The Ice Princess

by Camilla Lackberg

  Patrik felt a little nervous. It was a long time since he had made dinner for a woman. A woman, moreover, for whom he felt a strong attraction. Everything had to be perfect.

  He hummed as he sliced cucumbers for the salad. After much agony and pondering, he had finally decided on fillet of beef. Now it was trimmed and in the oven, almost done. The gravy was sputtering on the stove, and he could feel his stomach growling from the aroma.

  It had been a hectic afternoon. He hadn’t been able to leave work as early as he had hoped, so he had to clean the house in record time. He hadn’t really been aware of the extent to which he had let the house go to pot since Karin left him, but when he saw it with Erica’s eyes, he realized that it was going to take a serious effort.

  It felt a little embarrassing to have fallen into the typical bachelor’s trap with untidy surroundings and nothing in the fridge. He hadn’t really understood what a big burden Karin had carried at home. He took the neat, well-kept home for granted and didn’t give a thought to how much work it required to keep it in order. There was a lot he had taken for granted.

  When Erica rang the doorbell he flung off his apron and glanced in the mirror to check his hair. Although he’d put gel on it, it was as unruly as ever.

  Erica looked fantastic, as always. Her cheeks were a warm pink from the cold, and her blonde hair curled thickly over the collar of her down jacket. He gave her a brief hug, allowing himself to shut his eyes for a moment and inhale the scent of her perfume. Then he let her into the warm house.

  The table was already set, and they started in on the appetizer while they waited for the entree to be done. Patrik surreptitiously watched as she tasted with pleasure the avocado stuffed with shrimp. Not really a difficult dish; hard to ruin.

  ‘I never would have thought that you could rustle up a three-course dinner,’ Erica said as she took another bite of the avocado.

  ‘No, I can hardly believe it myself. But—skål and welcome to Restaurant Hedström.’

  They clinked glasses and sipped at the chilled white wine. Then they ate for a while in companionable silence.

  ‘How have you been?’ Patrik peered at: Erica from under the hair hanging into his eyes.

  ‘I’ve probably had better weeks.’

  ‘Why did you come with them to the interview? It must have been quite a few years since you’ve had any contact with either Alex or her family.’

  ‘Yes, it’s probably been about twenty-five years or so. I’m not quite sure why I came. I feel as though I’ve just been sucked into a whirlpool, and I don’t know whether I can escape, or whether I even want to. I think Birgit sees me as a reminder of better days. Plus I’m an outsider, so maybe I represent some sort of security.’ Erica paused. ‘Have you made any progress?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t say anything about the case.’

  ‘No, I understand. Pardon me, I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘No problem. But I thought you might be able to help me. You’ve seen the family a good deal now, plus you know them from before. Could you tell me a little about your impressions of the family and what you know about Alex?’

  Erica put down her silverware and tried to sort out her own impressions in the order she wanted to present them to Patrik. She told him everything she’d found out, along with her impressions of the people in Alex’s life. Patrik listened attentively even as he got up and cleared away the appetizer and brought out the entree. Now and then he would interject a question. He was astonished at all the information Erica had uncovered in such a short time. And after she also told him what she knew about Alex from the past, the woman who until now had been merely a murder victim was suddenly transformed into someone with a face and personality.

  ‘I know that you can’t talk about the case, Patrik, but can you tell me if the police have any leads? Any ideas at all about who could have murdered her?’

  ‘No, I have to say that we haven’t got very far in the investigation. A minor breakthrough, anything at all, would be extremely welcome about now.’ He sighed and circled his finger around the edge of his wine glass.

  Erica hesitantly said, ‘I may have something that could be of interest.’ She reached for her handbag and began digging around in it. She pulled out a piece of paper which she handed to him across the table. Patrik took it and unfolded it. He read what it said with interest, but raised a questioning eyebrow when he was done.

  ‘What does this have to do with Alex?’

  ‘That’s what I was wondering too. I found this article in a bureau drawer, hidden beneath Alex’s underwear.’

