The Ice Princess (39 page)

‘We couldn’t consider an abortion. Not under those conditions. Nor did we give Alex any opportunity to make a choice, even if she could have done so. We never asked her how she felt or what she wanted to do. Instead, we hushed it all up. We took her out of school, went abroad and stayed there until she gave birth to the child. No one could know anything about it. Because what would people say?’

He could hear for himself how bitter that last sentence sounded. Nothing had been more important than that. It had taken precedence over their own daughter’s happiness and well-being. He couldn’t even place the entire blame on Birgit for making that choice. She had never been the one who was most concerned about outward appearances. After years of self-examination, he had been forced to admit to himself that he let her have her way based on his own wish to retain an unblemished appearance. He could feel sour stomach acid creeping up his throat. He swallowed hard and went on.

‘After Alex had the baby, we registered her at the boarding school, returned to Göteborg and got on with our lives.’

Every word was dripping with bitterness and self-contempt. Birgit’s eyes were filled with fury, perhaps hatred as well. She stared at him intensely as if to use sheer will-power to make him stop. But he knew that the process had begun the same moment that Alex was found dead in the bathtub. He knew that the police would root around, turn over every stone and drag out into the sunlight everything that crawled. It was better that they tell the truth in their own words. Or in his words, as it turned out. Perhaps he should have done it earlier, but he had needed the time to muster the courage. Patrik Hedström’s telephone call was the last push he needed.

Karl-Erik knew that he had left out a good deal, but a weariness had settled over him like a blanket, and he let Patrik take up the thread and ask the questions that would fill in the gaps. He leaned back in the armchair and gripped the armrests hard.

Henrik was the first to speak. His voice was noticeably shaky. ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t Alex say anything? I knew that she was hiding something from me, but not this.’

Karl-Erik threw out his hands in a resigned gesture. There was nothing he could say to Alex’s husband.

Patrik had fought hard to retain his professionalism, but it was obvious that he was shaken. He picked up the pen he had dropped on the floor and tried to focus on the notebook in front of him.

‘Who was it that attacked Alex? Was it someone at the school?’

Karl-Erik only nodded.

‘Was it…’ Patrik hesitated. ‘Was it Nils Lorentz?’

‘Who’s Nils Lorentz?’ asked Henrik.

Birgit answered him, with steel in her voice. ‘He was a substitute teacher at the school. He’s the son of Nelly Lorentz.’

‘But where is he now? He must have gone to prison for what he did to Alex, didn’t he?’ Henrik looked like he was wrestling hard to understand what Karl-Erik had said.

‘He disappeared twenty-five years ago,’ Patrik explained. ‘No one has seen him since then. But what I also want to know is why no police report was ever filed. I’ve searched through our archives, and there’s never been any complaint to the police against him.’

Karl-Erik closed his eyes. Patrik wasn’t asking the question as an accusation, but that was how it felt. Each word felt like needles piercing his skin, reminding him of the terrible mistake they had made twenty-five years ago.

‘We never lodged a complaint. When we understood that Alex was pregnant and she told us what happened, I stormed up to Nelly’s house and told her what her son had done. I had every intention of reporting him to the police, and I told Nelly as much, but—’

‘But Nelly came and talked with me and suggested that we could solve it without getting the police involved,’ said Birgit as she sat on the sofa, her back straight as a poker. ‘She said that there was no reason to humiliate Alex any further by having all of Fjällbacka whispering about what had happened. We could only agree, and we decided that it would be to her benefit if we could handle the matter within the family. Nelly promised that she would take care of Nils in a suitable manner.’

‘Nelly also arranged a very well-paid job for me here in Göteborg,’ said Karl-Erik. ‘I assume that we were no better than most people, dazzled by the promise of gold.’ Karl-Erik was being brutally honest about himself. The time for denials was past.

‘That had nothing to do with it. How can you say that, Karl-Erik? We were only thinking of what was best for Alex. What good would it have done her if everyone had known? We gave her a chance to move on with her life.’

