The Ice Princess

Erica manoeuvred her way with some difficulty through Göteborg in the direction of Särö. She knew her way around the city after having studied there for four years, but back then she hadn’t owned a car, so in that respect Göteborg was still a blank space on the map. If she could have driven on the bike paths things would have been much easier. Göteborg was a nightmare for an insecure driver, with plenty of one-way streets, roundabouts with heavy traffic, and the stressful ringing of trams coming at her from every direction. It also felt as though all roads were leading to Hisingen, northwest of the city. If she took the wrong exit she was bound to end up there.

The directions that Henrik had given her were clear, and she found the address on the first try, managing to stay out of Hisingen this time.

The house exceeded all her expectations. An enormous white villa from the turn of the last century, with a view of the water and a small gazebo that held the promise of warm summer nights to come. The garden, now hidden beneath a thick white mantle of snow, had been carefully laid out. Because of its sheer size, it would demand the tender care of a skilled gardener.

Erica drove down an avenue of willow trees and through a tall wrought-iron gate onto the gravel courtyard in front of the house.

Stone steps led up to a substantial oak door. There was no modern doorbell; instead she banged hard with a massive door-knocker. The door was opened at once. She had almost expected to be greeted by a housemaid in a starched apron and cap, but instead she was received by a man she realized at once had to be Henrik Wijkner. He was unabashedly good-looking, and Erica was glad she had devoted a little extra effort to her appearance before she left home.

She stepped into a huge entrance hall and saw immediately that it was bigger than her entire flat back in Stockholm.

‘Erica Falck.’

‘Henrik Wijkner. We met last summer as I recall. At that restaurant down by Ingrid Bergman Square.’

‘Yes, that’s right. At Café Bryggan. It seems like an eternity ago that we had summer. Especially considering this weather we’re having.’

Henrik muttered something polite in reply. He helped her off with her coat and showed her the way to a parlour off the hall. She sat down gingerly on a sofa. Even with her limited knowledge of antiques she could tell the sofa was old and probably very valuable. She said yes to Henrik’s offer of coffee. As he pottered about with the coffee and they exchanged comments about the wretched weather, she watched him surreptitiously, concluding that he didn’t look particularly bereaved. But Erica also knew that it might not mean anything. Different people had different ways of grieving.

He was casually dressed in perfectly pressed chinos and a sky-blue Ralph Lauren shirt. His hair was dark, almost black, and cut in a style that was elegant but not excessively fastidious. His eyes were dark brown and gave him a slightly Southern European look. She happened to prefer men who looked considerably more rough-and-tumble, but she couldn’t help being affected by the attractive power of this man who looked as if he’d stepped right out of a fashion magazine. Henrik and Alex must have made a strikingly good-looking couple.

‘What an incredibly lovely house.’

‘Thank you. I’m the fourth generation of Wijkners to live here. My paternal great-grandfather had the house built early in the last century and it’s been in the family ever since. If these walls could talk …’ He made a sweeping gesture and smiled at Erica.

‘Well, it must feel strange to have so much of your family’s history around you.’

‘Yes and no. But it is a great responsibility. In the footsteps of my ancestors and all that.’

He chuckled softly and Erica didn’t think he looked particularly weighed down by responsibility. She, however, felt helplessly out of place in this elegant room and struggled in vain to find a comfortable way to sit on the lovely but spartan sofa. Finally she perched on the very edge and carefully sipped her coffee, which was served in small mocha cups. Her little finger twitched a bit but she resisted the impulse. The cups were perfect for crooking one’s little finger, but she suspected that it would probably seem more of a parody than a sign of sophistication. She also struggled briefly when confronted with the plate of cakes on the table, but lost the battle in a duel with a thick slice of sponge cake. She estimated it at ten Weight Watchers points.

‘Alex loved this house.’

Erica had been wondering how to broach the real reason why she was sitting here. She was grateful when Henrik himself brought up the topic of Alex.

‘How long did you live here together?’

‘Ever since we were married, fifteen years. We met when we were both studying in Paris. She was reading art history, and I was trying to acquire enough knowledge about the business world to run the family empire. And I did, but just barely.’

