Patrik was just taking a sip of wine and apparently it went down the wrong way, because he coughed and grabbed his chest. Tears sprang to his eyes from the discomfort.

‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ Patrik asked in a strained voice.

‘I said that Julia is the sole heir to Nelly’s fortune. It’s in Nelly’s will,’ Erica said calmly, pouring Patrik some water to calm his cough.

‘Do I dare ask how you know this?’

‘Because I snooped in Nelly’s wastebasket when she invited me over for tea.’

Patrik had another coughing fit and gave Erica an incredulous look. As he drained his entire water glass in one gulp, Erica went on.

‘There was a copy of her will in the wastebasket. It clearly and explicitly stated that Julia Carlgren would inherit Nelly Lorentz’s fortune. Yes, Jan gets a share, but Julia gets all the rest.’

‘Does Jan know this?’

‘I have no idea. But I would guess he does-no, he probably doesn’t know.’

Erica continued as she ate.

‘I actually asked Julia when she was here how she happened to know Nelly Lorentz so well. Naturally I got a nonsense answer. Something about her having a summer job at the cannery for a couple of years. I don’t doubt that the part about her working there is true, but she left out the rest of the truth. It was quite obviously a subject that she really didn’t want to talk about.’

Patrik looked pensive. ‘Do you realize that makes two very ill-matched pairs in this story? I would even call them improbable pairs. Alex and Anders, and Julia and Nelly. What is the lowest common denominator? If we find the link I think we’ll find the solution to everything.’

‘Alex. Isn’t Alex the lowest common denominator?’

‘No,’ said Patrik, ‘I think that’s a little too simple. It’s something else. Something we can’t see, or that we don’t understand.’

He waved his fork excitedly. ‘And then we have Nils Lorentz. Or to be more precise, his disappearance. You were living in Fjällbacka then, what do you remember about it?’

‘I wasn’t very old then, and nobody tells a kid anything. But what I do remember is that it was all very hush-hush.’

‘Hush-hush?’

‘Yes, you know, conversations that stopped when I came into the room. Grown-ups talking in low voices. “Shh, don’t let the children hear” and comments like that. In other words all I know is that there was a lot of talk at the time about Nils’s disappearance. But I was too young. I wasn’t told anything.’

‘Hmm, I’m going to have to dig a little deeper into this. It’s going on my list of things to do tomorrow. But right now I’m having dinner with a woman who’s not only beautiful but also a fantastically good cook. A skål to the hostess.’

He raised his glass and Erica felt all warm inside from the compliment. Not so much because of what he said about the meal but because he’d called her beautiful. Imagine how much easier everything would be if we could read each other’s minds, she thought. This whole charade would be unnecessary. Instead she sat here hoping that he would give her the slightest little hint that he was interested. It was fine to throw yourself out there and take a chance when you were a teenager, but with the years it felt as if her heart had grown less and less elastic. The efforts required were greater and the damage to one’s self-confidence bigger each time.

After Patrik had helped himself to three more servings and they had long since stopped talking about sudden death and switched to discussing dreams, life and various world problems, they moved to the veranda to give their stomachs a break before dessert. They sat at opposite ends of the sofa and sipped their wine. Bottle number two was almost empty, and both of them could feel the effect. Their limbs were heavy and warm and their heads felt as if they were wrapped in lovely soft cotton. The night outside the windows was pitch-black with not a single star to light up the sky. The dense darkness outside made them feel as though they were wrapped in a big cocoon, completing the illusion that they were the only people on earth. Erica couldn’t recall ever feeling so content, so at home in her own existence. She made a sweeping gesture with the hand holding her wine glass, managing to encompass not only the whole veranda but the whole house.

‘Can you believe that Anna would want to sell all this? It’s not just that this is the most beautiful house in the whole world, there’s history in these walls. And I don’t mean only Anna’s and my history, but the histories of those who lived here before us. Did you know that a sea captain had this house built for his family in 1889? Captain Wilhelm Jansson. The story is actually very sad, like so many other stories in this town. He built the house for himself and his young wife Ida. They had five children in five years, but during the sixth childbirth Ida died. In those days single fathers were unheard of, so Captain Jansson’s unmarried older sister moved in and took charge of the children while he sailed the Seven Seas. His sister Hilda was not the best choice for foster mother. She was the most religious woman for several counties around, and that’s saying a lot considering how religious everyone was here. The children could hardly move without being accused of sinning, and the beatings they received from Hilda were administered with a God-fearing and stern hand. Today she would probably be called a sadist, but in those days it was totally acceptable to hide such propensities under the guise of religion.

‘Captain Jansson wasn’t home often enough to see how badly the children were faring, even though he must have had his suspicions. But like most men he considered child-rearing to be women’s work, and he felt that he was fulfilling his fatherly duties by seeing to it that they had a roof over their heads and food on the table. Until he came home one day, and discovered that the youngest girl, Märta, had gone for a week with a broken arm. Then Hilda was given the boot and the captain, who was a man of action, searched among the unmarried women of the area for a suitable new foster mother for his children. He made a good choice. Within two months he had married a solid daughter of peasant stock, Lina Månsdotter, and she took the children to her heart as if they were her own. She and the captain also had seven more together, so it must have been awfully crowded here. If you look carefully you can see traces of those kids. Little nicks and dents and worn spots. All over the house.’

‘So how did your father come to buy the house?’

‘Over the years the Jansson siblings were scattered with the wind. Captain Jansson and his Lina, who had grown very fond of each other, passed away. The only one left in the house was the eldest son, Allan. He never married and when he grew old he couldn’t keep up the house by himself, so he decided to sell. Pappa had just married Mamma, and they were looking for a home. Pappa told us that he fell in love with the house on the spot. He didn’t hesitate for a second.

‘When Allan sold the house to Pappa, he also passed on the story to him. The history of the house and his own family. It was important to him, he said, that Pappa knew whose feet had worn the old wooden floors. He also left some documents behind. Letters that Captain Jansson had sent from every corner of the world, first to his wife Ida, then to Lina. He also left the horsewhip that Hilda had used to punish the children. It still hangs down in the cellar. Anna and I used to go down there and touch it sometimes when we were small. We had heard the story about Hilda, and we used to try to imagine how the rough straws of the whip would feel on our bare skin. We felt sorry for the little children who were treated so badly.’

Erica looked at Patrik. She went on, ‘Now you understand why my heart breaks at the thought of selling this house. If we sell this house we’ll never ever get it back again. It’s irrevocable. It makes me sick to think that some rich Stockholmer would stomp in here and start sanding the floors and put up new wallpaper with little shells on it, not to mention the panoramic window that would go up here in the veranda faster than I can say “tasteless”. Who would care about preserving the pencil marks that are left on the inside of the pantry doors, where Lina each year marked how tall the children had grown? Who would care about reading the letters in which Captain Jansson tried to describe how it looked in the South Seas for his two wives who had hardly been out of the parish? Their history would be erased and then this house would be only…a house. Any old house. Charming, but without a soul.’