Page 147 of The Living and the Dead

But Felicia didn’t react. She just sat there staring at her hands. Thin as a flickering flame. When she didn’t say anything, he wenton.

“Killian isn’t the one who commits the burglary, you are. He isn’t the one who gets caught by Mikael, you do. Isn’t that so?”

“No.”

“But you see,” Vidar said, “it couldn’t have been Killian. He left the party too late. He couldn’t have made it in time. And Sander was with him. Jakob wasn’t there, neither was anyone else. Which only leaves you. And I’m guessing you didn’t think anyone would get hurt, did you? All you cared about was the money, that’s all you wanted, to help you and Madeleine.”

When Felicia heard her mother’s name, a tremor ran through her.

“Here’s what I think: When Mikael shows up, you get scared. Hetries to stop you. What happened? Did he try to talk you out of it?” He leaned forward. “Did he touch you? Did he try to hurt you?”

He waited again.

“I was at home” was all she would say.

“It would be no wonder,” Vidar said, as though he hadn’t heard her, “if you acted out. I mean, considering Mikael is the sort of guy he is, how he’d treated you before. You’ve got the spade you used to break the glass and get inside. You swing it at him twice. Then you run home to get the car, and that’s when you see Killian. Because he’s coming to your place after the party, as you had agreed, right? Is Madeleine awake at that point?”

He didn’t think she had been, but he wanted to say her mother’s name again. It made her quake.

Now she opened her mouth.

“Killian is dead,” she said.

“I’m very sorry,” Vidar said, because he was.

The next part of the tale hung in the air between them; Vidar could feel it. She was close to givingin.

“But in 1999, he’s alive,” Vidar said. “He tries to help you that night, when you tell him what happened. You aren’t a witness to the accident, you’re in the car when Killian drives off the road, but you take off before anyone can see you. We have footprints. Killian runs to Sander’s for help, and you run home.”

That was all Vidar really had. He hoped she wouldn’t realize that, that she would guess Vidar knew more about that night than he did.

He felt genuine sympathy when he looked at her. Eighteen years old. She must have felt so alone that night. Killian, too, presumably.

“That’s about the size of it,” Vidar said, leaning back again, crossing one leg over the other. “Does that sound familiar?”

A flicker in Felicia’s eyes. She still didn’t speak.

If there were any words left, after all these years, she was keeping them to herself.

—

“I wonder where she was going,” Vidar said to Siri afterward, when it was all over. “Just now, when she tried to run away.”

There was probably an answer, there always was, just not the one you expected.

“Maybe just…away,” she said, a grim heaviness behind the words.

114

Whatever happens, morning will always come. A thought they turned to for comfort, the boys from Skavböke, when times were at their worst.

The night was cool and comfortable, and the first streak of light was just dawning low on the horizon as Sander stepped into the yard. Jakob was on his front steps, as though he’d been waiting for quite some time.

“I saw you over by Felicia’s,” Sander said. “I thought I would stop by first, before I took off. I wanted to apologize.”

“To me? What for?”

“For going to the police.”