Christian’s hands began shaking as he continued to grip the wheel. He looked away from the mirror to stare out across the open field at the edge of the forest, which was vaguely discernible a short distance away. He stared and waited. The door on the passenger side of his car opened.

‘Are you all right? Everything okay? It looks like you almost hit that deer.’

Christian turned his head towards the voice. A white-haired man in his sixties was standing there, looking at him.

‘I’m fine,’ Christian muttered. ‘I was just a bit shocked. That’s all.’

‘I can understand that. It’s awful when something jumps out in front of your car like that. Are you sure you’re all right though?’

‘Absolutely. I’m going to head for home now. I’m on my way to Fjällbacka.’

‘Ah, I see. I’m going to Hamburgsund. Drive carefully.’

The man shut the door, and Christian could feel his pulse begin to slow down. It was only ghosts, memories from the past. Nothing that could harm him.

A little voice in his head tried to talk about the letters. They were not figments of his imagination. But he turned a deaf ear, refusing to listen to the voice. If he started thinking about that, she would be in control again. And that was something he could not allow. He had worked so hard to forget. She wasn’t going to get hold of him again.

He started driving, headed for Fjällbacka. In his jacket pocket his mobile was buzzing.

10

Alice kept on crying, both day and night. He heard Mother and Father talking about it. They said she had something called colic. No matter what that meant, it was unbearable listening to the racket she made. The sound was encroaching on his whole life, taking everything away from him.

Why didn’t Mother hate her when she cried so much? Why did she hold her, sing to her, rock her to sleep, and look at her with such a gentle expression, as if she felt sorry for the baby?

There was no reason to feel sorry for Alice. She behaved that way on purpose. He was convinced of that. Sometimes when he leaned over her cot and peered down at her as she lay there like an ugly little beetle, she would stare back at him. She gave him a look that said she didn’t want Mother to love him. That was why she cried and demanded everything from her. So that there would be nothing left for him.

Now and then he could see that Father felt the same way. That he too knew that Alice was acting like that on purpose, so that Father would have no share of Mother either. Yet Father did nothing. Why didn’t he do anything? He was big and grown up. He should be able to make Alice stop.

Father was hardly allowed to touch the baby either. Occasionally he would try, picking her up and patting her bottom and stroking her back to get her to calm down. But Mother always said that he was doing it wrong, that he should leave Alice to her. And then Father would retreat again.

But one day Father decided to take charge of her. Alice had been crying worse than ever, for three whole nights in a row.

He had lain awake in his room, pressing the pillow over his head to block out the sound. And under the pillow his hatred had grown. It began spreading, settling so heavily on top of him that he could hardly breathe, and he had to lift the pillow away to gasp for air. By now Mother was worn out after being awake for three nights. So she had made an exception, leaving the baby to Father while she went to bed. And Father had decided to give Alice a bath, asking him if he’d like to watch.

Father carefully tested the temperature of the water before filling the bathtub. He looked at Alice, who for once was quiet, with the same expression on his face as Mother usually had. Never before had Father seemed so important. He was usually an invisible figure who disappeared in Mother’s radiance, someone who had also been shut out from the relationship that Mother and Alice shared. But now he was suddenly important. He smiled at Alice, and she smiled back.

Father cautiously lowered the tiny naked body into the water. He placed her in a baby bath seat lined with terry-cloth, almost like a little hammock, so she was partially sitting up. Tenderly he washed her arms, her legs, her plump little belly. She waved her hands and kicked her feet. She wasn’t crying. Finally she had stopped crying. But that didn’t matter. She had won. Even Father had left his place of refuge behind the newspaper to come out and smile at her.

He stood quietly in the doorway. Couldn’t take his eyes off Father’s hands touching that little body. Father, who had been the closest thing to an ally after Mother had stopped looking at him. The doorbell rang and he gave a start. Father looked from the bathroom door to Alice, unsure what to do. Finally he said:

‘Could you look after your little sister for a minute? I just need to go see who that is. I’ll be right back.’

He hesitated a second. Then he felt his head nodding. Father got up from where he was kneeling beside the tub and told him to come closer. His feet moved automatically to carry him the short distance over to the tub. Alice looked up at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Father leave the bathroom.

They were alone now, he and Alice.

Erica stared at Patrik in disbelief.

‘In the ice?’

‘Yes, the poor man who found him must have had a real shock.’ Patrik had given Erica a brief summary of the day’s events.

‘I guess he did!’ She dropped heavily on to the sofa, and Maja immediately tried to climb on to her lap. And that was not an easy task.

‘Hello! Hello!’ shouted Maja, pressing her mouth against her mother’s stomach. Ever since they’d explained to her that the babies could hear her, she’d seized every opportunity to communicate with them. Since her vocabulary was limited, and that was putting it mildly, there wasn’t much variety to her conversations.

‘They’re probably sleeping, so let’s not wake them,’ said Erica, holding her finger to her lips.

Maja imitated the gesture, and then pressed her ear against her mother’s stomach to hear if the babies really were asleep.

‘Sounds like it was a terrible day,’ said Erica in a low voice.

‘Yes, it was,’ said Patrik, trying to push aside his memory of the expressions he’d seen on the faces of Cia and her children. Especially the look in Ludvig’s eyes. He was so much like Magnus, and that look was going to stay with Patrik for a very long time. ‘At least now they know. Sometimes I think that uncertainty is worse,’ he said, sitting down next to Erica so that Maja ended up between them. She slid happily on to his lap, which offered a little more room, and burrowed her head into his chest. He stroked her blonde hair.

‘You’re probably right. At the same time, it’s hard when hope disappears.’ Erica hesitated, then asked, ‘Do the police have any idea what happened?’

Patrik shook his head. ‘No, at this point we know nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

‘What about the letters that were sent to Christian?’ she asked, wrestling a bit with herself. Should she say anything about her excursion to the library today and what she’d been thinking about Christian’s past? She decided not to mention either of those things until she’d found out a bit more.

‘I still haven’t had time to think about the letters. But we’re going to have another talk with Magnus’s family and friends, so I can take up the subject when I interview Christian.’

‘They asked him about the letters this morning on the TV talk show,’ said Erica, shuddering when she thought about her own role in provoking the questions that Christian had been subjected to on live television.

‘What did he say?’

‘He dismissed the whole thing, even when they pressured him to discuss it.’