A Nearly Normal Family(117)

Adam, however, was not so easily mollified. He has always been good at uncovering lies, and he could tell that Amina was hiding something. In fact, there are only two people who know how to lie to Adam. One is Stella; the other is me.

On the Thursday after the murder, Amina called me again. Thus far everything seemed to be going as we’d hoped, but suddenly Amina was frantic and out of breath on the line. Adam had been waiting for her outside the arena, trying to squeeze her for information. She was sure he knew. Somehow, Adam had figured out that Stella and Amina were involved in Christopher Olsen’s death.

I had never intended to reveal to Adam that I, too, was awake when Stella arrived home that night, but as his behavior became increasingly desperate I realized something had to be done. This was also the point at which I had the idea of moving to Stockholm.

I love Adam. Our relationship has sometimes been shaky, to say the least; it has crashed and burned, but they say that broken vases last the longest. Two people who have gone through everything we have together, who have come through an ordeal like ours in one piece, belong together in a way that is hard for others to comprehend.

In Stockholm we would be able to build something new from the ground up. At the same time, the preliminary investigation was dragging on, and I had to find a way to get Adam out of Lund before disaster struck. Although in the end I was forced to confess to him that I was the one who made sure Stella’s phone disappeared, and although he must have realized I was the one who had taken care of the stained blouse, I succeeded in getting Adam to follow through with his lie and give Stella an alibi.



* * *



The moment I discovered that Stella had left her phone at home, I realized that something was wrong. Stella never forgets her phone. With each passing minute, my worry grew. In the end I saw no other way out than to read through her texts.

I read Stella’s last, desperate message to Amina in horror. For a fleeting minute I considered showing Adam, but I quickly realized that would be disastrous.

I was sitting on the sofa, my eyes glued to Stella’s phone, when Michael called.

“I’m so sorry, Ulrika, but the police have Stella in custody.”

It was a shock to hear his voice again after all these years.

“She has requested me as a public defender.”

“What?”

I was bewildered. Stella had requested Michael as her attorney?

“Does she know who you are?” I had asked as he drove Adam and me home later that night.

“Of course.”

This was so typical of Stella. She knew that my relationship with Michael had extended beyond the professional; she had heard us speaking on the phone, and that was why she had now requested him as her defense.

Because surely it wasn’t the case that she knew? That she realized Michael would break confidentiality and involve me?

It was a dreadful decision, leaving Stella in the dark about all that was going on, abandoned in a jail cell. I felt so sick about it that I finally asked Michael to arrange a visit so I could explain, but Stella refused and I didn’t dare to entrust Michael with making her understand. There was no other way out. If I were to succeed in saving both Amina and Stella, this had to go to trial. The stakes were terribly high. I was risking my daughter. My family.



* * *



On Sunday afternoon, just after the police searched our house, Amina came to see me. Adam was being interrogated by the police, and when he called I bought time by claiming that there were still technicians in the house.

Once we’d made our decision, Amina took out a plastic bag she’d had hidden inside her jacket. She explained that she had found the bag in a trash bin at the playground, and I knew at once what it contained.

We got in the car and drove straight to the quarry in Dalby, where I stopped and turned off the engine on a small gravel road.

I looked around anxiously before emptying the contents of the bag on the ground. Amina stood next to me, sniffling as I stomped Christopher Olsen’s phone to pieces.

“Yours too,” I said.

She looked at me, wide-eyed. Then she handed me her phone and I pried the SIM card loose with creeping-spider fingers before stomping it to pieces as well. I was wracked with agony, but there was no time to hesitate. At last I knew what was important, what really meant something. Here was my opportunity to prove it.

I stepped onto the cliff above the quarry, to the very edge, where the wall of rock plunged into the dark water that was so still it looked like a deep, black hole. I pulled on a pair of gloves, then threw the knife that had killed Christopher Olsen over the precipice. It sailed in a wide curve through the air, and the edge cleaved the silent water. The deep lake opened up and swallowed it with a slurp.





109


Adam takes a step back and almost crashes into the vending machine.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?”

The pain is enormous. At that moment, I regret everything. Not only do I risk losing my daughter—Adam won’t be there either.

“I did it for you. For my family.”

“And Amina?”

I nod.

“But I don’t understand. I saw with my own eyes that Linda Lokind had the same shoes as Stella. And she followed her that night.”

I drink up the last splash of water, crumple the bottle, and toss it in a trash bin.