The Ice Princess (12 page)

‘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.

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 hardly 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.

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 question. 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.’