Erica strongly suspected that Henrik Wijkner had never done anything ‘just barely’.

‘Directly after the wedding we moved back to Sweden, to this house. My parents were both dead, and the house had stood empty for a couple of years while I was abroad, but Alex immediately began to renovate it. She wanted everything to be perfect. All the details in the house, all the wallpaper, rugs and furniture, have either been here since the house was built and restored to its former appearance, or else they were purchased by Alex. She went round to, well, I don’t know how many antique dealers to find exactly the same items that were in the house when my great-grandfather lived here. She had stacks of old photographs to help her, and the result is fantastic. At the same time she was busy setting up her own gallery. I still don’t understand how she found time to do everything.’

‘What was Alex like as a person?’

Henrik took his time before answering the question.

‘Beautiful, calm, a perfectionist to her fingertips. She might have seemed vain to people who didn’t know her, but that was because she didn’t easily let anyone into her life. Alex was the sort of person one had to fight to get to know.’

Erica was acutely aware of what he meant. Alex’s air of remoteness was both intriguing and marked her as stuck-up, even as a child. Yet the same girls who called her that often fought the hardest to sit next to her.

‘How do you mean?’

Henrik looked out of the window and for the first time since she entered the Wijkner home, Erica thought she saw some feeling behind that charming exterior.

‘She always went her own way. She didn’t take anyone else into account. Not out of malice, there was nothing malicious about Alex, but out of necessity. The most important thing for my wife was to avoid getting hurt. Everything else, all other feelings, had to take a back seat to that priority. But the problem is, if you don’t let anyone through the wall out of fear that they might be an enemy, then you end up locking out all your friends as well.’

He fell silent. Then he looked at Erica. ‘She talked a lot about you.’

Erica couldn’t conceal her surprise. In view of the way their friendship had ended, Erica assumed that Alex had turned her back on her and had never given her another thought.

‘I vividly remember one thing she told me. She said that you were the last real friend she ever had. “The last pure friendship.” That’s exactly what she said. I thought it was a rather odd thing to say, but she never mentioned it again, and by that time I’d learned not to question her. That’s why I’m telling you things about Alex that I’ve never told anyone else. Something tells me that despite all the years that have passed, you still had a place in my wife’s heart.’

‘You loved her?’

‘More than anything else in the world. Alexandra was my whole life. Everything I did, everything I said, revolved around her. The ironic thing is that she never even noticed. If only she had let me in, she wouldn’t be dead today. The answer was always right in front of her nose, but she refused to see it. My wife had a strange mixture of cowardice and courage.’

‘Birgit and Karl-Erik don’t think she took her own life.’

‘Yes, I know. They assume that I wouldn’t believe she did it either, but to be honest, I don’t quite know what I think. I lived with her for over fifteen years, but I never really knew her.’

His voice was still dry and matter-of-fact. Judging by his tone of voice he could have been talking about the weather, but Erica realized that her first impression of Henrik couldn’t have been more off the mark. The depth of his sorrow was enormous. He just didn’t put it on public display the way Birgit and Karl-Erik Carlgren did. Perhaps because of her own experiences, Erica understood instinctively that he was not suffering merely from grief over his wife’s death but also from forever losing the chance to get her to love him the way he loved her. It was a feeling with which she was intimately familiar.

‘What was she afraid of?’

‘I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. I really don’t know. As soon as I tried to talk to her about it she would shut the door, and I never managed to get in. It was as though she harboured a secret that she couldn’t share with anyone. Does that sound odd? But because I don’t know what that secret was, I can’t say whether she was capable of taking her own life.’

‘How was her relationship with her parents and her sister?’

‘Well, how should I describe it?’ He thought for a long time before he replied. ‘Tense. As if they were all tiptoeing round one another. The only one who ever said what she thought was her little sister Julia, and she’s a very strange person in general. It always felt as if a whole different dialogue were going on underneath what was being said out loud. I don’t quite know how to explain it. It was as if they were speaking in code, and someone had forgotten to give me the key.’

‘What do you mean when you say that Julia is odd?’

