I still have that collection of his that you gave me when we were together.’
She was speaking to his back now, because Dan had turned round to move some crates of nets that were lying against the opposite railing. She continued relentlessly.
‘Do you always give that book to your girlfriends?’
He stopped short with his chores and turned to Erica with a shocked expression.
‘What do you mean? You got one and yes, Pernilla got one, although I doubt that she ever bothered to read it.’
Erica saw an uneasy expression on his face. She gripped the railing she was leaning against a little harder with her mitten-clad hands and looked him straight in the eye.
‘And Alex? Did she get a copy too?’
Dan’s face turned the same colour as the snow on the icy bay behind him, but she also saw an expression of relief quickly slide over it.
‘What do you mean? Alex?’
He was not yet ready to capitulate.
‘I told you last time that I was in Alex’s house one evening last week. What I didn’t tell you was that someone came into the house while I was there. Someone who came straight up to the bedroom and took something away. At first I couldn’t think of what it was, but then I checked the last call that Alex made from home. It was to your mobile, and that’s when I remembered what was missing from the room. I have the exact same book at home.’
Dan didn’t say a word, so she continued. ‘It wasn’t hard to work out why someone would take the trouble to go into Alex’s house and then steal something as simple as a poetry book. There’s a dedication in it, isn’t there? A dedication that would point straight to the man who was her lover?’
‘“With all my love I surrender my passion – Dan.”’
He declaimed it in a voice full of emotion. Now it was his turn to stare vacantly at the water. He sat down abruptly on a crate on deck and tore off his cap. His hair stuck out in all directions. He pulled off his gloves and ran his hands through his hair. Then he looked straight at Erica.
‘I couldn’t let it get out. What we had together was madness. An intense and all-consuming madness. Not something that we could let collide with our real lives. We both knew that it had to end.’
‘Were you supposed to meet on the Friday she died?’
A muscle twitched in Dan’s face at the reminder. After Alex died he must have pondered countless times what would have happened if he had actually shown up. Whether she still would have been alive.
‘Yes, we were supposed to meet that Friday evening. Pernilla was going to visit her sister in Munkedal with the kids. I thought up some excuse about feeling out of sorts and preferring to stay at home.’
‘But Pernilla didn’t go, did she?’
There was a long silence.
‘Yes, Pernilla went but I stayed at home. I turned off my mobile, and I knew she’d never dare ring the phone at the house. I stayed away because I was afraid. I didn’t dare look her in the eye and tell her it was over. Even though I knew she realized that it would have to happen sooner or later, I was afraid to be the one who took that step. I thought that if I could slowly start backing away, she’d get tired of things and break it off with me. Very manly, don’t you think?’
Erica knew that the hardest part was yet to come, but she had to go on. Better that he heard it from her.
‘But Dan, she didn’t understand that it had to end. She envisaged a future with you. A future where you left your family and she left Henrik and the two of you lived happily ever after.’
He seemed to shrink with each word, and the worst was yet to come.
‘Dan, she was pregnant. With your child. Apparently, she had intended to tell you about it that Friday night. She’d prepared a feast and put champagne on ice.’
Dan couldn’t look at her. He tried to fix his gaze out in the distance, but tears began to flow, making everything run together in a mist. Grief welled up from somewhere deep inside him, and tears started running down his cheeks. He began to sob, and he kept having to wipe his nose with his gloves to stop the snot from running down. Finally, he put his head in his hands and gave up all attempts to wipe off his face.
Erica squatted down next to him and put her arms around him to console him. But Dan shook her off. She knew that he’d have to get himself out of the hell he was in on his own. So she waited him out with her arms crossed until the tears came more slowly and he seemed to be able to breathe again.
‘How do you know she was pregnant?’ The words came in a stammer.
‘I was with Birgit and Henrik at the police when they told us.’
‘Do they know it wasn’t Henrik’s child?’
‘I’m sure Henrik knows, but Birgit doesn’t; she thinks Henrik is the father.’
Dan nodded. It seemed to console him a little that her parents didn’t know.
‘How did you meet?’
Erica wanted to turn away his thoughts from his unborn child, if only for a moment, to give him a little breathing space.
He smiled bitterly. ‘Really classic. Where do people meet each other in Fjällbacka at our age? Having a beer at Galären, of course. We saw each other across the room and it was like being kicked in the stomach. I’ve never felt so attracted to a woman before.’
Erica felt a tiny, tiny twinge of jealousy at those words.
Dan went on. ‘We didn’t do anything then, but a couple of weekends later she called on my mobile. I drove over to see her. Then it just sort of snowballed from there. Stolen hours when Pernilla was away somewhere. Not that many nights, in other words; it was usually during the day that we met.’
‘Weren’t you afraid that the neighbours would see you when you went to Alex’s house? You know how fast gossip travels here.’
‘Sure, I did think about that. I used to climb over the fence in the back yard and then go in through the cellar entrance. To be quite honest, that was probably a good part of the excitement between us as well. The danger and the risk.’
‘But didn’t you understand how much you were risking?’
Dan was fidgeting with his cap and kept his eyes fixed on the deck as he talked.
‘Of course I did. On one level. But on another I felt invulnerable. Other people might get caught, but not me. Isn’t that how it always is?’
‘Does Pernilla know?’
‘No. Not in so many words, anyway. But I think she suspects something. You saw how she reacted when she saw us here. That’s how she’s been the past few months – jealous and watchful. I’m sure she senses that something is going on.’
‘You know you have to tell her about it now.’
Dan
