Erica was well aware that this was the case. For a brief moment she cursed her parents who had not been far-sighted enough to guarantee that the house was solely owned by their daughters. They had known what sort of man Lucas was, but they probably hadn’t reckoned that they had so little time left. No one likes to be reminded of his own mortality, and like so many other people they had postponed that sort of decision.

She chose not to take the bait and object to his pejorative comment about her marital status. She would rather be an old maid for the rest of her life than make the mistake of marrying someone like Lucas.

He went on, ‘I wanted to be here when the estate agent arrived. It never hurts to check up on one’s net worth. We want everything to go smoothly, now don’t we?’

He smiled that infernal smile of his again. Erica unlocked the front door and pushed past him. The agent was late, but she hoped he would show up soon. She didn’t like the prospect of being alone with Lucas.

He entered the house after her. She hung up her jacket and began pottering about the kitchen. The only way she could handle him was to ignore him. She heard him walking about the house, inspecting it. It couldn’t be more than the third or fourth time he’d been inside. The beauty of simplicity was not something that Lucas appreciated, nor had he ever shown the slightest interest in visiting Anna’s family. Their father couldn’t stand his son-in-law, and the feeling was mutual. When Anna and the children came to visit, they came alone.

She didn’t like the way Lucas was walking around touching things in the house-the way he was touching the furniture and the decorative objects. Erica had to repress a desire to walk behind him with a dust-rag and wipe off everything he had touched. With relief she saw a grey-haired man in a big Volvo turn into the driveway. She hurried to open the door for him. Then she went into her office and closed the door. She didn’t want to watch him go round looking at her childhood home and assessing its weight in gold. Or price per square metre.

The computer was already on. The file was open, waiting for her to get back to work. She had been up early for a change and had got a lot done. She had written four pages that morning for her draft of the book about Alex, and now she went back and read through them. She still had a number of problems with the form of the book. At first, when she’d thought that Alex’s death was suicide, she’d considered writing a book to answer the question ‘why?’ It would have been more of a biography. Now the material was increasingly taking on the form of a crime novel, a genre to which she’d never felt particularly attracted. It was people-their relationships and psychological motivations-that she was interested in; she thought that was something most crime novels had to give up in favour of bloody murders and cold shivers running down the spine. She hated all the clichés they used; she wanted to write about something that was genuine. Something that attempted to describe why someone could commit the worst of all sins-to take the life of another human being. So far she had written down everything in chronological order, reproducing word-for-word what was said to her, and mixing in her own observations and conclusions. She would have to pare down that material. Tighten it up to get as close to the truth as possible. How Alex’s nearest and dearest might react was not something she had wanted to consider yet.

She regretted not telling Patrik everything about her visit to the house where Alex had died. She should have told him about the mysterious visitor and about the painting she found hidden in the wardrobe. And about the feeling she had that something was missing, something that had been in the room when she first went inside. She couldn’t stand to ring him now and admit that there was more to tell. But if the right occasion presented itself, she would tell him the rest, she promised herself that.

She could hear Lucas and the estate agent walking around in the house. He must have thought she was behaving quite strangely, barely saying hello and then rushing off and locking herself in her office. The agent wasn’t to blame for the situation in which she found herself, so she decided to grit her teeth and display some of the good manners she had been taught.

When she came into the living room, Lucas was in the midst of describing in effusive terms the magnificent light let in by the big mullioned windows. Strange, Erica didn’t know that creatures that crept out from under a rock would appreciate sunlight. She had a vision of Lucas as a big, shiny beetle; she just wished she could have eradicated him from her life with a simple stamp of her boot-heel.

‘Please excuse my rudeness just now. I had some urgent business to tend to.’

Erica smiled broadly and held out her hand to the agent, who introduced himself as Kjell Ekh. He assured her that he was in no way offended. Selling houses was a very emotional affair. If she only knew what stories he could tell…Erica smiled wider and even permitted herself a sly little flutter of her lashes. Lucas looked at her suspiciously. She ignored him.

‘Well, don’t let me interrupt. How far did you get?’

‘Your brother-in-law was just showing me your lovely living room. It’s very tasteful, I must say. Quite beautiful with the light coming in through the windows.’

‘Yes, it is lovely, isn’t it. Too bad about the draught.’

‘The draught?’

‘Yes, unfortunately the windows are not properly sealed, so when the least wind blows you have to make sure you’re wearing your warmest woollen socks. But it’s nothing that replacing all the windows couldn’t fix.’

Lucas glared at her furiously, but Erica pretended not to notice. Instead she took Kjell by the arm; if he’d been a dog he would have been eagerly wagging his tail by this point.

‘You’ve seen the upstairs, I take it, so perhaps we should continue down to the cellar. And don’t worry about the mouldy smell. As long as you’re not allergic, there’s no danger. I practically lived down there, and it didn’t hurt me any. The doctors have assured me that my asthma has no connection with the mould.’

As the finishing touch she broke into a coughing fit so violent that she bent in half. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lucas’s face take on a much redder hue. She knew that her exaggerated claims would be exposed in a closer inspection of the house. But until then, it was some small consolation to be able to annoy Lucas a bit.

Kjell looked very relieved when he got outside in the fresh air again, after being shown all the cellar’s good points by an enthusiastic Erica. Lucas was silent and passive during the rest of the tour. With a pang of uneasiness she wondered whether she’d carried her childish prank a little too far. He knew that a real appraisal would show that none of the ‘drawbacks’ of the house that she had revealed would have any substance, but she had attempted to make him a laughingstock. And that was something that Lucas Maxwell could not tolerate. With a slight feeling of dread Erica saw the agent drive off, waving happily, after promising that they would be contacted by a certified appraiser who would go through the house from attic to cellar.

Lucas followed her into the hallway. The next second she felt herself plastered to the wall, with Lucas’s hand in a brutal grip around her throat. His face was no more than half an inch from hers. The anger she saw there made her understand for the first time why it was so hard for Anna to get out of her relationship with Lucas. What Erica saw was a man who let no obstacle stand in his way. She stood stock-still, much too afraid to move.

‘Don’t you ever, ever do that again, do you hear me? Nobody makes a fool of me like that without consequences, so watch your step!’

He snarled the words so fiercely that he sprayed her face with saliva. She had to resist the impulse to wipe his spittle from her face. Instead, she stood as motionless as a pillar of salt, silently praying he would get out of her house and go away. To her astonishment he did just that. He released his grip on her throat and turned on his heel to head for the door. But just as she was about to heave a deep sigh of relief, he spun round and with a single step was in front of her again. Before Erica could react, he grabbed her by the hair and pressed his mouth to hers. Lucas forced his tongue between her lips and at the same time took such a tight hold on her breast that she felt the underwire of her bra cut into her skin. With a smile he turned, headed for the door, and vanished into the winter cold. Not until Erica heard his car start and drive off did she dare move. She sank down onto the floor with her back to the wall and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth in disgust. His kiss had somehow seemed more threatening than his stranglehold; she felt herself starting to shake. With her arms wrapped around her legs she leaned her head on her knees and wept. Not for her own sake, but for Anna’s.