‘No, Birgit, we gave ourselves a chance to move on with
our
lives. Alex lost that chance when we decided to hush things up.’

They gazed at each other across the coffee table, and Karl-Erik knew that some things could never be repaired. She would never understand.

‘And the baby? What happened to the baby? Was it given up for adoption?’ asked Patrik.

Silence. Then a voice came from the doorway.

‘No, the baby was not given up for adoption. They decided to keep the baby and lie to her about who she was.’

‘Julia! I thought you were up in your room!’

Karl-Erik turned to see Julia standing in the doorway. She must have tiptoed down the stairs, because no one had heard her coming. He wondered how long she’d been standing there.

She was leaning against the door jamb with her arms crossed. Her entire shapeless body radiated spite. Even though it was four in the afternoon, she still hadn’t changed out of her pyjamas. She looked as if she hadn’t showered in at least a week. Karl-Erik felt sympathy mix with the pain in his chest. His poor, poor little ugly duckling.

‘If it hadn’t been for Nelly, or should I say “grandmother”, you never would have said anything, would you? You never would have got round to telling me that my mother is not my mother, but my grandmother, and Pappa is not Pappa but my grandfather, and above all that my sister is not my sister, but my Mamma. Are you following this, or should I go over it one more time? It’s a bit complicated.’

The sarcastic comment was directed at Patrik. It almost looked as if Julia enjoyed seeing the dismayed expression on his face.

‘Perverse, isn’t it?’ She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper and put her finger to her lips. ‘But hush, you mustn’t tell anyone. Because what would people say? Imagine if they started gossiping about the well-to-do Carlgren family.’

She raised her voice again. ‘But thank goodness Nelly told me everything last summer when I was working at the cannery. She told me what I had a right to know. Who I really am. My whole life I’ve felt like an outsider, that I didn’t belong in this family. Having a big sister like Alex certainly wasn’t easy, but I worshipped her. She was everything I wanted to be, everything I was not. I saw the way you looked at her and the way you looked at me. And Alex never seemed to care much about me, which only made me worship her even more. Now I understand why. She could probably hardly stand to look at me. The bastard child who was born out of rape. And you forced her to be reminded of it every time she looked at me. Do you really not see how cruel that was?’

Karl-Erik flinched at her words as if he’d been slapped. He knew that she was right. It had been horribly cruel to keep Julia, and in that way force Alex to relive over and over the monstrous event that had marked an end to her childhood. Nor had it been fair to Julia. He and Birgit could never forget the way she had been conceived. Apparently Julia had sensed it from the very beginning, because she came into the world shrieking. She had continued to scream and struggle against the world during her whole childhood. Julia had never missed an opportunity to behave badly, and he and Birgit had been too old to handle a young child, especially one as demanding as Julia.

In a way it had been a relief when she came home one day last summer with the rage oozing from every pore and confronted them. It had not surprised them that Nelly on her own authority had told Julia the truth. Nelly was a nasty old woman who only cared about her own interests. If it would benefit her in some way to tell Julia what she knew, then she would do so. That’s why they had tried to stop Julia from accepting the offer of the summer job, but Julia had stubbornly stood her ground, as usual.

When Nelly told Julia the true story, a whole new world opened up for her. For the first time there was someone who really wanted her, someone she belonged to. Despite the fact that Nelly had Jan, it was the bond of blood that counted for her. She had told Julia that when the time came she intended to leave her fortune to her. Karl-Erik understood very well how this had affected Julia. She was full of anger towards the people she had thought were her parents, and she worshipped Nelly with the same intensity she had once displayed towards Alex. All this flashed through his mind when he saw her standing in the doorway, outlined by the soft light coming from the kitchen. The sad thing was that—even if it was true that they had looked at Julia many times and were reminded of the horror in the past—she would never realize how much they loved her. But she had been like a stranger in their home, and they had felt awkward and helpless before her. They still felt that way. Now they would probably be forced to accept that they had lost her for good. She was still physically living in their home, but mentally she had already left them behind.

