The Ice Princess

by Camilla Lackberg

  She heard someone clear his throat behind her. Jan Lorentz was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows raised quizzically. She wondered how long he’d been standing there.

  ‘Erica Falck, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And you must be Nelly’s son Jan?’

  ‘Also correct. Pleased to meet you. You’re a bit of a topic of conversation here in town, you should know.’

  He gave her a big smile and came towards her with outstretched hand. She took it reluctantly. Something about him made the small hairs on her arms stand up. He held her hand a bit too long. She resisted the impulse to pull it back.

  He looked as though he’d come directly from a business meeting, wearing a well-pressed suit and with a briefcase in his hand. Erica knew that he was the one who ran the family business. And very successfully.

  He wore his hair slicked back, with a touch too much gel. His lips were a little too full and fleshy for a man, and his eyes were lovely with long dark lashes. If it hadn’t been for a square, powerful jaw with a deep cleft in his chin, he probably would have looked rather feminine. As it was, the mixture of angularity and luxuriance gave him a slightly odd appearance; it was impossible to say whether he was attractive or not. Personally, Erica found him repellent, but she based that opinion more on a feeling she got in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘So, Mother has finally managed to entice you here. You’ve been high on the wish list ever since you published your first book, I must tell you.’

  ‘I see. Well, I understand it’s been received as the event of the century here. Your mother has invited me before, but the time didn’t seem right until now.’

  ‘I heard about your parents. Very tragic. I really must express my sincere condolences.’

  He managed a sympathetic smile, but the emotion never reached his eyes.

  Nelly came back into the room. Jan bent over to kiss his mother on the cheek. She let him do it with an indifferent expression.

  ‘How nice for you, Mother, that Erica could finally come to visit. You’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very nice indeed.’

  She sat down on the sofa. A grimace of pain swept across her face and she grabbed her right arm.

  ‘Mother, what is it? Are you in pain? Shall I fetch your pills?’

  Jan leaned forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, but Nelly brusquely shook them off.

  ‘No, there’s nothing wrong with me. Just the aches and pains of age, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. Shouldn’t you be at the factory, by the way?’

  ‘Yes, I just dashed home to pick up some papers. Well, I suppose I should leave you ladies alone. Don’t over-exert yourself, Mother, remember what the doctor said…’

  Nelly merely snorted in reply. Jan’s face showed a concern and sympathy that seemed genuine. But Erica could swear that she saw a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth when he left the room and turned to look at them for a second.

  ‘Don’t ever get old. With each year that passes, the old Viking idea of jumping off a cliff to one’s death looks better and better. The only thing to hope for is that you get so senile that you think you’re twenty years old again. That would be fun to relive.’ Nelly gave a bitter smile.

  It didn’t seem like a particularly amusing topic of conversation. Erica muttered something in reply and then changed the subject.

  ‘In any case it must be a comfort to have a son who can carry on the family business. From what I understand, Jan and his wife live here with you.’

  ‘A comfort. Yes, perhaps it is.’

  Nelly glanced quickly at the photographs on the mantle-piece. She said nothing more, and Erica didn’t dare ask any questions.

  ‘Enough about me and my family. Are you working on a new book? I must say that I loved your last one about Karin Boye. You make the people come so alive somehow. Why is it that you only write about women?’

  ‘At first it was more of an accident, I think. I wrote my dissertation at the university about great female Swedish authors and became so fascinated by them that I wanted to find out more about who they were as individuals. I began, as you probably know, with Anna Maria Lenngren, since I knew the least about her. Things have just snowballed from there. Right now I’m writing about Selma Lagerlöf, and I’m coming up with a lot of interesting angles.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever thought about writing something, what should I say…non-biographical? You have such a flair for language and it would be so interesting to read something fictional by you.’

  ‘Of course I’ve had some thoughts in that direction.’ Erica tried not to look guilty. ‘But at the moment I’m swamped with the Lagerlöf project. After that we’ll see what happens.’

  She glanced at the clock. ‘Speaking of my writing…unfortunately I really have to get going. Even though there’s no time-clock in my profession, it’s important to maintain discipline. I must go home and write my daily quota. Thank you so much for tea—and the delicious canapés.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. It was delightful to have you here.’

  Nelly rose graciously from the sofa. Now there was no sign of her aches and pains.

  ‘I’ll see you out. In the old days our maid Vera would have done that, but times change. Maids aren’t fashionable anymore, and besides hardly anyone can afford one. I would have liked to have kept her on, since we can afford it, but Jan refused. He doesn’t want strangers in the house, he says. Although it’s all right for her to come and clean once a week. Well, it’s not always easy to make sense of you young people.’

  Evidently they had now reached a new level of familiarity, because when Erica offered her hand in farewell, Nelly ignored it and kissed her lightly on both cheeks instead. Erica now knew instinctively which side to begin on. She was starting to feel quite sophisticated and almost at home in the more refined drawing rooms.

