‘Do you remember Alexandra from school?’

He smiled bitterly to himself. Most of the children he’d had in school had only left behind faint, shadowy memories, but Alexandra was just as distinct to him today as she was twenty-five years ago. Although he could hardly say that out loud.

‘Yes, I remember Alexandra. Although as Alexandra Carlgren, not Wijkner, of course.’

‘Yes, that’s obvious. What do you remember of her in school?’

‘She was quiet, a little withdrawn, acted much older than her age.’

He saw that Erica was frustrated at his curt reply, but he was making a conscious attempt to say as little as possible, as if the words might take over and begin to flow on their own if he let out too many of them.

‘Was she good in school?’

‘Well, not especially. She wasn’t one of the most ambitious pupils I can recall, but she was intelligent in a quiet way. She was probably about in the middle of the class.’

Erica hesitated a moment and Axel realized that now they were approaching the questions that she really wanted to ask. The questions up till now had just been warm-ups for her.

‘But her family moved away in the middle of the term. Do you recall what reasons Alex’s parents gave for moving?’

He pretended to ponder the question, putting his fingertips together and resting his chin on them in a feigned gesture of trying to remember. He saw that Erica moved forward a little on the sofa, showing her eagerness to hear the answer to her question. He was going to have to disappoint her. The only thing he could tell her was the truth.

‘Yes, I think her father got a job in another town. To be honest I don’t remember exactly, but I vaguely recall it was something like that.’

Erica couldn’t hide her disappointment. Once again, Axel felt the urge to rip open his chest and reveal what had been hiding there for all these years. To clear his conscience by pouring out the entire naked truth. But he took a deep breath and pushed back what was threatening to spill out.

Erica continued stubbornly. ‘But the decision came a bit suddenly, from what I understood. Had you heard anything about it earlier, had Alex made any mention that they were going to move?’

‘Well, I don’t think it was so strange. Of course it did come up rather suddenly, as you say, if I remember correctly. But these things can happen quickly. Perhaps her father received an offer with short notice, how do I know?’

He threw out his arms in a gesture that said Erica’s guess was as good as his, and the frown between her eyebrows deepened. This wasn’t the answer she wanted. But she would have to make do with it.

‘Yes, but later there was something else,’ Erica went on. ‘I recall vaguely from those days that people were talking about something in connection with Alex. I also remember that I heard the grown-ups mention something about the school. Do you know what that might have been? I only have vague memories, as I said, but it was something that was hushed up in front of us children.’

Axel felt all the joints in his body turn rigid. He hoped that his consternation was not as obvious as it felt. Of course he knew that there must have been rumours, there always were. It was impossible to keep anything secret, yet he believed that the damage had been limited. He had even helped to limit it; that was part of what was still eating at him from inside. Erica was waiting for a reply.

‘No, I can’t think of what that might have been. But there’s always so much talk, you know how people are. There isn’t any substance to most rumours. I wouldn’t attach any importance to it if I were you.’

Disappointment was written all over her face. She hadn’t found out anything of what she had come here for, he understood that much. But he had no choice. It was like a pressure-cooker. If he opened the lid just a crack, the whole thing would explode. At the same time, something was still insisting on getting out. He felt as if someone had taken over his body. He felt his mouth open and his tongue start to shape the words, words that should not be spoken. To his relief Erica stood up and the moment passed. She put on her coat and boots and held out her hand. He looked at her hand and swallowed a couple of times before he took it. He had to check an impulse to grimace. Contact with another person’s skin disgusted him beyond all description. She finally walked out the door, but turned just as he was about to close it.

‘Oh, by the way, did Nils Lorentz have any connection with Alex, or with the school for that matter, that you know of?’

Axel hesitated but then made a decision. She would find out about it sooner or later, if not from him then from someone else.

‘Don’t you remember? He was a substitute teacher at the middle school for one term.’

Then Axel shut the door, locked the double lock, put on the chain, leaned his back against the door and closed his eyes.

He quickly got out the cleaning supplies and wiped away all traces of the unwelcome visitor. Only then did his world feel safe again.

The evening was off to a bad start. Lucas was in a foul mood when he came home, and she kept trying to stay a step ahead so as not to give him any additional reason to be annoyed. Anna knew that in this situation, when he came home in a bad mood, he would search for any excuse to vent his rage.

She took extra care preparing dinner. She made his favourite dish and laid the table so it looked perfect. She had to keep the kids away by putting The Lion King on the video in Emma’s room and feeding Adrian from the bottle so he’d go to sleep. She put on Lucas’s favourite CD, Chet Baker, and finally she dressed up a bit and put more effort into fixing her hair and make-up. But she soon realized that tonight it wouldn’t matter what she did. Lucas had clearly had a really bad day at work, and the rage that was building up inside him had to come out. Anna saw the flash in his eye; it was like walking about waiting for a bomb to go off.

The first blow came with no warning. A slap from the right that made her head ring. She held her cheek and looked up at Lucas as if she still hoped that something inside him would relent at the sight of the marks he had left on her. Instead, it aroused a desire in him to do her even more harm. It had taken her the longest time to understand and accept that he actually enjoyed hurting her. For many years she had believed his assurances that hitting her hurt him as much as it did her, but no longer. She had seen the monster in him before; by now it was quite familiar.

She curled up instinctively to protect herself from the blows she knew would come. When they began raining down on her she tried to focus on a point inside herself, a place that Lucas couldn’t reach. It was something she had got better and better at doing. Even though she was aware of the pain, she could distance herself from it most of the time. It was as if she were floating on the ceiling and looking down on herself as she lay curled up on the floor while Lucas vented his wrath on her.

A sound made her quickly return to reality and slip inside her own body again. Emma was standing in the doorway with her thumb in her mouth and her blanket in her arms. Anna had got her to stop sucking her thumb over a year ago, but now she was sucking it hard to comfort herself. Lucas hadn’t noticed her yet as he stood with his back to Emma’s room, but he turned round when he saw that Anna’s eyes were fixed on something behind him.

Swiftly, before Anna could stop him, he went over to his daughter, roughly lifted her up and shook her so hard that Anna could hear her teeth rattling against each other. Anna started to get up from the floor, but everything felt as though it were happening in slow-motion. She knew that she would always be able to play back this scene in her mind’s eye-Lucas shaking Emma who looked with big, uncomprehending eyes at her dear Pappa who had suddenly been transformed into a terrifying stranger.