  ‘What do you mean, you “found” it? When did you have a chance to go through her bureau drawers?’

  He saw her blush and wondered what she was hiding.

  ‘Well, one night I went to the house and snooped around a little.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Yes, I know. You don’t have to say it. It was really stupid, but you know how I am. Act first and think later.’ She was talking fast in order to ward off any additional reproaches. ‘In any case, I found this paper in Alex’s drawer and managed to take it with me.’

  He refrained from asking how she could ‘manage’ to take the item with her. It was better not to know.

  ‘What do you think it could mean?’ asked Erica. ‘An article about a disappearance twenty-five years ago. What connection could that have with Alex?’

  ‘What else do you know about this?’ asked Patrik, waving the article.

  ‘Factually, no more than what’s in the article. That Nils Lorentz, son of Fabian and Nelly Lorentz, disappeared without a trace in January of 1977. No body was ever found. On the other hand, there has been a good deal of speculation over the years. Some people think that he drowned and the body washed out to sea. Other rumours say that he embezzled a large amount of money from his father and then fled the country. What I heard was that Nils Lorentz was not a nice person, so most people leaned towards the latter alternative. He was the only son, and Nelly apparently spoiled him rotten. She was inconsolable after he disappeared, and Fabian Lorentz never got over the loss. He died of a heart attack about a year later. The only heir to the fortune is now a foster son they took in about a year before Nils vanished. Nelly adopted him a couple of years after her husband died. Well, that’s just a small sampling of the local gossip. I still don’t understand how this could have any bearing on Alex’s death. The only dealings the families ever had with each other were when Karl-Erik worked in the office at the Lorentz cannery when Alex and I were little, before they moved to Göteborg. But that was over twenty-five years ago.’

  Erica suddenly remembered one other link. She told Patrik about Nelly’s appearance at the funeral reception and how she had devoted almost all her attention to Julia.

  ‘I have no idea how any of this could be connected to the article. But there must be something. Francine, Alex’s partner in the gallery, also mentioned that she thought Alex wanted to come to terms with the past somehow. That was as much as Francine knew, but I think it makes sense. Call it woman’s intuition or whatever you like, but I have a feeling that there’s a connection.’

  She was a little ashamed because she knew she hadn’t told Patrik the whole truth. There was one more small but very strange piece of the puzzle that she was keeping to herself. At least until she knew more.

  ‘Well, I certainly can’t argue with a woman’s intuition. Would you like a little more wine?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Erica looked around the kitchen. ‘A nice place you have here. Did you decorate it yourself?’

  ‘No, I can’t take credit for that. It was Karin who was the decorating talent.’

  ‘Oh right, your wife Karin. What happened between the two of you, actually?’

  ‘Well, it was really the same old story. Girl meets dance-band singer in a waist-length jacket. Girl falls in love. Girl divorces her husband and moves in with the dance-band singer.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Unfort
unately I’m not. It was bad enough that she dumped me. But she left me for Leif Larsson, popular singer and heartthrob in “Leffes” the most famous dance band in Bohuslän. The man with the prettiest hockey girlfriend on the west coast. Yep, there’s not much you can do to compete with a man in tasselled loafers.’

  Erica looked at him wide-eyed.

  Patrik smiled. ‘Well, that’s probably a somewhat exaggerated version, but something along those lines.’

  ‘But that must have been terrible. It couldn’t have been easy for you.’

  ‘I felt sorry for myself for quite a while, but it’s okay now. Not good, but okay.’

  Erica changed the subject. ‘The news about Alex’s pregnancy was like a bomb going off.’ She stared hard at Patrik, and he had a feeling that there was something more behind her apparently innocent remark.

  ‘In any case, it seemed she hadn’t shared the good news with her husband,’ Erica said.

  Patrik waited silently for her to go on. After a moment Erica appeared to have decided to continue down that path, but she spoke in a low voice, still sounding hesitant.

