“With enough morphine,” Hammar said, “Anything is possible.”
Folke smiled. “Last time we saw you, you looked like—”
“—Like Santa Claus the day after Christmas,” Hammar interrupted mirthlessly. “Yes, our friend Moro Part’s line.”
“Now the police say Moro Part killed Loke Voss,” Folke said.
“What?” Krister was surprised.
“Took the rifle away from Ylva,” Sanna added, nodding. “Knocked her out and did the deed. Then she came back awake, attacked him, and they fell.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hammar said. “For one thing—”
Folke cut him off. “Don’t you see? They want anything but a Voss killing a Voss. Anything but a granddaughter killing her grandfather, even accidentally. It’s much tidier for them if the Romani godfather did it.”
“In the end, revenge was dished up suitably cold,” Sanna said.
“Stone cold,” Folke said. “Over a half century in the deep freeze.”
“The Dalgrens do not forget,” Sanna said briskly. “Everyone’s dead who should be. And everyone who is left alive will have a few more breaths to cherish but will die soon enough anyway.”
“That’s the cheerful Swedish outlook,” Hammar said. He shivered inwardly.
The three again fell silent. Folke fooled with his pipe, tapping the unlit bowl in his hand. A vague sense of unease still hung in the air.
“You know, I’m sorry,” Hammar said. “I know I said we shouldn’t talk about her, but I can’t help thinking of Veronika. I was never really comfortable keeping her in the dark.”
Folke responded with a phrase in English. “What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.”
“You played her like a harp,” Hammar said. And me as well, he added silently to himself.
“Did we?” Sanna asked. “I was never sure. At times I believed she was playing us.”
“What’s done is done,” Folke said. “Our Veronika left the country none the wiser.”
“Which makes me challenge the idea that she really is a great detective,” Sanna said. “Or even a competent one.”
“Recall that I myself would not be present here if we had not involved her,” Hammar said. “I’d be a frozen block of ice floating in the Hede River.”
“Still, even so, I agree with Folke about the quality of her professional expertise.” Sanna stared off, musing. “She didn’t half know what she was doing. Pretending to hide her drug use. I feel for the poor woman. It was painful to watch her groping her way through this mess. Perhaps we should have laid out our entire strategy right from the start.”
“No regrets, you two,” Folke said. “We’ve already been through this. Our American cousin acted as an absolutely vital element in the plan, did she not? Whether she was ignorant of our strategy or not, it turned out not to matter.”
“‘Eyes the color of the winter sea,’” Sanna said with a bite in her tone. “I just happened across that phrase in a novel I picked up. The line made the hair on the back of my neck stand. I thought, that’s her. That’s Veronika. With her Voss eyes.”
“Oh please, Sanna. “This is not a novel. It’s real, real people massacred,” Hammar said.
“There’s no playing the innocent now, Krister,” Sanna said, her voice ice cold, her eyes hard as metal. “It’s too late for that.”
She was right. He was bloody whether or not he wielded the axe or pulled the trigger. He had throughout believed his motivations more pure than their second-hand hate—the dream of retribution his dead wife’s family had nurtured since the dying embers of the Nordic Light had been extinguished.
At the sound of footfalls on the oak floor of the corridor, the three paused.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Sanna asked. She and Folke twisted around to look behind them, waiting.
For a moment, she stood in the doorway, a vision in her all-black New York clothing, hair covered by the same watch cap she had worn entering the country.
The blood drained from Hammar’s face.
Veronika Brand crossed the room towards them, a set expression on her face, not giving anything away.
“I thought you put her on the express train to the airport,” Sanna hissed.
“I did!” Hammar responded. He started to rise, then slumped back in his chair.
“Hello, everyone,” Brand said quietly, standing over them.
They stared at her.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
Book club questions
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- How are minorities like the Sami and the Roma portrayed in the book? How have the authors dealt with stereotypes and prejudice?
- How have your perceptions of the Roma changed from reading this book?
- Do you have more or less compassion for victims that are from a minority group?
- What is the role of the Sami in Swedish culture and society? How are they portrayed in this and other books?
- Aino Lehtonen has a mixed heritage but what aspect of this stands out and is this important to how she is perceived by her peers in Stockholm?
- Why does Krister care so much about the Roma?
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- How does the representation of women differ from other crime thrillers? Does it reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes?
- By the end of the book, Varzha is engaged to be married. Was this an expected part of her narrative?¨
- Krister Hammar’s wife, Tove is a silent character in the book. How would her voice have influenced the storyline?
- What do Elin, Veronika and Varzha have in common?
- Loke takes out his revenge on Gustav by raping Klara. How does this objectification or ownership of women contrast to how other women are portrayed?
- What are the strategies that Varzha Luna employs to assume control of her life?
◆◆◆
- How does the use of Swedish enhance or detract from the story telling?
- How effectively is Swedish used as a tool for reinforcing Veronika as an outsider?
- When Veronika visits her relatives in Sweden, they all speak English to her; how does that affect their relationship?
- What does Veronika’s voice and her choice of words say about her character?
- Varzha captors assume she can’t understand Swedish. What does this say about both her captors and
