Ebba couldn’t stop looking at the pictures. She had asked for some time alone and had taken all the material about her family up to Erica’s work room. After casting a glance at the cluttered desk she had simply sat down on the floor and spread out the copies of the photos in a fan-shape in front of her. These were her family members, her roots. Even though she’d had a good life with her adoptive family, she had sometimes been envious that they had blood relatives to whom they were connected. The only thing she was connected to was a mystery. She thought about all the times she’d studied the framed photos on top of the large bureau in the living room: maternal grandparents, paternal grandparents, aunts and cousins – all of them related, so that their descendants felt that they were links in a long chain. Now she was studying pictures of her own relatives, and she was filled with a feeling both wondrous and strange.
Ebba picked up the photo of the Angelmaker. What a beautiful name for something so ghastly. She held the picture closer, trying to see if there was anything in Helga’s eyes that would reveal the evil she had done. Ebba didn’t know whether the photo had been taken before or during the period when all the children were murdered, but the little girl in the picture, who had to be Dagmar, was so young that it must have been taken around 1902. Dagmar was wearing a light-coloured dress with flounces, and she had no idea of the fate that awaited her. What had happened to her? Had she drowned in the sea, as so many apparently believed? Had her disappearance been a natural end to a life that was already shattered when the crime that her parents had committed was discovered? Had Helga felt remorse? Did she understand the effect it would have on her daughter when her crime was discovered? Or was she convinced that no one would ever miss those unwanted children? The questions began to pile up inside Ebba’s head, but she knew that she would never learn the answers. Yet she felt such a connection to these women.
She examined the other picture of Dagmar. Her face bore clear traces of a hard life, but it was obvious that she had once been beautiful. What had happened to her daughter Laura on those occasions when the police had arrested Dagmar, or when she was taken to the hospital? From what Ebba understood, Laura had no other relatives. Had friends taken care of her, or had she ended up in an orphanage or foster home?
Suddenly Ebba remembered that she had found herself wondering about her roots when she was pregnant with Vincent. It was his past too, after all. Strangely enough, those speculations had ceased as soon as he was born. Partly because she hadn’t had time to spare for any sort of pondering, and partly because he had taken her over so completely – she was consumed by his scent, the fine down on the nape of his neck, and the dimples on his little knuckles. Everything else seemed utterly unimportant. She herself had become unimportant. She and Tobias had been reduced, or perhaps elevated, to mere extras in the film about Vincent. She had loved her new role, but it had made the void even greater when he was gone. Now she was a mother without a child, a meaningless extra in a film that suddenly lacked its star. But the pictures spread out in front of her gave her a renewed sense of continuity.
She could hear Erica moving around in the kitchen downstairs, with the children playing and shouting, while here she sat, surrounded by her relatives. All of them were dead, but she still felt an enormous solace in the knowledge that they had once existed.
Ebba drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She wondered how Tobias was doing. She had barely given him a thought since she’d come here, and if she was perfectly honest, she hadn’t really cared much for him after Vincent died. How could she, when she was immersed in her own grief? But somehow this new sense of family connection was now making her realize for the first time in a while that Tobias was a part of her. Who could she share her memories with other than Tobias? He had been at her side, caressed her stomach as her pregnancy progressed, and watched Vincent’s heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor. He had wiped the sweat from her brow, massaged her back, and brought her water during the birth – that long, terrible and yet amazing twenty-four hours when she had fought to bring Vincent into the world. The baby had resisted, but when he finally opened his eyes to the light and peered at them cross-eyed, Tobias had grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. He’d made no effort to hide his tears, merely wiped his cheeks on his shirtsleeve. And later they had shared all those wakeful nights when Vincent cried, and his first smile, and the appearance of his first teeth. They had cheered him on as he wobbled back and forth when he was learning to crawl, and Tobias had filmed the first faltering steps he took. Their son’s first word, first sentence, and his first day at the day-care centre; laughter and tears; good days and bad. Tobias was the only person who truly understood when she talked about any of these things. There was no one else.
As she sat there on the floor, Ebba felt her heart growing warmer. That tiny piece that had been so cold and hard was starting to thaw. She would stay here one more night, but then she would go back home. To Tobias. It was time to let go of the guilt and start living again.
Anna steered the boat out of the harbour and lifted her face to the sun. To be without her husband and children filled her with an unexpected sense of freedom. She had borrowed Erica and Patrik’s boat since there was no more petrol in the Finnish Buster motorboat, and she was enjoying driving the familiar snipa. The evening light made the cliffs surrounding Fjällbacka harbour shimmer like gold. She heard laughter coming from the Café Bryggan, and music playing. No one seemed to have ventured out on the dance floor yet, but after a few beers, it would undoubtedly get quite crowded.
She cast a glance at her bag holding the fabric samples. It was on the floor in the middle of the boat, and she checked to see that the zipper was securely closed.
Ebba had already seen the samples and immediately selected several favourites that she wanted Tobias to approve. Her comments had prompted Anna to consider going out to Valö that very same evening. At first she had hesitated. The island was not a safe place, as she had so dramatically discovered the day before, and an impulsive trip out there seemed more like something she would have done in her old life, when she seldom thought about consequences. But for once she decided to follow up on her initial inclination. What could possibly happen? She would go out there, show Tobias the samples, and then return home. It was just a way of passing the time, she told herself. And maybe Tobias would be happy for some company. Ebba had decided to spend another night at Erica’s house in order to take a closer look at the materials about her family, although Anna suspected that was just a pretext. Ebba seemed reluctant to return to the island, and understandably so.
As Anna neared the dock, she saw Tobias waiting there for her. She had phoned ahead to tell him of her visit, and he must have been keeping an eye out for her arrival.
‘So you dare to come back out here to the wild west?’ he said with a laugh as he reached for the bow.
‘I’ve always liked defying fate.’ Anna tossed the line to Tobias, who moored the boat with a practised hand. ‘You look like you’re already an old salt,’ she said, pointing to the half-hitch he’d tied around one of the bollards on the dock.
‘You’ve got to be if you live in the archipelago.’ He held out his hand to help her ashore. His other hand was wrapped in a bandage.
‘Thanks. What did you do to your hand?’
Tobias examined the bandage as if he’d never noticed it before. ‘Oh, that’s just the sort of thing that happens when you’re doing renovation work. All part of the job.’