Buried Angels (37 page)

‘Don’t worry.’ She turned to Anna. ‘It doesn’t upset me. I want to hear the truth, or at least as much of it as we can find out.’

‘Okay,’ said Anna, but she sounded sceptical.

Erica went on: ‘Your maternal grandmother was named Laura, and she was born in 1920.’

‘So my grandmother was about the same age as my father,’ said Ebba. ‘That makes me wonder even more about what went on.’

‘As I said, Laura seems to have played a major role. Apparently she was the one who got your mother to marry Rune. But it’s not something that I can prove, so you should take it with a grain of salt.’

Erica began rummaging through the stack of papers and pulled out a copy of a photo, which she placed in front of Ebba.

‘This is a picture of your grandparents, Laura and Sigvard.’

Ebba leaned forward. ‘She’s not exactly cheerful,’ she said, staring at the stern-faced woman. The man next to her didn’t seem any happier.

‘Sigvard died in 1954, shortly after this photo was taken.’

‘They look wealthy,’ said Anna as she too leaned forward to study the picture.

‘They were,’ said Erica, nodding. ‘At least up until Sigvard’s death. Then it turned out that he’d made a number of bad business investments. There wasn’t much money left, and since Laura didn’t have a job, the funds slowly ran out. Presumably Laura would have ended up destitute if Inez hadn’t married Rune.’

‘Was my father rich?’ asked Ebba. She had picked up the photo and was holding it close to her eyes, examining it in minute detail.

‘I wouldn’t call him rich, but he was well-to-do. He had enough to pay for a respectable widow’s flat for Laura over on the mainland.’

‘But she was dead by the time my parents disappeared, wasn’t she?’

Erica paged through the notebook on the table in front of her.

‘Yes. Laura died of a heart attack in 1973. Out on Valö, as a matter of fact. Rune’s eldest son, Claes, found her behind the house. She was already dead.’

Erica licked her thumb and then began going through the stack until she found a photocopy of a newspaper article. ‘Here’s what it said in
Bohusläningen
.’

‘My grandmother seems to have been something of a celebrity around here,’ said Ebba when she’d finished reading.

‘Yes, everyone knew who Laura Blitz was. Sigvard had made his fortune from the shipping trade, and it was rumoured that he’d made deals with the Germans during the Second World War.’

‘Were they Nazis?’ said Ebba, horrified.

‘I don’t know how involved they were,’ Erica replied hesitantly. ‘But it was generally known that your grandparents harboured certain sympathies with the Germans.’

‘Mamma too?’ said Ebba, her eyes wide. Anna glared at Erica.

‘I’ve never heard anyone say that,’ replied Erica, shaking her head. ‘Nice but a bit naive. That was how most people described Inez. And terribly dominated by her mother.’

‘That would explain why she married my father.’ Ebba bit her lip. ‘Wasn’t he also a very authoritarian kind of person? Or is that something I’ve imagined because he was the headmaster of a boarding school?’

‘No, that seems to be right. He was said to be a very stern and harsh man.’

‘Was my grandmother originally from Fjällbacka?’ Ebba again picked up the picture of the woman with the forbidding expression.

‘Yes, her family had lived in Fjällbacka for several generations. Her mother was named Dagmar, and she was born in Fjällbacka in 1900.’

‘So she was … twenty when she had my grandmother? But I suppose it was quite common at the time to be so young. Who was Laura’s father?’

‘It says “father unknown” in the birth registry. And Dagmar was apparently quite a character.’ Erica again licked her thumb and then continued her search until she found a paper almost at the bottom of the stack. ‘This is an excerpt from the judicial registry.’

‘Convicted of loose living? Was my great-grandmother a prostitute?’ Ebba gave Erica a surprised look.

‘She was a single woman with an illegitimate child, so she probably did whatever she had to do, in order to survive. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy life. She was also convicted several times of theft. Dagmar was generally thought to be a bit crazy, and she drank too much. There are documents showing that she spent a long time in an insane asylum.’

‘What a terrible childhood my grandmother must have had,’ said Ebba. ‘It’s not so strange that she would turn out to be mean.’