‘As you probably know, Birgit gave birth to Julia quite late in life. She was already a good bit past forty, and it wasn’t planned. So Julia has somehow always been the cuckoo in the nest. And it couldn’t have been very easy to have a sister like Alex. Julia was not a pretty child. She hasn’t grown any more attractive as an adult, and you know how Alex looked. Birgit and Karl-Erik have always been extremely focused on Alex, and Julia was simply forgotten. Her way of dealing with it was to turn inward. But I like her. There’s definitely something underneath her surly exterior. I only hope that someday, someone will make the effort to find it.’

‘How has she reacted to Alex’s death? What was their relationship like?’

‘You’ll probably have to ask Birgit or Karl-Erik about that. I haven’t seen Julia in more than six months. She’s studying to be a teacher up north in Umeå, and she doesn’t like coming back here. She didn’t even come home for Christmas last year. As far as her relationship with Alex goes, Julia has always worshipped her big sister. Alex had already started boarding school when Julia was born, so she wasn’t home much, but whenever we visited the family Julia would follow her sister around like a puppy. Alex didn’t like it much but she left her alone. Sometimes she could get angry at Julia and snap at her, but usually she just ignored her sister.’

Erica felt that the conversation was nearing an end. In the pauses the silence in the house had been total, and she could sense that in the midst of all this luxury it had now become a lonely house for Henrik Wijkner.

Erica stood up and held out her hand. He took it in both of his, held it for a few seconds, then released it. He walked her to the door.

‘I think I’ll drive down to the gallery and look around a bit,’ she said.

‘That’s a good idea. Alex was incredibly proud of it. She built the business from the ground up, together with a friend from her student years in Paris, Francine Bijoux. Well, now her name is Sandberg. We used to socialize with Francine and her husband a good deal, although that became less frequent after they had children. Francine is probably at the gallery. I’ll give her a ring and explain who you are. I’m sure she’ll be glad to help out and tell you a bit about Alex.’

Henrik held open the door for Erica. With a last thank you, she turned away from Alex’s husband and walked to her car.

At the same moment that she got out of her car, the heavens opened up. The gallery was in Chalmersgaten, parallel to the main shopping street Avenyn, but after half an hour of looking for a parking spot Erica resigned herself and parked at Heden. It wasn’t so far away, really, but in the pouring rain it felt like ten kilometres. And the parking fee was twelve kronor an hour. Erica could feel her mood sinking. Naturally she hadn’t brought an umbrella with her, and she knew that her curly hair would soon look like a bad home-perm.

She hurried across Avenyn and just managed to dodge the number 4 tram that came thundering in the direction of Mölndal. After passing Valand, where she had spent many an evening during her student years, she turned left into Chalmersgaten.

Galleri Abstract was on the left, with big display windows facing the street. A bell over the door pinged as she entered, and she saw that the space was much bigger than it looked from outside. The walls, floor and ceiling were painted white so as not to distract from the works of art hanging on the walls.

At the far end of the gallery she saw a woman who looked unmistakably French. She exuded sheer elegance as she discussed a painting with a customer, gesturing eagerly as she talked.

‘I’ll be right there, please have a look around in the meantime.’ Her French accent sounded charming.

Erica took the woman at her word. With her hands clasped behind her back she walked slowly around the room as she looked at the artworks. As the gallery’s name indicated, all the paintings were done in the abstract style. Cubes, squares, circles and strange figures. Erica tilted her head and squinted, trying to see what the art aficionados saw. But it completely eluded her. Nope, still only cubes and squares like any five-year-old could produce, in her opinion. She would just have to accept that this was beyond her comprehension.

She was standing before a gigantic red painting with yellow, irregularly divided sections when she heard Francine come up behind her with heels clacking on the chequerboard floor.

‘That one is certainly wonderful,’ said Francine.

‘Yes, indeed. Exquisite. But to be honest, I’m not really at home in the world of art. I think Van Gogh’s sunflowers are great, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes.’

Francine smiled. ‘You must be Erica. Henri just rang and told me you were on your way here.’

She held out a finely contoured hand. Erica hastily wiped off her own hand, still wet with rain, before she took Francine’s.

The woman facing her was small and slender, with an elegance that Frenchwomen seem to have patented. Erica was five foot nine in her stockinged feet, and she felt like a giant in comparison.

