“We haven’t made it public yet,” he said. “But he’s gone. He hanged himself.”
“He listened to me,” she said.
“Where’s Jennie?” Winter asked yet again.
“I tried to protect her,” Brigitta Dellmar said. “I tried to protect her when I knew that Helene wanted to know everything.”
“Protect her? From whom?”
“From him. From everyone. I tried to protect her.” She looked at Winter. “She was also alone. She needed protecting.”
“Why didn’t you report that she was missing? You could have done it anonymously.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know that she was gone?”
“Not at first. Not then. We had broken off contact then. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. It was like that with her. Suddenly she didn’t want anything to do with me. And of course I can understand that.” She looked at Winter, right into his eyes. “Maybe it’s all a dream,” she said. “A fairy tale.” She moved her damaged body. “Maybe it never happened. None of it.” She sat up. The telephone rang. “Let it ring,” she said. “Do you have a car? Can you carry me?”
She directed him south, down onto the Saroleden highway. They could see the sea. She didn’t say a word. Winter drove two miles, past Billdal. She gestured for him to take the next exit on the right.
The paved road soon gave way to dirt. Winter thought about Odegard again, but the road here ran across coastal land. Seabirds took off in long lines. Feeling as if his breath was being thrust out of his lungs, he rolled down the car window. The smell of damp salt grew stronger in the air the closer they got to the sea.
She pointed to the left. The road narrowed. She made a call from his cell phone. The road turned into a glade. The clouds were suddenly gone, the sun distant yet still there. The house lay in a depression with a fence around it, and a man came up to the car when it pulled up in front of a robust gate. The man was armed. Brigitta Dellmar nodded. They drove into the yard, and Winter parked in front of the house. The sea’s presence was even stronger now, a murmuring in the mind, and the sun had begun to sink into it. Brigitta Dellmar sat still next to Winter in the car. She pointed to the west. Winter got out and took a few steps from the car, and she gestured again with her hand. She’s insane, he thought. I’m insane. The man stayed by the gate with his weapon, a machine gun, as Winter approached the gable end of the house. He walked up the slope and saw the fields open up toward the water. The sun was right in his eyes. He heard voices and cupped the palm of his hand over his eyes to see. The girl was on her way toward him from the sea. The woman was walking next to her. The girl was holding something. They came closer. The woman was blonde. They were twenty-five yards away. They drew closer. Winter saw only the contours of the woman’s face, outlined against the sun.
They stood before one another. Jennie was holding pebbles in her hand, and long strips that might be seaweed. Winter was blinded by the sun and the wetness in his eyes, by the salt that ran down his face. He squatted down in front of the girl. The woman remained standing there. She didn’t move. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again she was gone, as if dissolved into the haze. Winter cautiously reached out with his hand and touched the girl’s shoulder. It was like brushing against a little bird. She wasn’t afraid.
“Who are you?” she asked.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ake Edwardson has won the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy award three times. His eleven Erik Winter novels have been published in twenty-one countries. He lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.
