‘Are you cold?’
She nods. ‘I don’t want to go in, not yet. It’s so beautiful out here, with the raindrops on the leaves. As if the roses are . . .’
‘As if they’re crying.’
They sit in silence for a while longer, until eventually she gets to her feet.
‘I need to go and change. Are you coming?’
He shakes his head. ‘You go in, I’m going to stay a bit longer.’
*
She goes into the house and gets out of her wet dress in the utility room. She goes up to her mum’s room to find something dry. From the window she can see down into the rose garden. She sees her dad down there through the foliage, hunched up. She’s struck by how old and vulnerable he looks.
She finds a pair of jeans and a top in the wardrobe and pulls them on. The clothes must have been washed recently, but she still imagines they smell of her mum. She goes over to the little bureau. There’s a single rose on top of it. A white one, just like the one in Billy’s room. Mostly on impulse she opens the top drawer. It contains her mum’s fountain pen and letter-writing paper, and – right at the back – a bundle of envelopes held together by a thin strip of leather. She pulls them out, and loosens the little horn clasp holding the cord in place.
She leafs through the envelopes. They contain letters written in her mum’s beautiful handwriting, and she goes over to the window to see them better. The letters smell faintly of wood and earth, as if they’d been stored somewhere damp before they ended up here.
There’s a corner missing from the bottom envelope, and there’s something sticking out from the torn edge. Short strands of blond hair. She opens the envelope and finds a lock of hair tied with a blue silk ribbon, and her heart starts to thud against the ice. She opens the letters and reads them. One after the other, from the first to the last. And as she does so, cold black water starts to well up through the crack in her chest. Things she has seen and heard in the past few days shift and fluctuate. Only a little, but enough to give them a completely new and unpalatable meaning.
The chest up in the forest.
The severed padlock.
The bolt-cutters in the workshop.
The letters that shouldn’t be here.
She could have picked anyone. But she chose me.
Billy’s dead!
She still had us. Why wasn’t that enough?
As if Billy was so special.
My little girl. You weren’t to know.
You
Weren’t
To
Know
Darling, the last letter begins.
I’ve made up my mind. There’s no other way out. I’m sad but happy at the same time. Sooner or later he was going to leave me anyway, just like the other children. Just like you. Everyone does. Leaving me on my own.
It’s better this way, better for all of us. You and me and our Billy. We’ll be in a better place, somewhere there’s no pain, no deception. A place where no one is abandoned. A place where we can always be together.
I hate you, Tommy.
I love you.
Slowly she goes back down to the rose garden. Her body feels heavy, every movement takes an immense effort of will. She sits down on the bench next to her dad. He doesn’t say anything, just goes on admiring the Magdalena rose above them. The sun has risen above the wall now, and is turning the drops of water on the leaves into liquid crystal.
‘You were right,’ she says, and her voice sounds hollow. ‘I wasn’t to know that Isak couldn’t be my little brother. I wasn’t to know that Billy wasn’t alive.’
She puts the bundle of letters in his lap.
‘But you knew, Dad.’
He turns slowly towards her. The look in his eyes is so sad that she has difficulty breathing.
‘Mum and Tommy Rooth. You knew about all of it, their relationship, the fact that he was Billy’s father. But despite that . . .’
‘Tommy made her happy,’ he says quietly. ‘At least at the start. Isn’t that what everyone wants? For the person they love to be happy?’
‘But what she did . . . How could you?’
‘Your mum was depressed, Vera. She had been for years. She was ill and unhappy, but I loved her above everything else, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being without both her and Billy.’
Veronica swallows and has to make a real effort to keep her voice steady. ‘What happened when you came home that night?’
Her dad looks away again, fixing his eyes on one of the roses.
‘Magdalena and Billy were lying in the bath. She’d filled it with water and given him sleeping pills. She’d crushed them and stirred them into warm milk, and had drunk some herself as well. When I came into the bathroom Billy was already beyond help, and Magdalena had stopped breathing. I managed to bring her back to life, forced her to vomit up the pills. Then I carried her into the bedroom and put her to bed.’
‘Then what?’
He looks at her again. ‘Then I did what I had to do in order to protect her. To protect my family.’
‘You threw one of his shoes into the maize field. Called the police and told them Billy was missing.’
Her dad doesn’t answer.
‘What about the letters?’ she says, trying to take in the enormity of what he’s saying.
‘Magdalena gradually started to realise that she needed help, that she was ill and that what had happened wasn’t her fault. So she told me everything, including the letters. If Månsson got hold of them, he’d figure out what had happened. Magdalena would be locked up for years. Maybe she’d never get out. The police had already searched both Rooth’s farm and the pump house without finding the letters, so I realised he must be keeping them in an extremely good hiding place. A place that only people he trusted would know about.’
‘Sailor. He told you about the shack and the chest in Askedalen.’
Her dad nods slowly. ‘It’s surprising how much people will tell you if only you’re prepared to listen. No one listened to Sailor. No one except Tommy Rooth. And, in the end, me.’
‘Why didn’t you destroy the letters?’