Francine’s hair was raven-black. It was pulled back smoothly from her forehead and gathered in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She wore a form-fitting black dress. The colour was no doubt chosen in view of the death of her friend and colleague; she seemed more the type to dress in dramatic red, or perhaps yellow. Her make-up was light and perfectly applied, but it could not conceal the telling red rims of her eyes. Erica hoped that her own mascara wasn’t running – no doubt a vain hope.

‘I thought we ought to sit down and talk over a cup of coffee. The weather is very mild today. Let’s go out back.’

She led Erica towards a small room behind the gallery that was fully equipped with a refrigerator, microwave oven, and coffeemaker. The table was small and had room for only two chairs. Erica sat down and was instantly served a cup of steaming hot coffee by Francine. Her stomach protested after all the cups she had drunk when she was visiting Henrik. But she knew from experience, from the innumerable interviews she had conducted to dig up background material for her books, that for some reason people talked more easily with a coffee cup in their hand.

‘From what I understood from Henri, Alex’s parents asked you to write a commemorative article about her life.’

‘Yes. I’ve only seen Alex on brief occasions in the last twenty-five years, so I need to find out more about what she was like as a person before I can start writing.’

‘Are you a journalist?’

‘No, I write biographies. I’m only doing this because Birgit and Karl-Erik asked me. And besides, I was the first one to find her, well, almost the first. And in some strange way I feel as though I need to do this to create another picture of Alex for myself, a living picture. Does that sound odd?’

‘No, not at all. I think it’s fabulous that you’re taking so much trouble on behalf of Alex’s parents – and Alex.’

Francine leaned across the table and placed a well-manicured hand over Erica’s.

Erica felt a warm blush spread across her cheeks and tried not to think of the draft of the book she’d been working on for large parts of the previous day.

Francine went on, ‘Henri also asked me to answer your questions with the utmost candour.’

She spoke excellent Swedish. She rolled her R’s softly, and Erica noticed that she used the French Henri rather than Henrik.

‘You and Alex met in Paris?’

‘Yes, we studied art history together. We ran into each other the very first day. She looked lost and I felt lost. The rest is history, as they say.’

‘How long have you known each other?’

‘Let’s see, Henri and Alex celebrated their fifteenth anniversary last fall so it would be … seventeen years. For fifteen of those years we’ve run this gallery together.’

She fell silent and to Erica’s astonishment lit a cigarette. For some reason she hadn’t pictured Francine as a smoker. The Frenchwoman’s hand shook a little as she lit the cigarette, and then she took a deep drag without taking her eyes off Erica.

‘Didn’t you wonder where she was?’ Erica asked. ‘She must have been lying there a week before we found her.’

It occurred to Erica that she hadn’t thought to ask Henrik the same question.

‘I know it sounds strange, but no, I didn’t. Alex …’ she hesitated. ‘Alex always did pretty much as she liked. It could be incredibly frustrating, but I suppose I got used to it over the years. This wasn’t the first time she was gone for a while. She usually popped up later as if nothing had happened. Besides, she did more than her share when she took care of the gallery all alone when I was on maternity leave. You know, in some way I still think the same thing is going to happen. That she’s going to come walking in the door. But this time I know she won’t.’ A tear threatened to spill from her eye.

‘No, she won’t.’ Erica looked down into her coffee cup to allow Francine to dry her eyes discreetly. ‘How did Henrik react whenever Alex simply vanished?’

‘You’ve met him. Alex could do no wrong in his eyes. Henri has spent the past fifteen years worshipping her. Poor Henri.’

‘Why poor Henri?’

‘Alex didn’t love him. Sooner or later he would have been forced to realize that.’

She stubbed out the first cigarette and lit another.

‘You must have known each other inside-out after so many years,’ said Erica.

‘I don’t think anyone really knew Alex. Although I probably knew her better than Henri did. He has always refused to take off his rose-tinted glasses.’

‘During our conversation Henrik hinted that in all the years of their marriage it felt as though Alex was hiding something from him. Do you know whether that’s true? And if so, what it could be?’

