Vendela nodded. ‘I fell in love with him and we got together, but he was given a warning by the psychology association. Therapists aren’t allowed to seduce their patients – it’s unethical.’ She added, ‘So Max got angry and decided to become a writer instead; he regarded it as his revenge on the association when his books became popular.’
They sat in silence for a little while.
‘Why were you in therapy?’ asked Per.
‘I don’t know … So that I could move on from a difficult childhood, isn’t that usually the case?’
‘Did you have a difficult childhood?’
‘It wasn’t great. My mother died when I was very young, and my father was in a dream world most of the time … And I had a brother, an older brother called Jan-Erik. We lived in the same house, but he didn’t want to see me. His door was always closed. So I thought we had some kind of monster living upstairs.’
‘But you got to know him eventually?’
‘Yes, but he frightened me at first. He was mentally handicapped … retarded, as we said in those days. And he looked horrible.’
‘Horrible?’
‘Jan-Erik had allergies, just like me … but his were much worse. I think he had a mixture of different allergies, as well as asthma and sensitive skin. He had long nails that were hardly ever cut; they tore his skin when he scratched himself, and that led to infections.’
‘It sounds horrendous,’ said Per.
‘It was, but there was no attempt to help a person like that back in the fifties. They were just hidden away.’ She closed her eyes. ‘And then he was convicted of setting fire to our barn, and the authorities decided to send Jan-Erik to a mental hospital on the mainland … Which meant he would end up among psychopaths and those who’d committed sex crimes. It was out of the question.’
‘Out of the question?’
‘I helped him to run away.’
She didn’t say any more. They sat in silence again.
The setting sun had begun to nudge the trees over by the shore. Before long it would be pitch dark out here.
Per was lost in his own thoughts. After a while he looked over at the red clouds and said, ‘There’s no love or consideration in this world, only egotism … He taught me that at an early age. But when I grew up I tried to prove to him that it wasn’t true.’
Vendela turned to look at him. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘My father.’
Vendela reached out her hand and he took it. His hand was cold and almost as slender and bony as her own. ‘And now Jerry’s gone. And I’m frightened of what he’s left me.’
‘What has he left you?’ asked Vendela.
‘Bad memories. And a whole lot of problems.’
They sat there by the stone, still holding hands. The sun had disappeared and the sky was growing dark, but they carried on talking. Eventually they got to their feet.
They didn’t say much on the way home, but Vendela stopped outside Per’s cottage. She looked at him in the darkness. He opened his mouth, but didn’t seem to know what to say or do. And Vendela didn’t know either.
‘This is where I live,’ he said eventually, turning away.
Vendela stayed where she was for a minute or two, wondering whether to go with him. What would he do then? What would she do? A range of possibilities extended before her like meandering rivers.
‘Sleep well, Per.’
Vendela set off again – home to her own dark stone fortress.
54
Per was sitting at the kitchen table with the telephone in front of him, peering out of the window. There was no sign of any strange cars on the coast road. And there had been no anonymous phone calls over the past twenty- four hours. But he was still unable to relax this morning.
He had intended to work, but he just couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm for making up yet more opinions on soap. Instead he made some other calls.
First of all he contacted Jerry’s bank in Kristianstad to get an idea of the situation regarding his father’s finances. The question was, would there be any money left for Per?
Apparently not. Twenty-two thousand kronor, that was what he managed to track down in Jerry’s bank accounts. Plus a few shares in Volvo – which was ironic, as Jerry had always refused to drive Swedish cars. But there were no valuable works of art stashed away, no expensive wines or luxury cars.
Everything had gone. Morner Art was an empty company.
‘Your father wasn’t completely wiped out, but near enough,’ said the bank manager who was dealing with Jerry’s estate.
‘But he did have money at one stage, didn’t he?’
‘Oh yes, there was money in the company. But your father made a number of significant withdrawals in recent years. Of course, there’s the property outside Ryd as well, but that’s an insurance matter now … The estate will just about cover the funeral expenses, in my view.’
He had suspected that he was unlikely to inherit very much from his father – nothing of value, anyway. He had certainly inherited other things.
‘These withdrawals from the company … Was he paying himself a salary?’
‘No,’ said the bank manager. He seemed to be checking something on the computer. ‘They were salary and pension payments to an employee … Hans Bremer.’
After the conversation, Per sat by the telephone thinking. Mostly about Hans Bremer. Why had Jerry given him so much money? And where had the money gone, in that case? Bremer’s sister hadn’t seen any sign of it, after all.
He suddenly remembered the little note he had found in Bremer’s apartment. A note with four names on it.
His trousers were in the laundry basket, but the note was still in his pocket. He put in on the kitchen table in front of him and stared at the names:
Ingrid was Bremer’s sister, so he didn’t need to ring her, but he had no idea who the other three were. He chose the first one, the person Bremer called Cash. It looked like a mobile number.
Shouldn’t he just let all this go?
Perhaps, but the alternative was to sit here thinking about tumours. He picked up the receiver.
The phone rang three times, then a man’s voice answered decisively: ‘Fall.’
‘Good morning,’ said Per. ‘My name is Per Morner.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m ringing with regard to a person I think you might know.’
‘Yes?’
‘His name is Hans Bremer. Do you know him?’
There was silence at the other end of the phone for a few seconds, and Per could hear the faint sound of voices in the background, as if there were some kind of conference going on, before eventually the man answered. ‘Bremer is dead.’
‘I know that,’ said Per. ‘I’m just trying to find out more about him …’
‘Why?’
‘My father Jerry worked with him for a number of years, and I’d really like to know who he was. So you did know him then?’