Her dad doesn’t say anything, but she already knows the answer. For the same reason he’s kept the doors to Mum’s and Billy’s rooms locked, and keeps everything inside them exactly as it was. The same reason that stopped him getting rid of Rooth’s car.
‘Because they once meant a lot to Mum,’ she murmurs. ‘Part of her life.’
They sit in silence for a while. The only sounds are the water dripping and the tinkle of the windchime. She understands everything now, every tragic detail, each one linked to the next, forming a trail of footprints through the snow and out onto the ice.
‘That was why she committed suicide. Because her big brother hadn’t only killed an innocent man for her sake, but also . . .’ She can’t bring herself to say the last words, but they’re there nonetheless. The man she loved. The father of her child.
Her dad looks up again. The pain in his eyes almost breaks her heart.
‘Where . . . ?’ Her voice shrinks to a whimper. ‘Where’s Billy, Dad?’
He doesn’t answer, just turns away and looks at the roses around them. The pink blooms embracing them, wrapping them in their scent and hiding them from the world. And suddenly she sees a different rose in front of her. One white rose on Mum’s grave, one on her bureau, and one on Billy’s desk.
She gets slowly to her feet, taking the bundle of letters with her, and leaves him on the bench. It’s only been just over a week since she saw him out here, but it feels like much longer. She thinks back to the look on his face when she caught him unawares. Surprise, and fear.
The chalk-white shingle under the large rose bush in the corner is carefully raked, without any irregularities at all. The roses are white, too, and incredibly beautiful. At least as beautiful as the Magdalena rose, just a bit smaller. And when Veronica crouches down and peers in under the bush, she sees a small brass plaque s
tuck in the ground, a long way in. Five small letters that make the ice inside her break up, once and for all, and turn into dark, open water.
BILLY
She hears the hinges of the gate creak, hears footsteps, the jangle of keys hanging from a belt. She called Mattias from the phone on the landing. She didn’t ask him to come, didn’t ask him for anything. But here he is anyway.
He stops next to her and puts his hand on her shoulder. Without looking up she hands him the letters. He takes them and squeezes her shoulder, but says nothing.
The windchime tinkles again, louder this time. Melancholy, metallic notes drifting over the rose garden.
‘He was here all the time,’ she whispers. ‘But we still didn’t find him.’
‘You did,’ Mattias says quietly. ‘You found him, Vera.’
She looks up and meets his gaze. There’s no hostility in it, no accusation. Just sadness. And love.
She puts her hand on his and squeezes it hard. Somewhere at the far end of the garden a fox barks. A plaintive, lonely cry that sounds almost like sobbing.
Epilogue
M
alin carefully runs the clothes brush over the epaulettes of Månsson’s uniform jacket. She adjusts his dark tie for at least the third time before she is finally happy with it. ‘There!’
He tucks his cap under his left arm and inspects himself in the bedroom mirror. His uniform has been hanging out to air overnight but still smells faintly musty. The trousers are a little loose around the waist, and to his quiet satisfaction he’s had to tighten his belt a notch. Overall he looks pretty good, considerably better than he had been expecting.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Malin says.
‘Oh, yes. You’ve got more than enough to do as it is.’
‘But you haven’t been back for so long. And funerals can be . . .’
He gives her a kiss on the cheek. ‘It’s sweet of you to worry, but I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ll have company. They should be here any minute.’
At that moment he hears Bella’s small paws pad across the parquet floor, then the yapping that always precedes the doorbell. Månsson takes a deep breath and looks at his reflection one last time.
‘Ready?’ Malin says.
He nods. ‘Ready.’
*
Veronica Lindh hugs him and gives him a peck on the cheek before saying hello to Malin, as if they were old friends. Månsson holds his hand out towards the blond young man with her.
‘You must be Isak?’
The man nods and shakes his hand. His movements are slightly slow, and he doesn’t seem particularly comfortable in the dark suit he’s wearing. Traces of bruising are still just about visible on his face. Månsson remembers the flaxen-haired little boy who once smiled shyly at him across the breakfast table at Rooth’s farm. He feels a lump in his throat.
‘I’ve often thought about you and your sister,’ he says, then quickly clears his throat. ‘Will she be coming?’
‘No.’ Isak shakes his head. ‘Åsa and I agreed that I’d represent the family. Billy was our half-brother, after all,’ he adds, as if that needed explaining.
Månsson suddenly doesn’t know what to say. An awkward silence follows. Behind his back he can hear Veronica and Malin talking.
‘Thanks for doing this,’ Malin says. ‘It means a lot to Krister that you invited him. More than he’d care to admit.’
Månsson glances at Isak, but if he heard he’s sensitive enough not to let on.
‘I’ve put together a basket of supplies for the journey,’ Månsson says in the absence of anything better. ‘Coffee and rhubarb sponge. My own recipe.’
Isak smiles. ‘I haven’t eaten rhubarb sponge for years. I used to love it when I was little.’
‘Splendid.’ Månsson brightens up.
‘Well, are you ready?’ Veronica said. ‘We’ve got a fair drive ahead of us.’
She takes Månsson’s arm and they walk off towards the car. Isak lags behind to help Malin with the basket.