‘That was unusually perceptive of him. I may have underestimated Henri.’ She raised a finely shaped eyebrow. ‘To your first question I will answer yes: I’ve always known that she was carrying some sort of baggage. To the second question I must answer no: I don’t have the faintest idea what it could be. Despite our long friendship there was always a point at which Alex would signal, “so far, and no farther”. I accepted it, while Henri did not. Sooner or later it would have broken him. And it probably would have been sooner.’

‘Why is that?’

Francine hesitated. ‘They’re going to do an autopsy on Alex, aren’t they?’

The question took Erica by surprise.

‘Yes, that’s always done for a suicide. Why do you ask?’

‘Because then I know that what I’m about to tell you will come out anyway. My conscience feels lighter, at least.’

She stubbed out the cigarette carefully. Erica held her breath in tense expectation, but Francine took her time lighting a third cigarette. Her fingers didn’t have the characteristic yellow discolouration of a smoker, so Erica suspected that she didn’t usually chain-smoke like this.

‘You must know that Alex has been going to Fjällbacka much more often for the past six months or so?’

‘Yes, the grapevine works very well in small towns. According to the local gossip, she was in Fjällbacka more or less every weekend. Alone.’

‘Alone is not exactly the whole truth.’

Francine hesitated again. Erica had to check her impulse to lean across the table and shake the woman to make her spit out whatever she was holding back. Her interest was definitely aroused.

‘She had met someone there. A man. Well, it wasn’t the first time that Alex had an affair, but somehow I got the feeling that this was different. For the first time in all the years we’ve known each other, she seemed almost content. And I know that she couldn’t have taken her own life. Someone must have murdered her, I have no doubt about that.’

‘How can you be so sure? Not even Henrik could say for certain whether she might have committed suicide.’

‘Because she was pregnant.’

Francine’s reply caught Erica off guard.

‘Does Henrik know about this?’

‘I don’t know. At any rate, it wasn’t his child. They haven’t lived together in that way for many years. And even when they did, Alex always refused to have a child with Henrik. No matter how much he begged her. No, the child must have been fathered by the new man in her life – whoever he may be.’

‘She never said who he was?’

‘No. As you probably realize by now, Alex was very sparing with her confidences. I have to admit that I was quite shocked when she told me about the child, but that’s also one of the reasons why I’m absolutely sure she didn’t kill herself. She was literally brimming with happiness and simply couldn’t keep the news to herself. She loved that baby and never would have done anything to harm it, certainly not take its life. For the first time, I saw an Alexandra who had a zest for life. I think I would have grown quite fond of her.’ Her voice sounded sad. ‘You know, I also had a feeling that she intended to come to terms with her past. I don’t know exactly how, but a few scattered remarks here and there gave me that impression.’

The door to the gallery opened and they heard somebody stamping the wet snow from their shoes on the doormat. Francine got up.

‘That’s probably a customer. I have to go. I hope I’ve been of some help.’

‘Oh yes, I’m very grateful that you and Henrik have both been so frank. You’ve been a great help.’

After Francine assured the customer that she would be right back, she showed Erica to the door. In front of an enormous canvas with a white square on a blue field they stopped and shook hands.

‘Just out of curiosity, what would a painting like this go for? Five thousand, ten thousand?’

Francine smiled. ‘More like fifty.’

Erica gave a low whistle. ‘So, there you see. Art and fine wine. Two areas that remain complete mysteries to me.’

‘And I can barely write a shopping list. We all have our specialities.’

They laughed. Erica pulled her coat tighter even though it was still damp and headed out into the rain.

The rain had transformed the snow to slush, and she drove a bit below the speed limit just to be on the safe side. After wasting almost half an hour trying to get out of Hisingen, where she had ended up by mistake, she was now approaching Uddevalla. A dull rumble in her stomach reminded her that she had totally forgotten to eat all day. She turned off the E6 at the Torp shopping centre north of Uddevalla and drove into McDonald’s. She gulped down a cheeseburger as she sat in the parking lot and was soon back out on the motorway. The whole time her thoughts were filled with the conversations she’d had with Henrik and Francine. What they had told her created an image of a woman who had built high defensive walls around herself.