‘I don’t think so,’ said Alex, his breathing sounding rather shallow. ‘I think Johanna was lying about which of them was raped that summer, and I think she may have hated her family ever since.’
They were about to end the call when Alex added:
‘If I haven’t made it clear before now, I just want you to know I’m going to miss you in the team when you go off on maternity leave.’
As if it was something he felt he needed to say before he got into the flying squad minibus and left HQ. For some reason it reduced Fredrika almost to tears, and she had to compose herself for a moment before going back to Elsie.
The last thing she did before she opened the door of the interview room was to turn off her mobile phone.
‘So,’ she said to Elsie as she put the water down on the table. ‘What brings you to see us this evening?’
Like many good storytellers, Elsie had a wonderful memory for detail to fall back on as she told her tale to Fredrika.
‘We went out to Ekerö to surprise them that midsummer’s eve,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Marja and Jakob had told us, you know, about the way it was usually just them, just the family, but our plans fell through that year and the boys got on so well with their girls, so we thought we were bound to be welcome if we just turned up.’
They had been surprised all right. Elsie’s memories of that evening were vivid.
‘Driving back later that night, we knew things we could never have imagined about the way Jakob and Marja lived. We didn’t have a clue that he hid refugees like that, and we didn’t know about his medical condition, either. It was Marja’s decision not to ring a doctor or the police; she said as long as the girls got away from the holiday house, it would only be a matter of time before wounds healed and memories faded. It was complete madness.’
Elsie looked furious and Fredrika felt a sense of exasperation coming over her, too. But she had learned not to judge people too hastily or too harshly. Who knew what experiences from her own past life had made Marja act as she did?
‘But surely it was only one of the girls who was… injured?’ Fredrika began, hearing Elsie talk about them in the plural.
‘That depends how you look at it,’ Elsie said tersely. ‘Karolina was a physical mess, of course, but Johanna was beside herself. It was as if her whole world had fallen to pieces when she realised her parents weren’t thinking of any more drastic measures than just getting the refugees out of the house as soon as possible and clearing off back into town.’
Fredrika swallowed.
‘So it was Karolina who was raped, after all?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Elsie, ‘and later, when she was grown up and fell in love with our Måns, he and she had a lot of private chats about what happened that evening.’
A look of great sadness came over her as she described the time when Karolina was coming and going as a daughter-in-law in their home.
‘Karolina was awfully good at expressing things in words,’ Elsie said, the tears coming into her eyes. ‘When she was a child, she clearly didn’t know what to make of the “guests in the basement”, as her parents called them. And in those first years after the rape she very naturally felt a burning hatred of every immigrant she saw. But then something happened which changed all that.’
Elsie looked unsure of herself.
‘You must say if I’m telling you things you already know.’
‘I’m more than happy to listen,’ Fredrika said, working out in her head how many minutes away from Ekerö Alex must be by now.
‘Karolina was involved in a car accident just after she took her driving test,’ Elsie said. ‘She was visiting relations in Skåne and the car skidded on black ice when she was going across a bridge. The car went straight through the side of the bridge and fell into the river. She’d never have got out if it hadn’t been for a young man who saw it happen. He threw himself in after her and fought like a tiger to get the car door open and get her out.’
‘And this young man was an immigrant?’
Elsie smiled through her tears.
‘From Palestine. After that, Karolina couldn’t let herself carry on feeling the way she had done. She accepted what had happened that summer and came over to her father’s side. Maybe because she’d done everything she could for several years to show how much she hated him and blamed him. And believe me, Jakob paid a high price.’
‘It made him ill?’
‘Extremely. It was the first time he was so bad that he had to be admitted for treatment. Marja was the only one who went to visit him.’
A suspicion began to take shape in Fredrika’s mind.
‘And Johanna?’
Elsie took a slow, deep breath.
‘Well her story’s really far more tragic than Karolina’s. You see, she was Daddy’s girl all the time she was growing up. And when Jakob let Karolina down so grotesquely after the rape – because however we choose to look at it, it was a sort of betrayal – Johanna fought her sister’s corner. Year after year. Until Karolina’s car accident and conversion. That left Johanna with nowhere to go. Her relationship with Jakob was in tatters, and suddenly her sister was Daddy’s favourite. I think Johanna felt cruelly let down.’
The photos in the Ekerö house came into Fredrika’s mind.
‘So she turned her back on the family,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, or at least, she only saw them sporadically. And it was when Jakob started talking about hiding refugees at the holiday house again that she decided to cross the line and become her family’s worst enemy.’
Fredrika frowned.
‘Like I told you last time we met, she went through the roof and said she never wanted to hear such a tasteless proposal again. And Marja agreed with her.’
Marja. The woman who sneaked into the library and sent threats to her own husband.
‘Jakob’s idea caused a huge amount of friction in the family,’ sighed Elsie. Jakob and Marja made a last desperate attempt to put things right by giving the girls the Ekerö house as a present. But it was already too late by then.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Fredrika, unconsciously holding her breath.
Elsie looked at her hands and gave a little twist to her wedding ring.
‘He’d already lost Marja by then,’ she whispered. ‘She’d changed sides and started working with Ragnar Vinterman when he set up the new operation. But Jakob didn’t find that out until much later. And by then he was already staring into the abyss that Johanna and Viggo had spent so long getting ready for him.’
The clock seemed to stop. And Fredrika waited.
‘Viggo?’ she echoed out loud.
‘Johanna and our Viggo found each other on the quiet at about the same time as Jakob came up with the idea of restarting his old project. And that’s why I’m here,’ said Elsie. ‘Because Sven would never be capable of giving Viggo away to you lot, in spite of all he’s done to us and his brother.’
But there were other reasons, too, and Fredrika knew it.
‘And I came for Lina’s sake,’ Elsie confirmed in a husky voice. ‘Because I think something dreadful’s about to happen to that girl. You see, Viggo didn’t get interested in Johanna until later. It was Karolina he really wanted. And he couldn’t take it when she turned him down.’
‘She chose Måns in preference to Viggo?’
‘Yes, and they both paid for it. Viggo did all he could to push Måns even further into addiction and break up the relationship. And he won, in the end. Viggo told tales to Måns’ employer and he lost his job and had nothing to do but hang around at home all day. Viggo spread rumours about Måns too, presenting him to his friends in a bad light. Måns went downhill fast. Johanna had a hand in that, as well. Though her motive was really to get at Karolina rather than Måns.’
‘And then Viggo got together with Johanna, instead?’