  ‘According to her best friend, Henrik isn’t the father of the child.’

  Patrik raised an eyebrow and whistled, but still said nothing in the hope of more information from Erica.

  ‘Francine told me that Alex had met someone here in Fjällbacka. And she drove here every weekend to see him. According to Francine, Alex had never wanted to have children with Henrik, but it was different with this man. She was overjoyed about the baby, and that’s why Francine insisted so strongly that her death wasn’t suicide. In her view, Alex was happy for the first time in her life.’

  ‘Did she know who the man was?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. Alex kept that information to herself.’

  ‘But why would her husband put up with her driving to Fjällbacka every weekend without him? Did he know that she was meeting someone here?’

  Patrik took another sip of wine and felt his cheeks beginning to flush. Whether from the wine or from Erica’s presence, he wasn’t quite sure.

  ‘Apparently they had a quite unusual relationship. I met Henrik in Göteborg and I got the feeling that their lives ran on parallel tracks that seldom crossed. It’s also impossible to say what he knows or doesn’t know, from the short conversation that I had with him. That man has a stone face. I think that whatever he knows, he’s very careful to keep it to himself.’

  That type of person can sometimes be like a pressure cooker. The steam builds and builds, and one day it explodes. Do you think that’s what might have happened? That one day the rejected husband had enough, and he killed the unfaithful wife?’ Patrik asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Patrik. I really don’t know. But now I think we should drink more than our share of wine and talk about all sorts of things, as long as it doesn’t have to do with murder and sudden death.’

  He willingly agreed and raised his glass in a toast.

  They moved to the sofa and spent the rest of the evening talking comfortably about everything else under the sun. She told him about her life, about the fuss over the house and her grief over her parents. He told her about his anger and feeling of failure after his divorce, and about the frustration of finding himself at square one again, just as he was starting to feel ready for children and a family, ready to believe that he and Karin would grow old together.

  Even the brief pauses in the conversation felt comfortable, and it was at those moments he had to keep himself from leaning forward and kissing Erica. He refrained, and the opportunity passed.

  3

  He was watching when they carried her out. He wanted to wail and throw himself over her covered body. Keep her forever.

  Now she was truly gone. Strangers were going to poke and dig at her body. None of them would see her beauty the same way he had done.

  For them she would only be a piece of meat. A number on paper, without life, without fire.

  With his left hand he stroked the palm of his right hand. Yesterday it had caressed her arm. He pressed his palm against his cheek and tried to feel her cold skin on his face.

  He felt nothing. She was gone.

  Blue lights were flashing. People were rushing back and forth, in and out of the house. Why were they in a hurry? It was already too late.

  No one saw him. He was invisible. He had always been invisible.

  It didn’t matter. She had seen him. She could always see him. When she fixed her blue eyes on him he felt that he was seen.

  Now there was nothing left. The fire had been put out long ago. He stood in the ashes and watched as his life was carried off, covered by a yellow hospital blanket. At the end of the road there were no choices. He had always been aware of that, and now the hour had finally arrived. He had been longing for it. He embraced it.

  She was gone.

  Nelly had sounded a bit surprised when Erica called. For a moment, Erica wondered whether she was making a mountain out of a molehill, although she still couldn’t help thinking that it was very odd for Nelly to show up at Alex’s funeral reception. Not to mention the way she had talked almost exclusively to Julia. It’s true that Karl-Erik had worked for Fabian Lorentz as the factory’s office manager until the family moved to Göteborg, but as far as Erica knew they had never associated socially. The Carlgrens were far below the Lorentz family’s requirements for acceptable social class.

  The drawing room she was ushered into was exquisitely beautiful. The view stretched from the harbour at one end to the open horizon beyond the islands at the other. On a winter day like this, when the sunshine was reflecting off the snow-covered ice, the view could compete with even the sunniest summertime panorama.

