About the Book
A man pushed from a cliff.
A woman missing after a bike ride.
An elderly man washed ashore.
A group of friends closer than most – too close, some might say. Every year they leave their comfortable suburban neighbourhood to go on holiday to a remote Swedish island. But this year, their trip won’t go as expected.
A terrible series of tragedies unfolds, seemingly random, all somehow connected. To find the truth, Detective Superintendent Anders Knutas will have to look into the friends’ tangled pasts. What malevolent force has followed them to the island?
Or was it amongst them all along?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Dedication
Epigraph
The Double Silence
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Mari Jungstedt
Copyright
For Anna Samuelsson, beloved little sister
Can you be one and the same person, at exactly the same time?
I mean, be two people?
from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona
THE CAR TURNED off the main road and continued along the tractor path, which led straight into the woods. Dark had fallen, and only the cold beam from the headlamps showed the way. Here the pines were taller than usual on Gotland. They stood close together, with thick brush in between, their branches reaching out for each other to form a shield from the wind when storms swept across the island. Although right now there was no wind. The solitary car jolted along, only to stop in the glade near the small marsh, which was actually little more than a boggy patch of land. The moon shone round and white above the mirror-smooth water. Mist slowly rose up from the surface towards the sky, where it dispersed and vanished into an empty nothingness.
The couple tumbled out of the car, already immersed in their game. She clung to him, lips against lips, body against body, feverish hands reaching under their clothes. She laughed, and the sound travelled across the water, ricocheting between the gnarled tree trunks and the boulders, aimlessly scattering here and there, as if coming out of nowhere. An old willow stretched out its branches over the black and cold water, grazing the motionless surface.
She leaned against the trunk, spread out her arms and closed her eyes. The smell of damp earth in her nostrils, the cool, dewy air against her bare skin excited her even more. When he bit her hard on the shoulder, she cried out, pulled out of his grasp and ran off towards the woods. Up on the hill across from the marsh, he caught up with her and pressed her against a pine tree. The bark scraped at her back. His eyes glittered in the dim light. Slowly he began unbuttoning her clothes. He ran his fingers along her shoulder until the cloth gave way and fell in a heap at her feet. She hadn’t bothered to wear a bra. She had been longing for him for days.
She shivered. His face was so close. In the moonlight it looked like the face of a stranger. They didn’t speak during their game. He sighed as he slid his hand over her body, touched her breast, stopped, circled. He carefully caressed her with his fingertips, following the line where her ribs joined, moving down to her navel, then wandering upward again. Slowly, back and forth, until she began to moan with desire. Without her noticing, he leaned down to the bag sitting in the grass at his feet. With his hand behind his back, he cautiously rummaged among the contents until he found what he was looking for. The minuscule, nearly transparent thong she was wearing barely covered her sex. You naughty girl, he thought excitedly. You knew what was coming. He circled her navel with his tongue, then cautiously bit the lower part of her stomach, which was smooth and firm, like a boy’s. Then he moved up, caressing her, holding the blindfold behind his back. He kissed her breasts, reached her slender throat. Such a vulnerable spot, he thought as he tenderly nibbled and licked the delicate skin. He could feel her veins under the tip of his tongue, her blood vessels just below the surface. Then he raised his arms and in a flash tied the blindfold around her eyes. The black mask covered them securely. He knew that everything had now gone dark for her.
‘What are you doing?’ She giggled uncertainly. ‘What are you up to?’
Her hands automatically flew up to her head. Her palms glowed white. He thought they looked like two lost birds, fluttering through the air without knowing where to go.
‘Now, now,’ he admonished her. ‘Take it easy. Never a danger if you’re careful with a stranger,’ he hummed, taking the phrase from an old nursery rhyme. At the same time, he pulled out the rope, which had been hidden inside the bag. The clumsy fumbling of her hands stopped abruptly when he took a firm grip on them, tying the rope tightly around her wrists and hoisting her arms above her head.
A moment later she was tied securely, bound to the tree, and unable to escape. She was helpless, in his power, which was something he enjoyed. It was just the two of them here, the trees their only audience. Far away from everyone and everything. A separate universe. He did as he liked. She was tied to the tree, unseeing, like a newborn baby.
And he exploited her vulnerability to the fullest.
THE MOMENT THAT Andrea Dahlberg turned on to their usually peaceful residential street, she was struck by a feeling of unease. The affluent community of Terra Nova, just outside of Visby, was an area where nothing much ever happened. Life proceeded at a predictable tempo among the gardens surrounding the detached homes and the sites of the terraced houses. But suddenly there was something different in the air. She stopped, wiped the sweat from her brow, removed the water bottle from her belt and drank a few gulps. She glanced around, studying the façades of the houses and the few cars parked along the road. Not a soul in sight. On the surface everything seemed calm.
She was on her way home from her usual exercise routine: power-walking at a furious pace. For once she hadn’t managed to persuade any of her neighbours to come along. On this particular morning all the women who usually accompanied her were busy. Why? Was it because of the rain? she thought with annoyance. She had never let the weather deter her. And besides, it was only a light drizzle.
