“Perhaps she was ashamed?”
“Or she wanted to protect the father.”
“Or Krister. We don’t know how the father reacted. He might not have wanted anything to do with her when she got pregnant. After all, her family had broken off all contact with her; the only one who supported her was her brother, Kicki’s father.”
Thomas tried to remember what Kicki had told him when they met at the police station. Cecilia had brought up her son without any help from her parents. It had been a tough struggle to survive, and she’d had to be careful with money. Cecilia had dropped out of school and started working at Systemet as soon as possible after Krister’s birth.
“He must have read the letter and decided to go to Sandhamn to find his family,” Thomas said.
“Who perhaps didn’t even know he existed.”
“True. It could be that they didn’t know anything about him.”
“Apart from the father.”
“But something happened on the way over, or when he arrived,” Thomas said.
“Something that resulted in his death.”
“And subsequently the death of his cousin.”
“If the deaths are related.”
“Why wouldn’t they be related?”
“Well, Krister Berggren’s death could still have been an accidental drowning. He might have fallen overboard. What if he was just unlucky on the boat to Sandhamn?”
“And Kicki?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s not likely to be a coincidence that she was murdered so soon after Krister’s death.”
“Besides which, Jonny Almhult is dead and Philip Fahlén is in the hospital; we don’t have a reasonable explanation for either of those events,” Thomas said. A similar conversation he had recently had with Margit suddenly came to mind. He studied the letter thoughtfully. “This definitely raises a number of fresh questions. But I still find it strange that . . .” He fell silent, staring at the letter.
“What?”
“That there wasn’t the slightest hint. Not the least suggestion of a family connection. After everything that’s happened.”
“That is odd,” Carina said. “But there’s no guarantee that anyone even knew about him. And if they did, they were probably embarrassed. It would have been a real scandal in those days.”
“I’m sure it was. An illegitimate child was nothing to boast about in the fifties,” Thomas said.
“Are you going over there this evening?”
“I’ll see.” He suppressed a yawn. “It doesn’t really matter. Nobody’s about to run off. I’m not even sure if it would be possible tonight.” He got to his feet with a sigh. “I’m worn out. I think I’ll probably go over to Harö; the conversation on Sandhamn can wait until tomorrow morning.”
He looked at the letter one last time before carefully folding it up and slipping it back into the envelope.
CHAPTER 70
A whole evening all to herself. The need to be alone was physical. Her body wanted time. Nora longed to think through the situation calmly. Just to be left in peace, without having to pretend everything was OK or explain anything to anyone. After the conversation the previous evening, she had to gather her thoughts. Decide what she really wanted, deep down.
Since Henrik was taking part in the twenty-four-hour race, he wouldn’t be back before midnight. That gave her plenty of time to think about what she was going to say to him.
The boys had asked if they could sleep over at their grandparents’ house.
They hadn’t needed to ask twice.
Nora had already taken their nighttime things across, and now she was alone. It was only eight thirty and still light outside.
Even if her mind was not at peace, she had decided to make sure her stomach was. She had bought a lovely chicken fillet, marinated it in lime and soy sauce, then grilled it in the oven. To go with it, she had made a couscous salad with avocado and a sauce of Turkish yogurt mixed with sweet chili. And to really spoil herself she had bought a bar of Belgian dark chocolate, her absolute favorite.
Of course, she was supposed to go easy on sweets because of her diabetes, but she had to indulge once in a while.
This was one of those times.
She would, however, take a little extra insulin before her meal, because she hadn’t injected herself at lunchtime when they were on Grönskär. The dose would be enough to compensate for the chocolate. And they did say that dark chocolate contained a substance that made you feel better, even if you were unhappy or depressed. Just what she needed.
Even an artificially induced sense of well-being was welcome this evening.
She decided to set the table nicely even though she was alone, so she put out a crystal glass. It was silly, really, but at the moment it felt right.
She made her final preparations and opened the fridge to get her insulin pen from its usual place on the top shelf.
She twisted a needle onto the top of the pen and carefully dialed her dose. She flicked the pen with her finger and then injected it into her stomach below the navel, into the layer of fat beneath the skin. She unscrewed the needle from the pen and left it on the dish rack. She would put it into its container in the bathroom later.
Nora placed the chicken dish on the table and put on the latest Norah Jones CD, her namesake apart from the h.
Just as she was about to sit down, she decided to call Henrik. Even if they weren’t getting along right now, she wanted to know how things were going and what time he thought he might be back.
She felt for her cell phone in the pocket of her shorts but couldn’t find it. She went back into the kitchen to look, but there was no sign of it there either. Strange. Nora frowned. She went upstairs to the bedroom to see if it was there.
She picked up the landline and called her cell phone. The call went through, but she couldn’t hear the cell phone ringing in the house.
Nora stopped at the top of the stairs.
When had she last had her phone? She tried to conjure up a mental picture of when she’d used it during the day. A bit like rewinding a video.
On Grönskär.
She’d called Thomas to tell him about the rat poison her mother had used. But what had she done with the phone after that? She must have put it down somewhere. Surely she couldn’t have dropped the phone on Grönskär? She’d been wearing a pair of shorts with shallow pockets. Nora sighed. How stupid.
It was almost nine o’clock. If she hurried she could take the launch and make it over to Grönskär while it was still light. She’d be back in half an hour.
She looked longingly at her delicious dinner, all laid out on the table.
The cell phone was much more important. Not the phone itself, but all the stored numbers. Having to program two hundred numbers into a new phone felt like an insurmountable task.
Quickly she pulled on her life jacket and grabbed a flashlight. She took the keys of the boat out of the little blue-painted cupboard just inside the door.
The curator kept a spare key under a stone by the lighthouse; they’d talked about it during the trip when she’d asked what would happen if someone lost the key to the lighthouse.
She walked quickly down to the jetty. Signe was standing by the boathouses with her hands in her pockets, gazing at the sea. She looked unusually sad, with dark shadows under her eyes.