The Drowning

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘Right,’ said Kenneth listlessly. He hadn’t said anything then, and he wasn’t going to say anything now. He was just going to wait. For her.

  ‘You told them that you didn’t know who could be behind what happened this morning.’ Patrik looked at him, and Kenneth stubbornly met his gaze.

  ‘That’s right.’

  The police officer cleared his throat. ‘We don’t think you’re telling the truth.’

  What had they found out? Suddenly Kenneth panicked. He didn’t want them to know, didn’t want them to find her. She had to finish what she’d begun. That was his only salvation. If he paid the price for what he’d done, he would be able to explain it to Lisbet.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He looked away, but he knew they’d seen the fear in his eyes. Both of the officers had noticed. They took it as a sign of weakness, as an opportunity to get at him. They were mistaken. He had everything to win and nothing to lose by keeping silent. For a moment he thought about Erik and Christian. Above all, Christian. He’d been dragged into this even though he was not to blame. Not like Erik. But he couldn’t take the others into consideration. Lisbet was the only one who mattered.

  ‘We’ve just paid a visit to Cia. We saw a video that was taken at a Midsummer party at their house.’ Patrik seemed to be expecting a reaction, but Kenneth had no idea what he was talking about. His old life, with parties and friends, now seemed so far away.

  ‘Magnus was drunk, and the two of you slipped away to have a smoke. It seemed that you wanted to make sure no one could hear you.’

  He still didn’t understand what Patrik was getting at. Everything was a hazy blur. Nothing was distinct or clear any more.

  ‘Magnus’s son, Ludvig, filmed the two of you without your knowledge. Magnus was upset. He wanted to talk to you about something that had happened. You got annoyed with him and said that what was done was done. You told him to think about his family. Do you remember any of this?’

  Oh yes, Kenneth did remember. It was still a bit vague, but he recalled how he had felt when he saw the panic in Magnus’s eyes. He could never work out why the topic had come up on that particular evening. Magnus had been aching to talk about it, to make amends. And that had scared him. He had thought about Lisbet, about what she would say, how she would look at him. Finally he’d been able to calm Magnus down – that much he remembered. But from that moment on, he had expected something to happen that would make everything crack wide open. And that’s exactly what had happened, only not in the way he’d imagined. Because even in the worst possible scenarios he had pictured in his mind, Lisbet had still been alive to reproach him. Leaving always a slim chance that he’d be able to explain. Now things were different, and justice would have to be done for him to be able to explain. He couldn’t let the police ruin his chances.

  So he shook his head, pretending that he was trying to recall.

  ‘No, I don’t remember that.’

  ‘We can arrange for you to watch the tape, if that might jog your memory,’ said Paula.

  ‘Sure, I can look at it. But I can’t imagine that it was anything important, or I would have remembered. It was probably just drunken rambling. Magnus got like that once in a while when he was drinking. Melodramatic and sentimental. Trivial matters got blown all out of proportion.’

  He could see that they didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter because they couldn’t read his mind. The secret would come out sooner or later – he knew that too. The police wouldn’t give up until they found out everything. But that didn’t have to happen until she came to give him what he deserved.

  The officers stayed a little while longer, but it was easy to fend off their questions. He wasn’t about to do their job for them; he had to think of himself and Lisbet. Erik and Christian would have to manage on their own as best they could.

  Before leaving, Patrik looked at him kindly and said, ‘We also wanted to tell you that we received the report from Lisbet’s post-mortem. She wasn’t murdered. She died of natural causes.’

  Kenneth turned his face away. He knew that they were wrong.

  Patrik was on the verge of falling asleep as they headed back to Uddevalla. For a moment his eyes actually fell shut and he drove into the oncoming lane.

  ‘What are you doing!’ cried Paula, grabbing the wheel to steer the car back where it belonged.

  Patrik gave a start and gasped.

  ‘Bloody hell! I don’t know what’s going on. I’m just so tired.’

  Paula looked at him with concern. ‘Okay, let’s head over to your house, and I’ll drop you off there. And tomorrow you need to stay home. You don’t look well.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I’ve got lots of things to do.’ He blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the road.

  ‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do right now,’ said Paula firmly. ‘Turn in at the next petrol station and we’ll change places. I’ll drive you home, and then I’ll go to the office and pick up all the materials you need and bring them back to Fjällbacka. I’ll also make sure the videocassette is sent to the lab for analysis. But you have to promise to take it easy. You’ve been working too much, and I’m sure it’s been tough at home too. I know how hard it was for Johanna when she was expecting Leo, and I’m sure you’re having to carry an extra heavy load right now.’

  Patrik nodded reluctantly and did as she said. He turned in at the petrol station at the Hogstorp exit and got out of the car. He was simply too worn out to argue. It was actually impossible for him to take a day off, or even a couple of hours, but his body refused to cooperate. If he could just get some rest and have time to go through all the documentation, maybe he’d regain some of the energy he needed to proceed with the investigation.

  Patrik leaned his head against the window on the passenger side and had almost dozed off even before Paula pulled out on to the motorway. When he opened his eyes, they were parked in front of his house. Feeling groggy, he climbed out.