Since she was without a companion, she had been forced to confine her 10 kilometres to the small paths around the neighbourhood. How dreary. She preferred the woods but didn’t dare go there alone because she couldn’t relax. She always imagined that a rapist was about to appear as soon as she heard the slightest rustling in a nearby thicket.
Her stomach was growling. She always walked before breakfast. That way she burned off more fat, which was something that Andrea Dahlberg was extremely interested in doing, even though there was no sign of any extra kilos on her toned body. She had almost reached home now and was thinking about how much she longed for some freshly squeezed orange juice and vanilla yoghurt with her own homemade muesli. Along with slices of kiwi and fresh raspberries from the bushes in her greenhouse in the back garden. Espresso and the morning paper. Always the same routine. Today she could also enjoy greater calm than usual because she was home alone and didn’t have to go in to work. Her holiday had already started. Sam was up in Fårösund working on a film and was expected home the following day. The children were going to spend the next two weeks in the Stockholm archipelago with their maternal grandmother and the man she had been married to for so long that the kids forgot he wasn’t Andrea’s father. They had left yesterday. She should have plenty of peace and quiet.
But then that feeling had come over her. So subtle that it was barely noticeable. Like a whispering at the back of her neck. Andrea again glanced around, looking in all directions. Nobody was behind her. She was the only one on the road. The only person she had met since nearing home was a man wearing a straw hat an
d sunglasses who had been walking towards her on the opposite pavement. He had raised his hand in greeting, but she hadn’t recognized him. Maybe he was visiting someone. She straightened the visor of her baseball cap and stretched her back, trying to shake off the sense of unease.
She was relieved to see in the distance one of her neighbours coming towards her. Pushing a pram, as usual. Even though Sandra was not one of Andrea’s best friends, she was always pleasant, and she and her husband were part of her general circle of acquaintances.
She greeted Sandra cheerfully. They exchanged a few words about the weather and the upcoming summer holidays. Nothing special. Sandra seemed stressed and kept evading her eyes, her smile a bit strained. A few minutes later she excused herself, saying that she was in a hurry and had an appointment at the social services office.
Andrea was almost home. She passed the Halldéns’ house, which was made of sand-lime brick painted pink. It was much bigger and showier than the neighbouring houses, with its luxurious, pillar-lined driveway, curving staircase and a fountain on the lawn. She remembered how she and Sam had laughed at such an ostentatious display. Who did the Halldéns think they were? The Ewings in Dallas?
The rain had stopped, but the air was still heavy with moisture. The street was deserted. The grass was fragrant from the rain. The vegetation in the resplendent gardens was a sumptuous green right now, at the beginning of summer. Things had looked quite different when she and Sam and the kids had moved into the new development fifteen years ago. Back then the land around the houses consisted mostly of heaps of dirt and scraggly, sparsely planted shrubs meant to provide a semblance of hedges along carefully plotted property lines. By now the area was lush and flourishing and spacious houses with neatly mown lawns lined both sides of the street. In a second she would be home. Their house was at the far end, with a wooded area behind. It was a white-painted wooden house, built in an early-twentieth-century style, in spite of the fact that it was only fifteen years old. It had a pitched roof, gingerbread trim, mullioned windows and a glass veranda.
As Andrea got closer, she gave a start. The front door was open. Just slightly ajar, but enough so that she noticed it as she passed their bright-red postbox, which Sam had bought in New York in the spring.
She stopped short. Listened intently. Not a sound except for the quiet dripping from the drainpipe on the garage wall. She fixed her eyes on the door. Had she forgotten to close it when she left for her walk? That was impossible. She was always so careful. An inveterate worrier who regularly checked that the balcony door was locked, that all the windows were closed and the lights off before she left the house. She always set the security alarm that had been installed next to the front door, under the key cupboard. She would not have neglected to lock the door or set the alarm.
Soundlessly she crept closer. No signs of a breakin. Her brain was registering data and the exact time in case she would have to notify the police and the insurance company. Wednesday, 25 June, 9.35 a.m. As quietly as possible she went up the steps to the porch, cringing at every creak. She paused to listen for any sound from inside. Still nothing. She held her breath. Then she stretched out trembling fingers towards the crack in the doorway. Slowly she pulled the door open.
And stepped inside.
THE SHADOWS MOVED like elongated, intangible figures across the kitchen floor. Stina Ek sat on the floor with her bare feet on the cool tiles and leaned against the kitchen cupboard in the corner between the sink and the pantry. Her knees were drawn up, her arms folded. Her eyes followed the erratically rippling patterns, dissolving and merging, all depending on the capricious play of the tree branches outside the window. The light was lovely, and the house was completely silent. The sun had suddenly peeked out from the heavy cloud cover. The babysitter had picked up the children right after breakfast. She ought to pack but couldn’t get herself to move. She just remained sitting here, incapable of doing anything at all. As if the air had gone out of her when the house had emptied and she was left alone with her thoughts.
Her controlled façade crumbled, the muscles in her face relaxed, her shoulders drooped, and she found it easier to breathe. She no longer had to make an effort, and that made her feel tired.