  Erica hurried home. She hadn’t wanted to tell Nelly the real reason for her departure. She looked at her watch. Twenty to two. At two o’clock the estate agent was coming to look at the house prior to putting it up for sale. Erica gnashed her teeth at the thought that somebody was going to walk around poking and prodding at the house, but there was nothing for it but to let events take their course.

  She had left the car at home, and she picked up her pace to get there in time. Although he could just as well wait, she thought, slowing down. Why should she rush?

  Happier thoughts crept into her mind. Dinner on Saturday at Patrik’s place had far exceeded her expectations. For Erica he had always seemed like a nice but slightly annoying younger brother, even though they were the same age. She had still expected Patrik to be the same irritating boy. Instead she had found a mature, warm and humorous man. He didn’t look half bad, she had to admit. She wondered how soon she could decently ask him over to dinner—just returning the invitation, that is.

  The last hill up to the Sälvik campground looked deceptively level; it was a long, slow incline. She was panting heavily when she turned off to the right and went up the last small slope to the house. When she reached the top she stopped short. A big Mercedes was parked in front of the house, and she knew exactly who the registered owner was. She’d thought that the day’s activity couldn’t be any more trying than it already was. She was wrong.

  ‘Hello, Erica.’ Lucas was leaning against the front door with his arms crossed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Is that any way to welcome your brother-in-law?’ His Swedish had an accent but was grammatically perfect.

  Lucas mockingly spread out his arms as if to give her a hug. Erica ignored the gesture. She could see that that was precisely what he’d expected. She’d never made the mistake of underestimating Lucas. That’s why she always observed a great deal of caution when she was in his presence. She wanted more than anything to walk right up to him and slap his grinning face, but she knew that could start something that she might regret.

  ‘Answer my ques
tion. What are you doing here?’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken…hmmm…let’s see, exactly one quarter of all this is mine.’

  He gestured towards the house, but he might as well have been pointing at the whole world, his self-assurance was so vast.

  ‘Half is mine and half is Anna’s. You have nothing to do with this house.’

  ‘You may not be very well versed in the community property code, seeing as you haven’t succeeded in finding anyone stupid enough to get hitched with you, I mean. But according to that law, a married couple shares everything equally. Even ownership in a house by the sea.’

  Erica was well aware that this was the case. For a brief moment she cursed her parents who had not been far-sighted enough to guarantee that the house was solely owned by their daughters. They had known what sort of man Lucas was, but they probably hadn’t reckoned that they had so little time left. No one likes to be reminded of his own mortality, and like so many other people they had postponed that sort of decision.

  She chose not to take the bait and object to his pejorative comment about her marital status. She would rather be an old maid for the rest of her life than make the mistake of marrying someone like Lucas.

  He went on, ‘I wanted to be here when the estate agent arrived. It never hurts to check up on one’s net worth. We want everything to go smoothly, now don’t we?’

  He smiled that infernal smile of his again. Erica unlocked the front door and pushed past him. The agent was late, but she hoped he would show up soon. She didn’t like the prospect of being alone with Lucas.

  He entered the house after her. She hung up her jacket and began pottering about the kitchen. The only way she could handle him was to ignore him. She heard him walking about the house, inspecting it. It couldn’t be more than the third or fourth time he’d been inside. The beauty of simplicity was not something that Lucas appreciated, nor had he ever shown the slightest interest in visiting Anna’s family. Their father couldn’t stand his son-in-law, and the feeling was mutual. When Anna and the children came to visit, they came alone.

  She didn’t like the way Lucas was walking around touching things in the house—the way he was touching the furniture and the decorative objects. Erica had to repress a desire to walk behind him with a dust-rag and wipe off everything he had touched. With relief she saw a grey-haired man in a big Volvo turn into the driveway. She hurried to open the door for him. Then she went into her office and closed the door. She didn’t want to watch him go round looking at her childhood home and assessing its weight in gold. Or price per square metre.

  The computer was already on. The file was open, waiting for her to get back to work. She had been up early for a change and had got a lot done. She had written four pages that morning for her draft of the book about Alex, and now she went back and read through them. She still had a number of problems with the form of the book. At first, when she’d thought that Alex’s death was suicide, she’d considered writing a book to answer the question ‘why?’ It would have been more of a biography. Now the material was increasingly taking on the form of a crime novel, a genre to which she’d never felt particularly attracted. It was people—their relationships and psychological motivations—that she was interested in; she thought that was something most crime novels had to give up in favour of bloody murders and cold shivers running down the spine. She hated all the clichés they used; she wanted to write about something that was genuine. Something that attempted to describe why someone could commit the worst of all sins—to take the life of another human being. So far she had written down everything in chronological order, reproducing word-for-word what was said to her, and mixing in her own observations and conclusions. She would have to pare down that material. Tighten it up to get as close to the truth as possible. How Alex’s nearest and dearest might react was not something she had wanted to consider yet.

