He had been in the bath for nearly half an hour, fingers wrinkly, when he heard another loud noise. It sounded almost like a door closing hard in the distance but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t be bothered to check, staying in the bath ignoring it, sure that any inspection would reveal nothing again. If the noise was caused by the nearest neighbour cutting wood, it must have been done with an enormous sledge hammer on metal to be heard this clearly from such a distance away. Not very likely. Perhaps his mother had allowed some local farmers to cut down some of their trees or maybe it was a hunter. Anyway, he was sure there was a perfectly logical explanation. Putting the questions aside, he decided to have some lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon reading; finishing the book he had started and allowing himself time to relax for a change. He wanted to keep his mind occupied to avoid thinking about Emma. He managed to keep his thoughts at bay by taking a drive to the local supermarket to buy ingredients for what he was planning to cook for dinner. He then spent an hour doing his best to cook a starter and main course, wanting to impress Britt-Marie, perhaps to start the overdue repayment for all she had done for him over the years. He had timed it better than he had expected and was as good as finished the moment Britt-Marie rang the door-bell. He opened the door and hugged her again as she came in. She wore a flowery dress which he had never seen before. He suspected it was new.
“Thank you for coming! I hope you didn’t have any other plans for this evening?” he asked, suddenly worried that she might have felt obliged to join him for some reason.
“No, certainly not. I don’t have much of a social life nowadays. It would have been another Saturday night spent with my parents watching some less than exciting quiz show on television. I’m glad you suggested it!” They went into the dining room where Erik had set the table.
“This is lovely Erik. And I can smell there’s something very tasty cooking!” She sat down and Erik went to get the starter. Not exactly haute cuisine but Britt-Marie seemed to appreciate it.
“So, what have you been up to then?” he asked, keen to show a bit of interest in her for a change. “Are you going away anywhere on holiday this summer?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. No holiday plans either, other than doing some gardening and perhaps going over to Stockholm for a weekend in July. What about you? Where’s Emma? I’m sure she will come over later on in the summer?”
“Hm, I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about asking her to come over pretty soon. We also need to think about Paul’s whereabouts and that damn old tablet which is still missing…”
“That’s strange. Paul has still not showed up then, has he?” She said it with confusion in her voice, looking puzzled. He trusted Britt-Marie and decided to explain the whole sequence of events.
“He was wanted by the police for the Torpa break-in, and…” he paused, unsure whether he could tell her but decided that it could do no harm. “…and he had the tablet in his possession, or at least a picture of one side of it. I can’t for the life of me work out how he managed it though. How on earth could he have obtained the tablet? This would have no doubt incriminated him. Anyway, he left us a message which seemed to lead to Cadiz but we decided to stop our search and go home basically. I can’t say I’m not worried what may have happened to him though…” He didn’t tell her about his dream. It was not worth upsetting her unnecessarily. Britt-Marie didn’t say anything for a long time. Her behaviour was strange. She seemed perplexed, not touching her food and avoiding looking at Erik. Eventually, she looked up, taking one of his hands over the table. He wasn’t sure how to react.
“Erik, there’s something I have to tell you.” Erik was a little uncomfortable and Britt-Marie was acting very strangely. She continued. “I hate to tell you this but I feel that with the unfortunate events and all the questions being asked you ought to know the truth. I cannot keep it to myself any longer. It wouldn’t be fair on either of us.” She paused, looking as if she was resisting tears. Her hand felt cold against his skin. What could have prompted this reaction? Erik had no idea. She started her explanation: “It happened thirty years ago.”
“What did?” he said, voice full of accusation.
He looked into her eyes as she continued: “I knew the woman in the chest. I know who she was.” Britt-Marie said this calmly, still holding Erik’s hand across the table.
“What? You knew her? Who was she?!”
“She was a dancer from Denmark, Copenhagen.” Britt-Marie smiled. “She really was an amazing dancer. Tall, slim and very beautiful. When she was on stage she was almost floating, gliding effortlessly across the floor. Everyone loved her. She was my friend; we had been pen pals from a young age. She was staying here at Torpa when she was over for the dance competition. It wasn’t the first time. She had been over several times before. I thought I was the reason to why she came here; I was working here already then, as your grandmother’s maid. My mother convinced Anne-Lise to enter the competition. I have never been able to dance so my mother saw her as a godsend – someone to teach with success rather than embarrassment.”
“But you weren’t the reason to why she kept staying here?”
“Well, at least not the only reason. It turned out she had met a man here. She was so happy when she told me; said she was in love. She didn’t say who it was but I guessed soon enough. There weren’t that many men on the estate, at least not handsome ones.”
“What happened?”
“Unsurprisingly she got pregnant. Their relationship was still kept under wraps but your grandmother found out. She reacted in a way no one could have predicted. She took her under her wing, cared for her, let her stay on the estate in secret during her pregnancy, as Anne-Lise had not wanted to tell her parents. God knows what she told them. As far as I was aware, abortion was never an option. It was a happy little existence here those few months. She helped me in my duties as a maid. She never went outside the estate, spent most of her spare time in the cold stone house but she was looking forward to having the baby, reading lots of books about it and planning what she would do when she got back to Denmark. She never planned to stay with the baby’s father. I know she loved him but it was all too complicated.”
