The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

world.’
    ‘So they both went too far? Is that it?’
    ‘Yes, you could say that, even though I didn’t think Sam cared very much.’
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘Well, after dinner everyone helped to clear the table, so there was a lot of commotion. A few people went outside to have a smoke; some stood around talking and drinking wine. And suddenly we noticed that Andrea and Sten had gone.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘The laundry room was right next to the kitchen, and I remember standing in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, and suddenly I heard somebody screaming. It was Monica. She had opened the laundry-room door and found Andrea and Sten going at it.’
    ‘So they’d jumped the gun, so to speak?’
    ‘Yes, and Monica was furious. Obviously this was too much for her, and she really flipped out. She started punching both of them, hitting and biting and acting like a crazy woman. By that time she’d had a lot to drink. I remember noticing her guzzling down the wine all evening. She was probably cross about how Sten had been behaving ever since Andrea arrived, so when she caught them, she went out of her mind. I’ve never seen anybody get so hysterical.’
    ‘What did the rest of you do?’
    ‘At first everyone was totally shocked, and it took a few minutes before we fully grasped what was going on. Monica was a tall, stout woman, so it wasn’t easy to overpower her. I know that Håkan and John and Sam had to work hard to get her out of there. They were forced to wrestle her to the ground. The rest of us stayed out of their way. I don’t really know how it all ended.’
    ‘Did you ever talk about this afterwards?’
    ‘No. It was as if everyone was embarrassed and found it too unpleasant. We took the easiest way out by keeping silent. John and I did talk about it with each other, of course, right after it happened. He told me that Monica finally calmed down. Or rather, her anger gave way to despair, and she sobbed for several hours. She thought she’d made a fool of herself, and after that she and Sten stayed away. Just a few weeks later, they moved. That didn’t upset the rest of us. They’d only lived here a short time, they had no children, and we really hadn’t got to know each other very well.’
    ‘Yet you had group sex with them! How was that possible?’
    ‘I’ve wondered about that too. I mean, we’re such a close-knit group that we really don’t need to let anyone else into our inner circle. There are a lot of people living in the area. Everybody spends time together, having dinners, and crayfish parties, and Midsummer celebrations. But our small group is especially close; we have our own circle inside of the larger social circle, so to speak. And now that I think about it, in hindsight I wonder why we let those two in so easily.’
    ‘So what’s your theory?’
    ‘I don’t really have one. I know that Sten somehow became friends with Håkan, and he was the one who decided to include Sten and Monica. They came to a few dinners and were terribly nice, and I suppose that’s how it happened. Maybe we felt a little sorry for the two of them. They were such outsiders, with no children, working here on a trial basis, and only renting their house. Maybe we saw them as temporary visitors who wouldn’t threaten or change our friendships. And so we were more generous towards them.’ Beata looked pensive as she stared at the opposite wall. Jacobsson chose to change tack.
    ‘A witness saw a couple having sex outdoors near Svaidestugan in Follingbo late one night at the end of May. And the car they’d arrived in belonged to Andrea Dahlberg. Do you have any idea who those people might have been?’
    Beata looked surprised.
    ‘No. That sounds strange. I mean, if it wasn’t Sam and Andrea trying to spice up their sex life.’
    Jacobsson decided not to say anything about Stina’s pregnancy. For the time being the police didn’t want to make that information public.
    ‘Let’s go back to those parties of yours. How did the whole group continue after that? Did you talk about what happened?’
    Beata shifted her gaze back to Jacobsson, although she still looked preoccupied. A smile flitted across her lips.
    ‘That’s what’s so funny about it all. Even though we consider ourselves to be such good friends, we never discussed the matter. We pretended to each other that nothing had happened. As if we all thought that if we stuck our heads in the sand, the memory of the whole