‘Kenneth, I asked you a question!’ It was Erik’s voice of command. The same as it had always been for all the years they’d known each other. And Kenneth reacted in the same way as he had when they were boys. Still the compliant one who always followed, submitting to Erik’s authority and need to control. Slowly he spun his chair around until he was facing Erik and Louise. He clasped his hands in his lap and said in a low voice:

‘I’ve received four. Three in the post and one that was left on my kitchen table.’

Louise turned pale. Her anger towards Erik had just been given more fuel, and she turned to face him. ‘What is this all about? First Christian, then you and Kenneth? What have the three of you done? And what about Magnus? Did he get letters like this too?’ She glared at her husband, then at Kenneth, and then back at Erik.

None of them spoke for a moment. Then Kenneth looked at his colleague and shrugged.

Erik shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. Magnus never mentioned it, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Do you know?’ He directed his question at Kenneth, who also shook his head.

‘No. If Magnus ever told anyone about something like this, it would have been Christian.’

‘When did you get the first one?’ Erik’s mind had started working through the new information. Twisting and turning it, trying to come up with a solution and then take control.

‘I don’t really recall. But before Christmas, at any rate. Sometime in December.’

Erik reached for the letters lying on his desk. Louise had retreated into herself, all her anger gone. She was still standing in front of her husband, watching him sort through the letters according to the date they were sent. He put the earliest one on the bottom and then picked it up to peer at the postmark again.

‘December fifteenth.’

‘So that’s about the same time as the one I got,’ said Kenneth, his eyes on the floor.

‘Do you still have the letters? Can you check the dates on the ones that were delivered in the post?’ asked Erik, speaking in his most efficient and businesslike voice.

Kenneth nodded and took a deep breath. ‘When the fourth letter was delivered, it was lying next to one of our kitchen knives.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t put the knife there yourself?’ Louise was no longer slurring her words. Fear had sobered her up, lifting the fog from her brain.

‘No, I’m positive that I cleared everything away, and there was nothing on the table when I went to bed.’

‘Was the front door locked?’ Erik still sounded cold and matter-of-fact.

‘No, it wasn’t. I don’t always remember to lock up at night.’

‘Well, all of the letters I got came with the post,’ said Erik, riffling through the envelopes. Then he happened to recall something he’d read in the articles about Christian.

‘Christian was the first one to get threatening letters. They started arriving a year and a half ago. You and I didn’t get any until three months ago. So what if this whole thing has to do with him? What if he’s the real target of whoever is sending these letters, and we’re just mixed up in this mess because we know him?’ Erik’s voice took on an indignant tone. ‘Damn him if he knows something about this and isn’t talking. Subjecting me and my family to some lunatic without warning us.’

‘But he doesn’t know that we’ve received letters too,’ Kenneth objected, and Erik had to admit that he was right.

‘No, but he’s going to find out now, in any case.’ Erik gathered up the envelopes in a neat stack and slapped them against the desktop.

‘So you’re thinking of going to talk to him?’ Kenneth sounded anxious, and Erik sighed. Sometimes he really couldn’t stand his colleague’s fear of any sort of conflict. He’d always been that way. Kenneth always went with the flow, never said no, always said yes. Which had actually worked to Erik’s advantage, since there could only be one person in charge. So far he had been that person, and that’s the way it was going to stay.

‘Of course I’m going to talk to him. And to the police too. I should have done that long ago, but it wasn’t until I read about Christian’s letters that I started taking the whole thing seriously.’

‘And it’s about time,’ muttered Louise. Erik glared at her.

‘I don’t want to upset Lisbet.’ Kenneth raised his chin, and there was a defiant glint in his eye.

‘Someone went into your house, put a letter on the kitchen table, and set a knife next to it. If I were you, I’d be more worried about that than about whether Lisbet might get upset. She’s home alone for a large part of the day. What if someone gets in while you’re not there?’

Erik saw that Kenneth had already had the same thought. At the same time that he was annoyed by his colleague’s lack of enterprise, he was trying to ignore the fact that he too had failed to report the letters. On the other hand, none of them had been placed directly inside his house.

‘All right, let’s do this. You go home and pick up the letters that you’ve received, and we can take all of them over to the police station together. Then they can get started on this whole matter at once.’

Kenneth stood up. ‘I’ll leave now and be right back.’

‘Good. You do that,’ said Erik.

After Kenneth left and the door closed behind him, Erik turned to Louise and studied her for several seconds.

‘There’s a lot we need to talk about.’

Louise looked at him for a moment. Then she raised her hand and slapped his face.

13

‘I said there’s nothing wrong with her!’ Mother’s voice was angry and she was on the verge of tears. He slipped away and sat down behind the sofa some distance away. But not so far that he couldn’t hear what they said. Everything having to do with Alice was important.

He liked her better now. She never gave him that look any more that meant she wanted to take something from him. Mostly she lay still and made very little noise, and he thought that was wonderful.

‘She’s eight months old, and she hasn’t made a single attempt to crawl or move about. We need to have a doctor take a look at her.’ Father was speaking in a low voice. The voice he used when he wanted to persuade Mother to do something that she didn’t want to do. He placed his hands on her shoulders so she would be forced to listen to what he was saying.

‘Something isn’t quite right with Alice. The sooner we get help, the better. You’re not doing her any good by closing your eyes to what’s wrong.’

His mother shook her head. Her shiny dark hair hung down her back, and he wished that he could reach out and touch it. But he knew that she wouldn’t like it; she would pull away from his touch.

Mother kept on shaking her head. The tears rolled down her cheeks, and he knew that in spite of everything, she had begun to relent. Father turned to look over his shoulder, casting a swift glance at him as he sat behind the sofa. He smiled at Father, not knowing what he meant. But apparently it was wrong to smile, because Father frowned and looked angry, as if wishing his expression were different.

Nor did he understand why Mother and Father were so worried and sad. Alice was so calm and nice now. Mother didn’t have to carry her around all the time, and she lay peacefully wherever they put her. But Mother and Father weren’t happy. And even though there was now space for him too, they treated him like he was air. He didn’t really care so much that Father did that; Father wasn’t the one who mattered. But Mother didn’t see him either, and if she did, it was only with a look of disgust and loathing on her face.

Because he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He couldn’t resist lifting his fork again and again, stuffing the food in his mouth, chewing, swallowing, taking more, feeling his body filling out. The fear was too great, the fear that she would never see him. He was no longer Mother’s handsome little boy. But he was here, and he took up space.