  She regretted not telling Patrik everything about her visit to the house where Alex had died. She should have told him about the mysterious visitor and about the painting she found hidden in the wardrobe. And about the feeling she had that something was missing, something that had been in the room when she first went inside. She couldn’t stand to ring him now and admit that there was more to tell. But if the right occasion presented itself, she would tell him the rest, she promised herself that.

  She could hear Lucas and the estate agent walking around in the house. He must have thought she was behaving quite strangely, barely saying hello and then rushing off and locking herself in her office. The agent wasn’t to blame for the situation in which she found herself, so she decided to grit her teeth and display some of the good manners she had been taught.

  When she came into the living room, Lucas was in the midst of describing in effusive terms the magnificent light let in by the big mullioned windows. Strange, Erica didn’t know that creatures that crept out from under a rock would appreciate sunlight. She had a vision of Lucas as a big, shiny beetle; she just wished she could have eradicated him from her life with a simple stamp of her boot-heel.

  ‘Please excuse my rudeness just now. I had some urgent business to tend to.’

  Erica smiled broadly and held out her hand to the agent, who introduced himself as Kjell Ekh. He assured her that he was in no way offended. Selling houses was a very emotional affair. If she only knew what stories he could tell…Erica smiled wider and even permitted herself a sly little flutter of her lashes. Lucas looked at her suspiciously. She ignored him.

  ‘Well, don’t let me interrupt. How far did you get?’

  ‘Your brother-in-law was just showing me your lovely living room. It’s very tasteful, I must say. Quite beautiful with the light coming in through the windows.’

  ‘Yes, it is lovely, isn’t it. Too bad about the draught.’

  ‘The draught?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately the windows are not properly sealed, so when the least wind blows you have to make sure you’re wearing your warmest woollen socks. But it’s nothing that replacing all the windows couldn’t fix.’

  Lucas glared at her furiously, but Erica pretended not to notice. Instead she took Kjell by the arm; if he’d been a dog he would have been eagerly wagging his tail by this point.

  ‘You’ve seen the upstairs, I take it, so perhaps we should continue down to the cellar. And don’t worry about the mouldy smell. As long as you’re not allergic, there’s no danger. I practically lived down there, and it didn’t hurt me any. The doctors have assured me that my asthma has no connection with the mould.’

  As the finishing touch she broke into a coughing fit so violent that she bent in half. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lucas’s face take on a much redder hue. She knew that her exaggerated claims would be exposed in a closer inspection of the house. But until then, it was some small consolation to be able to annoy Lucas a bit.

  Kjell looked very relieved when he got outside in the fresh air again, after being shown all the cellar’s good points by an enthusiastic Erica. Lucas was silent and passive during the rest of the tour. With a pang of uneasiness she wondered whether she’d carried her childish prank a little too far. He knew that a real appraisal would show that none of the ‘drawbacks’ of the house that she had revealed would have any substance, but she had attempted to make him a laughingstock. And that was something that Lucas Maxwell could not tolerate. With a slight feeling of dread Erica saw the agent drive off, waving happily, after promising that they would be contacted by a certified appraiser who would go through the house from attic to cellar.

  Lucas followed her into the hallway. The next second she felt herself plastered to the wall, with Lucas’s hand in a brutal grip around her throat. His face was no more than half an inch from hers. The anger she saw there made her understand for the first time why it was so hard for Anna to get out of her relationship with Lucas. What Erica saw was a man who let no obstacle stand in his way. She stood stock-still, much too afraid to move.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever do that again, do
you hear me? Nobody makes a fool of me like that without consequences, so watch your step!’

  He snarled the words so fiercely that he sprayed her face with saliva. She had to resist the impulse to wipe his spittle from her face. Instead, she stood as motionless as a pillar of salt, silently praying he would get out of her house and go away. To her astonishment he did just that. He released his grip on her throat and turned on his heel to head for the door. But just as she was about to heave a deep sigh of relief, he spun round and with a single step was in front of her again. Before Erica could react, he grabbed her by the hair and pressed his mouth to hers. Lucas forced his tongue between her lips and at the same time took such a tight hold on her breast that she felt the underwire of her bra cut into her skin. With a smile he turned, headed for the door, and vanished into the winter cold. Not until Erica heard his car start and drive off did she dare move. She sank down onto the floor with her back to the wall and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth in disgust. His kiss had somehow seemed more threatening than his stranglehold; she felt herself starting to shake. With her arms wrapped around her legs she leaned her head on her knees and wept. Not for her own sake, but for Anna’s.

  Monday mornings were not associated with pleasant feelings in Patrik’s world. He didn’t begin to turn into a real human being until eleven o’clock. So he woke from an almost trance-like state when the hefty stack of papers landed on his desk with a thunk. The awakening was brutal. In one stroke, the pile of documents had doubled, and he let out a groan.

  Annika Jansson gave him a mischievous smile and asked innocently, ‘Didn’t you say you wanted everything that’s been written about the Lorentz family over the past years? Here I do a magnificent job digging up every single word ever written about them, and what do I get as payment for my efforts? A groan. How about your eternal gratitude instead?’