He was grimacing inside but forced himself not to say any more. Instead he waited for the reaction he was counting on.
They were standing under the big chestnut tree, fifty yards from Vera’s house. When she suddenly exploded in motion he was taken by surprise. She ran surprisingly fast for her age, and it took a couple of seconds for Patrik to recover from the shock and run after her. When he reached her house the front door was wide open and he cautiously stepped inside. Sobbing sounds were heard from the bathroom down the hall, and then he heard her violently throwing up.
It felt wrong to stand there in the hall and wait with cap in hand, listening to her vomiting, so he took off his wet shoes, hung up his coat, and went in to the kitchen. When Vera came out a few minutes later the coffee-maker was bubbling and there were two cups on the kitchen table. She was pale, and for the first time he saw tears. Only a hint, like a glitter in the corner of her eye, but it was enough. Vera sat down stiffly on one of the kitchen chairs.
In a few minutes she had aged many years, and she moved slowly, like a much older woman. Patrik let her have a few more minutes’ respite as he poured coffee for them both. But the moment he sat down he let her know with a stern look that the moment of truth had arrived. She knew that he knew, and there was no turning back.
‘So I murdered my grandson.’
Patrik took it as a rhetorical question and didn’t reply. If he did he’d be forced to lie. Once he’d come this far he couldn’t back up. In time she would find out the truth. But first it was his turn.
‘I knew it was you who murdered Alex when you lied about being there the week before she died. You said that you sat in her cold house freezing, but the furnace didn’t break down until the week after that, the week she died.’
Vera was staring into space, and it seemed that she didn’t even hear what Patrik had said.
‘It’s strange. It’s only now that I actually realize that I took another person’s life. Alexandra’s death was never very real to me, but Anders’s child…I can almost see him before me…’
‘Why did Alex have to die?’
Vera held up her hand. She would tell him everything, but at her own pace.
‘There would have been a scandal. Everyone would have pointed at him and talked about him. I did what I thought was right. I didn’t know that he would still be the object of everyone’s ridicule. That my silence would eat him away inside and strip him of everything of value. It was so simple. Karl-Erik came to me and told me what had happened. He had talked with Nelly before he came to me, and they had reached an agreement. Nothing good would come of having the whole town know about it. It would be our secret, and if I knew what was best for Anders, I would keep my mouth shut. So I shut up. I kept quiet for all those years. But each year robbed Anders of more than the one before. Each year he kept wasting away in his own private hell, and I chose not to see my role in it. I cleaned up after him and supported him as best I could, but the only thing I couldn’t do was to make what happened go away. Silence can never be taken back.’
She had drunk her coffee in a few greedy gulps and raised her cup to Patrik. He got up and fetched the pot and poured her some more. It seemed as though the habit of drinking coffee was what helped her keep a grip on reality.
‘Sometimes I think the silence was worse than the assaults. We never talked about it, not even inside these four walls, and only now do I understand what it must have done to him. Maybe he interpreted my silence as a reproach. That’s the only thing I can’t stand. That he might have thought I was blaming him for what happened. I never thought that, not even for a second, but I’ll never know now whether he knew that.’
For a second the facade looked as if it might crack, but then Vera straightened up and forced herself to go on. Patrik could only imagine what an enormous effort it took.
‘Over the years we found a sort of equilibrium. Even though life was miserable for both of us, we knew what we had and where we stood with each other. Naturally I knew that he still saw Alex occasionally and that they had some sort of strange attraction for one another, but I still believed that we could go on as we had always done. Then Anders told me that Alex wanted to expose what had happened to them. She wanted to clean all the old skeletons out of the closet, I think was what he said. He sounded almost indifferent when he mentioned it, but for me it felt like an electric shock. That would change everything. Nothing would be the same if Alex dragged up old secrets after so many years. What good would it do? And what would people say? Besides, even if Anders tried to pretend that it hadn’t affected him, I knew him better than that. I believe that he didn’t want her to make it public any more than I did. I know-knew, my son.’
‘So you went to visit her.’
‘Yes. I went there that Friday evening hoping to talk some sense into her. Make her understand that she couldn’t single-handedly make a decision that would affect us all.’
‘But she didn’t understand.’
Vera gave a bitter smile. ‘No, she didn’t.’
She had finished her second cup of coffee before Patrik had even finished half of his first one, but now she set the cup aside and folded her hands on the table.
‘I tried to appeal to her. I explained to her how difficult it would be for Anders if she made public what had happened, but she looked me straight in the eye and claimed I was only thinking of myself, not Anders. He would be glad if it finally came out, she said. He had never asked us to keep quiet, and she also told me that I, Nelly, Karl-Erik and Birgit hadn’t considered them when we decided to keep the whole thing secret. We were only interested in keeping our own reputations unsullied. Can you imagine such cheek!’
The rage that a moment before had been ignited in Vera’s eyes was extinguished just as quickly as it appeared and was replaced by an indifferent, dead look. She continued in a monotone.
‘Something burst inside me when I heard her make such an outrageous claim. When I had done everything with Anders’s best interests at heart. I could almost hear a click in my head, and I simply acted without thinking. I had my sleeping pills with me in my purse, and when she went into the kitchen I crumbled a few tablets into her cider glass. She had poured a glass of wine for me when I arrived. When she came back from the kitchen I pretended to accept what she’d said and offered to drink a toast as friends before I left. She seemed grateful for that and drank her cider to keep me company. After a while she fell asleep on the sofa. I hadn’t really thought out what I should do next. The sleeping pills were an impulse on the spur of the moment, but I got the idea that I would make it look like a suicide. I didn’t have enough sleeping pills to force a fatal dose into her. The only thing I could think of was to slit her wrists. I knew that many people did it in the bathtub, so it felt like a feasible idea.’
Her voice was toneless. It sounded as if she were relating a completely normal everyday event, not a murder.
‘I took off all her clothes. I thought I could probably carry her, since my arms are strong from all those years of cleaning, but it was impossible. Instead I had to drag her into the bathroom and manoeuvre her into the tub. Then I slit her arteries in both arms with a razor blade I found in the medicine cabinet. After cleaning the house once a week for several years, I was familiar with everything about it. I washed off the glass I drank out of, turned off the lights, locked the door and put the spare key back in its place.’
Patrik was shaken, but forced his voice to remain calm.
‘You understand that you’ll have to come with me now, don’t you? I won’t have to call for reinforcements, will I?’
‘No, you don’t have to do that. May I just gather up a few things to take with me?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, that will be fine.’
She got up. In the doorway she turned round.
‘How was I to know she was pregnant? Of course, she didn’t drink any wine, I thought of that, but I had no idea that was why. Maybe she only drank in moderation, or had to drive somewhere. How should I know? It was impossible for me to know, don’t you think?’
Her voice was pleading, and Patrik could only nod mutely. In time he would tell her that the child wasn’t Anders’s, but for the time being he didn’t want to disturb the balance of trust they had established. There were several more people she would have to tell her story to before they could close the case on Alexandra Wijkner for good. But something was bothering him. His intuition told him that Vera still hadn’t told him everything.
Later, when he got into the car he took out his copy of the letter that Anders had left behind, as his last message to the world. Slowly he read through what Anders had written, and once again Patrik felt how strong the
