He looked at the photo of Beata and the kids. Of course he loved Magda and Loke, and he wouldn’t want to live without them. But at the same time, it had all happened so fast, gone so wrong. He’d landed in a situation that had swept him away, and sometimes he still wondered if it had caused more harm than good. Maybe it was just the timing that had been unfortunate. Maybe he’d been going through some sort of midlife crisis, and Beata came along at just the wrong moment. At first he couldn’t believe it: an attractive young girl like her, interested in someone like him. But it had turned out to be true. And he hadn’t been able to resist sleeping with her, touching her firm, naked body, seeing the admiration in those eyes. It was nothing short of intoxicating. He couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t take a step back and make any sort of rational decision. Ironically enough, he’d just begun to show the first signs of coming to his senses when he’d lost all control of the situation. He had started to tire of the fact that she never offered any counter-arguments in their discussions, that she knew nothing about moon landings or the revolt in Hungary. He was even growing tired of the feeling of her smooth skin under his fingers.
He could still remember the moment when everything fell apart. It seemed like only yesterday, that she’d looked at him with those big blue eyes and told him that he was going to be a father, that now he would finally have to tell Carina, as he’d long promised to do.
It was at that moment he realized what a mistake he’d made. For a second he considered getting up and leaving her there in the café, going home to lie down on the sofa next to Carina to watch the news on TV while five-year-old Per slept soundly in his bed. But his male instinct told him that there was no going back. There were mistresses who wouldn’t dream of telling the wife, and there were mistresses who would delight in revealing every last detail of the affair. He had no doubt which category Beata fell into. She wouldn’t care who or what she crushed if he dared to crush her first. She would stomp on his life, destroy his very existence without looking back. And he would be left behind with the pieces.
And so he had chosen the coward’s way out. Terrified of ending up alone in some shitty bachelor’s flat, staring at the walls and wondering what to do with his life, he’d taken the only way remaining to him. Beata’s way. She had won. And he’d walked out on Carina and Per. Cast them aside like rubbish on the side of the road, even he could see that. In the process he had destroyed Carina. And he’d lost Per. That was the price that he’d paid for the touch of youthful skin under his fingertips.
Maybe he could have held on to Per if he’d been able to ignore the guilt that settled like a heavy stone on his chest every time he so much as thought about the two he’d left behind. But he wasn’t capable of doing that. He’d made sporadic attempts, played the authority figure, played the father on rare occasions, with miserable results.
Now his son was a stranger to him. And Kjell didn’t have the energy to try again. After a lifetime spent hating the father who had abandoned him and his mother in favour of a life in which they had no part, he had done the same thing to his own son. He had turned into his father, and that was the bitter truth.
He pounded his fist on the table, trying to replace the pain in his heart with a physical pain. It didn’t help. Then he opened the bottom desk drawer to look at the only thing that could distract his mind from this torture.
There had been a moment when he had considered handing the material to the police, but at the last second the professional journalist in him had put on the brakes. Erik hadn’t given him much. When he came up to Kjell’s office, he’d spent quite a while talking in circles, obviously uncertain how much he wanted to divulge. At one stage he’d seemed about to turn on his heel and leave without having revealed anything at all.
Kjell opened the folder. He wished he’d managed to ask Erik more questions, to get some pointers as to where he ought to look. All he had were a few newspaper articles that Erik had given him, without comment or explanation.
‘What do you expect me to do with this?’ Kjell had asked, throwing out his hands.
‘That’s your job,’ was Erik’s reply. ‘I know it might seem strange, but I can’t give you the whole answer. I don’t dare. So I’m giving you the tools – you can do the rest.’
And then he’d gone, leaving Kjell sitting at his desk with a folder containing three articles.
Kjell scratched his beard and opened the folder. He’d already read through the material several times, but other things kept coming up that had prevented him from giving his full attention to the task. If he were to be completely honest, he had also questioned the wisdom of devoting any time to it. The old man might just be senile. And if he was really in possession of material as explosive as he’d intimated why hadn’t he explained things better? But with Erik Frankel’s murder, he began to look at the folder in a different light. He was ready to give it his all now. And he knew exactly where to begin: with the common denominator in all three articles. A Norwegian resistance fighter by the name of Hans Olavsen.
Chapter 26
Fjällbacka 1944
‘Hilma!’ Something in Elof’s tone of voice made both his wife and daughter dash out to meet him.
‘Heavens, how you’re shouting. What’s going on?’ exclaimed Hilma, but her voice trailed off when she saw that Elof was not alone. ‘Are we having guests?’ she asked, nervously wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I was just in the middle of washing the dishes.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Elof assured her. ‘The boy won’t mind how things look in the house. He came on the boat with us today. He was fleeing from the Germans.’
The boy held out his hand to Hilma and bowed when she shook it.
‘Hans Olavsen,’ he said in his lilting Norwegian. Then he held out his hand to Elsy, who shook it awkwardly, giving a little curtsey.
‘He’s had a hard time on the way here, so maybe we could offer him some refreshment,’ said Elof. He hung up his peaked cap and handed his coat to Elsy, who held it in her arms without moving.
