Vivianne went over to Anders as he stood leaning against the railing, watching the couples dance.

‘We’ve got to leave now.’

He nodded, but something in his expression made her feel more uneasy than ever.

‘Come on.’ She tugged at his sleeve. Without looking her in the eye, he turned and followed her.

She had hidden her suitcase in one of the rooms that wasn’t reserved for guests. She picked it up and headed for the door, ready to leave.

‘Where’s your suitcase? We have to leave in ten minutes, otherwise we might miss our plane.’

Anders didn’t reply. Instead he sank down on to the bed and stared at the floor.

‘Anders?’ She had a tight grip on the handle of her suitcase.

‘I love you,’ whispered Anders. Those words suddenly sounded ominous.

‘We have to go,’ she said, but she knew in her heart that he wasn’t going with her. In the distance they could hear the thudding music. She set her suitcase on the floor and sat down next to him.

‘I can’t.’ He looked at her. His eyes filled with tears.

‘What have you done?’ She didn’t want to hear what he said, didn’t want to know that her worst fears had come true. But she couldn’t stop herself from asking the question.

‘Done? Good Lord, did you think I was the one who …?’

Anders shook his head and began laughing as he wiped away his tears with the back of his hand. ‘Good Lord, Vivianne. No!’

She felt enormously relieved, but in that case, she really didn’t understand what was going on.

‘Why then?’ Vivianne put her arm around her brother’s shoulders, and he leaned his head against her. That conjured up so many memories of all the times they had sat like this, with their heads close together.

‘You know that I love you.’

‘Yes, I know that.’ And suddenly she understood. She straightened up so she could get a proper look at him. Gently she took his face in her hands. ‘My dear brother, have you fallen in love with someone?’

‘I can’t go with you,’ he said, his eyes again filling with tears. ‘I know that we promised each other that we’d always stay together. But you’ll have to make this trip without me.’

‘If you’re happy, then I’m happy too. It’s as simple as that. I’ll miss you terribly, but there’s nothing I want more than for you to have your own life.’ She smiled. ‘But you do have to tell me who it is. Otherwise I can’t leave.’

He mentioned a name, and Vivianne pictured a woman they’d worked with in connection with Project Badis. Again she smiled.

‘You have good taste,’ she said, and then fell silent for a moment. ‘You’re going to have to do a lot of explaining, and you’ll be held responsible. Should I really leave you alone with all this? I’ll stay if you want me to.’

Anders shook his head.

‘I want you to go. Bask in the sun and enjoy it for me too. I doubt I’m going to see much daylight for a while, but she knows about everything and has promised to wait for me.’

‘What about the money?’

‘It’s all yours,’ he said without hesitation. ‘I don’t need any of it.’

‘Are you sure?’ Again she took his face in her hands, as if touching him would help her to remember his familiar features.

He nodded and took her hands away.

‘I’m sure. And now you have to go. The plane won’t wait for you.’

He stood up and grabbed her suitcase. Without another word he carried it out to the car and put it in the boot. No one saw them. The hum of voices blended with the music, and everyone was focused on other things.

Vivianne got into the driver’s seat.

‘We did a good job, didn’t we?’ She glanced up at Badis, which glittered in the dim light.

‘A damned good job.’

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Vivianne took off her engagement ring and handed it to Anders.

‘Here. Give this back to Erling. He’s not a bad person. I hope he finds somebody else to give it to some day.’

Anders put it in his trouser pocket.

‘I’ll make sure he gets it.’

They stared at each other in silence. Then Vivianne closed the door and started up the car. Anders stood there for a long time, watching as she sped away. Then he slowly went up the stairs to Badis. He had decided to be the last person to leave the party.

22

Erling was starting to panic. Vivianne had disappeared. No one had seen her since the party on Saturday, and her car was also missing. Something must have happened.

Again he picked up the phone and rang the police station.

‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked as soon as Mellberg answered. When he received another negative reply, he could no longer control himself. ‘What exactly are you doing to find my fiancée? I’m convinced that something terrible must have happened to her. Have you dragged the water around the dock? Yes, I realize that her car is missing too, but who’s to say that somebody didn’t drive it into the harbour, and maybe with Vivianne inside?’ Erling’s voice rose to a falsetto as he pictured Vivianne trapped in the car, unable to escape as the water slowly rose. ‘I demand that you make use of all possible resources to find her.’

He slammed down the phone. A timid knock on the door made him glance up. Gunilla poked her head in, giving him a frightened look.

‘Yes?’ He wished everybody would just leave him alone. He’d been out searching for Vivianne all of Sunday, and this morning he’d come to the office only because he hoped she might try to reach him there.

‘The bank called.’ Gunilla sounded even more anxious than usual.

‘I don’t have time for things like that right now,’ he said, staring at the phone. She might ring at any moment.

‘It’s about the Badis account, something that’s not as it should be. They want you to call them back.’

‘I told you, I don’t have time for that,’ he snapped. To his surprise, Gunilla was still standing there.

‘They want you to call back, and they said it’s urgent,’ she told him, and then went back to her desk.

With a sigh Erling picked up the phone and rang their contact at the bank. ‘It’s Erling. Is there some sort of problem?’

He tried to sound authoritative. He wanted to make the call as brief as possible so that the line wouldn’t be busy if Vivianne phoned. He was hardly paying attention as he listened to the bank official, but suddenly he sat up straight.

‘What do you mean there’s no money in the account? You’d better check again. We deposited several million kronor, and additional funds will be arriving from Vivianne and Anders Berkelin this week. I know that we have a lot of suppliers that need to be paid, but there’s plenty of money in that account.’ Then he fell silent and listened some more. ‘Are you sure you’re not mistaken?’

Erling tugged at the collar of his shirt. He was suddenly having a hard time breathing. When he put down the phone, thoughts began whirling through his head. The money was gone. Vivianne was gone. He wasn’t stupid – he could put two and two together. But he didn’t want to believe it.

Erling had just tapped in the first three digits of the phone number for the police station when Anders appeared in the doorway. Erling stared at him. Vivianne’s brother looked haggard and exhausted. At first he merely stood there without saying a word. Then he came over to Erling’s desk and held out his hand, palm up. Light from the window shone on what he was holding and made tiny sparkles dance over the wall behind Erling. Vivianne’s engagement ring.

At that moment all doubt disappeared from Erling’s mind. In a daze, he tapped in the rest of the numbers for the Tanumshede police. Anders sat down in a chair across from him and waited. On the desk lay the engagement ring, glittering in the light.

23

On Wednesday morning Erica was allowed to leave the hospital and go home. It had turned out that the blow to her head wasn’t serious, but considering the previous injuries that she’d sustained in the car accident, the doctors had decided to keep her under observation for a few days just to be on the safe side.