her. As if of their own accord his fingers began to wander over her body, and she smiled to herself. Men were so easy to manipulate.
‘You could come with me, couldn’t you?’ She said this knowing full well that he would never be able to tear himself away from Fjällbacka, or rather from his brother. Sometimes she wondered whether he even went to the toilet without asking Robert’s permission.
He didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, ‘Have you talked to your father? What does he say about your idea of leaving town?’
‘What can he say? In a year he won’t be able to tell me what to do. As soon as I turn eighteen he’ll have fuck-all to do about it. And that will drive him crazy. Sometimes I think he wishes that he could enter us in one of his fucking account books. Jacob debit, Linda credit.’
‘What do you mean, debit?’
Linda laughed. ‘Those are financial terms, nothing you need to worry about.’
‘I just wonder how things would have been if …’ Stefan fixed his gaze somewhere behind her as he continued to chew on a straw.
‘How things would have been if what?’
‘If Pappa hadn’t lost all the money. Then maybe we would have been the ones living in the manor house, and you’d be in the cabin with Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Laine.’
‘Oh yeah, that would have been a sight. Mamma living in a shabby cabin. Poor as a churchmouse.’
Linda tilted her head back and laughed so loud that Stefan had to shush her so she wouldn’t be heard over in Jacob and Marita’s house, only a stone’s throw from the barn.
‘Maybe Pappa would have still been alive today, in that case. And then Mamma wouldn’t spend her days poring over those sodding photo albums,’ said Stefan.
‘But it wasn’t because of the money that he –’
‘You don’t know that. What the hell do you know about why he did it?’ His voice rose an octave and turned shrill.
‘Everybody knows.’
Linda didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken, and she didn’t dare look Stefan in the eye. The family feud and everything connected with it had always been off limits, by tacit agreement.
‘Everybody thinks they know, but nobody knows fucking shit,’ Stefan went on. ‘And there’s your brother, living on our farm – that’s too fucking much!’
‘It’s not Jacob’s fault things turned out the way they did,’ said Linda. It felt odd to defend the brother she usually showered with abuse, but blood was thicker than water. ‘He got the farm from Grandpa, and besides, he’s always been the first to defend Johannes.’
Stefan knew that she was right, and his anger drained out of him. It was just that sometimes it hurt so damn much when Linda talked about her family, because it reminded him of what he himself had lost. He didn’t dare say it to her face, but he often thought that she was pretty ungrateful. She and her family had everything, and his family had nothing. Where was the justice in that?
At the same time he could forgive her for everything. He had never loved anyone so intensely, and the mere sight of her slim body next to his made him burn inside. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it was true. That an angel like Linda would waste her time on him. But he knew better than to question his good fortune. Instead he tried to ignore the future and enjoy the present. Now he pulled her closer and shut his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her hair. He unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, but she stopped him.
‘I can’t, I’ve got my period. Let me instead.’
She unbuttoned his jeans and he lay back in the hay. Behind his closed eyelids heaven flickered past.
Only a day had passed since the dead woman was found, but impatience was already plaguing Patrik. Somewhere somebody was wondering where she was. Pondering, worrying, letting their thoughts run along ever more anxious paths. And the terrible thing was that in this case the worst misgivings had come true. He wanted more than anything else to find out who the woman was so he could inform her loved ones. Nothing was worse than uncertainty, not even death. The work of grieving could not commence until they knew the reason for their grief. It wasn’t going to be easy to be the one who delivered the news – a responsibility that Patrik had already shouldered in his mind – but he knew that it was an important part of his job. To facilitate and offer support. But above all, to find out what had happened to the loved one.
Martin’s fruitless phone calls the day before had demonstrated the task of identification would be more difficult. She