‘Don’t just stand there, girl. Hang up your father’s coat,’ he said sternly, but then he couldn’t resist stroking his daughter’s cheek. Considering the dangers that now accompanied every voyage, it always felt like a gift when he was able to come back home and see Elsy and Hilma again. He cleared his throat, embarrassed to have succumbed to such emotion in the presence of a stranger. Then he motioned with his hand.
‘Come in, come in. I’m sure Hilma will find something nice for us,’ he said, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs.
‘We don’t have much to offer,’ said his wife, her eyes lowered. ‘But what little we have, we will gladly share.’
‘I’m sincerely grateful,’ said the boy, sitting down across from Elof as he hungrily eyed the plate of sandwiches that Hilma was setting on the table.
‘All right, help yourself,’ she said, and then went over to the cupboard to pour a little dram of aquavit for them both. Liquor was scarce, but this seemed a proper occasion for it.
They ate in silence. When there was only one sandwich left, Elof pushed the plate towards the Norwegian boy, urging him with a glance to take it. Elsy watched surreptitiously as she stood next to the counter, helping her mother. This was all so exciting. In their very own kitchen was somebody who had fled from the Germans, coming all the way here from Norway. She couldn’t wait to tell the others. Then a thought occurred to her, and she almost couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. But her father must have had the same thought, because he asked the very question that was on her mind.
‘There’s a boy from here in town who was taken by the Germans. That was more than a year ago, but maybe you . . .’ Elof threw out his hands, fixing his eyes on the boy across the table.
‘Well, it’s not likely that I’d know anything about him. There are so many people coming and going. What’s his name?’
‘Axel Frankel,’ said Elof. But the hope in his eyes turned to disappointment when the boy, after thinking fo
r a moment, shook his head.
‘No, I’m afraid not. We haven’t come across him. At least I don’t think so. You haven’t heard anything about what happened to him? Nothing that would supply a little more information?’
‘Unfortunately, no,’ said Elof, shaking his head. ‘The Germans took him in Kristiansand, and since then we haven’t heard a peep. For all we know, he might be –’
‘No, Pappa. I don’t believe it!’ Elsy’s eyes filled with tears, and feeling embarrassed she ran upstairs to her room. She couldn’t believe that she’d humiliated herself and her parents that way. Crying like a baby in front of a complete stranger.
‘Does your daughter know this . . . Axel?’ asked the Norwegian, looking concerned as he stared after her.
‘She’s friends with his younger brother. And it’s been hard for Erik. For Axel’s whole family,’ said Elof with a sigh.
A shadow passed over Hans’s eyes. ‘Many people have been sorely tested by this war,’ he said.
Elof could tell that this boy had seen things that no one his age ought to have witnessed.
‘What about your own family?’ he asked cautiously. Hilma was standing at the counter drying a plate, but she stopped what she was doing.
‘I don’t know where they are,’ said Hans at last, his eyes fixed on the table. ‘When the war is over – if it’s ever over – I’ll go back to look for them. Until then, I can’t return to Norway.’
Hilma met Elof’s eyes over the boy’s blond head. After carrying on a silent conversation, based solely on an exchange of glances, they reached an agreement. Elof cleared his throat.
‘Well, you see, we usually rent out our house to summer visitors and live in the basement room ourselves while they’re here. But the room is empty the rest of the year. Maybe you’d like to . . . stay here for a while and rest up, before you decide what to do next. I can probably find you some work too. Maybe not full-time, but at least enough so you’d have money in your pocket. First I’ll have to report to the district police that I’ve brought you into the country, but if I promise to look after you, there shouldn’t be any problem.’
‘Only if you let me pay rent with the money that I earn,’ said Hans, looking at him with a mixture of gratitude and guilt.
Elof glanced at Hilma again and he nodded.
‘That would be fine. Any contribution is welcome during these times of war.’
‘I’ll go downstairs and put things in order for you,’ said Hilma, putting on her coat.
‘I can’t thank you enough. I really can’t,’ said the boy in his lilting Norwegian as he bowed his head, but not fast enough. Elof managed to catch a glimpse of the tears in his eyes.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘It’s nothing.’
Chapter 27
‘Help!’
Erica gave a start when she heard the scream from upstairs. She rushed towards the sound, taking the stairs in a few bounds.
‘What’s wrong?’ she cried, but stopped short when she caught sight of Margareta’s face as she stood in the doorway to one of the rooms. Erica went closer and then inhaled sharply when a big double bed came into view.
‘Pappa,’ said Margareta with a whimper, and then went into the room. Erica stayed in the doorway, uncertain what she was looking at or what she should do.
‘Pappa,’ repeated Margareta.
Herman lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and he didn’t react to his daughter’s cries. Next to him on the bed was Britta. Her face was pale and rigid, and there was no doubt that she was dead. Herman lay close to her, with his arms wrapped tightly around her lifeless body.
‘I killed her,’ he said in a low voice.
Margareta gasped. ‘What are you saying, Pappa? Of course you didn’t kill her!’
‘I killed her,’ he repeated dully, hugging his dead wife even harder.
