The memories of that night came back to Joakim-ice-cold memories of growing panic. He had hurled himself into the car and driven around the areas close to the central station. He had done it before, either alone or with Katrine. But then he had been worried about what could have happened to Ethel.
This time he was terrified for Livia.
“I found Ethel in the end,” he said, looking at Gerlof. “She was lying in the dark graveyard at Klara church. She had curled up next to a tomb and passed out. Livia was sitting beside her in thin clothes, ice cold and apathetic. I called an ambulance and made sure Ethel went into detox. Again. Then I drove home to Bromma with Livia.”
He fell silent.
“Katrine made me choose after that,” he said in a low voice. “And I chose my family.”
“You made the right choice,” said Gerlof.
Joakim nodded, although he would still have preferred not to make that choice.
“After that night I told Ethel not to come near our house anymore… but she did. We didn’t let her in, but in the evenings, two or three times a week, she would stand at our gate in her scruffy denim jacket staring at the Apple House. Sometimes she would open our mail, to see if there was any money or a check in the envelope. And sometimes she had a guy with her… some skeleton standing next to her, shaking.”
He paused and thought about the fact that this was one of his last memories of his sister: standing by the gate, her face deathly pale, her hair standing on end.
“Ethel used to just stand there yelling,” he said to Gerlof. “She yelled stuff about… about Katrine. Sometimes about me too, but mostly about Katrine. She would roar and bawl until the neighbors started peeping through their curtains, and I would have to go out and give her some money.”
“Did that help?”
“Yes… it worked at the time, but of course it meant that she came back the next time she was broke. It became a vicious cycle. Katrine and I felt… besieged. I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and hear Ethel shouting by the gate, but when I looked out, the street would be empty.”
“Was Livia at home when your sister turned up?”
“Most of the time, yes.”
“Did she hear Ethel yelling?”
“I think so. She hasn’t talked about it, but I’m sure she did.” Joakim closed his eyes. “Those were dark days… a terrible time. And Katrine started to wish that Ethel would die. She would talk about it late at night, in bed. Ethel might take an overdose, sooner or later. Preferably sooner. I think that’s what we were both hoping for.”
“And that’s what happened?”
“Yes, eventually. The telephone rang at eleven-thirty one night. When it rang so late, we knew it was about Ethel, it always was.”
A year ago, thought Joakim, but it felt like ten.
It was his mother, Ingrid, who told them the news. Ethel had been found drowned in Bromma, just below the area where their house was.
Katrine had even heard her earlier. Ethel had been standing there at the gate as usual at around seven o’clock, yelling, then the screaming had stopped.
When Katrine looked out, she was gone.
“Ethel had gone down to the walkway by the shore,” said Joakim. “She had sat down by a boathouse and pushed the needle in, then she had tumbled into the freezing water. And that was the end of her.”
“Weren’t you home that night?” asked Gerlof.
“I came home later…Livia and I were at a children’s party.”
“That was probably a good thing. For her sake.”
“Yes. And for a while we hoped that everything would settle
down,” said Joakim. “But I kept on waking up at night thinking that I could hear Ethel yelling out in the street. And Katrine just lost all her joy in life…We’d finished renovating the Apple House by that time and it was lovely, but she just couldn’t relax there. So last winter we started talking about moving out to the country, moving south, maybe finding a place here on Oland. And in the end that’s what we did.”
He fell silent and looked at his watch. Twenty past four. It felt as if he had talked more during this last hour than during the whole of the fall.
“I have to go and pick up my children,” he said.
“Did anyone ask how all this made you feel?” said Gerlof.
“Me?” said Joakim, getting up. “I felt terrific, of course.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“No. But we’ve never talked about how we feel in my family. And we never really talked about Ethel’s problems, either.” He looked at Gerlof. “You just don’t tell people that your sister is a junkie. Katrine was the first… you could say I dragged her into all this.”
Gerlof sat there in silence, apparently lost in thought.
“What did Ethel want?” he said. “Why did she keep on coming to your house? Was it just to get the money for drugs?”
Joakim pulled on his jacket without answering.
“Not just that,” he said eventually. “She wanted her daughter back as well.”
“Her daughter?”
Joakim hesitated. This was also difficult to talk about, but in the end he came out with it:
“There was no father… he died of an overdose. Katrine and I were Livia’s godparents, and social services awarded her care to us four years ago. We adopted her last year… Livia is ours now.”
“But she’s Ethel’s child?” said Gerlof.
“No. Not any longer.”
23
Tilda had put in a report on the black van to headquarters in Borgholm, describing it as an “interesting” vehicle worth looking out for. But Oland was a big place and the number of police officers out patrolling the roads was small.
And Gerlof’s talk of a murderer with a boat hook at Eel Point? She hadn’t put in a report on that particular theory. Without any proof that there had in fact been a boat out by the point, it was impossible to instigate a murder investigation-it would take more than a few holes in a top.
“I’ve returned the clothes to Joakim Westin,” said Gerlof the next time he called her.
“Did you tell him about your murder theory?” said Tilda.
“No… it wasn’t the right time. He’s still out of balance; he would probably believe that an apparition had dragged his wife down into the water.”
“An apparition?”
“Westin’s sister… she was a drug addict.”
Gerlof told her the story of Joakim’s sister, Ethel, her heroin addiction and her habit of disturbing the peace.
“So that’s why the family moved from Stockholm,” said Tilda when he finished. “A death drove them away.”
“That was one reason. But Oland might just have tempted them as well.”
Tilda thought about how tired and worn Joakim Westin had looked when they went to see him, and said, “I think he could do with talking to a psychologist. Or maybe a priest.”
“So I’m not up to the job of father confessor?” said Gerlof.
Almost every evening when Tilda passed a mailbox on her way home from work, she was on the point of taking out the letter to Martin’s wife and dropping it in the box, and yet it was still in her purse. It was as if she were carrying an ax around-the letter gave her power over a person she didn’t know.
Of course, she had power over Martin too. He had continued to call her from time to time, trying to make small talk. Tilda didn’t know what she would say if he asked if he could come and see her again.
