Erica had planned to drive straight home to relieve Anna, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she continued on to Fjällbacka, heading for Mörhult. After hesitating about whether to turn left at the mini-golf course and go down to the boathouses, she decided to take the chance that they would be at home. By now it was late afternoon.
The door was propped open by a wooden clog decorated with flowers, and she stuck her head into the front hall. ‘Hello?’ she called.
She heard sounds from inside and a moment later John Holm appeared, holding a tea towel.
‘I’m sorry, am I interrupting your dinner?’ said Erica.
He glanced down at the towel. ‘No, not at all. I was washing my hands. Can I help you?’
‘My name is Erica Falck, and right now I’m working on a book…’
‘Aha, so you’re Fjällbacka’s famous author? Come join me in the kitchen. Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he said, giving her a warm smile. ‘So what brings you here?’
They sat down at the kitchen table.
‘I’m planning to write a book about what happened out on Valö.’ She thought she caught a hint of uneasiness in his blue eyes, but it vanished so swiftly that she might have just imagined it.
‘It’s strange how everybody seems to be so interested in Valö all of a sudden. If I’ve understood the local gossip correctly, then it was your husband that I talked to earlier today.’
‘Yes, I’m married to a police officer. Patrik Hedström.’
‘He had somebody else with him who was quite… interesting.’
It didn’t take much for Erica to realize who he was talking about.
‘I see you’ve had the honour of meeting Bertil Mellberg – the man, the myth, the legend!’
Holm laughed and Erica could feel herself falling under the spell of his charm. And that annoyed her. She detested everything that he and his party stood for, but at the moment he seemed harmless. Quite engaging, actually.
‘I’ve met his type before. Your husband, on the other hand, seems very good at his job.’
‘I’m partial, of course, but he’s a good policeman. He keeps digging until he finds out what he wants to know. Just like I do.’
‘You must make a dangerous team.’ Holm smiled again, showing two perfect dimples.
‘I suppose so. But sometimes it’s possible to get stuck. I’ve been researching the disappearance off and on for a few years, and now I’ve decided to take up the story again.’
‘And you’re going to write a book about it?’ This was accompanied by another glimmer of anxiety in Holm’s eyes.
‘That’s the plan. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’ She took out a pen and paper.
For a moment John Holm seemed to hesitate. ‘That’s fine,’ he said eventually. ‘But as I explained to your husband and his colleague, I don’t really have much to contribute.’
‘As I understand it, there were certain conflicts among members of the Elvander family.’
‘Conflicts?’
‘Yes. Apparently Rune’s children weren’t very fond of their stepmother.’
‘As pupils, we didn’t get involved in their family dynamics.’
‘But it was such a small school. You must have noticed what went on within the family.’
‘It didn’t interest us. We didn’t want anything to do with them. It was bad enough having to deal with Rune.’ Holm appeared to regret having agreed to answer her questions. He hunched his shoulders and fidgeted, which only increased Erica’s determination to press on. Apparently there was something about this line of enquiry that made John Holm uncomfortable.
‘What about Annelie? A sixteen-year-old girl and a bunch of teenage boys – how did that work?’
Holm snorted. ‘Annelie was totally boy-crazy, but none of us ever encouraged her. There are certain girls that you learn to stay away from, and Annelie was one of them. Besides, Rune would have murdered us if we so much as touched his daughter.’
‘What do you mean when you say that she was the kind of girl you learned to stay away from?’
‘She kept running after us and acting strange, and I think she would have loved getting us in trouble. One time she stretched out right outside our window to sunbathe topless, but Leon was the only one who dared look at her. He was a death-defying kind of guy, even back then.’
‘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.