So all responsibility for the children fell to Anna. With a lively three-year-old and a baby of four months, Anna had looked ten years older than her thirty years when the sisters saw each other at their parents’ funeral.
‘Honey, don’t touch that,’ Anna shouted in English.
‘Seriously, don’t you think it’s about time you started speaking Swedish with Emma?’
‘Lucas thinks we should speak English at home. He says that we’re going to move back to London anyway before she starts school.’
Erica was so tired of hearing the words ‘Lucas thinks, Lucas says, Lucas feels that …’ In her eyes her brother-in-law was a shining example of a first-class shithead.
Anna had met him when she was working as an au pair in London, and she was instantly enchanted by the onslaught of attention from the successful stockbroker Lucas Maxwell, ten years her senior. She gave up all her plans of starting at university, and instead devoted her life to being the perfect, ideal wife. The only problem was that Lucas was a man who was never satisfied, and Anna, who had always done exactly as she pleased ever since she was a child, had totally eradicated her own personality after marrying Lucas. Until the children arrived, Erica had still hoped that her sister would come to her senses, leave Lucas, and start living her own life. But when first Emma and then Adrian were born, she had to admit that her brother-in-law was unfortunately here to stay.
‘I suggest that we drop the subject of Lucas and his opinions on child-rearing. What have auntie’s little darlings been up to since last time?’
‘Well, just the usual, you know … Emma threw a tantrum yesterday and managed to cut up a small fortune in baby clothes before I caught her, and Adrian has either been throwing up or screaming non-stop for three days.’
‘It sounds as though you need a change of scene. Can’t you bring the kids with you and come up here for a week? I could really use your help going through a bunch of stuff. And soon we’ll need to tackle all the paperwork too.’
‘Er, well … We were planning to talk to you about that.’
As usual when she had to deal with something unpleasant, Anna’s voice began to quaver noticeably. Erica was instantly on guard. That ‘we’ sounded ominous. As soon as Lucas had a finger in the pie, it usually meant that there was something that would benefit him to the detriment of all others involved.
Erica waited for Anna to go on.
‘Lucas and I have been thinking about moving back to London as soon as he gets the Swedish subsidiary on its feet. We weren’t really planning to bother with maintaining a house here. It’s no fun for you, either, having the hassle of a big country house. I mean, without a family and all …’
The silence was palpable.
‘What are you trying to say?’
Erica twirled a lock of her curly hair around her index finger, a habit she’d had since childhood and reverted to whenever she was nervous.
‘Well … Lucas thinks we ought to sell the house. It would be hard for us to hold on to it and keep it up. Besides, we want to buy a house in Kensington when we move back, and even though Lucas makes plenty of money, the cash from the sale would make a big difference. I mean, a house on the west coast in that area would go for several million kronor. The Germans are wild about ocean views and sea air.’
Anna kept pressing her argument, but Erica felt she’d heard enough and quietly hung up the phone in the middle of a sentence. Anna had certainly managed to divert her attention, as usual.
She had always been more of a mother than a big sister to Anna. Ever since they were kids she had protected and watched over her. Anna had been a real child of nature, a whirlwind who followed her own impulses without considering the results. More times than she could count, Erica had been forced to rescue Anna from sticky situations. Lucas had knocked the spontaneity and joie de vivre right out of her. More than anything else, that was what Erica could never forgive.
By morning, the events of the preceding day seemed like a bad dream. Erica had slept a deep and dreamless sleep, but still felt as though she’d barely had a catnap. She was so tired that her whole body ached. Her stomach was rumbling loudly, but after a quick peek in the fridge she realized that a trip to Eva’s Mart would be necessary before she was going to get any food to eat.
The town was deserted, and at Ingrid Bergman Square there was no trace of the thriving commerce of the summer months. Visibility was good, without mist or haze, and Erica could see all the way to the outer point of the island of Valö, which was silhouetted against the horizon. Together with Kråkholmen it bordered a narrow passage to the outer archipelago.
She met no one until she had walked halfway up Galärbacken. It was an encounter she would have preferred to avoid, and she instinctively looked for a possible escape route.
‘Good morning.’ Elna Persson’s voice chirped with unabashed sprightliness. ‘Well, if it isn’t our little authoress out walking in the morning sun.’
Erica cringed inside.
‘Yes, I was just on my way down to Eva’s to do a little shopping.’
‘You poor dear, you must be completely distraught after such a horrible experience.’
Elna’s double chins quivered with excitement, and Erica thought she looked like a fat little sparrow. Her woollen coat was shades of green and covered her body from her shoulders to her feet, giving the impression of one big shapeless mass. Her hands had a firm grip on her handbag. A disproportionately small hat was balanced on her head. The material looked like felt, and it too was an indeterminate moss-green colour. Her eyes were small and deeply set in a protective layer of fat. Right now they were fixed on Erica. Clearly she was expected to respond.
‘Yes, well, it wasn’t very pleasant.’
Elna nodded sympathetically. ‘Yes, I happened to run into Mrs Rosengren and she told me that she drove past and saw you and an ambulance outside the Carlgrens’ house, and we knew at once that something horrid must have happened. And later in the afternoon when I happened to ring Dr Jacobsson, I heard about the tragic event. Yes, he told me in confidence, of course. Doctors take an oath of confidentiality, and that’s something one has to respect.’
She nodded knowingly to show how much she respected Dr Jacobsson’s oath of confidentiality.
‘So young and all. Naturally one has to wonder what could be the reason. Personally I always thought she seemed rather overwrought. I’ve known her mother Birgit for years, and she’s a woman who has always been a bundle of nerves, and everyone knows that’s hereditary. She turned all stuck-up, too, Birgit I mean, when Karl-Erik got that big management job in Göteborg. Then Fjällbacka wasn’t good enough for her anymore. No, it was the big city for her. But I tell you, money doesn’t make anyone happy. If that girl had been allowed to grow up here instead of pulling up roots and moving to the big city, things wouldn’t have ended this way. I think they even packed the poor girl off to some school in Switzerland, and you know how things go at places like that. Oh yes, that sort of thing can leave a mark on a person’s soul for the rest of her life. Before they moved away from here, she was the happiest and liveliest little girl one could imagine. Didn’t you two play together when you were young? Well, in my opinion …’
Elna continued her monologue, and Erica, who could see no end to her misery, feverishly began
