The first time Nora got so drunk she threw up, it was Thomas who had cleaned her up and got her home without her parents knowing. At least they’d never mentioned it. When the great teenage love of his life had dumped him, Nora had done her best to console him and let him go on and on about it. They had spent a whole night sitting on the rocks as he poured his heart out.
When they were fourteen they had spent a whole summer studying for their confirmation with the priest in the chapel on Sandhamn, and both of them had done every available summer job on the island: worked in the ice cream kiosk, helped out at the bakery and at the sailing club, ran the till at Westerberg’s shop. They had also danced in the Sailors Restaurant, until, hot and sweaty, they ended the evening with a nighttime dip in the sea below Dansberget as the sun was rising.
When Henrik first showed an interest in Nora by inviting her to the medical students’ ball, she had called Thomas to tell him. She had been deeply attracted to Henrik, whose spontaneous charm had hit her with full force. As usual, Thomas had listened as she fell in love and prattled on.
Thomas had always wanted to join the police, just as Nora had always wanted to study law. She used to joke that when she became minister for justice, she would make him the chief of police of Sweden.
When Adam was born, Nora knew Thomas was the obvious choice for a godparent, but Henrik wanted to choose his best friend and his wife. When Simon came along, Nora insisted that Thomas be his godfather. Thomas was the kind of person they could rely on if anything happened to her or Henrik.
“I’m here to work,” Thomas said with a serious expression. “Did you hear that a dead body has been found on the other side of the island?”
Nora nodded. “It sounds dreadful. I was just at the swimming school with Simon, and that was the only topic of conversation. What happened?” She looked anxiously at Thomas.
“I’ve no idea at this stage. All we know is that it’s a man’s body, and it was entangled in an old fishing net. It looked pretty bad, so it must have been in the water for quite some time.”
Nora shuddered in the warm sunshine. “Terrible. But it must have been an accident, surely? I can’t believe anybody could be murdered here on Sandhamn.”
“We’ll see. The pathologist will have to examine the body before we can draw any conclusions. The man who found it couldn’t tell us much.”
“He must have been shocked.”
“Yeah, I feel sorry for him. Nobody expects to find a corpse when they’re out on their morning walk,” said Thomas with a grimace.
Nora lifted Simon back onto the bike. “Can you come over when you’re finished? I’m sure you’ve earned a cup of coffee,” she said.
Thomas smiled. “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll try.”
CHAPTER 5
Nora cycled home deep in thought. She wondered if the man who had died had been a resident or a total stranger. If he lived on Sandhamn, then she should have heard that someone was missing. The island was small enough for most people to keep an eye on each other. The social network was strong. But she hadn’t heard a thing.
As she lifted Simon down and parked the bike by the fence, she saw her next-door neighbor, Signe Brand, watering her roses. The most glorious roses covered the south-facing wall of Signe’s house, pink interspersed with red. The rose bushes were several decades old, their stems as thick as a wrist.
Signe, or Auntie Signe as Nora called her when she was little, lived in the Brand house, one of the most beautiful houses on the island, right in the middle of Kvarnberget, just by the inlet to Sandhamn. When the old windmill that had stood on Kvarnberget was moved in the 1860s, Signe’s grandfather, the master pilot Carl Wilhelm Brand, saw an opportunity to make use of the land. After many years he built a truly imposing house right at the top of the hill.
Although the fashion at the time was to build houses close together in the village in order to protect each other from the wind, the master pilot built his house so that it stood alone in solitary majesty. It was the first thing visitors saw when the steamboat docked in Sandhamn, a landmark for all those who came to the island.
The master pilot had skimped on nothing when the house was being built. He used only the finest material. The National Romantic style was fully embraced, with narrow roof projections, wide decorative bargeboards, and gently curving lines in the attic and bay windows. Inside were lavish tiled stoves, specially ordered from the porcelain factory in Gustavsberg, and a huge claw-foot bathtub in what was an unusually modern bathroom for the time. There was even an indoor toilet, which provoked great surprise among the neighbors, who were used to the inconvenience of the outhouse.
Some of them had shaken their heads, muttering something about fancy city ways, but the master pilot had taken no notice. “I’ll shit where I like,” he had roared when the gossip reached him.
Signe had bought herself a television after resisting for many years, but that was the only thing that didn’t fit in with the style of the house. Everything was so beautifully preserved it was barely noticeable that a hundred years had passed since the house was furnished.
These days, Signe lived alone in the house with her dog, a Labrador named Kajsa. From time to time she complained about the cost of everything, but each time some fresh outsider tried to tempt her with an amazing offer for what had to be one of Sandhamn’s most beautiful buildings, she snorted and sent them packing.
“This is where I was born, and this is where I’m going to die,” she would say without a shred of sentimentality. “No rich kid from Stockholm is moving in here.”
Signe loved the house she had inherited, and Nora could understand why. When she was little, Signe had been like an extra grandmother, and Nora felt just as much at home in her house as in her parents’.
“Did you hear about what happened?” she asked Signe.
“No, what?” Signe said, putting down the watering can. She straightened up and came over to the fence.
“Somebody drowned—they found a body over on the west beach. The police are out in force.”
Signe looked at her in surprise.
“You can imagine how wound up the parents at the swimming school were,” Nora said.
“Somebody’s dead, is that what you said?”
“Yes. I bumped into Thomas down by Westerberg’s. He’s here to investigate the death.”
“Do they know who it is? Did you recognize the body?”
“I wasn’t there. Thomas said it was a man, and the body was in a really bad state. Apparently it’s been in the water for several months.”
“So Thomas is here on police business. To think he’s so grown up,” said Signe.
“So am I. He’s only a year older than me,” Nora said with a grin.
“It’s still hard to grasp. Time goes so quickly.” Signe looked sad. “I can hardly believe you’ve got children of your own. It seems like just yesterday you were as small as Adam and Simon.”
Nora smiled, said good-bye, and went inside. She loved her house, which she had inherited several years earlier from her grandmother. It wasn’t all that big, but it was charming and had held up really well, considering it was built in 1915. On the ground floor there was a large kitchen and a big room that served as a TV room and playroom as well as a sitting room for the adults.