A knock on the front door interrupted Erica’s thoughts, and she got up to open it.

‘Anna? Come in.’ With the keen eyes of an older sister, she immediately observed Anna’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, sounding more concerned than she’d intended. Anna had been through so much during the past few years; Erica had never been able to relinquish the maternal role that she’d taken on when they were growing up.

‘Just problems with trying to merge two separate families,’ said Anna, with a feeble laugh. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, but it would be great to talk about it.’

‘Then let’s talk,’ said Erica. ‘I’ll pour you a cup of coffee, and if I dig around in the cupboard I can probably find some treat we can have to console ourselves.’

‘Does that mean you’ve given up on the diet now that you’re a married woman?’ said Anna.

‘Don’t even get into that,’ sighed Erica, heading for the kitchen. ‘After spending a week sitting at my desk, I’m going to have to buy new trousers pretty soon. These ones are starting to feel as tight as a sausage skin.’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Anna, sitting down at the table. ‘Since moving in with Dan, it feels like I’ve put on pounds. And it doesn’t help matters that Dan seems able to eat everything in sight without gaining so much as an ounce.’

‘It’s easy to resent him for that,’ said Erica, putting some buns on a plate. ‘Does he still eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast?’

‘You mean he was already doing that back when the two of you were together?’ laughed Anna. ‘Just imagine how hard it is to convince the kids that a healthy breakfast is important when Dan sits there dipping cinnamon rolls in hot chocolate right in front of their eyes.’

‘Patrik dips his lumpfish caviar sandwiches with cheese in hot chocolate too, and that’s not much better. So, tell me, what’s been going on. Is Belinda making trouble again?’

‘Uh-huh, that’s the crux of the matter, all right, but everything is getting so unpleasant. Today Dan and I started fighting because of it and…’ Anna looked unhappy as she took a bun from the plate. ‘It’s not really Belinda’s fault – that’s what I’ve been trying to explain to Dan. She’s reacting to a situation that’s new for her, one that’s not of her own choosing. And she’s right. She didn’t ask to have me and a couple of kids foisted on her.’

‘I suppose that’s true, but she should still behave in a civilized manner. And that’s Dan’s job. Dr Phil says that a step-parent should never discipline a child her age.’

‘Dr Phil?’ Anna laughed so hard that a crumb got stuck in her throat and she started coughing. ‘Erica, I can see that it’s high time you emerged from your maternity leave. Dr Phil?’

‘If you must know, I’ve learned a lot by watching Dr Phil,’ said Erica, sounding offended. Nobody got away with joking about her idol. Dr Phil’s TV show had been the highpoint of her days the past year, and lately she’d even considered taking a lunch break from her writing so she could watch him.

‘But I suppose he does have a point,’ Anna admitted begrudgingly. ‘I feel like Dan either doesn’t take things seriously enough, or else he takes them too seriously. Since Friday I’ve had the worst time keeping him from fighting with Pernilla over how to raise the children. He started going on about how he couldn’t trust her to take care of them and… Well, he got really angry. And in the middle of everything, Belinda came downstairs and then it all really went to hell. Now Belinda doesn’t want to live with us any more, so Dan put her on a bus to Munkedal.’

‘How are Emma and Adrian coping?’ Erica took another bun from the plate. She’d go back on her diet next week. Definitely. She just needed this week to get into a regular writing routine, and then…

‘So far so good, knock on wood.’ Anna tapped the kitchen table. ‘They idolize Dan and the girls and think it’s great to have big sisters. So, for the time being, there’s no trouble on that front.’

‘What about Malin and Lisen? How are they handling it?’ Erica was referring to Belinda’s younger sisters, who were eleven and eight.

‘They’re doing fine too. They like playing with Emma and Adrian and seem to tolerate me, at least. No, it’s mostly Belinda who’s having a hard time. But she’s at that age, you know, when things are difficult.’ Anna sighed and then reached for another bun too. ‘What about you? How are things going here? Are you making progress on the book?’

‘It’s going okay, I suppose. It’s always slow in the beginning. I have a lot of research material to process, plus I’ve also booked a lot of interviews. Everything’s starting to take shape. But…’ Erica hesitated. She had a deeply rooted instinct to protect her sister, but she decided that Anna had a right to know what had been preoccupying her lately. She started from the beginning and quickly told her sister about the medal and the other things she’d found in Elsy’s chest, about the diaries and the fact that she’d talked to several people about their mother’s past.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ asked Anna.

Erica shifted position uneasily. ‘Er, well, I know I should have, but… Does it really matter? I’m telling you now, right?’

Anna seemed to be considering whether to argue the point, but then she apparently decided to let it pass.

‘I’d like to see all of it,’ she said curtly. Erica quickly got up, relieved that her sister wasn’t going to yell at her for neglecting to share what she’d discovered.

‘Of course. I’ll go get everything.’ Erica ran upstairs to her workroom. When she came back, she set the items on the kitchen table: the diaries, the child’s shirt, and the medal.

Anna stared. ‘How on earth did she come by this?’ she said, picking up the medal and holding it in the palm of her hand as she studied it intently. ‘And this – who did this belong to?’ She held up the little stained shirt. ‘Is that rust?’ She leaned closer to examine the patches that covered a good deal of the cloth.

‘Patrik thinks it’s blood,’ said Erica, which made Anna sit up with a start.

‘Blood? Why would Mamma keep a child’s shirt covered with blood in an old chest in the attic?’ With a look of disgust, she dropped the shirt on the table and picked up the diaries.

‘Anything not meant for children in these?’ asked Anna, waving the blue diaries. ‘Any sex stories that will traumatize me for life if I read them?’

‘No,’ said Erica, laughing. ‘Don’t look so worried. Nothing X-rated. There’s actually not much at all. Just some meaningless descriptions of daily life. But there is one thing that I’ve been wondering about…’ For the first time Erica felt able to put into words the thought that had been hovering on the edge of her consciousness for a while.

‘What is it?’ asked Anna as she paged through the diaries.

‘Well, I wonder if there are more of these somewhere. The ones in the chest stop in May 1944, when the fourth book was completely filled. And that’s it. Of course, Mamma may have got tired of keeping a diary. But if that was the case, would she have bothered to complete the fourth book? It just seems odd.’

‘So you think there might be more? But what else would they tell you, other than what you’ve already read? I mean, it’s not as if Mamma had a particularly exciting life. She was born and raised here, she met Pappa, we were born, and then, well… What more is there?’

‘Don’t say that,’ replied Erica. She wondered how much she should tell her sister. She didn’t have anything concrete, but intuition told her that the medal and the blood-stained shirt would lead to other discoveries, maybe even reveal whatever it was that had cast such a shadow over their lives – hers and Anna’s.

She took a deep breath and recounted in detail the conversations that she’d had with Erik and Axel and Britta.

‘So you went over to Axel Frankel’s house and asked him for the medal only a couple of days after his brother was found dead? My God, he must have thought you were a real vulture,’ said Anna, with the cruel honesty that only a younger sister was capable of.