Buried Angels (23 page)

‘What happened? Did her father catch her?’ Erica felt herself being drawn into a whole different world.

‘Her brother Claes used to protect her. On that occasion he saw her and dragged her away. He was so rough that I thought he was going to tear her arm off.’

‘Did she have a crush on any of you boys?’

‘Naturally. Who do you think?’ said Holm, but then he realized that Erica had no idea what he meant. ‘Leon, of course. He was the perfect boy. His family was filthy rich, he was handsome, and he possessed a self-confidence that none of the rest of us could even approach.’

‘But he wasn’t interested in her?’

‘As I said, Annelie was the kind of girl who caused trouble, and Leon was too smart to get involved with her.’ A mobile began ringing in the living room, and he jumped up. ‘Sorry, but do you mind if I answer that?’

Without waiting for her reply, he left the kitchen, and Erica heard him speaking in a low voice. No one else seemed to be at home. She gazed around the room while she waited. A pile of documents stacked up on a kitchen chair caught her interest. Casting a quick glance over her shoulder, she began leafing through the pages. They seemed for the most part to be records of parliamentary proceedings and meetings, but then she gave a start. Between two printouts she found a piece of paper covered with scribbles that she couldn’t decipher. From the living room she heard Holm saying goodbye, so she quickly pulled the page out of the pile of documents and slipped it into her handbag. When he returned to the kitchen, she gave him an innocent smile.

‘Everything okay?’

He nodded and sat down again.

‘That’s the disadvantage of my job. I’m never off duty, not even while on holiday.’

Erica murmured her sympathy. She didn’t want to get into a discussion of Holm’s political activities. Her own views would become all too obvious, and there was a risk that they would end up at loggerheads. Then she wouldn’t find out anything more about Valö.

She picked up her pen. ‘So how was Inez with the pupils?’

‘Inez?’ Holm looked away. ‘We didn’t see much of her. She was busy taking care of the house and her little daughter.’

‘But surely you had some sort of relationship with her? I’m familiar with the house, and it’s not especially big, so you must have run into each other fairly often.’

‘Of course we saw Inez. But she was a silent and browbeaten woman. She didn’t care for us, and we didn’t care for her.’

‘Apparently her husband wasn’t overly fond of her either.’

‘No. It was incomprehensible that a man like him had managed to sire four children. We speculated that they had to be the result of immaculate conception.’ Holm gave her a crooked smile.

‘What did you think of the two teachers at the school?’

‘They were both real characters. Excellent teachers, but Per-Arne was an old military man, and even more rigid than Rune, if that was possible.’

‘What about the other teacher?’

‘Ove? Hmm … There was something fishy about him. A closet homosexual. That was the predominant theory. I wonder if he ever came out.’

Erica had to stop herself from laughing. She pictured Liza, with the false eyelashes and beautiful silk gown.

‘Maybe he did,’ she said with a smile.

Holm gave her a puzzled look, but she didn’t explain any further. It was not up to her to inform Holm about Liza’s life, and besides, she was well aware of the Friends of Sweden stance on homosexuals.

‘You don’t recall anything in particular about the teachers?’

‘No, nothing. There were clear boundaries between the students, the teachers, and the family. Everyone was expected to know his place. Each group kept to itself.’

Rather like your policies, thought Erica, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting. She could sense that Holm was starting to get impatient, so she asked her last question:

‘According to one person that I’ve talked to, there were some strange noises in the house at night. Do you remember anything like that?’

He gave a start. ‘Who said that?’

‘It’s not important.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Holm and stood up.

‘So you don’t know about these noises?’

‘Absolutely not. And now I’m afraid I must make a few phone calls.’

Erica realized that she wasn’t going to find out anything else, at least not now.

‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,’ she said, gathering up her things.

‘My pleasure.’ He’d turned on the charm again, but he rushed her out the door so fast her feet barely touched the ground.

Ia pulled up Leon’s underpants and trousers and helped him over to the wheelchair from the toilet.

