She reached her hand across the table and took hold of his. I will never forget this moment, she thought.
He looked tired. His beard stubble was shiny black.
“I didn’t mean you any harm,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“With all this,” he said after a long time.
She still did not understand, but waited for a continuation.
“Jerker’s not doing well,” he said suddenly.
“Does he have a cold?”
“No, it’s his lungs. He has a hard time breathing.”
Jerker Widén had been Bernt’s workmate for many years.
“Angina, maybe.”
“They don’t know. But he’s worried, of course.”
“What are you worried about?”
He looked quickly at her.
“Losing you,” he said.
Gunilla started crying. She withdrew her hand and hid her face. Bernt started talking with a fervor that at last made him fall silent, embarrassed by his own words.
“Don’t say that,” she said. “You don’t need to explain everything. I know.”
“I’m thinking about Bosse too. I didn’t want it to go that way, just that he would disappear from your life. I knew you still cared about him. And then that money.”
“He needed it,” she said hotly.
He nodded.
“I’ll be on my way now,” he said. “I can stop by the storeroom.”
He got up and left the kitchen. She understood that nothing more would be said, and she was grateful for that.
As he went past Gunilla he stroked her across the back, and in the doorway he turned around.
“We need that money too,” he said.
She nodded, did not want to discuss it.
“Jerker wants to sell his boat,” he said.
She stared at him.
“Should we buy a boat?”
“We need to get out a little,” he said, unusually defensive.
“A boat?” she repeated, looking like he had suggested they should sail around the world.
“It’s in Skarholmen,” he said, nodded and disappeared. The lock clicked as he carefully closed the outside door behind him.
Gunilla shook her head. He had never mentioned being interested in the sea or boats. Was it Jerker who put that idea in his head? They were like clay and straw. Of course they had discussed her loan to Bosse, and now that it was no longer relevant, the money could be plowed into a boat project.
“We need to get out a little,” he said, and in principle she agreed, but she would never literally throw her money into the sea.
She had heard Jerker talk about his boat, but did not even know if it was a motorboat or a sailboat. It didn’t matter. A boat was just not going to happen!
Fourteen
“Why did you lie?”
Andreas Davidsson had not once looked Ann Lindell in the eyes, but instead continued stubbornly staring down between his feet. Sometimes he made a movement with one foot; Lindell did not see it, but heard the scraping sound of the sole against the pavestones.
They were sitting, like before, on the terrace. Lindell invited his mother to sit with them, but Andreas refused. Then he would not say a word, he explained. His mother did not put up a fight, on the contrary she sneaked off immediately. Did she have any idea that she too would be questioned? Lindell suspected more and more that she suffered from some defect, which made her incapable of fully understanding the consequences of their family lie.
Lindell had explained to both of them that she would tape the conversation. Andreas was over the age of fifteen and therefore liable for a criminal offense.
“I don’t know,” he forced out.
“If you can speak louder, that would be nice,” said Lindell, moving the tape recorder a little closer to the boy. “Okay, this is how it looks: Klara Lovisa disappeared on her sixteenth birthday. You and your mother have maintained the whole time that on that Saturday you were in Gävle visiting your grandmother. Your grandmother supported that version. Until yesterday, when I visited her. Then she was clearly having a pretty good day. You know she’s often confused, that’s not news to anyone in your family, is it?”
“Naw.”
“She was angry at you, do you know that? Because you didn’t come that Saturday. It was not only Klara Lovisa’s birthday, but also your grandfather’s. She was angry because you stayed home.”
“She’s so screwy,” said Andreas.
“Yes, sometimes she’s a little confused, we know that, but the problem for you is that your aunt, who I didn’t even know about until yesterday, confirmed your grandmother’s latest version, the true version. She was also there at the cemetery and at dinner. She is definitely not confused. I talked with her too. She remembers the dinner very well and that your grandmother quarreled with your mother because you weren’t there. You were still in Uppsala, weren’t you?”
He did not answer.
“Can you stop scraping your feet and answer the question instead!”
He shook his head.
“What does that headshaking mean?”
“I was at home.”
“Good, now we don’t have to argue about that,” said Lindell. “It’s nice when you say what really happened.”
The next question was a given, but she chose to wait in silence. After a while, no more than half a minute, Andreas looked at her for the first time, a momentary glance. Lindell nodded and tried to look encouraging.
“What did you do on Saturday the twenty-eighth of April?”
“I was at home, like I said.”
“The whole day?”
“Yes.”
“A Saturday? It was a beautiful spring day. You didn’t go outside even once?”
“No.”
“Did you have any visitors?”
“No.”
“Did anyone call?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Were you waiting for someone to call?”
The answer was delayed, and came in the form of another shake of the head.
“Perhaps you thought that Klara Lovisa would be in touch?”
“Lay off! Haven’t you understood that it was over?”
“It was her birthday.”
“I know that!”
“Did you send an SMS to wish her happy birthday, perhaps?”
Suddenly Lindell felt sorry for the boy. He was suffering all the torments of hell before her eyes. She understood now why he stayed at home. He had been waiting for a response from her. He must have sent her a text message, maybe said something about wanting to see her.
“You didn’t go to her house, did you?”
“No.”
“When did you find out that she had disappeared, did you see it in the newspaper?”
“I knew it before. Klovisa’s mom called here.”
“On Saturday evening?”
“Yes, she wondered if I’d seen her.”
“And then your mom decided that you should lie, that you had been in Gävle?”
“We didn’t know anything.”
“So the lie came about when you read in the paper that she had disappeared,” Lindell observed. “But you had no reason to pretend. You were home the whole day and had no contact with her, so why this song and dance?”
“I don’t know.”
“You did have contact with her, didn’t you? Think now, before you tell another lie. They often crack. I know that, I’m a police officer, I’ve questioned hundreds like you. The truth almost always creeps out.”
“I texted her,” he said at last.
“When was that?”
Andreas pulled out his cell phone. Lindell understood that he had saved his message and she felt a stab in her heart.
“Nine twenty-two,” he said.
“What did you write?”
“‘Happy sixteenth birthday. Can we meet?’” he read from the display.
“You got no answer.”
“No.”
She could imagine his anguish, first before he sent it, then afterward, while he waited for a possible reply from Klara Lovisa.
They sat in silence. Lindell peeked at her watch. In an hour she should pick up Erik, who was at a birthday party on Botvidsgatan. A playmate at preschool was turning seven.