We Know You Remember (19)

“He wasn’t the kind of man you’d want to sit and make small talk with.”

“Things were better before,” said Mejan. “When he still had Gunnel.”

“But she left,” Tryggve filled in. “Couldn’t bear it any longer. When was it . . . ?”

“Mmm, must’ve been a year or two after . . .”

“. . . everything with their son.”

They both nodded and continued to finish each other’s sentences.

“Sven Hagstr?m mostly kept himself to himself . . .” said Mejan.

“And you can understand why,” said Tryggve. “People talk. They have their theories.”

“About what?” GG asked.

“What makes a person who they are. If it’s the parents.” Tryggve Nydalen glanced over to the barn. Patrik was no longer visible.

“How long have you lived here?” asked Eira.

“Thirty years,” said Mejan. “We met while we were working in Norway. We managed to save up enough money to buy the house the same year we got married. You know what the prices are like round here; it’s the most beautiful place, but you couldn’t find a cheaper house anywhere in the country.” A flicker seemed to pass across her face. “We never thought it would end up like this.”

“We used to talk about the road,” said Tryggve. “The maintenance. That’s why I went over to Hagstr?m’s recently. You can see what a state it’s in.”

“How did it go?”

“We agreed, for the most part. But getting the council to do anything is a long process, and I say that as someone who works there.”

“In the finance department, but that’s by the by.” Mejan got up and began collecting the plates, brushing crumbs into the palm of her hand. “So we don’t attract any wasps, they’re such a bother this year.”

“Let me help,” said Eira.

“No need.”

Eira grabbed a couple of mugs and followed her inside. The bakehouse consisted of a kitchen and a small bedroom, charmingly renovated with the original features intact. There was a calmness inside, an opportunity to speak one-on-one. The Nydalens’ long marriage almost seemed to have forged them together to the point that they said practically the same things.

“This is more than enough for us during the summer; the kids need more space.” Mejan carefully rinsed out the mugs. They had a daughter too, she explained. Jenny, who had gone traveling to Sydney and never come back. She didn’t have any children, so it was Patrik’s kids they got to treasure.

“You have a lovely home,” said Eira.

“We wanted to create our own little place on earth,” said Mejan. “I was born and raised in the area, but Tryggve has loved this place from the very beginning. Nydalen is actually my family name. I come from a small village twenty or so kilometers from here.”

“It’s generous of the two of you to squeeze in here all summer.”

“So long as they want to come to stay. That means everything.”

From the window to the side of the kitchen worktop, a small sliver of the roof on Hagstr?m’s house was visible. Mejan’s eyes kept drifting over to it.

“Did you used to chat with Sven Hagstr?m?” asked Eira.

“I said hello if I saw him, of course, as you do. Took him some jam sometimes, but we rarely said much. More about the weather than anything. I’ve thought about that from time to time, about how lonely he seemed. I don’t even think his daughter came to see him.”

“Have you ever heard about him having any disagreements, being angry with anyone . . . ?” Eira continued. “I’m from round here myself, and I know how people talk about that kind of thing—sometimes for generations.”

Mejan thought as the water ran into the sink, peering outside for what felt like a long time.

“It’d be about the forest if anything. That’s what people fall out over—someone taking wood from someone else’s land, cutting up trees brought down by storms, that kind of thing. Or selling the felling rights to some big company, so that the neighbors wake up one morning with a clearing outside their window.”

The thought made the woman shudder. Either that or she had seen something outside.

“Are you really sure it wasn’t him, the son? Who else could it have been?”





Chapter 9





Olof slammed on the brakes at the crown of the hill. There was another car parked by his house. A slim woman dressed in black standing outside, talking into a microphone. He could see another head in the driver’s seat; there were two of them.

He didn’t have time to work out whether they were from the TV or the radio before he put the car into reverse and rolled back down the gravel track.

He remembered their type from before. The questions that whizzed around him, like they had been fired from an air rifle, as he walked alongside his mother and father on the way out of the station; the cars with letters on their sides clustered down by the road. His mother had pulled his jacket over his head, held him close. His father had told them to go to hell.

He had once seen that very thing on TV, seen himself in their old car, jacket covering his face, heard the echo of his father’s swearing. Then someone switched off the TV.