by Viveca Sten
No, not white pants. He might think she’d gotten all dressed up. Jeans would be better.
A critical inspection of her jeans revealed that they could use a turn in the washing machine; there was a large patch of grease just above the left thigh.
Typical, she thought; it must have gotten there when she was frying pancakes for the boys’ breakfast. But if she washed her jeans now, they wouldn’t be dry in time. She didn’t have a tumble dryer, only the washing line outside.
She pulled off the jeans and tried the white pants. They really did look far too dressy, as if she were going to a cocktail party in the middle of the summer rather than a simple dinner at the Divers Bar.
It would have to be the jeans.
She put the white pants away and headed for the bathroom. She grabbed a towel, soaked one corner in hot water, and dabbed some liquid soap onto the denim. Maybe she could scrub away the mark, she thought optimistically as she set to work.
Ten minutes later, not only was the grease still there, but the entire leg was soaking wet.
Nora gave up. She put the jeans back on and shivered when she felt the dampness on her skin. Should she run over to the little clothes store opposite the steamboat jetty and buy something on sale? Stop it, she said sharply to herself. This is not a date. We’re just having dinner together.
She rubbed at the wet patch with a dry towel, then took off the jeans once more and draped them over the towel rack. Maybe the stain would be less visible when the fabric had dried. Meanwhile, she would have to make do with sweatpants.
In spite of the fact that it was September, the Divers Bar was almost full when Nora walked in.
She remembered the restaurant’s opening in the nineties to cater to hungry students taking diving courses on Sandhamn. The diving school had bought the old general store to provide room and board for those attending the courses, which were run in the former shipyard on the north side of the island. The school had folded after a few years, but the restaurant was still here. At this time of year, it was open only on the weekends, and soon it would close for the season.
The bar took up one wall, with a huge mirror behind it. She could see Jonas’s reflection; he was already sitting at one of the low tables by the window.
“Hi,” she said, sliding into the chair opposite.
The stain was indeed less visible now that the fabric had dried, but she had carried her jacket in front of her just to be on the safe side. Jonas was also wearing jeans and a pale-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Nora was glad she hadn’t gone for the white pants.
“Hi,” Jonas replied, half getting to his feet. “Are the boys OK?”
“Absolutely—they’ve gone to the grill bar, and they’re very happy.”
He pushed a menu across the table, and Nora suddenly realized how hungry she was, much to her surprise. She nodded to some people she knew at another table, then began to read through what was on offer. As usual, it was a tempting array; she chose whitefish roe to start and veal for her main course.
“Tell me more about your work,” she said, well aware that they had already discussed this topic. But it was nice and neutral. “Do you enjoy it?”
Jonas looked up from the menu.
“It’s OK, but it’s a tough industry these days, especially for the big companies who have to compete with the budget airlines. But I’m happy, even though the golden years are gone.”
“The golden years?”
“The good old days, when pilots were treated like gods and got whatever they wanted.” He raised his eyebrows and gave a meaningful nod. “When I started, we still had an incredible expense account, and we stayed in five-star hotels. Now it’s one economy package after another, but, of course, we’re much better off than those who work for the budget airlines.”
He pointed to Nora’s menu. “Have you decided?”
Nora nodded, and Jonas waved to the waitress, who immediately came over. How did he do that? Nora thought. It wasn’t usually so easy to attract the attention of the staff. He had charisma, there was no doubt about it.
After they’d ordered and the waitress returned with their drinks, Nora took a sip of her wine; Jonas had suggested an Australian dry white with an assurance born of knowledge. It was certainly very good.
A group of four came into the restaurant, and Nora immediately recognized them as friends of Henrik’s parents. Before she could turn away, she realized they had seen her. She could only hope they wouldn’t pass on this tasty bit of gossip.
She frowned, annoyed with herself. It was nobody’s business that she was having dinner with someone other than her ex-husband, but Jonas looked a little too handsome and was a little too young for her to be entirely comfortable with the situation.
In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the women approaching their table. It was Siv Angern, a close friend of her ex-mother-in-law, Monica Linde. Like Monica, she was beautifully made up, not a hair out of place. She was wearing an expensive designer wool peacoat.
Nora stood up to greet her, though she was unable to muster any enthusiasm.
Siv kissed Nora on both cheeks. An upper-class affectation, Nora thought, but that was the standard greeting in the circles in which her in-laws moved.
Typical—why did she have to bump into Siv tonight of all nights? Within a few hours, Monica would be fully informed, and, of course, she would immediately call Henrik and tell him everything. Somehow Monica would make sure this outing came back to haunt Nora.
“Nora, how lovely to see you.”
“Hi,” Nora replied, keeping her tone neutral. “How are you all?”
“We’re only here for the weekend.” Siv gestured in her husband’s direction. “With the boat.”
Nora knew the Angerns owned a large motor yacht, a Princess that was over forty feet long.
“I was so sorry to hear about the divorce,” Siv went on. “You were such a handsome couple, you and Henrik. I never imagined you’d split up. Monica is terribly upset, as I’m sure you know.”
