‘There was one other person who was part of that group.’

Axel still didn’t speak.

‘Towards the end of the war, a Norwegian resistance fighter came here on my grandfather’s boat… The same boat that I know you often travelled on.’

He looked at her without blinking, but she saw him tense up when she mentioned the trips that he’d made, crossing to the Norwegian side.

‘He was a good man, your grandfather,’ said Axel quietly after a moment. His hands now lay still on his lap. ‘One of the best I’ve ever known.’

Erica had never met her maternal grandfather, and it warmed her heart to hear him described so positively.

‘From what I understand, you were in prison at the time when Hans Olavsen stowed away on my grandfather’s boat. He arrived here in 1944, and according to what we’ve found out so far, he stayed until right after the war ended.’

‘You said “we”,’ Axel interrupted her. ‘Who do you mean by “we”?’ His voice sounded tense.

Erica hesitated. Then she merely said, ‘By “we” I mean that I’ve had help from Christian at the library here in Fjällbacka. That’s all.’ She didn’t want to mention Kjell, and Axel seemed to accept her explanation.

‘Yes, I was in prison back then,’ he said, tensing up again. It was as if all the muscles in his body were suddenly reminded of what they had endured and reacted by tightening up.

‘So you never met him?’

Axel shook his head. ‘No, he was already gone by the time I returned.’

‘When did you come back to Fjällbacka?’

‘In June of 1945. With the white buses.’

‘White buses?’ asked Erica, but then she recalled hearing something about them in her history classes.

‘It was a plan initiated by Folke Bernadotte,’ replied Axel, confirming what she vaguely recalled. ‘He organized the transport to bring home Scandinavian prisoners who’d been in German concentration camps. The buses were white with red crosses painted on the roof and sides, so that they wouldn’t be mistaken for military targets.’

‘But why would there be a risk that they’d be mistaken for military targets if they were carrying prisoners after the war ended?’ asked Erica.

Axel smiled at her ignorance and began twiddling his thumbs again. ‘The first buses went to pick up prisoners as early as March and April of 1945, after negotiating with the Germans. They brought home fifteen thousand prisoners that time around. Then, after the war ended, they brought home another ten thousand in May and June. I was on one of the last buses in June 1945.’ It all sounded very matter-of-fact as he explained what happened, but under the reserved tone of voice Erica could hear echoes of the horrors he had experienced.

‘And Hans Olavsen disappeared from here in June 1945. Which means he must have left shortly before you arrived. Is that right?’ she asked.

‘It was probably only a gap of a few days,’ Axel replied, nodding. ‘But you’ll have to forgive me if my memory is a bit muddled on that point. I was extremely… exhausted when I came back.’

‘Of course. I understand,’ said Erica, looking down. It was a strange feeling to be talking to someone who had seen the German concentration camps from the inside.

‘Did your brother tell you anything about Hans? Anything you remember? Anything at all? I have the feeling that Erik and his friends spent a lot of time with Hans Olavsen during the year he was here in Fjällbacka.’

Axel stared out the window, apparently searching his memory. He tilted his head to one side and frowned.

‘I recall there was something between the Norwegian and your mother, if you won’t be offended by me saying so.’

‘Not at all.’ Erica waved her hand dismissively. ‘That was a whole lifetime ago, and I found out the same thing myself.’

‘How about that? I guess my memory isn’t as bad as I sometimes think it is.’ He smiled and turned back to look at her. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure that Erik told me there was some sort of romance between Elsy and Hans.’

‘How did she react when he left? Do you remember anything about her from that time?’

‘Not much, I’m afraid. Of course she wasn’t really herself after what happened to your grandfather. And she left very soon afterwards to start studying… home economics, if I remember rightly. And then we lost contact with each other. By the time she returned to Fjällbacka a few years later, I had already begun working abroad and I wasn’t home very often. She and Erik didn’t have any contact either, from what I remember. That’s not so unusual. People can be good friends as children and adolescents, but later, when adult life and its responsibilities set in, they tend to lose touch.’ He turned to look out the window again.

‘I know what you mean,’ said Erica. She was disappointed that Axel didn’t seem to have any information about Hans either. ‘And no one ever mentioned where Hans had gone? He didn’t tell Erik?’

Axel shook his head apologetically. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I wish I could help you, but I wasn’t really myself when I came back, and afterwards I had other things on my mind. But surely it must be possible to track him down through the authorities,’ he said encouragingly, getting to his feet.

Taking the hint, Erica got up too. ‘Yes, that’s my next step. If I’m lucky, that might solve everything. For all I know, he might not have moved very far away.’

‘Well, I wish you the best of luck,’ said Axel, shaking her hand. ‘I know how important it is to find out about the past so that we can live in the present. Believe me, I know.’ He patted her hand, and Erica smiled gratefully at his attempt to console her.

‘Have you found out anything more about the medal, by the way?’ he asked as she was just about to open the front door.

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she told him, feeling more discouraged with each passing minute. ‘I talked to an expert on Nazi medals in Göteborg, but unfortunately the medal is too common to be traced.’

‘I’m really sorry that I couldn’t be of more help.’

‘That’s okay. It was a long shot,’ she said, waving goodbye.

The last she saw of Axel, he was standing in the doorway, watching her leave. She felt very, very sorry for him. But something he’d said had given her an idea. Filled with determination, Erica headed back towards Fjällbacka.

Kjell hesitated before knocking. As he stood there at his father’s door, he suddenly felt like a frightened little boy again. The memory transported him back to all those times he’d stood outside the prison gates clutching his mother’s hand, his stomach gripped by equal parts fear and anticipation at the thought of seeing his father. Because, in the beginning, he had looked forward to the visits. He had missed Frans and longed to see him again, remembering only the good times: those brief periods when his father wasn’t in prison, when he would swing Kjell through the air, or take him for walks in the woods, holding him by the hand and telling him all about the mushrooms and trees and bushes. Kjell had thought that his father knew about everything in the world. But at night he had needed to press his pillow over his ears to shut out the sounds of quarrelling, those hateful, horrid fights that never seemed to have a beginning or end. His mother and father would simply start up from where they’d left off the last time Frans had disappeared into prison, and they would keep on like that – the same arguments, the same physical abuse, over and over again – until the next time the police came and led his father away.

For that reason, Kjell’s sense of anticipation dwindled with each year that passed, until he felt only fear as he stood in the visitors’ room and saw his father’s expectant face. And later the fear was transformed into hatred. In some ways it would have been easier if he didn’t have memories of those walks in the woods. Because what sparked his hatred and gave it fuel was the question that he had constantly asked himself as a child. How could his father, time after time, make the same choice to exclude everything? To exclude him? Abandoning him for a world that was grey and cold and that stripped away something in his eyes every time he had to go back.