His daughter walked around the bed and sat down next to him. Cautiously she tried to loosen his grip, and after a few attempts she succeeded. She stroked his forehead as she spoke to him.
‘Pappa, it’s not your fault. Mamma wasn’t well. Her heart must have given up. It’s not your fault. You need to understand that.’
‘I was the one who killed her,’ he repeated, staring at a spot on the wall.
Margareta turned to Erica. ‘Could you please ring for an ambulance?’
Erica hesitated. ‘Should I call the police too?’
‘Pappa’s in shock. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. We don’t need the police,’ said Margareta sharply. Then she turned back to her father and took his hand.
‘I’ll take care of everything, Pappa. I’m going to call Anna-Greta and Birgitta, and we’ll all help you. We’re here for you.’
Herman didn’t reply, just lay there motionless, letting her hold his hand, but without squeezing it in return.
Erica went downstairs and took out her mobile. She paused for a moment before punching in a phone number.
‘Hi, Martin. It’s Erica. Patrik’s wife. Well, I think we need your help here. I’m at the home of Britta Johansson, and she’s dead. Her husband says that he killed her. It looks like death by natural causes, but . . . Oh, okay. I’ll wait here. Will you ring for an ambulance, or should I? Okay.’
Erica ended the conversation, hoping that she hadn’t done something stupid. Of course it looked as if Margareta was right, that Britta had simply died in her sleep. But then why did Herman keep saying that he’d killed her? And besides, it was an odd coincidence that yet another one of her mother’s childhood friends was suddenly dead, only a few months after Erik was killed. No, she’d done the right thing.
Erica went back upstairs.
‘I’ve called for help,’ she said. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’
‘Could you make some coffee? I’ll see if I can get Pappa to come downstairs.’
Margareta gently pulled Herman into a sitting position.
‘All right, Pappa, come on now. Let’s go downstairs and wait for the ambulance.’
Erica went into the kitchen. She searched the cupboards for what she needed and then set about making a big pot of coffee. A few minutes later she heard footsteps on the stairs and then saw Margareta escorting Herman into the room. She led him over to a kitchen chair, and he dropped on to it like a sack of flour.
‘I hope the medics have something they can give him,’ said Margareta, sounding worried. ‘He must have been lying next to her since yesterday. I don’t understand why he didn’t phone one of us.’
‘I’ve also . . .’ Erica hesitated, but then started over. ‘I’ve also notified the police. I’m sure you’re right, but I felt I had to. I couldn’t just . . .’ She failed to find the right words, and Margareta stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.
‘You phoned the police? Do you think my father was serious? Are you crazy? He’s in shock after finding his wife dead, and now he’s going to have to answer questions from the police? How dare you!’ Margareta took a step towards Erica, who was holding the coffee pot, but just then the doorbell rang.
‘That must be them. I’ll go and open the door,’ said Erica, keeping her eyes lowered as she put down the coffee pot before she dashed out to the hall.
When she opened the door, Martin was the first person she saw.
He nodded grimly. ‘Hi, Erica.’
‘Hi,’ she replied quietly, stepping aside. What if she was wrong? What if she was subjecting a grieving man to unnecessary torment? But it was too late now.
‘Britta’s upstairs, in the bedroom,’ she said, and then nodded towards the kitchen. ‘Her husband is in there. With the daughter. She was the one who found . . . It looks like she’s been dead for a while.’
‘Okay, we’ll take a look,’ said Martin, motioning for Paula to come inside along with the ambulance medics. He quickly introduced Paula to Erica and then went into the kitchen. Margareta had her arm around her father’s shoulders.
‘This is absurd,’ she said, staring at Martin. �
�My mother died in her sleep, and my father is in shock. Is all this really necessary?’
Martin held up his hands. ‘I’m sure it happened just as you say. But now that we’re here, we’ll just have a look, and then it will be over with. And may I offer my condolences.’ He gave her a resolute look, and reluctantly she nodded her assent.
‘She’s upstairs. Could I phone my sisters? And my husband?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Martin and then headed upstairs.
Erica hesitated but then fell in behind him and the medics. She stood to one side and said to Martin in a low voice:
‘I came over to talk to her about a few things, including Erik Frankel. It might be just a coincidence, but it seems a little strange, don’t you think?’
Martin glanced at Erica as he allowed the doctor in charge to enter the room first. ‘You think there’s some kind of connection?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Erica, shaking her head. ‘But I’ve been researching my mother’s past and, when she was young, she was friends with Erik Frankel, and with Britta. There was also somebody named Frans Ringholm in their group.’
‘Frans Ringholm?’ said Martin, looking startled.
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘Er, well . . . we’ve run into him in our investigation of Erik’s murder,’ said Martin, the wheels turning in his head.
‘Then isn’t it a little strange that Britta should also die suddenly? Less than three months after Erik Frankel was killed?’ Erica persisted.
Martin was still looking hesitant. ‘We’re not talking about youngsters here. I mean, at their age, a lot could happen. Stroke, heart attack, all sorts of things.’
‘Well, I can tell you right now that this was not a heart attack or a stroke,’ said the doctor from inside the bedroom. Martin and Erica looked round in surprise.
The Hidden Child Page 26