“Did she have the baby?”
“Yes and everything went well. At that stage, your grandmother had arranged for one of the rooms in the old house to be hers and that’s where she had the baby.” Britt-Marie had a strange dreamy look. “It was a lovely room, albeit cold. She cared for it for a couple of months there, breastfeeding, changing nappies, and reading to it, just like any mother. I helped her, and so did others on the estate. But then she got restless, said she wanted to leave. She said she didn’t want to continue to be a burden and that she had decided to go back to her parents and come clean. I said goodbye to her and that was the last time I saw her – until you showed me her picture a few months ago, linking her with the woman in the chest. I cannot deny I was shocked but I didn’t want to tell you this then.”
“What are you saying? Do you think we were right to make the connection? Do you think she was murdered and buried in that chest?” Erik almost lost his voice as he spoke.
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.” Britt-Marie looked down and put her head in her hands.
“How can you be so sure?” he said aggressively.
She looked up. Her voice was weak, indifferent. “Well, I never heard from her again. I wrote her many letters but she never responded. I always wondered why. We all knew that she had left and gone back to Denmark. That is what she had told us before she left. She was looking forward to seeing her family. The strangest thing was that she had left the baby behind. I always found that most surprising. She loved that little baby. I gathered she just wanted to lead a normal life, to forget about being a single mother and live life but it was so unlike her. So out of character. I never suspected your grandmother though. Not once when she was alive did it cross my mind that she may have had something to do with Anne-Lise’s disappearance. In fact, I admired
her for helping Anne-Lise at such a difficult time. But it was after her death when you and Emma showed me the picture of her that the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. It made perfect sense – the woman in the chest was Anne-Lise. The only possible perpetrator I can see here is your grandmother.” Her words were followed by silence.
“But why? Why would she do it?” Erik managed to say.
“Well, she had a motive.” Britt-Marie hesitated.
“What do you mean?”
Almost a minute passed until she spoke again: “She had started to take a liking to the little baby boy. Her only child, her daughter, had been unsuccessful in producing an heir despite several years of trying. Tests had confirmed that she was unable to have children. She had told me on several occasions.” She gazed at Erik.
“What!? That can’t be! Tests like that in those days can’t have been totally reliable.” Erik’s head was spinning. Britt-Marie continued, ignoring him.
“So when this little baby boy came into her hands it was almost too good to be true – there was the future of the Torpa estate.” Britt-Marie paused, lost in her own thoughts while Erik stared at her in disbelief. Through it all he realised that Britt-Marie appeared much older than the last time he had seen her, as if the weight of the secret she had been keeping from him all these years had suddenly taken its toll. “Your parents raised that little boy as their own.” Her eyes were sheepish, as if saying: ‘please understand’.
The truth was devastating to Erik. He was that unfortunate little boy. His whole life had been a lie and the woman buried so cruelly in the chest, this Anne-Lise, was in fact his real mother! He wasn’t sure what to say or do. The only words that came out of his mouth were: “Who is my father?”
“Well, I thought you had already worked that out.” She paused and took his other hand. “Your father is your father Erik! He was unfaithful to your mother. You might have noticed that your grandmother didn’t always see eye to eye with your father. This is the reason. Your mother doesn’t know. It was kept a secret. She doesn’t know who your biological father is. Many people on the estate have guessed it but your mother has never said anything about it. Either she never knew, which is not unlikely given that she didn’t spend a lot of time on the estate or with her husband at the time, or she pretends to be ignorant about it to protect her own position.”
Erik felt ill. He needed to get some fresh air. He stood up and went outside without uttering another word. It was dark but the floodlights revealed the old stone house in all its glory. At that moment he hated it. He felt lonely, abandoned. The large empty, lifeless building exaggerated his solitude and isolation from the rest of the world. The revelation that his mother was not his biological mother explained a lot, in particular the complete lack of emotions and love from her side towards him. But still, it made him feel like an outsider, as if he didn’t belong there. His mother was a young woman from Denmark who had been dead for thirty years! His father was nothing but an adulterous deceiving crook that had lived his life knowing that his own child was the fruit of that adultery! Who was he; a lost soul with no one in his life? In a way he had lost his life. He had lost his wife and now he had also lost his parents and his understanding of whom he was and his heritage. Some people would say he was lucky. He had money, a good job and a good education but that was nothing without love, laughter, relationships and having an identity. He took a deep breath and listened to the sounds of the evening. It was almost completely quiet around him. Not a sound, not even birds. Suddenly the calm was interrupted when his mobile phone, which he for some reason still carried in his jeans pocket, started to ring. It took him by surprise but he managed to come to his senses quickly enough to answer, without reflecting on who it could be.
“Erik, it’s me. My brother just told me you called. How’s it going?” Emma had finally phoned him back.
“Hi! So good to hear your voice!” He told her about the dreadful news he had only just found out, that the dead woman in the chest was in fact his own mother.
