A stranger.
She turned her head towards the edge of the forest, but the faint light from the lamp outside her house was swallowed up by the darkness.
For a few seconds she hoped she was mistaken, but the raucous cries went on, with no sign of diminishing.
She hadn’t heard a car engine or the crunch of footsteps on gravel, so the stranger was coming through the forest. She rarely had visitors out here, and certainly not those who came sneaking in the night.
It could mean only one thing: she had been too eager. Dug too deep. Given herself away, somehow.
Her chest contracted, a sharp burning pain with which she was unfortunately all too familiar.
What was she going to do now?
The phone was up in the house, and even if she got there before her visitor, who would she call? What would she say?
That the past had returned. Who would believe her?
And starting to run towards the house would reveal how frightened she was.
Because she was frightened, there was no denying it. Frightened for herself, but mostly for Laura. The pain in her chest increased, making it difficult to breathe.
Flight was out of the question, so all she could do was sit here and finish smoking her joint. Hope that good would triumph in spite of everything. Especially in a place like this.
She focused her attention on the lake once more, took a deep drag. Tried to stop her hands from shaking.
A slight vibration in the pontoon made the chains resume their litany of complaints, joining the cawing of the crows and her own erratic heartbeat. She suppressed the urge to look around. Stayed exactly where she was, looking out over the dark water.
The footsteps stopped right behind her. The pontoon continued to bob gently up and down, then grew still. The crows fell silent at almost exactly the same moment – as if they were curious, wanted to hear what was said.
She gazed at the yearning light on the far shore. Took one last drag and tossed the stub into the lake. The glow formed an arc before it was swallowed up. An offering to the nymph, the mistress of the lake, she thought. Suddenly she was filled with a strange sense of calm, a kind of sorrow that slowed her racing heart.
‘I know why you’re here,’ she said without turning her head. ‘You want to find out how much I actually know.’
No response.
Slowly she looked around.
The visitor was no more than a metre away, looming over her like a shadow. The hood was pulled up, the face in darkness.
‘I’ve worked it all out,’ Hedda said slowly. ‘The offers, the building project, who’s behind it all.’
The visitor remained silent and motionless.
Hedda wondered whether to go on, but it was too late to stop now. Too late to change her mind. The truth must come out. For Laura’s sake. For the sake of the other children. For her own sake.
She filled her lungs with air. Swallowed.
‘The Lucia fire,’ she said, and saw the visitor’s head come up a fraction. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’
She turned back to the lake, fixed her eyes on that solitary light far away on the opposite shore.
‘I know what really happened that night,’ she said. ‘And why . . .’
1
She hates the winter, has done ever since she was little – or almost. Once upon a time there was ice skating and sledging, camp fires, a flask of hot chocolate and friends to share it with. But that was a long time ago, before the Lucia Day fire.
Now there is only the cold.
‘So . . . Laura.’
Her table companion glances at the place card next to her wine glass for at least the third time. His name is Niklas, and so far he’s turned out to be both dull and nervous. He’s managed to spill something on his tie – or even worse, he chose to put on a tie with a stain already on it when he was dressing for dinner.
‘How do you know Stephanie?’
The question is almost laughably predictable.
‘We met through work a few years ago, but now we’re good friends.’
Laura is trying to be polite. She doesn’t say that Steph is her best friend, sadly perhaps her only friend. Except possibly Andreas.
Niklas asks her something else, but the loud alpha male opposite them, who has been holding court ever since he made his ostentatious entrance three-quarters of an hour ago, says something funny and the laughter from the other guests drowns out Niklas’s voice.
She should have turned down this invitation, explained that she has a headache and too much work to do, but she had promised Steph. Promised to behave herself and give nervous Niklas a chance.
‘It’s important for you to get back in the saddle, Laura. Find somebody new. Yeehaa!’
To be fair, Steph didn’t actually say ‘yeehaa’, that was Laura’s own addition. She takes a big gulp of her wine and decides she’s being unfair. Steph grew up in the USA, and tends to speak both Swedish and English at the same time. Sometimes Laura thinks she does it deliberately, exaggerating her use of Swenglish to make her stand out from the crowd, which really isn’t necessary.
She glances over at the head of the table. As always, Steph looks good in a dress that shows just the right amount of décolletage. Her blonde hair is perfectly styled, and she is sitting with her head tilted to one side in the way that makes every man in her vicinity want to be of service. Steph is two years older than Laura, but the cosmetic procedures she’s undergone are so discreet and professional that no one would think she’s a day over forty.
Laura, on the other hand, definitely looks forty-five. She has crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and a furrow in her brow that shows up particularly well on the kind of alabaster skin that only redheads have. She inherited her hair colour and skin tone from her father, but she alone is responsible for the grim set of her mouth.
She is wearing a long-sleeved shirt beneath a cashmere cardigan, and even though the warmth in the room has already prompted a few of the gentlemen to loosen their ties, her fingertips and the end of her nose are freezing cold. They always are, all year round, thanks to the winter fire. Or rather because of it. She feels no gratitude towards it whatsoever.
She and Steph are the polar opposites of each other in many ways. Steph is open and extrovert; she’s built up her own business from scratch. Laura took over her father’s company. Handed everything on a plate, as her mother points out on a regular basis.
Steph must have felt Laura’s eyes on her; she looks in her direction and nods meaningfully. Laura gets the message. Pull yourself together and give the guy a chance.
She sighs and turns back to Niklas. Tries to avoid fixating on the stain on his tie.
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.’
Niklas blushes.
‘I was just wondering if you worked in investment too?’
‘No, my speciality is risk management. Mainly the soft sector.’
Niklas looks puzzled, and she realises she needs to expand on her answer.
‘We assess people – to see if they’re suitable to be taken on, or promoted. You might have heard of screening?’
‘You mean you find out if they have a criminal record, that kind of thing?’
She can hear from his tone of voice that he doesn’t understand, which is hardly surprising. Her area is narrow, to say the least.
‘That’s just a small part of what we do. We aim to form a more comprehensive picture of the person. Look into their finances, family relationships, talk to their former teachers, employers, colleagues. We carry out over a hundred different checks, and sometimes we even conduct in-depth interviews.’
She doesn’t mention that this is in fact her own area of expertise; no point in scaring him unnecessarily. She’s already worked out most things about Niklas – mainly that she has absolutely no intention of seeing him again, whatever Steph says.