We were all Simon’s parents. When he was thirteen, he asked us straight out, do you remember? Karl-Johan explained that the three of us loved one another, in different ways. Simon couldn’t tell anyone, because not everyone would understand. But Simon understood. He was a wonderful boy.

In the summer of 1990, I realised that something wasn’t right. Karl-Johan stopped reading, and it took a while for me to work out that he was having problems with his sight. When I confronted him, he was furious. He denied the whole thing, made me promise not to say a word to you. Karl-Johan had always been a loving person, but now he became dismissive and withdrawn. He locked himself in his studio, and emerged only to go out in his summer car. He drove fast along the narrow roads. Revved the engine, took risks, almost as if he wanted something to happen to him.

One evening at the end of the summer, he hammered on my door in a panic in the middle of the night. He said he’d hit a deer over by the quarry, and it might still be alive. He asked me to drive out there and take a look.

As soon as I saw the bent frame of the bicycle, I knew what Karl-Johan had actually hit.

So I sat there in the rain with Simon’s head resting on my knee, stroking his cheek. Told him how much I loved him, how much we all loved him.

And then I did what had to be done. I carried Simon back to the quarry and laid him to rest in the water.

That was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, but I did it out of love. Love for Karl-Johan, for Simon and for you. Love for what we’d had, which was now lost forever.

Then I drove Karl-Johan home and put him to bed. Assured him that it had been a deer, and that it hadn’t suffered. I hid the summer car in the garage, but realised almost immediately that it wouldn’t be possible to get it repaired without arousing suspicion. So the following night I burned down the garage, the car and the studio, but I kept Simon’s favourite guitar, and the tape recorder with his beautiful voice on it. And his bicycle. I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.

I’m only a human being. A human being who was prepared to do anything for love.

I had hoped that I would never need to burden you with my secret, but the minute I met Anna Vesper, I knew this day would come.

This, my beloved Elisabet, is my confession.

This is what I did.

My deed of autumn.

Chapter 64

64

Autumn 2017