after a last look at Elsy, carried him out of the room.
At that moment, as she looked at her son for the last time, Elsy felt something break deep inside her heart. She did not know how she would survive such pain. And as she lay there in her sweaty, bloodied bed with an empty womb and empty arms, she decided never to subject herself to those sorts of feelings again. Never, ever. With tears running down her face, she made herself that promise while the midwife roughly helped her with the afterbirth.
Chapter 47
‘Martin!’
‘Paula!’
They both shouted at the exact same time, each on their way to the other’s office with urgent news. Now they stood in the corridor, staring at one another, their cheeks flushed. Martin was the first to pull himself together.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Kjell Ringholm was just here, and there’s something I have to tell you about.’
‘Okay, but then I’ve got something to tell you, too,’ said Paula, following him into his office.
He closed the door behind her and sat down. She sat down across from him, but she was so eager to share what she’d found out that she could hardly sit still.
‘First of all, Frans Ringholm confessed to the murder of Britta Johansson. He also hinted that he was the one who killed Erik Frankel and…’ Martin hesitated, ‘the man we found in the grave.’
‘What? He confessed to his son before he died?’ exclaimed Paula in astonishment.
Martin pushed across the desk the plastic sleeve containing the three-page letter. ‘Afterwards, actually. Kjell got this in the post today. Read it and then tell me your immediate impressions.’
Paula picked up the letter and began reading intently. After she was finished, she put the pages back in the plastic sleeve and said with a pensive frown on her face: ‘Well, his confession that he killed Britta is plain enough. But as for Erik and Hans Olavsen… He just writes that he’s the one to blame, and that’s rather an odd way of putting it, in this context, especially since he’s so unambiguous about Britta. So I don’t know. I’m not sure that he’s saying he killed the other two. And besides…’ She leaned forward and was about to tell Martin what she had found out, when he interrupted her.
‘Wait. There’s more.’ He held up his hand, and she closed her mouth, looking slightly offended. ‘Kjell has been doing some research on this Hans Olavsen. Trying to find out where he went and uncover more about him in general.’
‘And?’ said Paula impatiently.
‘He’s been in touch with a Norwegian professor who’s an expert on the German occupation of Norway. Since the professor has so much material on the Norwegian resistance movement, Kjell thought he might be able to help locate Hans Olavsen.’
‘And?’ Paula repeated, starting to look annoyed since Martin couldn’t seem to get to the point.
‘At first he didn’t find anything.’
Paula sighed loudly.
‘… but then Kjell faxed over an article with a photograph of the “resistance fighter” Hans Olavsen.’ Martin drew quote marks in the air.
‘Then what?’ Now Paula’s interest had been sparked, and for a moment she forgot about her own news.
‘The thing is, that boy was not a resistance fighter at all. He wasn’t even called Olavsen – that was his mother’s maiden name, which he took as his own surname after he fled to Sweden. It seems his Norwegian mother was married to a German named Reinhardt Wolf. When the Germans occupied Norway, Wolf was given a high position in the Norwegian SS, thanks to the fact that his wife had taught him the language. At the end of the war the father was captured and sent to a prison in Germany. Nobody knows what happened to the mother, but the son, Hans, disappeared from Norway in 1944 and was never seen again. And we know why: he fled to Sweden, pretending to be in the resistance, and then somehow ended up in a grave in Fjallbacka cemetery.’
‘That’s incredible. But how does that fit in with our investigation?’ asked Paula.
‘I don’t know yet. But I have a feeling it’s important,’ said Martin meditatively. Then he smiled. ‘Okay, now you know what my big news is. What was it you wanted to tell me?’
Paula took a deep breath and quickly explained what she had discovered. Martin gave his colleague an appreciative look.
‘Well, that certainly puts a different light on things,’ he said, getting up. ‘We need to do a search right away. Go and get the car while I ring the prosecutor and apply for a search warrant.’
That was all Paula needed to hear. She jumped up, the blood roaring in her ears. They were very close now, she could feel it. They were getting close.
Erica hadn’t said a single word since they got back in the car. She just stared out the window, with the diaries on her lap and her mother’s words and pain filling her head. Patrik left her alone, realizing that she would tell him when she was ready. He didn’t know as many of the details as Erica, since he hadn’t read the diaries, but while Erica was reading them, Kristina had been telling him about the son that Elsy had been forced to give away.
At first he had felt angry with his mother. How could she have kept something like that from Erica? And Anna, too. But gradually he began to see things from her point of view. She had made a promise to a friend and kept it. There had been times when she had considered telling Erica and Anna that they had a brother, but in the end she had decided to let things be. Though Patrik couldn’t condone her decision, he believed her when she said that she had tried to do what she thought was best.
Now that the secret was out, he could tell that Kristina was relieved. It was down to Erica to decide what she would do with the information. And he was pretty sure he could guess what that would be. He knew his wife well enough to realize that she would do everything in her power to find her brother. As he turned his head to study her profile as she sat next to him staring vacantly out the window, it suddenly occurred to him how much he loved her. It was so easy to forget. So easy to let life just roll by, with his job and the housework and… all the days that simply passed, one by one. But at certain moments – like right now – it hit him with an almost terrifying force just how much the two of them belonged together. And how much he loved waking up next to her each morning.
When they got home, Erica went straight up to her work-room. Still without saying a word and with the same distracted expression on her face. Patrik tidied up a bit and then put Maja in her cot for her afternoon nap before he dared disturb Erica.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked, gently knocking on the door. Erica turned and nodded, still a bit pale but with a more alert look in her eyes.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, sitting down in the armchair in the corner.
‘I’m not really sure, to be honest,’ she told him, taking a deep breath. ‘Dazed, I guess.’
‘Are you angry with my mother? Because she didn’t tell you, I mean?’
Erica thought for a moment but then shook her head. ‘No, not really. Mamma made Kristina promise, and I can understand why she was afraid of doing more damage by telling us.’
‘Are you going to tell Anna?’ asked Patrik.
‘Of course. She has the right to know too. But first I need to process everything myself.’
‘And I suppose you’ve already started the search. Am I right?’ asked Patrik, smiling as he nodded at the computer, with the Internet browser open on the screen.
Erica gave him a faint smile. ‘I’ve done some checking to see what avenues are available for tracing adoptions. It shouldn’t be that much of a problem to find him.’
‘Does it seem scary?’ asked Patrik. ‘You have no idea what he’s like or what sort of life he’s had.’
‘Super scary,’ Erica agreed. ‘But it seems scarier not to know. I mean, I have a brother out there somewhere. And I’ve always wanted a big brother…’ She smiled.
‘Your mother must have thought about him so many times over the years. Does this change your picture of her?’