Emma was speechless but quickly recovered in time to suggest she come over to Sweden for a few weeks to keep him company: “It would be so good to see you, and Torpa, and also to have some peace and quiet to work on the final stages of my dissertation.”
Erik was more than happy to oblige. He tried to tone his reply down but inside he was screaming with joy. From having been in a state of depression, Erik was suddenly cheerful. She missed him and she wanted to see him!
They agreed that she would try to get a flight already for the next day. After they had hung up, Erik couldn’t stop smiling. He figured it would be strange to return to Britt-Marie with a big grin on his face after the terrible news she had only just shared with him. She would think he had gone mad. So when he re-entered the house he tried to keep his facial expression as serious as possible.
Britt-Marie had moved and was sitting, almost hugging her glass of wine, in front of the fireplace in the living room. She was rocking back and forth, which wasn’t a good sign. He looked over at the wine bottle next to her. It was almost empty. She must have had at least two glasses whilst he was out. She didn’t look over at him as he came in. He felt he needed to tell her it was ok. He would be ok… and it wasn’t her fault.
“Emma called. She’s coming over, hopefully tomorrow!” She turned around with a perplexed look on her face. He could see she had been crying. He went over to her and bent down to hug her. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine now that Emma is coming. I’m a big boy. I will survive. I have survived so far with less than loving parents. This won’t change anything.”
She finally spoke. “I’m sorry for not telling you before.”
“Don’t worry. I understand why you didn’t. It’s not exactly the sort of news you can just blurt out.” He then realised a point which he in a state of shock had failed to see; that none of what she had said explained how Paul had got hold of the tablet. That was how their conversation had started. He asked her and sat down next to her. She hesitated for what felt like an eternity before she answered, still with her eyes fixed on the dancing fire. It had started to rain outside and he could hear the violent smatter on the living room window.
“Ever since I made the connection about Anne-Lise’s death I suspected that your grandmother was somehow the instigator of the break-in in August. She knew what the wall was hiding and she would have wanted to ensure that the murder that she may have committed all those years ago remained a secret. It makes perfect sense.”
“From what I heard one of the police officers say when we opened the chest, Anne-Lise was either poisoned or she was buried alive in there. There was no sign of any exterior wounds. I have not heard anything further from the police but either way, the perpetrator must have opened the wall somehow, removed the existing contents of the chest, if any, put Anne-Lise in there, either asleep or dead and then bricked up the wall again and re-plastered it. I really cannot see how my grandmother could have done all that. She must have been helped by someone who knew what they were doing.”
“I agree. She couldn’t have done it all alone,” Britt-Marie said gravely.
“Well, my other point is that she, or the person who helped her, must have emptied the contents of the chest thirty years ago. It could have contained anything – and my guess is that we were right; it contained the other half of the Torpa tablet. She could have hidden it somewhere on the estate and Paul could have found it. Or she could have given it to Paul…”
“Yes, I suppose so…” Britt-Marie seemed tired or diverted. They had both had a fair bit to drink by that point and could not drive. Erik offered for her to stay over in her old room. She gratefully agreed.
“Goodnight Erik. I’m sorry about everything. You’re a lovely boy. I love you as if you were my own son.”
“I love you too, Britt-Marie.” They hugged again and each went to their rooms. Erik could not sleep. He lay awake for what felt like half the night, tossing and turning, running everything over
in his head until it hurt. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning when he suddenly heard footsteps in the corridor outside his door. He wondered what Britt-Marie was doing. Her footsteps continued down the stairs and then out of earshot. She must be going for some water. Erik then thought he heard the front door close but figured he was probably tired enough for his mind to be playing tricks on him. He decided it was definitely time to get some sleep. It was Sunday but he had to be fresh, just in case Emma managed to get some last minute deal on a flight. He pulled the covers up under his chin and drifted off to happy thoughts of seeing Emma again. The news that his mother was not actually his biological mother was no longer at the forefront of his mind. He had earlier decided that he was not going to mention to his parents that he knew, at least not yet.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Britt-Marie made no mention of her nocturnal excursion over an uncomfortable breakfast the next morning. Erik might have imagined it but he doubted it. It was definitely footsteps and she was the only other person in the house. He did not ask her about it. Instead, he thanked her for telling him about his biological mother and went straight to the airport to pick up Emma. She had managed to get a last minute flight.
As he saw her walking towards him at Arrivals he got a warm happy feeling inside, looking forward to a couple of weeks in her company. Erik took her heavy bag on the way to the car park, chatting about the events of the evening before. As soon as they were in the car, he realised with disappointment that he may not have been the only reason for her Swedish visit. She dived straight into a speculation of where the lost half tablet could be. She explained that without the entire tablet she had no chance of getting anywhere. She only had the existing half and the incomplete photograph of the Linear A side of the lost tablet but she had realised that she could not crack the code of Linear A without the complete Egyptian hieroglyphic side. She was intending to devote a significant proportion of her time to its search while she was there. She saw it as a key ingredient to academic success.
The Atlantis Keystone Page 24
