Silver Tears(81)

It was a fairly chilly evening. There was no sun to warm the skin as we slowly made our way down to the water. I had Dad’s boots on my feet. In one hand, I was holding his hammer. I was using my free arm to lead my mother to the water’s edge. Dad’s gloves were big, so I had to keep pulling them up over my far smaller hands. Mom slipped and I caught her, and I took the opportunity to smell the scent of her hair as she leaned against me. I was going to miss her. Dear God, I was going to miss her. But to love someone was to set them free. And I was releasing Mom right now.

Down by the water, Uncle Egil was waiting in a boat with the lights extinguished. He knew exactly what I was going to do. I hadn’t excluded him from any part of the plan. He hadn’t protested, even if the silence at the other end of the line had been heavy with unspoken words. But he knew I was right.

I hadn’t said anything to Mom. I considered it more compassionate to wait until this moment to seek her approval. But I knew she would agree to what I wanted to do. She was used to pain.

“Mom, I have to hit you. I have to hit you hard. With the hammer. It’s Dad’s hammer. He’s going to pay for what he’s done. We have to get him out of our lives. Do you understand, Mom?”

Mom didn’t even hesitate. She nodded. I had greeted Uncle Egil when we got down to the boat, but now I didn’t even dare look at him. I hugged Mom. I felt her thin, brittle shoulders pressed against my rib cage.

I was so scared of hitting her too hard. Scared to see her shatter like a crystal bowl. But there was no going back now. I took the hammer. Raised it. Shut my eyes. And brought it down. I took aim for a soft area where there was nothing to be broken. But not a drop of blood ended up on Dad’s hammer. I needed blood. I realized I would have to strike a harder area of the body. Something would have to break and pierce the skin so that blood was smeared on the hammer.



I took aim at her shin. I raised the hammer high above my head and swung it, hard. All that came out of Mom’s lips was a quiet groan. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Egil had turned away. I looked at the hammer. Blood. Mom’s blood.

I put the hammer down three feet or so from the water’s edge. Far enough from the water that it wouldn’t reach the hammer if it rose before the police found it. I tenderly led Mom to Egil’s boat. She couldn’t support herself on the leg I had hit. But her body against mine was warm and soft. I reluctantly handed her over to Uncle Egil, taking the last of her scent into my nostrils. I knew it would be many years before I saw her again.

After seeing them disappear across the water into the pitch-dark moonless night, I slowly turned around and returned to the house again. From the corner of my eye, I saw the bloodied hammer.

When I got back to the house, I carefully left Dad’s boots in the hall. There were drops of blood on them. I took off the gloves—they too had drops of blood on them—and carefully put them on the hat rack.

The house was silent. Now it was just me and Dad left.

After tomorrow, it would just be me. I could hardly wait.

I went to bed. I thought about Mom. I remembered the sound of the hammer smashing into the bone.

I loved her. And she loved me. We loved each other. That was my final thought before sleep took over.





Beside the circular table at Riche there was a bottle of Bollinger peeking out of a silver ice bucket. Alice, Ylva, and Faye raised their glasses in a toast. This was their second bottle of the evening. They had told the waiter they would order food later, but they had long since forgotten that. Faye felt intoxicated, but decided that it might be worth flying to Italy a little hungover in the morning, given this was the last time for three months that she would see Alice and Ylva.

They had planned together how to divide the work in the future. In early October, they would all meet again at the new office in New York for the launch of Revenge in the USA. Johanna would also be joining them. She was recently divorced, happy, and apparently enjoying regular sex with her personal trainer. Given how quickly she’d ended up in bed with him, Faye strongly suspected it was no new relationship. But that wasn’t something for her to be bothered about.

David was on remand, waiting for the prosecutor to charge him for corporate espionage. The last they’d heard of Henrik was that his company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Rumor was that there had been a schism between Henrik and Sten Stolpe and that Sten was now doing everything he could to crush Henrik.

The waiter, a handsome guy of about twenty-five, with broad cheekbones, ice-gray eyes, and the body of a Greek god, cleared his throat.



“Would you like anything else, or are you all happy?”

He smiled at Faye, and she felt a shiver run through her body. She was free and happy. Ready to move on. A brief but intense little adventure as a mark of farewell to Sweden wouldn’t be amiss.

“It could be better,” she said gravely.

He looked taken aback. Ylva and Alice looked at her in surprise.

“Yes,” said Faye, signaling that he should come closer.

He bent forward.

“It would be perfect if you told me what time you get off, so that I can have a car waiting outside to bring you to my hotel room,” she whispered.

His facial expression switched from surprise to amusement.

He straightened his back and said with feigned seriousness: “One o’clock, madam.”