‘All right, you can stop grimacing,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand why we can’t hire a nurse to do this sort of thing,’ said Leon.

‘I want to take care of you myself.’

‘Your heart is overflowing with kindness,’ Leon snorted. ‘You’re going to strain your back if you keep on this way. We need to have someone come in to help you.’

‘It’s nice of you to worry about my back, but I’m very strong, and I don’t want somebody else coming in and … getting in the way. It’s you and me. Until death do us part.’ Ia tried to caress the uninjured side of his face, but he shrank from her touch, and she drew her hand back.

He wheeled himself away from her as she sat down on the sofa. They had bought the house fully furnished, and today they had finally been allowed to move in after the bank in Monaco had approved their withdrawal. They had paid the entire sum in cash. From the window they could see all of Fjällbacka, and she was enjoying the amazing view more than she thought she would. She heard Leon swearing out in the kitchen. Nothing had been adapted for wheelchair access, so he was having a hard time reaching things, and he kept on running into corners and cabinets.

‘I’m coming,’ she shouted but didn’t jump up immediately. Sometimes it was good to make him wait for a bit. So he wouldn’t take her help for granted. The same way he had taken her love for granted.

Ia looked down at her hands. They were just as scarred as Leon’s. When she went out she always wore gloves to hide the scars from prying eyes, but here at home she wanted him to see the injuries she had sustained when she pulled him out of the burning car. Gratitude – that was what she demanded. She’d given up all hope of love. She was no longer sure whether Leon was capable of loving another person. Once upon a time she had thought so. Back then his love was the only thing that mattered. When had that love turned to hatred? She didn’t know. For so many years she had tried to discover her flaws, tried so hard to correct whatever he criticized, done her utmost to give him what he seemed to want. But he had continued to torment her as if deliberately trying to hurt her. The mountains, the sea, the deserts, the women. None of it was important. They were all his mistresses. And the long periods of waiting for him to come home had been unbearable.

She touched her face. It was smooth, without expression. She suddenly remembered the pain of the operations. He was never there to hold her hand when she woke up from the anaesthesia. He was never there when she came home. The healing seemed to take forever. Now she didn’t recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. But she didn’t have to try hard any more. There were no mountains that Leon could climb, no deserts that he could drive through, no women for whom he could leave her. He was hers. All hers.

Tobias frowned as he stretched. His body ached from the endless manual labour, and he’d almost forgotten what it was like not to be in pain. He knew that it was the same for Ebba. When she thought he wasn’t looking, she would often massage her shoulders and joints, grimacing the same way he did.

But the ache in their hearts was worse. They lived with it day and night, and the loss was so great that it was impossible to see where it started or ended. But Vincent was not the only one he missed; he missed Ebba too. And things had got worse when the loss was combined with the anger and guilt that they couldn’t escape.

He sat on the steps with a mug of tea in his hand, gazing across the water at Fjällbacka. The view was most beautiful in the golden light of the evening sun. Somehow he’d always known that they would come back here. Even though he believed Ebba when she said that she’d had a good childhood, he’d sometimes sensed that she carried with her a question that would not go away until she at least tried to find the answer. He was certain that if he had broached the subject before everything fell apart, she would have denied it. But all the same Tobias had remained convinced that one day they would come here, to the place where it all began.

When circumstances finally forced them to flee – to something that was both familiar and unfamiliar, to a life in which Vincent had never existed – Tobias had harboured such hope. He hoped that they’d find their way back to each other and be able to leave the anger and guilt behind. But Ebba had shut him out and rejected all his attempts at intimacy. Did she have the right to do that? The pain and grief were not hers alone; they were his too. Surely he deserved to see that she was at least willing to try?

