He squatted down in front of Alice and spoke to her gently. Here, with his daughter, he was no longer in visible. His posture was more erect and his eyes were clear. Here he was somebody. He was Alice’s pappa.

‘Sweetheart, Pappa can’t stay very long today. I just wanted you to meet Christian’s friends.’

She looked at him. Then she turned around and took something from the desk. A drawing. She held it up for him to see.

‘Is that for me?’

She shook her head, and Ragnar’s shoulders sagged a bit. ‘Is it for Christian?’ he asked in a low voice.

She nodded and held it out again.

‘I’ll send it to him. I promise.’

The shadow of a smile. Then she turned back to the desk, and her hands began moving again. She had started on a new drawing.

Patrik cast a glance at the paper in Ragnar Lissander’s hand. He recognized the drawing style.

‘And you’ve always kept your promise, haven’t you? You sent her drawings to Christian,’ he said after they’d left Alice’s room.

‘Not all of them. She makes so many. But occasionally, so that he’d know she was thinking about him. In spite of everything.’

‘How did you know where to send the drawings? From what I understood, Christian had broken off all contact with you and your wife when he turned eighteen,’ said Paula.

‘Yes, he did. But Alice really wanted Christian to have her drawings, so I tried to find an address for him. I suppose I was a bit curious too. At first I searched for him under our surname, but without success. Then I tried with his mother’s last name and found an address in Göteborg. For a while I lost track of him because he moved and the letters came back, but then I found him again. Living on Rosenhillsgatan. But I didn’t know that he had moved to Fjällbacka. I thought he was still in Göteborg, since the letters weren’t returned.’

Ragnar went back into Alice’s room to say goodbye, and then led the way along the corridor as Patrik told him about the man who had taken care of the letters for Christian. Then the three of them sat down in a big, bright room that functioned as both a dining room and cafeteria. It had an impersonal air, with big palm plants that were clearly lacking both water and attention, just like the plant in Alice’s room. They had the whole place to themselves.

‘She cried a lot,’ said Ragnar, stroking the pastel-coloured tablecloth. ‘Presumably due to colic. During her pregnancy, Iréne had already lost interest in Christian, so when Alice was born and became so demanding, my wife had no time for the boy. And he was already in a fragile state because of what had happened to him before.’

‘What about you?’ said Patrik. When he saw Ragnar’s expression, he realized that he’d hit on a sensitive point.

‘Me?’ Ragnar stopped moving his hand on the table. ‘I closed my eyes and refused to see. Iréne has always been the one who makes the decisions. And I’ve let her do it. It’s just been easier that way.’

‘Didn’t Christian like his little sister?’ asked Patrik.

‘He used to stand next to her cot and stare at her. I saw the dark expression on his face, but I never thought that… I just had to leave the room to open the door when the bell rang.’ Ragnar sounded distracted, and he was staring at a spot somewhere behind them. ‘I was only gone a few minutes.’

Paula opened her mouth to ask a question, but decided not to interrupt. He should be allowed to tell the story at his own pace. It was obvious that Ragnar was having a hard time formulating his words. His whole body was tensed, his shoulders hunched.

‘Iréne had gone upstairs to take a nap, and for once I was put in charge of Alice. Otherwise Iréne never let anyone else take care of her. She was such a sweet baby, even though she cried all the time. It was as if Iréne suddenly had a new doll to play with. A doll that she refused to share with anyone else.’

Another pause, and Patrik had to make a real effort not to coax the man to get on with his story.

‘I was only gone a few minutes…’ Ragnar repeated. It was almost as if he’d got stuck. As if it was impossible for him to put the rest into words.

‘Where was Christian?’ asked Patrik calmly, wanting to help the man along a bit.

‘In the bathroom. With Alice. I was giving her a bath. We had one of those contraptions that you could put the baby in, and that way you’d have both hands free to wash her. I filled the tub with water and then put her in the baby seat. And that’s where Alice was sitting.’

Paula nodded. They had a similar device for her son Leo.

‘When I came back to the bathroom… Alice was… She wasn’t moving. Her head was all the way under the water. Her eyes were… open, wide open.’

Ragnar swayed a bit in his chair. It was obvious that he had to force himself to go on, to confront those awful memories and images.

‘Christian was just sitting there, leaning against the bathtub and looking down at her.’ Ragnar fixed his eyes on Paula and Patrik, as if he’d suddenly returned to the present. ‘He was sitting very still, and he was smiling.’

‘But you saved her, right?’ Patrik could feel the goose bumps on his arms.

‘Yes, I saved her. I got her breathing again. And then I saw…’ He cleared his throat. ‘I saw the disappointment in Christian’s eyes.’

‘Did you tell Iréne what happened?’

‘No, that would never… No!’

‘Christian tried to drown his little sister, and you didn’t tell your wife?’ Paula looked at him in disbelief.

‘I felt like I owed him something, after everything he’d been through. If I had told Iréne, she would have sent him away at once. And he wouldn’t have survived that. Besides, the damage was already done.’ He sounded as if he were pleading with them. ‘I didn’t know how serious it was at the time. But it didn’t really matter, because there was nothing I could do to change things. Sending Christian away wouldn’t have made it any better.’

‘So you pretended that nothing had happened?’ said Patrik.

Ragnar sighed, slumping forward even more. ‘Yes, I pretended that nothing had happened. But I never allowed him to be alone with her again. Never.’

‘Did he try anything else?’ Paula’s face was pale.

‘No, I don’t think so. Somehow he seemed satisfied. Alice stopped crying so much. She mostly just lay still and was not at all demanding.’

‘When did you and your wife notice that something was wrong?’ asked Patrik.

‘It gradually became obvious. She didn’t learn things at the same pace as other kids. When I finally got Iréne to admit to it, and we had Alice examined… well, the doctors concluded that she was suffering from some sort of brain damage, which would most likely keep her at a child’s level, mentally speaking, for the rest of her life.’

‘Did Iréne suspect anything?’ asked Paula.

‘No. The doctor even said that Alice had probably been that way since birth. It just wasn’t noticeable until after she started to develop.’

‘How did things go as the two children grew up?’

‘How much time do you have?’ said Ragnar, smiling. But it was a sad smile. ‘Iréne cared only about Alice. She was the prettiest child I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just saying that because she’s mine. Well, you’ve seen what she looks like.’

Patrik thought about those enormous blue eyes.

‘Iréne has always loved anything beautiful. She herself was very beautiful as a young woman, and I think that she saw Alice as an affirmation of her own beauty. She devoted all her attention to our daughter.’

‘And what about Christian?’ said Patrik.

‘Christian? It was as if he didn’t exist.’

‘That must have been terrible for him,’ said Paula.

‘Yes,’ said Ragnar. ‘But he staged his own little revolt. He loved to eat, and he put on weight very easily. He probably inherited that tendency from his mother. When he noticed that his eating habits annoyed Iréne, he started eating even more and got even fatter, just to spite her. And it worked. The two of them waged a constant battle over food, but for once Christian was able to defeat her.’