‘You look very smart in your uniform,’ Veronica says, and for some reason it makes Månsson blush slightly. There’s something different about her. Something in her eyes. He likes it.
‘Funny to think I got so close,’ he says. ‘I literally held the key to it all in my hand. If only Rooth had told me . . . I mean, he must have realised what Magdalena had done.’
Veronica nods.
‘I think Tommy really did love Mum. That he knew she was ill and for that reason couldn’t bring himself to give her up. That’s what the letters suggest. The fact that he kept them, I mean, rather than just getting rid of them.’
‘That could well be true. What about your dad?’ he adds after a short pause.
‘The prosecutor has decided not to press charges. Extenuating circumstances . . .’
‘That sounds sensible.’
‘After the funeral Mattias and I are going to try to persuade him to move into the village. We’ll see how that goes.’
They reach the car. The air is clear, and there’s a flock of swallows circling high above them, round and round before they reach the right altitude for their flight south.
Månsson stops and turns his face to the sky.
‘A northerly wind,’ he says. ‘First time in several months. You know what that means, don’t you, Veronica?’
‘Vera,’ she says. ‘You can call me Vera.’
Månsson smiles to himself. He thinks back to the first time he spoke to her at Backagården. He can hardly believe twenty years have passed since then. The moment still seems so vivid. As if it had never really left him.
Vera leans her head against his shoulder and they stand like that for a few seconds. The wind makes her hair fly up and stroke his cheek.
‘What does it mean?’ she says. ‘A northerly wind?’
‘The end of summer,’ Månsson replies. All of a suddenly he feels strangely light-hearted.
About the Author
Anders de la Motte is the bestselling author of the Seasons Quartet; the first three books of which – End of Summer, Deeds of Autumn and Dead of Winter – have all been number one bestsellers in Sweden and have been shortlisted for the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year. Anders, a former police officer, has already won a Swedish Academy Crime Award for his debut, Game, in 2010 and his second standalone, The Silenced, in 2015.
To date, the first three books in the Seasons Quartet have published over half a million copies. Set in southern Sweden, all four books can be read as standalones.
Keep reading for an exclusive extract from the next book in the Seasons Quartet
DEAD OF WINTER
When fifteen-year-old Laura Aulin arrives to spend Christmas with her beloved aunt Hedda, she is also looking forward to spending time with Jack, Hedda’s foster son.
But a lot has happened since last summer and Laura soon finds out that things are not what they first appear, as old faces and new seem to be keeping secrets from her. Tensions and jealousies come to an explosive finale at a party on the night of Lucia.
And when the smoke clears, all that is left is ash . . .
Coming Winter 2022
1
S
he hates the winter, has done ever since she was little – or almost. Once upon a time there was ice skating and sledging, campfires, a flask of hot chocolate and friends to share it with. But that was a long time ago, before the Lucia Day fire.
Now there is only the cold.
‘So . . . Laura.’
Her table companion glances at the place card next to her wine glass for at least the third time. His name is Niklas, and so far he’s turned out to be both dull and nervous. He’s managed to spill something on his tie – or even worse, he chose to put on a tie with a stain already on it when he was dressing for dinner.
‘How do you know Stephanie?’
The question is almost laughably predictable.
&nb
sp; ‘We met through work a few years ago, but now we’re good friends.’
Laura is trying to be polite. She doesn’t say that Steph is her best friend, sadly perhaps her only friend. Except possibly Andreas.
Niklas asks her something else, but the loud alpha male opposite them, who has been holding court ever since he made his ostentatious entrance three quarters of an hour ago, says something funny and the laughter from the other guests drowns out Niklas’s voice.
She should have turned down this invitation, explained that she has a headache and too much work to do, but she had promised Steph. Promised to behave herself and give nervous Niklas a chance.
‘It’s important for you to get back in the saddle, Laura. Find somebody new. Yeehaw!’
To be fair, Steph didn’t actually say ‘yeehaw’, that was Laura’s own addition. She takes a big gulp of her wine and decides she’s being unfair. Steph grew up in the USA, and tends to speak both Swedish and English at the same time. Sometimes Laura thinks she does it deliberately, exaggerating her use of Swenglish to make her stand out from the crowd, which really isn’t necessary.
She glances over at the head of the table. As always, Steph looks good in a dress that shows just the right amount of décolletage. Her blonde hair is perfectly styled, and she is sitting with her head tilted to one side in the way that makes every man in her vicinity want to be of service. Steph is two years older than Laura, but the cosmetic procedures she’s undergone are so discreet and professional that no one would think she’s a day over forty.
Laura, on the other hand, definitely looks forty-five. She has crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and a furrow in her brow that shows up particularly well on the kind of alabaster skin that only redheads have. She inherited her hair colour and skin tone from her father, but she alone is responsible for the grim set of her mouth.
She is wearing a long-sleeved shirt beneath a cashmere cardigan, and even though the warmth in the room has already prompted a few of the gentlemen to loosen their ties, her fingertips and the end of her nose are freezing cold. They always are, all year round, thanks to the winter fire. Or rather because of it. She feels no gratitude towards it whatsoever.
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