  They sat down on an elegant sofa group and Erica was served small canapés from a silver tray. They were fantastic, but she tried to control her appetite so she wouldn’t look unrefined. Nelly ate only one. Afraid to add a gram of flesh to those knobbly bones.

  The conversation flowed slowly but politely. In the long pauses between the words, only the ticking of a clock could be heard along with the dainty slurping as they sipped their hot tea. They kept the topics of conversation neutral. The flight of young people from Fjällbacka. The lack of work. How distressing it was that more and more of the lovely old homes were being bought up by tourists and turned into summer houses. Nelly talked a little about how it used to be, when she came to Fjällbacka as a young woman, newly married. Erica listened attentively, politely asking a question now and then.

  It felt as if they were circling round the subject they both knew that they would have to broach sooner or later.

  It was Erica who finally got up the courage.

  ‘Well, the last time we saw each other it was under rather sad circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, so tragic. Such a young woman.’

  ‘I didn’t realize that you knew the Carlgrens so well.’

  ‘Karl-Erik worked for us for many years, and of course we met his family on numerous occasions. It seemed only right to express my condolences in person.’ Nelly lowered her eyes. Erica saw that her hands were fidgeting nervously in her lap.

  ‘I got the impression that you also knew Julia. She wasn’t even born when the Carlgrens lived in Fjällbacka, was she?’

  No more than a stiffening of her back and a slight movement of her head indicated that Nelly found the question uncomfortable. She waved a hand covered with gold jewellery.

  ‘No, Julia is a new acquaintance. But I think she’s a very enchanting young lady. Yes, I know that she may not have the same outer beauty as Alexandra, but unlike her sister, she has a strength of will and a courage that makes me view her as considerably more interesting than her foolish sibling.’

  Nelly clapped her hand to her mouth. Besides the fact that, for an instant, she forgot she was talking about a dead person, for a fraction of a second she had revealed a crack in her façade. What Erica saw in that brief moment was pure hatred. Why would Nelly Lorentz hate a woman she could har
dly have met except when Alex was a child?

  Before Nelly had a chance to smooth over her faux pas, the telephone rang. With obvious relief, she excused herself and went to answer it.

  Erica took the opportunity to snoop around the room. It was beautiful but impersonal. The invisible hand of an interior decorator hovered over the entire room. Everything was colour co-ordinated down to the smallest detail. Erica couldn’t help comparing it with the simplicity of the furnishings in her parents’ house. There nothing had been included for the sake of appearances; all the objects had been purchased over the decades based on their usefulness. Erica thought that the beauty of worn and personal items far surpassed this polished showroom. The only personal thing Erica could find was a row of family portraits on the mantelpiece. She leaned forward and studied them intently. They seemed to be in chronological order from left to right, beginning with a black-and-white portrait of an elegant couple in their wedding finery. Nelly was really radiantly beautiful in a white sheath dress that hugged her figure, but Fabian looked uncomfortable in his tuxedo.

  In the next photo the family had grown; Nelly was holding a baby in her arms. At her side, Fabian still looked stiff and serious. Then there was a long row of portraits of children at various ages, sometimes alone, sometimes together with Nelly. In the last picture in the row, Nils Lorentz looked to be about twenty-five. The son who had vanished. After the first portrait of the whole family, it was as though Nils and Nelly were the only members left. Although perhaps Fabian wasn’t so eager to be in the picture and instead stood behind the camera. Photos of Jan, the adopted son, were conspicuous in their absence.

  Erica turned her attention to a desk in one corner of the room. Made of dark cherrywood, with lovely inlays that Erica traced with her finger. It was completely bare and looked as if it served no other function than decoration. She was tempted to peek in the drawers but wasn’t sure how long Nelly would be gone. The phone conversation was apparently taking some time, but she could come back into the room at any moment. The wastebasket attracted Erica’s attention instead. There were some crumpled papers in it. She took out the paper ball on top and gently smoothed it out. She read it with growing interest. Even more astonished than before, she carefully replaced it in the wastebasket. Nothing in this story was what it seemed.