Nora doubted that very much. She and Monica had never gotten along. Her father-in-law, Harald, might miss her a little bit.
“How are the boys taking it?”
Siv’s tone was exactly the same as Monica Linde’s, and Nora wondered if the women who moved in these circles were cast in identical molds. The same emphasis on clothes and appearance, with a constant flow of name-dropping to make it clear who they knew and socialized with. Utterly superficial, with a total lack of genuine emotion.
She certainly wouldn’t miss that aspect of her life with Henrik.
“Anyway, I can see you’re doing fine,” Siv went on, ignoring the fact that Nora hadn’t answered her question about the boys. The comment was accompanied by a smile and a glance at Jonas.
“Absolutely,” Nora said, refusing to engage. “Good to see you—have a lovely evening.”
She sat down, making it clear that the conversation was over. At that moment, the waitress arrived to take Siv’s party upstairs. Far away from Nora and Jonas’s table.
“Sorry about that,” Nora said. “She’s a friend of my ex-in-laws.”
Jonas looked amused.
“Maybe she thinks you’ve thrown yourself into the arms of a new man. And I’m only your tenant.”
Something in the way he said “your tenant” made Nora’s heart sink.
“Let’s eat,” she said brusquely.
Three glasses of wine later, and everything was OK again. It had been a long time since Nora had felt so relaxed with someone.
By the time they emerged from the Divers Bar, it was dark. The September night was pitch black, and the sparse streetlamps didn’t provide a great deal of light. If the moon hadn’t appeared, they would have had to stumble blindly along the narrow alleyways.
Nora kept both hands in her jacket pockets. The temperature had dropped significantly, and there was nothing left of the afternoon’s late-summer heat.
“Thanks for a lovely evening,” Jonas said b
eside her.
He had put on a jacket, too, and was rubbing his hands to get warm.
“Thank you.”
They reached Nora’s old house and stopped by the gate. The Brand villa lay only fifty yards away, and Nora noticed that the light was still on in Adam’s room, even though it was almost eleven thirty.
“Maybe we could do this again?” Jonas suggested.
“I’d like that.”
He leaned over and brushed Nora’s cheek with his lips.
“I think you’re the cutest landlady I’ve ever had.”
The words made Nora smile.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“You’d better believe it.”
Nora turned and set off toward her new home with an unfamiliar feeling of anticipation.
DIARY: NOVEMBER 1976
Today there is frost on the inside of the windowpanes. The others are still snoring, but I can’t sleep. My body aches too much. Yesterday we went on our first march, in full battle gear weighing thirty-five pounds. It took all day, and it was almost midnight by the time we got back. We were completely exhausted.
During the last part of the march, the officers beat our backs with canes to stop us from collapsing in the forest. We must have looked drunk, weaving from side to side. Our legs gave way, and several of us threw up, first me, then Eklund and Erneskog.
We weren’t allowed to eat or drink all day, and we all had cuts and blisters on our hands and feet by the time we finished, but some of the guys came out really badly. Andersson was the worst.
When we got back, it turned out that his feet had bled right through his socks. On his left foot, the skin had been rubbed away right down to the bone, and his sock was stiff with dried blood. His big toenail was dark blue.
The other big toenail had come off. He had wrapped a tissue around the toe to try to protect it, but it turned into a blood-soaked lump and stuck to the flesh. His mouth twitched with the pain whenever he touched his big toe.
He was sitting on his bed and had just taken off his boots when the sergeant came in.
We leaped up and stood to attention. The sergeant stopped in front of Andersson, staring at his injured feet. Then he laughed out loud and looked up at Andersson’s tortured face.
“Do your feet hurt, little boy?” he said loudly. “Would you like me to call your mommy so she can make them better?”
Andersson shook his head without saying a word.
The sergeant smiled with satisfaction and moved on.
“You need to go and see the nurse,” I whispered when the sergeant had gone.
Andersson shook his head again.
“After the first march? Are you kidding? They send you home if you complain, you know that.”
He limped over to the first-aid cupboard on the wall, leaving a trail of red behind him on the floor.
CHAPTER 17
Sunday (The Second Week)
The digital clock showed seventeen minutes past six when Thomas opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep around midnight, and it would’ve been nice to have another hour in bed, but he still felt rested.
Pernilla was breathing deeply beside him. She was lying on her side, with one arm wrapped protectively around her belly.
Thomas gazed at her with a mixture of joy and anxiety. The fact that she was pregnant again was amazing. The last time had required a lengthy process of hormone treatment and IVF; when Emily died unexpectedly at the age of three months, the loss had been unbearable.
There was no rational explanation as to why Pernilla had conceived naturally this time around, but Thomas felt a deep sense of gratitude for this miracle.
A framed photograph of Emily stood on the chest of drawers over by the window. She was lying on a pink towel, naked and freshly bathed, smiling one of her very first smiles. It had been taken just a few days before her death, and for a long time, Thomas hadn’t even been able to look at the photo, let alone have it on display. But a few weeks ago, Pernilla had simply placed it there, and to his surprise, Thomas found it a comfort. He had gotten into the habit of looking at his daughter each night before he went to sleep, and at long last, he was able to remember the joy she had brought them.
