‘Wow – that’s impressive.’
Laura quickly moved her finger to the stocky boy with cropped hair who was standing behind Iben and slightly to the side, almost on the edge of the pontoon. He was staring at the ground, as if he wanted to avoid the camera. Some people in the village called Tomas names because of his tics. Sometimes they made sure he could hear them.
‘Tomas lives further away, out in the forest at a place called Ensligheten. He and Peter are best friends. They usually help out in the holiday village over the summer.’ She pointed to Peter, who was next to Tomas. He was grinning, holding his fingers behind her head like bunny ears. ‘They run the kiosk and the minigolf, cut the grass and hire out the boats.’
Laura almost said that Peter called them the Goonies, but she was pretty sure that Ewa had never seen the film. Peter’s uncle owned a video rental store in Helsingborg, and secretly gave his nephew a copy of the latest films when his parents weren’t around.
‘The Lord Jehovah doesn’t like movies,’ Peter would joke. ‘But he has no problem with putting kids in a suit and tie and getting them to doorstep people they don’t even know.’
Peter loved The Goonies.
‘We’re just like them – a gang of outcasts. I’m Mouth, Tomas is Chunk and Jack is Brand. The girls are Andy and Stef . . .’
‘Can I see?’ Ewa put on her reading glasses and Laura handed over the photo. ‘It looks so beautiful, with the lake and the ridge behind it. Absolutely idyllic. Do you go there often?’
‘Almost every school holiday. My dad works very hard,’ Laura added in the apologetic tone that always came creeping in whenever she talked about her father.
‘And your mother?’
‘She’s very busy too.’
Laura didn’t explain, but Ewa seemed to understand.
‘Have the schools in Hong Kong already broken up for Christmas?’
Laura shook her head. ‘No, but I go to an international school. A lot of families go home over Christmas, so we finish earlier and have a week’s less holiday in the summer.’
Ewa handed back the photograph.
‘I can see that you love spending time by the lake. You all look so happy, you and your aunt and your friends. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful Christmas together.’
6
Your mother wanted to call you Jacqueline, can you imagine that? After Jackie Kennedy. How pretentious is that? Fortunately, I managed to change her mind, and that’s why you’re called Laura after my grandmother, your great-grandmother.
Laura’s white SUV is far too big for one person. It consumes too much fuel, and definitely causes too much pollution. But of all the cars that have been crash-tested in recent years, this model is the safest. A great big four-wheel drive tank with a double air-filtration system and a computer that notes and assesses all risk factors through a multitude of sensors and cameras.
When she’s sitting in her car, nothing and no one can get to her. She likes that thought.
Three nights, that’s how long she’s staying in Skåne. That will give her time to bury Hedda and sell Gärdsnäset. She’s spent the last few days trying to get ahead. She’s conducted two in-depth interviews, dealt with all her emails, prepared the office for two days without her.
In spite of her efforts, she only gets as far as Linköping before her work phone rings. It’s Ola, her deputy. He sounds stressed, and Laura immediately knows why.
‘What’s Marcus done now?’
It takes her half an hour and three phone calls to sort it out. Marcus isn’t answering his phone, of course; no doubt he’s fully occupied with being fussed over by their mother.
The third time she tries his number she’s so cross that she almost has a collision. She’s halfway through changing lanes to overtake a lorry when the car’s warning system starts flashing and beeping, and at the very last second she sees the black BMW in her blind spot. The driver sounds his horn and flashes his lights as he sweeps past, and it takes quite a while for her heartbeat to return to normal.
Blind spot. She doesn’t like that expression. Marcus is almost always in her blind spot, at the very edge of her peripheral vision, beyond her control, yet way too close.
Laura stops for fuel just after leaving the motorway, then sits in the car for a while with a cup of disgusting petrol-station tea that’s no use for anything except warming her fingers. There is considerably less snow in Skåne than in Stockholm, only about five centimetres, and the thermometer on the display is showing a couple of degrees below freezing. However, the wind and damp air make it feel significantly colder. The odd snowflake drifts down, and the clouds suggest there is more to come. Apparently six hundred kilometres isn’t far enough to escape the winter.
The resolve that has brought her here has gradually begun to waver. After all, there was a good reason why she left Vintersjön and Gärdsnäset. She’s not here to dig into the past. Only to see Jack.
Hedda was like a mother to him, and if he knows she’s dead, he ought to turn up to the funeral on Saturday. And what then? Would she recognise him? A person can change a great deal in half a lifetime. What if he’s bald, with a beer belly? Or even worse – what if Jack has a wife and children? What if he’s happy and living a good life? What if he hasn’t thought about her in the way she’s thought about him?
She has no answer to these questions. The last trace she found of Jack Gerhard Olsson was a note stating that in 1989 the tax office had transferred him to the database of those with no known address, which means he is no longer registered in Sweden, and that they don’t know where he’s gone. From then on there is no one by that name in any Swedish records, nor the overseas records she has been able to access, although those are not comprehensive. The late Eighties and early Nineties were a little chaotic in Europe. Entire nations ceased to exist. It was a good time if you wanted to acquire a new name, a new identity. A new life.
Laura closes her eyes, pictures his eighteen-year-old face as he perches on her hospital bed. The terror in his eyes, the fear that almost makes his voice break as he says goodbye. The sensation of his lips on hers. Then he’s gone. Vanished without a trace.
Will Jack really dare to return to Vintersjön? Will she?
It would be so easy to rejoin the motorway and head back north. No one would criticise her, and she doesn’t owe Hedda a thing.
Not a single letter or postcard in thirty years. No indication whatsoever that Hedda has thought of her, missed her, longed to see her again, as she longed to see Hedda.
Is that why Hedda has left Gärdsnäset to her? As a way of asking for forgiveness? It’s an appealing thought. And besides, she and Jack aren’t scared teenagers anymore; they’re two adults, each with half a lifetime of baggage.
She puts the car in gear and slowly drives out of the petrol station.
As Laura approaches Vedarp, she realises that the place doesn’t look familiar at all. The road is wider, and the industrial estate, the Lidl store and the residential area opposite weren’t here back in the day.
Dusk is falling, and the gathering darkness combined with the falling snow make it difficult for her to orientate herself. The grey façades that once dominated the village are gone, covered by less dangerous material that has been painted in brighter colours.
But the ironmonger’s is still there, with a brand-new sign. She wonders if Sven-Erik is still behind the counter, then it occurs to her that Sven-Erik, if he’s still alive, must be over eighty, which seems unreal.
The haberdasher’s is gone, replaced by a modern building housing a pizzeria and a solarium. Where the post office once was there is now a gym and a funeral director’s. She looks for the neon WOHLIN’S sign, and discovers an Espresso House instead. A group of kids on mopeds hanging around outside stare at her car as she passes by.