Lars-Erik had been sitting with the glass in his hand. Now he moved it up to his lips and drank.
“But he ruined everything,” Laura sobbed.
“Have a little cognac,” Lars-Erik urged.
“She fucked everyone,” Laura mumbled and sat down at the table.
“Alice was unhappy,” Lars-Erik said, “you can’t blame her for everything.”
Laura stared at him, raised the brandy snifter, and threw it onto the wall above the sink so the glass sprayed over the kitchen.
“I don’t want alcohol,” she said, “I want…”
She leaned her head in her hands. Lars-Erik stretched out a hand and patted her on the cheek.
“You aren’t feeling so well,” he said tenderly. “Maybe you should rest a while and then we can talk more tomorrow. Maybe you’re tired? I remember a time when we were picking lingonberries up on the heath. Do you remember? You were tired and cheated, put moss in the bottom of the pail. How Father laughed. He said you were like a forest troll. What could you have been, twelve, thirteen? Father was pretty funny about that. The berries and everything. He wanted me to tag along. He always said it was so we could check out the elk trails at the same time. Janne also came along. Martin was probably out with some girl. I remember how quick Alice was. It was the same with my mother. They had that in the blood. Their arms went like sawmills. Do you remember? I sometimes go up there when it’s all red with lingonberries and then I think about you and… well, you remember… how it was.”
Lars-Erik finished with a sigh. Laura had removed her hands from her face and looked at him.
“Alice died with a jar of lingonberries in her hand,” she said. “They said I wasn’t supposed to look but I knew what she looked like. Like a whore with her ass in the air and that farmer going at her from behind.”
Lars-Erik’s dismayed expression made her laugh.
“Of course I remember the heath. I wished I had died there. That everyone had died. Ulrik asked me once how I was doing. One time. It was at the cottage. He had grabbed me and Ulrik saw the marks.”
“Ulrik grabbed you?”
“Not him,” Laura said and drew her breath. Panic was shining from her eyes.
“Laura, maybe you need help? I don’t get all this but that you’ve had a hard time of it, I understand that much. You are welcome to talk with me, but maybe you need someone who’s good at this kind of thing.”
“You’re sweet, Lars-Erik,” she said and took his snifter, drained it in one go, and poured another glass.
“I think about Alice,” he went on, “such a life-loving person. To die like that. It’s so pathetic. On the stairs.”
Laura took a sip of cognac and grimaced. Lars-Erik thought she was going to throw the glass against the wall again.
“And if I was the one who did it, what difference does that make? I knew even then…”
“What do you mean?”
Laura drained the glass again.
“She laughed at me. Do you understand? She laughed. I just wanted her to be like a mother should be, but in the end she didn’t care. She didn’t even pretend. She laughed at me. I asked her to stop, to be a mother.”
“You’ve had relationships yourself and know how hard everything can be!” Lars-Erik burst out. “It couldn’t have been easy to live with that block of wood.”
He poured out a cognac and drank, setting the glass down on the table heavily.
“She was unfaithful,” Laura said, “and it was just as well that she died.”
“You can’t kill everyone who’s unfaithful!”
“Don’t yell at me. I’m warning you, don’t yell at me!”
Lars-Erik drew a deep breath.
“She tripped. I can’t help that, can I? She said something about lin-gonberries and laughed. They were his lingonberries. I wanted to smash the jar.”
“But, Laura…”
“She was my mother and she let me down. She was like an apple that is rotten on the inside. You only saw the outside. But she burst in the end.”
“Oh dear God.”
Laura’s face crumpled up. It was as if a great weight had landed on her. Her shoulders were pulled down and her head fell forward.
“Will you come with me?”
“Where to?”
“I know a place. A restaurant by the sea.”
Laura didn’t notice him shake his head. Lars-Erik thought she had changed into a little old lady.
“Can’t we go there, just you and me? We can have a good life.”
“No, Laura. Stay here for a few days instead and get your strength back.”
Lars-Erik made up a bed in his father’s old room. He walked past the suitcase in the hall but didn’t know what he should do with it. If he carried it up it would give the impression that he expected her to stay longer.
Laura was still sitting in the kitchen.
“It’s time to get ready for bed,” Lars-Erik said.
He had been standing for a while looking at his cousin, how she poured out another glass and downed it.
She got up on unsteady legs and walked over to the window. Her face was reflected in it. She smiled and started to recite a poem:
“When evening drives away the shining day
And our deep night to others brings the dawn
Sadly I gaze upon the cruel stars
That formed my body out of sentient earth
And I do curse the day I saw the sun
Until I seem like one reared in the wood.”
“Beautiful,” she said and turned around, “Stars are cruel. They shine, beaming toward me, but so cold, so cold.”
The silence in the kitchen lasted several minutes before she let out a sob.
“That is what I have received. Poems.”
Lars-Erik walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Do you want to make love to me?” she asked abruptly.
Her breath was sweet and strong from the cognac. Lars-Erik caught his breath.
“I don’t think that would be so good,” he said. “Let us be friends.”
“Friends is good,” she said, still turned toward the window.
Lars-Erik woke up, as he usually did, shortly before six. It took a while before he remembered he had a guest in the house.
He tiptoed down into the kitchen and closed the door behind him,turned on the radio and started to make his breakfast. He always ate porridge with lingonberry jam.
Radio Uppland started their transmission.
“Violent fire in Uppsala… may have a connection to the serial killings the past week… earlier missing man found dead… female police officer seriously wounded… Radio Uppland is on location in Kåbo.”
Lars-Erik put down the package of oatmeal and stared at the radio. The agitated voice on the radio gave an account of the house that had burned down.
“The owner of the house, an older man who had been reported missing a month ago was found dead in the basement. It is unclear if the man’s death was caused by the fire. In the basement there was also a female detective inspector, who has been leading the investigation into the three murders that have shaken Uppsala. She is injured and her state is reported as serious but not life-threatening. According to the information that Radio Uppland has been able to gather she was badly injured from the smoke. A thirty-five-year-old woman who is believed to be connected to the fire is now wanted by the police. She is driving a red Ford Fusion. There are facts indicating that she is connected to the murders.”
Lars-Erik walked over to the window and looked out.
The radio announcer continued with the report but Lars-Erik did not need to hear more. He sat down at the table where the glass and the bottle still stood.
He didn’t want to believe it was Laura they were talking about but everything fit. He looked around the kitchen, discovering glass slivers on the floor and got up, unsure of what to do.