He swallowed. How to begin?
“The police say you know something. How come you know William?” she asked, getting straight to the point.
“I don’t. But I know what happened to him.”
She struggled to appear calm, but everything inside her was screaming that there was nothing in the world she wanted to know more, yet was afraid to hear. It was so obvious. Marco could hardly stand to see her like this.
Tilde’s voice trembled. “If you don’t know him, then how do you know it’s him?”
“He had red hair and he was wearing an African necklace. I’ve seen a picture of him, and it is the same man I saw. I just know, that’s all.”
She put a hand to her mouth, the other fluttering at her hip.
“You say ‘had’ red hair.”
Now was the time. “I’m very sorry, Tilde, but he’s dead.”
He’d expected her to collapse with a howl of anguish, that she would clench her teeth and take out her grief on him with her fists, but she didn’t.
Instead, she seemed to retreat inside herself, as if something inside her had been extinguished. A spark that might otherwise have ignited the desire to look ahead, a fire to fuel the dreams these past years had taken from her. Everything went out at once as her arms fell to her sides and her head dropped.
Standing there, she resembled someone resigned to facing a firing squad. No tears, no struggle, no cries for mercy, no cries in anger. Just a person yielding to her fate.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Yes.”
And then she began ever so quietly to sob.
Marco put his arms around her as she cried, and told her everything that had tormented him for so long. And when he told her his own father had played a part in the death of her stepfather, he too began to weep. But instead of pushing him away, instead of spitting on him, she drew herself still closer to him so he felt the warmth of her breath against his cheek and the rapid pounding of her heart.
“I knew it,” she said, tears pouring now. “I knew he was dead. William would never just leave us, so I knew.”
“I’m off with this first carload, Tilde,” a woman’s voice called from the house.
She pulled away from Marco, dried her eyes on her sleeve, and told him to stay put.
“I’m staying here,” she called back, stepping forward into sight. “Is that OK?”
“Yes, fine. Just stay in the house till I come back. I’ll bring us something to eat. What would you like?”
From behind the trees Marco could see her whole body trembling again. But her voice was under control.
“Whatever,” she replied. “I’ll leave it up to you.”
They waved to each other, and when the car was gone she turned to him.
“We’re moving all our stuff out now. The police were here a few days ago, and after that, my mum didn’t want anything left here.”
“Why not?”
“They said all kinds of things about William that upset her. And something about you, too.”
“About me? What did they say?”
“It doesn’t matter; it wasn’t true. And they said he’d spent money that might not have been his. That’s something we simply can’t understand. We don’t believe he kept things secret from us. You wouldn’t either, if you knew him and had been in the house. It’s not a home with secrets.”
“I have been in the house,” he said.
Her face darkened as he told her about the times he had hidden there. About his curiosity, and the strange bond he felt he had with the place. And he told her about the time he’d hidden in the safe, and his puzzlement over the code inside.
“I don’t like the idea of you just breaking in. I don’t even know if I should be standing here, talking to you. It seems wrong all of a sudden.”
He nodded, but said nothing. What was there to say? He understood her completely.
“Have you lost your tongue?” she asked after a moment.
“You don’t have to talk to me. I just came to tell you the truth. Now you can pass it on to the police. Tell it to a detective called Carl Mørck. He was here, too.”
She looked surprised. “I know who he is. He was the one who told us about you.”
Marco looked up at her. So they had actually had contact. That was good news.
“What was that code in the safe you mentioned?” she asked. “Will you show me?”
–
She lay on her back on the floor and peered up inside the safe.
“A4C4C6F67,” she repeated to herself a couple of times, until she could remember it by heart.
Then she wriggled out and looked at him pensively.
“It’s a chess move,” she said with a frown. “A4 to C4 to C6 to F6 and 7. But why? It makes no sense at all.”
She shook her head. “William and I often played together, and those moves are useless, believe me.”
“I’ve never played chess. What does it mean? What’s C6, for instance?”
“It’s a square on the board. If you think of a chessboard, there are sixty-four squares in all. Eight horizontal and eight vertical. Each square has a label, starting in the bottom left corner, then moving horizontally from left to right, A, B, C, and so on, and from bottom to top, one, two, three, four, and up to eight.”
Marco tried to picture it. “So C6 is three to the side from the left and six up?”
“Yes, it is, but it’s a move that doesn’t make much sense.”
“But it was written inside the safe as well, so I don’t think they’re moves in a game. Maybe it’s supposed to indicate something else entirely.”
“A chessboard, perhaps?”
“But I just said…”
“Yes, I know, but maybe something that looks like one. Something with sixty-four squares.”
They looked at each other at once, the same thought dawning.
“How many flagstones are there in the patio?” Marco asked.
She took his hand and tugged him out of the house and into the garden.
The weather was still warm even though it was late in the day, but Tilde began to shiver as they counted the flags.
“You’re right. Eight one way and eight the other,” said Marco, trying to figure out what she was doing.
“This ought to work,” she said, picking up a white stone form the flower bed.
Then she counted the flagstones, index finger extended, and every time she came to one of the squares in question she wrote its number on it: A4, C4, C6, F6 and F7. Seven flagstones in all.
“You do it,” she said, and pointed at A4.
Marco glanced around.
“Over there,” she said, nodding toward a spade that was leaned against the shed.
Marco stuck it between the flags and upended A4.
There was a frenzy of insects in the sand, but nothing else.
“Dig into the sand,” she instructed.
He thrust the blade downward and felt an immediate resistance.
“Be careful,” she said, growing excited. “Use your hands.”
He got down on his knees and scraped away the sand until a small plastic container appeared in front of him. Now he, too, began to breathe more rapidly.
He opened the lid and removed the contents. Two gold rings, a coral necklace with matching bracelet and earrings, two brooches shaped like daisies, and a floppy disk labeled with small block letters: “AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON PENSION FUNDS, RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY AND CAPITAL MARKETS,” it read.
Marco didn’t get it. The jewelry wasn’t worth much, and he couldn’t make sense of the disk at all.
Tilde sat for a long while on her haunches, considering the items one by one before speaking. “Mum said she was sure he’d got rid of everything. But there was one time when I was really doing poorly and thought I was going to die, and William said that one day when I got married I was to wear the same jewelry as his mother had on when she got married.” She pressed her lips together. “And then there’s this.” She clutched the disk tight in her hand. “I knew why he never finished his thesis. He didn’t have time because of my illness. And look, he…”