very end, where the beach was widest, people often sunbathed in the nude. Many times she herself had run naked out into the sea, shrieking with joy, her voice drowned out by the roar of the waves.
Maybe we can go skinny-dipping tomorrow morning, she thought, before Johan has to go to work. If only the weather would improve.
Viveka had promised to come for lunch the next day. Emma didn’t want to be alone.
She stood up and roamed through the house. It had been a long time since she had visited her parents. She didn’t really have much contact with them. There had always been a certain distance between them, even when she was little. She had always felt as if she needed to achieve something to make them happy, and of course they had been pleased whenever she made a nice drawing, got all the answers right on a test, or performed well at a gymnastics tournament. The distance between Emma and her parents had not diminished any over the years, though, and by now it was impossible to bridge. She found it so difficult to act natural in their company. She usually felt guilty because she didn’t call or visit them enough. At the same time, she thought that since they were retired and had oceans of time, they could show a greater interest in coming to visit her. They could help out with the children, maybe take them on an outing or go to Pippi Longstocking Land, which the kids loved. She and Olle seldom had time for that. Whenever her parents finally did come to visit, they would sit glued to the sofa and expect to be waited on. They would often make comments about how messy things were in the house or say that the children needed haircuts. It was exhausting, but she couldn’t see any way to change the situation. Her parents wouldn’t stand for any criticism, and if she ever challenged them, they just became defensive. It always ended with her father getting mad.
The living room looked the way it always did. A sofa with floral upholstery and an antique table from one of the countless auctions that her parents loved to go to. The fireplace probably hadn’t been used in a while. It had been neatly swept clean. She was pleased to find firewood in a basket next to the hearth.
The wooden stairs up to the second floor creaked. She went into the guest room, which she and her sister, Julia, counted as their own. This was where they always slept when they visited their parents, staying among the things that they had left behind when they moved out.
She sat down on the bed. It smelled even more stuffy in here, and dustballs had collected in the corners.
The bookshelves that covered one wall were filled with books. Her gaze swept over the spines. Kitty, The Five of Us, Children 312, the horse books about Britta and Silver, Kulla-Gulla, and her mother’s old childhood books. She pulled one off the shelf and giggled at the language and the cover. It was a drawing of a slender young woman with red lips and a kerchief just about to hop into a sports car with a dark, Kendoll kind of man at the wheel. Obstacles to Love was the sensational title.
That might very well apply to me, she observed dryly.
She found a thick stack of well-thumbed issues of Starlet and The Story of My Life. Emma smiled to herself when she recalled how she and her sister had devoured them, discussing the gripping fates that befell these young girls. On another shelf stood a row of old photo albums. For a long time she sat looking at pictures from her childhood. Birthdays, riding camp, last days of school. With her friends at the beach, at a barbecue on a summer evening, and with her mother and father and Julia at Grona Lund amusement park in Stockholm. Helena was in a lot of the pictures, too.
There they were: as thin eleven-year-olds at the beach; when they were thirteen at a class party, wearing far too much eyeliner; and then in the choir, neatly lined up. Happy girls who loved horses and went to riding school. Dressed in white for confirmation. Ladylike and glittering in long dresses for their senior prom.
Her eye fell on a stack of old school yearbooks. She pulled one out and looked up the class that she and Helena had belonged to.
CLASS 6A it said at the top. Below was a photo of the school, the principal, and their teacher, then photographs of their classmates, each with a name underneath. How young we were, she thought. Some were childish-looking, with round, rosy cheeks. Others were pale, with bored expressions. A few had the early traces of a teenager’s complexion. Some of the girls wore makeup, and the downy upper lips of some of the boys bulged faintly from the snuff they used. She looked at herself, at the very bottom of the page, since her maiden name, Ostberg, came last in the alphabet. And Helena. So sweet, with her dark hair hiding half her face. She was staring straight into the camera with a solemn expression.
She moved her index finger from one picture to the next. Ewa Ahlberg, Fredrik Andersson, Gunilla Brostrom. Her finger stopped on the blonde girl with a shawl around her neck, peering at the photographer from under her bangs.
Gunilla Brostrom. She had just seen that face on a grown-up. It was the woman in the newspapers. The same Gunilla who had been murdered. Emma dashed down to the kitchen to get the evening papers. It was definitely her. Back then she had blonde hair, but it was the same face. She had forgotten about Gunilla. They hadn’t been especially good friends.
Both Gunilla and Helena had fallen victim to the same killer.
In the next second, when it became clear to her what they had in common, she felt as if she had been struck on the head.
Anni. Where is Anni-Frid? She must be Frida… It couldn’t be true. Her eyes searched through the faces… Why wasn’t Anni there? Oh, that’s right, she didn’t arrive until the spring. From Stockholm. Then they moved back. We called her Anni, even though her name was Anni-Frid, thought Emma. She realized that it must be the same person.
All three in the same class. Now she was the only gang member left.
The girls who belonged to the gang weren’t all friends. She and Helena were best friends, of course, but then that oddball Gunilla joined in along with the newcomer, Anni. Something made the four of them decide to gang up together and torment him. It didn’t go on for very long, maybe a few months. It started rather innocently, just a little teasing and some shoving. Then it got worse and worse. They egged each other on. Everyone took part, but Helena was the one who took the lead. It was really the only thing they had in common: persecuting him. Maybe Gunilla and Anni saw the harassment as a way of being friends with her and Helena, who were considered the tough girls at school. Maybe it was their way of being included in the gang.
That wasn’t what happened. Summer vacation arrived, and they all scattered. Anni moved back to Stockholm, and Emma never saw her again. Only Emma and Helena ended up in the same class in middle school. For them, the harassment didn’t mean a thing. After that summer, all four of the girls had presumably forgotten all about it.
He apparently had not.
Her hands were shaking as she turned the pages in the yearbook. A couple of pages farther on. Class 6C. She scanned the faces. There he was. The fifth picture from the left.
His round face was pale and solemn, with the hint of a double chin. Short, cropped hair. It was him. He was the common denominator.
A great wave of nausea welled up inside her. She hardly had time to react before she threw up violently on the floor.
Just then the phone rang. The ringing echoed stubbornly through the house.
Instead of answering, she went into the bathroom to clean herself up. She felt so dizzy that she was weak in the knees. He had killed them, one after another. Now she was the only one left.
The phone rang again. She stumbled down the stairs.
It was Johan.
“Hi. It’s me. I got done early. I’m leaving now.”
Emma couldn’t get a word out.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
She sank down onto the floor with the receiver pressed to her cheek. She whispered the words.
“I figured out the connection between the victims. All of them were in the same class in sixth grade. In my class… We were in a girl gang that harassed a boy in one of the other classes. He must be the murderer. One time we stuffed his underpants in his mouth. Just like he did to the others. He killed them all except for me. Do you understand? I’m next in line. What if he’s here? I might be overreacting, but there was a car driving behind me on the last part of the road out to the house. Then it just turned around. There was a man driving it.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“An old Saab. I think it was red, and-”