‘Growing up with Dagmar must have been very difficult. Today it would probably be considered scandalous that Dagmar was allowed to keep Laura. But those were different times, and there was an enormous contempt for unmarried mothers.’ Erica could vividly picture the mother and daughter. She had devoted so many hours to delving into the history of these women that they now seemed very real to her. She didn’t fully understand why she’d gone so far back in time when she was supposed to be unravelling the mystery of the disappearance of the Elvander family. But the fate of those two women had captured her interest, and she had kept on researching their stories.

‘What happened to Dagmar?’ asked Ebba.

Erica took out another sheet of paper. It was a copy of a black-and-white photo that appeared to have been taken in a court of law.

‘Good Lord, is that her?’

‘Let me see,’ said Anna, and Ebba held up the paper.

‘When was this picture taken? She looks so old and worn out.’

Erica referred to her notes. ‘It’s from 1945, which means Dagmar would have been forty-five. It was taken when she was committed to St Jörgen Hospital in Göteborg.’

Erica paused for effect.

‘And by the way, it was taken four years before Dagmar disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ said Ebba.

‘Yes, it seems to be a family trait. The last report that mentions Dagmar is dated 1949. After that she seems to have vanished in a puff of smoke.’

‘Didn’t Laura know anything?’

‘I’ve been told that Laura had ceased all contact with Dagmar long before that. By then she was married to Sigvard, and she was living an entirely different sort of life to the one she’d had with Dagmar.’

‘Are there any theories as to what happened to her?’ asked Anna.

‘Yes. The most convincing was that she got drunk and drowned in the sea. But her body was never found.’

‘Yikes,’ said Ebba, picking up the picture of Dagmar again. ‘A great-grandmother who was a thief and a whore and who later disappeared. I’m not sure how to handle this.’

‘It gets worse.’ Erica was enjoying the fact that she had the full attention of her audience. ‘Dagmar’s mother …’

‘Yes?’ said Anna impatiently.

‘Er, I think we should have lunch first. We can talk about it later,’ said Erica, although she had no intention of waiting that long to reveal the rest of the story.

‘Tell us!’ shouted Anna and Ebba in unison.

‘Do either of you know the name Helga Svensson?’

Ebba paused to consider but then shook her head. Anna frowned, then her eyes widened in recognition.

‘The Angelmaker!’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Ebba.

‘Fjällbacka is famous for more than the King’s Cleft and Ingrid Bergman,’ Anna explained. ‘We also have the dubious honour of being the hometown of the Angelmaker, Helga Svensson, who was beheaded. In 1909, I think.’

‘No, 1908,’ Erica corrected her.

‘Beheaded for what?’ Ebba was still confused.

‘She murdered children who had been left in her care. Drowned them in a basin. It wasn’t discovered until one of the mothers regretted her decision and returned to fetch her child. When she didn’t find her son there, after Helga had sent her letters about him for a whole year, the mother got suspicious and went to the police. They believed her story, and early one morning they stormed into Helga’s house. She was there with her husband and the children – both her own daughter and the ones that Helga was caring for. It seems they were lucky to be still alive.’

‘When the police dug up the cellar floor, they found the bodies of eight children,’ Anna interjected.

‘How awful,’ said Ebba, the colour draining from her face. ‘But I don’t understand what this has to do with my family.’ She gestured towards the stack of papers on the table.

‘Helga was Dagmar’s mother,’ said Erica. ‘The Angelmaker, Helga Svensson, was Dagmar’s mother, and your great-great-grandmother.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Ebba stared at Erica in disbelief.

‘It’s true. So you can see why I thought it was a strange coincidence when Anna told me that you make jewellery with little angels.’

‘I wonder if I should have left this stone unturned,’ said Ebba, but she didn’t sound as if she meant it.

‘But it’s so exciting that …’ Regretting her choice of words, Anna stopped herself. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’

‘I think it’s exciting too,’ said Ebba. ‘And I do see how ironic it is that I make this sort of jewellery. How strange. It makes me wonder about fate.’

A shadow passed over her face, and Erica suspected that she was thinking about her son.

‘Eight children,’ she said. ‘Eight little children, buried in a cellar.’

‘What would make a person do something like that?’ wondered Anna.