Tobias gripped the mug harder as he gazed out at the horizon. He pictured Vincent in his mind. His son had been so much like him. They had laughed about that even in the maternity ward. Newborn and swaddled in a blanket, Vincent had lain in his pram like a little caricature of Tobias. The resemblance had grown stronger, and Vincent had worshipped his father. At the age of three he would follow Tobias around like a puppy, and it was always his pappa that he called for first. Occasionally Ebba had complained, saying that it was ungrateful of Vincent, after she’d carried him for nine months and endured a painful birth. But she didn’t mean it. It made her happy to see Vincent and Tobias grow so close, and she was content to take the number two spot.

Tears filled Tobias’s eyes, and he swiped them away with his hand. He couldn’t bear to cry any more, and besides, it served no purpose. The only thing he wanted was for Ebba to come back to him. He would never give up. He would keep on trying until she realized that they needed each other.

Tobias got up and went inside. He continued on upstairs, straining to hear where she was, although he already knew. Whenever they weren’t working on the house, she would be sitting at her work table, engrossed in making a new necklace that some customer had ordered. He went into the room and stood behind her.

‘Did you get a new order?’

She gave a start. ‘Yes,’ she said and continued shaping the silver.

‘Who’s the customer?’ Anger at her indifference surged inside him, and he had to stop himself from losing his temper.

‘Her name is Linda. Her son died when he was only four months old. Sudden infant death syndrome. He was her first child.’

‘I see,’ he said, turning away. He couldn’t understand how she could bear to hear such stories, all that grief from unknown parents. Wasn’t her own sorrow enough? He didn’t need to look to know that she was wearing her necklace. It was the first one she’d made, and she always had it on. Vincent’s name was engraved on the back. There were moments when he wanted to tear that necklace off of her, when he didn’t think she was worthy to bear her son’s name around her neck. But there were also moments when he wanted nothing more than for her to have Vincent close to her heart. Why did it have to be so hard? What would happen if he let it all go, accepted what had happened and acknowledged that they were both to blame?

Tobias set his mug on a shelf and took a step towards Ebba. He hesitated for a moment but then placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt her body stiffen. Gently he began massaging her muscles, sensing that she was as tense as he was. She didn’t say a word, merely stared straight ahead. Her hands, which had been working on the silver angel, sank to the table, and the only sound was his breathing and hers. He felt hope stirring. He was touching her, feeling her body under his hands. Maybe there was a way forward.

Abruptly Ebba got to her feet. Without saying anything, she left the room, and he stood there with his hands in midair. For a moment he stared at her work table, which was covered with clutter. Then, as if of their own volition, his arms moved in a great arc and sent the whole lot crashing to the floor. In the silence that followed, he realized that there was only one path to take. He was going to have to risk everything.

‘I’m cold, Mamma.’ Laura was whining unhappily, but Dagmar paid no attention. They were going to wait here until Hermann came home. Sooner or later he’d have to return, and he would be so happy to see her. She longed to see his eyes light up, to see the desire and love that would be so much stronger after all these years of waiting.

‘Mamma …’ Laura was shaking so hard that her teeth chattered.

‘Hush!’ snapped Dagmar. The child was always ruining everything. Didn’t she want them to be happy? Dagmar could no longer contain the rage inside of her, and she raised her hand to strike.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ A strong hand grabbed her wrist, and Dagmar turned around in fright. Behind her stood an elegant gentleman wearing a dark overcoat, dark trousers, and a hat.

She tossed her head. ‘Sir, you have no right to interfere with how I raise my child.’

‘If you hit her, I will hit you just as hard. Then you’ll see how it feels,’ he said calmly, and his voice indicated that he would not stand for any backchat.

Dagmar considered telling this man what she thought of people who stuck their noses in matters that were none of their business, but she could see it would do her no good.

‘Please forgive me,’ she said. ‘The girl has been impossible all day. It’s not easy to be a mother, and sometimes …’ She shrugged apologetically, gazing down at the ground so that he wouldn’t see the fury in her eyes.

Slowly the man released his hold on her wrist and took a step back.

‘What are you doing here, outside my front door?’

‘We’re waiting for my pappa,’ said Laura, giving the stranger a pleading look. She was not shamed by the fact that someone had dared to defy her mother.