‘It couldn’t have just drifted away, could it?’ asked Patrik. He followed Gunnar to the empty berth.

‘I can’t say for sure what happened. All I know is that the boat isn’t here,’ said Gunnar, shaking his head. ‘Matte was always so careful about tying it up. That was something I taught him when he was only a child. And we haven’t had any stormy weather to speak of lately, so I can’t believe that the boat tore away from its moorings.’ He shook his head again, even more emphatically. ‘Somebody must have stolen it. But I can’t understand what they’d want with an old dinghy like that.’

‘Hmm, well, I suppose it’d be worth a few kroner.’ Patrik squatted down. He ran his eyes over the berth, and then stood up again. ‘I’ll write up a report when I get back to the station. But we can start by having a word with the Coast Guard service. They’ll keep an eye out for it when they’re out in their boats making their rounds.’

Without another word Gunnar fell in behind Patrik as he set off across the bridge. In silence they walked the short distance around the boathouses to the Coast Guard offices. No one seemed to be there, and when Patrik tried the door, he found it locked. But then he noticed movement inside the MinLouis, the smallest of the Coast Guard vessels, and he went over and knocked on the window. A man appeared in the stern, and Patrik recognized Peter, who had helped them on that fateful day at sea when one of the female participants in the reality show Sodding Tanum was murdered.

‘Hello there. How can I help you?’ Peter smiled up at them, drying his hands on a towel.

‘We’re looking for a missing boat,’ said Patrik, pointing towards the empty berth. ‘It’s Gunnar’s boat. It’s not where it’s supposed to be, and we don’t know what happened to it. We were wondering if you could keep an eye out for it?’

‘Sure. I heard about what happened,’ said Peter quietly, giving Gunnar a nod. ‘Please accept my condolences. And of course we’d be happy to help. Do you think it might have got loose on its own? If so, it wouldn’t have gone very far. And it would probably drift towards land and not out to sea.’

‘No, we think it was stolen,’ said Patrik.

‘People can be vile sometimes.’ Peter shook his head. ‘It’s a wooden motorboat, right, Gunnar? With a blue or green canopy?’

‘Yes. It’s blue. And it says Sophia on the stern.’ He turned to Patrik. ‘I was in love with Sophia Loren when I was young. And when I met Signe, I thought she looked exactly like her. So I named the boat Sophia.’

‘Okay. At least now I know what to look for. I’ll be making my rounds in a while, and I promise to take a look for Sophia.’

‘Thanks,’ said Patrik. He looked at Gunnar and asked, ‘Are you sure that Mats was the last one to use the boat?’

‘Well, I can’t really be sure about that.’ Gunnar hesitated. ‘But he said that he wanted to go out and visit Nathalie, so I assumed that …’

‘If he didn’t borrow the boat, then when was the last time you saw it?’

Peter had gone back inside the cabin to continue working on his equipment, so Gunnar and Patrik were alone on the wharf.

‘In that case, it would probably have been last Wednesday. But we should just ask Nathalie. Haven’t you talked to her yet?’

‘We were planning to go out there tomorrow. I’ll ask her then.’

‘That’ll be good,’ said Gunnar, tonelessly. Then he gave a start. ‘Good Lord, that means that she doesn’t even know yet. We didn’t think about phoning her. We didn’t …’

Patrik placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

‘You and Signe have had other things on your mind. I’ll tell her when we go out to the island. Don’t worry.’

Gunnar nodded.

‘Can I give you a ride home?’ asked Patrik.

‘Yes, I’d be very grateful,’ said Gunnar, sighing with relief. Then he followed Patrik to his car. Neither of them spoke all the way out to Mörhult.

FJÄLLBACKA 1871

The ice had started to break up. The April sun was slowly melting the snow, and on the island tiny tufts of green were venturing out of the crevices. She had only a vague memory of what had happened. She recalled the spinning ceiling, the pain, and glimpses of their faces. But sometimes the terror came back to her so vividly that it made her gasp for breath.

None of them had spoken of the incident. It wasn’t necessary. She’d heard Julian tell Karl that maybe now his father would get his wish. It wasn’t hard to understand that the whole episode had to do with the letter that had arrived, but that did nothing to diminish the shame and humiliation she felt. It had taken threats from her father-in-law to get her husband to fulfil his marital duties. No doubt the old man had begun to wonder why she and Karl had no children.

In the morning she had awakened feeling stiff and frozen. She was lying on the floor with her heavy black woollen dress and her white petticoats hitched up around her waist. Quickly she pulled them down, but the house was empty. No one else was there. With a pounding headache and dry mouth, she had hauled herself to her feet. She felt an ache between her legs, and when she later went out to the privy, she saw the blood that had dried on the inside of her thighs.

Many hours later Karl and Julian came back from the lighthouse, both of them acting as if nothing had happened. Emelie had spent the whole day frenetically scouring the house with soap and scrubbing-brush. Nothing had interrupted her work. Even the dead were keeping strangely quiet. Then she had started preparing the evening meal so that it would be ready by five o’clock, but she seemed hardly aware of her movements as she peeled the potatoes and fried the fish. Only a slight trembling in her hands when she heard the footsteps of the two men as they approached the front door betrayed the emotions churning inside her. Karl and Julian came in, hung their heavy jackets in the front hall, and sat down at the table without paying her any attention. And that was how the winter days had passed. With hazy memories of what had happened, and the cold spreading a frozen white carpet over the water.

But now the ice was beginning to crack, and occasionally Emelie would go outside and sit down on the bench next to the house, lifting her face to the sun. Sometimes she found herself smiling, because now she was certain. At first she wasn’t sure, since she didn’t know her own body very well, but finally there was no longer any doubt. She was with child. The night that she remembered as a bad dream had led to something good. She was going to have a baby. Someone she could take care of, someone she could share her life with here on the island.

She closed her eyes and placed her hand on her stomach as the sun continued to warm her cheeks. Someone came and sat down next to her, but when she opened her eyes, no one was sitting beside her. Emelie closed her eyes again and smiled. It felt so good not to be alone.

11

The morning sun was rising above the horizon, but Nathalie didn’t notice as she stood on the dock and stared out across the islands towards Fjällbacka.

She didn’t want any visitors. She didn’t want them to force their way into the world that she and Sam had created here on the island. It belonged to them and no one else. But she couldn’t say no when the police called. Besides, she had a problem and needed help. There was practically no food left, and she couldn’t bring herself to phone Mats’s parents. Since she was going to have visitors, she decided to ask them to bring her some groceries, just the essentials. It seemed a bit cheeky to ask someone she’d never met to do her grocery shopping, but she really had no choice. Sam wasn’t yet well enough to make the trip to Fjällbacka, and if they didn’t fill up the refrigerator and pantry, they’d soon starve to death. She wasn’t planning to allow the officers to go any further than the dock. The island belonged to her; the island belonged to them.