A man and a woman are sitting at the table in the middle of the room.
The man is aged about seventy, but looks older. His face is grey, his skin almost transparent. His gaze is fixed on the woman opposite, but his eyes are empty. He can’t really take in what he is seeing, which is hardly surprising. The woman he is staring at is a ghost. The dead walking again. Maybe she is the nymph, risen from the bottom of the lake? That’s what some people are saying.
The woman is between forty and fifty, and she is wearing the green tracksuit required by the custody suite. No makeup, her hair tied back in a tight ponytail. Still blonde, but Sandberg can see her dark natural colour beginning to come through at the roots.
‘I’m going to tell them everything,’ the woman says to the old man. Her speech sounds awkward, as if she is speaking with an accent she hasn’t used for many years. ‘I wanted you to know that, just in case you manage to die before the trial is over.’
The woman leans across the table, her lips curling in a contemptuous smile.
‘And when I’m done with you, Daddy dear, no one will be able to mention Ulf Jensen or Källegården without spitting afterwards. That will be your legacy, the only thing you leave behind. A bad taste in the mouth.’
The woman sits back, folding her arms and looking pleased with herself. The smile is simultaneously triumphant, angry and malicious.
But Sandberg sees something else in her eyes. A glimpse of a damaged, lonely little girl who has been let down by all those who should have protected her.
He feels a flicker in his chest, a sensation he can’t explain. Without knowing why, he thinks of his own children and grandchildren.
And for the first time in his long career, Bengt Sandberg realises that he is actually looking forward to his retirement.
Epilogue 2
The winter that relented for a little while in December came back with a vengeance in January. Held the landscape in its icy grip until well into March, but at long last spring came to the lake. The light, the green shoots, the returning migrant birds.
The car is a Jaguar, so old that there are no seat belts in the back, which worries Laura slightly. Peter notices; he pats her knee gently and nods in the direction of Johnny Miller, who is at the wheel.
‘He never drives faster than fifty. And we’re not going far.’
Laura accepts the reassurance, but checks that Elsa has fastened her belt in the passenger seat. She and Johnny are chatting loudly about goodness knows what; Laura can’t hear over the music coming from the speaker. It’s one of Johnny’s own songs. She’s learned to like some of them. Peter leans over.
‘So what did your brother say? Any issues?’
‘No. Marcus and Mum were happy with the price the valuer suggested. We signed the contract, so it’s all settled. The company is their problem now.’
‘What are you going to do with all that money?’
She thinks about Gärdsnäset, the dilapidated cabins, Hedda’s burned-down house, the old pontoon.
‘Oh, I’m sure there’s a bottomless pit somewhere that I can pour it into.’
She sees from Peter’s smile that he understands. She likes it when he smiles. More than likes it.
She takes his hand and squeezes it. In the front seats Elsa and Johnny have started singing along.
The farm is ten minutes away.
Johnny shows them into the barn as if the place were his, but the farmer doesn’t seem to mind.
‘There,’ Johnny says, pointing eagerly behind a hay bale.
The mother cat is lying on her side, with four grey tabby kittens tumbling around her.
‘Do any of them fit the bill?’
Elsa bends down, carefully examines each kitten in turn. Settles on one that has taken itself off to the side and is washing its paws.
‘This one,’ she says, picking it up. The kitten immediately starts playing with the ties on her jacket.
‘That’s a female,’ the farmer says.
‘Excellent!’ Elsa smiles and lifts the kitten above her head. ‘Have I got it right, Aunt Laura?’
Laura nods and smiles. Feels a pleasant sensation begin to spread through her chest, as if the warmth of spring has reached her core. She takes Peter’s hand again, squeezes it as tightly as she can.
Elsa lifts the kitten even higher until her arms are fully extended. A beam of spring sunshine finds its way through the wooden planks making up the walls of the barn, lighting up her face and making her eyes sparkle.
‘Welcome back to our family, little George.’
Author’s Note
Vedarp and Vintersjön are both fictional places. Like Tornaby in Rites of Spring and Reftinge in End of Summer, they are based on the area where I grew up in north-western Skåne, principally the communities of Bjuv, Åstorp and Ängelholm.
The thirteenth of December in Sweden is known as Lucia Day, or Saint Lucia’s Day. A Christian feast day that can be traced back to the fourth century, it commemorates the martyr Lucia of Syracuse, who, according to legend, brought food to Christians hiding in Roman catacombs. She found her way by wearing a candlelit wreath on her head and today the custom includes ‘Luciatåg’ processions featuring a Lucia with a lit-up wreath, her handmaidens, and star boys who all wear white and decorative red ribbons. They sing the main Lucia song, ‘Sankta Lucia’, before Lucia and her helpers hand out treats, such as gingerbread biscuits and an S-shaped saffron bun called a ‘Lussekatt’.
About the Author
Anders de la Motte is the bestselling author of the Seasons Quartet; the first three books of which – End of Summer, Deeds of Autumn and Dead of Winter – have all been number one bestsellers in Sweden and have been shortlisted for the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year. Anders, a former police officer, also won a Swedish Academy Crime Award for his debut, Game, in 2010 and for his second standalone novel, The Silenced, in 2015.
To date, the first three books in the Seasons Quartet have published over half a million copies. Set in southern Sweden, all four books can be read independently.
Rites of Spring
End of Summer
Deeds of Autumn