Chapters (71)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapter 49
- Chapter 50
- Chapter 51
- Chapter 52
- Chapter 53
- Chapter 54
- Chapter 55
- Chapter 56
- Chapter 57
- Chapter 58
- Chapter 59
- Chapter 60
- Chapter 61
- Chapter 62
- Chapter 63
- Chapter 64
- Author’s Note
- Extract from Rites of Spring
- About the Author
She parks the car and carries Lisa’s case into Agnes’s room. Her body is still tender, and even though the case isn’t heavy, she notices that the small amount of exertion takes its toll.
She shows Lisa around the ground floor, then they go up to the chapel. Anna takes her time on the steep staircase, leaning against the shiny bannister where the impressions left by Karl-Johan’s fingers can still be seen. Lisa spends ages admiring the view. The sky is dark grey now, and the treetops down below are swaying violently in the wind, shedding the last of their leaves.
‘So, this is the famous painting?’ Lisa crosses the room and stands in front of the mural. ‘I can’t see a body in the water.’
Anna goes over to the lamp that Agnes rigged up. She switches it on, wishing that Agnes was here to do it herself. Just as before, the light makes Simon’s body appear. Lisa inhales sharply. Anna lingers for a moment, then decides to leave Lisa in peace while she makes a start on dinner. As she turns away she notices something on the floor, not far from the left-hand corner. There are black lines on the white floorboards. It looks as if they’ve been made by a thick rubber sole. She can’t remember having seen them before – but surely she must have done?
*
After dinner she settles Lisa and her broken collarbone in front of the TV, takes out the photocopies she made earlier and spreads them across the kitchen table. One last look, then she’s going to let it go. At least that’s what she tries to tell herself.
She reads through the documents once more, tries to match them with Alex Morell’s account. Just as before, she finds no discrepancies. Joe tries it on with Carina, there’s a row, Simon defends Tanya and Joe, Tanya and Joe leave. Alex, Bruno, Marie and Carina turn on Simon. Five people who really liked each other, just as Lisa said.
We always have the worst quarrels with the ones we love.
She read that somewhere just after her divorce. At the time she thought it was just about romantic love, but now she’s older and wiser she realises that the assertion can be applied to all kinds of love – between friends, siblings, parents and children.
She slits open the envelope that was in her pigeonhole. It contains a bundle of letters secured with a brown rubber band. They are all addressed to Joakim Rylander, and she remembers the voicemail message from Rylander’s stepfather a week or so ago. Technically, the letters belong to Lisa now, but she decides to take a look at them anyway.