Then he shook himself. It would do no good to brood over things. The day after tomorrow he would be safe.

The ducks came rushing towards him. By now they were old friends. He always stopped here, bringing a sack of stale bread. Now they flocked around his feet, eager for what he had to offer.

Ragnar thought about the conversation with the two police officers, and about Christian. He should have done more. He should have known, even back then. All his life he had been little more than a bystander, weak and silent, watching without intervening. Her bystander. That’s how it had been between them from the very beginning. Neither of them had been able to break the pattern they’d created.

Iréne had always been preoccupied with her own beauty. She had loved the good things in life: parties, drinks, and men who admired her. He knew all about them. Just because he’d hidden behind his inadequacies didn’t mean that he was unaware of the affairs she’d had with other men.

And that poor boy had never had a chance. Christian could never measure up, never give her what she wanted. The boy had probably thought that Iréne loved Alice, but he was wrong. Iréne was incapable of loving anyone. She had merely seen her own reflection in her daughter’s beauty. Ragnar wished that he had spoken to the boy before they chased him away like a dog. He wasn’t sure what really happened, or what was the truth. He wasn’t like Iréne, who had accused and condemned him all in one breath.

Doubt had been gnawing at Ragnar, and it still was. But over the years the memories had faded. They had gone on living their lives. He stayed in the background while Iréne continued to believe that she was still beautiful. No one had dared tell her that her looks were gone, so she kept on behaving as if she could again be the life of the party at any moment. The woman who was both beautiful and desirable.

But it had to end. At that moment Ragnar understood why the police had come, and he realized that he’d made a mistake. A huge, fateful mistake. And now it was time to put things right.

Ragnar took Patrik’s business card out of his pocket. Then he got out his mobile and punched in the number on the card.

‘Seems like we keep driving this same road over and over,’ said Gösta as he accelerated past Munkedal.

‘And we do,’ said Martin. He cast a quizzical look at his colleague, who had been unusually quiet ever since they left Tanumshede. Gösta wasn’t a big talker at the best of times, but right now he seemed more taciturn than ever.

‘Is something wrong?’ Martin asked after a while when he could no longer stand the lack of at least sporadic conversation.

‘What? No, it’s nothing,’ said Gösta.

Martin didn’t press the issue. He knew that it would do no good to try forcing something out of Gösta if he didn’t want to share what was on his mind. He’d reveal whatever it was in his own time.

‘What a bloody awful story. Talk about getting a rough start in life,’ said Martin. He was thinking about his little daughter and what might happen if she was subjected to such a terrible experience. It was true what everyone said about becoming a parent. It made a person a thousand times more sensitive to everything concerning children in difficult circumstances.

‘That poor little boy,’ said Gösta, and all of a sudden he looked less distracted.

‘Don’t you think we should wait to talk to Kenneth until we find out more about the sister, Alice?’

‘I’m sure Annika will double-check and triple-check everything while we’re away from the station. The first thing we need to know is where to find Alice.’

‘Couldn’t we just ask the Lissanders?’ said Martin.

‘Since they never even mentioned her existence when Patrik and Paula were there, I assume that Patrik thinks there’s something fishy about the whole situation. And it won’t hurt to find out as many facts about the family as possible.’

Martin knew that his colleague was right. He felt foolish for even asking the question.

‘Do you think she’s the one behind it all?’

‘I have no idea. It’s too early to speculate about that.’

They drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. After parking the car, they went straight to the ward where Kenneth was a patient.

‘We’re back,’ said Gösta as they entered his room.

Kenneth didn’t reply, just looked at them as if he didn’t care who came in.

‘How do you feel? Are your wounds starting to heal?’ asked Gösta, sitting down on the same chair as before.

‘It’s going to take a lot more time for that,’ said Kenneth, moving his bandaged arms. ‘They’re giving me painkillers. So it doesn’t really hurt much.’

‘You heard about Christian?’

Kenneth nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You don’t seem particularly upset about it,’ said Gösta, without sounding unfriendly.

‘Not everything is visible on the outside.’

Gösta gave him a puzzled look.

‘How’s Sanna?’ asked Kenneth, and for the first time they could see a glint of something in his eyes. Sympathy. He knew what it felt like to lose someone.

‘Not so good,’ said Gösta, shaking his head. ‘We were over there this morning. It’s very sad for the boys, too.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Kenneth agreed, his face clouding over.

Martin was starting to feel superfluous. He was still standing, but now he pulled a chair over to the other side of the bed, across from Gösta. Then he glanced at his colleague, who nodded, encouraging him to ask his own questions.

‘We think that everything that has happened lately is connected to Christian, and so we’ve been delving into his background. One thing we found out is that he had a different last name when he was growing up. Christian Lissander. He also has a stepsister named Alice Lissander. Did you ever hear him talk about any of this?’

Kenneth paused before answering.

‘No. It doesn’t sound familiar.’

Gösta fixed his eyes on the man, looking as if he’d like to climb into Kenneth’s head to see if he was telling the truth or not.

‘I said this before, and I’ll say it again: If you know something that you’re not telling us, you’re putting not only your own life in danger, but Erik’s too. Now that Christian is dead, you must realize how serious this is.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ said Kenneth calmly.

‘If you’re withholding information, we’re going to dig it up sooner or later.’

‘I’m sure you’ll make a very thorough job of it,’ said Kenneth. He looked small and fragile as he lay there with his bandaged arms resting on top of the blue hospital blanket.

Gösta and Martin exchanged glances. They realized that they weren’t going to get any more out of Kenneth, but neither of them believed that he was telling the truth.

Erica closed the book. She’d spent the last few hours curled up in an armchair reading, interrupted only by Maja, who came over once in a while to ask for something. On such occasions Erica was grateful for her daughter’s ability to play by herself.

The novel was even better the second time. It was truly amazing. It wasn’t an uplifting kind of book; instead, it had filled her mind with dark musings. But somehow that didn’t seem unpleasant. It dealt with issues that a person needed to think about, issues that required the reader to take a stand and in that way find out what sort of person he or she was.

In Erica’s opinion, the story was about guilt, about how it could eat up a person from the inside. For the first time she wondered what it was that Christian had wanted to convey through his book, what message he wanted his story to present.

She placed the book on her lap with a feeling that she’d missed something that was actually right in front of her eyes. Something she was too dense or blind to see. She turned to the back of the book to look at the inside flap of the dust jacket. There was a photo of Christian, in black and white. A classic author pose, and he was wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He’d been handsome in a rather reserved way. There was a loneliness evident in his eyes that made it impossible to know whether he was ever really present. He always seemed to be alone, never in the company of anyone else. As if he were inside a bubble. Paradoxically enough, it was this sense of distance that had exerted such an attraction on others. People always wanted to have what they couldn’t get. And that was exactly how it had been with Christian.