But better late than never: it was time to let the axe fall.

46. Sandra

46

Sandra

IT WAS THE first day after Midsummer, and Sandra put Erik in the back seat to drive him to day care in Visby before she went on to work. The call with Kerstin had continued well into the small hours. Sandra felt tired and worn-out. Above all she was afraid.

The pieces of the jigsaw had slowly fallen into place, and together Kerstin and Sandra had managed to create a complete picture of what had happened that January afternoon four years ago, as well as what had followed. Of course they could have gone to the police with it, and of course the police would have been forced to take the accusations seriously and start an investigation. This would probably have shaken Hallin up a fair bit, but it would have been enough for him to deny everything completely and the investigation would have collapsed like a house of cards. Plus there was the fact that they would never persuade Jeanette to join them on that approach, and she was the only one who could testify as a witness to the accident. Everything that Kerstin knew or thought she knew was hearsay, apart from the grainy photos that possibly indicated something, but didn’t actually prove anything. Not even the money was around to support the theories that they could have championed without Jeanette’s help.

In summary, filing a police report wouldn’t be of any great use, but there were other ways. And now she had Kerstin with her on the journey, and that was a tremendous relief. Not least because Kerstin had filled in the gaps in Sandra’s reasoning and corrected the errors, lending far more weight to their future plans for Hallin.

So far, everything was under control, but the same errors had made her think that she would be able to corner Hallin at no risk to herself. With that kind of attitude, she might have met the same fate as Peter Norling, and that was a frightening prospect for the future, to put it mildly.

She had brushed aside those lilies as a form of minor, crude encouragement to withdraw her demands for support payments, but Hallin had succeeded with his ridiculous scare tactics. Sandra was beginning to feel really frightened, almost terrified. Hallin was clearly not a man to be toyed with, and Sandra had pushed it too far. She had a small child to care for—nothing could be allowed to happen to her.

That was what filled Sandra’s thoughts as she shifted down a gear to third; Erik was singing in the back seat and she eased her foot off the accelerator as she entered the bend by the ravine. Coming towards her from the other end was a lorry, so she braked slightly to be on the safe side.