She ordered a cinnamon bun and a soft drink, then sat down at a table by the window with a view of the square. The Christmas tree lights were already on, brightening the December darkness.
She glanced at her watch. Iben was ten minutes late, which wasn’t like her. The pain in her stomach was coming back. Part of her wanted to get up and walk out, but she had to know.
Iben came rushing in at quarter past four.
‘Sorry I’m so late!’
There was a distinctive whiff of cigarette smoke as Iben pulled off her jacket and hat and draped them over an empty chair. She noticed it herself.
‘I was talking to my friends in the smoking area at break time,’ she said. ‘I’d better air my jacket before I go home to Dad!’
Iben didn’t smoke; her father would never allow it. Laura had heard what happened when Ulf caught Iben’s brothers smoking. He’d forced Christian and Fredrik to do fifty laps of the athletics track. Fifty laps, that was twenty kilometres. It had poured with rain for the last half-hour, but Ulf had insisted they carry on.
She could see Iben’s lips moving, but she wasn’t really hearing what Iben was saying. She was too busy studying her face. Iben was wearing makeup again today. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were shining. Another, fainter smell drifted across from Iben’s jacket. A smell Laura recognised all too well.
The cloying scent of a strawberry air freshener.
‘You’ve been with Jack,’ she interrupted Iben mid-sentence. ‘You’re together . . .’ Her voice gave way.
‘Oh, Laura . . .’ Iben had gone pale. ‘A lot of things have happened over the past few months.’
She placed a hand on Laura’s arm.
‘Dad’s saying I can’t go to the sports college in Malmö, even though he promised. He thinks it’s better if I stay at home and train with him, but I can’t stand that dump any longer. I have to get away. Jack . . .’
She faltered.
‘Jack’s the only one who understands. The only one who backs me up.’
Laura pushed her hand away.
‘You knew how I felt. You knew what happened between me and Jack in the summer.’
Iben shook her head.
‘You don’t understand, Laura. You’re only here in the holidays, when everything’s fine. You don’t see . . . the rest of it.’
‘What do you mean, the rest of it? You winning every competition, getting top grades in every subject? Is it all so fucking stressful that you have to go behind my back?’
Iben was still shaking her head. Tears had begun to trickle down her cheeks, but Laura didn’t care. Actually, it felt good to have swapped places. To be the one who was dishing it out instead of being hurt.
‘You don’t understand,’ Iben said again.
Laura got to her feet. Her chest was burning, her throat, her cheeks. Iben had betrayed her, and yet she was trying to make Laura feel sorry for her. This was one competition she wasn’t going to win.
‘You can go to hell, Iben. I never want to speak to you again, is that clear? I hope you die!’
She noticed Ella Bengtsson watching them from behind the counter as she grabbed her jacket and ran out without making eye contact with anyone.
14
I’ll always love you, Princess!
Always? Even when you’re dead?
Yes. Even then . . .
Vedarp church looks exactly as she remembers it. Whitewashed walls, dark wooden pews that feel rock-hard to her sore tailbone. An altar covered in a white cloth, a cross and two candlesticks, with an altarpiece sufficiently nondescript not to divert attention from the sermon.
The coffin is simple – smooth, white-glazed pine, allowing the age of the wood to show through. It reminds Laura of another, smaller coffin. She tucks the memory back in the box where it belongs.
The funeral director and his assistant have wheeled the coffin to the front of the church on a trolley.
‘Would you like to see her?’ he asks. ‘We’ve got time.’
Her first thought when he opens the lid is, That’s not Hedda. In Laura’s mind Hedda is just over forty, with long red hair and freckles. She’s strong and wiry and can tell anyone to go to hell, then tell them in the next breath how much she loves them.
The woman in the coffin is old, with long grey hair. Her skin is pale and wrinkled; it looks as if it still bears traces of the cold from the water. The hands folded over her chest are bent, the backs marked with dark liver spots.
The little finger and ring finger are missing from the left hand, the stumps covered in a network of scar tissue that Laura recognises all too well. Her back begins to burn. The memory is vivid. The roar of the flames, the stench of burned flesh. The screams that slice into her ears. Her own screams, but someone else’s too. Someone carrying her across the ice. The sense of floating on a cloud of white-hot pain.
And finally, the moment before the icy waters of the lake extinguish the whole world: Hedda’s face above her. The tears, the anger. The pain.
You burned your hand for my sake, she thinks. To save me. Is that why you were angry with me? Why you never contacted me again? Or was it because you knew it was all my fault?
Hedda doesn’t answer, either in Laura’s head or in the real world. Dead people don’t usually respond.
‘You can close the lid now,’ Laura says.
The hotel has cleaned and pressed her shirt and black trouser suit. There was really no need. She’s careful with her clothes, always uses a garment bag to minimise the risk of creasing. However, everything smells fresh when it comes straight from the laundry service, still covered in plastic and with a faint aroma of chemicals.
There’s a pool, which is why she drove an extra sixty kilometres to stay here. She did three thousand metres yesterday after dealing with four work calls. She was hoping to wash away the final traces of Gärdsnäset and Hedda’s house, but didn’t really succeed. The problem is that it’s her house now, her rundown holiday village, her scruffy possessions. A horrible mess that is corroding the inside of her head just as the bird shit ate away at the roof of her car, a mess she is desperate to get rid of as soon as possible. She’s gone over the events of the previous day several times, trying to work out what was nagging away at her, but it’s still there. She keeps remembering those cigarette butts she found. Prince Red, the brand Jack used to smoke.
Is he the one who’s been at Gärdsnäset? Is he the one who stood among the trees spying on her, but didn’t have the courage to come and knock on the door? Is he going to show up in a little while?
Fifteen minutes before the funeral is due to begin, Laura is a bundle of nerves, yet at the same time inappropriately excited.
The door of the church creaks open and she eagerly turns around, but it’s only Håkansson. He gives her a brief nod and sits down at the back. He is followed by three tall men in dark suits. Two are in their fifties, the third in his seventies. They make a beeline for Laura as if they know her, and she gets to her feet.
The older man’s hair and eyebrows are chalk-white, and the expression behind his glasses is intense and familiar. She knows who he is before he opens his mouth.
‘So, little Laura. It’s been a long time. Are you still trying to teach people to talk properly?’
‘No, not anymore,’ she replies. She immediately realises two things about Ulf Jensen. The sunken eyes, the sallow skin, the false teeth that have become slightly too big for his mouth, the exaggeratedly erect posture – they all tell their tale. Iben’s father is seriously ill, but he’s trying to pretend that everything is fine.