The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

was sentenced to five years in prison for having raped Emilia over a three-year period, starting when she was fourteen. Mamma and I moved away and got a flat in town, and we never went back. I haven’t spoken to Pappa since. It’s as if he no longer exists. But he destroyed my life when I was only a child.
    I thought that I’d already had my share of hell on earth. But I hadn’t. My world was going to be destroyed once again. In the same disgusting, brutal fashion, my happiness was smashed to pieces. The whole orderly and harmonious life that I’d managed to create, in spite of everything, was gone in a matter of seconds. Over. Shattered. It happened on that secondday out there on Fårö, while Sam was in the shower. Suddenly his mobile rang, and he had a text message. I couldn’t help reading it.
    To my surprise, the message was from my best friend.
Found Bergman’s house. Completely deserted. Wild strawberries is the password. I want you. Now. Want to play somewhere that’s better than anywhere else?
    She also sent a picture of herself. Wearing only a bra and a skimpy skirt, she was lolling on a deckchair. She had her legs spread wide, and I couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t wearing any knickers.
    Even though it should have been crystal clear what this all meant, it took me a few minutes before I grasped the whole picture. And understood what was going on.
    That’s when I lost control.

KNUTAS CLIMBED THE ladder up the slope. Far below lay the rocky shore and the sea. Andrea stood only 30 metres above him, her back to him, not moving. She looked so small, almost as if she’d shrunk since he last saw her. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater. Her hair hung down her back in a thick plait. He approached cautiously, uncertain what her state of mind might be, afraid that she was about to jump. When he was close enough, he spoke her name.
    ‘Andrea.’
    With a start she turned around and stared at him in astonishment.
    ‘Take it easy,’ he admonished her. ‘It’s me, Inspector Anders Knutas. Don’t you recognize me?’
    Andrea Dahlberg flinched as if she’d been struck. She looked as if she might topple over. Since she was standing at the very edge of the steep cliff, Knutas reacted instinctively. He threw himself forward and grabbed hold of her. Then he pulled her towards him and cupped her face in his hands. She offered no resistance.
    Her body went limp, and tears ran down her cheeks.
    ‘There, there,’ Knutas consoled her. ‘It’s all right.’
    He sat down on the cliff, holding Andrea in his arms, gently rocking her as she sobbed loudly. He stroked her hair.
    ‘There, there,’ he repeated. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
    The poor woman, he thought. She must be totally devastated with grief.
    Knutas continued to speak gently to the despairing woman, andgradually her sobs subsided. He handed her a packet of tissues that he dug out of his jacket pocket. After she calmed down, she looked up at him.
    ‘That’s the first time I’ve cried. I haven’t been able to cry the whole time. I haven’t shed a single tear since Emilia died.’
    ‘Go ahead and cry,’ said Knutas. ‘That’s good for you. I know what happened to your sister.’
    ‘But I didn’t want it to happen,’ she said tonelessly. Her lower lip quivered.
    Her big grey eyes were expressionless.
    ‘There, there,’ he comforted her.
    ‘I didn’t want that to happen,’ she went on in a low voice, almost a whisper. ‘I didn’t want her to die.’
    ‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Knutas. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Not at all. It was her own decision.’
    ‘I suppose you could say that it was her decision. She took sides against me. She betrayed me. Do you understand that? She fooled me. She was pregnant, and she said that she loved him. That it was his child, his and hers. That they were going away together to get married. He said the same thing to me, up here on the bird mountain. He said that he didn’t love me any more, that he loved her. Do you understand? They’d been secretly cheating on me. Both of them. We stood here, on this very spot.’ Andrea pulled away from Knutas and pointed with a trembling finger. ‘We were standing right here. And I was planning to tell him about the present. I was going to show him the card that I’d made for him and everything. We were going to Florence. It was supposed to be a surprise. But he didn’t react the way I thought he would. He said that he wanted to