Henrik looked as if he could hardly breathe. He leaned his head forward towards his lap and closed his eyes. For a moment Karl-Erik wondered whether it had been right to ask Henrik to come here and participate. He had invited him because he thought that Henrik deserved to know the truth. He too had loved Alex.

‘But Julia…’ Birgit reached out her arms to Julia in an awkward, entreating gesture. Julia just turned her back to her in contempt, and they heard her stamping up the stairs.

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Patrik, throwing out his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘I knew that something wasn’t right, but I never would have imagined this. I don’t know what to say.’

‘We don’t know what to say ourselves. Especially to each other.’ Karl-Erik looked at his wife.

‘How long did the abuse go on? Do you know?’

‘We’re not really sure. Alex didn’t want to talk about it. Probably at least a couple of months, maybe up to a year.’ He hesitated. ‘And there you have the answer to your earlier question.’

‘Which one do you mean?’ said Patrik.

‘The one about the connection between Alex and Anders. Anders was also a victim. The day before we were going to move, we found a note that Alex had written to Anders. It seems that he too had been molested by Nils. Obviously they had understood somehow, or found out, that they were both in the same situation—how I don’t know. And they turned to each other for comfort. I took the note over to Vera Nilsson. I told her what had happened to Alex and what had probably happened to Anders. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Anders is…or was,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘all she had. I suppose I hoped that Vera would be able to do what we weren’t brave enough to do—report Nils and hold him responsible for what he had done. But nothing happened, so I assume that Vera felt just as weak as we did.’

Unconsciously he had begun to massage his chest with his fist. The pain kept growing in intensity. It had begun to radiate out to his fingers.

‘And you have no idea where Nils went?’

‘No, no idea. But wherever he is, I hope he’s suffering, that devil.’

The pain was now like a landslide. His fingers had begun to go numb and he knew that something was wrong. Seriously wrong. The pain made his field of vision contract, and even though he could see the others’ mouths moving it was as if all images and all sounds were coming to him in slow motion. At first he felt happy that the anger had gone from Birgit’s eyes, but when he saw that it was replaced by worry he understood that something serious was happening. Then the darkness flooded in.

After the panicky ambulance ride to Sahlgrenska Hospital, Patrik sat in his car and tried to catch his breath. He had followed the ambulance in his own car and stayed with Birgit and Henrik until they got word that although Karl-Erik’s heart attack was serious, he was past the most critical stage.

This day had been one of the most upsetting in his life. He had seen a lot of misery in his years as a police officer, but he’d never heard such a heart-rendingly tragic story as the one Karl-Erik had told that afternoon.

Even though Patrik recognized the truth when he heard it, he still had a hard time accepting what he’d heard. How could anyone go on with their life after going through what Alex had endured? She was not only abused and robbed of her childhood, she had also been forced to live the rest of her life with a constant reminder of it. No matter how Patrik tried he couldn’t understand her parent’s actions. He couldn’t imagine letting the perpetrator get away if his child were abused, nor could he imagine that he would choose to try to hush things up. How could keeping up appearances be more important than his own child’s life and health? That was what he had such a terribly hard time understanding.

He sat in the car with his eyes closed, leaning against the headrest. Twilight was falling and he should be starting the drive home, but he felt weak and apathetic. Not even the thought that Erica was waiting for him could induce him to drive home. His ingrained positive attitude to life had been shaken to its core. For the first time, he felt doubtful that the good in human beings was really greater than the evil.

On another level he also felt a bit guilty. The shocking story had touched him deeply, but at the same time he had felt a professional satisfaction when the pieces of the puzzle one by one fell into place. So many questions had been answered this afternoon. Yet he now felt an even greater frustration than before. He had found the explanation to so much, but he was still fumbling in the dark when it came to who had murdered Alex and Anders. Perhaps the motive lay hidden in the past, perhaps it had nothing to do with the past at all, although he found that hard to believe. In spite of everything, this was the only connection he had found between Alex and Anders.