  ‘Go on in and lie down. I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t lock the door, so I can leave the papers for you inside,’ said Paula.

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’ That was all he could manage to say.

  Patrik opened the door and went in.

  ‘Erica!’

  No answer. He had phoned her in the afternoon, but hadn’t been able to get hold of her. Maybe she’d gone over to Anna’s house and had ended up staying a while. For safety’s sake, he decided to leave her a note on the bureau in the front hall, just so she wouldn’t get scared if she came home and heard somebody in the house. Then he walked numbly up the stairs and fell into bed. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. But it was not a deep or restful sleep.

  Something was about to change. Louise couldn’t say that she liked her life as it had been over the past few years, but at least it was familiar. With the coldness, the indifference, the exchange of caustic and well-rehearsed remarks.

  Now she could feel the ground under her feet starting to shake, and the cracks were getting wider. During their last argument, she saw a sense of finality in Erik’s eyes. His disdain wasn’t new, and it no longer really affected her, but this time something was different. And it scared her more than she’d ever imagined was possible. Because deep in her heart she had always believed that they would continue to dance this dance of death with ever greater elegance.

  He had reacted strangely when she mentioned Cecilia. Usually he didn’t care if she talked about his mistresses. He just pretended not to hear her. Why had he become so angry this morning? Was it a sign that Cecilia actually meant something to him?

  Louise drained her glass. She was already having a hard time gathering her thoughts. Everything was wrapped in a pleasant woolliness, in the warmth spreading through her limbs. She poured herself more wine, looking out of the window across the ice that embraced the islands, while her hand as if of its own accord raised the glass to her lips.

  She had to find out what was going on. Whether the cracks beneath
her feet were real or imagined. But one thing she knew for sure. If the dance was about to end, it wouldn’t happen with a quiet pirouette. She was planning to dance with stomping feet and flailing arms until there were only crumbs left of their marriage. She didn’t want him, but that didn’t mean she was planning to let him go.

  Maja had not come away without protest when Erica went to pick her up at Anna’s house. She was having too much fun playing with her cousins to want to go home willingly. But after a little negotiating, Erica managed to get her daughter into her outdoor garments and settled in the car. She thought it was a bit odd that she hadn’t heard from Patrik, but she hadn’t taken the time to phone him either. She hadn’t yet worked out how she was going to explain her expedition to Göteborg. But she was going to have to say something, because she needed to hand over the drawings to Patrik at once. Something told her that they were important, and that the police should see them. Above all, they needed to talk to Christian about the pictures. She had to admit that she was actually eager to do that herself, but she knew that she’d already gone too far by making the trip to Göteborg. She couldn’t go behind Patrik’s back again.

  As she pulled into the drive in front of their house, she saw in the rear-view mirror that a police car was not far behind. That must be Patrik, she thought. But why wasn’t he driving his own car? She lifted Maja out of the car seat as she cast a glance at the vehicle that drove up and parked nearby. She was surprised to see Paula behind the wheel instead of Patrik.

  ‘Hi, where’s Patrik?’ asked Erica.

  ‘He’s in the house,’ said Paula, getting out of the car. ‘He was so tired that I ordered him to go home and get some rest. I know I was overstepping my authority, but he didn’t offer any objections.’ She laughed, but the laugh didn’t chase away the concern in her eyes.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ asked Erica, suddenly seized by misgiving. As far as she knew, Patrik had never come home early from work like this.

  ‘No, no. I think he’s just been working too hard lately. He looks a bit run-down. So I managed to convince him that he’s no good to anyone if he doesn’t get some rest.’

  ‘And he agreed? Just like that?’

  ‘Well, we compromised. He agreed as long as I drove back to the station and picked up the materials he wants to look at. I was just going to leave them inside the door, but now I can give them to you.’ And she handed a paper sack to Erica.

  ‘Okay, that sounds more like Patrik,’ said Erica, feeling immediately calmer. If he couldn’t stop working, that meant that his health couldn’t be all that bad.

  She thanked Paula and lugged the sack into the front hall. Maja scampered after her. Erica smiled when she saw the note that Patrik had left for her on the bureau. He knew that she would have been scared to death if she hadn’t known he was home and suddenly heard someone moving about upstairs.

  Maja began to cry with frustration because she couldn’t get her shoes off. Erica hurried to hush her.

  ‘Shhh, sweetie. Pappa is asleep upstairs. We don’t want to wake him.’

  Maja stared at her, wide-eyed, and put her finger to her lips. ‘Shh,’ she said loudly as she peeked up the stairs. Erica helped her take off her shoes and outdoor clothes. Then Maja ran inside to play with her toys, which were scattered all over the living room floor.

  Erica took off her jacket and tugged at her shirt a bit. She was always sweating these days. She had a deep-seated aversion to the smell of sweat, so she changed her shirt two or three times a day. She also applied such a generous amount of deodorant under her arms that Nivea must have experienced a noticeable upswing in sales during her pregnancy.

  She cast a glance upstairs. Then she looked at the paper sack that Paula had left. Again she looked upstairs, then at the sack. She was waging an inner battle, even though she honestly knew beforehand that it was a battle doomed to failure. A temptation like this was too much to resist.

