Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty
The Stella Case
Chapter Thirty-One
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Stella Case
Chapter Thirty-Five
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Six
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bohuslän 1672
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Bohusläningen
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
More in Camilla Lackberg’s Fjällbacka series
About the Author
Also by Camilla Lackberg
About the Publisher
It was impossible to know what sort of life the girl would have had. Who she would have become. What kind of work she might have done, who she would have loved, mourned, lost and won. Or whether she would have had children and if so who they might have become. It was not even possible to imagine how she might have looked as a grown woman. At the age of four nothing about her was finished. Her eyes had changed from blue to green, her dark hair she’d had at birth was now light, though with a touch of red in the blond, and no doubt the colour would have changed again. That was especially difficult to determine at the moment. She was lying face down at the bottom of the lake. The back of her head was covered with thick, congealed blood. Only the strands floating outward from her skull revealed the subtle hues in her fair hair.
There was nothing particularly gruesome about this scene with the girl. It was no more gruesome than if she had not been lying there in the water. The sounds from the woods were the same as always. The light filtered through the tree branches the same way it always did at this time of day. The water rippled gently around her, the surface disturbed only when a dragonfly occasionally landed, spreading tiny rings in its wake. The transformation had begun, and gradually she would become one with the woods and the water. If no one found her, nature would run its usual course until she became part of it.
So far no one knew she was gone.
‘Do you think your mother will wear white?’ Erica asked as she turned to look at Patrik lying next to her in bed.
‘Ha, ha. Very funny,’ he said.
Erica laughed and poked him in the side.
‘Why is it so hard for you to accept that your mother’s getting married? Your father remarried a long time ago, and there was nothing strange about that, right?’
‘I know I’m being silly,’ said Patrik, shaking his head as he swung his legs off the bed and started putting on his socks. ‘I like Gunnar, and I think it’s great my mother won’t have to live alone any more, but …’
He stood up and pulled on his jeans.
‘It feels a little odd, to be honest. Mamma has lived alone for as long as I can remember. I suppose you could say there’s some sort of mother-and-son thing going on, for some reason it feels … strange, Mamma getting married again.’
‘You mean it feels strange that she and Gunnar are having sex?’
Patrik raised his hands to cover his ears.
‘Stop!’
Laughing, Erica tossed a pillow at him. He instantly threw it back, and all-out war ensued. Patrik flung himself on top of her, but the wrestling quickly turned to caresses and heavy breathing. She moved her hands to his fly and undid the top button.
‘What are you guys doing?’
Maja’s bright voice made them both stop and turn towards the open doorway. Maja was not the only one standing there. She was flanked by her little twin brothers, who were happily staring at their parents on the bed.
‘We’re just tickling each other,’ said Patrik, out of breath, as he sat up.
‘You need to fix the lock on the door!’ Erica hissed, pulling up the covers to hide her bare breasts.
She sat up and managed to smile at her children.
‘Why don’t you go downstairs and start breakfast. We’ll be there in a minute.’
By now Patrik had put on the rest of his clothes, and he shooed the kids ahead of him.
‘If you can’t fix the lock yourself, you could ask Gunnar. He always seems ready with his tools. Assuming he’s not busy with something else with your mother, that is.’
‘Cut it out,’ laughed Patrik, leaving the room.
With a smile on her face, Erica sank back on the bed. She could allow herself a few more minutes before getting up. Not having a set schedule was one of the benefits of being her own boss, though it might also be regarded as a disadvantage. Making her living as an author required stamina and self-discipline, and sometimes it could be a little lonely. Yet she loved her job. She loved writing and bringing to life the stories and fates she chose to depict. She loved all the poking around and research as she tried to work out what had actually happened and why. She’d been longing to sink her teeth into the case she was working on right now. The case of little Stella, who had been kidnapped and killed by Helen Persson and