‘What happened to Dagmar when they executed Helga?’ Ebba wrapped her arms around herself. She seemed more vulnerable than ever.

‘Helga’s husband – Dagmar’s father – was also beheaded,’ said Erica. ‘He was the one who had buried the bodies, so he was considered an accomplice to the murders, even though it was Helga who had drowned the children. So Dagmar was orphaned and ended up living with a farmer’s family outside of Fjällbacka for a number of years. I don’t know what her life was like with them. But I can imagine that things must have been difficult for her, as the daughter of a woman who had killed eight children. People around here wouldn’t forgive a sin like that.’

Ebba nodded. She looked completely exhausted, and Erica decided that they’d heard enough for one day. It was time for lunch. Besides, she wanted to check her mobile to see if Gösta had called. She crossed her fingers that he’d heard from Junk-Olle. She was hoping that they would finally have some luck.

A fly was buzzing at the window, throwing itself repeatedly against the pane in a hopeless battle. It was probably puzzled. There was no visible obstruction and yet it kept slamming into something. Tobias understood how the fly must feel. He watched it for a while before slowly reaching out his hand and catching it between his thumb and forefinger. He watched in fascination as he pressed his fingers together, squeezing the fly until it was flattened. Then he wiped his fingers on the windowsill.

Now that the buzzing had stopped, the room was utterly silent. He was sitting in Ebba’s desk chair, with the things she used for her jewellery-making spread out in front of him. A half-finished silver angel lay on the desk, and he wondered whose sorrow it was meant to ease. Although it didn’t necessarily have to be for someone who was grieving. Not all the necklaces were commissioned to commemorate a death. Many people bought them simply because they were beautiful. But he sensed that this particular one had been ordered by someone in mourning. Ever since Vincent had died, Tobias had been able to sense other people’s sorrow even if they weren’t present. He picked up the half-finished angel and knew that it was for someone who felt the same emptiness, the same pointlessness that he felt.

He clutched the necklace harder. Ebba didn’t understand that together they could fill part of that emptiness. All she needed to do was allow him to come near again. And she had to acknowledge her guilt. For a long time he had been blinded by his own guilt, but now he understood much more clearly that it was Ebba’s fault. If only she would admit it, then he would forgive her and offer her another chance. But she said nothing, merely watching him with that accusatory expression, searching for guilt in his eyes.

Ebba had rejected him, and he couldn’t understand it. After everything that had happened, she should have allowed him to take care of her, she should have leaned on him. In the past she had been the one who made all the decisions. Where they should live, where they should go on holiday, when they should have a child. Even on that morning, she was the one who had decided what they should do. People were always fooled by Ebba’s blue eyes and slight figure. They saw her as shy and compliant, which wasn’t true. She’d been the one who made the decision on that morning. But from now on, it was his turn to decide.

He got up, tossing the angel aside. Covered with something red and sticky, it landed on the cluttered desk. Astonished, he looked down at the palm of his hand to see dozens of tiny cuts. Slowly he wiped his hand on his trousers. Ebba needed to come back home. There were things he had to explain to her.

Liv was feverishly wiping off the patio furniture. It had to be done every day if she wanted to keep the chairs clean, so she kept on scrubbing until the plastic gleamed. Beads of sweat ran down her back in the strong sunlight. After all the hours they’d spent at the boathouse, her skin had turned a beautiful golden brown, but dark circles were visible under her eyes.

‘I don’t think you should go,’ she said. ‘Why do you need to meet again now? You know how fragile the situation is for the party. We need to lie low until …’ She broke off abruptly.

‘I know, but there are certain things that are beyond our control,’ said John, pushing his reading glasses up on to his forehead.

He was sitting at the table, ploughing his way through the newspapers. Every day he read the national papers as well as a few local ones. So far he’d never made it through the stack of newspapers without being repulsed by the stupidity that filled the pages. All those liberal journalists, columnists, and so-called experts who thought they understood how the world worked. Thanks to their combined efforts, the Swedish people were slowly but surely being corrupted. It was his responsibility to make them open their eyes. A high price would have to be paid, but it was impossible to wage a war without casualties. And this was war.

‘Is that Jew coming too?’ Liv started wiping off the table, having decided that the chairs were now clean enough.