  An hour later she had gone through all the documents in the sack, but she felt none the wiser. In fact, even more questions had piled up. Among the documents she’d also found notes that Patrik had made: What is the link between the four men? Why did Magnus die first? Why was he upset the morning that he disappeared? Why did he phone to say he’d be late? Why did Christian start getting letters so much earlier than the others? Did Magnus ever receive any letters? If not, why not? Page after page of questions, and it bothered Erica that she didn’t know the answer to a single one of them. And she had questions of her own to add: Why did Christian move without leaving his new address? Who sent the drawings to him? Who was the little figure in the pictures? And above all: Why was Christian so secretive about his past?

  Erica made sure that Maja was still busy playing with her toys before she went back to the investigative materials. The only thing left was an unmarked cassette tape. She got up from the sofa to get out her tape recorder. Luckily it was the right kind of tape for the player. She cast a nervous glance up at the ceiling before she pressed the ‘Play’ button, turning down the volume as much as possible and then holding the tape recorder up to her ear.

  The tape lasted twenty minutes, and she listened tensely to the whole thing. What she heard didn’t really tell her any new information. But there was one thing that made her suddenly freeze, and she pressed ‘Rewind’ to listen to it again.

  After she was done with the tape, she carefully removed the cassette from the player and put it back in its case, which she then placed in the paper sack along with everything else. Having spent several years interviewing people for her books, she was good at catching details and nuances in a conversation. What she had just heard was important. She was sure of that.

  She would have to deal with it tomorrow morning. Right now she could hear Patrik moving about upstairs, and with greater speed than she’d been able to muster for several months, she returned the sack to the front hall, went back to the sofa, and tried to look as if she were deeply engrossed in playing with Maja.

  Darkness had settled over the house. He hadn’t switched on any lights; it seemed pointless to do so. At the end of the road, lights weren’t necessary.

  Christian was sitting semi-nude on the floor, staring at the wall. He had painted over her words. In the basement he’d found a brush and a can of black paint. Three times he had painted the black over the red. Three times he had blotted out her judgement of him. Yet he still thought that he could see the words as clearly as before.

  He had paint smeared on his hand and his body. Black as tar. He looked at his right hand. It was sticky, and he wiped it off on his chest, but the black just seemed to spread.

  She was waiting for him now. He had known that all along. All he had done was postpone things, fooling himself and almost dragging his sons into the trap. The message was clear. You don’t deserve them.

  He saw the child carried in the arms of the woman he had loved. Suddenly he wished that he could have loved Sanna. He had never meant her any harm, yet he had betrayed her. Not with other women, the way Erik frequently did, but in the worst imaginable way. Because he knew that Sanna loved him, and he’d always given her just enough to allow her to live with the hope that someday he might love her – even though that was an impossibility. It was something he was no longer capable of. It had disappeared with the blue dress.

  The boys were a different story. They were his flesh and blood and the reason why he had to let her take him. It was the only way to save his sons, and he should have understood that before things went so far. He shouldn’t have told himself that it was all just a bad dream, and that he was safe. That they were safe.

  It had been a mistake to come back, to try again. But it had seemed like such an irresistible temptation to return here and be so close. He didn’t really understand it himself, but he’d felt an urge to return from the moment the opportunity presented itself. And he had thought that there might be a second chance for him. A second chance to have a family, as long as he kept them at a distance and chose a wife who
meant very little to him. But he was wrong.

  The words on the wall told the truth. He loved the boys, but he didn’t deserve them. He hadn’t deserved the other child either, or the woman whose lips tasted of strawberries. And they had paid the price. This time he would see to it that he was the one who paid.

  Christian slowly stood up and looked around the room. A ragged-looking teddy bear sat in one corner. It had been a present to Nils when he was born, and he had loved it so hard that by now it had lost almost all its fur. Melker’s action figures were carefully lined up in a box. He took such good care of them, and his fist would immediately appear if his little brother touched them. Christian could feel himself waver as doubts began to build, and he realized that he needed to leave. He had to meet her before he lost his nerve.

  He went into the bedroom to put on some clothes. It didn’t matter what he chose; that was no longer import ant. Then he went downstairs, grabbed his jacket from the hanger, and took one last look around the house. Dark and silent. He didn’t bother to lock the door behind him.

  During the short walk he kept his eyes fixed on the ground, not wanting to look at anyone, not wanting to talk. He needed to concentrate on what he was about to do and the person he was about to meet. The palms of his hands had started itching again, but this time he had no trouble ignoring the sensation. His brain felt as if it had switched off all communication with his body, which was now superfluous. The only thing of importance was what was inside his head, the images and memories. He was no longer living in the present. He saw only what had once been, like a film slowly playing as the snow squeaked under his feet.

  The wind had started to gust as he walked across the dock towards Badholmen. He knew that he was cold because his body was shivering, but he didn’t feel the chill. The place was deserted. It was dark and quiet, with not a person in sight. But he could feel her presence, just as he always had. His guilt had to be settled here. It was the only possible place. From the top of the diving tower he had seen her in the water, seen her stretch out her hands towards him. Now he would go to her.