Kjell pounded on the door, annoyed with himself for succumbing to his memories.

‘I know you’re in there! Open up!’ he shouted and then listened tensely. Finally he heard the safety chain being lifted off and the bolt pulled back.

‘Security against your pals, I assume,’ snapped Kjell, forcing his way past Frans into the hall.

‘What do you want now?’ asked Frans.

Kjell was struck by the fact that his father suddenly looked so old. And frail. Then he dismissed the idea. The man was tougher than most people. He’d probably outlive them all.

‘I want some information from you.’ He went in and sat down on the sofa without waiting for an invitation.

Frans sat in the armchair across from him, but didn’t say a word. Just waited.

‘What do you know about a man by the name of Hans Olavsen?’

Frans gave a start but quickly regained control of himself. He casually leaned back in his chair, placing his hands on the armrests. ‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked, looking his son in the eyes.

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Why should I help you if you’re going to take that attitude?’

Kjell leaned forward so that his face was only centimetres from his father’s. He stared at him for a long time before he said coldly: ‘Because you owe me. You owe me and need to take every little opportunity to help me if you don’t want to run the risk that I’ll dance on your grave when you’re dead.’

For a moment something flashed through Frans’s eyes. Something that had been lost. Maybe the memory of the walks through the woods and strong arms lifting a little boy towards the sky. Then it was gone. He looked at his son and said calmly:

‘Hans Olavsen was a Norwegian resistance fighter who was seventeen years old when he came to Fjällbacka. I think it was in 1944. A year later he left. That’s all I know.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Kjell, leaning back again. ‘I know that you spent a lot of time together – you, Elsy Moström, Britta Johansson, and Erik Frankel. And now Britta and Erik have been murdered within months of each other. Don’t you think that’s a bit strange?’

Frans ignored the question. Instead he said, ‘What does the Norwegian have to do with that?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m planning to find out,’ snarled Kjell, clenching his jaws in an attempt to keep his anger in check. ‘So what else do you know about him? Tell me about the time you spent together, tell me why he left. Every detail you can remember.’

Frans sighed and looked as if he was casting his mind back. ‘So it’s the details you want… Let’s see if I can remember anything. Well, he lived at Elsy’s parents’ house, and he had come here by stowing away on her father’s boat.’

‘I already know that,’ said Kjell. ‘What else?’

‘He got a job working on boats that carried cargo down the coast, but he spent his free time with us. We were actually two years younger than he was, but that didn’t seem to bother him. We enjoyed each other’s company. Some more than others,’ he said, and sixty years hadn’t erased the bitterness that he’d felt back then.

‘Hans and Elsy,’ said Kjell drily.

‘How did you know that?’ asked Frans, surprised to find that he still felt a pang at the thought of those two together. His heart definitely had a longer memory than his mind.

‘I just know. Go on.’

‘Well, as you say, Hans and Elsy got together, and I’m sure you also know that I wasn’t happy about it.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, it’s true. I had a crush on Elsy, but she chose him. And the irony was that Britta was infatuated with me, but I wasn’t interested in her at all. Of course I sometimes imagined sleeping with her, but something always told me that it would be more trouble than it was worth, so I never did.’

‘How magnanimous of you,’ said Kjell sarcastically. Frans merely raised one eyebrow.

‘So what happened then? If Hans and Elsy were so close, why did he leave?’

‘Well, it’s the oldest story in the world. He promised her the moon, and when the war ended, he said that he had to return to Norway to find his family, and then he’d be back. But…’ Frans shrugged and smiled bitterly.

‘Do you think he was just toying with her?’

‘I don’t know, Kjell. I honestly don’t know. It was sixty years ago, and we were very young. Maybe he meant what he said to Elsy, but then was overwhelmed by commitments back home. Or maybe he intended all along to run off as soon as he got the chance.’ Frans shrugged. ‘The only thing I know is that he said goodbye and told us that he would be back as soon as he straightened things out with his family. And then he left. And to be honest, I’ve hardly given him a thought since. I know that Elsy was upset for a while, but her mother saw to it that she got into some sort of school, and I have no idea what happened after that. By then I had already left Fjällbacka and… well, you know what happened then.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ said Kjell grimly, picturing once again the big grey prison gates.

‘So I don’t understand why this would be of any concern to you,’ said Frans. ‘He came here and then he disappeared. And I don’t think any of us ever had contact with him again. So why all the interest?’ Frans stared at Kjell.

‘I can’t tell you that,’ replied his son crossly. ‘But if there’s any mystery about his departure, I’ll get to the bottom of it, believe me.’ He gave his father a defiant look.

‘I believe you, Kjell. I believe you,’ replied Frans wearily.

Kjell glanced at his father’s hand, lying on the armrest of his chair. It was an old man’s hand. Wrinkled and sinewy, with age spots on the wizened skin. So different from the hand that had held his when they went for walks in the woods. That hand had been strong and smooth, and so warm as it enveloped his own small hand. So safe and secure.

‘Looks like it’s going to be a good year for mushrooms,’ he heard himself saying.

Frans stared at him in surprise. Then his expression softened, and he replied quietly: ‘Yes, it looks like it will be, Kjell. It does indeed.’

Axel packed with military precision. Years of travelling had taught him to do that. Nothing was left to chance. A pair of trousers carelessly folded might mean having to laboriously press them on the hotel’s ironing board. A poorly replaced top on a tube of toothpaste might mean an even worse disaster: a caseload of laundry. So he placed everything into the big suitcase with the greatest care.

He sat down on the bed. This had been his room when he was growing up, but in later years he had chosen to change the furnishings. Model airplanes and comics didn’t really belong in a grown man’s bedroom. He wondered whether he would ever return here. It had been difficult to stay in the house over the past weeks. At the same time, it had seemed necessary.

He got up and headed for Erik’s bedroom, a few doors down the long corridor. Axel smiled when he went in and sat down on his brother’s bed. The room was filled with books. Of course. The shelves were crammed with leather-bound volumes, and there were piles of them on the floor, many with little Post-it notes stuck to them. Erik had never grown tired of his books, his facts, his dates, and the solid reality that they offered him. In that sense, things had been easier for Erik. Reality could be found in black and white. No grey zones, no political chicanery or moral ambiguities, which were everyday fare in Axel’s world. Just concrete facts. The Battle of Hastings was in 1066. Napoleon died in 1821. Germany surrendered on 5 May 1945…

Axel reached for a book lying on Erik’s bed. A thick volume about how Germany was rebuilt after the war. Axel put it back on the bed. He knew everything about that topic. His life for the past sixty years had revolved around the war and its aftermath. But most of all, it had revolved around himself. Erik had realized that. He had pointed out the shortcomings in Axel’s life, and in his own life. Recounted them as dry facts. Apparently without any emotion. But Axel knew his brother well, and he was aware that behind all the facts was more emotion than most people he’d met would ever be capable of feeling.