She is the girl, Peter is the boy.
She shudders.
But there are more figures inside the dance hall. In one corner behind the piles of furniture a boy is slumped, with little plastic flames all around his hands. She doesn’t need to look any closer to know that this is Tomas.
Iben is there too, looking in the mirror in the toilet behind the stage. Her dark hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail.
Outside among the trees, two figures are standing side by side, watching. One has a large dressing on his forehead, the other’s hood is pulled up.
‘The moment before the catastrophe,’ she murmurs to herself. She reaches out and gently touches Jack with her fingertips.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Laura spins around. She was so absorbed in the model that she didn’t hear Peter coming. He is wearing his dressing gown and slippers and would look quite sweet if it weren’t for the expression on his face. Pure rage.
‘You have no right to snoop around in here!’ he shouts. Laura instinctively holds up her hands.
‘I wasn’t snooping.’
This is clearly a lie, and Peter knows it.
‘Get out!’ he yells. ‘Get out of my house!’
His face is white with fury, his fists opening and closing. Laura thinks about the training dummy in the gym, the fact that someone has delivered thousands of blows to its face. Someone filled with pent-up anger. Years and years of humiliations and hurt feelings.
She lowers her hands.
‘I’m so sorry, Peter. You’re right, it was wrong of me. I’ll leave immediately.’
She quickly walks past him and heads for the door without looking at him. Suppresses a sudden urge to run towards the staircase.
Peter doesn’t follow her. He stays where he is, and as she is about to set off up the stairs she thinks she hears him let out a sob.
62
Gärdsnäset is silent and peaceful once more. All that remains of last night’s drama is a series of tyre tracks criss-crossing the yard. The temperature has risen, making the mist thicken over the lake and hiding the black eye in the middle.
It is beginning to grow light, and some of the crows who are early risers greet her with raucous cries.
She unlocks the door, switches on the lights and is met by the familiar smell of dust, dirt and loneliness. She almost calls out to George, but stops herself at the last minute. The George dynasty at Gärdsnäset is over. The thought makes her sad.
She makes tea and sits down at the kitchen table, trying to process the events of last night and this morning.
It’s obvious that Peter is just as much of a mess as she is. He deals with his grief by methodically recreating key moments from his life. The car crash and the dance hall were already finished, but he was still working on the ship. A happier project than the others. Does that mean anything? She hopes so, for Peter’s sake. And Elsa’s.
She decides to call him from Hedda’s phone to apologise once again for overstepping the mark, but when she picks up the receiver, there is no dial tone. Presumably the phone bill was in one of the envelopes Hedda decided to ignore. Or maybe all the dust she and Elsa have churned up has made the old phone breathe its last.
Mobile coverage is as patchy as ever, so she makes do with a text. Sits and stares at the screen while her phone slowly sends the message.
So what now? Is she going to sell to the castle? Let Pontus and Erica turn the lake into a playground for their rich friends? Or trust the council to keep their lukewarm promise not to employ Ulf Jensen and his sons?
She takes a sip of her tea, contemplates Hedda’s noticeboard. Her aunt struggled with exactly the same dilemma; that was why she set everything out in one place. To give her an overview.
The contracts, the letter from Tomas, the notes someone destroyed. The black feather from a cygne noir, which Laura has put back in its place at the top of the board. It must have symbolised Iben’s secret, the unbelievable, terrible thing that had gone on right in front of them. Ulf Jensen had abused his daughter for years without anyone noticing. And since then he has played the grieving father for thirty years; he even persuaded the council to rename the school in honour of his victim.
The thought enrages her. She can’t sell to the council, can’t risk helping Ulf Jensen in any way. At the same time, selling to the castle doesn’t feel right either.
And several mysteries still remain.
It seems likely that Tomas was behind the fires. He didn’t exactly lack motive: he loathed his father, he loved Iben, and he knew what Ulf had done to her. Maybe he was the one who’d killed those sheep over at Alkärret all those years ago, a silent way of hitting back. But why would he try to frame her for the fires?
Tomas wasn’t a planner; he did as he was told.
So who was the nymph who had persuaded Tomas to start fires wherever Laura had been?
Who planted the petrol can and the insulating material in the boathouse?
Who killed George?
And what about Hedda’s death? Was it because of the Jensen family’s secrets that she died out there in the cold water, or was there another reason? One that Laura hadn’t yet worked out?
Who is behind the von Thurns’ bid for Gärdsnäset, since they clearly don’t have the funds themselves?
There are several people in the area who have money and a possible interest – Johnny Miller, for example. But why hide behind Vintersjöholm Development?
Laura sits down and tips out Hedda’s old photographs on the coffee table in front of her. For want of a better idea, she decides to sort them into piles.
Hedda and Johnny Miller, along with pictures of their love child Jack Olsson, who wasn’t Prince Charming but was in fact her cousin.
Another pile for pictures of herself and Hedda, a third for the Goonies gang.
She finds two photos stuck together, and carefully separates them. Jack and Milla by his car – standing at little too close to each other? They both left the area at about the same time, and they are both listed as no longer resident in Sweden.
And yet it has never occurred to her that they might have gone away together. Not until now.
The realisation makes her go cold all over. She replays all the memories she can dredge up of Jack and Milla – gestures, tone of voice, words. One memory grows clearer and clearer. She is sitting by her window, watching a female figure among the trees. A figure who ran from Jack’s apartment towards cabin number six.
Can it be true? Did Jack and Milla fool them all? She doesn’t want to believe it.
But if it’s true, what does that mean?
She stares at the photograph. She hasn’t seen Milla’s face for thirty years. It looks the same as she remembers it – but somehow it doesn’t. She screws up her eyes, tries to imagine that face thirty years older. After cosmetic surgery, maybe.
She hears the sound of a car engine and glances out of the window to see Ulf Jensen’s white pickup truck pull up in the yard, accompanied by the crows’ cacophony of warning cries.
She considers locking the door, but all the lights are on and her car is parked outside. Instead, she picks up her phone and sends a quick text to Peter and Steph.
Am at Gärdsnäset. Jensens are here, please come!
She presses send, watches the little symbol slowly move sideways, then slips the phone into her pocket. She looks out of the window again; Fredrik has Christian with him, which makes her feel a little better.
She definitely doesn’t want them in the house, so she puts on her jacket and meets them on the porch.