He prayed that everything would go well this time. A miscarriage would crush them both; if that happened, it would have been better if Pernilla hadn’t gotten pregnant in the first place.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and wobbled slightly, as usual, as he got to his feet. It took a while to get used to the strange feeling when he put his foot on the floor; he would probably never completely grasp the fact that his body was no longer whole.
Wearing a robe but no slippers, he ambled into the kitchen and switched on the coffeemaker. When the black brew was ready, he poured a cup and sat down at the kitchen table. His thoughts immediately turned to Marcus Nielsen.
There was a team meeting at the station at nine thirty, and one of his top priorities would be to find out more about the people Marcus had contacted before his death. Maybe Robert Cronwall or Bo Kaufman could answer some of the questions the investigation had brought up.
It was very pleasant outdoors, even though it was only eight thirty. Nora decided to sit in the sun with a cup of coffee for a while, before it was time to get breakfast ready for the boys.
As she emerged onto the steps, she saw Olle Granlund sitting by the jetty. He raised a hand in greeting, and she waved back.
“How’s life in your big house?” he called out.
Nora went over to him and sat down on the old driftwood bench that had been there for as long as she could remember.
“We’re starting to feel at home, but Aunt Signe is still there, in every room. Every time I hear the Mora clock strike, I expect her to come walking out of the kitchen.”
Olle inclined his head.
“Signe loved that house; it was her favorite place in the whole world. I’m glad you haven’t made too many changes; you’ve kept its character.”
Nora turned her cup around in her hands.
“It wouldn’t feel right to get rid of Signe’s furniture. It still feels like her house, even though I know that sounds dumb.”
“Not at all. You must miss her.”
“Very much; I really loved her.”
“A lot of us did.”
Olle gave her such a sly look that Nora was taken aback.
“And what do you mean by that?” she said, giving him a little nudge. “You never mentioned this before!”
Olle squinted up at the sun and said, with his eyes half-shut, “She was ten years older than me, but I have to admit that I had a bit of a crush on her when I was about twenty.”
Nora leaned back against the boathouse wall behind the bench.
“This is news to me—tell me more!”
Olle looked pleased, as if he were once again a young man going courting.
“I made a pass at her one midsummer, when I was on leave from the army. It must have been 1958. I came over from Korsö in my smart green uniform, trying to make a good impression.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Not exactly.” Olle grinned. “I invited her out for coffee, but she brushed me off right away. ‘What would a stylish young man like you want with an old woman like me?’ she said. I couldn’t persuade her.”
“Typical Signe.”
“Absolutely. I slunk away with my tail between my legs, but we always got along well.”
Nora could see Signe in her mind’s eye: the clear gaze, the firm manner that quickly softened when Adam and Simon came running, begging for a special treat.
“Do you happen to know why she never married? I’ve always wondered, but I never dared ask her,” Nora said.
Olle’s callused hand pulled a tin of snuff from his pocket, which he opened with a practiced movement.
“They say she fell in love with someone who abandoned her without a word of explanation.”
“That’s tragic.”
“Yes, but it�
��s just old gossip, so I can’t swear to it. It was supposed to have happened a few years after the end of the Second World War; I was only a kid back then.”
“So she lived all alone in that big house.” Nora glanced up at the Brand villa behind them. “For all those years.”
“And now you live there.” Olle slipped the snuff tin back in his pocket. “It’s high time a new family took over; a house like that shouldn’t stand empty. I’m glad you and your boys have moved in.”
Nora looked at her watch and stood up.
“Speaking of the boys, it’s time for their breakfast.”
“Let me know if you need help with anything—you know where to find me.”
“Thank you.” Nora smiled warmly at him. “That might happen sooner than you think!”
CHAPTER 18
“So what do we know about these two deaths?”
As usual, the Old Man had taken his seat at the head of the table. It was nine thirty, and the whole team was assembled.
Kalle Lidwall looked wide awake, but Erik Blom seemed half-asleep. He had swept his hair back with gel and was drinking a large coffee from 7-Eleven.
“Late night?” The query came from Karin Ek, who was sitting opposite Erik.
“You could say that.”
“I assume you’ve got a new girlfriend,” she said, an amused expression on her face. “Typical!”
Before Erik could speak, the Old Man broke in.
“Let’s get down to business. Thomas, Margit.”
Thomas had already put up pictures of Jan-Erik Fredell and Marcus Nielsen on the whiteboard.
“We’re dealing with two people who have no obvious links, except that, within a week of their first and only meeting, both of them are dead. Nielsen was a psychology student who grew up in Täby; Fredell was a former PE teacher who retired due to ill health, and who lived to the south of Stockholm. The first death appears to be a suicide; it’s possible that the second could also be suicide, but we don’t know that for sure. There’s no clear evidence that a crime has been committed, but the situation is far from straightforward.”
The Old Man cleared his throat.
“Can you fill us in on the details of Fredell’s death?”