On the following day she and Håkan were going away with their best friends: Sam, Andrea, John and Beata. They were neighbours in Terra Nova. All of them had moved in at the same time, when the houses had just been built and the area had the air of a new development. Back then their children were young, and they had met at the day nursery or the playground. The years had passed with a countless number of parents’ meetings, children’s parties, dinners and celebrations that had brought them close, so that over time they had become practically indispensable to each other. They helped each other out by taking the kids to and from school and football practice; they exchanged recipes and borrowed high-pressure washers and circular saws. In the autumn they set aside special days to rake leaves together, then burned the leaves and grilled sausages. They helped each other put up wallpaper and finish DIY projects. And it wasn’t just daily chores. They had dinners and parties together, including the annual crayfish feast, glögg parties at Christmas, and celebrations on Walpurgis Eve and at Midsummer. They steadfastly clung to traditions, and everything always had to be done in the same way. A few times they had diverged from the customary festivities, with unfortunate consequences. None of them wanted to risk losing the deep-seated sense of community that they’d established, so now they all kept to the unspoken rules. At least outwardly.
A few years back they had created a new tradition. Three couples in the neighbourhood who were particularly close friends decided to take a brief trip together each summer. A grown-up trip without the children. Sam Dahlberg was the one who had come up with the idea. He was the driving force in the group, inventive and creative. He thought that since the children were older now, they could treat themselves to a holiday without them for a few days once a year. But it wasn’t supposed to be just an ordinary trip. It had to include some sort of activity, something original. And they couldn’t be away very long, since they had to find someone to take care of the children. Just a few days.
They had gone horse riding in Iceland and river rafting near Jukkasjärvi in northern Sweden. They had bicycled through the vineyard areas of Provence and gone mountain climbing on the North Cape. This year they had decided on a simpler holiday.
First they would attend the annual Bergman festival week on the island of Fårö, then continue on to Stora Karlsö to see the thousands of young guillemots that, at this time of year, glided down from the steep limestone cliffs to set off for their winter habitat in the southern Baltic Sea. The phenomenon was a famous event.
Stina got up with a sigh. Outside the window she caught sight of Andrea walking past, dressed in shorts and a top that fitted snugly to her tall, toned body.
She was walking at a frenetically brisk pace, looking unabashedly alert and energetic. Sometimes Andrea’s efficiency wore Stina out, and she didn’t feel like going along. She had declined Andrea’s invitation when she had phoned earlier. Stina had clearly heard the disappointment in her friend’s voice, but she couldn’t help the fact that she didn’t want to go. Things weren’t the same as before.
Nowadays she mostly went running by herself. When she was alone in the woods her thoughts had free rein, often wandering to the other side of the world. Stina had been adopted from Vietnam, and for as long as she could remember, she had yearned to rediscover her roots. Fragmentary images danced in her mind. The smells of Hanoi’s slums still clung to her nostrils. She had memories of her grandmother’s sinewy hands washing dishes in the sink, of her own feet touching the stone floor, of the privy out in the yard. Just after Stina turned five she had been left on the steps of the orphanage with a note hanging from a string around her neck and a toy rabbit in her arms. When she was six, an unimaginably big couple had come and taken her away from there. She had no memory of her biological mother, or her father. But he
r grandmother’s face still appeared to her in the night. A wrinkled, toothless old lady with tiny black streaks for eyes, and rough but warm hands. She missed those comforting hands. She had longed for them all her life. For her, they were home, although they undoubtedly no longer existed. Stina was now thirty-seven, and back when she was five, her grandmother had already been old. Not that she had any plans to try to find her. As a teenager Stina had attempted to get in touch with the orphanage, but it had been shut down years before. She had tried to get help from the embassy, but that proved difficult. There was no information about her. All she had was the address where the orphanage had once been located. And her adoptive parents had convinced her that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go there. She wouldn’t find what she was looking for. Sorrow and a nostalgia for her origins and her grandmother’s hands had settled like a dark weight inside of her, casting a shadow over her life.
She tried to gloss over it, to think about how fortunate she had been. She could have easily died of starvation on the streets or been sold to one of Hanoi’s many brothels. Instead, she had enjoyed a secure and sheltered life and never lacked for anything.
Her adoptive parents were calm and nice, although slightly reserved in a way she had never been able to understand. They always kept a certain distance; it felt as if deep in their hearts they regarded her as a stranger, no matter how much they tried to show that they loved her, that she was their very own daughter. Really and truly. They treated her well and with respect, but their good-night hugs had seemed more obligatory than heartfelt. Her adoptive mother frequently said that she loved Stina, but there was no warmth in her voice. Her maternal solicitude was marked by an uncertainty that Stina was aware of throughout her childhood. Sometimes she would catch her mother surreptitiously studying her. On those occasions, the look in her eyes was surprised, almost frightened, with even a trace of aversion. That look told Stina more than all the years filled with assurances of love, the splendid birthday presents, and generous pocket money. At times Stina wondered why her parents had adopted her. She sensed that, in any case, she had never met their expectations.
The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7) Page 1
